Session 006 - 10.18.25

Recap

The party found Space Jesus.

We were ambushed by bandits. Combat was had, Theo and Sasha got clubbed in the head.

They convinced the Goliath to stand down (the one we stole the pants from). He gave the party some information. They took his boots and they sent him off.

Combat: Oona-Lynn set a tree on fire, but a wintery rain fell putting it out.

A firey comet fell from the sky, waking up everyone out of a dead sleep. The comet incinerated some people, they saw some gryphon patrols on the way to the comet.

And they found Space Jesus, in a blinding flash of light and conversation upon asking his name, he asked if anyone speaks Celestial, which we do not.

He said in common tongue he said we can call him One. He is shimmery-glittery skin that doesn’t refract light. It’s an energy that is almost bleeding out of his pores. He is glowing from the inside so bright it sorta shows through his skin. But it is warm and inviting, like a nice fresh cup of soup. The glitter effect is actually light.

They brought him back to the tavern, to make themselves scarce. He is going to come with us and “nuke the bandit camp”. It should have the majority, if not all of the things, we are looking for.

We fed him as he seemed malnourished; after eating and sleeping is revitalized. He is not imposing, but a good solid 6’1. Fit and athletic. We brought it up to him and he turned it off!

He revealed to us he has been in prison for the past 100 or so years.

DURING the festival: There was a loud explosion. Shamoiah caught the silhouette of a humanoid fly out towards Ishka. About 25 people were killed in the explosion, a handful of people are injured and in the hospital.

Session Notes

The day is ours!

Chapter 1

It is a chilly morning, but there are vendors that are selling breakfasts: Mulled ciders, coffees, hot chocolates. The restaurants aren’t open right now, allowing the vendors to provide.

One seems distracted while Martok tries to figure out things about evil. He tells him things he’s already heard. One thing sticks out though: Your definition of evil can be different than everyone else’s, so take what knowledge you have gathered and make careful choices.

Martok: More important: Destroying evil or protecting people from evil?
One: Protecting. When you destroy something, something else has to replace it.

Theo is nervous about One, but he gets a vibe from him. It isn’t familiar to him as Theo isn’t familiar with devotion and this man seems to walk a Sunkist path, but Theo gets the feeling he is willing to sacrifice his very being to those he protects.

As we walk, One heals the flowers that are dying from the cold. He conjures fish for stray cats. Things are in a better state after he passes through.

Martok is attempting to perform an act that brings joy to someone who isn’t himself. He does a decent job entertaining the kids.

Shamoiah asks One where he is from. One dances around and tells a story about a deity in charge of creating the foliage and wildlife on all the plaents in the galaxy and he imagines that Shamoiah came from an idea of theirs giving sentience to plants.

One is from a place called Celestia. Where he was imprisoned. There were other celestials, most of them have been killed off. There were others in the jail, though he didn’t have a cellmate. His home wasn’t attacked but disagreements were had. Many against one. Somebody who thought those who were at the end of their lives, their essences could be taken instead of returning to be reused in the universe.

One justifies his actions as not being significant to unbalancing the power in the world.

Theo chimes in asking how he got here. He was sitting in his cell, he heard a bell toll. He had never heard that sound before. There was an earthquake, a rumble and moments later the walls were replaced by craggy stonework and hellfire. An all around bad time. He was free. He tried to escape, a large winged creature hit him out of the sky and he blacked out, waking up on the ground here. He only saw it for seconds.

Chapter 2 - The Hospital

We head to the medical building. There are patients lining the walls of this building, a lot covered in head to toe in soaked bandages and burned up, missing limbs. It is a rough sight. It is frantic and no one realizes that seven people just walked into the building.

One looks around the room and walks deeper into the facility, heading to the people more severe injuries. He converses with the doctors and he steps behind the curtains and we see flashes of light. We get the idea, not that he is restoring them to the beginning, he is just making sure they don’t die.

The story of what happened is spotty and vary. The man looked to be a noble man of elven descent, with long black, slicked back hair.

Martok ascertains the survivors will be taken care of when it comes to rehabilitation and financial need. The doctors are grateful but are a little jaded by being upstaged by One.

We gather our things and depart the hospital. We need to find the mystery man that headed back towards Ishka. But we also need to handle the bandit camp.

We discuss heading to the bandit camp with One and he agrees to accompany with us. He calls us friends, as we saved him. Oona-Lynn feels he is telling the truth.

Chapter 3 - The Bandit Camp

Shamoiah asks One if he can make it so he can talk to animals. One tells him maybe the plants can’t talk back to him. Martok is having a pleasant existential crisis, due to his new found knowledge.

We make our way out of the city and into the woods. We understand we will get there around sundown as it’s much closer than we realize.

A few miles out, One offers to move ahead and scout for us. He hopes to find out what we are heading up against. We continue to walk and after another mile, we begin to hear the jetstream of him returning to us and he lands. There is no one at the bandit camp. It seems like it hasn’t had any sign of life in the past few days. (Oona-Lynn insights him: 20, he isn’t lying.)

We push our way to the camp, we want to look for clues. It’s not a clearing, but a part of the woods that have natural roots and banyan trees with massive cover. The canopy creating the “roof” of the encampment, with tunnels burrowed through the roots. It is a beautiful tree. Shamoiah understands this tree is hundreds of years old. The tree talks back to Shamoiah. Theo can hear Shamoiah talking but not the tree. A man came and warned the camp, he had no pants or boots. The tree says the bandits scattered in all directions. The tree asks Shamoiah to remove the things from his root beds as it’s killing him slowly. The tree almost shifts in the wind, though there is no breeze.

Shamoiah goes down into the tunnels, Theo riding along. Martok offers assistance. One pipes up offering help. We need to clear the objects from the roots. It takes us about two hours to clear it out. We find everything on our list except: The old blood supply and the books. Everything else is here.

We all look for any markings or something that might give us insight to who these people are. Shamoiah sees some marks, from something being drug out.

Sasha and Oona-Lynn are loading up boxes and pick up this board that is lying against the wall, revealing a root. There is a symbol that Sasha recognizes. Thrives Cant: It is not safe anymore. The carving is only a few days old. It is a warning for the other bandits.

Conclusion: The bandits were warned and left a message for anyone returning, not to linger.

Martok is still thinking.

About 8pm, sundown was a few hours ago.

Lazlo notices a broken branch heading into the forest, hears a snap. He takes a deep breath and he can see his breath in the air. He casts his unseen servant and hands it the music box. “If you see anyone other than the six of us, open this box.”

We have removed everything, it is bundled nicely outside. One says, “Ok”. He takes a few steps towards the tree and kneels down and puts his hands into the ground, deep. There’s this, almost like coming from his core, a bright white surge through his arms into the ground. Fissure lines track through the dirt, piercing the air. We can almost feel the ground pulse. The roots fill with dirt, the tree’s base is covered and protected. He pulls his hands out of the ground. “Oooh, that took a lot”, he stumbles.

The tree thanks Shamoiah and offers him a boon. He says almost like, serpentine vines slithered down the tree and wrap onto his arm, that he doesn’t club. He can now cast Grasping Vine at will. Shamoiah rests his hand on the tree and shows his thanks, praising the tree as his first talking tree.

“Do you know which way the Goliath went?” The tree tells him the Goliath was making his way towards Duskwood. Duskwood is where they bury the dead; from the city and surrounding areas. The temples are there. Dead, undead, living all thrive in Duskwood.

Shamoiah is testing out his new ability and he kills a tree. He is not Spoderman.

There is too much stuff to carry back. Someone will have to go get the wagon. Sasha asks if One can carry someone back. He says yes.

Oona-Lynn flies with One back for the wagon. The rest of us hunker down and wait for their return. Time passes and we can hear the horse and wagon approaching. We load up the goods and head back to the city.

Theo realizes there is something off about this, something doesn’t feel right. He is unsure if it’s his intuition, but he has a feeling in his gut something is going to happen on the way home. He tells everyone and begins to thumb through the stuff (Nat20+5). He finds this orb, the size of a softball, metallic. It vibrates faintly. Something on the inside is moving. It feels like a motor vibration; cogs moving. He holds it up and asks for help. It doesn’t feel magical, it feels mechanical. We are talking and the orb top rotates; Lazlo goes incorporeal as the top opens and there is a cylindrical red light glowing from it.

Everyone takes fire damage. Theo is thrown from the cart as there is a fiery explosion goes off, going unconscious. Everyone except Lazlo takes massive fire damage. The cart is destroyed and the horse is dead.

Martok runs over to the lifeless raccoon. He heals Theo. He attempts to stand up and realizes one of his hands is missing. Sasha asks One if he can fix it. He says he doesn’t feel like he has the energy to do that. With the limb being destroyed it’s far harder to return. But he mentions Theo having a hand he can use, that was the hand of a God who wasn’t malevolent but mischevious. Theo takes him up on the deal. Light fuses the hand to his wrist. He has one paw and one partially reconstituted hand. One turns his head as Lazlo sees something with his ethereal eyes and it’s not wearing pants.

Combat ensues, One teleports instantly to the bandit. We see him lift him up and snap the Goliath’s neck. He has on a cloak.

Lazlo asks One to break him back to life and he tells the Goliath to give him his cloak, then the Goliath dies again.

Theo heals Shamoiah and Martok with his new hand. He reaches out and casts The healing magic, it seems normal; a radiant light flows out of the finger tips. Theo hears in the deepest parts of his mind: “So you like to take care of people”, Theo thinks back something like, as long as it suites his end goal. The voice says, “I think we’ll get along well.”

Parts of the hand show tattoos and they are almost like runes of a language Theo doesn’t understand. On the back of the hand, looks to be a playing card: Ace of Spades, but it is faded and old. If we saw the tattoos on a person, we would get a vibe they are one to gamble and take chances, gain benefit for themselves. Not necessarily manipulation but dishonesty and deceit, but like the long con.

Lazlo casts Tensors Floating Disk and load the goods, of which mostly survived. Most of the metallic stuff and magic items. Luckily they were all in the magic bags.

Shamoiah checks the Goliath’s body for more information. He finds, tucked in the armpit something that looks like a bat folded on itself, hanging upside down.

Chapter 4 - Return to Emberhithe

We return. Conversation happens about what happened. Tomny offers us food and to get his dad for us.

We unload the supplies that survived in the corner. We take seats and we are brought food and wine. After about 20 minutes, Devvic comes out of the bowels of the Theive’s Guild. He is wearing casual clothing, a little bit more relaxed than before. He sits down and pours himself a glass of wine. We begin to discuss what happened.

Shamoiah asks to see Devvic’s armpits, but there is nothing other than an old scar. He asks if Devvic is aware of the bat brand/scar.

We explain what happened. He whistles; Reeky and Borne join us, wiping their eyes. He tells them to pay us and return the items to where it belongs. Shamoiah asks to see their armpits and they don’t have a brand.

Reeky brings out 2 bags: One a messenger bag and the other a coin purse. She sets them on the table.
Bag of holding
100 Plantinum for each of us.

We begin to discuss One’s place here and he asks for a favor: Where would one seek the divine? Devvic tells him Darkwood.

There is a council meeting in Cenos, south of Darkwood. It’s the council of the 3 major races: Humans, dwarves, elves.

Emberhithe is mostly humans. And Cenos is designed for council matters, specifically. It was fabricated by politicians. There is a lavish casino, country club.

The meeting is in a few weeks, we will take a week to travel and that gives us time to help One with the happenings in Darkwood.
Week to travel -> Cenos is only one day from Darkwood.

Shamoiah lights his lantern and sees the invisible raven. Lazlo reaches out to touch it. Devvic closes up the night and heads to bed.

We sleep. In the middle of the night we hear the faint sound of a few footsteps, a door open and a door close. Stirs us awake and One is no longer with us.

We wake up. And we, proud of our deeds, reading ourselves for our next adventure.

Chapter 5 - Shopping

We need to compile our lists for next session.