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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rangda" data-source="post: 6028152" data-attributes="member: 86125">10/6 SessionThe session starts with our intrepid sort-of heroes heading to Heward's factory to try to stop the arson that their visions have warned them is about to occur.  The arrive at the factory to see some suspicious looking types hanging about in an alley way, loading supplies on some ropes up to the roof.  They decide to go all official and break out their badges, with apropriate violence ensuing.  This was actually a neat fight (although Cyrus probably didn't think so, he got tent pegged by Eberado).  The arsonists swarm forward to engage, Valando promply creates a wall of fire through the cart, horse, one of the arsonists, and two of the players (forget which).  The 4 minions, stampeding horse, wall of fire, and burning cart manage to tie up Laci, Savanna, and Ford for while while the Dragonborn brothers attempt to make a getaway.  Only Cyrus and Carlie manage to give chase, heading down the other alleyway on the map.  They manage to get to the back of the factory just as Valando climbing down from the roof.  Cyrus heads over to engage Eberado while Carlie (who has the air token from the island) spends an action point to fly onto the roof.  Splitting up like this forced the brothers to split up which was good, but neither PC was well equipped to handle the damage the brothers dished out and this almost killed both of them before reinforcements could arrive.  But Savanna got there just in time and with some timely heals they managed to capture both of the brothers before they got away.  With Valando on the roof and Eberado on the ground the brothers could never get away.  On each round of combat one of them was stuck and couldn't run, and of course the other wouldn't leave his brother behind.So off to jail they go to cool their heels until they figure out they've cost some very powerful people a lot of money and politicians are looking for a scapegoat and it's going to be them.  Unfortunately for them by the time they figure out they need to talk to save their skins the party will most likely have figured things out on their own.The party then breaks up to get some rest.  At this point it's 6am, they're going on 24 hours of no sleep with half of that having been spent on Cauldron Hill.  Sleep (and lots of it) is probably a good idea.  By the time they get back to RHC it's 3pm.  They put in requisition requests, interrogate the Dragonborn brothers (and don't get much); and while they are pondering what to do they have a nice chat with a canary and a breeze.  Gale offers to meet with them and they decide to do so the next morning.  They spend the day collecting witch oil vials they had found at factories last session and brining them back to RHC.Early next morning they find a Canary waiting for them and follow it to the Cloudwood for the meeting with Gale.  This goes as scripted, with Gale revealing some of the conspiracy to them; the important clue here being the fact that there is a factory behind the Bleak Gate.  Nobody is particularly pleased with this news (especially Delf once he gets their report).  They agree to an exchange of information with gale and receive the Messenger Wind.  Note that in future reports to Delf the meeting with known and wanted super-terrorist Gale is not mentioned...They bypass the Nettles on the way back to RHC which puts them in Parity Lake.  They decide while there they'll try their shiny new Detect Planar Energy ritual out to see if they can get lucky and find something.  I figure this is a great opportunity to let them start to tie the pieces together, so roll a d20 to see if they get lucky, and roll a 19.  I give them a trail that leads from the docks at Bosum Strand to the bleak gate under the canal bridges.  They already know about the factory, this shows them how (at least some) supplies make their way through the bleak gate.  They don't look all that hard for the gate; at this point in their lives nobody is so keen for a free trip through the Bleak Gate.  They cast a few more times (they are burning time waiting for the requisition items to become available), and rolling a 17 I give them a trail from a factory through the gate.  Ford spends a Diplomacy investigation point to convince the factory owner he should let them search the factory; the find plenty of concealed witch oil and use that to bluff/bully him into convessing that he recently sold some supplies off the books.  The purchaser smelt of burnt engine grease who insinuated that an accident could happen if the supplies weren't sold.It's getting late so they head back and pick up their gear; it's now too late to do much so they spend some time going through the papers from the embassy.  They find some odd pieces but can't quite put the picture together to see what it's painting.  Rather than stay up late they decide to get some sleep and spend more time on it later.  Next morning Cyrus gets a note from one of his contacts, Ernest, a pawn shop owner in Bosum Strand.  He's requesting that they come investigate some strange goings on.  Everyone is on edge and the air smells like burnt engine grease.  That last part sets off all sorts of alarms in their heads and they drop everything they are doing and head right over.  But they (finally!) remember to use a favor and grab 4 constables from the Bosum Strand Police Station on the way over.  This helps them later.  They use the ritual to follow bleak gate energy to a warehouse.  Laci climbs the wall to peek through a window, shed sees all sorts of odd machinery, some sort of golem or robot, and a lot of guys in white coats.  They manage to sneak into the building and get right up to the chain link fence before starting a fight.  In a rather un-police like manner they start picking off the techs not even bothering to ask them to surrender or halt (despite the rather poor form this is probably a good idea in the long run).  But it doesn't stop the Bleak Golem from being activated, but it does cause some of the techs to flee immediately so the party gets to observe them fade out (presumably through the Bleak Gate).  Despite the golem's absurd damage output this fight is actually pretty easy for them.  They use the exact tactics the module indicates won't work and basically power through the golem's HP pool before it can kill anybody.  They manage to chew through the golem's 184hp by the middle of round 4.  All those essentials damage kicker powers really add up and at level 4 they've got 2 each.  And with a tactical warlord in the party the striker is attacking 2x/round.  Still, Cyrus came close to dieing, the golem hit really hard (the party also lucked out with the golem randomly choosing Cyrus' animal/robot companion as a target).  While they took care of the golem the constables rounded up a few techs before they could get away.  They escape the burning factory with 4 captured technicians and a lot of papers. Between the captured techs and having wrapped this up so quick they get some good clues:A sketch of a Jaguar rib cate with notes about screw locations for attaching a chest plate.A description of how the chest plate protects a repository of witch oil.Some notes on the construction and use of collars that compel the wearer to obey someone's commands.A checklist of: sedate cats, extract blood, remove heart, implant witchoil, attach collar & amulet, perform ritual, if error shatter witchoil vessel, if success attach chest plate.They techs are working in a factory in the bleak gate trying to weaponize witch oil for the Risur military.  They head back to RHC to put the techs in lockup, with the plan of trying to confirm/deny the techs story.  Since they've got some time to kill (I placed Nevard's speech at 5pm instead of noon) they take another crack at the papers.  Unfortunately for the PC's, the techs are going to fade away (literally) so they won't get much there but they do have more luck with the papers.  The find some reports on the investigation of recent factory purchases.  Many of these factories were bought by individual or companies that do not appear to actually exist.  The few that do exist have shady backgrounds, and seem to have come into large sums of money in unexplained ways just before buying up the companies.   By the time they find this out it's time to head out for Nevard's speech so they head to Dawn Square, but they make sure to tell Delf what they found in the papers before leaving.  Which is just what he wants to hear, evidence of a large conspiracy that most likely has ties into nobles, politicians, and government officials gives him a headache.They arrive at Dawn Square an hour before the speech.  They case the area and don't really see anything suspicious in and of itself (of course a crowd of a few thousand has lots of bad implications in and of itself.  They don't even bother trying to talk Nevard out of his speech, assuming that they will never be able to do that and spend all their time trying to find trouble.  Around 4:50 Ford has the bright idea of casting Detect Planar Energy to see if he can find anything.  Sure enough there some wagons and druids that show evidence of Bleak Gate energy.  And come to think of it, those round metal circles on the sides of the wagons sure look like the portal the technicians used back at the warehouse.  That's when the “druids” all draw weapons...The session ends with the assassination attempt on Nevard about to start.The party started to tie things together:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There is a factory behind the Bleak Gate, manufacturing something “bad”.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Nilasa was investigating this for Gale, and was most likely killed because there was something incriminating in the papers she took (which the players have).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Supplies are taken to the factory through a portal located under a bridge in Parity Lake.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Supplies that are passing through the Bleak Gate come into port via ship and also come from local factories.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The smell of burnt engine grease is most likely caused by exposure to witch oil that is burned as fuel.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The factories burning down isn't the work of Gale, it's the work of whoever is behind the factory in the plane of shadow.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Whoever is behind this is also buying up a lot of factories, so there could be supplies that nobody knows about heading through the Bleak Gate.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The “shadowy figure” could be shadowy because he has a strong connection with the Bleak Gate.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The conspiracy is at least national, and since it appears to involve at least some Danorans, probably multinational.</li> </ul>Their objectives are:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Stop Nevard from being killed</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Find out what Nevard's vision is.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Figure out who is behind the conspiracy.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Try to stop what is going on without pissing the conspiracy off enough that they just disappear.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Stop having to deal with all of this minor nonsense so they can get to the important work of KILLING KELL. (Kill Kell, sounds like a good movie...)</li> </ul></blockquote>

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