It was bound to happen sooner or later: a session where we didn’t almost all die. In fact, Airina and I didn’t even get into combat. Parvus was beaten unconscious and robbed, pretty typical of him, looking back at the campaign thus far, but otherwise, things went really, really well. And, to cap it all off, a half-joking suggestion from me turned into the most enjoyable segment of D&D I have ever been a part of. Let’s get to it.
We started by exiting the sewers and holing up at one of Renaer’s regular haunts, while he disappeared for a while. We were able to take a long rest, and on his return, Renaer brought a Scroll of Greater Restoration. Airina was able to cast it on Parvus, restoring what little intelligence he had to begin with, and we were almost back to normal. There was just one more thing to take care of.
While the rest of us returned to the Yawning Portal to deliver Floon to Volo, Mercenary took Droop’s body to the local temple of Tempus, her deity. There, she paid 600 gold and the promise of a favour to have him raised from the dead. Thankfully, the spell succeeded, and we got our lovable goblin chef back. Party fully restored.
Meanwhile, in lieu of payment, Volo rewarded us with the deed to an old, rundown tavern. This was actually nuts, because without knowing this was going to be a quest reward, Mercenary had been planning on opening a tavern once we reached Waterdeep as far back as when we first discovered that Droop was an excellent chef. The following day, we organised the proper and legal transfer of the deed to Mercenary, Parvus and Droop. Neither Airina nor myself wanted a share, but for different reasons, I suspect. Personally, I would have leapt at the opportunity as a player, but King has no desire for such things, and character will always come first for me. Regardless, we now had a home base.
Over the next ten or twelve days, while the tavern was being fixed up, we all split our separate ways and took care of personal errands and other such things. Airina mostly toured the city, while Mercenary and Parvus conducted missions as new members of the Lords’ Alliance and Knights of the Gauntlet respectively, to varying results. While Mercenary successfully murdered the giant gribbly monster that she encountered while on her protection duty, Parvus ran into some trouble in trying to prevent gang warfare between the Zhentarim and the Xanathar’s Guild. He got into a fight and was beaten unconscious and robbed, but he was able to collect the rest of us and we tracked down his assailants and intimidated them into returning his stuff without a fight.
At the same time, I was splitting my focus between setting up a workshop in the attic of the tavern, doing a little crafting, and research. I had found an artifact in Wave Echo Cave that was incomplete and marked with deep speech writings, and with Volo’s help, we were able to decipher their meaning. They spoke of a vault containing knowledge, wealth and power being available to those worthy enough to find it. This will become pertinent soon.
Towards the end of the renovation period, we determined that the tavern was haunted. We had been told as much, but at first hadn’t seen much evidence. However, strange occurrences, items and furniture being moved around and such, combined with our paladins’ sensing divinely about the place, soon told us we had a poltergeist. We weren’t able to uncover it directly, and because I thought it might be fun, I suggested we could hold a seance. I set up the scene with candles, a makeshift ouija-esque board, the whole shtick, and then Mercenary led us through the most entertaining segment of D&D I have partaken in to date.
Mercenary began by calling to the spirit, and over a bout of questioning and the marker moving across the board, we learnt that the poltergeist was Lif, a former owner of the building, and all he wanted was for it to be opened for business. We already knew he had put all his effort in life into putting the place together, to no avail, and now he wanted to become its ethereal protector, which we gladly accepted. It played out as an atmospheric, immersive, and super fun segment.
And then we were freaking seance-crashed.
Lif suddenly told us he wasn’t alone, and then a new spirit was talking to us. He explained himself to be ‘the king of knowledge of past and future events’, and went on to speak of the desire for ‘knowledge, wealth and power’, the key and that it must be completed, and that ‘chaos is the way’. Unlike my companions, whom I hadn’t shared Volo and my findings with, I knew exactly what he was talking about, and it was super freaky and totally unexpected that he just showed up like that.
Eventually, he left, and after Lif was gone too, we ended the seance. The fact that the whole thing came from what was almost a throwaway suggestion from me, and that our DM pulled it all out of his butt, was amazing. Massive props to him for that.
The next day, we held the grand opening of the Goblin’s Mug. Just about everyone we had met in Waterdeep up to that point came, since Mercenary and Parvus had been relentless about advertising the joint. Partway through the party, we were summoned to meet the Blackstaff, a powerful mage and friend to Renaer. She offered us low level positions, which Mercenary and Parvus accepted. And that’s where we finished.
So, not a lot of ‘exciting’ things happened this session, but it was still a corker. Not getting into a fight makes it the first session where I never felt like I was about to die, and even though we surprisingly got enough XP for me to level up, I wouldn’t deny trepidation over the fact that next week is King’s session 5, nor the fact that, given Cardigan could be argued as having died during session 5 or 6, it is entirely possible that it might be a six session curse this campaign, which means I’m facing two weeks of terror.
Anyway, the seance was dope.