The Agate Seekers continue their mission in Napolae, infiltrating Duca Ecclesio Bellagamba's party for his daughter Ernesta's 16th birthday, listening to several speeches in the honor of the host family. Philomena Snapdragon meanwhile invisibly continued sneaking through the back gardens, past a guard, through a window, smelling a nice smell from the east and following it. Eventually, after all speeches were done, including one by Limni Diluvi, the guests as well as the party were all ushered upstairs to the ballroom. Sooty, at this point, rejoined with the party to not arouse too much suspicion.
Philomena then slowly made their way to the east of the mansion, where they soon found the door to the kitchen. Looking through the keyhole, she saw a woman, who was asked by a man further inside to please fetch something from the storage. That's when Philomena made her way in, seeing a man, Matteo Ghiotto, cooking, and started looking around, seeing an apparently magic chef's knife on a countertop; but decided against taking it, as she promised to not take anything butThe Gourmand's Pan of the Red Moon.
At that point, the party guests had made their way to be ballroom, and the first dance was to be had by the daughter of the Duca. After some awkward silences when the duke asked for a volunteer amongst the guests to dance with her, Mikhail agreed to dance; while his dancing was not the best, it was enough to lift the spirits of Ernesta, who, after sulking for the majority of the evening, was finally smiling.
Back at the kitchen, Matteo the cook decided to go on a smoke break, while something was baking in the oven. Philomena looked around once again, not finding anything, much to her frustration. Meanwhile, at the ballroom, the dancefloor was finally opened and all guests were able to choose a partner. Volk Lesnoy first completely failed at convincing one of the female guests, eventually asking Yalter Krivsashi, the black Dragonborn woman from It'ada, for a dance. Sooty decided on asking Dama Thamzana Salicecann, the Halfling lady, for a dance, in order to fulfil his promise, while Dareth Lion'el Griffmane and Mikhail decided to dance together. Limni Diluvi of course chose his husband Talxenden Safras. Ikbo Amber-Eyes, the retired kobold inventor, meanwhile looked for Philomena but wasn't able to find her, much to his disappointment.
Eventually, Philomena was able to find the Gourmand's Pan, but also a... familiar letter in the trash. She then, at the last moment, was able to sneak out of the kitchen and made her way back to the bathroom, where she dropped the invisibility spell by casting Enlarge/Reduce on herself. There, she was able to read this letter, which revealed something worrying to her, before returning to the party in the ballroom.
With that, the rest of the night proceeded without issue, a nice ball was had, Ikbo was able to dance with Philomena, Mikhail and Dareth had a nice time dancing... but the snacks and after-ball desserts were... not great. Not nearly as great as the food they had a few hours before. And with that, the ball ended, and the party started making their way to the Inn where they were staying at.
On the way, Philomena informed the party of the letter. Apparently, "Z.V.", who also worked with Raul Ammon, also worked with Matteo, but Matteo wanted to break off and start a career as a cook instead. They gave him a month to give them the Pan, which he stole under their contract. After a few talks, it turned out that the item that Raul stole, the Star Circlet of Prophecy, was an Illiadian artifact of Sahwey, Illiadian deity of Fate, while the one that Philomena stole, the Martyr's Rosary, was an artifact created by both Ilmater and Redika, Illiadian goddess of healing. After some thinking, something became clear to Limni; these items that these "Jailers of the End", as they called themselves in Raul's letter, had been wanting to collect were ALL Illiadian holy artifacts. While the party wasn't able to do much with this information, they did note it down to remember it later.
The next day, on the streets of Napolae, the party was able to notice an ambush by a disgruntled Matteo, with five of his friends. After easily non-lethally dispatching them with the help of Limni and Talxenden, the party questioned Matteo about "Z.V.". He didn't know their identity, as their correspondence was always only through letters, which Mikhail was able to discern as truth. After some back and forth, and some ideas given by the party to Limni, it was eventually decided that Limni is going to hire Matteo and his crew for further scout-work regarding artifacts. And with that, the party and Limni said goobye to each other, as the Agate Seekers returned to A Taste of Home, in order to enjoy their week of downtime and rewards after a job well done.
SESSION END