The party finds the fairy Circle in Lofton Castle, and the fairy king Aurelian and queen Aurora tell them the harpies are working for the Hollin Coven. Aurelian and Aurora say that one Coven witch, Laurel, is a fairy changeling but doesn’t know it. The party goes to Cankerblossom’s Black Cabaret to find Laurel, and Beale beats Cankerblossom in a performance competition. Instead of finding Laurel, they find the surviving Duchesses of the Wake, the harpies Hecate and Ursula. Casca throws down on the Duchesses and the party kills Ursula after a chaotic fight.
Wendy's character Casca was a pre-generated half-elf on the character sheet, but human in the game. She still had some half-elf powers like immunity to Charm and Sleep and we discussed why, in-game, a human might have those abilities. Wendy said that Casca might be a changeling, and that she woke up in the forest with her gear and clothes but didn't know who she was yet. “Casca” was scrawled across her equipment so she'd been calling herself that. She met some merchants on the road, traded some herbs with them, and went into town with them.
Hughe's background said he maintained a monument to Ajana, and we discussed where that might be. Keith said it was in Braddock, maybe in the heart of Braddock, but we settled on the boundary between Braddock from the City of the Dead. Hughe's background also said he supported an orphanage and we discussed where that might be, but Keith said Hughe might not actually be doing that.
Casca received an inspiration point for recognizing that "Luna" and "Flora" were nature names in Game 1.
The party left the Chapel of Ajana in Dunham for the fairy Circle in Lofton, with Gregor and Barley. On the way:
To go from Dunham to Lofton, you can take Mendes Street from the Roundabout north to Quay Street, then follow Quay Street along the riverside to Market Street in Braddock. Along Quay Street in Dunham, you see the hectic Admiralty shipyards. There, a dozen ships under construction tower over the street, including the Admiralty’s new flagship, Harbinger. The shipyards are industry on a modern scale. You know that, if needed, the shipyards can focus to build and launch an entire common warship in one day.
As you follow Quay Street out of Dunham into Braddock, commercial docks and warehouses replace the shipyards. People here seem to be more working class, including lots of foreign sailors, and peddlers catering to them. Here you see the Stiles and the Intractable, which are asylum and prison hulks respectively, that have been berthed here since before memory.
You reach the intersection of Quay and Market in Braddock, which is the heart of Hollin. From here Market Street goes south past the open market, called the Shambles, and the ancient Mooncalf hotel, eventually leading to the City of the Dead. Market Street also goes north to the old town, Lofton, crossing the river on a high pedestrian bridge.
As you turn north on Market and cross the bridge, at the high midpoint, you can look down into Lofton - an old medieval town now reclaimed by forest. Among the overgrowth you can still make out that Market Street continues north through Lofton, and is crossed by another major avenue that leads west to the abandoned Lofton Castle. It looks like about 2 miles from the bridge where you are. In the distance, Lofton is bordered on the north by two high granite cliffs, one on your left and one on your right.
They continued across the bridge into Lofton and toward the castle. About a quarter-mile from the castle, they met Gertie and Thelonious, two street urchins from Braddock looking for wormwood and love-in-idleness for Chambers the apothecary. As they were talking with Gertie and Thelonious, they saw a silvermote come out of the ground.
On the ground off the road but nearby, you see a red insect about an inch long crawling out of the ground, struggling to do so. It has a narrow forebody with six black legs, and a more bulbous rear section. It climbs a few feet up a tree's trunk, then seems to attach itself there, and then moult. Its skin breaks apart and a silver bug emerges. The red shell left behind is kind of creepy, it's a skin shell that looks like a complete dead insect, with its own legs and everything.
This first silvermote attacked the party, and as they were dealing with it, several more came out of the ground and attacked. They soon realized the entire seventeen-year silvermote brood was emerging and filling Lofton forest. Hughe grabbed Gertie and Thelonious and they ran for the castle gate.
They pushed through the gate into an outer courtyard, and they were surprised to see dryads attacking Admiralty lumberjacks who'd been cutting down the biggest oak there. In the second of Casca's shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later episodes, she decided to side with the dryads and Eldritch Blasted a lumberjack. The party then ran to the inner gate, skirting the outer keep wall to avoid the fight.
Once inside the inner courtyard, they found a circle of grand mushrooms, a fairy circle. The Circle soon materialized out of the air, including the fairy king and queen Aurelian and Aurora, some smaller fairies, and some very small Tinkerbell-type fairies.
Aurelian and Aurora bowed low to Barley and seemed to know and respect him greatly. They talked with the party, telling them:
The party wanted to go to the Eyrie, but decided to find Laurel first, and to look for her at the Black Cabaret first.
The Black Cabaret performs at different unannounced locations, and the party headed to the Mooncalf for lunch and to find clues about its next venue. The barkeep there told them he'd seen costumed people taking a stretcher of food east past the Mooncalf, and speculated they might have been taking it to the Cabaret. He said Kasskar lived at the Mooncalf and might know more.
They visited Kasskar in his Mooncalf room. He told them he didn’t know where the Black Cabaret was going to be that night but that the Whipsaw bar, where there was normally an underground bare-knuckle boxing ring, was the kind of place the Cabaret performed. Kasskar said it was to the east, which was consistent with what the barkeep told them.
They decided on the Whipsaw. Casca went ahead at 10:00 p.m., and Beale, Hughe, and Rowen arrived at midnight. The Cabaret was indeed there, already in full swing.
The stage is at the far end of the Whipsaw's basement, and you can see that the Cabaret is a theatre of the absurd. There’s some kind of farce in progress involving guys in a horse costume, and people are feeding the horse different things in the mouth and in response different things come out the horse’s rear. Like they put an egg in the mouth, and then a live chicken comes out the horse’s rear.
The audience floor is packed with people laughing, eating, drinking, and talking with the girls from the chorus line, who are down in the crowd talking with them when not dancing. Chefs bring two giant roasted boars into the center of the room, pushing through the crowd, and there are clowns riding the roasted boars, whipping the boars with riding crops like they’re racing to the center of the room.
As you enter the room, you see the Cabaret’s emcee there, Cankerblossom. He’s essentially a Russell Brand with a top hat and a long black victorian coat with buttons all the way down the front.
Cankerblossom recognized Hughe as a Cabaret regular. Cankerblossom saw that Beale was a bard, and said he would help the party if Beale could outperform him onstage.
Cankerblossom sang a song about how a four-legged horse can't dance a 3/4 time waltz, and a second song claiming he'd killed the second-to-last Master of Revels and thrown his body off the bridge to Lofton. But Cankerblossom performed poorly, and Beale performed two songs wonderfully, winning the competition.
As a reward, Cankerblossom told Beale that Laurel wasn’t there, but pointed out two beautiful women at a table near the stage, working their charms on an unsuspecting young man. Beale recognized them as the two girls who’d left the fight in the Chapel of Ajana the night before. Cankerblossom told Beale they were Hecate and Ursula, the Duchesses of the Wake who ruled the harpies in hell, and that Golnaz was the Duchess they'd killed at the Chapel.
In Casca's third itchy-trigger-finger incident, she immediately stepped over and threw down on the Duchesses, loudly accusing them of stealing her man and throwing over their table. Hecate turned invisible and escaped, but Ursula stayed to fight, and summoned a devil and two imps just as Golnaz had.
Two Tinkerbell fairies, unexpected help from the Circle, appeared and joined the party. Beale used Fairie Fire during the fight, and being an embodiment of chaos, Cankerblossom decided he'd add a little wildness to the fight by lighting up both sides with Fairie Fire himself.
The party killed the devil and imps, but kept Ursula alive to interrogate. They found the Girdle of the Cool Appraising Stare on her, which Beale claimed.
The Girdle of the Cool Appraising Stare: gives the wearer +1 to their CHA bonus, has 1 charge that is renewed at dawn each day and allows: the wearer can expend the charge to cast Suggestion or Silence.
When Beale took the Girdle from Ursula, she transformed from a beautiful woman into a grotesque harpy, just as Golnaz had. They interrogated her, and she told them in broken speech that the harpies were working for the Coven in exchange for the Ring of Greater Pulchritude, the Girdle of the Cool Appraising Stare, and a similar broach. The party discussed whether to release Ursula as a gesture of goodwill, but the more practical members of the party stepped in and killed her.
Since they hadn't found Laurel at the Cabaret, they decided to go to Ulm's Monument next.
The party went to level 4 after this game.