Session 21 - The One Where Having No Plan Seemed To Work

28th Mar 2021 19:15 - 22:30

In-game timeline: DR1489 Elesias 24 - Eleasias 24

We find our "Heroes" standing before a strange pedestal and a concave mirror in a darkly stained room. Just a usual day, then.

Some time is spent discussing what the pedestal, and the whole device, could be used for and how it may work. Carro uses his well-honed "track something on a carpet" skill to good effect, and decides something was, or somethings were, dragged over the carpet towards the 'servants' stairs at the back of the Manor, where he loses the trail in the deep pile of the carpet. The group conclude from the top of the pedestal, and the graffiti, that they may be looking for a set of four, differently coloured, stones. Or marbles. It certainly seemed as if someone had lost their marbles. TC continued to stare at the carpet suspiciously.

A plan is decided upon. They are going to head back to the basement to question the two humans who seemed to be locked behind iron bars down there. Maybe the bedraggled, incarcerated pair would know more about what is going on. It's a plan.

Then they change their minds and instead head to find Tarmon.

The first door they come to is locked. Not only that, but it has iron bolts on the door too, making sure it is REALLY locked. They decide to avoid that door on the, surprisingly sensible, assumption that something is deliberately being kept on the other side of the door, and they don't want to meet that. Hell, this group ran away from a cobweb, so a bolted door unsurprisingly scares them.

So they try more doors. Eventually Kandi listens at a door and his oversized, elvish ears hear a deep snoring coming from the other side. After readying themselves, the group head in, unfortunately making quite a racket in the process and waking the dwarf who was sleeping within.

As Tarmon Chadstone rose from his bed, the group rushed in, all attempts at stealth now abandoned. Kandi managed to grapple the dwarf, stopping him from rising from his bed, but Mahtis made a mess of attempting to pin his arms down. As he struggled to escape, Kandi continued to hold him in place, but all of a sudden TC had a change of heart and decided that they shouldn't be accosting this innocent dwarf who is only wondering why a group of reprobates have broken into his home and are attacking him! This change of heart seemed a little unusual, so the others ignored TC and continued to try to grapple Tarmon.

As Carro checked out the rest of the room, Tarmon took the opportunity whilst one was distracted and another seemed friendly towards him and broke Kandi's grapple and ran for the door. He managed to race out of the room with the others following. As Mahtis almost caught up with him, Tarmon got to the locked door that the group had previously investigated, and quickly slid back the bolts and unlocked the door, throwing it open just as Mahtis arrived.

Mahtis looked down the now revealed corridor and saw a creature approaching rapidly. She took the decision to expend her efforts to close the door before it arrived, which she duly did, but that allowed Tarmon to run away from them and make his way quickly towards the main stairs.

The others gave chase. Carro attempted to shoot Tarmon in the hope it would stop him. Kandi tried to mock him viciously, but this failed. Mahtis managed to cast Entangle and vines sprang up from the floorboards and managed to grapple Tarmon and prevent him from moving further. TC, seeing his new 'friend' Tarmon trapped, tried to help him escape from the entangling weeds.

As Tarmon struggled to free himself, Carro continued to fire arrows into him. By the time Tarmon, with TC's help, did manage to escape, he was badly injured. As he tried to run for the door, Mahtis reached him and damaged him further with a handaxe. Carro ran past him to cut off his escape and Kandi offered him an opportunity to surrender. Tarmon took the offer and collapsed, dejected. TC seemed to come around from his new-found friendship with the dwarf and realised that he had been charmed. Though he still felt Tarmon had a point about being attacked by intruders who broke into his home.

The group interrogated Tarmon, and found out more about what is going on. Tarmon is a broken man, and somewhat repentant of his deeds. The Splinter that he found seems to be the root of a lot of the evil that is happening, though it seems the Splinter just wants to return 'home'. What is possibly more sinister is the influence that a Spirit in the North has had over Tarmon since he started seeing visions of the dark armies gathering. A promise to bring Tarmon's dead wife back to him was the primary thing that drove Tarmon to perform possibly dark and evil deeds.

TC insists that Tarmon signs a letter absolving the group of any wrongdoings. Tarmon will sign pretty much anything at this point. Tarmon expresses a wish to pay a last visit to his dead wife, Cerise, who he indicates is in the room opposite. Given that she has been dead for 8 years, the group are a little disgusted at this notion, but they look like they will allow this, though they wish to have a short rest first.

And so we leave our "Heroes", resting after having managed to avoid all danger and get into only a single fight, where the combatant did not harm any of them. They continue to plan how they are to plead their case to the Mayor, or to the Magistrate. They have added breaking and entering and GBH to their list of crimes…