ZEITGEIST The Flint Irregulars, whose portraits you may have seen

Had the second session on Wednesday night. They solved Lya's challenge instantly, which was pretty much what I expected. Murdok remembered Lya's thesis from her time at the war college, and had a bit of a fangirl moment.

I gave them a little bonus gold for their success with the Coaltongue -- I just distributed the 5 PC reward among the 4 of them. Not wanting to waste playtime with shopping, I told them they could do their requisitions offline after the fact.

On board the Impossible, they enjoyed meeting the infiltration squad. A couple of them hung out with 7-Foot Dan and his bag of bricks. They kept an eye on the illusionist, but eventually spotted him in the galley making tea when he was supposed to be in a briefing.

We had an extended RP discussion between Reginald and Rutger about the Duchess' motivations versus the king's principles and plans. That was quite a lot of fun.

After the infiltrators went into the sea cave, the PCs dove into the water the moment the rope started jerking. They stabilized the goblin and got him back to the Impossible, mourning 7-Foot Dan and his poor bag of bricks. Continuing into the cave, they didn't investigate the pillar and instead went right up toward the crane, triggering an attack from Nick and the earth elemental. Vesta fey stepped right next to Nick, but couldn't break his damage resistance. I had a lot of fun shouting about dirt worshippers and how they wouldn't steal my trinkets, but the PCs quickly started spending actions on Diplomacy checks to try and talk Nick down. They succeeded, and after telling them what had happened, he agreed to guide them to the fort.

I'm not quite sure how to play that one -- I'm thinking he enables them to avoid natural hazards, but not the Duchess' patrols.

Once Nick explained that he had come here looking for the third "trinket," but that they could have it since he felt quite safe with the two he already had, they went back down and claimed the air coin. Nick guided them out of the mine, and then we called it a night.

Next session is planned for the weekend after my big move, Sept 18th. The players all seemed excited and looking forward to it.

Excellent. I'm glad we should be able to get out the 2nd adventure before you finish the 1st.

Session #3 happened as planned, but I've been too busy to post about it.

The PCs elected to climb over the hills rather than taking the road route. They saw some pretty strange things, including the giant golem. They tried to lure the golem toward the keep to use it as a distraction, but it refused to be swayed from its course.

They decided not to use the passwall scrolls, and came up with an alternative plan instead. They used water breathing, and walked around the front of the keep on the bottom of the sea all the way to the lighthouse. They swam up right at the base of the wall, positioned their air elemental ally halfway up, and Vesta fey stepped up into the grasp of the air elemental, then used the air icon's jumping power to leap from there to the top of the wall. I thought this was an absolutely brilliant plan, and it saved them having to sneak through the fortress.

They engaged the guards and managed to disable them fairly quickly, although not before the alarm was raised. They fired off their pyrotechnics, got the sea doors open and focused on sabotaging the mechanism so they couldn't easily be closed. Then they carried barrels of oil up the lighthouse and used them to immolate the guards' reinforcements, which bought them enough time for the Risuri ships to sail in.

That was all I'd prepared in advance, but the players all wanted to continue, so I took a few minutes to think about how to proceed.

The players had a short conversation with Captain Smith before Asrabey attacked. They couldn't intervene, but they were able to figure out pretty much everything about the attacker between them.

They found their way to the makeshift prison, where they were quite willing to accede to the Danoran officer's demand for weapons and for his people to be allowed to fight. Despite the fact that he disliked them and was looking for any excuse to refuse them, he couldn't fault their willingness to give him what he wanted, so he also gave them the observatory key.

The Danoran architect explained the sewer path to the PCs, and they decided to go that way, but then Asrabey blasted his way into the hedge maze. They almost reconsidered, but decided to stick to their plan and go in via the sewers. They avoided the hedge maze entirely. Climbing the tower, they saw the destruction left in Asrabey's wake, and were pretty nervous about engaging him. They listened outside the observatory for as long as they could, but when Asrabey opened the doors he saw Murdok standing there.

Asrabey told Murdok to leave, but Murdok responded by snorting and sitting down on the floor. Vesta went in the back door and let Nathan know they were there. Asrabey turned back and returned to the duchess, and the PCs followed him into the room.

They refused to let the duchess out of their sight, but agreed to escort Asrabey back on a ship. Their insight checks detected his duplicity, though, so they were ready for tricks. They escorted Asrabey down to the docks, Asrabey carrying the duchess and the PCs bringing Nathan. As they approached the boat, Asrabey attacked. The PCs had readied attacks, and they almost got him, but not quite. He killed the duchess and began to flee. The PCs gave chase, firing off their best attacks, and managed to drop him before he got too far away.

I'd been pretty nervous about how the Asrabey encounter would go, but it turned out to be fine, and the players were pretty wary of him given my penchant for not pulling my punches as a DM.

After that it was just cleanup. The PCs were successful overall, even if they didn't manage to save the duchess, so they were still commended for their efforts. Nathan asked for and received their permission to defect to Risur.

The next day, Lya Jierre arrived and was pleased overall with the success of the PCs. They were all pretty surprised when she mentioned casually that she might see them at her wedding to King Aodhan!

We ended it there. Reginald is a spirit medium, so the party is thinking about what three questions they want to ask the duchess posthumously. They're also finalizing their pre-Axis Island requisitions so they have new gear when they get back to Flint.

So now we're just waiting for adventure two! The players all really liked Island at the Axis of the World, and are eagerly awaiting our next session.

Thanks for the very detailed post. It's much appreciated.

You're welcome! If you have any questions about the specifics of what my players did, or how I handled a given situation that I didn't mention here, feel free to ask.

Awesome plan for getting into the lighthouse! I'm a bit concerned that my party (whose only arcanist is a bard) might flub the Passwall checks. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with if that happens.

Did you use the level 2 or level 20 Asrabey?

I used the level 20 Asrabey. I told my players about the options after the adventure was over and they all agreed that they were glad I used the level 20 stats.

SPOILERS FOR THE DYING SKYSEER (Just in case players read these.)

Today, we started The Dying Skyseer!

Yesterday, I had a private email conversation with Vesta's player about the secret Vekeshi Mystic gathering. Vesta attended the gathering and accepted the task of delivering a magical mirror and a message to Gale, then stayed for what he described as "a night of empty pleasures." Vesta chose not to tell his colleagues or the RHC about this development.

The PCs were discussing some of Gale's recent activity when Delft and his oversized magnifying glass interrupted them with news of a death at the Danoran consulate that might be related to Gale -- a would-be thief, Nilasa, who had attempted to use flight magic in her escape. The PCs immediately took the waiting carriage to the consulate to investigate. After a prickly discussion with the local cops, they went into the consulate. Their insight checks weren't quite good enough to figure out just what the consul staff were hiding from them, but they still managed to put quite a bit together. They were sure that the security chief's story didn't add up, but since he seemed sincere to them (19 Insight vs DC 20), they weren't sure what to make of it.

For some reason, they do any looking around outside the consulate, but focused all of their effort on the scene inside and the staff. This earned them a few pieces of information as well as three concrete leads: the name and information of a doctor who Nilasa talked to at the consulate on the morning of the theft, the name and location of Nilasa's employer, and the location of one of her favoured establishments.

The PCs chose to take her body back to the RHC morgue in preparation for later communion with the party's Spirit Medium, Reginald, and then follow up on the employment lead. This led them to Sicham's Alkahestry & Etchings, a remarkably pro-worker acid factory. They broke the news to her boss and friend, the factory owner, who told them a little bit more about her and seemed very taken aback that she was accused of robbery. He admitted that she admired Gale, though, and suggested that they seek out his uncle, a noted Skyseer, to try and arrange a meeting between Gale and Flint authorities to try and prevent further loss of life.

He also mentioned that some shady types had tried to buy "off the books" acid from him, then threatened him when he refused. Local police hadn't given him the time of day about it, so the PCs agreed to look into this as well, as a gesture of goodwill.

The PCs were mulling over whether to go talk to the Skyseer or look into the doctor lead, and they'll follow up on one or both next time! They seem to be enjoying the investigation, although some of them feel like they're missing things, and don't like feeling that way. Since there are multiple avenues of investigation that can lead them to the answers, though, and since they've made great progess so far, I'm not too concerned about it. Next session is in two weeks, so hopefully I'll have the normal indexed PDF and will be able to jump around from section to section more easily. Thanks for the prerelease text, RangerWickett! That made today's game possible.

Is the Vekeshi Mystic gathering your own invention, or is it mentioned in the Dying Skyseer? (I didn't see it, certainly not at the start of the adventure.)

You had an earlier version of the text, before I went through to make sure every character theme had something to do.