Fanaxia: Dinner with the Would-Be King

So apparently last week, Martini followed the priest into his room. Basically, the group with Martini, Leira, Geddy, and Alexej spent a lot of time in the libraries and the werewolves seem to want to recruit them; then a nightwalker appeared and they had some sort of conversation; apparently Kroni needs to be put into an alternative body in order to save Sacha. 

There’s some difference of opinion about who started the violence, but there was some sort of massive fight which culminated in the nightwalker getting disintegrated. So now we’re at the Wallington estate, along with Boris the Baron and Dragen the bishop. Geddy apparently managed to intimidate the bishop out of the room. 

Geddy managed to entrance everybody, and Martini went off to follow the priest who was busilky cursing the nightwalker for attacking us. At this point everybody’s back in the room with Wallington, who’s laying out his case for him needing to be king of Vrist. 

The other party is off in someone else’s house, doing the gods alone know what.

History: 

-The girl was born in 1731; survived the night of 1000 fangs in 1941; she was 10 and Vecna, who would become her adopted brother, was 8. She was the magical prodigy who was adopted by Vecna’s father, count Orlock; Vecna fell sick and died after she was adopted, and the Count became a recluse. There were rumors that he and the girl had a falling out after Vecna’s death. She wound up going to the capital in 1745 to study under the Archmagister, where she crafted Kaz’s sword and did a bunch of other very impressive things: flying warships, foiled an assassination attempt, and slew a white dragon whose egg she kept and hatched as a pet. In 1759 Prospero the archmage named her as his successor, and 1762 he died and she ascended to the position. In 1766 King Baldric ascended to the throne; Baldric started trying to rein her in, and tried to limit her power. In 1769, she and Kaz attempted a coup that was foiled by the magiknights. She was executed. 

Kroni had apparently been with her the whole time, acting as a servant or bodyguard or protector. 

Recap complete. 

Martini returns to the room and brings Geddy up to speed. Geddy isn’t too sure whether Wallford is actually worried about someone moving to attack the kingdom soon, or whether he’s planning to make that happen. Geddy releases his fascination and starts trying to gather more information. And yeah, he’s clearly planning to orchestrate an attack and use that to put himself in power. 

Geddy: “So how do we fit into this.” 

Boris: “So when the time comes we put all the petty people aside and do what’s best!” 

Wallford: “Well, um, I’m going to probably need to send some of my men north to help defend Lydel; it would be helpful to have some resources to defend this place.” He’d also like to invite the other half of the party. “So let’s talk. You’re help is--”

Martini: “Expensive.”

Wallford: “Is it money that you want? I would be happy to provide a demonstration of good faith.”

Geddy: “There will be other things that need to be divvied up by the end of this.”

Wallford: “A barony? That could be arranged. Eight of them would be more difficult. There’s also Lydel. And there are other gifts that we are uniquely positioned to bestow. Then, too, there is the bond of marriage; my heir Clifford, or Fendril, would make fine options for a formal alliance. My daughters might be interested, also.”

The queen is pretty popular, but Wallford is too -- and the queen’s lesbian lovers and lack of heirs are more than a little scandalous. Fenric Wallford is viewed as more stable. 

Wallford invites us to stay for dinner, but suggests that we need to speak to the bishop about long-term plans for things like the weather and the sundering. We accept the invitation, and they leave and bishop Draughan returns to talk to us. The bishop is very apologetic about the attack by the Nightwalker. “He is a wild one; the king’s other servants are fully under control. Cimarron, the leader of the nightwalkers and advisor to the king, may a bit in competition with the bishop.

Bishop: “My four children are all adopted, but I do value them. Regarding your… earlier encounter with them, I would ask that you forget.” 

Martini: “What, that they’re wolves who like to snuggle?”

Geddy: “It’s forgotten.” 

Bishop: “It would be much easier for all of us, and good for Fanaxia, if you were to come into the fold. And Urgroth is one of the less assuming religions; we gather knowledge, and share it with our followers.”

Geddy: “We’re considering it.” 

Bishop: “And I think you’ll find that we help the people more than these other rogue religions that have sprung up under the queen’s inattention.” Geddy gets the impression that they’d like to wipe out the other religions and be the only church around.

Leira: “You get me Sacha back, and I’ll convert to any religion you want.”

Geddy: “That’s a compelling argument. Do you think we could get an audience with the cardinal?” 

Bishop: “Why yes, yes! I have an invitation for you.” He pulls out a coin with the Eye of Vecna sigil. “Present this coin to the guardians, and they will give you safe passage. 

Alexej: “But we do not like Asmodeus either. Have fought them. Did not like.” 

Bishop: “We believe they seek the sword of Kaz. Is there any chance you have retrieved it?” 

Alexej: “Maze under house is full of spinning blades. Very bad. Did not like.” 

Bishop: “One last question: do you by any chance know the location of the King’s missing son? We tried to scry, but the results were confusing.”

Geddy: “We can definitely try to look.” 

Bishop: “Excellent! You will travel to Fanax to meet with the King and the Cardinal. Dinner is in an hour.” 

Meanwhile, a day later, the other half of the party is still talking to the High Druid Zilch, a day or so after we resurrected him, when he says: “We have visitors.” He gestures toward his door. “Does anyone else know where you are?” 

Tavros: “Our friends certainly do.”

We look outside, and see four nightwings in the trees and two nightwalkers outside the door. Nightwalker: “We were told you were here. We wish to speak.” 

Tavros: “Well, speak.” 

“I am Furi, and this is Baku. Know that your compatriots slew Kaiji, and it is with much anger that I come. But Cimarron demands that I speak with you and not rend your flesh. You have one of my master’s artifacts, and he demands that you return them.”

Tavros: “Artifacts?” 

Furi: “The sword, or the hand.” 

Tavros: “No, I have the sword of Tavros.” He notices from their reaction that his sword is not looking as good as it once did.

Marshall, meanwhile, is talking with the Sword of Kaz. It wants to be put in the hand and taken to the tower. It doesn’t care who does it. 

Furi: “Also, Cimarron wishes to know if you come from the Master’s world.”

Azrael asks the druid if he’s going to fight with us; he is. 

Tavros: “Um?” 

Furi: “I am allowed to flay you if you will not return the artifact.”

Marshall: “If it’s got to be someone, it’s going to be me.” He turns undead. 

One of the Nightwings flees, injured. 

Marshall: “Aw, gee. Fuck y’all.” 

Azrael throw down a Disintegrate on one of the nightwalkers, damaging it, then follows up with a quickened scorching ray; they both cast Finger of Death on Tavros and fail to kill him. The three remaining nightwings try as well, and also fail to kill him outright; Tavros collapses from the incidental damage. 

Fortunately, the druid casts Heal on Tavros, restoring him. Marshall moves up beside Tavros and Holy Wards himself, which is sort of Protection From Evil on steroids. (We lose 500 gp from the party fund, but it is so worth it.) Ruin fires through the are where Tavros was standing, and puts an arrow in one of the nightwalkers. Azrael drops an empowered fireball, followed by a quickened fireball, which scorches the whole group of enemies. 

The two nightwalkers let loose with quickened Unholy Blight spells, but Marshall has placed a Holy Aura on us and we’re resistant to the spell. The nightwings try to breathe cold into the house, which bothers Tavros not at all. Marshall isn’t immune, but he ducks partly back behind the doorframe and is only mildly damaged. 

Tavros stands up, and Lays Hands on himself, curing the damage he took from their shadowy attacks. Zilf, meanwhile, creates a sort of tsunami of grass that knocks the nightwalkers back and knocks the nightwings out of the sky; they take more damage from that. One of the nightwings goes down. Marshall follows that up with Mass Cure Critical Wounds, which will heal us and damage them since they’re undead. It fails to penetrate the spell resistance for Baku, but affects the other three; the shrug off the worst of it, but Furi dies and both the nightwings are pretty fucked up. 

Azrael throws Evard’s Black Tentacles, but fails to grapple any of them. Baku is angry; he tries Finger of Death on Marshall but fails to kill him. The nightwings are badly injured and try to fly off. Tavros charges Baku, but misses him. Zilf drops Sunlight on Baku; Marshall throws Cure Serious Mass on the two nightwings and tags them both. Ruin charges and attacks the nightwalker, but misses. Azrael throws a scorching ray and a quickened scorching ray. 

Azrael: “Honestly, I don’t know how you would manage without me.” 

Baku attempts to Finger of Death Azrael, but it doesn’t affect him; Tavros attacks and finishes it. 

Azrael teleports us to Styre, to the bar where the two parties first met. They hop on a wagon and head for Vrist. 

Meanwhile, a day earlier, the bishop draugan leaves our company. Martini turns invisible and follows him; Leira casts Silent Image and makes it look like Martini is still standing next to her. The bishop heads into the kitchen and disappears; Martini heads down into the cellar, looking around for secret doors. She finds one, of course; she also finds an alarm trap on that. She bypasses it and goes through the door, moving silently. She’s come down the stairs to some sort of crypt. A lot of the skulls are wolf skulls; but they’ve also made tables out of the bones. Bishop is just going around the corner, so Martini follows. 

There’s a nightwalker at the end of the corridor; the bishop says something to it and passes by as it steps aside. He goes through a door behind it. 

Martini knocks down a couple of bones as a distraction. The nightwalker wanders over and looks at her: “Passphrase?” 

Martini starts trying to talk to him in Draconic. Nightwalker: “Leave.” Martini goes back up, and tells the rest of the party about it. 

Geddy: “Where is the dumb motherfucker at? Boris.” 

We find him in the dining room. “Little man! You gonna join the boss!” 

Geddy: “Hell yes we are!” He lies convincingly. 

“All right!” he tries to slap hands and knocks Geddy over. 

Geddy: “Man, I whacked my head and I forgot that word they told me so I could go and check things out downstairs.” 

Boris: “You’re gonna worship Urgroth with us? AWESOME. And I knocked the password out of your head?” 

Geddy: “Yep, ‘fraid so.”

Boris: “So you have to talk to the creepy nightwalker thing, and the password is Gwendolyn.” 

Geddy: “Can I sing you a song?” 

He promptly uses Modify Memory to remove any memory of this from Boris’ head. Boris now thinks he whacked Geddy because Geddy sang a song about how awesome he was and he got so excited.

Unfortunately, now he wants to hear the song again. Geddy now has to play all three verses.

Geddy: “But I didn’t even get to the solo! I’ll play the whole thing tonight.” 

They exchange a cautious fist-bump, and Geddy encourages him to drink more. 

Martini goes back downstairs and uses the password, still invisible, and gets through the door. The door shuts, and the bishop is occupied with reading the book. He looks up: “Did someone come in?” 

He goes back and checks the door. “Lodi, did someone come through here?” 

Lodi the shadow walker: “Passphrase?” 

The Bishop goes back to his book. Martini walks onto the ceiling and reads over his shoulder. It appears to be a book of secrets. There’s also a magical scroll, a fancy one, on the altar. (Martini’s player: “The only reason he’s not dead yet is because I’m planning his murder.”) She checks out the rest of the room, finding an adamantium portcullis with a complex mechanism next to it that probably requires some sort of key. There’s money on the other side of the gate, and a tiny little chest covered with heavy dust. Nobody’s gone near it in a very long time, and she wants it. 

She returns to the front door and knocks quietly. Lodi opens it. “Passphrase?” 

She glances in a side door, and notes that it’s a laboratory for creating undead and there are two entropic reapers and to angels of decay. Then she goes back upstairs and tells the rest of us about what the room contains, including the isolated shoebox. 

We attend the dinner. Pretty much the whole Wallington family is there, along with Boris and the Bishop. Geddy begins his song, and Boris is thrilled. 

Fenric Wallington sits next to our group. “Have you considered my offers?”

He asks Leira about Fendril and dancing, and Leira bursts into tears. 

Fenric: “So… no marriage. Barony, then?” 

Alexej is face-deep in his plate of meat; Geddy is laying out our willingness to be of service, convincingly, in exchange for Lydel and a barony. It’s also possible that Alexej is now semi-engaged to one of the Wallington twins, who are really a matched pair. 

It’s a bit more than Wallington intended, so Geddy reassures him that if it takes more we can scale the deal down. There’s also some discussion of the Queen’s suitors; it’s a source of some bitterness that the count was never chosen as a suitor. (It was probably a combination of her not liking him and him not having quite overcome his father’s reputation at the time.) 

It turns out that the gang of thieves who attacked the manor were captured; most were executed, but the leader is in a cell on the second floor. Boris’ wife Ginger talks to Martini and commiserates about having to work around men to get things done.