Abyss Modified Session 26: Nobles and Dragons

Our adventure tonight started with the party fresh out of the magic extra-dimensional tent, Thelrum, Tamin, Drifting Cloud, Buttercup, Syre, and Dinak taking the halflings back to Thistlebottom. The travel went quickly, they had both the kirin and the unicorn with them, scaring off most of the monsters. Once arriving in the empty town, they helped the halflings rebuild their lives, or at least helping them build a fence to keep out bad things. The halflings bid them farewell and thanked them for all they did to help them.

They spent some time discussing whether or not to fly on their hot air balloon to Baldur’s Gate or if they should take their new steeds, the skeletal horses. After a few minutes of option weighing they chose to take the skeletal horses, that way Syre’s white dragon cohort could follow along. The rest of the party that was not actively there took the hot air balloon and Telegar to Baldur’s gate ahead of the rest of the group. The white dragon had been charmed but the time the party spent in the magic tent expended the duration and the dragon just stuck around because it had no clue where its family was. So, the party made their way west, watching as the cute dragon kept making strange cooing noises and staring into the sky, looking sad and flying about, ogling shining thing like coins or buckles.

Eventually the baby dragon grew very excited and the party heard a roar, much louder and closer than they would have liked, and suddenly a large sized white dragon busted into the scene, attacking Syre, the one between it and the baby dragon. The group attempted a counter attack, from skeletal horseback, some tried turning invisible, but dragons have blindsight and hilarity ensued. Both Syre and Dinak were caught in the breath attack of the larger dragon, taking massive damage. The little dragon realized he could do this too, and also hit them with its frosty breath. The party started launching a defense but the larger dragon picked up the baby, took to the sky, and started flying away, leaving the party frost bitten and without a dragon. They had lost a few of their skeletal horses in the scuffle as well.

They picked themselves up, healed, and argued about for a bit, blaming each other, eventually hitting the road again. They traveled until night fell and made camp. Thelrum used illusion to mask their camp to look less like a clearing and more like a forest. During Tamin’s watch he heard talking in the woods so he went to investigate, finding two younger humans trapped in the illusion. They were complaining about the thickness of branches barring their path. Both Tamin and Buttercup snuck up and disarmed the pair.

It turned out they were two noble brats that had run away from home with most of their father’s cutlery and nice dishes slung in sacks over their backs. They wanted to make their own adventuring group and were attempting to track the party to steal from them. It turned out they were terrible at this as well. Drifting Cloud set up a zone of truth spell and with the rest of the party interrogated the two young adults, Hengle and Franzwort. They had no life skills so Syre, Buttercup, and Dinak wanted to kill them. Drifting Cloud wanted to keep them alive and Thelrum suggested to take them back to their parents and maybe collect a bounty or reward, and with them being nobles possibly even warm beds and food for a few days. Tamin, having somewhat of a thieving streak himself, vouched for the kids and wanted to take them under his wing, which they were thankful for.

They tasked Hengel and Franzwort in setting their camps, catching and preparing food for dinner, and carrying their heavier gear. They proved to be somewhat useful in this but potentially murderous eyes of the party watched them, the party making sure they did not get betrayed and poisoned by talentless noble brats. The kids turned out to be pretty good hunters and gatherers, showing up with entire deer and a wide plethora of vegetables for every meal. The group was suspicious so they summoned another zone of truth and found out the pair had found a deer trapped by a farmer that was trying to keep the deer out of his fields and had also pillaged said fields themselves for their meals. They claimed it was fine, their dad was in charge of this area anyways. The party made them apologize to the farmer and return what they taken. They continued their journey well into the evening, knowing they would make it to the noble estate the next day.

That night they set up camp and watches as normal. They noticed there was an oversized owl that was watching over them and it nodded and flew off. Later, Buttercup saw a strange ghostly figure standing in the mist on her watch. The figure watched the sun come up over the hills and silently screamed as the sunlight hit it, dissolving in the beams of light. The next morning, they continued their journey. They passed a few other travelers, their two thieves avoiding eye contact with anyone on the road. They eventually made their way to a well-manicured estate northeast of Baldur’s Gate. They followed the topiary flanked main road to a large main house, seeing other buildings in the area and noticing servants working to maintain such a lavish estate.

The group was met by a small elderly gnome butler that thanked them for returning the soon to be punished young lords, who at that point had been grabbed by a few guards from the manor and taken inside. A few in the party mentioned it was a good thing they did not kill the young lords while in front of the butler. Butler informed them that if they had so much as backhanded one of the young lords they would have been hung. The party looked around the premises and noticed most of the gardeners were watching this conversation and up in the manor house they could see a massive man in a robe drinking from a wine bottle. One of the party recognized him and realized that was Lord Thaddeus Bloom, the paladin who, along with his friends, drove off Tiamat and the cult of the dragons less than ten years ago. The group was led to a smaller building, the field house, to use as their lodgings for a few days as a thank you for bringing back the wayward boys. Guards were posted to make sure nobody wandered away.

They made themselves at home, exploring and finding a large library, a modest kitchen, rooms for each of them, and a rather comfy sitting room by the front door. A few of the party investigated the library, finding all sorts of strange books on the history of dragons, the history of the Bloom family, and a secret cubby space. Syre and Thelrum looked into the space to see a large golden book, realizing it was bound in gold dragon scales and locked with adamantine chains. Two bright eyes appeared, belonging to a small clay person, which informed them the book was not for them, and closed the cubby space from the inside.

Buttercup looked around and found a painting of the strange misty figure from the night before and did some digging in the family history side of the library. She found out this elf, Kanther of Lan, was one of the ancestors of the Bloom family and ended up going insane and fell into darkness. It seemed the Bloom family had many intermingling encounters with elves.

Tamin attempted to arrange a meeting with Lord Bloom and impressed one of the stewards assigned to stay with them, claiming to be a distant Lord Snow. They watched as the steward ran back to the main house and started to talk with the older gnome butler. The gnome motioned for him to lean closer and slapping the steward across the face. The steward returned to the party and informed them the lord would not meet with any of them, his thanks was enough for lowly adventurers. They could see the steward’s teeth were bloodstained and his face was already bruising.

They rested for the evening, setting up a watch and a few alarms just in case of funny business. In the middle of the night one of the servants triggered the door alarm but was just bringing in meat for the next days meals. In the middle of the night Dinak felt something strange, noticing a shift in his vision. He woke his allies and they felt ground tremors, just around midnight and an hour later. They had no clue what the source was but none of the patrolling guards seemed to pay it any mind. The party hung out for another day, investigating even more of the books and ended up trading a few with the strange clay man and learned a bit about the Bloodwar, an odd topic but it sounded important. They also were treated to basilisk eggs for breakfast. The gnome butler arrived and told them the lord would not be meeting with them and they would be expected to leave in the next few hours. The party eventually made their way out of the estate, leaving that life of luxury behind.

They quickly found their way to Baldur’s Gate, finding an active if dodgy larger city with a hot air balloon tethered to a guard tower. The guards informed them a group of “heroes” had arrived in the blasted thing and that oddly was the best place for it. They stabled their remaining skeletal horses and told the guard they were looking for the Upturned Flagon. The guard summoned a small adorable child from the street, Billiam, and he took them on a lightning tour across town to a rather trashy dive bar called the Upturned Flagon. They gave him two gold and a silver and he ran off into the crowd before they could adopt him.

Once inside the tavern they saw many other hero types sitting at horrid smelling tables, including what looked like their friends and the strange man from so long ago, the Companion. He summoned them over and they talked about their adventures, Telegar chiming in with bits from his point of view. Companion asked the party about what they wanted for a reward, some wanted money, others wanted magic items. The Companion thanked them again and told them about another bit of work he needed done. There was terrible trouble brewing in the Underdark, and he did not expect it to stay there. The meeting with Bruenor might be to late to stop what was already brewing. Drifting Cloud took this chance to take a step away and commune with Anubis, his patron. He asked a few solid questions, should he stay with the group on this errand, should he work for the Companion, and would Anubis step in if things got bad and help. He got some answers, some clearer than others.

The party wanted to know more about the new work and had some questions about why the Companion had chosen them to ask for help. He gave them vague answers that were relatively unhelpful but felt convincing at least. He brought out a contract for them, and told them he could help them on their journey, but this time he just needed them to sign his contract. We ended there for the night.