Session Four
The heroes return to the tavern in Plot Hook to raise a glass in memory of their fallen comrade. The skeletons plaguing the town collapsed into a lifeless jumble of bones when the dark crystalmancer fell and the townsfolk are all terribly grateful. The heroes are deep in their cups when Sabbath Black blearily notices the bartender is gesturing to him urgently from the back room. Sabbath joins the bartender and learns that an intense and hooded stranger has been asking questions about a kid with a crystal horn. A cry from upstairs draws the heroes from their impromptu wake and they rush upstairs to the room where they left young Steve, the kid they rescued from the haunted chapel. An intense and hooded stranger looms over the child’s bed, aiming twin crossbows at the child’s head. Rishekk dives forward and catches the first crossbolt out of the air before it finds its mark, while Sabbath grapples with the assassin, causing his second shot to fly off target. The heroes step back, confident that the mystery man will have to spend the next full round reloading his weapons – but the assassin has invested in the Crossbow Expert feat and gets to ignore the loading condition! He immediately resumes his attempted murder! Rishekk expends chi to knock the stranger prone and Sabbath summons a fiery blade that he holds against the man’s throat until he surrenders.
Glim ties the stranger’s hands and the party commence interrogation. The man introduces himself as Cole Hart, a monster hunter tracking a dark crystalmancer from the Imperial City. Hart is adamant that anyone contaminated with faux crystal is doomed to transform into a murderous abomination and that killing them in their frail human form is an act of mercy. The heroes are far from convinced, but this cold-blooded killer seems to have his heart in the right place, so they invite him to join them on their loosely defined quest to find the lost crystals.
Cole Hart the monster hunter joins the party!
The next morning, the party continue south toward the Imperial City. They are gifted a cart and a horse to pull it by the grateful mayor of Plot Hook. The horse is a cross-eyed and ill-tempered brute; Sabbath call him Gimili. There is a distant rumble of falling masonry as the fourth wall collapses. Don’t worry, we still have three more! Several days into their journey, the party are ambushed by bandits possessed of an inflexible and ultimately fatal approach toward haggling over questionable tolls. As the bodies cool by the roadside, the party deliberate over the large tree that the bandits have used to block the road. Aeneas tries to move the tree, it is too heavy. Aeneas tries to lift the cart, it is too heavy. Sabbath transforms into a bear and tries to rend the tree with his mighty claws, it is too thick. Glim grabs his flint and tinder and tries to burn the tree; it is inflammable. The party take a step back and deliberate further; they suspect they might be looking at a plot tree and make plans to abandon the cart and continue afoot. Suddenly, a disembodied voice on the wind whispers that the heroes should cooperate to overcome this obstacle. Working together, the party tries to move the tree. The tree is moved! The heroes learn an important lesson about teamwork. Maybe.
Eventually, the heroes reach the gates of the Imperial City, an intimidating sprawl of civilization spread across three tiers, each one raised higher than the last, enabling the nobles to literally look down on the people beneath them. Each tier is divided by a towering wall; the gates between districts are guarded by armoured soldiers. When the party attempt to enter the city, one of these grunts demands that they immediately come up with a group name for their fellowship. ‘Five Men and a Child’ is gaining traction until Sabbath suggests ‘The Fallen Tree’, in a wry nod to the recent team-building debacle.
The heroes secure lodging at the least awful hotel in the lower tier before reuniting Steve with the rest of Kyan’s old gang of crystal-tainted urchins. The children are gladdened to see Steve safe and saddened to learn of Kyan’s death. They cannot help the heroes bypass the wall into the middle tier of the city. Nobody in the lower tier has heard of a wizard called Imesh, but the heroes do bump into a scholar called Leonine Rann, whose life’s work has been studying the same lost crystals that the party seek! What a fortuitous coincidence! Also, Rann knows precisely where the first crystal can be found! The Fallen Tree cannot believe their luck!
Just as the story gets going, the party decide to derail it by drawing cards from the Deck of Many Things until the campaign implodes. Aeneas draws first and summons a grim spectre of death determined to suck his yummy life essence from its fleshy vessel. The barbarian sends the creature packing and reaches for another card. Aeneas immediately gains a level! Emboldened by Aeneas’s good fortune, Rishekk draws a card. He immediately loses a level and is forced to draw again. He draws the Void and his soul is torn from his body. Hart steps over the monk’s shriveled husk to draw two cards; The Comet & the Vizier. The first lets the monster hunter gain a level if he triumphs over the next combat encounter without any back-up from the rest of the party. The second lets him ask the universe (GM) any question and guarantees an honest answer.
Hart asks a question. The universe answers and then immediately swears him to secrecy because the answer would break the game.
Sabbath draws a card that lets him rewrite history and immediately uses it to reverse everything that happened in the last paragraph.
Rann reveals that the first crystal lies far to the north, beyond the town of Bleakburg. The heroes decide to travel by ship and book passage about the Squalleater, helmed by the unfortunately named Captain Frone Ovrrbord.