Dear Readers, I know how behind I am with these posts, so here is an attempt to quickly catch everyone up, so here it goes…And sorry for the wall of text that this will result in…
When last we left the Ingrates, they were being watched by an invisible figure that ran away after he was discovered.
Later that night, Winter, the party’s tabaxi bard, was contacted by someone from her past, her former lieutenant from when she ran a bandit troupe. He told her to meet him and to come alone. The party had issue with this, but, without their knowledge, she left.
After following his directions, she found a teleportation circle that deposited her into a cage in the bandit camp, firmly controlled by her former lieutenant and a mysteriously hooded figure.
After some watching and searching, the party located her, and Dacyria sent her familiar in the form of a rat to be with Winter, with a note that says “In case of trouble, kill me.”
The party got as close as they dared to the encampment with Dacyria casting Leomund’s Tiny Hut to house everyone in concealment for the night. During watch, the party happened to see a bat, out in the prairie, a strange sight, circling where they believed the bandit camp to be.
The next day, Winter overheard the bandits talking about another raid on the locals, and killed the familiar. Not knowing the situation, the party charged ahead, engaging in battle. The battle was a close call for several of the Ingrates, but they prevailed, with Winter’s former lieutenant and the mysterious robed figure getting away.
Having dealt with the bandits, and now having proof that the wandering tabaxi tribe (and Winter’s family) was not at fault for the raids, the town of Mopyl (MO-pull) let them free.
Finally free to continue on their journey, the party did so, deciding to head west to Statin (sta-TEEN), where along the way, they were beset by a young green dragon dracolich! The battle was won, and Aramil tracked down the beast’s lair, a hollowed out trunk of what was likely a massive tree (several times the diameter of a giant redwood tree). Inside was a considerable horde, as well as a shrine to Death. Seeing this affront to her goddess, Avery struck the altar with her hammer, Angelus, cracking, not the altar, but the hammer, which promptly ceased to work as anything other than a normal warhammer. Realizing that only The Priest could possibly fix the hammer, she vowed to find him to restore Angelus.
A little demoralized, the party continued on to Statin, where the city residents were lined up in front of the local lord’s, a Lord Tibor, estate, where families were being rationed out food. Dacyria, throwing her weight behind her noble status, bullied the man in charge of the distribution process into giving out more information than he was authorized to do in front of the masses, by way of a charm person spell, likely making an enemy of him in the process. In any case, the party was able to meet with Lord Tibor, to find out the situation: before the arrival of the Ingrates, the city had only enough to barely feed the populace for a few more days.
During this debacle, Avery noticed someone in the crowd…the “witch,” this time with a child that was months old, of Borest, whose house was burned down. Avery confronted her, first in disguise, where she got the full story: a merchant lord had passed through Borest, and had seduced her, leaving her with child, and refusing to take responsibility for the child, leaving her pregnant and without a way to support both herself and a child. In her desperation, she attempted to blackmail Borest’s mayor into paying her money so that she could support her child. Seeing the rest of the party, particularly Arkon, she fled, fearful of what Arkon would do to her after he burned down her home. After getting the full story, Avery let her leave in peace.
After this, during the handing out of food, someone made an attempt on Lord Tibor’s life, with a poisoned crossbow bolt. Lord Tibor survived the attack, but the party lost the tracks of the assailant.
With Lord Tibor safe, and deciding to do some shopping in town, the party was surprised to find a shop that was selling magic items, some powerful, for extremely cheap prices. Buying what they could afford, the party left happily, unsure as to the reason, but wary of all the strange crystals inside the shop’s ceiling.
That night, during watch, Aramil was charmed by a vampire lord, taking him away to be fed on. The party, after realizing that Aramil was gone, began to get ready to find him when they were accosted by a group of vampire spawn. The party, with the help of Oliver, tracked the vampire lord and Aramil to a crypt, where they confronted him and more vampire spawn, saving Aramil and looting the vampire’s treasure.
The next day, the party went to go find the magic item shop again, only to find that the building was vacated!
Needing diamonds for their revivify spells, Avery went alone to the gem shop, where she was attacked by a man in brown studded leather armor with a brown cloak, carrying a dagger and a rapier. Moving faster than she could imagine possible, the stranger stabbed her repeatedly, poison coursing through her veins, leaving her for dead, and stealing all of the diamonds she had purchased. The party found her, laying in a pool of her own blood, and healed her.
The party had a larger diamond that they then wanted to have cut down into smaller pieces so as to be able to use them for the revivify spells, the gem dealer directed him to his gem cutter. The elderly man looked very non-descript, and agreed to do the job, but once his hands were on the diamonds, he reached into his shirt, smiled, slapped his chest, and disappeared. Searching the building, the party found the actual gem cutter, dead, shoved into a closet.
Tracking the assailant this time, the party was able to see that he headed south, past the “offsite location” of the late Baron Mogumir, and towards where they had found that the pirate slaver’s base of operations was located.
The party suspected a trap, but decided to head south regardless.
What will they find? Will they discover who this assassin is? Tune in next week to find out!
Dear Readers, this is all I had time to write today, as I am prepping for the Ingrates tonight.
Until next time, Dear Readers…
The Daily Dungeon Master Blog 