Session 1: Peril in Port Prosper

'''Session 1 of the Campaign. '''[Played on 10/25/16]
 * Renaia Laia Faraway – Leah – Gnome Rogue


 * Slaplen Eremore – Kyle H-S – Tiefling Warlock


 * Etienne Delavair, aka Krusk – Eddie – Half-Orc Paladin, Knight of Athenine


 * Oras – Brian – Human Monk, devotee of Anoch

Scene 1
Oras with Master Dhartha, streets of Port Prosper in the late evening, moderate rainfall

When the two monks are waylaid by footpads, Master Dhartha takes the opportunity to test Oras, to see if he can best the four marauders alone—without killing any. Though he needs to be reproached before dealing a deathblow to the last footpad, Oras does pass the test.

Dhartha goes on to explain that they have been called to Port Prosper by the will of Anoch, to confront a terrible menace he knows only as the Unseen. He claims it is some sort of dangerous being that has defied the will of Anoch and circumvented the natural cycle of life and death.

Scene 2
Renaia Laia Faraway, injured and escaping through back alleys

Having just survived a heist-turned-ambush at the villa of the Pirate Baron Dreadmoore, Renaia flees through the back alleys of Port Prosper. She saw at least one of her comrades, Bogren One-Eye, fall when he shielded her from a barrage of crossbow bolts. The other, Tashen Dasher, she did not see after the shooting started, but she fears the worst. Renaia, by the virtue of a timely warning from her raccoon companion, Kindo, and a well-placed illusion, managed to escape the trap. She fled through a window, though she was hit with a quarrel in the shoulder. Though they did not manage to infiltrate Dreadmoore’s vault, Renaia did manage to pilfer one valuable – a glowing orange gem about the size of her fist.

Thinking quickly, she wraps the gem to conceal its fiery light and gives it to Kindo to take back to their safehouse.

Slipping between alleys and eventually ascending to the rooftops, Renaia runs for her life. In order to escape detection by pirate hit-squads, she finagles open a window and decides to lie low in the darkened room of a house while she tends her wound.

Scene 3
Adventuring companions Krusk (Etienne Delavair) and Slaplen Eremore enter their fourth tavern of the evening, the Moldy Crow, tracking down leads in pursuit of the sacred Teeth of Saint Abeline, this time looking for a contact by the name of Lucille. Surveying the bustling common room, they zero in on the only woman of note, buying drinks for her and her companions before talking their way into the card game currently in progress at the table. Unsure of the game or its rules, Krusk takes a turn, losing more than half of his steak (at 5 sp ante, 10 gp minimum table stakes), and Slaplen, who is more able to grasp the game (Chimera – like Dragontail or Three Dogs’ Ante), takes a turn. He quickly discovers that the other players are cheating, while boldly asking about Lucille—while Krusk goes on about the teeth they’re seeking. Eventually, Slaplen uses thaumaturgy to make his voice boom throughout the room—but he garners more attention than he reckoned for, as knifemen and thugs from all around suddenly take an interest in the pair and their interaction with the woman at the table. He calls them out for cheating, to the uproarious reaction of the tavern patrons. Smart enough to avoid a confrontation, the two retreat, stepping out into the rain to rethink their approach.

Scene 4
Renaia emerges from the alley, injured, and sees a Half-Orc and Tiefling, whom at first she mistakes for members of Dreadmoore’s gang. She soon discovers they are more well-intentioned, however, as Krusk is quick enough to use his divine grace to heal her injury before she can slip through his fingers. As they commence with awkward introductions, Renaia notices a few toughs approaching, assuming they are after her. When one rounds the corner of a building with a heavy crossbow leveled in their direction, she urges Krusk and Slaplen—whom she meets as Merrick Garland—to get down.

A combat ensues, Krusk steps boldly into the fray to engage multiple ruffians, while Renaia fires bolts from her hand crossbow, and—perhaps most impressively—Slaplen unleashes his eldritch power. All assume that the bandits are after them and not the other party. Renaia manages to ascribe most of the blame to the paladin and warlock, however, through some careful wordplay.

The trio decides to get out of the open to discuss next steps in a safer location. Renaia perks up at hearing about the teeth and discovering they are likely very valuable, and she agrees to help them navigate the underworld by making contact with Lickspe, whom she met prior to breaking into Dreadmoore’s villa.

Scene 5
Oras and Dhartha, warehouse by the docks, later in the evening, still raining

Oras follows his master into a large warehouse, where he says the monster they are seeking will be found. Upon entering, the two monks interrupt some manner of deal in progress between some kind of smuggler and a towering figure clad in black full plate resembling nothing so much as an armored demon. Dhartha bids Oras to engage the smuggler’s lackeys, while he moves to confront the Black Knight. The master monk warns his disciple that he is not to attempt to battle the armored fiend—to do so would be certain death. A brawl ensues…

Meanwhile, Renaia, Slaplen and Krusk approach the same warehouse, following a lead from Renaia’s contact that will supposedly lead them to where the smuggler Taren Rothbane is going to trade the teeth of Saint Abeline. They hear a commotion erupt inside the warehouse’s wooden walls and cautiously but quickly make their way to the door. Inside, they find an unarmored man wielding a spear (Oras), who’s just downed two men. Beyond, they see an old man battling a black knight, when two men slip out the back toward the docks and three men enter and fire crossbows at the monks.

After letting out his violent tendencies, brutally crushing the skills of his fallen foes, Oras assumes phoenix-stance and dodges the incoming crossbow bolts—one of which goes on to graze Slaplen. Worse, when Slaplen calls out that they are after teeth, the Black Knight unleashes a volley of magic missiles at him.

The fight between Dhartha and the Black Knight rages on, spilling out the back door. Slaplen, Krusk, and Renaia help the monk take out the thugs. Oras and Krusk recognize and acknowledge each other as disciples of the Troika—not of the same order, but still in service to the Three Mothers. Renaia loots the bodies, while Slaplen attempts to make some sense of the chaos. After hasty introductions, the four give chase out the back, emerging out onto the docks.

Several more ruffians await them, ready to slow them down, while the group sees that a sphere of impenetrable—undoubtedly mystical—darkness has engulfed the end of the pier. Oras recognizes this as an ability of his master, and they hear fighting from within. They see signs of it, too, as the pier begins to split and sunder beneath the strain. The party defeats the thugs without much difficulty, but even as they do, the darkness abruptly evaporates, revealing that the Black Knight has slain Dhartha—which Oras can see for a certainty with his deathsight—and that beyond, a ship is sailing away from the dock. After brutally finishing the last lackey in his grips, Oras sees the Black Knight coming toward them and shouts for the party to run. The party flees from the warehouse. Slaplen, who is last through the door, looks back to see the knight, still clad in his black plate mail, leap thirty or more feet across the damaged pier.

Scene 6
Renaia’s hideout – regrouping

Against her better judgment but responding to the desperation of their current predicament—or perhaps out of empathy for having just experienced a loss herself—leads the others back to her safehouse. She takes them on a circuitous route, so as to elude anyone who may be tailing them or tracking their progress through the city. Upon returning to her hideout, she is pleased to find Kindo there, with the prize from Dreadmoore’s estate. Not that it could be worth the price that was paid for it. She spends a few moments investigating the gem and decides that it may be a tool used for arcane scrying, or that it is perhaps one part of a larger magical device.

Oras sits silently, attempting to process the grief and trauma at seeing his master cut down—a feat he hadn’t believed possible, and all too reminiscent of the helplessness he felt at witnessing his parents’ murder as a child. Slaplen offers his sincere condolences and takes a moment to properly acquaint everyone and facilitate a conversation to determine how all of their separate goals may have been linked to what happened at that warehouse. With a little coaxing, he is able to get Oras to explain his master’s intent to confront a monster—presumably the Black Knight—and also that his master was carrying an artifact of some, perhaps dire, significance. Hearing this, Renaia signals to Kindo to find the wharf, projecting a mental image of the docks, and see if he can recover whatever valuable item the monk is describing. Renaia, meanwhile, stalls for time in the hopes that she can get the artifact first and perhaps trade it or barter it back to the monk—to profit from it, one way or another. Though, really, she may simply have been channeling energy away from her own grief at having lost her two companions earlier in the evening.

Oras explains about his monastic order, the Hands of Anoch, and that he was bound for a temple called the House of Life and Death in the Cloudwood—in the nation of Telune. Krusk explains that he and Slaplen have been pursuing some Holy Relics that were stolen from the Temple of Shiae, his hometown, in Pelen, when it was sacked by orcs several months before. He has already covered the Fingerbone of Saint Gaelia and tracked a lead to find the Teeth of Saint Abeline, here, in Port Prosper. Talking through their separate predicaments, with some context about Port Prosper’s criminal underworld (what she knows of it, at least) provided by Renaia, the party deduces that the teeth may have been at the warehouse, and if they were, they were likely in the possession of the smuggler Taren Rothbane. Assuming that’s who Oras saw when he first entered the warehouse with Master Dhartha, then he’s more than likely escaped on the departing ship and is well under sail toward gods-know-where.

Renaia’s raccoon does return with what appears to be a scroll in a sealed case, quite as Oras had described. She attempts to gauge its significance to him, while also positing that if the monk really does intend to return to the wharf for his master’s body and any other possessions that may be there (potentially two similar scroll cases, likewise of great import), then it might be in his best interest to leave the scroll with someone else, or in hiding, for safekeeping. She also explains that Kindo saw no other items when he found the scroll. They argue—as calmly as two people in the grips of grief and loss can—until Slaplen decides to settle the matter by deftly plucking the scroll from the clutches of a surprised raccoon with his mage hand spell. Chagrinned but not bitter, Renaia lets the scroll go but does reiterate that it may be foolhardy for Oras to travel the city with it, should worse come the worst. Not for the first time, she asks herself what she was thinking in bringing them back to her safehouse…

Perhaps providentially, it is then that the others begin discussing their next steps and egress from the disreputable port, something that Renaia is keenly interested in obtaining, given her predicament with the Pirate Baron Dreadmoore. Oras and Dhartha were to board a ship bound for Telune the next morning. From there, Oras was to travel alone to the House of Life and Death… still is, he decides, reflecting on his master’s will. But first, he means to attend to his teacher’s remains. Even so, he shares knowledge of the departing ship, a token of good will for returning the scroll and recognition of his fellowship with the paladin Krusk, another faithful servant of the Troika.

Renaia, Krusk, and Slaplen decide to rest, while Oras sneaks back through the alleys of Port Prosper to return to the scene of his Dhartha’s demise.

At Renaia’s bidding and unbeknownst to Oras, he is followed by Kindo (who later returns with a small, unrelated trinket that he finds, as well as a gold coin he filched from Slaplen when he was opening up to Renaia and sharing his real name).

[Party members earn 500 XP from their endeavors in Port Prosper, ascend to 2nd level]

Scene 7
Oras returns to the warehouse

The grief-stricken monk returns and finds the scene has already been picked over by scavengers. He’s sees no sign of any other scroll, and the bodies he does find have been thoroughly looted. With grim determination, he searches the water beneath the shattered pier, even dark as it is, until at last he discovers Master Dhartha’s remains washed ashore not far from the warehouse. His body is broken, stripped bare, and already showing distress from the sea—or perhaps it is only Oras’ perception, as he is forced to come to terms with a harsh reality: his master was a mortal man. And difficult as it is to accept, it is the fate of mortal men to be taken by Anoch when their time comes…

Oras finds what will have to do for a burial site—his expression alone is enough to frighten away the vagrants who might have objected—and lays Master Dhartha to rest.

He returns to the safehouse as the night’s storm finally breaks and the first rays of sunlight straddle the eastern horizon.

Scene 8
The southern docks of Port Prosper, boarding the Soggy Soufflé

His passage already paid, Oras takes his place on the stout merchantman, briefly vouching for his new companions before settling in for the long voyage. True to their natures, both Renaia and Slaplen attempt to barter the cost of passage down (10 gp – a lot, or not that much, depending on how one looks at it). Slaplen proves to be the more successful of the two, as he is not above laying a hex on Captain Samke Sarosa, then plucking at her heartstrings with fanciful notions of charitable work and orphaned children in Telune.

The party—not necessarily confident enough in their new affiliation to use that word—embarks, and the Soggy Soufflé casts off soon after, leaving behind the sundry menaces of Port Prosper.