Thug Muggers in the City 5/6/23
Table Talk:
Firstly, I did a thing. I bought ThugMuggers.org. So yeah. Right now it is just a redirect, but i am working on getting it to be the main url for this blog/summary collection.
On that note, I am currently working to rewrite some of the early summaries that were just chat messages, and to reformat/edit the other old ones from before i got decent at making these.
I am also working on making a new random loot table. Partly because everyone leveled up so much that now i feel like we need better loot, and partly because that table i’ve been using was originally designed for the forest campaign we never used. So, if anyone comes across any ideas on Tumblr, or Tiktok, etc. please pass them along to me.
Lastly, Sarah, i didn’t have the amounts last time, but which bath did you pay for for you and Ari last time (4 Silver for rough spigot, 8 Silver for public, 1 Gold for a private stall, 2 Gold for a private room [2 persons], 6 Gold for afternoon suite). Sarah: “Just the public one.” Okay great, take off 1 gold 6 silver.
Now then, who wakes up first?
Book : What are we up to, sweetheart?
River: Fixing your Bible.
Book : I, um... [alarmed]
Book : What?
River Tam : Bible's broken. Contradictions, false logistics - doesn't make sense.
-Sheppard Book and River Tam —Ben Edlund, “Firefly: Jaynestown”
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿
Chapter 4: Is This What Betrayal Feels Like (cont.)
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿 Chapter 4: Is This What Betrayal Feels Like (cont.)
Cypress is the first one to wake up. He rolls his head over, and looks over at the window. The faint yellow-blues in the sky show that the sun is on its way, but not yet here. He yawns, sits, stretches, and then plops his feet down on the floor. Cypress looks around the little room, getting his mind set in the grove of the day as he pulls the simple cotton pants up over his knees and works the buttons. He looks at the window again, thinking about the time. He stands there letting the night sweat evaporate off his naked chest hairs while the breeze from the cracked window prickles his skin. He nods. He pulls the loosely woven shift on over his head, humming a little spring melody from when he was a child. Grabbing his holy tabard, he rolls it in a tight roll and passes his belt through the middle of it before adding the moss jar and cinching it around his waist, the rolled up tabard making a little bum roll on his back. Then, still humming, he grabs his staff and opens the door.
The fwap fwap of Cypress’s bare feet on the marble tiles mixes with the sound of Sorin’s mediating snores as Cypress walks through the main room. He pulls the chair out in front of the desk, then climbs, and stands on it. Pulling one of the sheets of paper to him, he dips the quill in the little jar of iron black ink.
“I have gone to meditate in the northern woods since we are so close.
I left in the early hours so do not worry about the time.
I will meet you at the Church of Glorious Gods at noon to see Matteo.
Yours,
🌿”
He signs the note by squeezing the nib and dripping out a dob of ink, then pressing a holly leaf into it. Then he steps down off the chair, and walks out of the room.
Downstairs, Cypress notices that the Lobby is almost empty, so he leaves another note on the desk with 3 silver coins “This is to pay for breakfast for the Thug Muggers in the Tile Suite.” Then he heads out the main doors, right as the first rays of the true dawn sun crest the horizon.
Cypress Witchazel heads for the Northern Gates to the City of Nibiru.
…
It’s a short walk, like three blocks, come on that’s why it’s called the Nort Gate Inn.
As Cypress is walking out of town to the Northern fields, Sorin wakes up in a panic. He started meditating last night, carefully positioned on the chair, with his legs crossed and balanced across the arms. This morning he wakes up with a crick in his neck. His head is dangling backwards off the side of the arm of the chair, one foot is curled over the back of the chair, one leg is over the other chair arm, one of his arma is wedged in the cushion, and his other arm is dangling on the floor.
With a start, Sorin tilts and drops to the floor. He jumps up on his feet, and begins to panic. He starts pulling on his boots as he walks towards the door, with his satchel bag dangling from his neck, “Uh, hmm.. Um, okay, yeah, Akris.”
“Yessss?” Akris says with a guilty grin.
“I have to go get my goggles, but I,” Sorin stomps his foot into the boot, “have to run ‘cause we’re so tight on time. So,” He readjusts the bag, and begins the other boot, “You have to tell Ari and Rae where I went ok?”
“Um… ssssure…” Akris hisses.
“Good boy.” Sorin stands up straight, with his shirt tucked half in on one side of his pants, his hair cow licked on one side, and the tongue of one boot hanging out. “How do I look?”
Akris, not trusting himself to talk, curves his tail into a vaguely thumbs up shape.
“Perfect, thanks buddy.” Sorin exits the room, loudly shutting the door behind him.
Akris shakes with laughter.
When Sorin slams the door, Ari ‘huh-what-now’s herself awake. She hears Akris giggling and smiles.
Rae, who had been gritting her teeth against all the noise, gives in when she hears Ari walk out into the main room. She huffs and stamps up from her chair. “Fine, I’m up. But next time, I get the quiet closed room all to myself.” She says, pointing a finger at Ari before her friend even has a chance to say anything.
“Good morning, Rae.” Ari says with the kind of evil early morning cheerfulness that only a demonic bloodline can produce.
The two stare at each other, their eyes looking in the primal battle of a morning person, and someone who thinks “AM” is only a mathematical theory.
“Akris, where did Sorin go?” Rae asks without breaking eye contact.
“Isss’ll never tellsss”
Rae turns the full force of her glare on him and he shrivels up like a raisin in an oven.
“Yessss, Ma’am. He wentsss to get hisss new gogglesss Ma’am.”
A couple miles from the city walls, Cypress is sitting down and running his fingers through the tall grass.
The ‘North Field’ is really just an expanse of undeveloped lands between the city and the Northern woods. The field starts at the foot of the Gray Mountains to the west as they dominate the view and reflect the early sunlight back into the field. The ground is lumpy and strewn with rocks that seemed to have had a marathon race down the hill some hundred years ago, the losers stopping where they stood forever, letting the grasses grow around them. To the east, the field flattens out to the calm smooth plain that Cypress saw before when he walked around Tenton.
That time, Cypress had walked out to the cheerful Eastern Forest; a sunlit, beautiful, and picturesque forest of Oak and Broad Leaf and tall Maple trees. This time he is staring at the hard Northern Woods; a dark and imposing wall of tall black pines and red barked Koa trees that grow in the shadow of the Gray Mountains.
Cypress plants his staff next in the ground and finds a few of the granite rocks lying around to prop it up. He also uses the rocks to pin the tabard out on the side of the little hill, announcing himself to any passers by just like he used to.
And now, he sits with crossed legs and folded hands, and prays. Basking in the sunlight, and the breeze throws the loose cotton shift around him, his brain begins to simultaneously shut down and open up in the peculiar way of deep meditation.
They are a leaf, collecting the energy of the sun.
They are a grasshopper, listening to the wind.
They are a bird, feeling the wind in their feathers.
They are a tree, letting time pass around them.
They are a boar, smelling the dirt.
They are a bee, tasting the flowers.
They are a lion, surveying the land.
They are a butterfly, drinking in the drops of dew.
Also at the same time as this beautiful nature scene, Sorin is running through the streets of the city. As he sprints around corners he is very glad that there isn’t hardly anyone around today to get in his way.
It is the 6th of Mirtul as Ari and Rae walk down to the lobby of the Nort Gate Inn… and find it abandoned. Well almost abandoned, there are some staff around carrying linens and trays, but the public room has no travelers in it. The lobby of the Nort Gate almost feels haunted as we walk through it, the ghosts of all the people that normally would be here, gone.
Nervously, Ari approaches one of the staff as they move through the room. She taps the maid on the shoulder and he turns. “Hi, um, sorry, but can you tell me-”
The maid looks at her coming from the white marble side of the building and his pace goes pale. He looks down at the floor and says, “Oh no, I'm so so m’lords.” And he rushes off.
Ari swears.
Akris laughs.
They all head out to the street.
We walk outside and the usually bustling streets of the city are almost empty. No traders hawking goods from carts, and even most of the permanent stalls look to be closed up and shuttered.
“OOoOoOooOoooOOo, “ Akris hisses, “Maysssbe the townsss issss haunted”
“Shut up.”
“Ttthhhink about it…,” The winged snake continues, “Have you ever actsssually touched ssssomeone heresss? What if it’ssss been ghosssstssss thissss whole time!?”
“Shut up.” Ari and Rae say in unison, masking their fear with anger in a totally healthy way.
Looking for people, they head down the North Road towards the Greater Square.
Okay, Nymbus, just to clarify here, what is the aim in mind for this mediation? Are you wanting a bonus? Or advantage? Is this a ritual casting? Are you wanting to set something up for later? Or is this just a character decision? Does this mediation have an action to it?
Nymbus after a long pause: “I don’t think I'm really going for anything here. This was just a character act. It’s what Cypress used to do for so long, setting up by the road in case someone needed him, that it just feels good to him to do again. A sort of break from everything going on, being surrounded by nature and life again after being down in the sewers for so long.”
Okay. Yeah… i like it, that makes sense. Tell you what, give me a luck roll and a religion roll.
A 3, and a 6.
Yikes okay nevermind. I’ll give you another shot on your next turn, just know that if you choose to try again, you’ll be cutting it close to get back to town and the Church of Glorious Gods on time.
Sorin is finally at the Artificers Mall, he walks into the main building and looks around for the shop he went to last time.
The main building of the Artificers Mall is seven stories tall, in a large rectangular block. Each of the floors run in a loop around an open hole in the middle where someone at the top can look down. And someone standing where Sorin is at the bottom can look up through all the floors to the open roof. This hollow center atrium is lined with pipes from every shop, all funneling together towards the sky. Most of the shops are fronted with iron bound wood, and the building is accented in bronze railings. The floor is mostly ceramic tiles, pinned down by brass tacks. The whole thing looks like a fancy Victorian train depot had a baby with the Mall of America inside a small office building.
Sorin sees the shop for the Gnome goggle maker and rushes over. He walks in, still panting, and looks around.
The walls are lined with French Cleat panels, and have several displays of shelves and mannequin busts. One section seems to just be a collection of clock work hands that all motion a beckoning finger to Sorin as he stands there catching his breath.
At the far end of the store, he sees the gnome working on a dummy head. He seems to be lightly tapping a small punch with a small hammer against a set of brass goggles (Quick! Attune your ears.. To the grinding gears…).
“Oh, hmm.” The gnome sets down his tools and steps over the counter to dangle the counter. “It’s yer. I’s wondered iffen you’d show back again ‘r nah.” He reaches behind the counter and pulls out a small black leather case a similar size and shape to an old book. “Got my t’ther 60 gold?”
Sorin silently hands over the money and, in awe, looks longingly at the little case, flexing his fingers.
“Eeeup, here’t is.” The gnome hands over the box.
Before even blinking, Sorin opens it and stares. The googles are laid out on a nice piece of fancy turquoise dyed wool felt. Next to them, the holes in their frames held in place by little metal pin-rods, are 4 different colored lenses. Inside the loop of the google's headband is a silk kerchief with a colorfully dyed crane pattern. Held in the top of the box by a little stap, is a hand penned little instruction paper, folded with crips straight lines as a little booklet.
“Putcher lens innet an’ turn de knob ‘ere to,” The gnome explains (and i’m not doing this in his voice because that would be difficult to read), that the goggles work by use of the prismatic lenses. They slip into the goggles, and are activated by turning the small knob. The knob rotates the super fine-tuned magical prisms inside each lens, allowing the wearer to see through them with the same effects as the associated spell (True Strike, Beast Sense, Locate Creature,and True Seeing). But using the lenses creates particulate debris on the prisms and they have to be cleaned before they can be used again (creating a charge / discharge system).
“Eeeup, ‘n’ I’s think immen be mackin mer.” He continues, explaining that the idea of these is such a good one, he has decided to make more and try them on the hunting market.
“Infac I might mak’em mere lenses,” He says further. He plans to expand the possible lenses to include other spells like Clairvoyance and Find the Path. So Sorin should stop by again in the future and see how it’s going.
“Yu gottem at a low low prize too, ‘cause these’ns are thur first. Nexens I’m thinkin’ five hunnen! So thanks fer the ider kid!”
Ari and Rae are in the greater Square now, and are starting to get spooked. The lack of people in all the streets was weird enough, but now even the Greater Square is mostly empty. Yesterday it was packed edge to edge, and today, there's just a scattered score of shops, and maybe only a fist of people milling around.
Ari and Rae nudge each other back and forth with, ‘no-you-do-it’s behind the back of a large troll woman in a broad brimmed black hat. Finally Ari steps up to her and coughs. “Um, excuse me ma’am, we’re not from around here and were wondering, that is, with all the people gone, um, is today a holiday or something?”
Ari and Rae watch as all nine busty and impressive feet of the troll woman swing around to face Ari and she grins. “Oh may aren’t you a scrumptious one!” She leans down with her hands on the waist of her pleated white dress. “It’s certainly a holiday now that you’re here. So tell me honey bunny, do those horns make good back scratchers?” She gives a suggestive coquettish leer and adds, “If you know what I mean!”
Ari and Rae run, with Akris cackling behind them.
As Sorin is walking out of the Artificers Mall he hears Rae’s voice through the Sending Stone in his ear.
“Sorin, what the hell is going on today? Why are all the streets empty?”
Sorin halts in the middle of the path. “Oh, oh no, Rae! Rae, Tell me you’re still inside the inn!” he almost shrieks in a panic.
“What no, why?”
“Oh god, Rae! Quick! Hide! Today is the day we hunt down and eat any Elven Monks we see!”
“I don’t believe you.”
Laughter.
“Sorin, what is it really?” Ari’s voice joins the conversation in his ear.
“Oh hi Ari!” Sorin says with a dreamy voice.
“Wizard boy…”
“It’s The Groundbreaking today, ya know, Plow Day?”
“What!?” Ari and Rae ask in unison.
“It’s a local tradition on the farms in town, well, the ones south of town too actually. It’s a planting festival, and everyone brings their kids. The farms cut the first plow and kids walk behind putting the seeds in after them. It’s a nice way for the community to support the farmers, and kids to know where their food comes from, you know?” In his head, Sorin’s brain throws up the old memory reel of him and Matteo following a plow down a line with handfuls of grain seeds, slowly opening their fists to let just a few fall in every couple of steps. “If you go down to the farms below the palace or outside of town I’m sure you’ll find all the street sellers and peddlers shouting for food and trinkets. And usually the bigger sellers from the markets save up the large items and go down today, selling wardrobes and stuff to the goodwives.”
Back, north of town Cypress is digging his fingers into the loam and feeling the cool dirt on his hands.
Okay Nymbus, give me another Luck and Religion roll.
Nymbus: “2. You know what, no. I’m using my last inspiration. A 16 and an 18, hell yeah!”
For a 16 on the luck roll you get an extra temporary healing spell slot. Both as a reward for the awesome character decision, and because of how refreshed Cypress feels after doing this, and feeling more like himself than he has in a while. As for the Religion roll…
As Cypress looks down and watches the worms and little centipedes scurrying over his fingers and the clumps of rocky soil, he begins to notice something. He begins to see the life force inside them. The green glow of natural energy he sees when he is healing or praying, he sees as dots on these tiny little creatures.
He looks up at the sky smiling, waiting for some sign… and waits… and looks down. One of the little millipedes is perched on his hand, almost standing straight up like a snake in a basket. Cypress leans down and sees its mandibles shaking, then he hears its tiny voice as he tilts his ear towards his hand.
“Remember, Cypress Witchhazel, that I am all around. Not just the beasts of the field and the birds in the air. I am wherever life is. And even deep underground, my light shines bright through all that lives and moves. You have done well to learn much of the life that lives in the sunshine. But now, it will help you grow, to learn more of the life that lives in the darkness beneath it.”
The millipede leans down and gently bites the pad of Cypress’s thumb. Suddenly his vision swirls and mists and his eyes are seeing something other than what is in front of him.
Frosty underwater lakes.
Wet cave walls.
The dripping stalactites.
A smiling Cypress gently lowers his hand and lets the millipede skuttle off him.
He stands, stretches, cracks his back, pulls up his staff, pulls on his tabard, knots his belt, and heads for town.
Rae is tired of carrying this big heavy maul around. She is used to tiny, light weapons and hollow bamboo gear. She walks up to a stand where someone looks to be selling weapons, and un-slings the maul. She holds it out in both hands, palms open, to the shopkeeper. “I’m looking to get rid of this, how much w-”
“Cool thanks.” The Aarakocra next to her says, and grabs it out of her open hands. Before running away.
Ari looks at Rae’s empty hand, and then the running figure. She gets ready to sprint. And then her shoulders slump as she watches the bird person start to fly away.
Rae rolled a nat’ 1.
A short time later, all four Thug Muggers are standing together, walking up to the Church of Glorious Gods.
“Oh hey, Rae, you didn’t get eaten. Ari, you look amazing in your new-”
“Shut it, wizard boy.”
Rae moves to swat Sorin upside the head. In a clumsy attempt to dodge, he accidentally leans into the blow and takes 6 damage. This is the result of Ashley wanting to roll for it, instead of just taking some non-lethal points.
Just like the city streets outside, the Church of Glorious Gods is sparse, the rotating platform in the center is pointed towards the doors, rather than any of the shrines, and the pews have all been pushed over. They’re upside down now as a man in a baggy orange toga is sweeping up all the small bits of rice and confetti underneath them. Behind the orange toga man, a grumpy looking dwarf with a large knotted beard is tilting the chairs back into place. We look around but do not see any other familiar faces, just a few lower priests dangling pendulums or carrying things around the room. We look over to the help desks. One is empty, and one has a tall troll in white robes who seems to be asleep underneath the holy book laying open on top of their face.
Cypress goes over to pray at the shrine of Sheela and finds a torn off sheet of paper folded under a rock in the grass.
“Do you ever just really feel the need to study?” It is signed at the bottom with some kind of stylized ‘M’.
After showing everyone the note, Cypress leads the group upstairs. The second floor of the Church of Glorious gods looks very similar to the ground floor, with several cordoned off areas making a ring of shrines along the wall. The biggest difference between the floors is that there is a large hole in the floor here. Where the rotating pew platform is below, here there is just an open floor in an octagon, with a railing around it. There is a pale 7993ab blue room with a tall bird statue and floating clouds in it. Next to it is an ornate room with d4af37 yellow and white tiles, 32527b blue pews facing a water trough and a giganting mounted alligator head, flanked by two luxurious 306048 chaise lounges. Next to this is an archway glowing with an ominous 880808 red light. At the far end of the room across the hole from us is an altar bathed in window light with a single giant golden egg, in front of it are stone basins and simple padded wooden benches. There is some rope dangling down from the rafters above in front of the next shrine, which is mostly walled off except for the open arch showing a dirt floor and some thick green bushes. The sixth stall seems to be either an empty shrine, or a shrine being renovated. Two monks in white and red robes are stacking books on plinths, and when they turn, we can see that their eyes are marked with red ‘X’s. The last, the one next to us, is covered by sheer f8c8dc pink curtains we can just see through.
Suddenly, Sorin grabs his head, taking 5 non-lethal psychic damage. He looks over at Akris. The winged snake is barely hovering off the floor now, his head is hanging loose and he seems to be dragging along the ground.
I mean look, the guy is a literal infernal demon in, not just any church, but a church literally made of churches with at least fifteen sanctified holy shrines in it.
After some discussion about Akris needing to be out of here, and Sorin needing to stay, Cypress walks them both over to a nearby shrine. The shrine is of Revali; The Aarakocra Bowman, and God of the Sky Hunt. Sorin gently lets him out the window, and Akris falls to the ground for 1 damage. Since their bond is so strong here, i gave Ashley the option to let Akris take the 1 fall damage, or for Sorin to take it as 2 points of psychic damage. She so quickly said that Sorin would take it, that i rewarded this with another Bond point with Akris.
In an attempt to cheer the wizard boy up, Cypress shoulders Sorin’s knee and points across the room to a pink room full of cushions and sheer hanging curtains. It has the head of a gigantic Moose on the wall and a f8c8dc pink light radiating from it. “Wanna go pray to the Moose of Love?”
Sorin blushes the same deep red as the boudoir throw pillows and glances at Ari who rolls her eyes. “Nothanksmabelaterletsgetgoingwehavanapointmentandweshouldntkeephimwaiting” he mumbles in a small voice and starts heading up to the third floor.
The middle of the third floor is also open, but this time it has a series of wooden beams and rafters in a sort of spider web pattern. There also looks to be some kind of geared crane mounted on tracks over these rafters and we can see the controlling gears for it near us in front of the windows. Instead of shrines on this floor, the seven sections are divided into rooms, and all except the ones in the two far corners from us, have closed doors. The two open rooms have no walls but have simple slat wood paneled floors and a few large bookcases as well as a desk and some comfortable looking chairs.
Thinking back to when he was here exploring the space, Cypress tries to decide which study room Matteo will probably be in. He remembers opening the door to one and seeing a grotesque ritual dissection with bloody knives and… he decides to try the room with just books and scrolls and papers instead.
Cypress opens the door to the study room. It is a small chamber with a big corner desk under a stained glass window and a very large half-bench-half-chair that would fit a troll or a minotaur. There are several books and scrolls lining the corner of the desk and a tray of uneaten snacks set to one side. The-
“GET OUT!”
The Command comes from an awkward shape hunched in the wooden chair.
Ari and Sorin fail their Wisdom saves and back away.
Rae and Cypress manage to step into the room just as a Thaumaturgy spell shuts the door behind them.
Now in the room, they can see the brown mound on the bench-chair is a skinny boy in a burlap cloak, hunching on one shoulder while lifting the other.
“Hello, Matteo.” Cypress says, holding out the scrap of paper. “I found your note.”
The awkward shape in burlap relaxes and uncovers its head. Matteo looks back at them with a pained, relieved smile. “Oh, good, it’s you.”
“Sorin is outside, let me get him.” Cypress says and opens the door to find Ari’s ear pressed against the keyhole. She coughs and the other two Thug muggers walk in, shutting the door behind him.
Sorin opens his mouth to let forth a ‘what the hell was that for’ tirade, when he stops with his hand raised and gets a good view of his older brother.
Matteo's face is so coated in fear it seems to drip off the end of his nose. Sorin can see the boot marks where Matteo tried different poses and realize that Matteo spent some time standing on the chair. ‘Trying to look bigger in case someone opens the door’ he thinks.
“Sorry,” The young acolyte sighs, “I wasn’t sure it would be you, and I’ve been nervous about being spotted all day.” He takes off the cloak and nervously folds it up, then squares his shoulders and faces the Thug Muggers. He looks at Sorin. “I believe you.” He backs up and hops onto the desk, putting his feet on the big chair and resting his head on his knees. He looks at Cypress. “I believe you. I- I did some looking and I found some things and missing records and… well I know you’re right. So now, now I have to ask.” He looks up at them all. “I have to ask for your help.”
Without any hesitation everyone nods.
“Thank you,” Matteo says, starting to tear up a bit, “I don’t know if-”
There is a knock at the door, and everyone gets tense.
Cypress shushes everyone and waves them into the corners.
Sorin readies a Ray of Enfeeblement spell.
After a short pause, Cypress opens the door…
…
…
…
Suspenseful right?
…
…
…
And sees the two Glorious Priests who helped him before. All three sigh with relief. Then Matteo sighs with relief. Ari and Rae sigh. Then Sorin lets go of the spell and also sighs with relief. Cypress waves the Priests of Glory into the room.
The small room is pretty crowded now and Sorin hops up on the desk to sit next to Matteo. Cypress joins them, standing on the desk and putting a protective hand on Matteo’s shoulder. Ari leans against the door, looking casual, but positioned carefully to brace against it if she feels anything on the other side.
“Okay I have to know,” Sorin blurts out with his usual tact, “Is Karen in the cult? You know the creepy annoying lady with the pastel cardigan?”
“What!? Karen, our lovely Church Secretary? She’s a volunteer and a wonderful person by the way!” Matteo looks angry for a moment before his face seems to break apart. “Maybe she is… I don’t know, I guess.” Tears start to form in his eyes, “You don’t understand how hard this is… I have to suspect everybody. The church I believe in is corrupted. It’s been poisoned and fouled. And now I have to walk in it! I have to suspect faces I’ve loved since I was a youth of the greatest evil… I have to listen with suspicion to the parishioners I’ve cared for and succored… When I sit up in the night smelling the filth in a sick room I have to wonder if the person believes the shadows will help them, or if they just want to become another Rat gnawing at the church walls until it collapses down around us all.” He looks up around the room, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I shouldn’t even be here. I’m in another Church and it feels wrong.”
The Glorious Priests shuffle their feet.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean any disrespect. It's good and true work you do here, but it’s not MY work, it’s not MY church.” He lifts his cloak back over his head. “And here I am. In a ragged old cloak, trying to disguise myself even walking in here…” He trails off.
“We understand.” One of the Priests of Glory says, his deep voice filling the tight room. “And we commend you. You have our aid however and whenever you should need it. I served at another temple some years back with a Shadow Shrine in it. I know the purity of its priests, and the true hearts of its followers. I hope to help you restore The Church of Shadows to its true and beautiful shape.” His rich voice, accustomed to sermons, seems to flow into everyone’s spines, straightening them with courage. “It gives me so much hope to see that there are still priests inside the Order of Shadows that see the pure light. You give me hope Matteo, just knowing you are fighting on the inside.”
Matteo wipes his eyes and stands up.
“So what do you need next?” Ari and Rae say in unison.
Matteo smiles. “Well.. I need to meet with the Constable you’ve been working with. Bostra, Right?”
“Uh huh.”
“I’ll need to meet with him, but it will have to be secret.” He settles the cloak back on his shoulders. “I’m going to try to meet you all down in our lower crypt. Starting tomorrow night, as long as I can get away without being noticed, I’ll be down there every night at midnight. I can’t guarantee I’ll be there each night, so you might have to check back a few times, but if I can I will be.”
“We can do that, I think.” Cypress says, stepping down off the desk.
“But first, um.. I need to get out of here unseen.”
The Thug Mugger begins to make a plan, but behind them the two Glorious Priests smile at eachother like a buddy cop tv promo. “IIII think WE can help with that.”
A few minutes later, with Ari and Rae keeping lookout. Sorin is escorting Matteo down the stairs, using the bonus from Cypress’s Guidance Spell.
Behind them, in the middle of the room, all the priests and clerics in the Church of Glorious Gods are hard at work. Led by our two friends, they maneuver a tug rope and guidelines, slowly moving a gigantic skull with nails in its eyes to the empty shrine on the second floor.
Once again i’m running pretty long here, so we'll skip over the late lunch of Hotdogs and Mushroom Burgers. But, i will say that Cypress over ate which had never happened to him before, and now has half a special ‘Plow Day Cake’ in his bag. Everyone collected their stuff from the Nort Gate Inn, and checked out a night early.
And, as the dusk began to climb into the sky over the capital City of Nibiru, our brave heroes crawled back into the sewers.
“Become a priest. You wouldn’t be bad at it with all your scruples, your morality, your knowledge of people and of everything. The fact that you don’t believe in any gods shouldn’t be a problem – I don’t know many priests who do. Become a priest and stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
-Dandilion the Poet–Andrzej Sapkowski, “The Last Wish The: Voice of Reason - 5”
Table talk:
I just want to say how proud i am of myself in this session with how much my theatre background crept in. During Matteo’s breakdown about how hard this is on him and having to suspect everyone, i legit made myself cry on command. I felt the tears welling in my eyes and actively had to suppress them so as not to worry the players, Booya! I still got it!
I awarded 500 XP for everything with Matteo today. I feel like that’s a good amount since a Challenge Rating 2 Encounter is 450 XP. Also, this was a major plot point and a huge step forward in the overall campaign, so i think it was well earned. (the group is at 15,525 XP, level 5 at 26,000).
