March 13, 2021

Hook

TotNK Session 7

Plot Synopsis

After returning the gold to the Mortimer family manor, the party of Kygar, Erik, Ricky, and Ravanal traveled down to the village of Zhemenka. There, they were greeted by an angry mob of religious fanatics, however after some quick thinking and mentioning that they killed one of Azeroth's minions, the fanatics welcomed them as heroes and let them stay within the hunting lodge, which had been converted into a barracks.

Erik cultivated a working relationship with the leader of the fanatics, Father Gasper, a Priest of Dawn and inventor who believes that the only way to fight the demons is to create new weapons for the Dawn. Erik however learned that the ghost who tried to possess him earlier has now bound itself to his soul. The next morning (or what would be morning), the party learned that the healing church of Saint Heliana had been taken over by the forces of Azeroth. Party set about cultivating the good will of the fanatics in order to recruit them as potential allies.

Meanwhile, those who stayed at Avelód Tower awake in the morning, Tesco walks into the tower to see a Priest of Dawn performing a ritual over the pool, sprinkling various holy oils, powders, and blessings on the waters. When the ritual completes, the pool swirls with varying colors and patterns similar to a night sky. During this time, a lizard who refers to himself as “the Traveling Jew” (TJ) remains in the doorway, eyeing the ledger an assistant is keeping notes about the ritual in. After the ritual and blessings, Tesco and TJ break into the locker and inspect the various ritual components, as TJ steals the ledger. Steven manages to accidentally affix a magical ring to his - ahem - member, which resulted in a series of various attempts to remove said ring. It was eventually taken care of with the assistance of TJ and a burning pool of oil. The party members at the Tower also did some shopping, buying some Raz-Beri’s Berry Tonic, Breath Gel tubes, and also getting scammed out of some coin.

Erik spent the day working with Father Gasper on new weapons; Ravanal set about training with members of his religious order who happened to be in the town; Ricky, noticing that a strange messenger delivered something to Jin (the apprentice to Father Gasper), pursued the messenger. Kygar set about training with Ravanal and the other monks when he met with Mira, one of the residents of the lodge who had fallen madly in love with Kygar after hearing his stories of heroism.

After the ring-related debacle, the adventurers near Lake Avelód tried asking the priests near the tower about their prophecy - Steven falls under the delusion that he is a holy prophet, while Tesco leaves after getting little information. TJ manages to learn the verbatim prophecy through a spell, and asks the priests a series of questions, including how to make an omelette without it crumbling into scrambled eggs (a very detailed process was given), as well as where, and when, to go for discovering the secret to the prophecy.

Ricky hunted down the messenger and soon learned that Jin was planning on murdering Father Gasper and turning the town over to the Silhouettes in exchange for a cut of the profit. One angry mob later, Jin was taken captive by party, given a "fair and impartial judicial trial", and is being used to lure out more of the Silhouettes. The party sets up an ambush in the manor with Jin as the bait; Sato appears and after some tense negotiations, decides to turn on the Silhouettes and aid the party in hunting down the 11 remaining Silhouette lieutenants that are still in the town.

Now armed with knowledge, the party at Avelód Tower rests for the night and wakes up before dawn the next morning to venture to the top of Svjetlo Bridge, where Tesco sees a blue holy flash from the ruins submerged in the Avelód lakebed. They journey carefully down the Path to the Dawn, Steven opts to stay on the beach due to water and fire being a bad mix, and the others journey into the ruins. After distracting some larger-than-average crab creatures, TJ uses Location Scan (Rank 5 Mensa), finessed for 1000 years, to see the history of the fort. They then journey further in, finding a shark swimming in the lower section of the gatehouse. TJ attempted to seduce said shark by asking if it was into vore, but only succeeded in drawing its attention as it charged.

Noteworthy Postgame Events