In this session, Zoyana worked out her problems with authority, the party regrouped, explored the Wide, and entered The Best Adventurers Contest…

The Temple of Selune

• In the previous session, a guard named Thorey escorted Zoyana through the Lower City, through Baldur’s Gate, and into the Temples District. Then the story progressed through to the party meeting at Ackyn’s. This is a flashback to what happened between:
• Thorey took Zoyana to the Church of Selune
  • Simple but well-made walls surrounded the compound, with a single building in front about the size and shape of a barn, with a curved door at the entrance.
  • Inside it was clean, with simple furniture and a fountain flowing with clean water
  • The inner courtyard was lined with trees and housed a spring and circular gravel walkway suitable for moonlight dancing.
• Thorey guided Zoyana inside.
• Across the courtyard, there was a middle aged lady talking to a couple of young acolytes. She had long braided hair, dyed black and shaved on both sides, white skin, and notably bright cyan eyes.
• As they entered, the lady cocked her head at them, smiled at Thorey, and walked over.
  • “Thorey, nice to see you again.”
  • “Hello priestess. I brought someone you might want to meet.”
  • “Oh yes?” and the priestess looked toward Zoyana.
  • “She had a little dust up at the entrance, and the guards thought that you might need another resident.”
  • Zoyana tried to pipe in with an explanation, but the priestess spoke over her, “Oh, well, I’ll take it from here then.”
    • Thorey nodded and took a step back as the priestess addressed Zoyana, “Hello and welcome”
• A conversation ensued where the priestess introduced herself as Elizabeth Ashglade and worked to disarm Zoyana and assess the situation, and Zoyana tried to escape as quickly as possible (WWAD?).
  • After a few minutes, Thorey stepped back and left.
  • Zoyana ultimately shared the rough story of her travels from Elturel to Baldur’s Gate and her choice to follow Thorey rather than risk jail or worse. “I just went along with it.” Pliny, Aegar, and Ackyn Selebon were mentioned.
  • Priestess Ashglade shared her story of coming to Baldur’s Gate after an encounter with werewolves.
  • And shared of the Church of Selune, Goddess of the moon, stars, navigation, prophecy, questers, lycanthropes.
• The priestess helped Zoyana figure out where Ackyn probably was (no carts in the city, outfitters existed in the Outer City, and northbound that meant the Blackgate)
• Zoyana shared about her worries about being cursed (“What about helping people with a hole in their head?”)
  • “I helped to birth a treant, and after it told me that I have a hole in my mind.”
  • Priestess Ashglade looked on with concern. “Your head and your mind are not the same things.”
  • After some pressing, Zoyana burst open with her story of a purple mist, her hometown disappearing leaving her completely alone, waking up in another town being taken care of by another family, and then her adoptive family deciding that she was evil and leaving her completely alone.
    • “Until I found Aegar and Pliny and then I wasn’t alone anymore. And Fang. Because I love Fang.”
• They had a brief conversation about trust and the strength of the power of the House of the Moon. A place of nature and moonlight, a place of womanly power.
  • Zoyana took her wine and pounded it.
• Priestess Ashglade pressed a bit more, and Zoyana shared about seeing the mist when Ragvala died (the dragon that brought Aegar and Pliny and her together), and “there’s this fucking black half-dragon who, every time that I see her I have flashbacks, and the things that happened in those flashbacks are really bad, and I don’t want to be bad. I don’t want to be bad, I want to be a good person. But I feel like what my adopted family told me is true and that there is some evil inside of me, and I just want it to go away.”
  • Zoyana shared details about how she wanted to better know when she was making good choices and guide her against making bad ones.
• The priestess thought she might be able to help, in some small way.
  • She had Zoyana fill her cup from the spring
  • The priestess left and returned with a small crystal container filled with a swirling pearlescent liquid. + “This is a Moon Draft, a potion of moon healing. It will help us get a sense of what’s going on and hopefully dedicate you to Selune in a way that should give you guidance what’s good and what’s bad.”
  • She poured from the container into Zoyana’s cup, and said a quiet prayer. Zoyana saw magic in her hands as Priestess Ashglade cast a blessing on Zoyana and nodded for her to drink.
• Zoyana drank. She felt suffused with warmth. She started to sweat a bit and have chills at the same time.
• A look of confusion crossed the priestess’ face and she stopped the spell, saying, “Hmm… that’s weird. Let me check something”
  • Priestess Ashglade started casting another spell on Zoyana, then stopped. “Oh. Oh, my. That should have worked.”
  • A conversation ensued about what Zoyana remembered about what happened to her that ended with a look of deep concern on Priestess Ashglade’s face and “This is beyond my scope or anyone here. You need to go, House of the Moon. To Waterdeep. Whatever it is, it’s beyond my ken.”
    • “I don’t know what this is, but if you want help from us, from Selune, you need to visit the Priestess of the High Moonlight. I’m not sure she can help, but if anyone can she will”
    • “If you were possessed, it would have come out and attacked me. But nothing happened that way. But also, nothing that I did had an effect. It was stopped. My blessing didn’t make it through, and I’m not sure what is protecting you or shielding you. But to to break through that as well beyond my skill.”
    • She ultimately excused herself and wrote Zoyana a note of introduction to Naneatha Suaril, the Priestess of the High Moonlight, asking her to help.
• Priestess Ashglade then had one of her acolytes escourt Zoyana to the Black Gate, and from there the guards knew Ackyn, and the flashback ended with Zoyana arriving at Ackyn’s compound.

Regrouping

• After the meetup at Ackyn’s, the party discussed additional plans and some chores, then ended up back at Baldur’s Burrow
  • The party updated each other on their adventuring.
    • Zoyana puked out a description in a continuous stream of words. It defied reason how she was able to communicate so much with so few breaths in between.
  • Zoyana wanted to visit the Hopstra University Library the next day. Pliny was concerned about some overdue books he might have had
  • Zoyana needed to visit the High Priestess at the Temple of the Moon in Waterdeep based on her conversation with the priestess at the Temple of Selune in Baldur’s Gate.

The Wide

• The next day, the party found themselves exploring Baldur’s Gate and ended up in the Wide - a huge bustling open market.
• Among the throngs, they saw and shopped.
• They noticed a merchant who looked like the kind of guy who wants to look like he’s rich, but maybe it isn’t, haggling with another female merchant selling silks. He was haggling hard trying to get the price down, and just in passing she lowered the price a couple times. He looked like the cat that caught the canary. As they walked by, he bought a shitton of silks.
• Zoyana decided to buy a number of glass vials for the poison in her jug aided by funds from Aegar. She found a stall lined with a bunch of different glass containers. There were vases, bottles in different colors, and glasses and bowls of different sizes, more than Zoyana had ever seen before. In the corner of the stall sat an old, hunched-up lady, “Hello dearie, how can I help you?”
  • Zoyana picked up 9 medium and 6 small vials after some subtle haggling.
• Zoyana turned around to see the knees of the tallest human she had ever seen. He had to top 7 feet. He excused himself and stepped aside for her to walk past.
• Pliny noticed flyers advertising The Best Adventurer’s Contest the next day. Pliny fondly remembered from his days at Hopstra, and tried to convince his friends to partake.
• Soon after, while searching for pastries (obviously gifts for Fang), he turned a corner and heard in a familiar voice, “Whoa, trick or treat. What’s going on here? Is that a Pliny?”, and he looked up to see his old buddy Van.
  • They embraced in a secret handshake. “It is kind of like a reunion around here. Have you seen Sall and Barry?” Pliny hadn’t yet.
  • They reminisced about Van’s 7 year career at Hopstra “I’m a senior! Why would you ever want to leave?” and Pliny’s path to becoming an adventurer “One night after I slayed a skeleton…”
  • Pliny introduced the party, (Zoyana was quite dour. “What’s with the bad mojo man?”) and Van took off with a promise to see them later at Baldur’s Burrow.
• As they meandered through the stalls, Zoyana spied a familiar covered wagon, but decided to not investigate.
• The party discussed possibly finding buyers for Aegar’s magical halberd as well as uses for their stash of dragon scales, and spent the rest of the day shopping in the Wide.

A New Day

• On Pliny and Aegar’s fourth day in Baldur’s Gate (Zoyana’s third), Pliny continued to avoid a visit to the Hopstra library.
  • Zoyana wanted to spend the day communing with her amulet and making something to protect them all.
    
  • Pliny wanted her to join for the Best Adventurer’s Contest.
• The party jumped over Pliny about not supporting the party’s need to go to the library.
  • Zoyana tried to trade an entrance to the Best Adventurer’s Contest for a visit to the library the next day.
  • Aegar intervened and strong-armed Pliny into a promise to go to the library tomorrow for the good of the party.
    • “We could be using this two weeks to help our friend Zoyana. I do not think that her request was uncalled for. She agreed to participate in the contest today, so that we could spend tomorrow going to the library. And you refused.”
  • Pliny acquiesced.
• It was late morning before they made their way to the Wide.
  • Pliny noticed, off in the distance on the other side of the marketplace, his old friend Barry walking the other way.
• They grabbed some street food, so it was after lunch before they headed toward the contest.

The Best Adventurers Contest

• The party rounded a corner, and saw guy holding a flyer.
  • “Best Adventures Competition! Who’s signing up?”
  • “Up for grabs: the World Walker! A mighty sword, to the best adventuring group!”
• Pliny immediately recognized the busker calling out for entries: Tarz Seleno, writer/producer of Hot Cat on a Hay Roof.
  • Pliny: “Tarz, my man! You are… the host?”
  • Tarz turned to face him, startled. "Pliny, what are you doing here?"
  • Pliny: “I’m now an adventurer, sir.”
  • Tarz looked down at the flyer he was holding as Pliny called him “the host”, and scowled before putting on a fake smile. “Yeah, I’m… helping put it on this year. It’s just as awesome as it was when we went through it.”
  • Tarz: “Is this the this your new band?”
  • Pliny: “A band of adventurers. I laid down my my instruments for a cause. We’ve been fighting and trying to keep things a little safer. So I thought today would be a good a good day training and celebration here, perhaps.”
  • Tarz squinted a second, and then called for them to be brought to the front of the (nonexistent) line.
• At the entrance to the tent, a short human in an usher’s outfit tugged down her vest and welcomed the party in.
  • She explained the rules:
    • The contest is a time-based competition where the party has to make their way through three rooms.
    • To get to the next room, they will have to complete certain challenges detailed in each room.
      • These challenges can be anything and will be revealed once they are in the room.
    • When all challenges are completed, the party will unlock the way to the next room.
    • When they’ve completed all three rooms, their timer stops.
    • The team with the shortest time wins the contest. She added that objects marked with a black cross were not part of any of the challenges and are thus not to be interacted with.
    • Finally, if the they were stuck on a challenge, they could ask for a tip by shouting loudly, though they would be penalized with 5 minutes of extra time. (But to be the winner, having to call out is ill advised.)
  • Zoyana asked for some clarification.
    • Throughout the rooms, the party would find several puzzles for them to solve and hidden objects for them to find.
    • The goal wasn’t to hack and slash through nearly so much as it was to understand how to make it to the next room as fast as possible.
    • Magic and wits are encouraged.
• Aegar: “Perhaps you two should take my lead.” It wasn’t clear whether he was making a joke.
• The usher gestured, “On your word, you may step forward and we will start the timer.”

Room 1: Castle Dungeon

This 30 by 20 feet room was made to look like the inside of a castle dungeon.

The walls were made of tight-hung cloths (supported by bales of hay) with stone bricks painted on them.

The party entered through the southern entrance and found the door to the next room diagonally on the opposite wall.

Two torches illuminated the room from the eastern and western wall.

In the northern wall, a closed hatch was encased at about 2 feet above the ground.

The northern part of the eastern wall held a rack of torture equipment.

Opposite of the hatch, the southern wall had two broken manacles drooping from their iron chains.

In the southwestern corner of the room, several vases of varying sizes could be found.

Above them, scratches made by fingers disturbed the pattern of the bricks.

• Pliny started their first room wondering whether he should have gotten them into this. Zoyana shushed him.
• Zoyana had Pliny use his Mage Hand to try to open the door. It was locked.
  • On further inspection, the door was lacking a key hole. Instead, there was a combination lock on the handle with a four digit code, and the numbers were set to four zeros.
  • They tried to Mage Hand the numbers 1-2-3-4, but nothing happened.
• They searched the room for clues.
• Aegar investigated the vases at 5, and counted to 9 empty vases.
• Aegar then found a tunnel up high at 1.
  
• Zoyana investigated the rack of torture tools at 4, and found that each of them has a different symbol as well as a different number scratched into it. From left to right, when facing the wall:
  • Star - 3
  • Square - 4
  • Circle - 6
  • Triangle - 7
  • Moon - 9
• Pliny investigated the iron hatch at 2 that broke the pattern of stone bricks on the northern wall. He found no easy way of opening (he tried to pull it away with his hands… and realized why he always stays in the back during fights).
• Aegar sent Fang into the tunnel at 1. Fang saw a fake fire trap: two wooden planks, cut and painted in the likelihood of flames, blocking the way to the end. He could see at once that the soft orange glow radiating from the planks was actually a permanent dancing lights spell. Beyond the fire, Fang saw a lever.
• Pliny climbed on Aegar’s shoulders and used his Mage Hand to pull the lever.
  • This exposed a small note. On the white parchment trimmed with blue ink were the words: He should have used his head.
  • Pulling the lever also opened the closed hatch at 2.
• Zoyana investigated the torches at 3 and found that both torches seemed to be enchanted to avoid giving off warmth, most likely as a security precaution against accidental fires.
  • Zoyana pulled a torch and took it around the room using its light to investigate.
• Aegar and Pliny missed the unlocking of the hatch at 2, and so went to investigate Pliny’s failure to open it. They pulled a crowbar and prepared to pull with all their might. As soon as Pliny touched the door with the crowbar to find a hold, the pressure was enough to swing the door open. Pliny nearly brained himself on the wall, expecting resistance.
  • A wooden skeleton (not entirely anatomically correct), its hands held by manacles, fell out past the door.
• Pliny grabbed the head to investigate (Investigation 2), saw nothing, and tossed the head to Aegar. Aegar (Investigation 8) shook his head as he pulled a white parchment trimmed with blue ink. It read: May the light guide your way.
• The wording of the clue made Zoyana examine the light from her torch further (Investigation 11), and she noticed lines on the floor in reflective paint, pointing to the manacles on the southern wall (without a number).
  • Between the manacles, she saw clearly reflected in the glowing paint: Circle, Moon, Circle, Moon
• Pliny entered Zoyana’s code of 6969 into the lock at 6, and the door to the next room swung open.

Room 2: Laboratory

Where the first room was almost empty, this one was filled with tons of furniture, curios and miscellaneous items. The room had the same size as the previous one, but this time they entered from the western side of the southern wall.

The western wall had several paintings and posters hanging from it.

The northern wall had a door in the middle, flanked on the left side by a coat rack with a coat and a hat hanging on it and on the right side by a knight’s armor on display.

A globe sat in the northeastern corner of the room with two posters looming above it. The rest of the eastern wall was occupied by a bookcase with a cabinet. A shelf lined with curios took up the easternmost space of the southern wall. A solitary cupboard stood between the entrance and the shelf. On it, various lab equipment could be found.

In the middle of the room, two tables were illuminated by a simple chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The easternmost table held an alchemical setup that clearly started with a funnel and ended in a box. The westernmost table had a locked compartment and some folders sprawled over it.

• Zoyana examined the door at 5. The thick metal door did not have a lock or even a knob. It seemed clear that it would swing open via some mechanic.
• Aegar examined the armor, which stood stationary on its pedestal, its pieces held in place by a cleverly crafted wooden structure. The armor’s left arm was holding a shield protecting its side, the right clutched at its breast.
  • Darkness peered back at Aegar through the helmet’s visor. Several dents and impurities could be spotted on the armor from this close, and it was clear that the gold trimmings were just painted on. The pedestal had a nameplate near the feet, dubbing the previous owner of the armor ‘Lord Cintus’.
  • Aegar was not impressed: “This armor is not very well made. Pliny, these friends of yours should take more pride in their craftsmanship.”
  • Zoyana: “Don’t be a snob Aegar”
  • Aegar: “I am merely saying…”
  • Pliny: “Aegar, buddy, you’ve got to understand that there’s been a lot of cuts to the local arts programs lately.”
  • Aegar: “Well, if they are worried about cuts, this armor is not likely to help.”
• The party took their time discovering various vials and containers throughout the room, and Pliny was thwarted in his attempts to pick the lock on the desk drawer.
• Pliny spent a good bit of the time talking about his friend Van, and the crazy liquids he used to discover in Van’s room.
  
• Between a note on the table and one of the paintings on the western wall, the party discovered the process to use their gathered items to forge a temporary key using the alchemical setup on the easternmost table.
  • Pliny lamented the fact that he hadn’t noticed the note on his first pass at the westernmost table, and suggested that the others should probably visit the library without him. (They weren’t having it.)
• The party followed the instructions to:
  • Crumble the piece of Cooled Core to a powder.
  • Add the Kledrioner’s Moonblood and shake until the substance stops pulsing.
  • Add three drops of the Tazerian Spider Venom to the bottle of Tantalas Exis. Close the bottle, then gently sway until the Tantalas Exis liquefies.
  • Add one scoop of the Crushed Rhinoceros Horn to the Tantalas Exis liquid. Sway gently to spread the powder over the whole bottle.
  • Prepare the alchemical setup.
  • First, pour the Kledrioner’s Moonblood mixed with the Cooled Core into the funnel.
  • Immediately follow up with the Deer Saliva. Wait out the chemical reaction between the two substances before continuing.
  • Follow up with the liquefied Tantalas Exis mixed with Crushed Rhinoceros Horn.
  • Finally, drip the contents of the vial of Malook into the funnel over a period of thirty seconds.
  • Wait for the steam to subside before opening the cast and retrieving the object.
• As the steam subsided, the party opened the cast and retrieved their freshly made key. The key felt metallic, though with enough force it could be bent and twisted.
• Pliny took the key and put it in the keyhole of the locked drawer.
  • Unlike the other times where they found notes on white parchment with blue ink, inside Pliny found a folded up piece of plain brown parchment.
    • Crimson red letters spelled the following:
      • Bobbing the of sea. waits you the of city. Patience you’re late. victim swiftly.
    • The bottom left corner was smudged with what could only be a drop of blood
• As they read the note, Pliny pulled on the drawer a little further, triggering a click and the door swung open with the muffled shrieking of metal on metal.
• Immediately after, they party heard a scream coming from the newly opened chamber.
• Aegar spent no time bolting into the Circus Tent.

Room 3: Circus Tent

The last room of the contest was circular. The walls were comprised of a white and red striped cloth that hung from a pole in the center of the room.

A stuffed doll resembling a lion sat before a transfixed hoop. Next to it several other plushies resembling animals awaited their turn behind the lion.

On the other side of the room, several mirrors big and small were installed in a circle.

From the support beams, attached by strings on her limbs, a woman hung lifelessly in mid air. Her body, clad in dancer’s clothing, was twisted in a dancing pose by the strings that held her afloat. A mask with demonic features covered her face, but her empty gaze leaves no mistake about her passing.

Behind the body, crimson red letters stained the canvas wall while soft violin music played in the background. The words read:

on Waves the She for in heart the My wavering, running Another is made.

Just left of the door, one of the organizers was staring at the scene. Her knees were trembling and her eyes were full of fear.

• Aegar drew his sword, and looked around, seeing the scene as described above.
• Aegar questioned the female organizer, and through her stunned answers recognized that she heard the same scream they did and entered the room just before the party.
• Pliny looked around trying to interpret the scene as a joke. It wasn’t. The lady in the mask was really dead, and the organizer was really shook.
• Zoyana cast Detect Magic. She sensed the residue of the violin music, which gave off a faint aura of Illusion magic.

Patience of the Waves

• Their path took them down to the water and a quiet Eastway docks. There were people loading and unloading ships in the distance, but their section was almost eerily quiet. Pliny noted how weird it felt.
• The first pier they spied was a narrow passenger pier. At the end of the pier sat a lone boat: The Patience of the Waves
• The pier was lined with a red carpet that ran all the way from the dock, up on a boarding plank, and onto the ship.
• Aegar headed down the red carpet, and the others followed.