My bad – Session 4
Our intrepid band of rebels hear tales of an inn known as the Clenched Jaw. It is near the docks, and has a tradition of being a place with little drama, the owner does not tolerate talk of politics or religion and is prompt to kick out violators and any patrons that even look like they are going to engage in fights.
Recently (since the Night of Ashes), there have been fights breaking out almost nightly. Rumor is spreading that revolutionaries, anti-Asmodean and anti-Thrunists plot and talk there. We are well aware that any home or establishment that is suspected by the government and government supporters to be sheltering rebels is usually burned to the ground, many times with the occupants still inside.
Our party decides to check the place out. While there, my ratfolk takes the opportunity to "rent" a tramp to seduce our paladin, cuz that's how I roll. Casing the place out and interacting with the owner and the patrons, indeed, it seems the owner has been turning in early each night, not being able to keep himself awake or interested past around sunset or so. While we are there, a well timed Detect Magic and Spellcraft when he starts suddenly yawning heading upstairs reveals he is the victim of a Sleep spell.
There is some annoying buzz in the air that starts getting patrons testy, and a few trips, slips and spills that look like they may have developed into full blown fights if not for the samurai and paladin running interference and talking the offended parties back down off going at one another.
Eventually, through a Perception check and another Detect Magic, I locate the culprit, and nod my head its direction approvingly, giving it a smile. A tiny creature, lizard-like with large butterfly wings. I motion for it to come down out of the rafters to converse. Capable of invisibility, it does so, and I bath it with compliments for the practical jokes it is playing and tell it about my own jokes on the paladin.
Through telepathic conversation with the faerie dragon (it can plant thoughts telepathically), I relate how his practical jokes may end up helping the Asmodeans (turns out he HATES those guys too – no humor!) and actually hurting and even killing the innocent subjects of his entertainment. I offered him a place as an ally with us in the fight against those hated Asmodeans and the opportunity to have a lot of fun playing jokes that won't kill people at the same time.
So we have an ally!
The next day, the I went back to the Clenched Jaw and explained to the owner what had been happening and assuring him I took care of it; and sure enough, he did not disappoint – he offered a large cask of quality ale as a reward, which I accepted and told him I'd send someone to pick it up later. The slayer and I went to go pick up the ale later that day and were ambushed by five members of a tiefling gang.
We killed two easily, hit another two with a sleep spell and the last one surrendered seeing his cohorts being knocked out so quickly. We question him and discover there is a tiefling gang that considers us a threat to their more "direct" operations against the House of Thrune, I delivered a coup de gras on one of the sleeping tieflings, and tell the prisoner he is to go back with the last living member of his party and tell the leader my ultimatum, "live and let live, or we will destroy you and your entire gang."
I sent our faerie dragon to follow them invisibly, spy on the location, get the layout, and when the tiefling tells their leader that, to telepathically plant a thought that "he is lying" in the mind of the leader.
After about six hours, the faerie dragon returns to our lair; the leader did not fall for the implanted thought, but has also decided to take more action against us. So we decide to bum rush their HQ and target the leader exclusively, figuring if the head dies, so goes the snake. Our faerie dragon friend described the leader for us… black-skinned, winged… She is a strix. And she has her "nest" up on the roof with three guards always on watch.
We head out and make our plan… the faerie dragon will cast ghost sound to get the guards near the edges and then sleep or grease to knock them out or hope they fall off. It goes off perfectly with two falling down and one asleed. I cast barkskin and longstrider on myself beforehand and we rush out and use a couple grapples and knotted ropes (my climbing ability sucks!) to get access to the roof. The paladin with his half plate fails his stealth check to make it to her nest and she is alerted, flying up and raining spells at us while everyone but myself throws out all the missile weapons we have; arrows & daggers. I cast two summon nature's ally off scrolls two subsequent rounds to get a couple of eagles to distract and claw and peck at her so she cannot get anymore spells off, next I do a magic stone spell and load my sling up for some ranged attacks also..
My delayed offensive efforts were too late, though, the paladin had been targeted with two too many scorching rays and fell off the building, unconscious and bleeding out. While the others maintained the attack, I yelled for the faerie dragon to grease the area in front of the roof access door and prepare another sleep spell on anyone coming through and I run to the edge of the roof near where the paladin fell and jump off. I take damage for falling, but will be able to stabilize the paladin next turn.
It is a losing battle on the roof, my eagles do not last long, our guys do some damage, but she quickly heals herself back up. I hit the paladin with a cure from our wand, he is still unconscious, but at least he is no bleeding out. Almost fully healed, the strix is screaming mad, casting wildly and doing damage to the samurai and slayer, who are now having a difficult time targeting her.
The next round, the paladin is groggy and I leave him to lay hands on himself while I maneuver myself to be able to see the strix from my location on the ground. Using my sling, I take a shot and miss. The paladin heals himself a little more and runs for the closest knotted rope. The samurai and slayer both hit with their arrows and do minimal damage. I make for the nearest rope as well, hitting the paladin with a wand cure ahead of me.
Four tieflings exit the roof access, fall on their butts due to the grease, and immediately fall asleep in a pile. There is an invisible giggle from the faerie dragon, who thinks this is all great fun!
The paladin and I both make it up to the roof and in one round, one after another all of our missile attacks hit home, the slayer arrow was a crit. The strix plummets to the roof, dead…
We sack the nest for its valuables, head down into the HQ, the two remaining tieflings had turned tail and run away. We sack their hideout and head back to our own HQ. I give the faerie dragon what he needs to accomplish the task and tell him to burn the place to the ground (cannot do that in front of the paladin…)
Everyone in the party leveled up to third.
I decided to take Craft Wondrous Items as my 3rd level Feat.