Session 8 Notes

The workroom has returned to stillness, silence broken by your heaving breaths as the adrenaline of battle slowly drains from your bodies. Celene lies dead at Thorne's feet, the corpses of Bert and Charlie splayed across the stone flooring. Only a scorched stain remains where Rufus stood before being banished by his mistress's death. Val is a crumpled ball, blood staining her blue tunic a dark purple from the wound in her shouldner/neck/chest, while Dungar lays groaning on the platform, clutching the near-fatal wound in his belly.

Yglesia quickly moves to recover the healing potions from Val’s pack, administering them to the wounded. As Gil searched the walls with his stone sense, Thorne searched Celene, recovering an elaborate looking key, an ashmadai crest, and strangely the woman’s sword appeared to merge with the rogue’s….

With Val and Dungar back on their feet, the group spends a couple minutes poking around before Gil warns that the entire chamber could potentially come down on their heads. He also recovered an old looking helm from the rubble of what was once an exit out of the workshop.

No sooner than they crossed the threshold into the secret sanctum, the entire thing caved in. Not sure why, but def not going back there! They walk back through the catacombs where they run into Friar Phillip and two paladin guardsmen. Neither side is confident of the other, but ultimately Phil directs the paladins to search the catacombs while he takes the team back upstairs to the library.

Once there, he tells them he can help them with research, and also getting food and drink while they rest and recover a bit. He informs them that they have recently added to their stock thanks to the arrival of a very loud dwarven merchant... Val and Yglesia spend the time reading about Bane and Asmodeus, while Dungar Gil and Thorne engage the young man. Thorne specifically introduces him to her speed, which seems to have a focusing effect on the scatterbrained nerd.

After getting bored with the priest, Thorne wanders the bookshelves where she is stopped by a book and steals it, but seemingly forgets it. weird…

They spend a couple hours with Phil, who is eager to help his new friends anyway he can. Unfortunately they can’t stay after dark due to the curfew, and they eventually leave him with a dream of developing a new system to organize and expand his beloved library. Thorne dubs him “Dewey,” and they depart, also leaving one of the Tanarukk swords with him.

Team heads back to the Gauntlet and the Growler, where they are greeted by Janet. Most of the tables are taken, except for an empty one occupied by none other than Bruenor the Braggadocious. After some slaphappy negotiations, they agree to escort Bruenor to neverwinter for 10GP apiece.

Booting Bruenor from the table, the team discusses their options, and some of the hanging chads of their adventures in thunder tree and helms hold. Where did the assassin go? What was the scroll? The crest and the key? Frederick’s amulet? Missing gauntlets of Helm? Karen was in the cult? What about the assassin and relationship with Haroon? Did the half orc and his dudes know celene’s plot?

The evening ends and they depart to their rooms. Dungar invites Janet up with him, where they engage in some very platonic PG roleplaying…or something….

Dungar also tried to contact Karen, but unfortunately his sending was met with silence. Brock Smashfist only brought one girl to the yard with that milkshake.

Morning dawns and Bruenor and team reconvene, perusing his map and determining their route to Neverwinter. They decide to cut west to the high road and then north to the city. Along the way they have music, lessons in dwarves, and gil displays his amazing athleticism by running for like 2hrs straight over Thorne’s mold earth obstacles and jumping through magicked hoops as they traveled.

The group finally arrives at the gates of Neverwinter, at which point team wonders if Bruenor is really as honest a merchant as he claims. That was left in question, so they decided to part ways with him before entering the city.

As they approach the gate, the guards demand their business. Val presents her neverwinter badge with a flourish, and they are granted entry into the city. Welcome back to Neverwinter. Aurelien and the Black Pearl await…..