Whoo, this one was a big one!

Overview

Yuantine confronts his past. Quywn learns something new. Fistandia sees a path forward.

In this session, we had a lore drop by the wizard Fistandia, who had been saved in the prior session after being basically kidnapped, drugged, and used as a human battery for 75 ish years.

Her speech to the party was thus:

Fistandia: I wanted to... thank you. For... for giving me time. Time to heal, time to be... free. It has been an... adjustment.

Now, I'm sure you all have questions about, well, everything, that you're burning to ask... and I probably have answers... but before we get into that I think I need to tell you a story. A story about the past, and how it has influenced the present. How it might influence our shared future.

Once, long, long ago, I sat at the pinnacle of personal achievement in the mystic arts. I was the head of a school of magic in the lost city of magic - Mach'Lithe. My achievements and my hunger for advancement brought me to the eye of the The Angel Empress, Revasha Faror who invited me to sit upon the Council of High Magic.

It was in my seventh year in that position that the Empress approached us with a secret task: create a ritual that could, potentially, safeguard the Empress herself or a successor against any possible attack. At the time, I thought it was honestly an exercise simply to get us all working together again - the year prior had been rife with infighting and clashing opinions among the Council - but now, looking back, I think she'd become aware of a potential threat well before any murmurings began.

Anyhow, it consumed us all, and we collectively - secretly - set to the task at hand. It took 8 months for theory and planning to resolve into trial and action, but we, together... (She looks at Freyot apologetically) we did it. It would require refinement, of course... and the setup was complex, intensive, costly, and took longer than we'd like... but the theory worked in practice. We were able to temporarily remove a room from the flow of time and re-deposit it back into the timestream at a specific point.

We completed four trials, initially on a simple object, then a desk and its contents (including a live lizard), then on a closet, and finally on a decently sized room with a few volunteers. First removing the item for a day, then a week, then two weeks, and finally for a full month. It was working, exactly as we'd hoped... so we eased off the pace, locked the ritual scroll within an arcane spell case, and put it and as many material components as we could into Masarak's Vault to be used once we'd been given approval to try it on an even larger area.

With everything safely locked away within a protected vault accessible only to the members of the Council, we each returned to our individual focuses, and two years later the scroll was used when Freyot and I were in the City of Brass within the Elemental Plane of Fire, and, well... we can all see how that went.

My theory is that - (Freyot places a hand on her shoulder) - right, right. Not the time to dive into that. Does anyone have questions at this point?

After that, we rejoined the party in the streets of Lavan, specifically, at the local arena enjoying some gladiator matches! And we met two gelatinous cubes with riders who worked as arena cleaners. The party joked that they should be named "Zamboni" and "Zambini" so they are now!

Scene 1: The team is enjoying an afternoon at the Arena, and witnesses a pair of fights. The first set is a pair of Prakkean adventurers facing off against another pair of human fighters, Silver Light Adventurers. Who wins will depend on luck, but also on how much aid is given to them.

I had some fun (I thought) audience mechanics that allowed players to purchase various items/boons and have them applied to whatever side they wanted to win. They could:

Throw stones at the fighters. 1 bucket of rocks (5 rocks) for 5g. 1d4 damage on a d10 hit. Throw in a potion. Healing (60g) Fire/acid/cold Breath (70g) Giant Strength / Giant size (500g) Fly (1000g) Trigger a trap (50g) (fire, acid, pit, falling column, spikes, paralysis, etc) Add feral beast (150g) (Owlbear, Bear, Wolf, Lion, Tiger, Jaguar, Bull, Giant Salamander)

The Prakkean adventurers (Culturally gypsy-stereotype-like folks) were the winners of our first match. They won the players over instantly with their vibrant clothing colours and underdog charm.

Our second battle of the evening was were the real meat of our session started - here we had two new competitors enter the ring. One of which was - unbeknownst to him at the time - a rival of one of my player characters.

Torvald's Battle Initially, the orc comes in with a full-face mask, there doesn't appear to be any eye-slits, looking like a solid piece of black steel. His skin is a unique orange-tinted shade, not typical for most orcs, who are usually a shade of grey, green, dark blue. Particularly light grey orcs look nearly white, while dark ones appear almost black - orangish-red is a very atypical skin tone for an Orc.

The clash between the Minotaur and the Orc is quick, and brutal. The Minotaur charges, and in the last moment the orc side-steps, viciously punching into the minotaur's side. He reels, but recovers quickly as the orc moves in a weirdly off-balance way to close the gap, attempting another combination of punches. The minotaur takes one on the pauldron, but is already in the process of delivering his own, which shoves the orc back several feet. They charge towards each-other, and the minotaur rears up to bring down a massive two-handed tomahawk blow on the orcs head. It connects and a loud crack can be heard, but the minotaur's body is between you and the orc. At nearly the same instance, the orc's attack continues and his right hand slams up, into the chin of the minotaur with such force as to immediately snap the head backwards savagely, breaking his neck and killing him instantly.

As the announcer screams for a cleric, and you see two clerics scrambling into the arena, you see the blackout-mask fall off the orc's face...

For Quywn, when you last saw this man it was at least a decade ago, maybe more. Sometime within the last 40 years. When was the last time you saw him? He was a long-time family friend of your father and mother, who had some sort of business dealings with him. You always thought of him as a kindly old uncle-type; he'd bring you little trinkets and baubles, including occasionally little pets - lizards and other desert dwelling creatures.

For Yuantine, you recognize this man as well... in a very different light. This man is a monster. A tyrant who hunts people for sport. The last time you saw him, many years prior, he was covered in the blood of one of your family members (younger cousin?) and was grinning ear to ear. He had beaten you - he thought - to death. Nobody knew you survived. Once, many orc tribes lived in The Blasted Lands, but they each were visited by this Warlord and either absorbed peacefully, or - much more commonly - beaten into submission and devoured.

Yuantine, taking my bait, chooses to jump into the ring immediately and a second later Peril follows, and then finally Quinn also follows. Peril has no dog in this fight, but he's a ride-or-die friend and if anyone in the party is throwing down, he's gonna be there.

It was a heck of a fight. I had two different stat-blocks behind the screen for if Yuantine was going to 1v1 this guy, or if the party was going to try and gank him. I wanted it to be a fun fight either way, and even with my beefed-up group-fight stat block they managed to get him past half HP... so he busted out his secret weapon:

Torvald has a black one-or two-handed sword that on a crit adds 4d6 extra damage, and you roll another d20 - on a 20, you cleave off a limb. The sword also has a pommel with a deep green gem in it. if it's turned (and activated) it will fire off up to 3 Disintegrate spells. This can be done up to 3 times per day.

He managed to down the party, but only barely and then walked off, having mocked Yuantine for his weakness... offering to let him try again if he dared and warning him that next time, they play for keeps.

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