Millicent tells the party which urchins to forge stock transfers to. They eavesdrop on Garth, Lavinia, Parja, and Helmholtz at the Mooncalf's bar, and the four talk peacefully, but the party kills them all afterwards. They go to the Company Ledger House to forge stock transfers to the urchins. Looking for the ledger there, they open a niche door safe with a hundred holes, but find secret police waiting for them inside.
The party found Hebona poison on Ulrike in Game 7, and we gave it to Virgil now.
I gave out inspiration points from Game 8:
I recapped the to-do's the party discussed at end of Game 8:
I asked what they wanted to do now. They decided to eavesdrop on Garth and Lavinia's meeting first. Kiltak suggested they should look for an honest person for Ishild afterwards, and Haden suggested they should look for the Circle's mushroom ring afterwards.
The party was still in the Grand Cistern with Millicent when the last game finished, and they finished up a few things with her.
Haden asked what Millicent knew about fairies. Millicent said that Ash Brock was the Brock king who disappeared without leaving a direct heir 473 years ago, and she believed that he was actually a fairy changeling implanted to disrupt the Gradskan royal line. She said that was all she knew, but Haden asked if she knew the Board had been infiltrated by fairies. Millicent said she didn't know that and thanked him for telling her. Haden cast Detect Fey in the Cistern, with range 100 feet, but Millicent, Klaus, Huggins, and the urchins there weren't fairies.
Millicent gave them a list of urchins to forge stock transfers to and they left.
They went to the Mooncalf's bar to eavesdrop on the meeting they'd arranged between Garth and Lavinia. Those that could disguise themselves - everyone except Barnaby - did. Lavina and Garth both arrived and sat at the bar, and Garth had the Admiralty Secretary Parja and the acting Master of Revels Helmholtz in tow.
Since the party were surveilling the meeting and weren't part of it, I figured out before the game how Garth and Lavinia's discussion might go:
Garth says he's heard about the disaster at Hobnail Prison, and that Durer, Guilder, and Alisandre were killed. He assumes that's why Lavinia asked him to meet?
Lavinia says she didn't ask him to meet - Garth asked her to meet here when they met in the prison.
Garth says he didn't ask Lavinia to meet - he hasn't been to Hobnai Prison since the Board removed him as the secret police chief.
Lavinia is incredulous, and says she saw him there and they talked there. They talked at the disaster, in the Hobnail Prison east tower where the globster killed Durer, Guilder, and Alisandre; and Garth suggested there that they meet in the Mooncalf.
Garth says again that he wasn't there. What is "the globster"? Lavinia says again that he was there - they even found his wallet in the north tower.
I'd given Garth and Lavinia Insight rolls before the game, to see if they would believe each other, or if the meeting would turn violent. They both rolled very well. Attempting to suggest to Lavinia that the Garth she was meeting wasn't the real Garth, Elgis (played by Rob in this game) Messaged her, in Garth’s voice, "Are you there? I’m running late." But, I ruled that as part of her very good Insight roll, Lavinia would know she was talking to the real Garth. The party saw a moment of confusion on Lavinia's face, but it quickly passed.
Lavinia and Garth kept talking.
Garth says his wallet went missing yesterday, after an ugly encounter with Elgis and his friends at Miss Miller's salon.
Lavinia suggests that if Guilder could disguise himself as the Hobnail chief Lars, then someone could easily disguise themselves as Garth.
Lavinia says that Brandy and Carter Cranston were supposed to lure Ulrike and Elgis into the prison to capture them. They found Brandy, Carter, and Ulrike dead there, but no Elgis. No Elgis, but Gwen Allenbrand's Gemfire Amulet went missing...maybe Elgis was lured in but survived and took it?
So maybe it was Elgis she talked to. Why would he be disguised as Garth though? Lavinia says she explicitly asked "Garth" where Elgis was, and "Garth" just said Elgis wasn't there.
Their confusion tentatively resolved, Lavinia brought Garth up-to-date on fairies infiltrating the Board, and they made a plan.
Lavinia says that Durer and Colfax believed that fairies have infiltrated the Company Board, and Durer ordered her to wipe the whole board except some known non-fairies. She wouldn't normally give "fairies have taken over the Board" any credence, but Durer and Colfax had some pretty good evidence. And after the globster disaster, she's more open to believing anything.
At the same time, the Board chair Lilly ordered her to kill a bunch of people, including Garth, Elgis and his party, and the Whitmans. If Lilly is a fairy, then presumably these are people who might know about the fairy infiltration, and Lilly is trying to wipe them out.
Garth says he doesn't know anything about fairies - why would they want to kill him? Lavinia says that Colfax thinks Garth was removed from the board because he isn't a fairy, and now the fairies want to kill him for the same reason.
Garth feels that the Whitmans at least are his allies. He could be convinced to take out the Board because they're fairies and they've turned on him. He could also be convinced to kill Elgis because Elgis seems to be framing him.
Lavinia lines up with this, following Garth's lead. She thinks aloud: the fairies are actually valid stockholders, but they were secretly conspiring to take over the Company, which is what the secret police are supposed to stop.
Garth also explained why Helmholtz and Parja were there.
Garth, Parja, and Helmholtz tell Lavinia that last night, they were all at Miss Miller's salon - the same salon where Garth's wallet went missing. They went there to complain that Miss Miller's girls were lobbying against their bills in the Great Council and defeating them, and to warn Miss Miller that they were submitting an anti-banqueting bill to the Council, to shut her girls down. Well, now they've learned that while they were at the salon warning Miss Miller, at that very same moment her girls were actually at a banquet lobbying against the anti-banqueting bill.
So they're going up to Miss Miller's apartment right now to...resolve the situation.
The players suggested in Game 8 that Lavinia could be further confused by talking with the real Garth, and maybe kill him. That didn't happen, so Kiltak now attacked them both with a stool, shouting "Fight the fairies!" The rest of the party joined in, with Virgil joining Kiltak's "Fight the fairies!" refrain. Suddenly finding himself with a front row seat to the chaos, the Mooncalf sommelier Vincent stood behind the bar and watched in dark fascination.
The party focused on Garth and Lavinia first. Virgil attacked Garth in round 1, using Brandy Cranston's poisoned dagger in one hand and the Bat's Head Short Sword in the other, and hit with both. Garth failed saves against the dagger's poison and the short sword's Waking Nightmare, taking 42 damage. Kiltak scored a critical on Garth with his maul in round 2, knocking him prone, and finished him early in round 3.
Lavinia fled in rounds 2-4, repeatedly Disengaging and Dashing, but Haden and Virgil chased her through Lofton Square and down Quay Street. Virgil hit her with Ulrike's Hebona poison and a sneak attack in round 2, for 40 points of damage. Haden kept a Witch Bolt trained on her and hit her with Booming Blade. In round 3 Virgil brought Lavinia down to one hit, and Haden finished her in round 4.
Meanwhile, back in the Mooncalf barroom, Parja and Helmholtz fought valiantly after Garth's death. Kiltak, Barnaby, and Elgis all attacked Helmholtz in rounds 3-5, and Elgis finished him with a halberd critical.
Virgil, Barnaby, and Kiltak attacked Parja in rounds 4 and 5. Virgil returned from killing Lavinia in round 4, and the Mooncalf's Pipe Warden Owen courteously opened the door so he could get in a short bow attack. Right after, Barnaby hit Parja with Guiding Bolt, scoring a critical and doing 28 points of radiant damage, and Kiltak and Haden finished him early in round 5.
The party won the fight, but not easily. Barnaby refreshed everyone's hits in round 2 with Prayer of Healing, but Elgis still went down in round 3, and had to roll a Death Save in round 4. Barnaby brought Elgis back up with Healing Word, but Parja knocked out Barnaby himself at the end of round 4.
After the fight, one of the party members (my notes don't say which) gave the sommelier Vincent 30 gold pieces to encourage any witnesses to stay quiet. Virgil did the same, plus 10 gold pieces to buy everyone drinks, and as thanks Vincent gave Virgil a nice bottle of wine from behind the bar. Barnaby gave Vincent 100 gold pieces to let him burn down the Mooncalf, to remove all evidence of the fight, but Vincent suggested he remove the bodies for them. Barnaby agreed, and I think Vincent also gave Barnaby a bottle of wine.
They quickly searched the dead. They found Garth's wallet on Lavinia and gave it to Elgis. They left the Mooncalf.
The party had a long rest in the afternoon and early evening.
The fight at the Mooncalf had been around lunchtime, so after the long rest it was about 9:00 p.m. The party headed to the Company Ledger House to forge the stock transfers to Millicent's urchins.
The Ledger House was on Walnut Street on the Great Council Square. The Great Council Square was pretty empty, and the party crowded around the Ledger House door to give Virgil some cover while he picked the lock. He did pick the lock, rolling a 15 on a DC 15 DEX check. They went in.
The Company Ledger House, ground floor
The general vibe was like a bank. A long counter separated A and B. B had several tall shelves on the north and west walls, packed with centuries of stock transfer ledgers, but they didn't find the current volumes there. They went downstairs.
The Company Ledger House, basement
They found offices in A-E, but F was a giant safe, which had a niche door lock like the ones they'd opened in Gramercy Books and Hobnail Prison. But instead of 2, 3, or 10 holes, this safe had 100 holes.
Kiltak stepped up to open the safe. Haden said emphatically that when the lock suggested a hole, Kiltak should accept the suggestion. I think Christian also said the chance of the suggested hole being correct was 99%, which was right. Kiltak agreed. He picked hole 1, and the lock closed all the other holes except hole 100. Kiltak switched to hole 100 and opened the safe. We also briefly discussed how choosing the wrong hole would have given Kiltak 100d6 damage, killing him outright.
Inside the safe though, the party found three secret police. One was smoking a pipe, and he casually put it down and told the party, "I suspected you would come here."
We'd had a long fight at the Mooncalf, though, so we decided to wrap up the game a little early and possibly fight in the next game.
Before we wrapped up, Haden and Virgil did INT checks. Virgil succeeded, and realized that the sommelier who watched them fight from behind the bar was Vincent, and that a Vincent had been referenced in one of the Hobnail Prison secret police communiques they'd found:
Durer:
Vincent reports that Ella had an unfortunate poisoning incident this weekend and died.
-- Lavinia
There was some discussion of whether the bottles of wine Vincent had given Virgil and Barnaby were poisoned.
Fayne wasn't able to come to this game, but the party killed Garth anyway.
In the moment, I felt that Kiltak attacking Garth with a stool was pretty arbitrary and chaotic. Writing up the game now though, I see that Garth explicitly said he would be open to killing Elgis, so maybe attacking him wasn't entirely without basis.
Hole 100 being the correct hole on the safe sounds arbitrary, but I actually rolled hole 100 on a d100.
The characters went to fifth level after this game.
