We got into the cemetery by climbing over the wall, since the entrances were guarded and no one was allowed in at night. We found the tomb we were looking for, but it had been looted. Not specifically for the stone, but by tomb robbers that had hit the cemetery several times, as we later learned.
On the way out, we were stopped by four duergar. They demanded the stone, and when we refused to give it to them (because, you know, we didn’t have it) they did their duergar enlargement thing and then we killed them. Towards the end of the fight, we were assisted by an elderly cleric, who explained the recent occurrence of robbed graves.
We did find a key in the tomb, and by checking with the appropriate guild were able to determine its manufacturer. Eventually, Mercenary convinced her to tell us for whom she had made it, and when we interrogated them, they directed us to the shop of a certain necromancer and his two apprentices. Mercenary also made sure to bring the old cleric along with us.
We broke into the shop, and down through it into the sewers, where we found the necromancer and a couple of his skeletons fighting a group of kenku. The necromancer offered to surrender if we saved him, so we killed the kenku (and the skeletons, for good measure) and left the necromancer in our cleric friend’s custody as we ran to pursue four other kenku. These kenku had stolen the stone and fled past the bodies of the two apprentices and out into the streets.
Thus began the chase. The kenku were fast, and we had to race to keep up. Mercenary Action Surged in order to gain some ground, and even with my short legs I was able to keep up enough to shoot one of the four dead with my crossbow. At the same time, Airina lost ground, and Parvus ran into just about anything and everything he could, falling way back.
Eventually the kenku split up. Mercenary caught up to one, with me close behind – although it was around that point I hit the third and fourth levels of exhaustion and wasn’t able to contribute much more – but it didn’t have the stone. Another ran past, and Mercenary grabbed it, only for it to throw the stone back to the first one. It tried to escape by going into a tower and holding a child as a hostage, but Mercenary and Parvus were able to catch up and intimidate it into letting the kid go, before things got messy. Meanwhile, Airina found me collapsed on the ground, having hit my fifth level of exhaustion, and healed me up just enough so that I could walk again.
Finally having retrieved the stone, I left the others to get drunk at the Yawning Portal on the way home. Before the others reached the Goblin’s Mug, they were ambushed by kobolds. Mercenary and Parvus both went unconscious only to be healed back up in the ensuing fight, which, considering they were fighting kobolds, was much harder than it ought to have been. I blame the fact that I wasn’t there to help, and not the fact that our DM once again rolled a bazillion critical hits.
The others eventually won the fight, with the last couple of kobolds fleeing into the night. They reached the Mug, and some time later, I got back to my shop. Well-earned long rests ensued.
The following morning, we investigated the stone. As it turns out, it is an aboleth, in stone form for some reason. Parvus attuned to the stone to learn its secrets, and it started speaking in his mind. It explained where Renaer’s father’s secret vault was located, how to get in, and, oh yeah, that a freaking dragon guarded its contents. At least now we have a solid path to travel, even if there is a fiery, flesh-rending complication at the end of it.
One other thing of note happened before we ended the session: Pubert Pubert, P.I. retired from the party. I have decided to stop playing Pubert, for two reasons. First of all, from a character perspective, the more I got into his head, the more I started to question why he was with these people at all. He didn’t particularly like them, he didn’t have a stake in their race, and, most important, the danger they kept getting him into was putting his personal goals at risk, which I realised he would not have put up with. Secondly, from a player perspective, I wasn’t really feeling it, and during the session, I had an epiphany as to why. The characters that I have most enjoyed playing have been happy, generally carefree characters, and they’ve all had a strong sense of wonder. Pubert, and the other characters that haven’t been highlights when I look back, have lacked that. I simply decided that that is the direction I need to go in to enjoy the game the most. So, Pubert explained that he didn’t like the others, but he respected their dedication to their cause, and wished them well before stepping out of their lives.
In other interesting housekeeping news, Airina’s player is currently on a temporary hiatus, so she’ll be NPC’ed for the foreseeable future, and, perhaps more interestingly, we supposedly have a new player joining us next session. So that’s two new characters next week. Combine that with the solid new direction we have to head in, and it is interesting times ahead. Interesting times indeed.