[Day 2 and 3 – Further investigations and solution?]
[This game uses the D&D 5E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened July 17, 2023.]
[SPOILERS! This is part of a published adventure set, Prepared 2: A Dozen One-Shot Adventures for 5th Edition, by Kobold press.]
Player Characters
Blaze Fulmen, Lord Auctor Braccas – male tabaxi (Noble), 6th level Storm Sorcerer; NG
Cecilia Payne – female tabaxi (Outlander), 6th level Circle of Stars Druid; LN
Joe Trade – male human (Guild Artisan), 2nd level Celestial Warlock, 4th level Armorer Artificer; LG
Via Roll20
Donnis Dustdrifter – male human (Investigator), 6th level Shadow Monk; CG
Bjoern Bjoernson – male human (Urchin), 3rd level Totem Warrior Barbarian, 3rd level Circle of Moon Druid; CN
Min – female tabaxi (Hermit), 6th level Mercy Monk; N
Autumn
Day 2
Evening
After eating dinner, Lord Blaze went up to his room in the inn and smoked some of the elf weed he had confiscated. It was quite potent. Once the primary effects wore off [two hours later], Lord Blaze decided to go out looking for a late night meal. Surely a trade town like this would have some sort of late night street food vendors in the bazaar. Bjoern went along, stating he “knew some places.”
Lord Blaze secured some food from a vendor Bjoern knew. Bjoern wildshaped into a bloodhound again and searched for scents familiar from the crime scenes or just vaguely diabolic. He found none. Once Lord Blaze was done eating, the duo went back to the inn. Lord Blaze went up to his room to sleep while Bjoern found a quiet spot in the common room and slept there.
[I was actually fishing for another attack by the murderer and hoped to be nearby to stop said attack. No luck.]
Day 3
The group of investigators reassembled at the nice inn (the one Blaze was staying in) for breakfast. They discussed the plan to follow Cecilia after she cast Locate Object to find the kyanite hearts. They would need to travel quickly as the spell’s duration was not overly long.
Once breakfast was done, Cecilia pulled out the wooden heart Min had carved the day before as a go-by. She then cast Locate Object and let the spell extend to its fullest extent. She felt a tug to the southwest and started moving in that direction. The rest of the group cleared the path in front of her, Lord Blaze brandishing his token of authority from the Starosa.
The trail led to the gemcutter’s guildhall. The group paused but Lord Blaze was firm on advancing, stating the gemcutters would be the perfect way to change the shape of the hearts so they were no longer recognizable. Bjoern wildshaped into a bear.
Lord Blaze pushed open the front doors to the guildhall, announcing loudly the group was on official Starosa business. A tall man attempted to intervene, but the group bulled past him, following Cecilia into the main workshop of the guildhall. The trail ended at a halfling woman working at a workdesk. The “kyanite heart” she was working on had a wooden core and she was applying shards of kyanite, cut to fit, to it.
The tall man caught up and introduced himself as the guild leader and demanded to know what was going on. Recognizing that the spell had led them to the wrong thing, Lord Blaze immediately made apologies, explaining that they were attempting to track down a killer and had followed an incorrect lead. The man, Argus, demanded to see the token of authority while the rest of the gemcutters watched. Lord Blaze handed over the token and, after examining it, Argus announced it was authentic. He then asked the group to follow him to his office so they could stop distracting the work of the guild.
In Argus’ office, Lord Blaze explained the details of why they had arrived and what they were looking for. Argus explained that kyanite was a strong but brittle stone and required very high levels of skill to cut without fracturing. If someone cut out a kyanite heart without breaking it, they would be very skilled and there were very few in Nogvurot with that skill. There are only three shops in town with gemcutters able to do the work. He provided the names and locations of the shops and, after being asked, a letter of introduction. Joe Trade fished for information about the other guildmasters in the Nogvurot but essentially learned that they did not match their profile of the killer at all.
After the group left the guildhall, Bjoern stated that one of the locations, Kendri’s Fine Works, was in a part of the town known to do work with no questions asked. He recommended they start there. As Bjoern was the local in the group, the group followed his suggestion. The group walked along the primary streets of Nogvurot, heading first east and then north to the area near the docks. While cutting through the bazaar, Lord Blaze purchased a tasty beverage.
When the group entered the courtyard adjacent to Kendri’s, several members of the group could tell something was off. There were no animals in the area, including birds. Min and Cecilia volunteered to keep an eye on the courtyard while the rest went around the building Kendri’s was in to the entrance on the other side. Lord Blaze thought someone might try a hidden back exit when the group entered the front doors and he wanted quick people on watch. [Also, if a fight started, these characters would be out of it for a period of time, so we wanted players to volunteer.]
Lord Blaze, Bjoern, Joe, and Donnis walked around the south end of the building. The entrance to the shop was down a narrow alley between the shop and the adjoining workshop. Both were quiet and dark with shutters drawn despite it being near Noon on a business day. The group approached the door cautiously, concerned about potential ambushes in the narrow passage.
The door to the shop proved to be locked. Joe pulled out a set of lockpicks and set to picking the lock while Donnis, Lord Blaze, and Bjoern stood and kept watch. It took Joe two attempts, but he finally unlocked the door. Bjoern cast Pass without Trace on the group. Lord Blaze went to enter the shop but was stopped by Bjoern who wanted to check for traps first. Once Bjoern said it was clear, Lord Blaze walked in. The room was L-shaped with the back of the room extending further to the left and out of sight. Several display cases were laid out in the back half of the darkened shop.
[There is a discontinuity here. Blaze entered and walked a diagonal line to the right wall and followed that to a broken display case. I did this for tactical reasons. The other members of the party followed as I had proven those areas safe from traps. Once we were in, Clone DM 1 realized the path taken was also the path of a blood trail on the floor that the room description in the book buried two paragraphs in, so he had missed it. We decided to retcon that we had followed the trail on purpose and that retcon is how I will describe what happens next.]
The interior was dark, but Lord Blaze, as a tabaxi, had darkvision and was not bothered by it. Joe cast a Light cantrip on an unlit torch to provide light to the humans. A blood trail was apparent on the floor. Someone bleeding heavily had been dragged from the door towards the right wall and the back of the shop. Lord Blaze followed the trail, careful to not step in it. Donnis followed Lord Blaze into the shop.
The two paused at the first of the display cases. The glass on the case was shattered and nothing was in the display. Donnis noticed some movement off in the area to the far left, where the light from the torch did not fully reach. He made gestures to indicate this. Joe and Bjoern entered the shop, heading to the corner on the left to provide light in that area.
In the light they saw a gnome woman hiding behind a display case. When she noticed the light she started talking. She didn’t seem to be talking to any one of the investigators, just out loud or maybe to herself. She stated that she had been promised the best skills in exchange for kyanite hearts. She wanted to be the best gemcutter ever. Legendary. Bjoern and Donnis talked at her some and she admitted she had to kill some people to get the hearts but her skills were now legendary. She then asked if she would be let go. The investigators, cautiously closing in, said “No.”
Another voice entirely, deeper and sinister, responded, “That’s unfortunate.”
The gnome woman took off a necklace and tossed it down on the floor. When it landed it immediately grew into a human-sized crystalline humanoid.
The gnome woman attacked Donnis, who by now was adjacent to her, with her rapier but missed. Lord Blaze cast Lightning Bolt at the crystalline entity that did little damage to it [due to a below average damage roll] but knocked out the power at my house and the entire neighborhood!
End of session
Commentary
[Actually, something else knocked out the power in the area, but it literally happened right after I announced the damage from the spell. We heard police and firetruck sirens right after, so we think someone hit a power pole. The power was out for maybe 5 minutes or so, but by the time it came back on we had decided to call it for the night. Our normal stop time was approaching and we were just about to start a fight of unknown duration so the power outage seemed to be a sign.]
[Oh, and the Locate Object spell failed because Cecilia did not know the object she was looking for as well as the spell requires. Clone DM 1 threw us a bone with the gemcutters rather than just have the spell just fizzle and fail. Solid call on his part as it rewarded creativity and moved the plot along in an unexpected direction.]
Hell Comes a’Glittering
Last session: Session 3
Next session: Session 5
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