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Session 33, The Search for Angelique

Paldegora 

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Session 33 – 2024-02-10

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==== Summary ====



==== Detail ====

There is a split campaign running at the moment, Angelique is missing. They don't know where she is or what is or has happened to her. She is keeping a separate journal of what is happening to her. It will be inserted here if they all survive enough to get back together again. In the future, we will add her notes here. 

= = = = = = Angelique's diary = = = = = =

Dear Diary,
I feel two sets of hands grab me, dragging me backwards, almost yanking me off my feet. I can’t tell which direction I was taken. But I could sense a change in atmosphere. I moved through something, not sure if it was a door or something else.

While it was still dark my staff was ripped from my hands and a bag or cloth was forced over my head. Then my hands were grabbed back behind me. Whoever it was is very strong.  They dragged me away.  A few steps later the sound came back 

I hear us struggling, then a man and woman say, “you need to be still”. They are just dragging me along. 

Angelique – “Who are you? What are you doing?” (I get no answers to my questions.)

 “Be Still”

I try to determine if I recognize their voices, I am not sure. (missed roll)

I am dragged some distance, not sure about making turns or going through doors and after a few minutes I sense another change in the atmosphere. It seems warmer. They keep hustling me along and I feel like we made a turn to the left. Then dragged a little further, then the male voice says,” Open the door”. I heard the keys jingle and the door then unlocked. The door squeaks and I am dragged inside. The door slams shut. 

Angelique- “Hello?” 

I am dragged over and slammed into the wall.  I hear a girl or woman laughing.  They rip my bags and belongings from me and throw them to the side. 

Then my arms are grabbed, and cuffs put on my wrist and feet and then chained to the wall. They then rip the bag from my head.

I see 3 other people with me in the room. Braziers lit. There are chains, cuffs, cage and old blood everywhere.  Then a half elf woman comes up to me.

Sarah - Ha! So, this is the bitch that all the fuss is about. You don't know how much I looked forward to getting you in my little playroom here. Lord Mathias will be in shortly to speak with you, and it's my job to ensure you have the proper attitude when he arrives. I've thought up some especially painful things just for you. I have been looking forward to trying them out.

She starts pulling out these wicked looking knives and stuff.  She takes a step toward me.  Marlena comes forward and grabs her by the neck and starts squeezing her and says...

Marlena - “You will not touch her for any reason.”

Sarah - “What is your problem? It's my job. Let me go.”

Morgan - “No one touches her! Not until our agreement is completed. Understood? She is to be delivered to Mathias unharmed, as required.”

Sarah - “OK, ok, just let me go.”

Morgan - “Very well.” “Let her go, Sis.”

Marlena lets her go and steps back. She says,

Marlena - “Now, why don't you be a good little psycho slut and run and get Mathias so we can get this business concluded?”

Sarah looks at them with a scared venomous look. Then she leaves the room.

Marlena and Morgan lean up against the wall and start mummering to each other.

Angelique- “Look, you two have helped me before. What is going on? Help me out of here.”

Marlena - “unfortunately my dear you’ll find out soon enough.”  Then she says something to Morgan, and he nods. 

About that time the door opens again and Sarah walks in, then a man who is dressed differently and clean, someone that I have seen before. He walks in with Sarah behind her. Sarah is looking timid toward the twins, kinda of scared, and give them a fuck you look. He walks in and glances at me, then looks at Morgan and Marlena.

Mathias - “Morgan, Marlena so good to see you again. Well done! Your payment is being sent to your quarters as we speak. By the way, her troublesome companions are in the main temple. Feel free to eliminate them now.”

Morgan cocks his head sideways and says, “No.”

Mathias - “No? What do you mean no?”

Morgan - “We only eliminate targets under contract or those unfortunate enough to get in the way. We don't kill for any other reason.”

Marlena - “We are professionals. We have our reputation to consider. If we start killing people left and right, we would be no better than your little psycho slut there.”

Sarah looks at Marlena and gives her an evil bitch kinda look. Mathias steps back and says...

Mathias - “Oh really? So how is it you chose to kill Sir Charles when you failed to acquire the diary as I asked?”

Marlena snickers and looks over at her brother and says...

Marlena - “He is not very bright, is he?”

Morgan - “Easy Sis. We are more than capable of working on more than one job at a time.”

Mathias -”Do you mean to tell me someone else had a contract out on Sir Charles? What about the diary? Were they after it also?”

Morgan - “No, and the diary wasn't in your contract, otherwise you would have it now.”

Marlena - “We did shake him down for it, but it wasn't with him at the time.”

Morgan - “We simply had no obligation to pursue it further”.

Mathias - “Damn it! I needed that diary! Who put a contract on him?”

Morgan - “That, I'm afraid, is confidential. So, if you wish Miss Blazecaller's companions dead you will have to handle that yourself. We are not doing it.”

Then the door opens again with a really disturbing looking figure, creepy with red eyes... Sarah moves out of the way. He walks in. 

Mathias - “Yoakum, I'm glad you are here, did you send word we have her?”

Yoakum - (monotone creepy voice) “I did. I know Master Aphobis will be very pleased at the news. All precautions have been taken for the inevitable response from the Order. He is well prepared for the repercussions of us capturing Silverstien's granddaughter now.”

Mathias - “Good, good! I hope to shortly have even better news for him.”
“Now then, down to business.” He turns and looks at me. 

“So, Miss Blazecaller I have some questions I need answered before we get to the main reason we have you here. You can of course choose not to cooperate, but I can assure you we will get all the answers from you in time. One way or another. You see, Sarah here is skilled, very determined, and highly motivated and can be most persuasive. Now then. Tell me, where is the diary?”

Angelique – “I don’t know, we could not find it either when we got there.”

Morgan interrupts and says...

Morgan - “She and her friends no longer have it.”

Mathias whips around.

Mathias - “What do you mean?”

Morgan - “I suspect she left it with Archmage Tinkle when they met him outside of Frosthaven.”

Mathias - “What!? Why the hell wasn't I already told about this?”

Yoakum’s demeanor changes and he seems nervous, and he says...

Yoakum - “This is bad Mathias! I warned you he was liable to pop up somewhere. I'll have to let Aphobis know this immediately. This might put my Master in jeopardy within the Order before he is ready or even aware of the danger he is in!”

Mathias - “Damn it! Tinkle and Silverstein are always either nipping at my heels or a half-step ahead of me.”

Morgan - “Perhaps Miss Blazecaller read the diary and can provide you with what you need.”

Mathias - “Maybe so. There is the one thing they don't have, and it will put me well ahead of them again. We will have to move quickly!”

Marlena - “Maybe that idiot of yours, Rohgard, read it?”

Mathias stops and looks at her and says...

Mathias - “Rohgard is currently fermenting in the bog for losing it, to begin with, and failing me with his stupid idea about using her blood.”

Marlena just laughs.

Mathias - “So Angelique, tell me then what the diary said about the three artifacts and the Heart of the Dragon. You do know what that is, don't you?”

Angelique –” No, I was not able to read the diary. It was not in a language I could understand.” 

Mathias - “Sahn has commanded we find and release the Dragon Emperors and use the Heart of the Dragon to control them and bend them to his will.

You see, we followers of Sahn were very close to acquiring those artifacts ourselves from those white bitches on their precious little island when that fool Lundar stole them out from under everyone's nose. I'm not sure how he did it, but he was able to use them to defeat the dragon spawn. I had determined their true purpose. They were created by the Grand Archmage Timothy Montague to defeat and imprison the Dragon Emperors. I also surmised Tim then hid the Heart of the Dragon on his island. Why else would he make his island disappear and impossible to find without Azar's map? What I don't know is how the artifacts functioned. Perhaps you can shed some light on that for us? What did the diary say? I know you read it, you had to read it.”

Angelique – “I don’t want to tell you. It’s none of your business.”

Mathias – “I see. Also, I'm guessing you and your friends know how to find the Dragons Vale. Where is it?”

Angelique - “We have not quite found it. We don’t know exactly where it is”.

Mathias - “But you know where it is or where to go to find it.” 

Angelique - “We still have not found it.” 

Mathias – “I will find it and I will have those artifacts if I have to kill Lundor and everyone in the Vale one by one! 
 “Very well. I will just leave it to Sarah to extract this information from you. But now, let’s get to the most important thing, the real reason you are here.  Perhaps you recognize this.” He reaches into his coat and pulls out a ring.
 
{{:paldegora:sessions:angeliques_ring.png|}}

Angelique – “Where did you get that?”

Mathias – “I took this along with the map from your father when I caught up to him. Why I took the ring at the time, I am not really sure. I am glad I did. You see your father was not the weak unassuming scholar he pretended to be. He was truly quite an accomplished wizard. He enchanted the map and locked it so it could not be opened. I was able to detect the ring was needed in some way to open it, but everything I tried failed. With Archmage Aphobis's help, we determined what was missing. You see, the ring is needed indeed, but only a Blazecaller wearing it can unlock it. Very impressive and sheer genius. That, however, presented a unique problem for us. Your father was dead, and it would be impossible to make your grandfather Silverstein open it. Your mother was useless since she was not a Blazecaller by blood. That left only you. They both must have guessed you could be in some kind of danger because they put magical spells in place to hide you. We put spies all around to find you and watch you the old-fashioned way, but even with that, we could not seem to get an opportunity to capture you. That is until you struck out on your own. Even then, we were not sure of your identity. Proof came the day I touched your hand outside the Three Points Tavern. Perhaps you remember that day. Then we knew it was you for certain.”

“Because of your troublesome grandfather and his impish friend, we still knew we could not just grab you up. We had to let you come to us, courtesy of Morgan and Marlena here helping you all along the way. Now we have you! So, I'm happy to return your father's ring to you, because you are going to open the map for us.” With that he reaches into his cloak and pulls out a map. 
 
{{:paldegora:sessions:map.png|}}

It looks very old, jeweled and seems to glow with magic.

Mathias tells Sarah and Yoakum, “If you would hold her hand and let's get this ring back on her.” Sarah and Yoakum come up. Yoakum grabs me by the throat and holds me up. Sarah grabs me by the arm, takes a knife and starts poking it in there to force my fingers open. She slips the ring on my finger. I try to struggle, but she is very strong.

Mathias- “Hold her hand steady.” 

He walks up and touches the map to the ring. Pop! The two snaps open.

Mathias - “After all this time, now we finally have it! Now we’ll have the directions. Now we’ll find the heart of the dragon!”

He flips it open, looks at it for a minute, then his face changes.  The blood drains from his face and he turns white. His eyes fill with rage and walks toward me. He holds it up to my face.

Mathias - “Read it! Tell me what you see.”

I look at it.  It is definitely a map with like instructions. A very detailed drawing of an island with a small, sheltered harbor, where ships come in and out, maybe a little village, and I see a stone hold a little way up the valley.  On the outside of the map around it I see a drawing of a maelstrom surrounding it. Up above I see longitude and latitude, but the numbers keep changing. On the side, there seems to be some notes, but they keep changing. I can’t make out anything, but the picture of the island doesn’t change.

Mathias- “Tell me, what do you see?”

Angelique – “You tell me.  What do you see, you see the same thing I see.

Mathias takes it back and slams it shut. 

Yoakum – “What, What?”

Mathias hands it to him.

Yoakum - “I don't understand this. it's all gibberish. Did Sullivan put something else on it?”

Mathias - “No this is not his doing; this is Azar himself.”

Marlena – (just dies laughing)

Morgan - “With that, it's time for us to go. We have other business to attend to. We will stop by our quarters and collect our payment.”

They start moving toward the door, Marlena pauses and looks at me... (not hateful)

Marlena - “You may find this odd Angelique, but we both enjoyed protecting you. It was fun for a change.” 

Angelique –” I enjoyed your protection. Thank you!”

Marlena - “I would wish you farewell now, but unfortunately, your fate is no longer in our hands.”

Angelique - “If you ever find me again in trouble, I would appreciate your help.”

 Marlena bows to me. They walk up to the door and Morgan opens it. Something happens

Morgan - “Until another time.”

When he says that, their tattoos begin to glow. They get brighter and as they do; they are gone.

Mathias looks pissed off.

Mathias - “Yoakum, go and send a message to Aphobis and inform him of what we learned and about our new situation with the map! Ask him for suggestions on breaking this damn enchantment. Then meet me in the map room and let's see if we can match this up to some island somewhere and begin assessing this obscurement magic!”

Yoakum - “Very well.”

Mathias - “Sarah, get some of the guards together and send them to kill our other guests. I don't care if some of them have turned, instruct them to kill every damn one of them. Oh, by the way, you can kill that other stubborn bitch now and have her body taken back to her crash site. That should send a message to that pain-in-the-ass sister of hers.

Then get back here and get to work on Miss Blazecaller. Extract the information we need. Use whatever method you see fit and maim her however you wish, I don’t care, only do not, do not kill her! She is too valuable a hostage and the perfect weapon to use against her grandfather.”

Sarah - “Consider it done my Lord.”

Mathias - “Now go!”

With that she leaves for the door to the west. Mathais and Yoakum leave to the east. I am left only.  A few minutes later, Sarah returns. 

Sarah -” I do have one thing to do first.”  

Where my stuff is thrown, she starts going through it. She finds the bag of holding. She starts going through all the stuff. She takes the gold. She starts going through my personal stuff.  She finds the pendant with a green stone in it.  

Sarah -” This is pretty, where did you get it?”

She looks at it and the moment she does a bright lime green light flashes and blinds me.  When my eyes came back to me, I noticed she was laying against the wall unconscious. The pendant is on the floor. It’s not doing anything. (I remember, we got it from Tinkle.)


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= = = = = = = = Main Journal = = = = = = =

Angelique is missing. Snatched away from them in the hallway outside this temple room, in darkness and silence. The only clues they have at this point were that something tussled with her, moving by Cal and shoving Symon out of the way. They have been unable to find any trace of what happened to her. When the darkness and silence lifted, she was nowhere to be found. Cassandra ran through the tunnels as if chasing after them but never caught up to anything. There was no sign outside the tunnel of them leaving. With that in mind, they focused their search inside the structure. A temple of sorts to Sahn. They looked around the main room but knowing she wasn't taken into the temple room they began looking at the doors leading out of the room. As they were moving toward an exist to the main room on the north side, Cal stopped, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back a little. Cassandra returned about this time and walked into the room asking, "What happened?", when she stopped, closed he eyes, and tilted her head back. Eryn told Xor to grab Cassandra and she was grabbing Cal to carry them out of the room. Cal and Cassandra found themselves standing in ethereal rooms with wispy cloud like fog lightly drifting around them. "Is this what dead looks like?", ran through Cassandra's mind. They both heard a very large mysterious voice. It said, "To know your own heart, and mind, one must be willing to face yourself as you truly are. In this, the true power of your inner self can be released and receive the blessings of Sahn.". 

They were not together. Each was in his or her own room. Across from them was…well…them. Across the space from Cassandra was Cassandra. There was an anger, or rage on the face of this duplicate. Her weapons were drawn and she started moving toward her. The same thing was happening the Cal. His duplicate, full of hate and rage, was on the move. The real Cassandra pulled out her weapons and shield and growled as she charged into counterfeit-Cassandra. Cal, minus the growl, prepared to receive his counterfeits charge. The fights were on. Cal's fight lasted a couple of rounds as he was already wounded so they didn't start with full hit points. The counterfeit Cal won that battle. Cassandra's fight took several rounds as she started out fully healed. The real Cassandra won her fight. As she finished her fight, she woke instantly in the temple standing where she had stopped moving. Cal had just woke up as well. Very quickly the memory of what had happened to them began fading. After a moment, they couldn't remember. To the others, they had only been in that state for a few seconds. Cal seemed to be thinking very hard about something as Xor asked him if he was okay. Cassandra shook it off and got back to the business of finding Angelique. 

As Cassandra moved toward the door, Cal walked over to the statue of Sahn and looked at it. He decided to topple the statue, face forward. Using the extra strength of the girdle, he began pushing on it. It was really tough and began to move a little but didn't immediately fall. He pushed harder and it popped some more, leaning further forward, but then rocked back into place. He tried again, Xor began moving and was thinking about helping as Cal seemed to be stalling on his third attempt. Eryn took a run and then leaped, performing a flying dropkick against the back of the statue. This gave it that little bit of extra something to make it finally fall forward. The top of it hit the alter and everything on it flew up into the air. The skulls scattered. The alter was crushed. The crystal ball fell onto the floor and cracked. Cal stomped on the back of the head of the statue, working through something for sure. Eryn picked up the cloth she had covered the crystal ball with before, and covered it again. Her thought was that if someone was able to use that ball to look in on them, she wanted them to see nothing but cloth. 

Eryn said, "Well, that felt good but I guess we need to get back to it. Do we want to go through these doors?", as she pointed top the northern doors. At that, Cal swiftly turned around and gave her a disconcerting look. He seemed a little angry with her which was totally unlike him. Then he turned around and walked over to the crystal ball and tossed the cloth away and picked it up, looking at it. After a brief few seconds, he hurled the crystal ball, with his improved strength, into the far wall. It shattered and released a black, ethereal kind of smoke, monster like thing. Seeing this, Cal, Eryn, well, everyone began pulling out their weapons, expecting a fight. After a moment, it spread out and slowly dissipated. Eryn said, "I hope that's not running around in here now!". Cal seemed to be having a moment. He sat down, head in his hands, visibly working through something. To everyone else, he appeared emotionally shook. Xor walked over and asked if he was okay. He looked up and seemed to be relieved, patting Xor on the shoulder and then motioning toward the door, indicating his wish to continue on now. As they headed to the door, He stopped at Eryn and gave her an "I'm sorry", sort of look. She smiled letting him know that they were okay. She turned and headed toward the door.

The door was made out of a very strong metal, and it was very cold. She tried to unlock it but failed. She pulled out some oil and worked it into the lock, then let it sit for a moment more to really work it's way in. She tried again and successfully unlocked it. She opened the door and found a hallway, leading east, lined with eight stone statues. They appeared to be a cross between some sort of demon and human. They were armed. The hallway was lit. They began moving down the hallway, Eryn was leading and being extra vigilant for any sort of trap. About half way down the hallway, two of the large statues, the fourth one and the fifth one, suddenly animated and attacked. Eryn took a hit. The group ran forward to returned the attack. Cal hit one and though it was a solid hit, he didn't think it did as much damage as it should have. After a few rounds, they destroyed them. Eryn had taken a lot of damage so she gathered doses of healing potions from everyone to get back up. 

They continued on down the hallway again. None of the other statues moved or attacked. They came to an archway that led to some steps going down, to the south. Eryn carefully checked them and they moved down them. At the bottom was a hallway continuing south. There were some stairs further south going back up. There were two openings, one west and one east. There were voices coming from the eastern opening. Symon made Eryn invisible and she snuck up to the intersection and looked both ways. The west continued on with a door on it's southern wall about middle way down. The eastern archway opened into a large dining room with lots of tables. There were two guards eating in there. There were a couple of weapon racks. She moved down the hallway to the west. She stopped and listened to the double doors in the middle of the hallway and heard what sounded like snoring. She moved to the end of the hallway and peered both ways. To the west in front of her, there was a set of really ornate ornamental doors with all kinds of depictions on them. The hallway continued to the north and south. She tried to line herself up with the rooms above, hoping to find where the circle that Angelique disappeared from sat in relationship to where she was now. She couldn't determine a correlation between the two floors. 

She didn't want to leave the others alone too long so she went back to let them know what she'd found so far. She checked back on the two guards eating and they were still there. She spied an opening beyond them that appeared to be the kitchen. She explained what she had seen to everyone. Symon suggested that if they could get uniforms, they might be able to move around more freely. He asked about the snoring in that one room. Eryn thought she only heard one person snoring but the doors are thick and it may be that she only hard him because he was close to the door. They decided to move down the hallway and see what was in that room. Eryn tried the door and it was unlocked. She cracked it a little and saw that it was a very large room and there was carpet. She opened it a little more and decide it was a barracks with lots of beds and lanterns were burning a little more dim. She stuck her head through the door to see the rest of the room. There were twenty two beds of which five were occupied. One was sleeping and the other four were sitting there working on stuff. They all turned to face the door. They all jumped up and grabbed their weapons. 

Eryn backed up and whispered to the others to go back and around the corner. That was heard by the men moving toward the door so they burst out of the room before anyone could get away. They engaged. Eryn was trapped behind the men as they moved out into the hallway and engaged Cassandra and Xor. Symon backed up around the corner preparing to prevent the two guards from the dinning room from joining the fray. As they moved to their door, he hit them with a color spray, stunning them. Xor and Cassandra charged forward and engaged a couple of guards. Eryn got behind one and delivered a vicious backstab to one of them but then was visible and became a target. Cal couldn't engage directly in melee so he pulled out his swords and turned to face the guards that would be coming from the dining hall and waited. Symon had stunned them already so he scrambled to disarm them while they were unconscious. He looked for a way to tie them up. In the kitchen he found a woman and boy working, or hiding now. He told them not to worry as he looked for something to use to tie the guards up. He grabbed a bag full of food and ran dumping it out as he went. He cut it into strips to tie up the guards with. 

Eryn finished off the guard she had back stabbed. The battle went one a few more rounds. The guards were especially good fighters and many of the party took a lot of damage. Cal broke his magic short sword. Symon did get the two guards tied up but not well. As they finished off the others, Eryn and Cal moved back and re-secured the two guards. Symon approached the woman and boy in the kitchen again to try and get some information but the woman was obviously too scared to talk. She wouldn't let the boy respond either. She just told Symon to leave them alone. They questioned the guards they'd captured and put them in the back of the second kitchen. They got no information out of them, just threats. They found two more sets of stairs in the western opening off of the dining hall. The north and south sets of stairs went up while the western staircase went down. They went back and searched the barracks. There were four rooms in the barracks of which two had weapons and armor while the other two rooms were privies.  

Xor dragged the bodies out of the hallway and back into the barracks. He put them in the beds to make it look like they were sleeping. In searching the barracks, they found 25 gold, a few unremarkable daggers. In the armor area, the found uniforms and thought about wearing them as a disguise but Symon reminded them that everyone they'd run into had tattoos and red hair. They had no way to achieve that look. As far as disguises go, it would likely fail to achieve their desired results. They found a bag of gems worth about 100 gold. They found another 200 gold pieces worth of stuff and two potions of cure light wounds. In examining the guards, Symon and Cal thought that they looked part dwarf, maybe part elf, and part something else mixed in. They were all heavily tattooed. When asked if they served Grizzolo, they didn't respond to that, only continued the threats. He did get that they do the will of their Lord, Sahn. Finally deciding that there was nothing else to gain from questioning them further, Xor asked Symon if he should take them out. Symon looked at Cal and said, "I don't think our friend here will have that!". Symon left the room. Cal gave Xor a look of disappointment as he left the room. They gagged them, making sure they couldn't get anywhere, and also made sure there was nothing they could use to cut their way free. 

Cal left the room then and checked the weapon rack in the dining hall. He found a mace, non-magical but very well made. After thinking about it and realizing that there were less people here than there should be, Cal went back to the guards and asked if they would be willing to tell them anything about Grimbog Vale. They got the same responses as before. Symon suggested that they might be able to help them with it. Again, he received no information from them. He finally asked the guards if whatever happened in Grimbog Vale several nights ago had killed their companions. The guard said, "I don't think I'll answer that question!". Then Symon asked if they'd won. The guard didn't answer. Symon judged from his demeanor that the conversation was over. 

Eryn had an extra +2 dagger which she offered to Cal to get him by for a while. 

The stopped there.

Start the recorder!

They received 798 + 80 = 878 xps.

They also received 45 gold each.