Opening

• Survived second conversation (and a drink!) with Lich
  • Agreed not to tell anyone of his existence
• Guided Sage and other prisoners to Red Larch
• Defended Red Larch from attack by Hellhounds
• Scared one hellhound off (Leo’s Command spell) and pursued it to the outskirts of druid gathering

Gathering intel

• Tricked one of the druids to following them out of camp, captured him, then tricked him into thinking his partner was captured as well via Leo’s disguise
• Roan almost tortured a dude.
• Seeker charmed him and was able to learn much about the cult’s plans:
  • The ritual is a FAKE, not intended to purify the weather, instead trying to lure new people into joining the cult
  • These dudes are EVIL, trying to bring back some elemental evil god – all the cults are – then let their evil gods fight it out for control of the “world”

The best laid plans

• Returned to the camp, flew over and found some cultists+hellhounds involved in some kind of ritual (which we know is fake)
• Attempted to dive bomb cultists with hippogriffs – did not work out well. Nightwitch and Sunclaw were nearly slain, many attacks were missed.
• Flew past camp and dismounted and engaged.
• Took heavy fireball damage
• Cultist summoned a fire elemental
• Roan ran away (briefly)
• The others engaged the elemental and narrowly defeated it. Seeker landed the killing blast(s) with the aid of his imp’s (which neglected to tell him it was immune to fire) Help action (hurling itself into the elemental’s face) negating his disadvantage for blasting in melee.
• At about that time, the people gathered around the hill made it to the top, curious to see wtf was going on.

Loot

• Leo learned Silence ritual spell from the lich
• Everyone has cool burn scars

Moved this stuff.

See WhatWeKnow and WhatWeHaveDone

• Explored the first basement level
• Via Leo’s disguise kit, month garb and Leo’s alter self(?), tricked orc?/ogre guards into leading them to prisoners
• Then defeated guards and freed prisoners, one of whom was NAME, one of the lost delegates
  • He said that one other delegate was taken by Queen Aerisi (the one we knew about) while the other two survivors were taken below.
  • Earth cultists were using prisoners to dig about randomly, seemingly pointlessly. WHAT WERE THEY LOOKING FOR?
• Left prisoners in kitchen while we went further below

Long Rest – Welcome to level 6!

• Left large insect/hulk monster in case under main room
• Killed a bullette! (And Leo’s fireballs burned up some fodder too!)
• Then almost got killed by the guards outside the deeper temple
• Ran the hell away – used Seeker’s familiar to apply dust of disappearance to Roan+Doran, as well as carried an obscuring darkness with it to cause confusion.

RP and commentary in posts below.

• Initial exploration of the earth cultist base (former dwarven temple).
• Gargoyles!
• Tricked cultists into opening a side door (?).
• Leo may have murdered a bunch of sleeping (evil!) dwarves with a fireball
• Fought some nasty monks, one of whom could blind fight, or at least see/sense Seeker’s tiny invisible familiar
• Talked (not fought!) with a lich after breaking down his door and lived to back out the door and repair said door nicely.

GM

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Using Kufu to take a turn at watch, you rest through the night without incident. Welcome to 5th level (officially)!

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Leo

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Leo is up with the dawn, not at all usual for him. He’s got his gear packed and his hippogriff saddled before the day has fully begun. "I’m going to take a look and see what’s what. If that pirate mage has gathered backup we might fly into trouble. ". The owl is flitting about restlessly chirping and beating its wings. “Hush. You’ll not be going.”

He turns to the others. "My problem. Ahem, well… ‘patron’ I suppose you could call it isn’t happy with my reading that book. I’m starting to see why, but I’m not ready to share more just yet. It’s angry at me I think, but a deal is a deal and I have gained some new insights from the struggle. "

He climbs on the ‘griff. "I’m maybe of more use than I was, but I’m more dangerous to travel with as well. We all are I suppose, but I have a lord of hell angry at me. You’ll have to decide if that’s a risk you’re wanting to share. "

He snaps a harsh phrase and grabs hold of his mount. “I’ll be back within the hour”. With a ripple he and the hippogriff vanish from sight, with a rush of air the invisible beast springs into the sky.

The owl, with a sad “hoot” flies up to perch on the roof, scanning the sky for its master.

Staying invisible Leo would sweep the riversides. Try to spot if the pirate is holed up someplace. He’d also make a pass to see if the “bad guys” are visible and if the servants are OK across the river. He doesn’t engage with anyone and stays at a minimum of 150 feet.

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GM

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Leo doesn’t catch any sign of Shoalar Quanderil (the pirate captain who has no idea that he’s Roan’s nemesis). You see a few harmless looking fishing boats during your sweep, but the other side of the river looks clear for a drop off of the captive servants.

The boats are of varying sizes. You would have seen a couple that are basically rowboats. One or two would be larger like a keelboat.

RP and commentary in the comment posts below.

So far total loot:

*1 ordinary maul
*a bunch of normal weapons/armor
*29 gp from bugbears
*25 gp from looters

• Doran cut a dude’s face off
• Seeker knocked the lady out of invisibility with a dissonant whisper concentration check
• Roan almost got turned into a wereboar
• Seeker’s familiar sacrificed itself to eat some readied actions
• Leo interrogated and …snikt a cultist

• Finish clearing pirate keep
• Defeated lord, lady and other assorted hangers on
• water genasi captain escaped for good

• Level-up after next long rest

*LOOT:

• Will add more laterp.

• Picked up some alchemical fire from the curio shop in Red Larch.
• Raided water keep with Khufu (?) aka “Death from Above” the bird dude
  • Burned and sank the large and small ships
  • Defeated several cultists – pirate captain fled

• Found a key on the body of one of the cultists(?)
  *Scouted the other rooms with Seeker’s familiar and prepared a plan.
  *No other useful info found

USED:
-300gp: 6 alc fire flasks @50gp each + 12 flasks oil
—used 3 fire, ~?6 oil
-60gp roan: necklace
-1 healing potion (doran) 5 left

LOOT:
*none, I think – cultists only had weapons/armor

NOTE: There was no rp/intermission after this session as we basically paused mid-crawl.

• Thwarted ambush by cult of crashing wave on Red Larch
  They were looking for us
  (critically) subdued one survivor, interrogated
  Maybe Roan should have done a better job punching that guy
• Debated good and evil with Leo
• reinforcements (1 lt + 5 soldiers? knights?) arrived from <place>
• allied with bird men (5? of them roosting on our roof)
  Discussed hunting for griffon eggs