So, yeah - first session went quite well.
For my prep, I'd drawn up most of the module's battle maps. I also made some brigadeiros, found the logo for the real-life Thinking Man's Tavern, printed out the logo and stuck it in the bottom of a box from the local candy shop, and then served the chocolates at the appropriate point in the module.
Delft gave them their marching orders, and they dutifully headed off to the consulate. Officer Bellastair got some grief from the PCs ("what do you mean, you didn't detain any witnesses?!") ; Pearce immediately started canvassing the crowd while Luthor started to track Wolfgang - they both declared those actions before I was able to get LeBrix out to see them
The players immediately picked up on the discrepancy in the gunshot timing as soon as LeBrix gave his version, though they didn't say anying in-character. While LeBrix was saying his piece, I set out the chocolates; everyone took one, Felix took one and set it aside (declaring this as an in-character action), and Hannah, Doc, and Vallax each took more than one.
While checking the body, they grilled Braden a little bit (politely), and found most of the available information - they didn't make any spellcraft checks related to her head wound (which I described as looking a bit odd, but mostly healed over), and they never looked into or asked aloud about the flight magic, but they got everything else. As they were wrapping up here, I told the three who took multiple chocolates about the effects - Doc I gave a saving throw for the Dwarven poison resistance (which he made), while Vallax and Hannah both figured out what had happened (and grabbed an additional chocolate when they went back upstairs).
At this point, they had the consul staff take the body out to George the coroner, and badgered LeBrix into taking them upstairs. Doc started dusting the display case for the egg for prints, Felix and Hannah were checking for signs of a struggle. Felix picked up on the carpet having been moved, and asked LeBrix about it; LeBrix lied (in hindsight, probably a mistake), but Felix went and checked under it anyway. While he was doing that, Pearce picked the lock on LeBrix's office (ignoring the consular's door); LeBrix promptly stopped stammering about the blood Felix had just uncovered, and had his guards escort Pearce downstairs. Felix and Hannah identified the blood spatter from a slashing wound they hadn't seen on the body, and Doc lifted several sets of prints from the display case (and checked the lock on the case as well, observing that it had clearly not been picked.)
The party prepared to leave, at which point I glanced into the box of brigadeiros and noticed the "Thinking Man Tavern" note I'd stuck in there was gone; I asked aloud about it OOC, and Pearce's player had spotted it previously and lifted the printout out of the box. Note to self: next time, tape it down (I hadn't wanted to use glue in a food container). The table got a pretty good chuckle out of it.
Outside, they climbed into their carriage to discuss the next steps. Vallax suggested that he could speak with Nilasa's spirit, but the party decided to wait on that until they better knew what questions to ask. Luthor tried to pick up Wolfgang's trail, but failed (badly botched the skill check).
I'd ad-libbed a tavern a few blocks from the consulate where Braden used to hang out, as well as a number of the other Danoran staff; Pearce and Felix went to poke around there, while the rest of the party headed back to RHC headquarters. The tavern had an out-of-place patron from the Strand, who I used to throw in some of the background on the lockins/strikes going on, and the tavern keeper who didn't provide a whole lot of useful information.
Back at the lab, the rest of the party identified the vial from Nilasa's body (potion of vanish), and the drugged chocolates (fey pepper was sprinkled on, not baked in; exhaustive comparison with previously-siezed evidence matched a sample taken in Pine Island, distributor unknown). They checked Nilasa's stomach contents (only the one potion, no chocolates). (While I was rereading the "what really happened" bit to make sure there wasn't anything else, one of the players asked, 'Wait a minute. The module lists her
stomach contents in case we tried to check that?!') They asked about comparing the blood samples from the consulate hallway with Nilasa's blood; I ruled that they couldn't do it themselves, but they could call in a favor for it. They nailed the Diplomacy check, so Dima (the cleric from the second RHC party mentioned in the intro) was just back from her assignment for the day, and was able to confirm the match. Dima also told them about the post-mortem healing applied to Nilasa's head wound, but failed her own check to notice the necrotic nature of the wound.
On their way back to the RHC, Felix and Pearce stopped by the Thinking Man, but didn't get much - they confirmed that the tavern sells the chocolates, but the day-shift barkeep didn't know if or when Nilasa had bought them. They stopped by Parity Lake PD and picked up a copy of Nilasa's file, and headed back to HQ. (Felix added that he stopped by a yarn shop - picking up supplies for a murder board.)
At HQ, the party stopped and compared notes. They brought Delft up to speed, and asked him about their ability to detain/interrogate/grill consulate staff (the answer: "If you find something concrete, we can; I don't see any reason we would do so from what you've said so far, though it sounds like LeBrix was definitely hiding something.") A messenger delivered the carriage driver's report on Wolfgang; they called in another favor to get a sketch artist sent out to interview the driver, but failed this check. At this point, it was early evening.
The party split up again, with Vallax and Luthor heading to the Estuarial Reformatory and the rest of the group heading to Heward's. (I really appreciated that Felix's PC took the effort to guide Vallax and Luthor out from the rest of the party at this point; the two players can let themselves be dominated by the rest of the table, and splitting them off gave those two a chance to have their own scene. Of course, IC, Vallax is the absolute last member of the party you'd want interrogating anyone...) The conversation with Heward went pretty much as presented, and that group was going to head back to Thinking Man's next. The bit at the reformatory was more involved.
Vallax did most of the talking - after the previously-mentioned bit with "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", they had Derek bring Travis to a separate cabin to talk to him. Once he got him to stop singing, Travis basically said "What do you want to know, and what's in it for me?" Vallax asked what he'd like, and Travis asked for himself and Ford to be freed. Vallax said he could arrange that, and when Travis insisted on being let go first, Vallax landed a really nice Intimidate check and said he could either talk and get out early, or be left in a much less pleasant place to rot. At this point, Travis started talking. He clammed up when Vallax interrupted him at one point, and then said something like "if you get your sentence reduced" - at which point Travis decided he couldn't really trust Vallax, and reverted to "let us both out before I say another word".
Vallax and Luthor left the room, let him stew for a bit, and asked Goodson about getting the two released; Goodson said it could be done, but that there's a fair amount of paperwork involved and it'd take a while. (I tried to imply here that some palm-greasing could accelerate that process, and while a couple of other players picked up on it based on post-game chatter, these two didn't.)
Vallax and Luthor went back in to the interrogation room; they tried a couple of other tactics without success (threatening to tell Ford that Travis had ratted him out for fey pepper posession, repeating previous threats about extended sentences in less-pleasant prisons). What worked was when Vallax turned to Luthor and said "You know, he already said that Nilasa was working with Gale. Gale's a terrorist. If he's witholding information about a case related to Gale...doesn't that make him a terrorist?" At that point, Travis couldn't finish his story fast enough.
This was deemed to be a good ending point, so we called it a night there. In general, good times were had by all.
