Session 13 - 22FEB2025

Attendees

• Tim ✅
• Walter ✅
• Erica ✅
• Jin ✅
  
• Nick ✅
  
• Alex ❌
  

Copy/Paste Source: ✅ ❌

Recap to Current Situation

•  We kill some time doing stuff in Gulg. While we are killing time, Jin decides to literally kill a guy. He was a city guardsman named Ricken. We Weekend at Bernie's his corpse to cover up the crime while Nick pretended to be Ricken to provide an alibi. Upon searching his house, we adopted his cat, now dubbed Eknon the Cat, and found that Ricken was a Red Omen member. Reporting this to The Oba, she says we are at war...

Session Notes

• The Oba asks the group to try to hurt the cultists in her town in whatever way we deem best, hopefully not making too much of a scene
• We decide to stake out Ricken's house to try to catch other cultists when they come to get him as he no-shows to whatever important thing he was supposed to do today
• We split up. Nick is staked out on the roof across the street while the rest of us go inside Ricken's house.
• Eknon the Cat is hungry while staking out, so Nick opens a can of cat food and dives into the food. The cat food brand is named Mr. Meowstopheles.
• Eknon the Cat continues to be very cute, but then the two companions of Ricken are walking down the street in a hurried way, both in city guard uniforms
• The two guards try to slyly case the joint and make their way to the front door.
• After they knock on the door, Jin opens the door and Nick uses magic to blow them into the house.
• One of them manages to stay outside the house, but Walter reaches out and pulls him in.
• We incapacitate the guards and tie them up.
• Jin attempts to intimidate the two guards to get more information
• They reveal that there are not more people supposed to be coming
• So, we decide to send Nick to The Oba to fill her in on the situation and take custody of these guards
• The Oba sends this guy named Artin along with Nick back to Ricken's house
• Artin is extremely magnificently dressed in elaborate armor and is not talkative at all
• The group waiting for Nick to come back is chilling at the house
• There is a knock at the door while waiting. This is a person that Erica saw walk back and forth a couple times
• We pull open the door and then pull this guy into the house.
• He surrenders immediately and allows us to tie him up.
• He says that he is Ricken's cousin and Ricken owes him some money
• Erica detects that he is lying, so we tie him up more completely
• Cutting back to Nick and Artin, they have made their way back to Ricken's house

• Outside, it is a cloudy, chilly day with a light wind.

• Nick and Artin enter the house
• The two city guards are bugging out when they see Artin, but the third guy mumbles "fuck..." under his breath
• When Artin sees the third guy, his demeanor changes, and he becomes more animated, donning his helmet
• Artin calls this guy his "kin" and cuts him loose, but is extremely upset, telling him that he shouldn't be here
• Artin asks all of us not to mention this to The Oba
• The stranger chimes in and says that Artin is his dad and he is just trying to help
• Erica uses her empathy ability to detect that this kid is scared, nervous, intimidated, but at the same time excited
• We decide with Artin to keep his son, Bartin (family name Jene), secret from The Oba and escort Bartin back to the house while Artin deals with the two prisoners
• Talking with Bartin, he says that he was suspicious of Ricken because Ricken was extremely talkative once he started drinking
• Ricken was talking about how strong, powerful, and rich he would soon be
• Talking with Bartin, he just seems like an overexcited kid. However, Erica is deeply suspicious...
• Taking him to his house, we see that Bartin's house is a monolithic singular piece of stone that seems to have been grown out of the ground
  • Jin remembers that this is similar architecture to what we saw in the necropolis ruins previously
• The head butler greets us at the door, and apologizes for Bartin's behavior
• Jin and Nick recognize this butler, Errol, as another member of the Red Omen
• Nick manages to get us in the house by pretending to need to go to the bathroom
• Bartin, in his excitement at meeting us, invites us to hang out with him and shows us on a tour of the house
• Asking Bartin about the architecture, he says that this part of the city is extremely old and has been in his family for generations
• Asking Bartin about Errol, he says that Errol is way better than their previous butler, Burga. Errol has been working for the family for five years after Burga retired.
• We find out the Bartin's mom passed away due to illness a while back
• We convince Bartin to give us a tour of the local architecture
• We then convince him to accompany us to the palace and meet with The Oba
• After entering the throne room, we see Artin, The Oba, and the two prisoners (they are motionless on the floor).
• Artin is shooting death stares at us, but remains silent
• We reveal to The Oba that Errol, Artin's butler, is involved in the conspiracy, so we have escorted Bartin to the palace for his safety
• The Oba tells Artin to go clean up the mess, and he promptly leaves
• We see The Oba magically extract information from one of the prisoners on the ground
• She says that there is another task that she would ask of us, to go fetch an item that will prove helpful in the coming war
• She says that the Red Omen is much more organized than she had thought
• Their plan was to assassinate as many of her inner circle in a single day to weaken her
• The Oba speaks with Bartin about architecture as she asks us to wait outside
• A page shows up and hands us a document with the royal seal on it
• As we open it, we faintly hear the sound of wind chimes, some kind of protection spell to make sure that the right person opened up the message
• The letter asks us to retrieve the Obsidian Orb (no other information provided) from the Anarchist Zotogeus League, way across the ocean
• Our knowledge of the Zotogeus League is that it is mostly regional rulers and largely comprised of monstrous races (trolls, goblins, etc.)
• We make our way out of Gulg (along with the VARDIS & Porkchop). Also, Erica makes an automatic litter box that disposes of cat poop through an inter-dimensional rift. We don't know where it goes, but it works, so it can't be bad...right?
• We head to the nearest town that has a Council of the Few building in order to meet with The Archivist.
• After meeting with The Archivist, we realize that he is no longer hiding himself under bandages
• The Archivist is very interested in Eknon the Cat upon meeting him. We found a vet!
• He says that the Obsidian Orb that she has tasked us to get is actually 1 of 3.
• It is somewhat troubling and encouraging that she has some knowledge of where one of the orbs still exists
• The orbs augment and bolster the power of beings like The Oba or The Archivist
• If they control all three of them, then beings like them are prone to losing themselves to it
• He thinks it is unlikely that The Oba has other orbs in her possession already, or it would have been known to him or others like him before now
• He doesn't have any knowledge of other orbs' locations, and is also surprised that if she knew where this orb is, then why hasn't she claimed it until now
• He surmises that she must have exercised self control in not pursuing this orb until now
• There is a Council of the Few building in the town of Lonte inside The Zotogeus League that he can transport us to