Orlando woke up with the little green girl staring at him.

With a mixture of playfullness and fright she gestured him to look downstairs, where somebody uninvited was rummaging around.

It was the local Kenku Shaman, Barnabeak, which Orlando found odd enough to run down and catch the feathered fellow.

Barnabeak had grown up on a ship so his mimicry was based on sailor jargon making it difficult to understand but by the time Amelia and Alfein woke up and joined the conversation, it was clear Barnabeak had heard about the fight at the Copper Pixie the night before and had brought a healing potion in case anybody was injured.

Or at least that was his claim, but when the heroes let slip that there was a girl somewhere that they had now lost while chatting, Barnabeak’s quirky pirate-y speech turned to the normal common tongue and he was very interested in the disappeared girl.

The heroes felt uncomfortable with the nosy Kenku and sent him out through the door.

As soon as he was gone, the girl appeared out of thin air. It turned out she could become invisible on command.

Furthermore the heroes were able to get the first word out of her when she introduced herself as “Shatter” before falling on all fours and running around like a feral cat.

Inquisitors Karl Jorgenholt and Lopper Goldsmith

Looking out the window to verify Barnabeak had indeed left, the heroes noticed the Daisyguard at the Copper Pixie. Two stood out wearing the Daisygate colours but not with chainmail and spears. Instead they wore regular cloaks with rapiers at their sides: Daisyguard Inquisitors. They were clearly investigating the murder of Daryl Dug-Deep.

And soon they were knocking on Amelia’s door.

While Orlando and Alfein hid, Amelia talked to the two Inqusitors. The somewhat unpolished Karl Jorgenholt, a large sweaty and sneezing man with his uniform in a state of disarray, while his colleague the tall and slender Lopper Goldsmith was immaculate, sophisticated and well spoken gentleman.

while Amelia didn’t learn much, she was able to exit the Inqusitors without them finding the other heroes in her place which would have looked mysterious.

Alfein heads back to the Copper Pixie

Alfein decided to go straight out the main door and walk to the Copper Pixie, while Orlando headed back to his base, The Golden Carnation.

Alfein was met by the investigators and managed to remain out of the grasp of the law, eventhough her array of knives, daggers, short swords did raise their eye brows.

Orlando reports a hate crime

Orlando decided to walk from his home towards the Copper Pixie to create a fuss by wanting to report a hate crime by the iron Masquerade the night before, much to the surprise of the Inquisitors.

The tactic worked and inquisitors made it clear that while they knew of Orlando’s shady business, they thought it unlikely that he would have commited the crime. Instead they asked for his help as he would be able to keep and ear closer to the ground.

Back at Divine Petals Bridal

Back at Amelia’s shop, Divine Petals Bridal, the heroes regrouped, not sure where to go next.

They had learned that Daryl had been killed by a vicious poison that had prevented Amelia’s healing prayers to take affect.

Could Barnabeak create such a lethal concoction?

The answer came to the heroes as Barnabeak was returning with four cloaked figures.

The heroes decided to setup defences inside. Orlando waited by the frontdoor, Amelia in the middle and Alfein at the backdoor that she also rigged with a dangerous trap.

The two Iron Masks coming from the backdoor were met with a nasty surprise.

And as Barnabeak and the other two Iron Masks came through the frontdoor to help, they were faced with Orlando and Amelia.

It was a tough fight, but in the end the heroes had dispatched the iron Masks and Orlando captured Barnabeak in a headlock.

The irritated heroes were now expecting answers from the feathered fellow.

 

So this is it.

It all comes down to this moment in time.

On this field of carnage with dead warriors as far as the eye can see.

You are your colleagues, companions, friends have journeyed through thick and thin to reach this moment.

This was not what you had planned with your lives, but you are immensely grateful that you are all together in this.

You struggle to understand the creature, the entity in front of you. It is as frightening as it is beautiful.

But the danger and the stakes are real: you must win or life, all life in this world, will be lost.

You know that if you are victorious, you will never be able to tell anybody. The memory of the foe must never be shared. Nobody must ever know.

And if you lose…. well nobody will be left to remember.

Roll initiative.

Fighting the unknown

The confused heroes readied for battle, unsure as to how to fight whatever this foe was.

While the creature took damage from Amelia’s spells and Alfein’s daggers, it seems to ignore Orlando’s sleep spell.

Alfein, trying to make sense of the creature, decided to touch it. She felt the odd metal yet flesh, wet yet dry surface moving under her hand.

One by one the heroes fell to the devastating alien psychic attacks. Amelia tried to keep everybody on their feet, but alas it was in vain.

One by one, our heroes died.

Waking up

Our heroes woke up with the sounds and smells of the battle. Hearts pounding, adrenalin pumping.

The experience quickly disappearing to that illusive place dreams go to when you wake up.

Yet, the image of the creature stayed and the pain of the fatal wound that had struck each of them down, was there. And in its place was a scar. A scare that looked years old, yet they all knew it wasn’t there the day before.

And while they had been intimately familiar with each other in the dream, in reality Orlando and Amelia knew each other only by name and Alfein was new to them both.

An evening at the Copper Pixie

As our heroes went on with their days separately, they all three ended up in the fairly full and lively Copper Pixie where Clank, the odd little automaton owner, milled about serving customers.

Clank had his hands full with some standard drunk idiot at the bar, but our heroes were paying little attention to what was going on in the tavern as they were focussed on each other, each sitting at their own table.

In the end the staring became too much for Amelia and she walked up to Orlando quickly confirming they had indeed had the same dream and both bore the wavy scar tissue.

Alfein joined them just as the drunkard and Clank had gotten into a more rowdy kerfuffle. The event turn violent as the drunkard started spewing hateful slurs against the owner, insulting the fact he had a love for the tales of the fey and fairies.

As he started hitting the little automaton, the heroes stepped in and quickly escorted him off the premises, but not after he started accusing Orlando for being a fey due to his unusual Shadar-Kai skin.

And after ensuring Clank was ok they sat down to compare what each of them knew, which wasn’t much.

The Iron Masquarade

Unfortunately, the drunkard appeared again coming back from the rainy night outside. And he had brought a group of cloaked people wearing iron masks: the Iron Masquerade, a secretive group who actually believed the Fey are real and a threat to Daisygate.

Alfein slid by one of them successfully lifted something that felt like a necklace. Although the Iron Mask didn’t notice the elegant pick, he still used the close proximity to stab at Alfein with his long vicious dagger.

And the fight was on.

The heroes fought well, but they were outnumbered and Amelia fell followed by Orlando.

As Orlando fell, Daryl Dug-Deep, the local Dwarven Barber Surgeon, stepped in and quickly gave Orlando a healing potion while rebuking the Iron Masquerade. As he kept shouting at the cloaked figures, he also got Amelia up on her feet.

Now the Iron Masquerade had gathered their wits and readied for an attack against the old dwarf, but the patrons of the tavern stepped in, many of whom had had help from Daryl on the past. And the Iron Masquerade withdrew towing their dead comrade.

Aftermath

As the excitement died down, people started leaving until only our heroes were left. While they kept talking about their share experience, Daryl Dug-Deep came stumbling in with a heavy crate.

Drenched from the weather outside, he crashed to the ground disappearing behind the crate.

The heroes ran to his aid, but he could not be saved. Even Amelia’s spells were of no use. Death it seems would have its price today.

With his last breath Daryl asked the heroes to bring the crate to Thornlock and deliver it to people waiting there. They would be recognizable with a symbol of three roses intertwined, one green, one blue, one black. Daryl’s final words was a warning not to open the crate.

Alfein told the other two that he had seen that symbol with a group ofd travellers he had travelled with part of the way to Daisygate. He overheard them refer to themselves as The Triarch.

Thornlock

The heroes made it to Thornlock with no further incident. But there was nobody to greet them.

They considered entering the crazy looking encampment, but decided against it. Orlando used a cantrip to send up a “bat signal” like flare of the three roses. But nobody responded.

They walk all the way around Thornlock, but found nothing. no signs, no people. nothing.

As the sky to the east started glowing from the rising sun, they finally decided to open the crate. To their surprise they found a little girl, no more than 11 or 12 sleeping in the crate.

That would have been odd enough in itself, but the girl was bright green skinned from head to toe. Even in the dull rain her colours were vibrant and saturated. Orlando commented that the richness of her skin colour was almost the opposite of the Shadowfell where he had grown up.

While none of them recognised her race, it was clear she was no orc or goblin and Alfein found she was strangely familiar as a creature.

But the citizen of Daisygate was starting to awake so the heroes withdrew to Amelia’s shop.

Here they decided to get some rest. They lifted the girl out of the crate and onto a bed and took turns to keep watch. In the end, sleep overtook them all and as the morning crept in, they awoke with the little girl wide awake staring at them