Summary
During a caravan journey to The Unnamed City, the party witnessed a mysterious courier be executed by a stitched-together agent of The Awakening who then seized a massive red diamond from his body. A note on the courier revealed his mission to deliver the artifact to the Caer Thalor to be locked away by The Council of the Cold Veil. After a battle where the party cut the limbs off of and buried the Awakening agent alive (who later miraculously regenerated), they recovered a notebook with a sleeping face on its cover. By using the red diamond as a key, they unlocked the book to reveal it describes the Diamond of 20 Monsters, an army-summoning tool used by The Unknown. The party successfully smuggled the artifact and their new guide, Theratina, through The Unnamed City’s border, heading north just as regional tensions between The Council of the Cold Veil and Karvok Thuldor push the land toward open war.
Events
Journey to The Unnamed City
- Begins on a cart passage to The Unnamed City.
- Starting at Zar’Vasha in the morning, the 5 party members getting onto that caravan.
- A few hours into our travel (still in the desert), a hooded, masked man joins us.
- It is still the desert; we aren’t yet near our destination.
- Theodore recognizes him as a member of 1 of the 3 Magic Guilds but is unsure which (too low of a roll).
- The three guilds are: The Cold Veil, The Starbound, and The Magic Guild Ledgers.
- Raelor notices he is tightly clutching his bag, and inside it is some sort of gem.
The Ambush and the Stitched Agent
- A few hours later again and the cart stops abruptly.
- Roz puts the man to Sleep.
- Yharov takes the masked man’s bag.
- Blood from the driver’s cabin splashes into the back of the cart (the driver was killed).
- We step out of the cart and it immediately goes up in flame and turns to ash.
- The masked man appears unharmed, yet still asleep.
- A second masked man with red eyes appears.
- He rips the mask off the original masked figure, revealing a young sorcerer roughly 19 years old.
- The new masked man puts his finger to the old one’s head and eviscerates him.
- He then steps up to us and with a deep, demonic voice asks, “where are the contents of his bag?”.
- Yharov drops the bag.
- He claims the bag contains 1 of 12 items he needs.
- We know there were 12 dark artifacts that were created by The Unknown during his reign of terror.
- He takes a massive red diamond out of the bag and puts it in his own bag.
- “Enjoy life while you still have it. When the moon shines red, as the color of this diamond, all Hell will begin to break loose”, he says in his demonic voice.
- We could tell that he was a human but corrupted by something.
- He was bearing a symbol indicating he was a member of The Awakening.
- He simply walks away; everyone is afraid to stop him.
Investigation and Pursuit
- The dead body of the first masked man (the 19yo boy) had: 1P, 35G; a broken (requires repair; not just attunement) ring-of-spell-storing; and a note.
- The note reads: “You must hurry. Bring the artifact to the Caer Thalor so that we can lock it in the vault. We have more to collect before him. He is the last one”.
- It is signed the Minister of The Council of the Cold Veil.
- This created the quest Diamond of 20 Monsters Delivery for this.
- Yharov collects the dead man’s mask and bag.
- We follow after the scary masked man at a distance.
- He stops and pours a vial of liquid on a sapling which causes it to grow into a new plant.
- We recognize the plant as a Velvet Thorn.
Battle with the Stitched Agent
- Because we have cover and high ground, Raelor secretly attacks him using Concealed Shot.
- The shot moves his mask, revealing that he may just be a normal man (also a 15 hit).
- This gives us the courage to fight him for real.
- When a thrown dagger hits his left leg, it falls off as if it was simply stitched on.
- Roz casts Command to make him take his mask off, revealing that he has the face of a 16 year old Human boy.
- Avenj begins interrogating him (during combat).
- He takes the man’s satchel.
- The man Thunderwaves Avenj away and takes the satchel back.
- Raelor shoots his right arm, which also falls off as if stitched on.
- He surrenders (Theodore rolled a nat 20 on his intimidation check) and we interrogate him.
- Each of his limbs on the ground appear to be of a different species, are purified, and are still moving despite not being attached to his body.
Burying the Stitched Agent
- His face and torso is Human boy but has the limbs of a Dragonborn, Elf, Drow, and one other that I missed.
- He claims he was created to kill The Unknown and claims he will not pronounce the name of his creator in front of mortals.
- We (IRL) are skeptical of this claim given The Awakening symbol he is wearing.
- Roz tries to use Sending to get the creator’s name nonverbally, but it caused him to make a CON save and he couldn’t comprehend the name despite succeeding.
- He has TONS of random spell components; so many that we all now have all the components we need to cast any spell levels 0-3 once.
- Interestingly, the components are for multiple classes.
- Brad later said he doesn’t like dealing with components, so this may not be worth reading too deeply into.
- Behind emblem he carries is a coin.
- He implies he plans to somehow leverage the fact that many are at war to achieve his evil goals.
- Roz uses Mold Earth to bury his torso and head alive.
The Artifact Notebook and Vials
- In his bag, we find a notebook with a sleeping face on its cover and Three Mysterious Vials all containing different liquids.
- Vials include: A purple one that transformed the plant; a silvery one with transmutation magic; and a green one with necromancy magic.
- Theodore takes the spell components and mask.
- Someone plucks the plant and it is still alive and moving post plucking.
Arrival at The Unnamed City
- We arrive at The Unnamed City (the southeastern corner).
- In the center is a small, prospering city that grants passage to the other side.
- The water isnt very deep; we could swim through in a day.
- Roz pays a little lizard girl a copper to find us a place to sleep.
- She brings us to a cave hideout at the southeastern beach with some cots and toy; clearly this where she lives.
- Her name is Theratina.
- When asked if we should stay at an inn, she shakes her head and says “bad people”.
- The girl leaves despite us offering for her to stay with us; she is not very trusting.
Unlocking the Notebook
- We begin investigating the notebook with a sleeping face on its cover.
- There are multiple riddles to unlock it: first riddle answer “death”; second riddle incorrect answer “time” (red line appears); second try “the unknown”; third riddle answer “hope”.
- The pages of the book are blank; Roz casts See Invisibility but it does nothing.
- In the back of the book, we see a drawn diamond with blurry words underneath it.
- As we move the red diamond closer, the words become more visible; it absorbs into the book and text appears.
- “The Diamond of 20 Monsters: This artifact was used by The Unknown to bring 20 hideous monsters (its army) only to be slain by Grindledarks”.
- The diamond is removable still if you stick your hand in the page.
- Another page appears/renders showing a crooked staff with blurry text below.
- We take the diamond out of the book and decide its best to store them separately.
- Theodore hides the book amongst his other books in his bag; Roz puts the diamond in his bag.
Discoveries and Nightmares
- We search the hideout and find: 10 GP (we do not take it); a map of Evermore with Mazca’Tan circled; and three of her poorly rendered drawings.
- Drawings: her with two older lizard folk; a dark evil shadow with dark, amethyst like eyes; and her walking alone.
- Because Roz is carrying the diamond, he has a nightmare in some Dimensional Blue Arena where some large demon with red eyes says to him, “Give me back what is rightfully mine!”.
- He declines and succeeds on a CON save before waking.
- The Alarm spell goes off as a guard named Bobloro Fawnhore walks in.
- He was just doing a patrol and noticed us; he offers to take us to the Border City.
- The south part and north part of the world is feuding; center city stays neutral.
- Conflict source: The Council of the Cold Veil experiments caused the ice rift to spread, leading index to lose its lava season.
- He said a man walked into the city without a head and walked out with one late last night (the man we buried alive).
- The head is gone from Avenj’s bag, but the diamond and book remain.
Passage to the North
- Roz finds the little girl on the beach and asks her where the nearest library is (in the inner city).
- When asked where her parents are, she simply leaves.
- She later returns and Yharov gives her a doll he knit; she offers to take us to the library.
- She wants to pass the border to reach Mazca’Tan; we offer to help by vouching for her.
- She gathers her things: the items we found, a small rapier, and a canoe.
- Everyone (except Theodore who swims) rides the canoe to the docks of the center city.
- Two people at the dock offer to move our canoe to the other side for 5C; we pay 10C and tell them to fix the dent Theodore left.
- She takes us to the courthouse; passage costs 1S per person.
- The gnomish man doesn’t want to let the girl through because she owes 10 gold pieces for past crimes; we pay it from the original masked man’s bag.
- Once through, she tries to pay us back; we decline.
- We make our way to the north port and stop by a shop with a Bugbear named Fonzie.
- Theodore eats a magic mushroom in exchange for 2 free pouches of premium tobacco (worth hundreds of gold).
- He now has advantage on strength checks for the rest of the day.
- Our canoe is at the dock and repaired; as we depart, we notice some angry looking elvish spellcasters.