What Would Lottie Do?

Theo's Vampire 101 class continues, teaching Frankie about the Sabbat. After being asked why they'd have to wait until Elysium before nominating that Toreador guy to Scourge (isn't the point to get in there first, so why wait?) he's told the "wheels are already in motion" for it.

Lottie and Julius decide Aisling should be in charge of the Fetish they're making - no, not the one they seem to have about blood bonding and then having sex in torture rooms with drains in the floor. This Fetish is to do with hiding memories. They decide to leave a cryptic message in the package Frankie is supposed to pick up from Seb tomorrow, so they'll get a prompt to go back to Aisling to restore their memories. They also discuss what/how much to hide away.

When it comes to the guys in Red Hook, Val shows up to report on how his chat with the police contact went. Turns out the cops further down know the charges are bogus, but they're scared to bring it up with their superiors? Smells like mind control. Theories abound. They should, however, not go charging in there, because that sounds exactly like what they'd be expected to do - and exactly the kind of stuff Lottie said not to do. She would be so proud of her cousin!

In Queens, they start looking at brass to use for the Fetish. It has to be brass, and made in the shape of an amulet. The piece they have appear to have been a part of the steel mill explosion in Red Hook, belonging to a Japanese guy. Hopefully they can shift the bad mojo from it before making it a magic item?

Roll Save vs being afraid of the dark!

Deeper into the forest of Davokar we go! We were attacked by giant hairless cats who were so hungry they decided we should be food. That didn't happen, through the cunning use of weapons and grappling hooks on people floating down the river. On the plus side, we made it to the Ordo Magica outpost! Some people were huddling inside, but were happy to see us.

As we made our way toward the headquarters out there, we came across freeze-dried spiders, weird purple lily of the valley where everything else was dead (did someone see a picture of a bluebell and didn't think to look further than "it looks a bit like a lily of the valley, but not white").

The Ordo Magica HQ was now full of goblins. Fortunately, Murmei knows how to speak their language and is proving to be strangely proficient at diplomacy. The goblins spoke of being scared of a "darkness". They also had a trap door (under which they kept a hungry troll), a wizard who was quite out of his mind, and a communication circle going straight to a big spider creature who said she was very benevolent and kind indeed.

The story continues ... and will hopefully be finished by Christmas at this rate ...

ACME miracle maps of Gibraltar!

We started the rebuilding of Tilverton with the help of the locals. A delegation of soldiers from Cormyr showed up to say that it was their town - we disagreed. There might be repercussions later.

Denny - or Denethor to give him his proper name now that he's a would-be god - was busy making weapons and armour. Elani made herself useful by recruiting allies in the animal world. Gunda started training people, as making sure the city can defend itself sounded like a good idea. She also got to try being a platinum dragon for a bit thanks to Elani - Elminster was not amused.

Dragonslayers are GO!

As far as cunning plans go, ours was very cunning indeed. First, Gorbash antagonised Milan by dipping a toe in the guy's territory. Milan, so big and strong, apparently needs six Rakshasa to combat Gorbash, which says a lot about both of them. Gorbash tried reasoning with him, but Milan wasn't interested.

With Milan out of the way, Baradhi and Sir Jayson went to find the gate box. Baradhi astral walked into the building, down some stairs and found the box in the basement. Unfortunately, there was someone there who could see him, so he had to make a quick exit.

After reporting back to HQ, we decided that the best option to retrieve the box - or destroy it - was to not have Milan there, because he's a fricken DRAGON. So we went somewhere near a ley line in his territory, tooled up and waited.

He shot first.

Or, okay, breathed fire first, barbecuing some poor bystanders in the process. Baradhi cast Carpet of Adhesion to make sure he couldn't move, and then we shot him with everything we had. First, Gorbash was blinded and accidentally blew up a building (with innocent people inside) thinking he was aiming for Milan. Sir Jayson, who was blinded next, still had a good aim, though, and his robot horse came into its own as well.

Now Milan is dead, so we can all call ourselves Dragonslayers. W00t! Gorbash took the body to the head of Stormspire (who wanted four pints of dragon blood), said "here you go" and as a reward, the guy is going to go after - and destroy, we hope - that box we were after. So, uh, we appear to have finished the adventure already.

You don’t need armour if they’re dead

When approaching a town, to which the party had tracked a missing box from the shipment transport, we encountered our fellow Blackstone Juggernaut Booker Dayes, the gunslinger. He was just finishing up "escorting" Liberace/a gaudy merchant/possibly his pimp, and reluctantly decided to join us.

We were urged to leave town as soon as we set a foot in it. They didn't want any trouble, and we looked like trouble (peh!). They'd struck a deal with human-eating lizard people to keep the town safe, we found out thanks to Baradhi's magics, and it would be a terrible shame if we were to get eaten. So we decided to stick around. After Jayson got his psi sword out and his kit off (more gifs, presumably) to prove he was a Cyber Knight.

Gorbash did his best to impress the townsfolk - whose previous experience of dragons didn't exactly make them friendly - by going to a hospital and healing people. When not getting drunk with Baradhi, Booker got to blow up a building (he was very happy).

The missing cargo was found along with the lone survivor from the transport, who insisted the box was evil and had to be destroyed. We were almost destroyed when finding this out, but it's good to have a friendly dragon on your side. The cargo - belonging to the mysterious "R.A.", how's that for coincidence? - was later delivered to Milan and a bunch of Rakshasa. We may have decided to find out where it was going ...