Session 003 - 08.23.25

Session

Crash through front window!

We all hear it, we all wake up. We make our way down to the front room. Sitting on the ground in front of the shatter window is a something brick shaped, it is wrapped in some type of silky cloth. It is now quiet.

Theo opens the bag and inside the bag is a box.

Theo and Lazlo recognize the stylization of the object: It looks like it might come from the castle.

Lazlo moves to look through the window. Theo is holding the box and Sasha determines there is no traps.

Lazlo doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He does see: Off in the distance, near where we are going to head, it’s beginning to cloud over and get dark and stormy; not necessarily raining, but he sees the clouds roll in from the mountains.

Theo opens the box, but it appears empty. He hands it over to Sasha and she tucks it away in her bag.

Shamoiah begins to mend the window. It takes about an hour.

Lazlo takes the box, he opens it: He sees a ghostly ballerina and hears melodic music. We go back and forth about how he can hear/see this but we can’t. He can’t recall the sound but he gets the idea maybe in time of practicing the song, it might have something deeper …. The haunting sounds are almost like a coded message and he’ll need time with it.

He attempts to whistle us the sound and he does ok for having just heard it. —— It’s almost as if something is hidden within but he’ll need to spend time with it and get a feel for it.

Shamoiah works on the window, we pack our bags and eat, Lazlo figures out the box. At a certain point the ghastly figure watches him as it dances. The head doesn’t move, but the body spins. After a while, it doesn’t feel like there is a negative energy to it. He gets the feeling this item is incomplete. There is something that goes inside and is no longer there: He is getting half of the message. The message is: Help us, we are trapped. (But we don’t know where). After the hour the rest of us can faintly hear it.

The moral: A piece is missing and we need to find it.

Everything is ready to go and we set off for the capital which will take about a week.

We pass through town and they are setting up still for the upcoming festival, which we know we will miss. :(

The Bastion of Glory (The capital), there is a huge stone, fortification building that can hold the entire populace of the capital. It takes a whole day to travel from one side of the capital to the other side.

Some children wave us off as we leave.

About 2-3 hours out of town, the weather is chilly but clear. About 61 degrees, cloudy but comfortable. Shamoiah’s leaves tinge brown in spots, from the colder weather.

The first half of the day goes by uneventful. Mid-afternoon, we are getting road wary and begin to consider making camp in the next couple hours. We travel until just before sundown so we can set up camp. We set up camp. Night goes by, watches are had. Nothing happens.

We set off on the second day. Around high-noon, it’s cloudy but still no rain, still dark and cloudy: Almost like it’s waiting to snow. But it’s still a little too warm. We see down the road a grouping of people. They are currently fighting? Some are shouting at others, but it appears they are trying to fix their cart. It seems like a taller many is shouting at a smaller man who is whacking a wheel in with a hammer, a lady to the side sitting on a boulder watching, and off near the horses (we can’t really see) but someone is standing there.

Lazlo whistles the music box tune as we get closer. The woman notices the tune. She stands up from her spot, she spoke to the other people but didn’t do anything.

We stop, the father hit a rock and the wheel broke. They don’t want help. Human man 50-60, teenage boy, adult daughter, very old man at the front of the cart. Shamoiah doesn’t feel like she is being sinister or shady. The cart has baskets of supplies, foods, cloths but they do have an oddly shaped thing covered in a blanket. It is lumpy.

We stop the cart and Sasha asks about their supplies. She asks for potatos.

The buy uncovers: Iron balls. Like, giant ball bearings. They are unfinished and raw balls.

They are trying to sell the iron balls, we begin to travel with them and keep pace with each other. They mentioned bandits on the road, they live in the woods. He has done well for his family.

About an hour before sundown, the dad says they need to stop, he needs to relieve himself. He hobbles into the woods. The son goes with him. A few minutes pass and they come out of the bushes, they get halfway back to the cart and the kid falls over with an arrow in the back of his head. The father looks and screams.

Another arrow flies out and hits the side of the cart. Another arrow flies out and hits the horse and it dies, as it takes a neck shot.

In a matter of a moments, all of the family have been slaughter by arrow.

We get one action: Shamoiah, Theo, Sasha advance to the bandits at the edge of the forest. Lazlo goes to check the other’s cart to see if anyone survived. Lazlo sees two whispy forms start to waft away. He attempts to save the girl.

The “bandits” aren’t exactly clean, but are put together. Sasha gets the idea from their grimaces we should probably shoot to kill.

Lazlo manages to keep the girl alive and she comes alive, coughing all over Lazlo.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen with the wand”.

Lazlo speaks to Kara, they introduce each themselves to each other.

Shamoiah and Theo start looking for tracks. It’s hard to see, as it’s been dry, but Shamoiah notices there isn’t a camp, but does see the faint plume from a fire they had, about 100’ into the forest.

Sasha checks the bodies. She finds: 40g, 6 scimitar, light x-bows, leather, basic gear.

Kara explains her mother was murdered from a creature of the night: Dark skin, leathery, smelled of brimstone. The father wasn’t touched. Most of the women in their family have been attacked by creatures. GMA was killed by a bear, aunt drowned by some monster in a lake.

We spend the evening preparing and dealing with the corpses. We bury the family.

Lazlo goes through the man’s footlocker, there is a leather bag, tucked at the bottom: strategically placed. He opens it: There is these small metallic ball bearings (in a pouch) and next to it a cylindrical tube with a wooden handle and a curved tube: It’s a gun, single shot.

Lazlo receives a Palm Pistol.

We came back to the wind: It usually shoots out multi colored light and they become confused. But it didn’t feel wrong, to her.

We rest and take care of everything and we travel. The next 2 days is uneventful but it starts to rain, the 5th night.

Shamoiah takes the water resistant sack from the iron balls and uses it as a little tent for Theo, while Theo tries to figure out how to help sustain Shamoiah.

The last day of travel we get about just past mid-day and the rain is lightening up a bit, but the wind has picked up and it is getting colder (low 40s)
We see down the way, there is a fallen pile of wood, intentionally placed. We don’t see people. Shamoiah approaches to attempt to move it out of the way. He hears a twig snap in the woods. And he sees a cocky, burly Goliath man,wearing patchwork metal and leather gear, long blades hanging from the sides.

He tells Shamoiah we need to pay the fee to pass.

We end up knocking him out. Sasha loots him: He has 4 coins: 2gp, 1 blue coin, 1 red coin - These are rare currency but they appear to be Dwarven craftsmanship.

Lazlo takes his pants and burns them. It smells horrible.

We move on after leaving him passed out.

We settle down to sleep. Sasha is on watch, the rain is still drizzling. Way off from where we came, she swears she saw a torch pass into the trees but didn’t come out. It was very faint, about 200’ off, barely on the edge of her vision. Moments pass, she sees nothing else, hears nothing.

The rain slowly comes to a stop. Sasha just notes it and keeps an eye, but does not awake anyone. The rest of night goes by. Day breaks, it’s still cloudy, but the sun peeks through a little and Shamoiah gets some sunlight.

The day goes by, uneventful. When we break into plains land, we see this massive mess of buildings in the distance. Parts of the city are connected by elevators and pulley systems, a cacophony of chaos. We get there in the late afternoon. We can see the city operate from a distance, it’s alive with noise and things moving through the skies. We see people flying around, some with wings and some without, some riding broomsticks.

It is a melting pot of this continent.

Late afternoon, we approach wide open gates. The city is decorated to the nines for the harvest festival. There is some guards posted outside, the city doesn’t have walls but there are watch posts and guard towers everywhere. Patrols walk the streets. We see, every so often, a guard flying around on a gryphon (just a handful, 5/6).

Couple hundred feet down from the main gate, we see there is a large group of carts: All shapes and sizes, some with giant tarps, some of the carts that are uncovered there are cases with various animals and creatures, even some monsters. We recognize it to be a circus. There is a man dressed in tacky blue suit arguing with one of the guards at the front gate. This man in the tacky blue suit is surrounded by some big, burly humanoid creatures but looks like hippos. Giffs. They are big and dressed like 40-50’s era factory workers: Suspenders, rolled sleeve shirts, etc.

They are arguing about the size of his carts not being to fit down the streets. All sorts of animals: cats to elephants to dinosaurs to displacer beasts. Some are covered, some are blindfolded.

Their argument wraps up and the whole circus pulls off to the side of the road and they start to set up just outside the city. Shamoiah realizes they don’t share any decorative attire with Eastovall (Where Torric is from).

They are dressed like circus freaks.

Eastovall is very Asian inspired, for point of reference.

This circus is very ‘sturdy’, southern, thick. The metalwork appears to be Dwarven made. So they are probably from the South. Possibly Wulfhamil.

We pass and as we pass, we runs over near us and hammers in a sign, “Opening in 3 hours. The Raven’s View Circus.”

No one stops us at the gate, we just move on into the capital.

First little bit, we find stables and an inn. Horse storage and a room for everyone: 20g for everything, for however long we need it. The innkeeper/stable master will let us know if we need to pay more.

Kara thanks us for our help and departs from our party.

In 2 hours is a circus show we could attend.

WE NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHAT OUR MONEY SITUATION IS. We use 20gp from our 100gp loots from Duchess to take care of our lodgings.

Shamoiah talks to the horses as the stables. We head to the circus when it’s time to watch a show before bed.

Thousands of people are lined as the tent is BIGGER ON THE INSIDE. Some warm up performances: jugglers, clowns, balancing acts in the main ring. It’s spectacular, it’s a great show. Trapeze artists are great, the lion tramer is taming a lion AND a displacer beasts.

Halfway through the shows, the lights cut. A spotlight and a man in a tacky blue suit appears. he does an announcement saying there is a special guest. Appearing through a curtain is a large, he looks like a Goliath but is bigger: A giant. Long snowy white, frosty beard. Long, white, frosty hair. Under each arms are two large barrels and he walks in, sets them down in the center. He opens the lid of one and out spew, what look to be, butterflies. But then the light hits them and they look more like moths. They fly into the crowd. Panic ensues as everyone starts getting attacked by these insects. They just land on everyone, not biting anyone and the giant whistles, almost like a tuning fork, and all the moths turn into a poof of confetti and the smell of freshly baked apple wafts through the air. The giant opens the other barrel and inside is a pile of this black, tarry substance. he claps his hands and it starts to jiggle, changing into different animals and flips and does tricks. Turns into a dog and does tricks, then turns into a raven and slams into the ground and turns into a fish, flops back down and jumps up as a dolphin.

It continues and there is this weird vibe around the circus, why did the bug thing happen? Nothing like that would not happen in a normal circus. The blob goes back into the barrel. He gets out a bell and everyone claps and he says thank you and leaves. The ringmaster says back to our regular appearances.

The ringmaster goes to the back, he storms out the back as the curtains flings open, following the giant.

The circus comes to a close after about an hour. We have a great time. Everyone begins to leave. Nothing, as far as we are aware, happened. It was just weird. Everyone is talking about how strange it was.

Lazlo wants to follow the ringmaster. In the back he sees circus workers moving things around, changing outfits, cleaning up for the night. He hears: a sound like hammers hitting stone, loudly in the distance. Then a faint, muffled yelling. There is a cart with a tent over it, like a cover porch. The giant and ringmaster are having an argument. We come into the employee area with Lazlo. There is a loud, thunderous shake and the tent flies open. He scoops up his barrels and walks off into the forest.

Sasha sneaks over to spy the ringmaster: He is standing at a table, looming, shaking his head. “What a moron. He almost sacrificed my entire show.”

Shamoiah checks on the animals. The animals are treated fairly. Shamoiah is happy enough with that.

Lazlo barges in on the ringmaster and we engage in conversation.

This was that giants first show. The ringmaster says his audition was nothing like the performance. He sent the giant off to “home” which is somewhere down south. We cannot understand his name, as it’s in giant.

Lazlo manages to try on his hat and figures out the hat is magical and he goes ethereal and disappears. He scampers away, successfully stealing from the Ringermaster.

We all meet back up and disappears into the “soup of people” outside.

Theo roll a d100: 42. While standing in the soup of people. He tends to look at the ground and he sees a gold locket, but dangling from where the pendant would be is almost like an hourglass with a dial you can rotate the dial. He picks it up.

Next session: We will be leaving the circus around 11pm at night.