As you ask around Greenest, it is not hard to locate Kelvini's home, which is just over the bridge where you helped Lillian's family. Kelvini's house is small and modest, and a very tired half-elven woman greets you at the door. Her eyes tear up when she gets the news about her beloved husband but thanks you for returning the message as well as the ring.
Inglenook and Kiari would arrive at the keep's great hall first for their meal the next day. The human lord of Greenest, Nighthill, as well as the dwarven captain, Escobert, are both seated with the half-elven monk, Leosin, at the front table. The color has returned to Leosin's face, and he is wearing the bright purple robes of the order he belongs to. Seeing Inglenook and Kiari, he waves to them.
The professor returns to Greenest with the group, tired but uninjured. Upon returning he collapses into whatever quarters he has been given. Before going to sleep, however, he applies the balm that was given to him. He hopes it will help ease his old muscles and the pains he has developed over the course of the past few days.
Travis is glad to be back in Greenest and done with the mission. Such sneaking and subterfuge is not in his nature. Better to look a man in the eye as yourself if you were going to cut him down. Those he grew up with had instilled in him a code of honor, and even if they had chosen to abandon the code as well as Travis, he still abided by it as best he could.
Such thoughts took him back to his training, which led to the lessons recently learned in the fight with the champion of Tiamat. Insights on hand to hand combat learned over years wove together, providing new insights in the art of sword and shield.
He checked his armor and blade, working the pommel a bit to ensure a fine grip, then took a quick cat nap before heading out to meet up with the others.
Kirari's face brightens (as much as a half-orc's can) and she waves at Leosin as she enters the hall. "You are looking much improved Leosin! Glad to see you." Then, realizing she should have greeted the others next to him first, quickly shifts her attention to them. "Lord Nighthill, Captain Escobert good morrow to you."
She nods to the Professor who arrives looking quite rested.
As Cale enters the dining hall, visibly affected by the delivery of the news to Kelvini's wife, she leans towards him, "Forgive me friend, I should have accompanied you to deliver the news. You show his family much kindness in telling them swiftly, we do not yet know his fate and I spent much time praying for Selune's intervention on his behalf. There might yet be some small hope."
She smiles around at the others, "What does our day hold for us?" Not giving her eggs and sausages a moment to cool.
The professor wakes in the morning and is surprised to find that many of his aches and pains have gone away. That balm seemed to help his recovery tremendously!
He moves on down to the great hall and smiles at Kirari’s nod. He moves to an empty seat and sits down to the meal. In between mouthfuls of food and coffee he speaks to several around him. “I don’t know about the rest of you… but I found this mission very illuminating. I was able to add several notes to my text last night. Things I’ll be able to use to assist my students even more, and maybe, ways to convince other cultists of the folly of their doctrine.”
He nods to Leosin “It seems that you are feeling better as well. Nothing like a good night’s rest in a warm bed, right?”
To Kirari he whispers “That balm you gave me was very helpful! I feel better than I have in years. Thank you Kirari.” And he nods and smiles to her in thanks.
“Captain, we found one cultist who was from Greenest and seemed to be looking for an escape to get back. We were able to convince him to return to Greenest and we last saw him throwing his cultist gear to the ground as he headed back to town. Did he arrive safely?”
Nighthill and Escobert cheerfully wave back to Kiari with no offense taken.
Hearing the professor's question, Escobert replies, "Aye, a young man, Ivan, made it back just hours before ye all returned. He was only in his undergarments and kept saying, 'I'll never leave home again, never, never..' Lillian recognized him as the boy of one of her cousins and is looking after him."
Leosin nods back to the Professor and smiles warmly. Indeed, this well-dressed and washed monk looks almost like a different person than the bruised and injured half-elf you rescued a couple of days before.
Seeing Cale, he smiles but then becomes serious saying, “After all you’ve done already for me personally and for the people of Greenest, I hate to ask anything more from you. But the need is great, and I dare to hope that you can aid me one time more. I need you to return to the cultists’ camp. You know your way around it now. If the cultists are preparing to conduct another raid, or a large body of them marches away, or if anything substantial is carried into or out of that cave, I need to know. If you have a chance to get into the camp and look around again, that would be the ideal way to spot anything that’s changed."
“I don’t recommend letting yourselves get captured,” he adds with a wry smile, trying to cheer Cale.
Travis lets out a long, slow breath as one eyebrow rises somewhat in disbelief. He clears his throat.
"You are saying that you would like us to return to the camp we just snuck in and out of and sneak in and out again?" he says, sounding a bit exasperated. "Or are you simply asking us to observe from a distance? I have had more than enough sneaking and subterfuge for quite a while..."
The professor nods at Travis. “I’m not against some sneaking and subterfuge… but the chances of us getting back into the camp again undetected….” He shakes his head, “I don’t know how we would do it. Unless Leosin has an idea or some inside information on how things work?”
Kirari listens to the discussion with interest as she finishes her meal in silence, then looking for a distracted moment leans to the professor and whispers. "Glad to see that it helps. I was able to obtain it from one of the monks of Leosin's order. I will ask for more while we are in town, it would be of benefit to have on hand for future."
She turns her attention to the Lord and Captain, "Before any of us agree to this, we need to know more. I am not against returning however as there were many more prisoners we had to leave behind." She pauses a moment looking to the array of weapons she had set down next to her, "Oh and these, I have no need and they would be of better use to townsfolk or soldiers. I retrieved what I could from our last battle." She sets a couple slings and daggers gently on the table. "Their previous owners no longer needed them."
Returning to the original topic, Kirari adds. "I believe our main hesitation with returning is that we are vastly outnumbered and now recognizable."
Cale nods slightly at Kiari's words, trying to show appreciation despite his own lack of faith.
When Leosin presents them with the next request, Cale coughs and sits up; "We left plenty of work not done, I'm in. Before we head out though, we should probably let you know what we learned this time - they have a dragon egg, and a great deal of troops. The egg is held in a cave, maybe we'll scout that"
Inglenook’s eyes light up at the feast laid before them.
’Nighthill, you put on a good spread I’ll give you that. You also spout off crazy plans. All of us want to free those prisoners.’ He shoves some bread into his mouth. ‘But unless you can hide us all inside a mechanical dragon so that we can get into camp unnoticed, and fill the arse end with half your men, your plan definitely has poor taste……Unlike these spiced eggs. These are yummy.’ He licks the rest from his fingers.
Leosin sighs deeply knowing that his request, and his casual attempt at humor, may have exacerbated the situation for his already weary friends.
At Cale's mention of the dragon egg, he stands as his light purple robes swirl about him. "Did you see the egg? What color is it and how many guards?" he says and then furrows his brow. "To the professor's question, maybe if one of you could get close enough to see if there are any movements coming out of the camp. That would be the primary objective: we need to see if they are coming back to punish Greenest, but if we knew what kind of dragon egg they were trying to hatch..." he trails off as Escobert starts to stir.
Escobert stands, albeit much less dramatic than Leosin, and pulls on his bright red beard when saying, "I've been sitting behind the walls of this keep for far too long. I'll go with ye if it can help your plan and leave one of my captains in charge here. What say ye?"
The professor answers Leosin. “We were not able to get inside and see the egg. It was heavily guarded and they insisted on signed orders from Mondath to gain entrance.” He pauses a moment and pulls out the colored knots from his pouch and sets them on the table before continuing. “We found these on some of the cultists after the battle. They seem to denote ranks of some kind. The guard outside the cave of loot had red knots and a red marking on his mask. Do you know what the colors signify and what the rank order may be? It’s possible we could use these with cultist disguises for a few of us to enter with some authority. Getting into the cave… that may be possible but it would be risky…. What does the color of the egg matter?”
Leosin listens carefully to Thaddeus and says, "Good, so you would know where the egg is to take a look. The cult has likely decorated it with the color and markings of the mother dragon (for example, blue for a blue dragon), and it would be great to know what we are dealing with." Leosin then motions for a scribe and starts jotting down some notes and drawing some figures for the party to take a closer look at. "I have been studying the cult for some time, and they have moved into this new hierarchical structure where they aim to personify a dragon. Once they rise in the ranks and become a dragonclaw, they select their affinity dragon, so that cultist must have chosen a red dragon. You may have seen others that picked black, blue, white, or green dragons. These are some illustrations I have sketched of the different ranks in the cult, and you were fortunate to have the robes of a dragonwing, Thaddeus."
(The first illustration is a Cult Initiate, then Rank 1: Dragonclaw, Rank 2: Dragonwing, Rank 3: Dragonfang, Rank 4: Dragonsoul)
Once the group takes a good look, Leosin continues by saying, "For the knots and talismans, this is how they not only show rank in the cult but also in the raiding party. For example, the crudest carving would be for an initiate, while a green dragon made out of jade would be for a dragonsoul. The more knots you have, the more authority you have. This captain at the cave would have probably had three or four knots with five being the highest rank."
The professor leans back and thinks about what Leosin has said. He tries to remember the number of knots and the style of uniforms he has seen.
Is there a roll I can do here or would there be a way to remember how much detail he noticed while looking around the camp? I’m not even sure how useful this information is but if he could possibly figure out the power structure maybe he could dress the part of a higher ranking cultist and gain access to the cave?
Kirari studies each of the drawings committing them to memory. Then looks over to the Professor, "You mention that they would have let you in with Orders from Mondath? Is there a forger amongst us? Leosin did you ever have an opportunity to see Mondath's writing. A Forged order may prove useful." She finishes looking over at the monk.
It makes sense that Thaddeus would have seen some different ranks and uniforms in camp, if you give me an Insight check, we could see how insightful the professor had been around camp.
Leosin scratches his short beard as he thinks on Kiari's question. "I don't think I have seen any of Mondath's writing, so I am not sure if I could make a compelling forgery. Perhaps it would help if I added an illustration of what Mondath looks like so that you can spot them more easily if they are still in camp." Leosin motions for the scibe to come back over and adds a drawing of Mondath to the page of cultists in their gear. "My observations have shown that the cultists are desperate to appease and impress those of higher rank. With that rank #2 uniform that you already have, some strong acts of persuasion could get initiates or rank #1 members to go out of their way to try and help."
Kirari leans in looking at the picture and whistles, "I hope they aren't carrying that Glaive if we ever have to face them. Those have some reach. If it is a Glaive. I've never seen anything like it."
She looks back around at the Captain, Lord and Leosin. "So, for optimal outcome you need more info about the egg and the cave, obviously freeing more captives and what else? I have to mention though that even taking out a few of their cultists on the raiding parties brought wrath upon the city, it could prompt a bigger raid just us being spotted there. Obviously, we would try to evade detection, but can Greenest withstand that so soon after the first."
Leosin nods and grimaces at his treatment at the hands of Mondath. Hearing Kiari's question, Nighthill nods to Leosin and Escobert and says, "I think the first priority would be to see if the raiders are coming back. It has been more than 24 hours, and we have not seen any movement on that road they made through the plateau. Then, If you can get close enough to get to that pen and release as many prisoners as you can, that would be your second objective Lastly, if you can get into the cave and report back on anything that you find, that would be of great help to Leosin's research." He pauses and puts his hand to his chin. "I think we also have enough initiate robes from the raid for you to each have. We were going to burn them, but Escobert can fetch them if you like."
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@Cale
As you ask around Greenest, it is not hard to locate Kelvini's home, which is just over the bridge where you helped Lillian's family. Kelvini's house is small and modest, and a very tired half-elven woman greets you at the door. Her eyes tear up when she gets the news about her beloved husband but thanks you for returning the message as well as the ring.
Inglenook and Kiari would arrive at the keep's great hall first for their meal the next day. The human lord of Greenest, Nighthill, as well as the dwarven captain, Escobert, are both seated with the half-elven monk, Leosin, at the front table. The color has returned to Leosin's face, and he is wearing the bright purple robes of the order he belongs to. Seeing Inglenook and Kiari, he waves to them.
The professor returns to Greenest with the group, tired but uninjured. Upon returning he collapses into whatever quarters he has been given. Before going to sleep, however, he applies the balm that was given to him. He hopes it will help ease his old muscles and the pains he has developed over the course of the past few days.
Noob
Cale returns to the great hall, his eyes puffy and red. He sits down silently with his friends, sniffing occasionally but saying nothing.
Travis is glad to be back in Greenest and done with the mission. Such sneaking and subterfuge is not in his nature. Better to look a man in the eye as yourself if you were going to cut him down. Those he grew up with had instilled in him a code of honor, and even if they had chosen to abandon the code as well as Travis, he still abided by it as best he could.
Such thoughts took him back to his training, which led to the lessons recently learned in the fight with the champion of Tiamat. Insights on hand to hand combat learned over years wove together, providing new insights in the art of sword and shield.
He checked his armor and blade, working the pommel a bit to ensure a fine grip, then took a quick cat nap before heading out to meet up with the others.
Kirari's face brightens (as much as a half-orc's can) and she waves at Leosin as she enters the hall. "You are looking much improved Leosin! Glad to see you." Then, realizing she should have greeted the others next to him first, quickly shifts her attention to them. "Lord Nighthill, Captain Escobert good morrow to you."
She nods to the Professor who arrives looking quite rested.
As Cale enters the dining hall, visibly affected by the delivery of the news to Kelvini's wife, she leans towards him, "Forgive me friend, I should have accompanied you to deliver the news. You show his family much kindness in telling them swiftly, we do not yet know his fate and I spent much time praying for Selune's intervention on his behalf. There might yet be some small hope."
She smiles around at the others, "What does our day hold for us?" Not giving her eggs and sausages a moment to cool.
The professor wakes in the morning and is surprised to find that many of his aches and pains have gone away. That balm seemed to help his recovery tremendously!
He moves on down to the great hall and smiles at Kirari’s nod. He moves to an empty seat and sits down to the meal. In between mouthfuls of food and coffee he speaks to several around him. “I don’t know about the rest of you… but I found this mission very illuminating. I was able to add several notes to my text last night. Things I’ll be able to use to assist my students even more, and maybe, ways to convince other cultists of the folly of their doctrine.”
He nods to Leosin “It seems that you are feeling better as well. Nothing like a good night’s rest in a warm bed, right?”
To Kirari he whispers “That balm you gave me was very helpful! I feel better than I have in years. Thank you Kirari.” And he nods and smiles to her in thanks.
“Captain, we found one cultist who was from Greenest and seemed to be looking for an escape to get back. We were able to convince him to return to Greenest and we last saw him throwing his cultist gear to the ground as he headed back to town. Did he arrive safely?”
Noob
Nighthill and Escobert cheerfully wave back to Kiari with no offense taken.
Hearing the professor's question, Escobert replies, "Aye, a young man, Ivan, made it back just hours before ye all returned. He was only in his undergarments and kept saying, 'I'll never leave home again, never, never..' Lillian recognized him as the boy of one of her cousins and is looking after him."
Leosin nods back to the Professor and smiles warmly. Indeed, this well-dressed and washed monk looks almost like a different person than the bruised and injured half-elf you rescued a couple of days before.
Seeing Cale, he smiles but then becomes serious saying, “After all you’ve done already for me personally and for the people of Greenest, I hate to ask anything more from you. But the need is great, and I dare to hope that you can aid me one time more. I need you to return to the cultists’ camp. You know your way around it now. If the cultists are preparing to conduct another raid, or a large body of them marches away, or if anything substantial is carried into or out of that cave, I need to know. If you have a chance to get into the camp and look around again, that would be the ideal way to spot anything that’s changed."
“I don’t recommend letting yourselves get captured,” he adds with a wry smile, trying to cheer Cale.
Travis lets out a long, slow breath as one eyebrow rises somewhat in disbelief. He clears his throat.
"You are saying that you would like us to return to the camp we just snuck in and out of and sneak in and out again?" he says, sounding a bit exasperated. "Or are you simply asking us to observe from a distance? I have had more than enough sneaking and subterfuge for quite a while..."
The professor nods at Travis. “I’m not against some sneaking and subterfuge… but the chances of us getting back into the camp again undetected….” He shakes his head, “I don’t know how we would do it. Unless Leosin has an idea or some inside information on how things work?”
Noob
Kirari listens to the discussion with interest as she finishes her meal in silence, then looking for a distracted moment leans to the professor and whispers. "Glad to see that it helps. I was able to obtain it from one of the monks of Leosin's order. I will ask for more while we are in town, it would be of benefit to have on hand for future."
She turns her attention to the Lord and Captain, "Before any of us agree to this, we need to know more. I am not against returning however as there were many more prisoners we had to leave behind." She pauses a moment looking to the array of weapons she had set down next to her, "Oh and these, I have no need and they would be of better use to townsfolk or soldiers. I retrieved what I could from our last battle." She sets a couple slings and daggers gently on the table. "Their previous owners no longer needed them."
Returning to the original topic, Kirari adds. "I believe our main hesitation with returning is that we are vastly outnumbered and now recognizable."
Cale nods slightly at Kiari's words, trying to show appreciation despite his own lack of faith.
When Leosin presents them with the next request, Cale coughs and sits up; "We left plenty of work not done, I'm in. Before we head out though, we should probably let you know what we learned this time - they have a dragon egg, and a great deal of troops. The egg is held in a cave, maybe we'll scout that"
Inglenook’s eyes light up at the feast laid before them.
’Nighthill, you put on a good spread I’ll give you that. You also spout off crazy plans. All of us want to free those prisoners.’ He shoves some bread into his mouth. ‘But unless you can hide us all inside a mechanical dragon so that we can get into camp unnoticed, and fill the arse end with half your men, your plan definitely has poor taste……Unlike these spiced eggs. These are yummy.’ He licks the rest from his fingers.
Leosin sighs deeply knowing that his request, and his casual attempt at humor, may have exacerbated the situation for his already weary friends.
At Cale's mention of the dragon egg, he stands as his light purple robes swirl about him. "Did you see the egg? What color is it and how many guards?" he says and then furrows his brow. "To the professor's question, maybe if one of you could get close enough to see if there are any movements coming out of the camp. That would be the primary objective: we need to see if they are coming back to punish Greenest, but if we knew what kind of dragon egg they were trying to hatch..." he trails off as Escobert starts to stir.
Escobert stands, albeit much less dramatic than Leosin, and pulls on his bright red beard when saying, "I've been sitting behind the walls of this keep for far too long. I'll go with ye if it can help your plan and leave one of my captains in charge here. What say ye?"
The professor answers Leosin. “We were not able to get inside and see the egg. It was heavily guarded and they insisted on signed orders from Mondath to gain entrance.” He pauses a moment and pulls out the colored knots from his pouch and sets them on the table before continuing. “We found these on some of the cultists after the battle. They seem to denote ranks of some kind. The guard outside the cave of loot had red knots and a red marking on his mask. Do you know what the colors signify and what the rank order may be? It’s possible we could use these with cultist disguises for a few of us to enter with some authority. Getting into the cave… that may be possible but it would be risky…. What does the color of the egg matter?”
Noob
Leosin listens carefully to Thaddeus and says, "Good, so you would know where the egg is to take a look. The cult has likely decorated it with the color and markings of the mother dragon (for example, blue for a blue dragon), and it would be great to know what we are dealing with." Leosin then motions for a scribe and starts jotting down some notes and drawing some figures for the party to take a closer look at. "I have been studying the cult for some time, and they have moved into this new hierarchical structure where they aim to personify a dragon. Once they rise in the ranks and become a dragonclaw, they select their affinity dragon, so that cultist must have chosen a red dragon. You may have seen others that picked black, blue, white, or green dragons. These are some illustrations I have sketched of the different ranks in the cult, and you were fortunate to have the robes of a dragonwing, Thaddeus."
(The first illustration is a Cult Initiate, then Rank 1: Dragonclaw, Rank 2: Dragonwing, Rank 3: Dragonfang, Rank 4: Dragonsoul)
Once the group takes a good look, Leosin continues by saying, "For the knots and talismans, this is how they not only show rank in the cult but also in the raiding party. For example, the crudest carving would be for an initiate, while a green dragon made out of jade would be for a dragonsoul. The more knots you have, the more authority you have. This captain at the cave would have probably had three or four knots with five being the highest rank."
The professor leans back and thinks about what Leosin has said. He tries to remember the number of knots and the style of uniforms he has seen.
Is there a roll I can do here or would there be a way to remember how much detail he noticed while looking around the camp? I’m not even sure how useful this information is but if he could possibly figure out the power structure maybe he could dress the part of a higher ranking cultist and gain access to the cave?
Noob
Kirari studies each of the drawings committing them to memory. Then looks over to the Professor, "You mention that they would have let you in with Orders from Mondath? Is there a forger amongst us? Leosin did you ever have an opportunity to see Mondath's writing. A Forged order may prove useful." She finishes looking over at the monk.
@The Professor
It makes sense that Thaddeus would have seen some different ranks and uniforms in camp, if you give me an Insight check, we could see how insightful the professor had been around camp.
Leosin scratches his short beard as he thinks on Kiari's question. "I don't think I have seen any of Mondath's writing, so I am not sure if I could make a compelling forgery. Perhaps it would help if I added an illustration of what Mondath looks like so that you can spot them more easily if they are still in camp." Leosin motions for the scibe to come back over and adds a drawing of Mondath to the page of cultists in their gear. "My observations have shown that the cultists are desperate to appease and impress those of higher rank. With that rank #2 uniform that you already have, some strong acts of persuasion could get initiates or rank #1 members to go out of their way to try and help."
Kirari leans in looking at the picture and whistles, "I hope they aren't carrying that Glaive if we ever have to face them. Those have some reach. If it is a Glaive. I've never seen anything like it."
She looks back around at the Captain, Lord and Leosin. "So, for optimal outcome you need more info about the egg and the cave, obviously freeing more captives and what else? I have to mention though that even taking out a few of their cultists on the raiding parties brought wrath upon the city, it could prompt a bigger raid just us being spotted there. Obviously, we would try to evade detection, but can Greenest withstand that so soon after the first."
Leosin nods and grimaces at his treatment at the hands of Mondath. Hearing Kiari's question, Nighthill nods to Leosin and Escobert and says, "I think the first priority would be to see if the raiders are coming back. It has been more than 24 hours, and we have not seen any movement on that road they made through the plateau. Then, If you can get close enough to get to that pen and release as many prisoners as you can, that would be your second objective Lastly, if you can get into the cave and report back on anything that you find, that would be of great help to Leosin's research." He pauses and puts his hand to his chin. "I think we also have enough initiate robes from the raid for you to each have. We were going to burn them, but Escobert can fetch them if you like."