Session 61: The Shadowmen Cometh


 * People are panicking!
 * Mogen recalls Shimmer towards her and spiderclimbs up the wall outside. The elephant inside rears back and knocks its halfling handler on her ass, then tears off the collar controlling it. Michaelangelo pretends to lose his leg, and VesunPC pretends to call for help. Tork magehands his leg back to him and he looks confused (he has no idea who Tork is); outside, Vanesse says, "Humans, huh?" and runs to the cart we rented, then pushes Giggs inside and locks the door.
 * Konstadin goes back into the room with Lenore, tells her to shut up and stay in the room, and slams her door. He goes into the hall (disguised as a human) where Tork is waving at Michaelangelo, and angrily asks him what's going on. Vikrit creeps out of the bathtub and goes over to Lenore's room, Sarienne in tow. Sarienne says we need to evacuate and she's confused; Vikrit stomps on her foot because we want her to stay. She says the queen is being led to safety and closes the door.
 * Konstadin starts heading back to Lenore's room. Meanwhile, the elephant has started to rampage. Mogen asks the team what the fuck is going on since Shimmer had the earpiece on. Vikrit hisses 'mindflayer here! Upstairs!" and Tork recognizes Konstadin's voice. Vesun casts Invisibility on Tork. Tork casts Unseen Servant behind Konstadin to knock on the door behind him, and he freezes. Sarienne helps Lenore up and lies that she needs to take her shawl off, realizing she appears to be hiding something--a black chain with an ampule, clearly the poison. Sarienne snatches the necklace and Lenore screams in surprise.
 * Meanwhile, outside, Vanesse creeps up on Baylock and Jerome and picks them up by the scruff of the neck, and drags them back to the stagecoach, throwing them inside. VesuNPC casts Silence in response to Lenore's scream. Lenore starts screaming more and tries to grapple Sarienne, and she falls to her feet. Vikrit runs over and opens the window, seeing Shimmer below. Mogen sees Konstadin through the bathroom window she's handing upside outside of, casts True Strike, and pulls out the Mogun, and fires, hitting Konstadin in the ass.
 * Darro bursts out of the royal chamber with a servant carrying the gong and runs over to the balcony. Sarienne drops the ampule into Shimmer's plunger outside the window; she scurries away. Tork sees Konstadin get shot; Mogen tries to shoot again and rolls a 1, shooting Tork through the door accidentally. Sarienne punches Lenore as she lunges again at her and bounces her head at the floor; she's woozy. The mindflayer breaks into the room, and his disguise drops; he looks absolutely furious and overwhelms her mind with hatred for The Ghost Sharks. She slashes Vikrit with her holdout dagger as he leaps out the window, and he dashes back inside toward the elephant.
 * Mogen sends Shimmer to go hide in a tree and takes a Potion of Invisibility, then clambers into the bathroom. Tork heads to the bathroom as well, uses his Rod of Silence, and blasts a maximized Ray of Enfeeblement at Konstadin but hits the doorframe. Konstadin starts searching Lenore and throws her nearly into the fireplace. Sarienne, under Konstadin's control, stabs Tork. Vikrit finds the two wizards ineffectively trying to calm down the elephant by reasoning with it, and Michaelangelo unintentionally hypnotically distracts Vikrit.
 * Mogen climbs back out the bathroom and circles around to the other window. VesuNPC comes in and Confuses Sarienne, who slashes at Vesun. Konstadin wraps one of his tentacles around Tork's neck and drags him forward; Tork rolls 12+4, Konstadin manages to roll a 4+11, and Tork grabs him. Vikrit calms down the elephant to the point where it kneels in front of him; he screams, "There's a FUCKING mindflayer upstairs, GO!" Mogen gets to the window and reloads her Mogun with a fire round.
 * Darro bangs on his gong and screams, "You're ruining the party!", that there's no fire and everyone should go back inside. Vanesse goes running inside. Tork casts Bigby's Interposing Hand and the hand holding the tentacle starts getting bigger and bigger with bluish-purple streaks, knocking him back. This breaks his mind control and Sarienne whips around to stab Konstadin, but she is barely able to damage him. Mogen blasts Konstadin in the shoulder and ducks out of sight. Vesun moves behind Tork and tries to Dispel Magic on him, but it doesn't seem to do much. Konstadin is furious and gets up, giving Sarienne an opportunity to slash him but she doesn't hurt him, he starts casting Shield and steps where Lenore is, and she scrabbles out of the way.
 * Vanesse runs inside, asks Vikrit what the hell he's doing, says, "out of my way, baby man!" to the cowering Kalti, and gets upstairs. Michaelangelo and Yanger reach the hallway where everyone is upstairs, and the former starts to cast something. Mogen reloads. Vikrit has the elephant put him upstairs (the people who have trickled back in clap and cheer as if it's a trick), depositing him right next to Darro; he asks Darro frantically where the queen is and he says she's not ready. Vikrit runs over to the rest of the team. Tork points down to Sarienne so she ducks, and blasts Konstadin with Scorching Ray using metamagic twice.
 * Sarienne steps back and shimmies up the rope to get her sickles and Vanesse's sword. Vanesse grabs it and, only able to reach 10 feet away from Konstadin, uses her shadow strike to slice through him. Yanger steps out of the bubble and asks Yanger where the queen is. Michaelangelo finishes summoning a gigantic air elemental in the middle of the ballroom with a shit-eating grin on his face; the guards notice this and start heading for him. Konstadin grabs Lenore and heads for the window where Mogen is. She stabs his hand with one of the spiderclimb claws and he rears back, roaring in pain, then looks down at Mogen, who flips him off with both hands and then crits to shoot him in the face with a fire round. She blows off half of his face; two tentacles are seared off and he's dripping purple blood everywhere. He screams and pulls back. Meanwhile, some guards appear to have noticed the gunshots below her.
 * Tork Lightning Bolts Konstadin, sending it into the night sky above Mogen. Vanesse and Sarienne slash at Konstadin again but he blocks the attacks. The ambassador and the queen step out of their room, confused and calm respectively. Vikrit jumps out of the way of the guards tackling Michaelangelo and runs over the queen, and when she bends down, says, "There's a plot for Lenore to kill you--you have to hide in there." She thanks him and goes back in.
 * Konstadin burbles, "You haven't. Won. Yet." and starts teleporting away, and Vanesse and Sarienne nearly kill him, but he gets away with his life. Lenore collapses to the ground.
 * Mogen calls out to the guards, "It's all right, the situation's been resolved!" One of them asks, "Is that true?!" and the other one says, "What are you doing, get her!" and they start trying to clamber to get her. Mogen recalls Shimmer to her and goes back inside, taking the poison.
 * Sarienne and Vanesse frog-march Lenore out, then Yanger drops that he's part of the Twelve. The guards seem skeptical until Mogen pulls out the . When they mention the plot to kill the queen, Darro stops yelling at Michaelangelo and gets stonefaced, then tells Michaelangelo to get out. The guards go talk to the queen and tell all of us to go in--but notably not Darro, who seems offended. Vikrit heals Lenore after we tie her up, and she seems relatively lucid and realizes she tried to kill the queen. Unfortunately this lucidity quickly fades.
 * Guard: "Who are you people anyway?" At the same time - Tork: "We're superheroes." Vikrit: "We're just simple adventurers." Vanesse: "Sharks, we're sharks." Mogen: "That's on a need-to-know basis."
 * Vikrit takes off his hat when the queen comes back in the room. The queen asks for evidence.
 * Mogen brings out the vial of poison and the guards freak out; the queen asks to see it and she examines it.
 * She asks Lenore why she'd do this and she doesn't respond; Vikrit explains that she's not super lucid. She asks who did this and Vikrit mentions the mindflayer and Lord Darro. She asks if we have proof and Vikrit just says we only have what she told us. Mogen goes and scrapes up some of Konstadin's blood while Vikrit tells her about the Stargazers (and leaves out the parts about the Dark Lanterns and Mavadtorop). Mogen returns and gives the queen the vial of blood
 * The Queen asks what our adventuring crew is called and Vanesse jumps in with, "Shadowmen." "NO! Ghost Sharks!" She asks us to come over and bend a knee; everyone but Vesun does so. She thanks us and says we're members of the Order of the Heron and says we can rise (Mogen's chair hydraulics are extremely loud, startling her). She offers us each a boon from the royal treasury and asks what else we would want; Mogen jumps in before Vanesse can say anything and says we need passage to the Mror Holds to follow the Stargazers. She offers to give us a letter that will grant us passage.
 * She says, "Between you and I, what you said about the Lord… keep that to yourselves" and says her people will take care of it. She dismisses the group. Vikrit and Mogen stay behind to tell her Lenore wasn't acting on her own impulse and they should try to dispel the magic affecting her, and the queen politely says that her team "will handle it" (i.e., torture and kill her).
 * We head outside.
 * Vikrit confronts Vanna the animal handler about the elephant and convinces her to treat him better. Vanesse proudly presents Sarienne with the "arsonists" and Sarienne asks what they were doing here, and they are pretty bad at covering up what they did (forge something of Darro's and got caught), they say they're "The Thieves' Guild of Marketplace" and that 'David Everyman' must have given them up. They mention Sarienne being the coolest thief in Khorvaire, 'the Red Dragon'.
 * They offer all the gold from their score of the Mockingbird, Sarienne says she needs to consider, and Vikrit turns to her and inadvertently names her when saying we have to leave them with enough to get home. Sarienne sighs and drops her disguise, and the three thieves yell, "We're SAVED!"