Ep 1204: We are on the hunt

So when we last left our adventurers we had just struck a deal with the Council of Metallic Dragons. We need to go get an apology from the King of the Wood Elves for this great calamity his ancestor caused (that seriously was bad for dragons), or retrieve an artifact that this King owns as repayment for the damage. This King may or may not be friendly towards us as we killed his son. To be fair, his son had turned evil and was a green dragon's rider. But we killed him after the combat was over and after questioning him extensively.

This artifact is a powered suit of plate mail. I think our paladin started drooling at the mention of that. Then again, I think the rogue did too. The plan as of right now is to secure this suit of armor and then visit the King to try to convince him to write a formal apology. We're treading close to a couple of lines, Magnus doesn't take kindly to acts of stealing, and Elle doesn't take kindly to acts of enslavement/permanent loss of a person's free will.

Unfortunately the dragons did not know where it currently was, so we had to go back to Waterdeep -- a 2 day dragon flight away. However the dragon council has a teleportation circle and Itanis is skilled in this magic. And they allowed us to use it. So we teleported back to Waterdeep, where everyone dug into figuring out where this power suit is stored. And with some astounding luck and Tsedek's knowledge of item acquisition, it was figured out that the item was sent to the monks at the temple of the broken body. Well that sounds just delightful doesn't it? Yeah. No.

So we researched these monks, to see what religious aspect they took on. Yeah, it's not a religious organization. Turns out, through some calamity with a portal to the 9 hells, a bone devil has made his residence here on the material plain and recruits people. Well, that most certainly got Magnus' attention and was fully on board with retrieving the suit.

Further research tells us the suit has subsequently been moved from the the temple of the broken body, but we should be able to garner more information at this place. After dealing with the bone devil.

So off we go to where this temple is located, which was several days travel but for game-play sake we fast forwarded through this to finding this temple. Turns out the temple is underground, literally floating in the air. Wizards, you really got to reign them in sometimes it seems LOL. And there's a sphynx as the guardian of the "ferry" there, demanding the fee for riding on the ferry.

The fee is you have to tell the sphynx a riddle that it can not solve in 30 seconds. We failed, which is sad, so it asked who was going to pay the toll. Magnus, being the paladin, was like I will. So the sphynx walked up to Magnus and bonked him on the noggin, and let us pass. Itanis then figured out the toll was to take a point of intelligence from Magnus. He only had an intelligence of 7* to begin with.

*sigh*

So we get on the floating "ferry" and get up to the temple, where we are greeted by a hooded monk who warmly welcomes us and would we like to go to the leader to see if we would be accepted as supplicants. So this idiot monk leads us straight to the leader. Yes, the bone devil. With his two beefy body guards. And several hooded monks as observers.

What we notice when we walk in is the bone devil is wearing leather made up of faces and upon further observation realize those faces used to belong on these monks. Not a single one of them had faces. Yeah, Elle's thoroughly grossed out right about now.

The bone devil was livid that this monk brought us straight to him without disarming us first so he promptly killed the errant monk. So we decide to do the same, well, to the bone devil of course. Elle in her new I'm going to be an adult phase steps backwards and behind Magnus. He makes a good shield and she's not allowed to carry one of her own.

Leoven proceeds to spider-climb** up a column and start shooting at the bone devil. Tsedek walks right up to the bone devil, but holds his attack until Magnus gets there. Magnus almost gleefully strides right up to the devil and swings with the light-bringer maul, so Tsedek also starts swinging his new deadly whip.

And that's where today's session ended. Yes, really.

* Game clarification: stats run on a 1-20 scale, 10/11 being pretty average citizen, below that is challenged, above that is above the normal. Magnus' 7 intelligence is less than ideal but Paladins are not intelligence based. As wizards both Elle and Itanis need to have high intelligence.

** This is absurdly funny to Elle as some of our older travels and stories include Leoven constantly being spider-webbed and not able to get out of them. Seriously, every time we encounter spiders he gets stuck. To the point where he's borderline Arachnophobic. But when we recently upgraded our skills and equipment he took a cloak that gives him this ability.