Previously: Chapter 41: The Sunken Temple
Early Morning
When Penny wakes in the morning, she rushes over to Kal and Dandelion room, banging on the door and rushing in, hoping to wake up Kal. What greets her is Dandelion getting a nightly report from Ira and Argus. Seems that Kal had already awoken, so Penny jolts downstairs to the common area to find her. As she reaches the ground floor, she glimpses within the kitchen that Kal is making the morning candy, with Throk looking on. Penny tells her that she wants to go out shopping immediately, but Kal reminds her that it is too soon. When the bells ring nine times, then they can go out, as that's when the shops open.
Eventually, Dandelion and Fie joins the duo downstairs for breakfast, with Throk bringing out the duck bacon and duck eggs, with a salad for Dandelion. They talk a bit about how to capture the daughter, several spells might work, but most likely magic circle, planar binding or even geas, if they get the opportunity. As soon as breakfast is taken in, Fie quickly makes his departure, looking for the black market. The rest of the party head to Scry Me a River, to get Penny’s instrument.
The shopping trip goes by fairly simply, Penny gets her items from Vontara, and Kal helps Dandelion find an animated shield that will protect her, even when she is in wild shape form. Afterwards they find a bench so that Penny can attune to and tune her instrument, and finds that it is always perfectly tuned.
Black Market
In the meantime, Fie, trying to remember his contacts in the city, wanders around for a few hours to find a hint at some safehouse or contact point to get information. In the end, he notices that a cobbler has the symbol of his organization embedded in his sign. He enters the store as a nondescript human, and shows his tattoo. The cobbler points him towards a tailor called “The Lodestone”, owned by a man named Lothor, and tells Fie to ask for “a fine silver robe for a midnight meeting”. Fie thanks for the help, and departs, but not before the man tells him that Delphine is in town, looking for two of Fie’s forms, Lander and Theren. The man obviously doesn’t know that these are forms of Fie, luckily.
As this happens, when the feminine trio has done their shopping, they head towards Elvenroth. In the midst of a heavy autumn rainfall, the party beelines towards the Crown Athenaeum. Dandelion attunes to the Circlet of Intelligence, and has Kal help her do research, while Penny, being watched by the owls, wanders around looking for books to help her get better at math. They spend the rest of the day there, researching and looking around.
Fie, having now headed towards the western part of the city, finds the shop the cobbler was talking about, the Lodestone, and enters, meeting an elderly man, who seems to be working on some light sowing. Fie tells him the secret phrase, and the man eventually leads Fie towards the back, after closing up shop. He opens up a secret passageway that leads downwards, and tells Fie to enter, and that his master is waiting below.
Fie walks downstairs and finds an antechamber with a bench, in front of a massive double door. He can hear a bell inside ringing, and light footsteps approach the door, before he is greeted by a pale, bald, pointy eared man, with golden orbs for eyes, greeting him. He leads Fie inside, and he is greeted by a cornucopia of various artifacts, mostly sinister looking, some that he has seen before, others seems to be rather distinctive. Fie tells the man, who introduces himself as Moldark, that he is looking for a Rod of the Pact Keeper. Moldark tells him that is not an item he has on hand for the moment, but for the right price, he can have it procured rather fast. Fie pays him for the desired staff, and he gets a red feather in return, and tells him to wait in his room at midnight, when the courier will arrive. He leads Fie out, and he heads back towards the eastern part of the city.
Before the rest of the party returns, Fie disguises himself as an elderly scholar, carrying the crystal ball and some books, and heads towards the Market Town through the Longshade District, hoping to get someone to try to steal the orb. It doesn’t take long before someone bites, as a young, nervous looking man approaches him and grabs his books. Fie plays along and tries to get the book back, and notices that someone else swoops in and grabs the ball. Mission accomplished. He carries on, and turns into one of his personas, and tries to find the daughter. He sadly doesn’t find her hiding spot, but he’s closing in, having narrowed it down to a certain area within the Longshade District now.
Hellish Delivery
In the evening, the party gathers for supper. Fie tells them that The Crystal Ball has been "stolen", and hopefully this will lift the curse. Dandelion objects to this, as she doesn't want to cause someone else to be cursed, but what's done is done. When midnight approaches, Fie suggests to Penny that she should play something on her new instrument. Penny is happy to oblige, and takes the stage, with Fie sneaking away to his room. Dandelion notices this, but doesn’t follow him.
When he gets to the room, he hears the bells ring for midnight in the distance. At first, nothing happens, but he suddenly can see a light from behind him. Outside the window, a fiery, hellish portal opens up. He opens the window, and is greeted by a horned devil, staring ominously back at him. The devil holds out his hand, Fie gives him the feather, and the devil hands him a purple looking rod with twirling patterns of black, ending in a macabre design of a bony hand holding an orb. As the devil departs, Fie can hear a man on the street shout “DEVIL! DEVIL IN THE CITY!”. Fie quickly leaves the room, and the rest of the party suddenly finds a small group of city guards rushing in and up the stairs. Dandelion and Kal follow, and the city guards get an employee to open the door, as they head in, searching for the devil. When they don’t find anything, they take the man on the street into custody for making a false report. Dandelion questions Fie about it, but he is reluctant to give any tangible information about what happened, but hints that he conducted business.
The next morning, the ladies head back towards Elvenroth to do more research, but Penny stays in Ravenforge to look for a tutor that can teach her math. Or “basic arithmetics”, as Fie helpfully told her to say. She heads to the temple of Adea, the goddess of knowledge and magic, and is told that to teach her everything she needs to know will take about 10 workweeks. Penny is not satisfied with this, and tells her that she needs it done within a week. The tutor tells her that is impossible, but they can give her a crash course for twice the price, that will help her on the way. She accepts, and begins her tutoring.
The Return of the Drow
As evening approaches, Fie heads towards the Longshade District to look for the daughter again, while the rest of the party head towards the town square where Glasstaffis set to be executed. When they get there, a platform is set up for the execution, and near it, they can see Sildar waiting for the arrival, with a heavy set executioner standing next to the platform, waiting. There is also a platform towards the back of the square, set up with a couple of fancy looking chairs, surrounded by city guards, who also litter the area and rooftops surrounding the square. A very regal looking carriage arrives, and out steps King Triston Bouchard, and his daughter, Princess Satine Bouchard. Satine seems quite uncomfortable with the situation, but the king seems fine. He heads to his throne, and is cheered by the crowd, who seems to be mostly fond of the king. He gestures the people thanks, and takes a seat with his daughter. Kal sends a message to Sildar that they are in the square, and ready to help if anything happens, and he scans the area before spotting the trio, and smiles at them, giving his approval.
Shortly after, a prison carriage arrives, and Sildar steps down to assist. Out, in heavy shackles, steps Glasstaff. Sildar takes him by the shoulder, and leads him to the execution block, followed by the executioner. The trio has a bad feeling about this, as they suddenly notice that one of the guards on the rooftop next to them is no longer visible. When Glasstaff is put on his knees, and pushed towards the block, the executioner raises his axe, ready to separate Glasstaff’s head from his body, but before he can bring it down, two arrows suddenly shoots into him from the rooftops, and he tumbles over.
Sildar, holding Glasstaff down, shouts to the guards to protect the king, and takes out his sword. The party notices that the rooftop guards have been replaced by assassins, so Dandelion sends up a beast to help them out, summoning a saber-tooth tiger. The tiger doesn’t last long, as a couple of arrows fired at her causes her to break her concentration. Penny summons a wind wall to protect the king from her new lyre. The guards surrounding the king quickly goes to protect him, and the surrounding assassins focus mostly on the fleeing townsfolk, killing people indiscriminately. After a few seconds, a massive fireball suddenly erupts in the middle of the square, killing several fleeing citizens, to the horror of the party. Kal sends a message to Fie about what is happening, and he quickly takes flight to reach them. She also summons Highwing to finish off Glasstaff and protect Sildar, who is being pummelled by assassin arrows, and has gone unconscious. Highwing does his best, but can’t finish Glasstaff off in time. Penny attacks one of the assassins who is wreaking havoc, and tries to knock him out so they can interrogate them, but he just falls over, dead. She quickly notices a ring they have seen before. Seems the assassins didn’t want to be captured alive. Dandelion, having now taken the shape of a giant owl to fly over to find whatever cast the fireball, senses a presence below her, walking up to the platform. Suddenly, several drow emerge, who helps out in the massacre. The presence that Dandelion felt is revealed to be a drow woman, who approaches Glasstaff. She whispers something to him, and Dandelion, who can read lips, sees that she says “My family keeps what we promise”. She grabs Glasstaff, looks at each of the party members, even winking at Peny, and teleports herself and Glasstaff out of the area. Mission accomplished, the assassins turn themselves invisible to escape, but the party manages to kill a couple of them, with Dandelion managing to actually grab one of them.
Aftermath
With the chaos winding down, and the rest of the assassins managing to flee, Fie finally arrives and can see the massacre that has taken place. Dandelion drops the assassin she is holding on to into the prison carriage, with city guards disarming them so they can’t kill themselves. What remains in the square is maybe a hundred people dead or dying, with city guards and healers trying to save as many as they can. Kal, Penny and Dandelion walks around, helping as many as they can, before meeting up with Sildar to talk.
He tells them that he knows not exactly who the woman who escaped with Glasstaff was, but he theorizes that it might be Malice, a highborn drow who has been involved with some shady business recently. They will have to talk to Thervan if they want to know more. The party remembers the name, as Demetrius encountered her during his time away from the party a few weeks back. The party realizes they now have a clear and present enemy.
The rest of the week is spent tutoring, researching and attempting to find the daughter. In the end, Penny gets some progress, Fie manages to discover exactly the house that the daughter is hiding in, and Dandelion, with Kal’s help, manages to find enough information about the last cleric of Udall: Maravin. Her name means “Priest of Storms”, but they are unsure if it’s a title or her real name. She was chosen to prevent or prepare for a great calamity, most likely the Betrayal, and she was granted the legendary weapon Stormseeker by Udall himself. Kal casts legend lore to find out more about Stormseeker…