The party reports Astrid/Lena’s death to the Board, where Vesper also takes control of Cotton House by accusing his brother Christopher of colluding with the Coven. Vesper and Burns destroy the Eyrie with cannon fire, and the party helps beat the harpy counterattack. Modalye exposes Aeris to Faile and the party kills him in Lofton Forest, with Gwynneth finishing both Aeris and and his guardian spirit, Isaf the Black Worm. Modalye goes to the Hollin Grimoire alone to kill his patron, the lich Ishild, but Ishild captures Modalye to use in his grim experiments.
Modalye received an inspiration point for his Minor Illusion giving Gwynneth blue and white flames in Game 4, which gave her advantage Intimidating the catacomb witches.
I said in Game 4 that the party found love-in-idleness and wormwood in the catacombs apothecary, but in Game 3 Aurora said those were exclusive to the fairy domain in Lofton. So, we changed them to general apothecary items.
They went to the Chapel of Ajana to return the broken Penance Stone. They apologized to Merrick for breaking it, but explained that a coven of witches was going to destroy the city with it. They briefly discussed between themselves and with Merrick that putting up a replacement in the Chapel might restart the process of accumulating evil again.
Gwynneth suggested that they should go to the daily Board meeting to report. Vesper led them to the Board meeting room on the second floor of the Great Council Palace, where the meeting was in progress, with the Master of Revels describing his search for the Black Cabaret. Vesper addressed the Board, telling them that Christoper consorting with witches had put them on the Coven's trail, and that they'd stopped Astrid/Lena from destroying Hollin with the Penance Stone.
The Watch came in and reported they'd found Lena's body in the street. The Board Chair Melina asked the party for evidence that Lena was a witch, and Modalye recalled his owl Greg from the pocket dimension, producing Lena's Detect Fey and Fey Extinction Event scrolls. Mia Hollinshed and Zoe Shaw supported the party, swaying the Board, and they dispatched the secret police to find Christopher. Vesper would now control Cotton House. (Here are my notes from the Board meeting, including Vesper's address.)
The party had a long rest at the Volstead's, to recover from the fight with Astrid. After the long rest, Modalye approached Faile about Aeris and her revenge. He said that the lich Ishild had helped turn Aeris into a lich, that Ishild gave Aeris Firestorm and Yawning Graves, and that Aeris was still alive. Faile concluded that Aeris might be at Lofton Castle where his phylactery was, and that she should warn Aurora that a lich could be near the Circle. (Here are my notes from Faile and Modalye's discussion.)
The morning after the long rest the party headed to the docks to find Burns and attack the Eyrie. I paraphrased a version of:
When you arrive, Burns's ship Dervish has been tugged back to the shipyards for repair. If Vesper asks, there was some kind of an explosion on the ship the night before last. The gunpowder on board was dispersed and a wide hole was knocked in one side of the ship. The Admiralty is investigating but no leads right now.
But, rowboats are tugging two other ships into place for the attack - the Umbrage and the Sea Bat.
Burns tells you that Admiralty gunners and navigators have already computed the trajectories to the Durning Hill cliffside. Burns introduces you to Weiss, the master of the Admiralty forge. Burns and Weiss say that a normal cannon's range is about a mile, but Weiss and the forge have developed a new steel that can withstand the explosive power of more gunpowder, for the new flagship Harbinger. The Eyrie openings on the cliffside should be just within range, and this will be the first combat test of the new cannons.
Modalye was concerned that attacking the Eyrie might disrupt the balance of power in Hollin. He argued that the Coven and the Wake counterbalanced the Circle, who were themselves kidnapping children, and that the party had already neutralized any immediate threat from the Coven and Wake. Vesper argued that the Circle wasn't an immediate threat since they were playing the long game, and suggested they deal with the Circle later, possibly using the threat of Fey Extinction Event. Vesper even suggested the party might become “a new Coven” themselves if “they did things right." (Here are my notes from their discussion.)
Modalye conceded and Burns gave the signal to fire.
The two ships fire. When the first few guns fire, it’s hard to see any effect on the cliffside, but once all seventy guns are going, rocks start to fall off the cliffside and dust rises to obscure your view of the cliffside. After a minute of firing all of Lofton seems covered in dust.
As Modalye mentioned, you're kicking a hornets' nest by firing on the Eyrie, and just then, hundreds of harpies fly out of the dust cloud and attack the Umbrage and Sea Bat.
Seven harpies attacked the party and Burns on the dock, including four normal harpies and three tougher ones.
The harpies tried Luring Song on the party three times. Gwynneth and Vesper both had Counterpoint, and they were each able to Counterpoint the Luring Song once. The harpies succeeded once, but Roland was the only one affected.
Gwynneth killed three of the harpies. Modalye scored a critical on one, which Nick described as "My owl distracts the harpy, so it pushed it right in the way of the arrow, straight in the face. Hex then exploded in some kind of gross necrotic energy." At the end of the battle, Gwynneth's critical on one fired up Nadim's necrotic attack, and Vesper finished that harpy off with lightning, saying the lightning “strikes it on its head, causing sparks to come out of its eyes and beak.”
After the harpy attacks at the dock, Umbrage, and Sea Bat were beaten, Burns said that Admiralty marines would clean up any harpies left at the destroyed Eyrie.
After the fight at the docks, the party long rested again before Faile's mission. At the end of the long rest, Faile got an unexpected visitor.
Faile stirs from her sleep, feeling a presence nearby. She rolls over and sees a small man in a jester's outfit sitting by the side of the bed. She rubs her eyes as she takes him in, and realizes that the jester is actually a ghost or spirit.
The jester/ghost introduces himself as Arlin, the court jester of the long-deceased Gradskan high king Marduk, and laughs shrilly. Arlin says there’s a fast-spreading rumor in Hollin that Faile is hunting Aeris.
Arlin also told Faile that Aeris was on his way to Lofton Castle to get his phylactery now. After a brief discussion the party decided to close the loop with Kasskar before going there. Kasskar conceded he may have been wrong about Aeris being dead, and volunteered to join the party in Lofton.
The party headed to Lofton Bridge with Arlin and Kasskar. Aurora met them there and told them that Aeris had just gone through Lofton Castle "like a thundercloud." She offered to lend the party Laurel, as magical help, or the fairy archers Meadowlark and Quicksilver, as military help. They chose Laurel.
The party, Arlin, Kasskar, and Laurel headed toward Lofton Castle. Near the area where they'd encountered the silvermote brood in Game 2, they saw a grotesque skeleton coming toward them on the forest-lined street - Aeris. Aeris stopped about fifty feet from them. He had a backpack and a bag that looked like it had a bowling ball inside. The party confronted Aeris, asking how he could travel the city as a skeleton. Aeris said that Lofton didn't have many people in it, and also people tend to steer clear of the undead.
The party fought Aeris. Scott played Kasskar as a second copy of Roland, and Carissa played Laurel as a second copy of Faile, with the additional ability to cast 9th level Counterspell. Arlin didn’t fight, but gave out Bardic inspiration each round.
Nick asked about sending Greg the Owl to take Aeris’s bag, but we concluded it would be too heavy. On the first turn of the fight, Roland tried Invisible Mage Hand to pickpocket the contents of the bag, but discovered the ball inside was “100.0% slippery,” so the mage hand couldn't get a grip on it.
Generally Aeris didn't use his spells (e.g., Power Word Kill) because Laurel could Counterspell them, instead using his Frightening Gaze and Disrupt Life abilities. He used Legendary Resistances to pass failed saves and used the Afterclap ability of his Orb of Contravention to make a party member fail a save.
On the first round, Vesper hit Aeris, which caused Aeris's Guardian Spirit to appear, Isaf the Black Worm.
When Aeris is injured, a massive flightless dragon suddenly materializes near him - Aeris's guardian spirit, Isaf the Black Worm. The materialization causes a thunderclap that rolls out through the forest with a low rumble. Isaf flicks his tail menacingly, blasting several of the nearby trees into splinters. Isaf blasts other trees with his breath weapon, a blue liquid that burns like napalm, smells like rotten egg, and continues to burn while Isaf turns his attention to you.
Isaf used his Brimstone breath attack on each round. After Isaf appeared, the party continued to concentrate its fire on Aeris, believing that Isaf would disappear when Aeris went down. Gwynneth delivered the killing blow to Aeris, but as Aeris’s Guardian Spirit, Isaf continued to fight.
At one point Kasskar scored near-maximum damage on a sneak attack on Isaf, which Scott described as “Distracted by a paladin in his face, and Modalye blasting him, Isaf looks back and forth and never sees Kasskar, who comes up right behind it and gets Isaf right in the jaw.” Gwynneth delivered the killing blow to Isaf, “seeing the opening in its jaw, go through the break in it’s jaw, straight to the brain.”They found on Aeris:
Shirt of Heroic Effort
Orb of Contravention
Aeris's Spacetime Phylactery
We were nearly out of time, so I just did a verbal summary of the party destroying Aeris's phylactery in Kairos, the plane without time. I said there's a usually unnoticed black carriage in the market square with a black horse but no driver; and Kasskar knows how to communicate with the horse. They all got in the carriage and it took them to Kairos; once they arrived, the phylactery was destroyed just by virtue of being in a place without time (since the phylactery is a spacetime shell, it can't exist in a place without time).
Since Kairos doesn't have time, there's no such thing as the ordering of events there. So for example, you can leave before you arrive. Getting out of the carriage in Kairos, they saw several copies of themselves arriving and leaving in black carriages; and similarly copies of Kasskar and Aeris's party from seventeen years ago arriving and leaving.
They got back in the carriage and returned to Hollin.
After the party beat Aeris, Modalye told them all about liches and his own lich patron Ishild. Modalye said Ishild was holding a Sword of Damocles over him that he had to remove.
Modalye went to the Gramercy Bookstore alone to confront Ishild. He disguised himself as Aeris with Disguise Self, took Aeris's bag, and put one of the twenty fake phylacteries in it. He found the bookstore itself to be empty, as usual, but took the secret door down into the Hollin Grimoire. He went down the Grimoire's ten brass-lined levels to the more primordial, dirt-floor summoning pit at the lowest level.
He found Ishild ruminating by the summoning pit with a cigar. He falsely told Ishild that his mission was accomplished - that Aeris had defeated the party. Modalye tried to distract Ishild by pointing to a shelf, and when Ishild turned his back, Modalye tried to pull out Firestorm and cast it in the Grimoire; we briefly discussed whether this would be suicide for Modalye and Nick said Modalye would try to survive it if possible. But, Ishild had +9 Perception and saw what Modalye was doing, and used Paralyzing Touch on him. Modalye failed his Constitution save, and Ishild captured him to use in his grim experiments.
We discussed what the other characters might do after the campaign. Karen said Gwynneth wanted to become a grand adventurer, and that maybe Vesper could help get her on a ship. Or, she might become a gun for hire for the Anhault Charter Company. Or, failing those, she would ask for her job back at the Winter Wolf.
Karen suggested Gwynneth might buy her sword Nadim from the Winter Wolf, and we discussed how much it might be worth. But when she went back to the Winter Wolf, Pale Moon told her the sword was a gift.
Seventeen years ago, Pale Moon's adopted son Beowolf and his party helped a young man Haas enter a portal to the restful plane, Hereward. They defeated two angelic portal guardians there, and Beowolf claimed one the of the guardian's swords, named Aria, meaning "melody." Beowolf’s comrade Ord Redding claimed the other guardian's sword, named Isra, meaning "night journey." Ord adopted Irsa as his main weapon, and as Ord used Isra, it continually developed new powers, or maybe Ord just learned to unlock its power over time. ["Isra gained new bonuses and abilities as Ord used it, ending as a +3 sword with the powers Challenge to Single Combat and Immortal Slaying.""]
About a year after that, another of Beowolf's comrades, Kasskar, discovered another three Hereward guardians standing watch over an ancient hoard under the City of the Dead. Gwynneth's sword is one of their swords, named Nadim, meaning "the drinker" or "drinking buddy."
Pale Moon says that she can teach Gwynneth some swordsmanship, but if she wants to learn to use Nadim specifically and maybe unlock more powers, she should travel to al-Watan in the Caliphate and find Ord Redding.
Scott said that after the campaign, Roland would go back to his rickety shop, rehang his sign, and return to the life of a private detective. Scott continued Roland's policy of not investigating why the witches hated him, saying it should stay a secret. I kept it a secret from the other players as well.
Carissa said that Faile found her revenge on Aeris to be empty, and that she would research her parents' fate. My notes:
“it’s not resolved, feeling emptiness of revenge. Want to deal with lich, would want to figure out if her parents became undead after the firestorm.”
Rob said Christopher had brought shame to the Cotton family, so Vesper would take over Cotton House after the campaign. Vesper would keep up his relationship with the navy for trade purposes, and keep up trade with the Anhault Charter Company, doing as good a job if not better than his brother had.