Summary 7/10/22
Table Talk:
A quick shout out to ingenuity. This week, in an attempt to make things easier for Diedrik to telecommute with us, we tried out the separate webcam for a top-down view of the maps by using a small USB camera attached to the end of a DeWalt bar clamp attached to the table. We also tried to solve some of the audio issues with Discord by using push-to-talk instead of voice detection, and leaving a small pill bottle full of ball bearings on the space bar to keep it constantly on.
Sarah(Rae) got a Hint last week, so the DM DMed it to her.
Last week we discussed just doing some character scenes this session so i purposed three ways to do that:
I cast DM BS magic spell where some non-likely things happen and force a character interaction,
We ret-con the looting of this big room, and everyone plays it out talking to each other more and having more character interactions,
Or we hold off, and i plan a more direct and intentional time for some character stuff, in line with the story to come up organically.
Everyone seemed pretty bloodthirsty and ready for some action, so we all agreed to go with the delayed option (option 3), with the players making an effort to do more character work as we play, and me finding ways to encourage them to do more character work.
I also acknowledged that while i’ve been doing a decent job describing settings and objects here in these summaries, i have been doing a pretty bad job of doing it in play. I will be making an effort to describe things better in play going forward, and i might even pre-write some descriptions to help with this.
"There are two kinds of people in the world; the first see locks and warning signs and say, 'If they’re keeping it locked up so tight, that means it’s both dangerous and none of my business.' But the second type say, 'If they want to keep it a secret so bad, then it must be worth seeing."
-David Wong (Jason Pargin), “This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It: Prologue”
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 8: Decisions and Loot
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 8: Decisions and Loot
So here we are, midafternoon on the 29th of Mirtul. Above ground, people are finishing up the day's business.
Farmer’s carts are sold out, and they are packing up their tables, hitching up horses, and getting ready to leave.
Market vendors are judging how much light is left in the day to see if they should keep the good stuff out, or switch to the things that are easier to get rid of when you can’t see the details.
Bankers are checking pocket watches, closing vaults, and doing the day’s final sums.
The entertainers are getting ready for the town’s evening relaxations, bards sucking on lemons, fire eaters drinking cold water, bath houses freshening the waters.
All typical business at the close of the business day.
And down here in the sewer? Why, we are also just finishing up our usual end of the day business; looting and pillaging. Rations are being stuffed into bags, new swords are being strapped on, and crates are left overturned to make sure we didn’t miss a single sellable thing inside.
After everyone slings their packs back on, and re-adjusts their gear, we ask life’s most eternal question. “Well, what’s next?”
Rae adjusts her bag, noticing all the weight of these new items. “Has anyone seen one of Devin’s marks on any of the walls lately? I miss Devin.”
“I don’t,” Sorin pouts.
Ari uses a dirty rag to clean up, moving around some dried blood and replacing it with dirt. “Yeah, I could use a rest and a chance to clean up. All this blood on me is getting disgusting.”
“You’re not disgusting, you look amazing, Zevari.” Says the small anime girl in the corner cooing over senpai. Oh wait, that was Sorin… Says the small anime WIZARD in the corner cooing over senpai.
There is an uncomfortable silence
“Well, what do you think we should do?” Sorin says, bending over and crouching to talk to the halfling cleric.
“WWWOOOOEEE!”
“Wow, really Sorin!?”
“Don’t you like, LIVE in a CITY!? You’ve seen halflings before right?”
“I’m honestly shocked.”
“So rude.”
A quiet Cypress raises a hand and instantly silences the other two. “It’s okay, really. I’ve been here with you guys for a few days now, I know he’s an idiot.”
Rae thinks for a second and counts off on her fingers “Ok, from this room we have that hallway to the east, that hallway to the west which either goes north, or back where we were. Or, we have the tunnel we just came through to go back, or go the other way at that intersection. Or, I guess we could go back where we were and take one of the other tunnels there. So from this room that’s six options.”
Well, gee guys if only you had some sort of fancy magic coin with 6 sides, a kind of cube you could toss of roll that would help you deci-
The table in unison: “Shut up DM!”
Brooke(Ari) uses the DM Question she found a while back to ask which option would be the best chance of finding more Thugs.
Ari thinks for a minute and gets a sudden idea, “Okay, well, we came through that Thug tunnel to get here, if we follow it the other direction, I bet we’ll find more of them. I think I would definitely like to knock out a couple more before checking back in with Bostra.”
“That makes sense, and it really would be nice to get a few more of them and be done sooner.”
We head down the yellow brick tunnel singing “We’re off to find the Thu-ugs, the nasty Thugs of the sewers.” The group is talking about plans, and where to find Devin, when Ari turns around to whisper something. As she walks backwards she thinks ‘Wait, where was that trap hole again,’ and her foot feels a sudden lack of ground as she falls backwards into the trap hole.
Ari attempts to spring up again like she did last time, but she must’ve twisted something because she’s having a much harder time. I’ll add a Ye-Olde-Chiropractor later for you, Ari.
Rae offers her a hand and helps pull her back up. Then Ari, Rae and Sorin all carefully hug the wall and step corner-ledge to corner-ledge around the wall, when suddenly something awkward happens.
…It’s Sorin.
The wizard reaches out his hands to help Cypress step across with a “here buddy let me help you with that.”
Cypress glares and gives a “I am almost twice as old as you and I am definitely NOT a child,” in return.
There is a nervous gulp and an apology in the darkness.
Now that we’re a ways down this tunnel the light from the mechanical room is starting to fade. Cypress ties a moss ball to the top of his staff. He whispers into it, then sticks his staff into his pack letting the glowing moss ball hang above his head to light the way.
We soon come to another junction and another trap hole. This tunnel going off to the left, away and this path which continues straight before turning sharp a little ways on. This time the hole in the floor is obvious. There are even some crossed boards over the hole making it easy to walk over. We all take a second with Ari’s horns turning this way and that as her head scans around listening for anything.
There, down the offshoot tunnel, it’s muffled, but you can hear distant sounds of people. Almost like voices, but the sounds voices make when they are too far away to be heard.
Ari whispers and passes this down the single-file-party-line. She goes to step across the convenient planks over the trap hole, and stops. She tests the board before putting much weight on it.
There are a couple hairline cuts in the wood, cleverly hidden underneath, and as Ari tests it, the wood buckles, and the two planks fall away into the hole. We hear a soft whisper in the dimly lit tunnel, “Almost got me, huh.”
Everyone slowly and quietly crosses the pit hugging the wall and stepping corner-ledge to corner-ledge again. And this time, Sorin doesn’t even do anything embarrassing. We get a little bit down this tunnel and as we come to a plain wooden door Cypress pulls down the Moss-ball-lantern. The Cleric blows a few more sacred words on the moss and the light within the stone fades.
Ari listens at the door, making out muffled voices behind it, she tries the handle. Locked. She kneels down to get eye level with the key hole and whips out a set of lockpicks. As she’s lining up the picks, Ari feels a tap on the shoulder.
Rae is standing there and handing her a key. It’s one of the Keys Rae found on a Thug in the last couple days. Sure, a while ago, one of those keys opened a chest, but who knows.
It slides into the lock and starts to turn.
Ari takes a second and digs in a pocket, pulling out a small leather pouch and dips the key into it. The key comes out coated in grease and she slides it back into the lock, smearing the last of her grease around the latch. She looks at the iron hinges, worn down to the bare metal, and she looks back at her empty bag. Ari curses softly. Another tap on the shoulder.
Raelle-the-Ever-Helpful is holding out a jar of grease she found inside a skeleton some time back.
Ari looks grateful and coats the hinges with this new grease before tucking it away with her other thieves' tools. She turns the key, grips the door handle, and slowly pushes the door open.
We all take a deep breath.
Chapter 9: A Den of Thieves
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿
Chapter 9: A Den of Thieves 🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿
Ari opens the door a crack peers around quickly, and shuts it. Beyond the door the hallway continues straight, but a little ways ahead is another intersection with another tunnel going off to the left, and there, right around the corner is a medium sized well-lit room. There is at least one torch in a bracket on the wall, and what looks like a small stove with its door open next to a small pile of supply boxes. She could make out the shapes of people from this angle. And, while she could tell they were definitely talking about something, she couldn’t make out what it was. People. Voices. So that’s definitely more than one, but no idea how many.
Crouching behind the closed door something dawns on Ari. She looks around this tunnel. The walls here are simple wooden slats with a few larger beams holding up the ceiling, and then strips of wood and sticks running in lines between them to hold any loose dirt out. But beyond the door it was different. Those walls were cobbled stones. Actual large rocks, hewn into flat-ish slides and slid into place, in a wall of mortar. On top of that the torch was in a real ironwork bracket, and the stove had a chimney running up into the ceiling and presumably to somewhere up on the surface above.
This is a place the Thugs have been in long enough to imbed and make a permanent space.
Ari huddles with her companions and whispers a description of this layout, along with an idea she’s cooking – or rather – frying up. “I could take the jar of grease, and throw it into the room. The glass would break so it goes all over the floor. Then I can throw the Fireball Necklace at it, to do three big fireballs, AND start a large grease fire.”
Stunned silence.
“Aren’t we not supposed to fully murder them?”
“Oh yeah, huh…”
There is a brief tabletop discussion here about the cantrip Thaumaturgy. The spell description lists options; “your voice booms up to three times as loud as normal for 1 minute”, and “you create an instantaneous sound that originates from a point of your choice within range, such as a rumble of thunder, the cry of a raven, or ominous whispers.” So, i interrupt that to mean that if it is a humanoid sound like talking, it has to emanate from you as the first option of a booming voice. If you want the sound to be generated in place away from you it has to be a nature based sound like falling rocks, or an animal.
I do point out, however, that i think it’s totally viable to cast something like this where you can’t see it and even behind walls or doors. Since the spell has no line of sight restriction listed, i think it’s totally viable to think you could ‘throw’ the magic like throwing something over your shoulder where you can’t see, and you just risk missing your exact spot, or ‘throwing’ too far and casting it inside a mound of stone.
“I could cast Thaumaturgy to try to distract them and get them heading down the tunnel away from us, but I don’t know what sound to make.”
“You could make a scream, that way they think someone got attacked”
“Yeah, but to do that I’d have to just scream loud from here, and that would just bring them to us. If I’m gonna cast it down the hall I need it to be like an animal sound of thunder or something.”
A long pause. “Have you ever heard an Elk scream?”
Alright Cypress, credit where credit is due, you found a clever way around my restriction and i gotta hand it to you that ticks all the boxes!
Rae chimes in, “Oh yeah, or one of those screaming goats that people make memetic poetry about!”
Ari concentrates for a moment and mutters to herself facing the door. From the other side we hear a Wilhelm Scream. The voices in the other room stop. Sorin casts a very quick and nervous Blade Ward on himself, not knowing what’s about to happen and breathing hard to psyche himself up for the fight.
We hear feet running into the hallway.
Ari’s hand rests on the door handle, she feels a tug on the other side. Ari shoves the door open, shoulder checking it, and putting her full weight into it in an attempt to pin the person on the other side.
The Thug behind the door leaps back when he feels it start to move.
He swings his mace at Ari.
She ducks.
The mace hits the door right where her head was, imbedding a few loose hairs into the grain of the wood.
As Ari ducks, Rae puts a hand on her shoulder. She jumps in the air and kicks off the wall. She extends the other leg and lands a solid hit on the Thug’s chest, knocking him back into the cobblestone wall, and landing on the far side of him and Ari, clear of the blocked doorway.
Rea sees a quick glimpse of a Thug in the open room. He has long robes and is moving his hands, making ripples in the air. Rae starts to shout this out to the team, when suddenly there is a flash of steel and a stinging pain in her arm.
There is another Thug right behind that first one, who is right behind the door, which is right in front of Ari who is right in front of Sorin, who is right in front of Cypress.
And this Thug is grinning inside her hood as she readies her sword for another sweeping attack.
Sorin is now right behind the ducking Ari, and his clever big brain full of intelligent ideas about the universe… collapses. A deeper, smaller brain kicks in and thinks ‘fire make bad man go away.’ His hand raises as Rae gets cut, and he summons a Firebolt. The flaming arrow shoots from his hand and hisses through the air. It hits the first Thug in front of Ari, scraping against his cheek as he turns back to face the door. The fiery arrow sticks in the hood of the Thug and the fabric catches fire before the magic wears off and the arrow disappears.
Halflings have a very cool trait called Halfling Nimbleness, which states they can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger themselves. Cypress saw Raelle pointing into the room and about to say something before getting cut. He ducks and weaves, dodging through legs and swinging weapons. Past Sorin, past the door, past Ari, past the Thug with the mace, past Rae, past the Thug with the sword, around the corner, and into the open room. He comes in hot; swinging his hands around to cast Burning Hands. The flames st-
This Thug is clever. When he heard the scream he stopped and thought before acting – a rare action for Thugs. When the attack came from the other direction, he reasoned it must’ve been a magic caster. When the other Thugs rushed to attack, he readied an action to cast Magic Missile at the first sign of anyone using magic.
Three shimmering blue darts stream out, hitting Cypress for 9 damage as he starts to cast.
Cypress grunts and is pushed back but he releases his stored energy and casts. The Burning Hands spell erupts out from his… well his hands, a cone of hot yellow flame spilling out of his hands, washing over the magic casting Thug.
Hey, what’s all the commotion? Having heard a scream and now the sounds of a small battle, another Thug enters the hallway from the room he was in.
“Hi everybody!” Hello Thug-tor Nick!
Haha, nah just kidding. He comes into the room with a ready crossbow and fires it directly at Ari’s chest.
Time out. Let's pause here and take a short break from the action here to describe the scene.
In the hallway we started in, Sorin is standing there – arm outstretched – having just fired a firebolt. In front of him, Ari is crouched down in the doorway itself getting ready to spring up for her second attack. The door is flung wide open and has dented the dirt wall in the spot where a mace is half buried in the wood. The mace is stuck in the wood with no one holding it, and the hand that was holding the mace belongs to our first Thug, who is currently bending over and tearing his hood off due to it being on fire. On the other side of him, Rae is against the cold stone wall holding a cut arm. Across from Rae, against the other wall is our second Thug, grinning at the blood trickling down her short sword as she blocks off the archway into the large room.
The room itself is about the size of a living room. Nearest us are some supplies in the corners, crates of food, some clothes, etc. Next to one of these stacks is a small metal stove. Its door is half open, filling this part of the room with warm yellow and orange light. It has a chimney that runs up to the ceiling and then to street level. There is a kettle and some small pot of food cooking on top. To the side of this stove is another fire… well a man on fire. This is our magic caster Thug, standing there ignoring his burning clothes and preparing a spell of his own. Next to him and in the middle of the room is an upturned cask and a few smaller crate boxes serving as a makeshift table and chairs. There are some cards and game pieces scattered across this “table” as if a game has just been interrupted. Surrounding the table and filling out the back of the room are 7 bed rolls, all laid out with a bit of space between them, and some packs next to them. On the other side of the ‘table’ is another cask, this one with a spigot in, and propped up on a short trestle. Back towards the entrance, near the other stack of supplies is Cypress Witchazel, with fire dying in his hands and cold calculation in his eyes.
Then back in the hallway our tunnel continues to one side, and in the far corner, next to another tunnel, stands our last Thug. His brick-patterned cloak billowing as he lifts his crossbow to aim at Ari.
Ok. Time, back in.
The first Thug stands up now that he has tugged off his hood, and thrown it on the floor. He is just in time to block the shot of the crossbowman from hitting Ari, and he takes a quarrel to the back.
Ari remembers that she’s had bad luck with her daggers lately and she draws her rapier instead, swinging it wide as she draws it, and slashing the Thug.
This guy has had enough of this. Grunting with the effort he retreats to the back of the hallway next to the crossbow Thug, and fires off a round from a short bow. As he fires, the muscles around the quarrel in his shoulder twist wrong, his bow tilts upward, and the arrow is shot into the ceiling
Rae grabs the shoulders of the second Thug standing in her way and blocking the entrance to that room. Rae nuts ‘em. Slamming her forehead into the Thug’s face and causing some blood to trickle out around the eye. Rae trips the Thug, tossing her over an outstretched leg and down to the ground, Prone for a turn. Raelle-The-Fearless dashes into the room and swings at the magic caster, just missing as he dodges, and dances back.
All this dexterous dodge-fighting is clearly getting on the nerves of our mace wielding Thug. He lets out a roar and charges forward. Cypress rams his fancy leather pauldron into the knee of the magic Thug, knocking him back and down onto the ground, also Prone for a turn.
Meanwhile in the hallway, Sorin kept his arm outstretched and now he raises the other one next to it. Between his arms there is a familiar blue-ish shimmer and three darts form as he casts Magic Missile. Two hit the crossbowman, and one lands in our now-hoodless first Thug.
The Thug at the end of the hall grunts and pulls the string back, determined not to miss this time. He fires and lands a bolt in Ari’s guts, knocking her to 0HP.
I am a kind and benevolent DM, and i decided to let Ari’s first death save count as a roll to see if she stays conscious just long enough to slam a health pot into her open gut wound.
The Potions of Lesser Healing sloshes over the open wound, sizzling as Ari slips momentarily into unconsciousness. The red glittery potion flows over the wound and where it touches, it dissolves into the damaged flesh around it, rebuilding the organs and the muscles, and pushing the quarrel out of Ari’s intestines.
Our first Thug takes advantage of the confusion while Ari is almost bleeding out. He slings his bow over his neck and he uses both actions to Dash into the main room, past Rae and Cypress, and into the far corner before ducking down by the bags there.
Rae lifts her staff high in the air with both hands at the end like a baseball bat. She swings down to smash the in face of the Thug caster laying on the floor. (i want to point out here that she had advantage, because of the Thug being prone, but she rolled a 2 … twice). The Thug’s eyes widen and he rolls quickly out of the way. Rae gets angry. She channels the last of her stored Ki and kicks out to stomp his face, using her feet in a Flurry of Blows. (She rolled two 2’s again here). The Thug rolls back and forth dodging again and again until Rae jumps and stomps down, and finally landing a solid hit in his stomach.
From the ground the Thug casts Firebolt but his aim is off from trying to avoid Rae’s kicks. The spell flies out, hitting nothing, and fades into the ceiling.
The second Thug in the entry to this room spends her turn standing up, or in fancy mechanical terms; un-prone-if-y-ing herself.
Cypress wants this Thug back on the ground and not posing a threat. The little cleric runs over and sticks his staff between her legs. Then grabbing the two ends of the staff, he twists his whole body, turning the staff like the handle of a giant corkscrew. One knee buckles and folds as the other cracks.
The Thug collapses on the floor.
Sorin’s higher mind functions are back online now, and he has a clever idea. He casts Blade Ward on himself and reaches into his pouch. He feels around with his fingers and finds the potion bottle with a bit of red ‘warning string’ tied to it. He runs past Ari and into the main room and then he '“accidentally” and casually “drops” this “health” potion in front of the Thug Cypress just knocked to the ground. Then he keeps running past and takes cover behind the large barrel.
Mister Crossbow takes aim again and pulls the trigger, but the bolt is jammed in too hastily and it flies crooked, again missing Ari this time.
Now it’s Ari’s turn to be pissed (that’s why we have initiative order, so that everyone has a turn to be pissed). Her vision blurs as she comes fully back to reality. “I guess I should’ve started with this after all.” Her left hand still clutching her gut, she reaches her right hand up. She puts part of her necklace between her teeth. Feeling the radiant warmth of the beads, she grabs one bead and tugs. Ari cocks her head back, ripping the bead off its chain. Ari spits out the necklace and flings the Bead of Fireball down the hall. It hits the crossbow Thug for 8D6 damage. It hurts.
Thug #1 found what he was looking for in the corner. He stands up with a red bottle in his hand and downs it before pulling his bow back to the ready. He draws the arrow, but gasps as the healing washes over him. He loosens his grip on the arrow, but doesn’t release.
The caster Thug is still on the floor with most of his clothes on fire and doing damage to him every turn. Rae stands over him. She finds a large section of burned skin and smashes her staff down against the raw reddened flesh. The Thug grits his teeth, refusing to scream, and then he winks.
Cypress recognizes the hand patterns as he casts Cure Wounds on himself. Cypress’s eyes go wide.
How DARE this villain cast such a holy spell in the name of doing more harm!
The cleric rushes over and his mace makes a loud crack against the Thug’s ribcage.
Sorin jumps up from his cover behind the barrel and fires a Firebolt at the Thug in the corner, undoing all of the healing that the potion just accomplished.
Ari leaves her charred mess in the hallway to join everyone in the main room, taking out her bow and firing at the same Thug in the corner who first tried to hit her with a mace. The arrow lands and takes out the rest of his HP, knocking him unconscious.
Rae lands one more kick on the magical Thug as he tries to get up, bringing him down to just 1 HP.
As he tries to pat out the flames that have been draining his HP this whole time, Sorin’s cold gaze falls on him. “F̶͔͂ĩ̶̘̣̽r̵̭͍͑e̴͉̿͒b̵̤̊̚ô̸̤̪l̵̫̝̆t̵͓͑” The magic Thug’s head CLUNKs against the stones on the floor.
The last remaining Thug is back up on her feet and looking around in a panic. She tries to flee, but Ari cuts her with a Rapier swing, before lifting the sword point threateningly to her throat.
Sorin jumps up and points to the bottle at Ari’s feet. “Pour the poison down her throat!”
Ari’s sword drops to her side as she turns and stares in disbelief. “Sorin, whu-”
The Thug, now even more scared, tries again to run past the half demon while she’s busy being distracted – by having more morals than the wizard.
Before she can take more than a step the Thug’s knees buckle again as Rae lands another hit to them. The Thug crumples to the floor kneeling and throws her head back screaming in pain.
Without a moment’s hesitation to even listen to a shoulder angel, Sorin grabs the bottle of poison off the floor, uncorks it, swirls it around to start a vortex, and rams the open neck into the screaming mouth of the thug.
In half a second the bottle is drained. A moment later, in dead silence and with stiff, open eyes, the Thug slumps over on the floor, a now-empty bottle rolling out of her mouth.
Three shocked faces stare at Sorin.
A long moment passes with no words, just stunned silence and the crackling of the stove.
Cypress places one of the constabulary tokens on the unconscious Thug.
And that’s the last action in initiative order. We’ll close here and start next time with a bit of post-battle clean up after such a big fight scene, and probably a long rest. But, i’ll leave us off with this.
Cypress Whitchazel, Cleric of the second level in a church of life, picks up the bottle of poison from the floor and stares at a college educated wizard. “When we get back up to the city, I’m signing you up for an ethics class.”
“How’s the patient?” he asked Derby.
“Dead to the world.”
“But not actually dead.”
“No.”
“How nice—to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”
-Edgar Derby and the Englishman, Kurt Vonnegut, “Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: Chapter 5 A Duty-Dance with Death”
Table talk:
In this big fight, Cypress reached Level 2 cleric-dom, so i will spend some time going over some notes and getting spells lined up with Diedrik.
For those of you counting, our heroes now only need to knock out 1 more Thug to be free of The Constabulary contract! Exciting! I wonder what will come next!
We keep having some trouble with the Command spell with where and how it can be applied in game (with people, with certain commands, against will, etc.). So this week i’m gonna spend some time looking at the internet and scrolling through angry comments to try and find a general consensus.
On a side note, here is my page of notes from this week. I tried to do a better job with keeping track of everything this time. Hopefully it equaled out to a better summary. Thank you everyone for your feedback.
