The party captures Laurel in the catacombs. Laurel says that Astrid will kill Hollin's fairies using the Penance Stone in three days, and that Astrid is also the Company Board Advocate, Lena. Roland discovers that "ishild" is the Coven’s codeword. Kasskar tells Faile that his old friend Aeris burned Braddock, and that Aeris is dead, but the seven strange women tell Faile that her target is in Hollin now. The party assaults Astrid/Lena’s house and destroys the Penance Stone there. Modalye argues that they should spare Astrid, but Gwynneth kills Astrid with her necrotic sword Nadim.
Keith joined us this game for a cameo as Kasskar, his rogue from the original Hollin campaign.
I said in Game 3 that Cankerblossom taught Gwynneth Counterpoint, but I clarified that he also taught Vesper.
I said in Game 3 that Captain Burns's ship was the Hedgepeth, but looking back in my write ups from the original campaign, the Hedgepeth wasn't a ship of the line, and it was also burned during the Hollin firestorm. So, Burns's current ship is instead the Dervish.
Gwynneth claimed the breastplate the party found in Game 3, and Roland claimed the encoded tomes and cipher disk.
The party finished Game 3 in the catacomb spell lab. Now Faile's invisible familiar Aardist saw five women come to the T junction and turn toward the spell lab. Gwynneth said she "liked the sound" of just killing the women and the party decided to ambush them. They pushed the lab's shelves out five feet and hid behind them, and Roland created an illusion that the shelves were in their normal place.
The party attacked the women when they came into the lab. Vesper killed one with Shatter, which Rob described as:
The woman is staggered back and suffers some kind of feedback from “passing jet aircraft,” vibrating the two desks, shattering some writing implements on them, causing blood to spurt out of her ears, epicenter of the spell, and she collapses like a doll with cut strings.
Gwynneth came out from behind the shelves, taking credit for all of the party's hidden attacks by saying "I control all the spirits, I am more powerful than all of you put together!" but also becoming the only target. Modalye cast a Minor Illusion on Gwynneth, making her glow with blue and white flames and giving her advantage on Intimidate, and Gwynneth successfully intimidated the women into submission.
They interrogated the lead woman. She didn't know where Astrid was, but she said Laurel was in the apothecary room, which the party thought was the straight-ahead door at the T junction.
They went down to the T. Aardist went in the straight-ahead door invisible, but just as he was going in, he was pushed back out by a pale, red haired-woman coming out - Laurel. As she came out and saw the party, her mouth opened wide in alarm, and she went for her daggar when she saw Roland.
The party had one second to react before Laurel screamed, and they suggested a few contradictory things in the rush: Scott said Roland would attack Laurel with his rapier and Karen said Gwynneth would Command Laurel to sit down. But the party as a whole decided to just knock Laurel out and take her. They took 500 gold pieces worth of ingredients from the apothecary room and retreated down the left-hand hall of the T. They went up the stairs at the end of the hall and found themselves in an empty chapel / monument in the City of the Dead.
They decided to take Laurel to the Circle for interrogation. But the Mooncalf hostel was on the way, and Aurora had told Faile that Kasskar at the Mooncalf could help her in Game 3, so they stopped there.
Keith kindly cameoed as Kasskar, his character from the original campaign. Here are my notes from Faile and Kasskar's discussion. In short, Kassar told Faile that his old friend Aeris burned Braddock and unleashed the undead there. But Kasskar said his party had killed Aeris and destroyed his phylactery by taking it to "a land without time," and that "everyone who was responsible has paid." Kasskar didn't know the fate of Faile's family, the Calanthes.
The party continued north to Lofton Castle and the Circle. Carissa said her idea was that Aurora could connect with Laurel and send her back into the Coven as a spy.
They woke Laurel up, with Roland hiding so that Laurel wouldn't see him again. Vesper cast Detect Fey, which lit up Laurel and the Circle, proving to Laurel that she was a fairy. The players asked whether Faile lit up, but Faile was a human raised by fairies, not a fairy herself.
Laurel grudgingly accepted that she was a fairy, but the party also had to convince her to help them. Gwynneth told Laurel that the Coven would kill her once they found out she was a fairy, and Gwynneth and Faile worked together on Persuading her. They succeeded, and Laurel told them:
The party had a short rest at the Circle. During the rest, Roland compared the Detect Fey scroll with the five encoded tomes, finding that the cipher word was I-S-H-I-L-D, and decoding the tomes. The tomes were Detect Fey, three more spell tomes, and a book:
Fey Extinction Event
9th-level necromancy
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: ∞
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous
Fairies identified by the caster (e.g., using Detect Fey) die instantly.
Firestorm
9th-level necromancy
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 1 mile
Components: V, S
Duration: 10 minutes
Urban tindling like dry leaves and paper litter spontaneously spark and set nearby buildings on fire. Within 30 seconds, the fire grows into a wall moving a hundred miles an hour, then into a tornado of flame that towers over the city and consumes all oxygen. The firestorm subsides after 10 minutes, leaving everything in range a charred ruin.
Yawning Graves
9th-level necromancy
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 1 mile
Components: V, S
Duration: 10 minutes
Dead within range rise as undead and attack the living. Graves and tombs open to release their dead.
As with Animate Dead, the dead rise as a skeleton if they are bones, or a zombie if the are a corpse.
Metallurgy of Demonium
An encoded tome describing the metallurgy of Demonium, a metal native to Pandamonium; and the creation of alloys from Demonium and radioactive metals from the wasteland plane of the Ninety-Nine.
Also, Gwynneth and Modalye used the hour to identify the breastplate and crossbow bolts they'd taken from the forge.
Demonium Breastplate
Demonium Crossbow Bolts
After the short rest the party had a long discussion about stopping Astrid/Lena. They ultimately decided to go to Astrid/Lena’s house while she was at the daily Board meeting, and look for the Penance Stone there.
On the way, in the market square by Lofton Bridge and the Mooncalf, the party again encountered the seven strange women from Game 3. The women talked with them, saying:
The party discussed who the women were, with each other and with the women themselves. They discovered the women could read their minds. One party member complained that the women weren't helping them, but the women said emphatically they were not there to help the party, but to “hold a mirror up to them.” The party asked if the women were gods and they said no, they were spectators watching the drama from outside. There was some discussion of breaking the fourth wall.
Then the women lost interest and dissipated into the market square crowd.
The party continued toward Lena's house. On Quay Street they saw Captain Burns's ship, the Dervish. The Dervish was positioned in the river to fire on the Eyrie as Vesper and Burns had discussed, but there was a giant hole in one side of the ship. Unbeknownst to the party, Modalye's owl Greg had sabotaged the Dervish with the Piece of Fulgurite in Game 3.
However, the party hurried on to Lena's. When they arrived, they found it was similar to the other upscale homes near the Roundabout - the Hollinsheds', the Shaws', and the Volsteads' - with a marble facade and a second-story balcony. They waited to see Lena leave for the Board meeting, then found an unlocked back door. Aardist went in to scout, invisible, and found two women on the ground floor and two women on the second floor, near a bag that looked like it could hold the Penance Stone.
Gwynneth said, “We got to assault this place.” They went in and attacked, fighting on the first floor, the second floor landing at the top of the stairs, and in the second-floor room with the Penance Stone. During the fight, Faile put one of the women to sleep and scared off three more with Fey Presence.
Gwynneth disguised herself as Lena using the Ring of Greater Pulchritude, but one of the women Detected Magic on her, concluded she wasn't the real Lena, and summoned the real Lena back. Lena teleported back to the second floor landing with three helpers and joined the fight. Astrid/Lena was a dangerous enemy, and repeatedly used Legendary Actions to cast spells on the party's turns. At one point Astrid temporarily Banished Faile, and Carisssa described the demiplane Faile saw as "charred, smoke, earthquakes, rumbling, in a safe spot, molten environment."
Roland stole the Stone and jumped off the balcony, nearly breaking the Stone as part of his fall, and Faile broke it in a follow-up attack. Astrid/Lena followed them out to the street, and the fight there drew a crowd while Gwynneth repeatedly called out Astrid/Lena as a witch. Ultimately Gwynneth scored a critical on Lena with her sword, which fired up the sword’s necrotic power, making Gwynneth herself appear like a witch to the crowd.
With Lena/Astrid facing death, Modalye inserted himself between Gwynneth and Astrid, arguing that killing Astrid would leave the Circle in total control of Hollin and the Board, and letting them steal more children. But Gwynneth did kill Astrid after a brief discussion.
Modalye had stolen Astrid’s backpack during the fight. He found a Fey Extinction Event scroll inside, so he had his owl familiar Greg take the backpack to a pocket dimension.
The characters went to level 5 after this game.
Kasskar emphatically told Faile that "the person responsible" for the Braddock firestorm "has been destroyed," which happened in Game 31 of the original campaign, and that they destroyed Aeris's phylactery in "a land without time" in Game 32. But Kasskar didn't mention that his party might have destroyed the wrong phylactery, which was suggested in Game 38. Keith told me later that Kasskar told Faile what he (Keith) remembered from the original campaign.