Wallington has agreed to Geddy’s terms. He’s really pushing to know if we know about or can find Brice Lamonc, who disappeared fourteen years ago; it’s imperative for the safety of the realm. Fenric’s father Gerwulf was a great general but a lousy ruler. And, of course, his heirs are potential marriage prospects if we want to join the clan.
The attacker who tried to steal from the house had been on a crew that was doing some work on the house; he learned where the valuables were kept in the study, and was contacted by some thieves and it all went improbably wrong from there. The cards were very definitely looking for a new owner.
It occurs to Leira that the first temple of Vecna was apparently right here in the city, but the chapel downstairs might be it. Especially since it’s guarded by an old, stupid nightwalker.
Martini has a suggestion, and it involves a lot of plausible deniability for us. Geddy immediately falls in behind. So, during dinner, Martini scopes out the second floor and locates the chamber with the prisoner. He looks pretty rough (and the rest of the gang was executed). And yeah, we’re totally going to clean out the chapel/temple and blame it on this guy.
We make our goodbyes and settle in at our hotel. At about 11 a.m. Martini gets a message from her brother: “Farta! Farta! I slew a cloud giant with my sword! Also, if you meet someone named Fenric, he’s planning an attack with giant werewolves. I’ll bet you didn’t know about that.”
Then, about dinner time: “Farta, you bitch? Who told them where we were? Thanks to you I had to slay two nightwalkers and four nightwings! Anyway we’re finished here, and we’re coming up there from the south, with some really old elf. We’ll be there tomorrow. Also, the old elf says that things are about to get ‘real’, but nothing is real.”
They arrange that we should meet somewhere else -- in Styre, in fact.
Then, on the following evening at dinner time, we start buffing Martini: Death Ward, Greater Heroism, a bit of inspirational singing, pass without trace, Invisibility. The rest of us wait outside while Martini goes into the house in full Black Widow mode. She slips through the kitchen and walks down the stairs, finding the shadow walker on guard again.
The room has clearly been prepared for an after-dinner service, so she moves to the altar and snags the book and the scroll. She places the Blade Barrier trap on the door, and then starts working on the other door, the one that leads to the treasure chamber. She starts going over it, looking for (and expecting) traps. Finding nothing, she starts trying to work on the very complex lock, taking her time and doing it as carefully as possible.
She manages to open it.
And it doesn’t even explode. She walks in and just takes a moment to observe and look around. There’s a lot here that hasn’t been touched in a long time. There’s also a crate of treasure and money on the ground. She goes to the little box and searches it for traps, finding five different traps on it; she’s immediately worried that there might be more. She takes the loose treasure and the crate, then comes back to the chest like the professional she is. Checking it over more carefully, she finds a full nine different traps on it; this was placed here long ago and not intended to be moved.
She disables the horrible first spell-trap, and moves on to the next. The symbol of death gets disabled, then the finger of death. Then disintegrate goes away, then feeblemind. Phantasmal Killer gets disabled. Then the ray of exhaustion, the blindness, then permanent Reduce Person. She wipes her forehead and grabs the box, hearing some feet upstairs. She throws the box into the bag and tries to Dimension Door out; she fails. She steps out of the treasure chamber and into the cell, then grabs the guy and Dimension Doors back into the temple.
Then she casts Modify Memory,
The guy now remembers being hired by Boris’ wife Ginger to teleport down there and shunt all the treasure into an extradimensional chest.
Martini then teleports out and joins us, and Leira teleports us to the Striking Asp inn in Styre.
25,000 gp, 11,000 gp in art; the book of secrets (+10 on Gather Info, also how to get Kroni out), a scroll of foresight (lvl 9 divine) and a mirror in the crate. We are reunited with the others. The mirror is a Mirror of Memories; if taken to certain locations, it would display its enchanter's memories. Martini takes a minute to search the box for traps one more time, and then sets herself to open the lock.
Which is good, because if we’d have broken it open it would have exploded.
There’s a dagger inside, a very seriously murdery looking dagger. Tavros cannot detect evil because of his geas, but Marshall can still cast it as a spell. It reeks of strong necromancy but is not technically evil. It’s a +5 vorpal dagger that gives +1 to Assassin’s save DC. It was probably Kroni’s originally, and Vecna’s creation, and it’s about to become Martini’s favorite weapon.
Zilv, the druid, sends everybody out of the inn. “I have been scrying and collecting information. The battle for Fanaxia is happening right now.”
Zilv can give us information on the status of everything on the island.
The forces on the island are all over the place, but they’re starting to face off. There’s a werewolf army moving on Lydel; Fenrir and his werewolf clans are preparing to move on Vrist. Lay Merrowin has some gryphons and lizards and such, enough to be an army of their own. West Styre has a minister and his archons, while Styre has a standing army. The four merchant lords (Crowe and Bulbeck, the Sea Lords, plus Lady Merrowin and Lady Green - who is moving towards Lydel). A big chunk of the south of the island is on our side, but Cimarron the Nightwalker Lord and Richlieu and his priests are a huge threat down there. The army of Fanax is disorganized. The Magiknights are a force to be reckoned with, but their numbers are few.
The whole thing is about to erupt. We could fight armies; we could gather allies; we could split up or stay in a group. Also, once we move openly against Vecna she will have no confusion abotu what side we’re on, and will try to exert her power from the swamp.
Zilf can go camp at Castle Fanax and lock down Cimarron and Richlieu until we can get there. This seems like a good use of our resources. After that…
The northern half of the island probably needs our help more than the south.
Our plan, it looks like, is to send our charismatic heroes to gather allies for the north, and send the others to block the werewolf attack on Lydel. West Styre has a high magistrate who leads the archons. Styre has a Duke/King, but the high council of merchants has a huge say in things there. Azrael will send a message to Lady Merrowyn to come and protect the queen; Marshall is going to Lord Crowe; Martini is going to styre and Tavros is going to West Styre; and Geddy will try to recruit Bulbeck. He’s the hard one, a Royalist, loyal to the original king of Fanax.
Alexej, Ruin, Azrael, and Leira will be going up to Lydel. She will burn four teleports, and Azrael one.
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