Sleeping Giants Game 13

Intro

Stratton's Lunch Date

When you showed up at the restaurant, Misha was already waiting for you. She had nabbed a table for two at a small-time family-owned restaurant called Karim’s Curry in a Hurry.

“I’m so glad you could make it,” she says when she sees you. She has clearly dressed up for the occasion, and is sporting a very clean and well-kept pink dress, with her deep blue silken scarf still resting loosely on her shoulders. She motions for you to sit, and you do. You exchange opening pleasantries for a few moments before beginning to look over the menu.

“This place has the most delicious curry in all of Dormia! I always have to stop when I’m in town. My favorite thing is the Sikander Special, you should try it!” Not long after she finishes her sentence, your waiter arrives to take your order. After some deliberation, you decide to order the Sikander Special at Misha’s insistence, which is a lentil base with chicken roasted on a spit and mini cabbages, mixed with a mouthwatering blend of herbs and spices and topped with chia seeds. Served with rice.

You place your order, the waiter bows, and soon it’s just you and Misha sitting alone at the table. She looks at you and smiles. “So, how is the tour going?” You banter back and forth for a while, and the conversation goes nowhere in particular, but you both have a wonderful time. Before you know it, the food arrives and the two of you chow down. Your meal is delicious, the perfect blend of savory and spicy. You make some additional small talk between bites, and it’s not long before the entire date is winding down. Misha has to be getting on the road, and you do as well. The two of you share a hug, and as you pull apart she remarks, “This was a lot of fun, Stratton. I hope we can do it again on your next tour.” She looks down at the ground for a moment, before looking back up at you and smiling.

“Here, I want to give you something so you don’t forget about me.” She unravels part of her scarf from around her neck, grasps part of it with both hands, and rips it. It makes a clean, perfectly straight tear across the width of the scarf, and she hands you the separated piece. “I know it’s not much, but at least it’s unique, right?” And that was the last time you saw one of your biggest fans.

Recap

Recap notes, by Laura. "DAY 4: ~1:30 PM"

• Opens w/ backflash: STRATTON with Meesha on their first date at a curry restaurant. It goes great & Meesha gives Stratton his trinket from an admirer - a torn bit of her blue kerchief...
• BACK to IT!
• Jordan asks Erki to explain herself - how she suddenly knows Jordan is Shield...?
• Erki then asked Ana why Jordan didn't understand... Ana gives a very vague answer.
• Jordan can't seem to recall why he's called Shield or ay more information...
• They agree they are from the same church @ Skyhammer but Erki won't say further now. Jordan is annoyed.
• Ford continues to look at his ~scroll~/book/important-seeming tome - it's in Draconic and covered in dragon scale.
• Lyla & Stratton look into the shadow creatures... we just know that there are bedtime stories about shadows coming to life and coming after naughty children.
• Nil investigates a transmutation aura (yellow) from the dragon's glowing red eyes... it's still there. The shadow creatures came from the shadows that had been cast by the dragon statue.
• Ana opens the other door in the library room. Opens to a hallway but the needle doesn't point that direction, so she abandons it.
• Stratton goes over too and then calls Ford over to investigate further.
• Jordan talks to Erki further... doesn't go very far...
• Ford walks down the hallway's stairs ahead of the group and tells Stratton to wait for his signal before following.
• Ford finds two doors on 100ft long hallway. Listens at one door - NAT 20! He hears through this door and the next door and hears commotion very far away behind this 2nd door.
• Ford comes back to the party now in library and lets the group know about the doors downstairs.
• Ana says the needle doesn't point that way and wants to turn back...
• Stratton wants to go on to cover all bases.
• We argue it might wrap back around. Jordan suggests this and Ana is eventually brought around to going down the hallway, hoping it'll wrap back to where the needle is pointing to.
• Nil and Erki stay towards the back and Nil telepathies to Erki - asking her what's up her, why she got her memories back, and why she's here.
• She won't say why she's here, but says disposing of those dragon shadow creatures seemed to jog her memory.
• Bellock? Not her mission apparently... apparently her mission was already completed.
• Ford and Ana lead ahead to check doors.
• Ford listens, checks for traps, then tries to open it - it's locked, he tries to pick it and succeeds.
• Ana looks in (cause darkvision + Ford has none)
• Fungus on the ceiling provides light and plants are growing. Pile of scales in the corner look to be from a dragon perhaps? Or a dragon-like creature.
• The plants are bushes & pale saplings... possibly twig blights?
• Ford goes in and starts chopping the bushes down... just in case... nothing happens.
• Ford finds a scroll in the desk. Also gold in pouches (several 100 gps) in the desk and finds four agate gems (20 gp each)... Ford puts it all quickly in his bag.
• Ana tells Ford to check the other door in this room...
• Stratton sneaks up to join Ford, Ana, and Nil
• Everyone else joins and Ford gives Lyla the spell scroll. Ford tells Nil about the money/loot he found, but she is too weak to carry it so he keeps it.
• Jordan boots in a door that Ford just checked
• Lyla caltraps the remaining door, not yet searched.
• There's enough light to see - there's another scroll, 2 nice looking books, a pile of dragon scales in a corner - gray in color..
• Nil checks out the scales
  • Gray in color, finds 3 have draconic writing on them
• Nil checks the auras of the scroll and tomes. Nil realizes that one scroll is blue for abjuration (it's very rare!), the other scroll is green for conjuration, and one of the tomes is also blue for abjuration!
• Nil deciphers the tome: "Treasures of the Firelord."
• Last tome is in Common-Druidic
• Jordan boots in the door off this room and door blows in... twigs inside; vast cavern, high roof... lots of plants. It's a room that's finished, but one side is blown out and it's a large cavern, beautiful with all the plants.
• Ford is called in by Jordan. Stratton doesn't see anything in the cavern but that it curves off in the distance. Ford doesn't hear anything... it's very quiet... too quiet?
• Ana looks down the cavern and sees it's covered in briars- likely difficult terrain.

...

• Nil's dragon scales: Written in Draconic... has bits of stories written on them, like pages from a book? Nil takes these.
• Lyla rolls a Nat20! on history check on people writing things on dragon scales - she knows this was intentionally done, but very odd. Very obscure. Not normal at all.
• (Previously Jordan had a dragon scale as well with writing on it - possibly from his brother?)
• Stratton checks out the plants growing in the cavern. Looks like plants that grow on the surface oddly...
  • Some are poisonous.. tells Ana about it.
• Jordan steps into the briars.
• Ford notices the black glow from Jordan's shield gets more intense.
• Stratton tries to jump on his back.
• Ana steps in too.
• Nil sees that it's divination magic from the darkness.
• Jordan shows that his shield is glowing. Erki's shield glows too... they don't seem to understand why...
• Apparently small creatures aren't slowed by the briars, so Stratton jumps off Ford and goes ahead of the group to lead..
• Sees a courtyard wall - blue stone wall with blue veins in it and some strange plants growing around it. In the center of stalactite ceiling - a very evil tree. Surrounded by human figures, one woman and two men. Woman is wearing dark colored robes. All humans + a 3ft long tree frog next to one of the men.
• Ford recognizes the woman as the daughter of the woman who hired us, but she doesn't look right, she has like dark tree bark skin. Other two men Ford doesn't recognize.
• One of the men looks right at Stratton and asks what he's doing here?
• Stratton casts minor illusion... roll for initiative. (Nil rolls NAT 20.) Creates a small jack-in-the-box to appear at the feet of the man... Stratton turns to go back and describe the situation to Jordan and Ana the next closest two. (We fall right back out of initiative.)
• The guy with the jack in the box at his feet walks away back towards the tree and touches the tree with a strange caress.
• The other guy (bark skinned as well) looks like it could be Lyla's brother (Elliot!)
• Jordan moves ahead SEEN. Ana moves ahead stealthed.
• Jordan says, "Oh Thalos!"
• Guy with tree on hand says, "HALT! What are you doing here?" Jordan says he didn't know there was another mine in this world...
• Rolls NAT 20! (Jordan) on history regarding why the tree is there??? - remembers economies class of selling to somewhere in this area 100's of years ago. Unrefined = magic. Refined = magic on a magnified level...