Sessions 97, 98 & 99 - Can I Stroke Your Lizard?
7th Mar, 25th Apr, 11 May 2025
In-game timeline: Start of session: 1490DR Mirtul 9. End of session: 1490DR Mirtul 12
Our "Heroes" have signed up for some of the party games in the hope that they will win places on the menagerie tour, where they suspect they may find more information about the captured dragonborn.
Iwee is hoping to use her intelligence and guile in the cryptically named Cro's Swords, Karoshi putting his animal handling skills to the test in the Beast Racing. Both seem sensible choices. Jaxii, with her skill with a sword and love of getting into close combat decides to enter the Archery - go figure - and Derrick, which excellent abilities in deception best suited for gambling, decides to duel with crossbows. Hmm. Let’s see how that goes.
After some more chatting and information-gathering, and witnessing Bartok's spilling red wine on Allani's shimmering silver dress, the games begin!
Off to a tough start, when Iwee, with the help from her friends, fail to win in Cro's Swords - which turns out to be a word game (Cro's Swords -> Cross Words. Geddit?). Whilst they just manage to get through to the final, they are bested by Lady Seraphina in the final round and fail to win a ticket.
Dejected, they pin their hopes on Jaxii's archery skills. Which turn out to be poor. In a surprising turn of events, the archery is won by Charlie, which is as surprised as everyone else to win the competition!
With two competitions down and only two more chances to go to win tickets, the pressure is on Derrick in the duel. He draws Bartok in the first round, and they are presented with a number of different crossbows to choose from, all with differing benefits and drawbacks. Derrick and Bartok choose their weapons - Derrick chooses the poisoned bolts - and walk the required distance apart, before turning and drawing their weapons.
Derrick shoots surprisingly well, but Bartok also shoots well, and with better damage, managing to win the duel narrowly, knocking Derrick out of the competition.
Only one more chance left for our "Heroes" to prove themselves. Karoshi lines up for the beast race.
The first race is abandoned due to unforeseen events. The riders return to the start line and begin again.
Karoshi chooses the Magma Lizard, Konrad is left with the Dark Marsh Toad, Charlie selects the Shadow Bear and Magnus selects the difficult to handle Thestral. The race begins!
Karoshi takes an early lead and soon becomes unassailable as he races around the course on his lizard. Charlie struggles to control the bear and is very slow off the line, and equally slow along the rest of the course. He doesn't seem to mind this at all, and spends most of his time grandstanding to the crowd, and cheating on the race, but only when it made no difference anyway.
The main race is in the middle, between Konrad and Magnus - reflecting their rivalry in life. While Karoshi comfortable rides home in first place, winning the 300gp purse and the valuable ticket to the menagerie tour, second place is really down to the wire, with Konrad just coming in before a dispirited Magnus. Charlie trots home with a smile on his face.
Iwee spots Allani standing away from the crowd, having not seen her for a while, she tries to approach the vampire, but the Countess seems to be rather shy. Iwee does spot that she has cleaned the wine stain off her dress, which is where she had probably disappeared to.
Meanwhile Charlie persuades Derrick/Lord Graysing to enter the Vice Dice gambling game, despite the "rule" that you can only enter one game, saying that there is still a space at the table and no one will mind. Derrick decides to take up this suggestion and quickly writes his name down.
Iwee decides to ask the beast handlers about entrances to the menagerie and decides to start off the conversation with "Can I stroke your lizard?", which is met with a confused, and worried, look. She does eventually find out that there is another entrance to the menagerie, a little way away round the mansion.
And so to the final game - Vice Dice. Derrick has managed to get a seat at the table. It turns out that this game is basically Liars Dice, with the addition of being able to interrogate another player to try to find out a bit about what they have.
Grak'uul is a fun-loving ogre, and in the game for a laugh. Francios is a gambler and owes a lot of money and is keen to win to pay off some of his debts. Ursula is cool, calm and, known only to our "Heroes" also a spy who is keen to help out the group.
The game is fun, but also tense. Ursula is the first to be knocked out, but has managed to help out Derrick a little along the way - by the time Ursula is knocked out, Derrick still has all his dice, whilst the other two have lost some. Francois hits a losing streak, but recovers a little and regains his confidence when Derrick starts to lose some dice and level the playing field a bit. But then some bad challenges means Francois is knocked out and he slinks away miserably.
The final two - Grak'uul and Derrick (Lord Graysing). It is evenly matched and they reach a single die each in the last round. It is tense, but Grak'uul has to challenge, and loses! Derrick wins! He comes away with not only the 300gp purse for the game, but also the 300gp stakes from the other players and the all-important ticket to the menagerie!
With two tickets, and the tour soon to start, our "Heroes" consider their options. Derrick, having formed a good relationship with Charlie, manages to persuade the maverick to part with his ticket in return for an expensive bottle of Dwarven whiskey. So now they have three! As Countess Allani calls them all together for the tour, Iwee casts invisibility on herself and manages to join the tour at the back, unseen.
The tour takes them through the mansion and into the gardens at the rear, through a complicated hedge maze and into a large safari-park like menagerie. Allani takes great pride in describing the exhibits as they pass, whilst our Heroes think about how best to create a diversion when, and if, needed.
As they approach the final exhibit, a new, captured, ancient silver dragon, a shout goes up from someone in the group - a dead body has been spotted floating face down in the river! It is Marianna!
Taking advantage of the disturbance, Iwee slips away, still unseen, towards the captured dragon enclosure and sees the three dragonborn they are looking for, tending the area. She talks to them and tells them they have a plan and makes two of them, and herself once more, invisible with a high level spell. She tells the other one to approach the group slowly and to not be surprised at what may happen.
Meanwhile the others are trying to find out what happened. Marianna, one of the vampires, seems to have been murdered! Our "heroes", having seen suspicious activity from Allani during the latter half of the evening, suspect her, whilst it seems Allani is accusing a lycanthrope, Damon Highburn of the deed. She quickly abandons the tour and gathers everyone together to go back to the mansion, with Marianna's body.
Iwee tells Derrick what she has done, and Derrick, seeing others distracted, summons Pacino and managed to cast invisibility on the last dragonborn through his owl familiar without anyone noticing. The group all head back to the mansion, followed by Iwee and the three dragonborn, all invisible.
Back in the mansion hall, Allani states that no one is to leave until the Blood Council Guard has arrived, but Iwee manages to get the invisible dragonborn out of the main door before it is closed, telling them to make their way beyond the stables.
As the mansion is shut down, our Heroes debate what to do next - they are running out of disguise scrolls and fear that their presence will be discovered under any intense questioning. They discuss a number of options, but end up waiting it out. The Guard arrive and interrogate everyone - our Heroes hold their nerve and give consistent and innocent stories, deciding not to drop Allani in it, despite their suspicions that she is responsible and the accused Damon is innocent. This seems to prove a successful strategy and after all the guests have been questioned, Damon is arrested and led away and everyone is allowed to leave the party. Our Heroes are first out the door and take their carriage back home, with Pacino spotting the now-visible dragonborn hiding in the bushes at the side of the road. They quickly get them into their carriage and make it away from the mansion safely!
Back at the Sintaran home, with the rescued dragonborn, the Sintaran's are very grateful, and impressed. They agree to start the process of talking to the Nakshatra clan with a view to resolving their differences. Our Heroes have managed to unite the clans!
As a reward from the Sintarans, and her own Ancestors, Jaxii is given training to level up to LEVEL 9! She is also awarded, by the leaders of the Nakshatra clan, with the Gift of Epona - a small, magical trinket in the shape of a horse. The Sintarans also tell them about what Neverember and Castellan learned from them, and help them in their quest…