Stop the presses. Hal's full name is Hal Halbertson Halvelves the Half-Elf Paladin?!
We all get trapped in some energy from LAthander. This is the best moment of the prostrate Hal's life.
The generous ones get a straight up stat buff. Zorn feels a little more tan.
"Do good with the powers I give you..." and he's off again.
Huh. To her surprise, Quinn gets some boost too.
We're back at 100%. Zorn is kind of confused - pointedly - about this powerful magic puppet business. He sticks his nose close to it and does an Arcana check. "Is this strictly necessary?" we ask him. No, but it is...sufficient.
He figures out that they're remote control magic puppets. "Guys, the most powerful Transmutation magic has been applied to these fucks."
"Can we trace their...emanations?"
"Or we can check their footprints, you're a Ranger." Zorn replies.
LK begrudgingly acknowledges that this is so.
He figures out that it's fresh cedar, and can therefore track their scent. He's pretty gung ho about this.
So is VS? Quinn is only gung-ish, but drags the bodies into a pile and ignites them with Prestidigitation.
VS interrupts this with her Fireball.
Phil is a little perturbed by yet more fire. Quinn and Zorn independently say it's already been burnt down, what are you worried about.
29 leagues away, the footsteps fade. LK concludes that it's a straight line...to Daggershead.
Quinn gets very nervous.
At the shoreline, Zorn yells SUMMON BOAT! and is confused that it doesn't work.
We spend some time trying to figure out how to get across. Quinn makes a last ditch effort to convince them not to go.
Quinn tells them, reluctantly, the story of the heist: Stone, Guilford, Glorian, Randall, and her, hired to steal a very large diamond from the Blackwoods 0 Sam, specifically 0 and all the Blackwoods died that night. Glorian betrayed us to the client, who is also trying to wipe the evidence of their crime, viz, us.
I don't know who the client is, after LK asks. How long ago was this? Twenty years...huh, I forgot how short-lived humans are.
Zorn looks somewhat...sour at this.
"Did you steal something you shouldn't have? Did you successfully steal someone's nose?!"
"What are you, two?"
(He is.)
Hal is very confused about all this development.
Zorn lays out a rope for us to hold while we Waterwalk across. Well, it seems we're changing our minds, across the bottom of the sea. Not sure why we don't just...get a boat. But...okay?
We go into the water, VS fighting her...natural buoyancy, Quinn trying to keep her head above water as long as she can.
Zorn puts the spidersilk around his Arcane Eye as a periscope. We get back on shore, and VS motorboats the sea. I'm not sure why.
We're on the island of Daggershead, after a really weird expedition. We roll the skeins back up and Prestidigitate them clean.
Hal wants to make camp; we head inland to not be as obviously sneaking ashore.
VS scrounges around for a pillow-plant. No such luck.
Hal wants to know more about Daggershead and is not actually going to be upset if Quinn steals a funnel cake for her.
Quinn is overjoyed that she can do this for Hal.
VS wants to just infiltrate and get into it. Sure, Zorn says, let's do it the hard way.
We set up for the night in the poor part of town, Quinn offhandedly asking BB to set up a Tiny Hut...whereupon a gloom falls upon the group.
The next day we try to get into the city, to find out what's going on. VS gives the 50gp that LK gave her to an orphan.
...who promptly gets the shit kicked out of him by the other 50 orphans. Quinn is too late to stop this before it happens.
As we pass a funnel cake shop, Quinn enters, and uses Mage Hand behind her back to toss an unsuspecting Hal a funnel cake as she walks to the counter to buy a funnel cake.
The shopkeep makes some remarks about the humidity leading to stickiness in his hands as a result...and where to get good gloves in this city.
...Thieves' Cant?!
Quinn shrugs and smiles, replying in TC that yeah, you got me, I appreciate the tip on where to find "gloves," or rather the local guild.
As Quinn returns Hal asks he's covered in funnel cake. Quinn, not missing a beat, replies "local custom." Zorn backs her up.
At the Pinched Pocket, Zorn keeps an eye on his gear, and Quinn is overcome with nostalgia. VS tries to seduce someone with her pyrophone...in a wooden tavern.
The dumb people in this packed tavern are into it - 3gp - but the sober ones start leaving.
Hal cannot shut up about how good the funnel cake is. Zorn almost gets picked, but Banishes the thief. When the hapless thief returns, he gets slapped across the face. Don't do that again! Zorn yells.
Mumbling "sorry m'lord," the thief shuffles apologetically away. Quinn bursts out laughing.
VS tries to pump the seducee for info, but he's kind of...drunk.
Quinn decides to take the only other OG party member, LK, into the Thieves Guild hall instead of Zorn the clueless idiot or Hal the obviously good Paladin.
Hal catches them and LK distracts him with some dragonchess. Zorn wants to play with Hal, because he loves games. They distract him from his mortality.
People here think we're nuts.
LK and Quinn go into the washroom; Quinn examines the tap, finding that it turns 3 times the other way. The commode sinks down and slides aside, revealing a steep staircase.
Outside, Zorn paints an angry face on his eyebrows, to up his intimidation. It works about as well as you expect.
In the Guild Hall, Aelith, a half-elf, spots Quinn and LK and pulls them aside. "I wasn't expecting to see you again!" she shows us a wanted specifically alive poster, for 50kgp, c/o Strud.
Where is he? Quinn asks. Aelith points him out, playing dice against the back wall. Where's the money coming from? He doesn't have that kind of juice. Business looks...good, but that good?
Nobody knows where the money is coming from. Business has, if anything, been too smooth lately, Aelith replies.
Strud is a lizardman, playing dice...poorly.
LK, on Quinn's bankroll, ventures forward to play against him while Quinn, Disguised Selfed at Aelith's recommendation, discreetly checks him out.
Nothing seems different about Strud. He's still a lowlife. Doesn't look wealthier. Still losing at dice. Still a dumbass.
Quinn Messages LK to tell Strud that he's actually in town to see about the bounty on Slinky's head. A startled Strud indicates he's done for the night, and motions for LK to follow him.
He leaves through a different exit; Quinn, disguised as VS, takes note as LK follows him out.
LK passes a DEX saving throw as he exits the sewer that Strud went around the corner on. Strud tried to shiv him, unsuccessfully - just to see if he's the real deal, see?
LK holds him in an armlock a second longer than necessary, then releases him.
It's a dark sewer T-junction. So where's Slinky, Strud asks. You give me her, I'll give you the money.
Quinn strides down the hallway, and as she nears the junction, draws Nature Bowie. A startled Strud quickly puts his hands up. Mutely, she motions him to his knees. He complies.
She drops the disguise.
Ah, hell, he says. I heard you were looking for me, she states coldly. Listen it's just business, the money's good, you'd do the same, he grouses.
Why alive, she demands. He doesn't know. Where's the money coming from, he doesn't know that either, just some guys in white robes, they seemed like they meant business, delivery to a dungeon under the castle.
Still an idiot.
Listen, we'll split the money, I'll get out of town, I don't want them to know I failed, how about that, he offers. A startled LK is inclined to accept his offer.
Quinn considers it. Alright, she says, lowering Nature Bowie. Let's go get the money from your place, and you can go. Lead the way.
Really? He hesitantly gets up and turns to go. Quinn promptly shoots him in the head. He slumps to the ground, dead.
As she searches his body in a businesslike fashion, she says to a visibly shaken LK, I'm sorry you had to see that. She shrugs ruefully and says, there really wasn't any other way I could think of to get the info out of him, and once he knew I was back...he had to die. It's just...that kind of town.
LK remarks that if that's so, he doesn't think he'd like it here all that much.
Honestly, she replies, neither does anyone who actually lives here.
Nothin in his pockets. A house key? But we don't know where he lives. We take his body with us in the Bag, and Prestidigitate clean the bloodstains from the sewer floor.
Back in the Hall, Quinn asks Aelith where Strud lives. She offers his address, and hesitantly asks if Quinn is going to go kill him.
Quinn bleakly shrugs. Aelith pales and realises that Quinn is...not good to be around today. Or really anymore.
How's business? How have you been? Quinn asks. Good, business has been good, maybe...too good.
...how's Sam?
Nobody's seen him since the day the Blackwoods all died.
Quinn falls guiltily silent.
You ever think about getting out?
What would I even do, Aelith asks. All I know is this, what am I going to do, fucking farm?
Quinn laughs, feeling the same way. She offers that there's a decent refuge that could use a twisty thinker, and if Aelith wanted to get out of the game, there's a good place for people with sneaky skillsets...
Aelith says she'll consider it. Quinn hugs her, sneaking 100gp into her back pocket as she does so. Aelith notices, and nods.
LK continues to trie to charm her, so taken is he with her half-elven beauty. She doesn't know him, and he's kind of clumsily clueless. It doesn't quite go anywhere.
Upstairs, Zorn has run plumb out of small talk, but Hal is an unending fountain of it. Hal lost the dragonchess game, but he doesn't mind!
They're making up backstories for people they see in the barn right now. That one's a fisherman, but he's into really weird sex, etc etc.