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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 4888407" data-attributes="member: 386">We played again tonight; 6 PCs again.  We concluded the goings-on in Fallcrest with investigative work.After some discussion we finally settled on 2 healing surges per night OR a daily power recharge.  We'll see how that works.  So far I'm pretty happy with it; it meant the PCs stayed in Fallcrest for a week to heal up, and already I can see implications in the game world.So: the game.  After the PCs looted Orest Naerumar's store, they heard a heavy knock on the door.  It's the dwarven guard seargent Murgeddin, veteran of the Bloodspear War.  He wants to know what the hell is going on.Hekubus answers: "We're preparing for an ancient tiefling celebration.  Please get the hell out of here, this is delicate stuff and I don't want you screwing it up."I have in my notes: This is a good place for a skill challenge.  So I figure, let's go with it, and see how it turns out.  Hekubus rolls Intimidate, with a bonus for being trained in Bluff, and succeeds.Murgeddin responds: "That may be so, but I have to check on things.  Where's Orest?  Can I talk to him?"  At which point Shamon steps out of the shop and starts playing a tune, distracting Murgeddin and his detachment.  Shamon spins some lies about watching the store for Orest while he's gone, and they buy it.  (Bluff success.)But Murgeddin still wants to have a look just to make sure, he doesn't want to let Orest down.  So he heads in.  The other PCs have been furiously cleaning things up - luckily the fight was against constructs, so there's little blood, mostly gears and lumps of clay strewn around, and a few small fires burning.  Sharmok spots a bloodstain they missed earlier and gets Hekubus to stand on it when Murgeddin steps in. (Perception success.)  Murgeddin looks around sees things are okay, and Hekubus calmly asks him to leave, "Because the ritual has been ruined now."  (Diplomacy with a +2 for being trained in Bluff? success.)  Murgeddin shrugs and leaves.The PCs interrogate Orest a bit.  He's reasonably talkative (after an Intimidate check), telling the PCs what he knows: the death cultists come soon after the full moon; he's contacted by one of their agents and then they use a secret tunnel that leads from his cellar to out of town to unload the bodies.  There's also some talk about Sgt. Gerdrand, who normally works at the nearby gate, but often leaves for Winterhaven "to visit relatives"; he actually doesn't, he works with the cult.That taken care of, the PCs turn to Kelson and try to figure out what he's got on Markelhay.  Hekubus, Shamon, Umar, and Kieva head off with him to the Lucky Gnome Taphouse.  Once they get there, Kelson gives a subtle nod to one of his few remaining men; that guy enters Kelson's room, grabs a note, and takes off through a window to see Armos Kelroth.(The note tells Armos what to do with the evidence.  Armos would love to run Fallcrest, so he'd follow through with it.)The PCs pick up on Kelson's subtle nod (Insight success); they also spot a couple of seedy guys in the taphouse who seem a little too interested in what's going on; it's more of a professional interest than the curious looks the drunks and whores are giving the PCs.  Shamon decides to keep an eye on them, so he takes the stage and begins to perform.The other PCs head up to Kelson's room and see the open window but spot no trace of Kelson's man (Perception failure).  Kelson tries to spin some lies but they are easily seen through (Insight success).  Hekubus sits him down and grabs a finger.  "Tell me what you have on Markelhay or else."  Kelson tries to lie his way out of it, making vague threats, and Hekubus cuts off a finger.  A successful Intimidate check means Kelson starts spilling his guts.He tells the PCs that Markelhay's son killed a young lady of the night in the Lucky Gnome.  Kelson worked with Markelhay to clean up the crime, but he kept the head.  That's what he's got, and he knows that there are rituals that will allow someone to see the last few moments of her life.The PCs believe that Kelson's man took the head and ran off with it; Kelson isn't saying anything, though the PCs know he's holding something back (Insight success).  But the PCs know there was a safe or something behind a painting, though when they search they can't find it (Perception failure).  Umar takes his axe to the wall and strikes steel; they pry away the boards to reveal a safe.Umar also detects a trap on the safe.  None of them are skilled in Thievery, so they make Kelson disarm it.  He doesn't have the key - it was sent to Armos - so, one-handed and with 4 fingers, he attempts to pick his own safe.  He succeeds without triggering the trap.They see the head and decide to take it back to Markelhay.When they head downstairs they see that Shamon and the two strangers have gone.  Shamon followed them out the door, all the way to the Wizard's Gate and beyond.  Shamon followed them until they left the road and went somewhere in the Moon Hills, at which point he returned.Hekubus met Markelhay with a group of armed men, including Janos, the emissary from the Knights of Nerath.  Hekubus asks for a moment alone with Markelhay; Janos tells him not to listen to this scum.  Hekubus alludes to the fact that he has the evidence, so Markelhay takes Hekubus into his castle (Diplomacy success).Alone in the stables, Hekubus opens the safe.  Markelhay knows what it means.  Hekubus asks Markelhay to turn a blind eye to some of the things that have been going on over the past few days; "I've been turning a blind eye to things that have been going on over the past few years!" Markelhay responds.  Then Markelhay takes the safe.Ding ding!  Quest XP.The PCs all meet up back in the shop and decide to wait for the cultists to come and ambush them.  Aiden, an elven ranger, can't put up with the smell of the rotting corpses, so he spends the night in a tree just outside the Wizard's Gate.The night passes uneventfully.  We hadn't yet decided on what to do with Extended Rests, so the PCs didn't get anything back.The next day Hekubus gets Hrogar raised at the Temple of Erathis.  The dwarf is angry and sullen, and decides that adventuring isn't for him.  Death will do that to you.  He offers to run Orest's shop to work off the debt he owes Hekubus for returning him back to the World.Jenku the Kenku also visits the PCs.  He's been perched on top of one of the towers of Moonstone Keep, watching things.  He saw Kelson take off towards the west.  (Otto, one of Kelson's lieutenants, tells Hekubus later that Kelson probably went to join the bandits who are camped out on the Gardsbury Downs.  "Sorry about shooting you in the spleen," Otto says.  "I hope everything's good between us."  "Just don't cross me again," Hekubus replies.)  Looking for work, Jenku offers to run the Lucky Gnome for the PCs, bringing in the rest of his flock.  The PCs agree.(The PCs decided that they wanted to run these businesses after I told them how I was going to resolve it: give the business a level, make a check each fiscal quarter, success = a monetary treasure packet of that level, failure = a loss of 1/2 that.  Orest's store is level 8; I figure the Lucky Gnome is probably level 2, level 3 with illegal activity.)That night, Sharmok and Aiden are keeping watch in the tree outside the Wizard's Gate.  They spot a tiefling attempting to sneak past the guards at the gate (Perception success vs. Stealth failure; one of the many 1s I rolled tonight), so Sharmok sends a bat to alert the PCs.As the bat flies into the shop through the chimney, Taeroth Naerumar, Orest's brother and cultist of Orcus, enters the room.  This alerts Hekubus thanks to the Chime of Warding they had placed there.  Hekubus throws on Orest's cloak and heads upstairs, trying to pass himself off as Orest.  Bluff vs. Insight; Hekubus rolls a 17.  Taeroth has a +11 modifier, and I figure a +5 bonus is about right.  I roll another 1.  Heh.  "Orest, what's going on?  Are you sick?  You sound like you have a cold."  (As a general rule, I give ties to the PCs.  Not always, though.)Hekubus convinces Taeroth to come downstairs - Taeroth first - at which point he sees his brother with Shamon's knife to his neck.  "Assassins!  Orcus will have your souls!" he screams, and sends a swarm of skeletal snakes at Hekubus.  Fortunatly for Hek they're just illusions.  Unfortunately he doesn't see through it and they bite at his eyeballs.At this point I say, "Let's not pull out the battlemap or any of that; if you guys hit him 4 times he's dead."Umar charges at swings at him and misses; since I misread the Tiefling Heretic's power, he teleports past Hekubus into the middle of the shop, upstairs.  (It should activate only on a hit.)  Shamon rushes up the stairs to block the door; Hekubus teleports to the door to block it, and Tieva misses him with an eldtritch blast.Taeroth blasts Hekubus with Balefire but misses (not like it would hurt him anyways).  He moves closer to the door.  Shamon and Umar miss him, but Hekubus and Tieva hit with ranged attacks.  (At this point I'm using the right teleport power.)Then Taeroth moves past Shamon and Hekubus, since Hekubus stepped back to avoid an OA.  Shamon hits him, and I think, good, I can teleport now; of course, you can't use immediate actions on your turn, so it doesn't work.  Hekubus hits him with his OA and they tie him up and take him into the cellar next to his brother.Nice, quick little combat.Meanwhile, Aiden and Sharok attempt to follow Taeroth's tracks back to his camp.  The Moon Hills aren't "loose dirt", but they aren't "wood or stone", so I use DC 20.  Sharok aids Aiden with his excellent sense of nature, locating plants that have been tread upon.  Since Aiden is trained in Nature I give him a +2 bonus to his Perception roll.  They get a 19.  They follow the tracks for a while, but lose the trail in the scrub of the Moon Hills.They spend a few hours trying to find the camp and finally do locate it (no roll needed, they had some campfires going), then send a bat to alert the other PCs.Back at the shop, while Aiden and Sharok are searching for the camp, they do a little bit of interrogation.  Hekubus realizes that Taeroth would rather die than provide any information (Insight success).  The PCs debate about whether or not to kill him; they decide to let him escape and follow him back to his camp.  Taeroth sees through their Bluff but decides to go anyways.Shamon, being a half-elf with low-light vision, shadows Taeroth and Orest.  Behind him follow Hekubus and Tieva.  This way only Shamon has to make a Stealth check, but he can get no Aid.  He succeeds.  While following the tiefling brothers, the PCs get a bat message from Sharok, so they know they have an ambush ready.Taeroth and Orest get into the camp.  They've set it up with their backs to a 30' cliff.  They have two guards, a couple campfires going, and there are 8 of them.  There's a large wagon nearby and two mules tethered to a tree.  Aiden is up on the cliff while Sharok is in a nearby tree, completely out of sight.  (Aiden had to make a Stealth check while Sharok did not; this meant that only Aiden could get the benefit of surprise.)Aiden hears Taeroth and Orest talk to the others and he identifies their leader - shaved head, crimson leather armour, wielding a scythe.  He also spots Sgt. Gerdrand.  Anyways, when the cultists start to put on their armour, he fires two arrows into the nearest one, bloodying him.The fight is on.  The cultists take cover from Aiden, screaming "Assassins!"  That leaves them open to Sharok.  It takes Hekubus, Umar, and Tieva one round to reach the edge of the battlemat.The fight is pretty cool, with the PCs spread out, the terrain (hills, a cliff, and a river) being pretty important, and a number of sources of cover.  Since the PCs are all spread out they can't coordinate attacks, though the cultists can, and bring Sharok down for a moment.  The PCs don't have any daily powers left, since we're using that house rule for Extended Rests.But since they were ambushed and unarmoured, the cultists go down.  The PCs attempt to interrogate the survivors, but they have all been prepared with a ritual: they speak a syllable of the Final Word and have their lives snuffed out.Aiden relentlessly hunts down Orest, who fled as soon as the combat started.  He made a Perception vs. Stealth check; Umar decided to help him track as well, but something about his Aid Another action I didn't like, so when the Perception vs. Stealth roll tied, I gave it to Orest.  Eventually Aiden was able to run Orest down.  Orest begged for mercy, but Aiden gave him none.  (I asked the player if he wanted to run a combat; he said no, so I said, "I'll roll 1d4 and that's how many healing surges you lose."  It was 4.  I guess he put up a good fight!)The PCs hang out in town for the rest of the week, recovering from their wounds.  They decide to head to Winterhaven to investigate this cult.  Hekubus, however, plans to stay in Fallcrest; he was originally from Fallcrest, a member of the River Rats (Kelson's crew) and only left when he ran afoul of Kelson.  Now he can make it his home again, renting out a room at the Nentir Inn while overseeing the operation of their two businesses (and the kobolds at Kobold Hall, I guess).Plus, the player is moving away.It was a good session.  That fight against the cultists was a lot of fun.  Not sure why; maybe it was because it was tied to a lot of other stuff, some NPCs with names, the PCs were able to set up an ambush, the terrain was good, and the PCs were split up.  I also liked all the maneuvering in town, and all of that had an impact.  It was a very tight game.I am looking forward to seeing how these level 4, nearly 5 PCs deal with the cult in the Cairngorms.  I made that dungeon level 8 I think, and there are some really bad-ass guys in there.  Plus the undead, animated corpses of the old PCs!  (I screwed up in the cultist fight; I should have made their leader one of the old PCs.  That would have been awesome.)I think it'll be a really good test of player skill.</blockquote>

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