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SCHEDULING NOTE: Next week’s session has been moved up to Thursday (10/12) to accommodate a wedding on Friday. Same start time.
Previously on “Storm King’s Thunder”
“Monsieur Kazin.” A voice spoke with startling authority from behind us. I stiffened. Bryseis shot me a questioning glance backwards, but continued on outside the hall to follow Halfred and Diero.
I turned around to face a nobleman I didn’t recognize. I was instantly suspicious.
The man smiled thinly. “The Lady Atalia wishes she could be here.”
I stiffened, my mind a whirl. I walked up close and thrust my face into his. He didn’t so much as blink. “How the hell did you know we’d be here in Neverwinter?”
“We are in many places.”
“Who are you?”
“I represent a group you have meddled in the affairs with.”
I grinned, summoning up all the swagger I could muster. “We’re rather good at that.”
“Indeed. I come here tonight not as an enemy but as a friend. Your meddling is due to our poor choice of allies.”
“I don’t know you or your allies.”
“You’ve encountered us in Yartar. Our activities have been severely sent back, and you killed one of our number in Xantharl’s Keep.”
I steadied my voice and my gaze. “Who are you? Cut the bullshit. I could reach into your mind and pluck the information out if I wanted to.”
A voice rang out in my head, intrusive, confident. “And I could do the same” it spoke.
I tried to calm myself and remember my training, but my body shook with rage. At hearing Attalia’s name thrown out like a weapon. At this creature using the powerful psychic gifts as a force of subversive evil.
The man went on, “I would like to extend an olive branch-“
I lashed out and grabbed him. He balked at my sudden physical assault, letting me get a solid grip and drag him out of the feast hall like a child throwing a tantrum, hoping no one took much notice.
Outside the giant doors and into the large, but empty hallway I threw him to the ground. The man sprang up in a rage, his face melting into that of a Deep Scion, mouth separating into toothy quadrants, hair turning into slimy tentacles.
I focused my anger as my psi-glaive manifested in my hands. We squared off, and I saw Korinn in the corner of my eye begin hurrying over in response.
I took a deep breath and centered my thoughts on the creature. This was not the time nor the place. I planted a thought in its mind: we were no harm, and it should report that to its masters.
The creature’s form was once again enveloped into the human noble. He blinked a few times, sneered at me, then went to get his coat and leave. I took several deep breaths, and rejoined the others.
We had another non-combat week as we wrapped up the Roaringhorn Gala in Neverwinter. Thankfully the events were much more dramatic and interesting this time around, including confronting an agent of the Weevil, discovering more of the origins of T.I.M., and a surprise guest star with a hero from our “Princes of the Apocalypse” campaign!
Our DM continued to use our initiative rolls from last week to focus on individual scenes and stories for each character. This is a daunting task! Lots of individualized story-telling for all five of us, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t work really well here.
Unfortunately Korinn’s player wasn’t here for the first half, so we just sort of watched her scene play out, which involved an ominous palm reading.
Halfred was still showing off his grabber arm with some hilarious results. He received a mysterious note which he later revealed as coming from his old master Wuce Bwayne! We didn’t find him at the party, however. The note mentioned that we should look up a frost giant from their past – Harshnag. But no leads on where he could be.
T.I.M. had the most emotionally demanding scene of us all. A friend of his creator’s, Lucian, was startled to meet someone who shared T.I.M.’s unique accent. Lucian name-dropped the two friends, Tymerious and Enebrin, who had gone off to explore the world – and subsequently created T.I.M. Enebrin the ranger specifically had the exact same voice as T.I.M. Fascinating!
Clearly T.I.M. was modeled after this ranger, and indeed his holy book that he carried around was really Enebrin’s diary. One important mystery remained – what happened to Tymerious and Enebrin, and why and how did they create T.I.M.?
Bryseis received a fun blast from the past when Miri, a player character from “Princes of the Apocalypse,” (and played by the same character, but this time the DM!) strode up to her and informed us that the meek Giant scholar halfling who was currently trying to get Halfred’s attention was really working for the Weevil, the Zhentarim boss we were after.
Bryseis grabbed Kazin, who was still stuffing his face full of fine food, and told him to use mind trickery – or just warn Halfred. Kazin settled on the latter, nonchalantly strolling over to their table and telepathically telling Halfred we needed this person separated from the crowd so we could confront them.
Halfred easily lured the pitiful young man to the bathroom, with Bryseis, me, and Korinn a step behind them.
Kazin was stopped before they exited the feast hall by a nobleman. The others continued on.
His scene quickly turned nefarious as the man announced a vague alliance draped in understated threats. He represented the same group whom we had thwarted in Yartar. The nobleman admitted that allying with the Zhentarim were a mistake, and essentially wanted us to just stay out of their affairs.
Kazin was having none of this bullshit. I grappled the man and bodily threw him out of the feast hall. Despite his psychic prowess Kazin is more brawn than brains, and I enjoy role-playing him as such. We exchanged some more threats before Kazin finally “unsheathed” his psi-glaive and prepared to end this feaux nobleman (another Deep Scion in disguise) right here.
Meanwhile Bryseis and Halfred had trapped the halfling scholar Diero in the bathroom, with Korinn standing guard outside.
What followed was a hilariously dark scene of intimidating this poor man. He wasn’t so much an agent as a naive patsy whom the Weevil was using to gather intel on us while we were in Neverwinter.
Several Intimidation rolls later and the halfling was left shivering, crying, and naked. We learned the place and time for his meeting with the Weevil – a tavern called The Feral Hound, at about mid-day tomorrow. They locked him in the bathroom for good measure.
As they emerged they saw the scene between Kazin and the disguised Scion suddenly deescalate. The terrifying creatures’s melted visage suddenly composed itself back into the nobleman’s form. It sneered then strode off.
The party met up and Kazin explained he had tried one tactic before bloodshed – using Suggestion to tell the creature we meant no harm and for him to report that to his superiors. Kazin was hoping we could follow him and find out more about his group he had called “The K Society.”
T.I.M. had wrapped up his existential crisis and met us outside, where we all agreed to follow the disguised Deep Scion as he left the estate.
It was evening in Neverwinter. The nobleman strode straight North like a man on a mission, passing through the outer gates with nary a glance. He turned towards the ocean and dove straight off the cliff into the water. His form melted into the amphibious tentacled creature of his true form, and dove under the water. Well, crap, so much for following him.
We returned to the Roaringhorn estate to find we had missed the speeches we were supposed to give (huzzah, heh). Zelraun was a bit disappointed but overall pleased at the results of our attendance. He barely batted an eyelash when we told him about the scared naked halfling locked in his bathroom!
As a reward for our events here he offered us a choice of stunning magical rewards: a Folding Boat, or an Instant Fortress. An instant 20 x 30 ft tower? Yeah we’ll take that one! We were already devising hilariously dark ways to kill people with a 1-inch cube that exploded into a big ass building with a single word.
We went back to the inn to rest for the night. The next day we went across town to The Feral Hound. We had a choice between tackling it during the day when they were closed or at night, when there were more people.
We opted for a day-raid, which was more conspicuous but hopefully with less bystanders (and Zhentarim) in attendance. We ended the session as we began formulating a plan to finally confront the Weevil once and for all.
Streamed, recorded and uploaded every week. Subscribe for our weekly adventures. Join us live on Fridays at 7pm Pacific/10pm Eastern!
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