MAL Ep. 9

Excellent roleplaying from all parties today. You also made a lot of plot progress, and the chthuloid thing you killed was worth a LOT of XP. Haven't calculated yet, but we're probably going to be leveling some people up this month.

To recap:

1) The party went to the village square with a guard to find Fletcher the wagoner. Jon questioned Fletcher while Red sniffed around his wagon, concluding the scent of the murder victim, Hector, was not on the wagon, although Fletcher was insistent that Hector had ridden into town with him. Adriel and Zadkiel did some shopping, and Aler and Angara impressed the crowd with tricks and advertised for the circus, learning as they did so that the circus was looking for a new acrobat.

2) An image of Chavalk appeared in the market square and mocked the townsfolk, inciting pandemonium. Adriel and a feisty produce seller rallied the townsfolk to attack it, while the rest of the party deduced that the image was in fact a phantasm, cast remotely from another plane. Inexplicably, Aler's bow unstrung as soon as the image appeared. During the chaos, the party heard townsfolk blaming the mayor, the high priest of Tallian, and especially the Duke for these events. Some people expressed anger that Petros had been jailed, others that the priest of Tallian was protecting Petros from execution. Kit observed the man who was shouting the loudest about the priest of Tallian and described him to Jon. The image of Chavalk eventually vanished in a cloud of malodorous sulfur, and the party calmed the crowd with the help of Captain Black and a paladin.

3) The party went to the circus, where the other performers confirmed that Sahree had left town. According to Connie, she said she had to go "straighten something out with an ex-boyfriend or something." Nestor's gorilla had apparently seen her leaving in the wee hours of the morning, and told Red about it through Speak With Animals. The party asked the circus performers to alter their illusory demon fight to feature the local potato-throwing youths from the marketplace defeating a demon who looked like Chavalk, and convinced Adriel to take off her helmet to provide a model for the circus illusionist.

4) The party paid a visit to the mayor, who after reviewing all the clues the party had gathered, concluded that whoever this "League of Snakes" is has proof of Petros' innocence and will release it if he is executed, continue to stir up unrest if he remains jailed, and probably use him to commit more murders if he is released. The mayor asked the party to find "incontrovertible proof" of who really killed Tell-- and if that person really is Petros, who was behind it. Later he sent Jon a letter promising him a bardic commission from the city if he is able to deliver this, and soon.

By the way, you guys have all missed a REALLY big clue in the letters you have collected. Just in case one of you wants to look over the scans Larry sent everyone for details.

5) The party went to the Paladins guild and spoke to the Head Paladin, Sir Coranis. Coranis was unexpectedly resistant to the evidence you gathered from Arakin's tower, stating that Arakin's concerns about suppression of necromancy were valid, that the evidence suggested against Arakin or a bone devil being the one to murder Tell, that he had his suspicions that Tell might have been using that summoning circle in his basement himself, that he disagreed with the Duke's likely course of action to treat Dayant's letters complaining about him as a seditious act, and that he was concerned he and his order were being manipulated. Nonetheless, he agreed with Jon and Zadkiel that Arakin's association with Chavalk merited investigation regardless of whether she had anything to do with the murder, and promised to speak with the Ducal Emissary about it.

6) The party spoke with Seven Quinn, who told them about the dockworkers' strike. Apparently the dockworkers are striking because they believe the sea goddess, Sesharet, is angry about Petros' imprisonment and is going to smite the city. The sailors, however, don't seem to share this fear, which Seven finds suspicious and plans to investigate. She set up a plan with the party to use Clairaudience and her father's crystal ball to communicate with each other long-distance. Seven also said that according to her father, the head of the wizard's guild, Aldrayeth, is actually a dragon.

7) Jon and Red went to talk to the half-fey seance medium. He did not know anything about Red's curse, but was able to use his powers to help Jon recover his memory about interplanar spellcasting (his attempt to remember this earlier not only failed but also caused him a d6 of damage. His curse is apparently getting worse.) With the recovered memories, Jon was able to deduce that the phantasm of Chavalk could not have been cast from the Abyss, as casting spells between two such remote planes cannot normally be done without a pentacle or other magic circle. The spell was most likely cast through the Veil from either the Land of the Dead or the Fey lands.

8) Zadkiel, Aler and Adriel went to the temple of Fantarin to identify the vial of blood from the magic mirror. Vyna identified it as human blood, and theorized that a human sacrifice was probably involved in the creation of the magic mirror, causing blood to leak out of it when it was shattered.

9) After an uninterrupted night's sleep, the party departed for Mendham Wood, where Bay says the Elemental Druids are located. On their way up the coast from Hastenport, they encountered a small fishing village that had closed its gate, blocking the road (something that is illegal to do during daylight hours.) Investigating this, they learned of a demon attack the previous afternoon, which decimated a small community of selkies on a nearby island and left two local fishermen missing. The party gave the villagers some of their extra arms and talked to the village priest, who stated that although the weather had been abnormal recently, Sesharet was NOT wroth.

10) Investigating at the beach, the party encountered a foxwoman named Seela who said she was a Sylvan wizard investigating the demon attack. They also found an apparently enchanted sand castle, which did not break apart even when it was tipped over.

11) The party went with Seela to the selkie island, where they discovered the bodies of 13 selkies in a shallow cave adorned with a bloody pentacle. The party determined that the selkies had died the previous day and seemed to have been drained of both blood and life force. They also found a piece of a bloody fishing net and a glowing blue eye affixed to the wall above a stone altar, which Seela identified as a symbol of magical power associated with the fey, probably a worship object of the selkies. Jon identified the pentacle as leading either to or through the Abyss and used recently, but it was of a strange style he had never seen before.

12) The party disabled the pentacle, but was shortly attacked by a strange tentacled beast that dominated Angara into nearly killing Aler, zorched everyone standing in the shallow salt water with electric shocks, and beat Red and Blue within an inch of their lives before finally discorporating. No one in the party had ever seen such a creature before, but it matched the description given by the fisherman who saw the demon that attacked the town the previous day. Jon concluded that the creature had not plane-shifted or gated away, but had rather had its corporeal form destroyed by the party's attacks. Also, the pentacle on the ceiling of the cave was nowhere near big enough to have gated in a creature of its size. The pentacle was used recently, but to transport something other than this creature.

13) Seela asked if she could join forces with the group. They agreed, but not before Jon's attempt to read her mind left him temporarily stunned, apparently unwittingly on Seela's part. She became angry and offended when Jon told her he had been trying to read her mind, but accepted his explanation that he was concerned about demonic influence over her.

14) The party continued on to Mendham Wood, where they met the local spirit of the land (called a wodeknight) who hailed Red and, after briefly confirming everyone's identity, told them the story of the Elemental Druids. Apparently they had made the decision to ally themselves with elementals and their earthly descendents (nymphs, etc.), which they consider a valid part of nature (different from Red's druidic order, who considers elementals to be extraplanar enemies.)  They were attacked by an ancient red dragon "inflamed with hatred for all extraplanars," who executed Jendarion's naiad wife and children and burned down a quarter of the forest, sending the druid enclave into a deep defensive posture and causing them to double down on their extraplanar alliances, eventually culminating in their current alliance with Chavalk.

15) The party continued into the wood, where they were attacked by a fifty-foot-long fiendish dire cobra which poisoned the hell out of Adriel and Angara. With the help of a friendly dire mongoose, the party slew it; the mongoose then revealed herself to be the druid Liria, who cured Angara (Adriel drank a potion to cure herself.)

16) Liria then parlayed with the party, taking an unexpectedly cooperative attitude. She confirmed what the wodeknight told them, adding that Chavalk had originally portrayed himself as a being of fey "like Shyra" and that she had not realized he was a demon until her previous encounter with the party. Unfortunately the embattled druids voted to continue dancing with the one that brung 'em, over Liria's objections. She expressed her own conflictedness: she felt unable to act against the justly elected leader of her enclave, unwilling to challenge him over it in light of the shared losses they had suffered, yet convinced that Jendarion was making a mistake and/or had his mind clouded by Chavalk. She also stated that although all the enclave would accept the results of a challenge issued in the grove, it would be impossible to win with the powerful water magics surrounding Jendarion. She suggested that perhaps the party could seek answers in the Temple of Water, for if they could disable Jendarion's water protection and/or learn more about him it might be possible for them to wrest leadership away from him "in the Druid way." When asked about Sahree, Liria denied that she had ever been in a relationship with Jendarion. When asked about Bay, Liria said that there was a chaos in her which could prove disastrous if she fell into the wrong hands, but that she no longer trusted Jendarion to keep that from happening. "This Chavalk seems to have a deep hold on his mind."

And there we left the party with a... lot to think about.

Onward!