Kylaski cast Guidance on Sehaethas, then told him to go investigate what was going on.
Sehaethas reluctantly went out to examine the bodies, trying to determine who was the target of the fireball. He did not take anything from the bodies, and touched them as little as possible. Also determined which victims were closest to the centre of the blast.
Within the free time, Xaul's unusual patron had also developed him a friend, though this was not an extension of their pact which was expected. At first, the creature looked like a translucent starfish, barely visible in the splinter of his patron's form, floating on the surface like a patch of magical sea foam, but soon it started to shift into something more akin to a small cuttlefish or octopus. As the weeks went on, the creature began to take further form; Xaul couldn't exactly distinguish what it could be, and there was no word from his patron to explain its appearance, but he kept it around all the while, happy to have something to watch grow, like a plant of sorts. As time went on, the sea-green colouration of the creature became more obvious, along with its shark like teeth, and rough patches of spikier white scales, like mismatched horns. Its tentacles suddenly became more apparent as stalks of sorts; still, Xaul's memory had not been jogged. About halfway through the downtime, the familiar finally was fully formed, and when it emerged from the basin Xaul had been incubating it in (Humid Oasis had to be continual transferred from containers to keep up with the creature's growth), he finally recognised it as the creature he had slain in the sewers months before; a gazer.
Scratching his head, the half-orc wondered how it might have came to be, until he remembered that he had decanted some of the aberration's blood into his patron with the strange belief that the creation of such a magical cocktail might lead to some additional power; clearly that had paid off, though not in the way he expected. For the remaining weeks, Xaul trained with the gazer, naming it Barnacle. Eventually, Humid Oasis detected a change in their own strength; it took a while for an unexpected influence on such a vestigial form to grow noticeable to the fathomless titan, and when that change was detected, he helped Barnacle in his training by empowering it with more of their innate magic in exchange for Xaul's ability to converse with beast's, which he thought was a fair trade off. In addition, in the final few days leading up to the explosion, he empowered Xaulwith the ability to transform himself into water vapour, form a cloud, and have the rain fall in a nearby location, the droplets reforming into himself again. Xaul imagined this spell could become incredibly handy.
When the explosion happened, Xaul was teasing Barnacle with an anchor-shaped chew toy. He rushed out, the eager creature whizzing along behind him, and found the wreckage, his companions already assessing the damage. He gritted his teeth in regret; fires and taverns really don't mix with him around, and it wasn't nice to see that a scene that likely mirrors the one caused by his doing, only a few months ago. But he'd changed since then, in a way. Softened in his demeanour, but sharpened in his mind. He wouldn't be making stupidly rash decisions like that again. As the party analyses the bodies, he says 'Don't touch them or take anything off of them, though I assume nobody would. I also assume nobody saw where this came from, so we can only wait for the authorities and see if there are any injured around. I can put out any fires too.'
Damros.. late to the ARCANA party... and so, rolled a 4. Somebody had to tell him what happened. *facepalm*
And, once informed it appeared to be a fireball blast, he will go check out the tavern 'frontage' to see how scorched it might have been; if the windows got blown out; how much MORE repairing might be necessary to fix the blast damage.
Gazing out over the blast zone and seeing the bodies... does anything stand out?
Perception: 6
(( obviously, Damros is not a morning person... ))
A search of the bodies accompanied by a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check reveals the following: (Sehaethas just passes with the same roll for investigation)
One of the dead male humans has a black, winged snake tattooed on his right forearm.
The dead gnome has dry waste on his boots and cloak, suggesting he has spent time in the sewers recently. He also has a pouch that appears to contain some gemstones, but you would need to touch the bodies to confirm.
The gnome seemed to be near the epicentre of the blast.
There also seems to be people around who were outside of the blast radius but were outside so saw more than you
Skye lifts the hatch to the basement with a bang and stomps up to the front door. From there she watches the other investigate the corpses. She grunts. If a fireball only caught them in the periphery, then what was it centred on? Who were they trying to hit? She’ll check the walls of the property to make sure it’s not smouldering and no embers are in danger of starting a fire.
If not, Skye heads back inside and up to the top of the inn, from its tallest tower and highest windows she looks to see where the fireball may have been centered and if elsewhere further afield has been targeted too? Was this the only fireball?
There is no structural damage to the property. Or any of the properties for that matter. The only damage is to those 11 people.
None of them are patrons of yours, but the halflings you have seen around before, often with a young boy who you can see just outside the blast radius looking . The rest are strangers. The three in plain clothes are dressed like typical servants to wealthy families, likely passing through.
Taking a look higher, Skye sees the same centered information and there is no additional blasts obvious. She does see a Griffin cavalry rider on its way to provide ariel support as well as the city guard almost here.
With the guards almost here, Sehaethas moves out of the blast radius and starts questioning the those that seem to be witnesses, starting with the young boy that he had seen with the halflings. {Is he a young human or halfling.} Besides being a witness, he was worried that the young boy was now an orphan, despite Sehaethas' normally not wanting to get involved.
He's described as a "12 year old boy who was friends with the halflings" so I assume he's a human.
In terms of eyewitness, they are all eager to talk so no check is required. All that is needed is to talk with them for a minute. It sounds like Sehaethas plans on doing that to everyone, and others will likely do the same so I will post the three eyewitnesses that are able to provide something useful.
The boy:
“Right after the explosion, I ducked behind a rain barrel. Then I heard a ‘plop’ and found this in the barrel.” and he pulls out a necklace with a broken clasp and two orange beads on it.
Fala (Xaul's downtime buddy who owns Corellon’s Crown):
“I was watering plants in the greenhouse on the second floor of my shop when the blast blew out some of the windows. Lucky I wasn’t injured! Through the smoke, I saw a cloaked man take something from the body of a dead gnome, then start limping away. He was badly burned and casting glances over his shoulder, like he was afraid someone might be following him. He was headed toward the Bent Nail.”
Rich lady who had just left the Tiger's Eye:
“I tell you, it was not a man. More like a puppet shaped like a man. A puppet without strings. It was on the rooftop. It hurled something into the crowd below that caused the explosion. I saw those halflings burned alive! I saw them!”
Sehaethas looks at the broken necklace, thinking that it might be a necklace of fireballs. He asks the boy, "Do you have anywhere to go, or were the halflings your family?"
Sehaethas replies, "They were pretty good. I'll miss hearing them. Sorry, but I have to talk to others to try and find out why this was done and who did it. May I have the necklace as a clue?"
He passes it over to you. And around the same time, the guards arrive and corden off each entrance and exit to Trollskull Alley. And the Griffin rider is circling. Sehaethas can still talk to the other eyewitness (as can others) but you can't leave at the moment
Damros leans against the front of the tavern, watching the guards come in and gain control of the area. "Not the worst clusterflock I've ever witnessed," he mutters to himself as the guards go about their procedures.
He is also tightly wound up as he watches Sehaethas continuing his canvas of the area and witnesses. "They best not get their butt tossed into a cell..."
You see that the guard aren't doing their own investigation, but are purely keeping the area 'secure'. From experience, the city watch will investigate but will take slightly longer to get here. They can be expected in a few more minutes. They don't seem concerned by you guys asking people questions
More out of habit than any pressing worries, Skye comes down from the tower and closes the Inn’s door, making sure there’s no excuse for a watchman to just ‘wander’ in through an open door.
For the sake of knowing what knowledge the party know, can I please have confirmation of which of those three eyewitnesses people have spoken to (or will speak to. With Fala, they will always be around so you can just mentally make a note for now and ask them later. The lady will be hard to find once the watch leave as she isn't familiar to but you can speak to her at any point between now and then)
Sehaethas we'll be trying to talk with all of them, which includes ones who don't know anything useful. So up to the DM as to how many he actually talked to. If he is asked why he is asking questions, he explained that he's one of the partners of one of the businesses affected.
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Kylaski cast Guidance on Sehaethas, then told him to go investigate what was going on.
Sehaethas reluctantly went out to examine the bodies, trying to determine who was the target of the fireball. He did not take anything from the bodies, and touched them as little as possible. Also determined which victims were closest to the centre of the blast.
Investigation: 17 + 1(guidance) = 18
Within the free time, Xaul's unusual patron had also developed him a friend, though this was not an extension of their pact which was expected. At first, the creature looked like a translucent starfish, barely visible in the splinter of his patron's form, floating on the surface like a patch of magical sea foam, but soon it started to shift into something more akin to a small cuttlefish or octopus. As the weeks went on, the creature began to take further form; Xaul couldn't exactly distinguish what it could be, and there was no word from his patron to explain its appearance, but he kept it around all the while, happy to have something to watch grow, like a plant of sorts. As time went on, the sea-green colouration of the creature became more obvious, along with its shark like teeth, and rough patches of spikier white scales, like mismatched horns. Its tentacles suddenly became more apparent as stalks of sorts; still, Xaul's memory had not been jogged. About halfway through the downtime, the familiar finally was fully formed, and when it emerged from the basin Xaul had been incubating it in (Humid Oasis had to be continual transferred from containers to keep up with the creature's growth), he finally recognised it as the creature he had slain in the sewers months before; a gazer.
Scratching his head, the half-orc wondered how it might have came to be, until he remembered that he had decanted some of the aberration's blood into his patron with the strange belief that the creation of such a magical cocktail might lead to some additional power; clearly that had paid off, though not in the way he expected. For the remaining weeks, Xaul trained with the gazer, naming it Barnacle. Eventually, Humid Oasis detected a change in their own strength; it took a while for an unexpected influence on such a vestigial form to grow noticeable to the fathomless titan, and when that change was detected, he helped Barnacle in his training by empowering it with more of their innate magic in exchange for Xaul's ability to converse with beast's, which he thought was a fair trade off. In addition, in the final few days leading up to the explosion, he empowered Xaul with the ability to transform himself into water vapour, form a cloud, and have the rain fall in a nearby location, the droplets reforming into himself again. Xaul imagined this spell could become incredibly handy.
When the explosion happened, Xaul was teasing Barnacle with an anchor-shaped chew toy. He rushed out, the eager creature whizzing along behind him, and found the wreckage, his companions already assessing the damage. He gritted his teeth in regret; fires and taverns really don't mix with him around, and it wasn't nice to see that a scene that likely mirrors the one caused by his doing, only a few months ago. But he'd changed since then, in a way. Softened in his demeanour, but sharpened in his mind. He wouldn't be making stupidly rash decisions like that again. As the party analyses the bodies, he says 'Don't touch them or take anything off of them, though I assume nobody would. I also assume nobody saw where this came from, so we can only wait for the authorities and see if there are any injured around. I can put out any fires too.'
Xaul Lackluster: Half-Orc Fathomless Warlock: Warlock Dragon Heist
Borvnir Chelvnich: Black Dragonborn Barbarian: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Pushover Gerilwitz: Tiefling Wizard: Acquisitions Incorporated
Callow Sunken-Eyes: Goliath Arctic Druid: We Are Modron
DMing The 100 Dungeons of the Blood Archivist , The Hunt for the Balowang and Surviving Tempest City!
Killer Queen has already extended this signature, though not by much!
Damros.. late to the ARCANA party... and so, rolled a 4. Somebody had to tell him what happened. *facepalm*
And, once informed it appeared to be a fireball blast, he will go check out the tavern 'frontage' to see how scorched it might have been; if the windows got blown out; how much MORE repairing might be necessary to fix the blast damage.
Gazing out over the blast zone and seeing the bodies... does anything stand out?
Perception: 6
(( obviously, Damros is not a morning person... ))
A search of the bodies accompanied by a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check reveals the following: (Sehaethas just passes with the same roll for investigation)
One of the dead male humans has a black, winged snake tattooed on his right forearm.
The dead gnome has dry waste on his boots and cloak, suggesting he has spent time in the sewers recently. He also has a pouch that appears to contain some gemstones, but you would need to touch the bodies to confirm.
The gnome seemed to be near the epicentre of the blast.
There also seems to be people around who were outside of the blast radius but were outside so saw more than you
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
(Do we recognise any as patrons)
Skye lifts the hatch to the basement with a bang and stomps up to the front door. From there she watches the other investigate the corpses. She grunts. If a fireball only caught them in the periphery, then what was it centred on? Who were they trying to hit? She’ll check the walls of the property to make sure it’s not smouldering and no embers are in danger of starting a fire.
If not, Skye heads back inside and up to the top of the inn, from its tallest tower and highest windows she looks to see where the fireball may have been centered and if elsewhere further afield has been targeted too? Was this the only fireball?
Perception: 20
There is no structural damage to the property. Or any of the properties for that matter. The only damage is to those 11 people.
None of them are patrons of yours, but the halflings you have seen around before, often with a young boy who you can see just outside the blast radius looking . The rest are strangers. The three in plain clothes are dressed like typical servants to wealthy families, likely passing through.
Taking a look higher, Skye sees the same centered information and there is no additional blasts obvious. She does see a Griffin cavalry rider on its way to provide ariel support as well as the city guard almost here.
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
With the guards almost here, Sehaethas moves out of the blast radius and starts questioning the those that seem to be witnesses, starting with the young boy that he had seen with the halflings. {Is he a young human or halfling.} Besides being a witness, he was worried that the young boy was now an orphan, despite Sehaethas' normally not wanting to get involved.
He's described as a "12 year old boy who was friends with the halflings" so I assume he's a human.
In terms of eyewitness, they are all eager to talk so no check is required. All that is needed is to talk with them for a minute. It sounds like Sehaethas plans on doing that to everyone, and others will likely do the same so I will post the three eyewitnesses that are able to provide something useful.
The boy:
“Right after the explosion, I ducked behind a rain barrel. Then I heard a ‘plop’ and found this in the barrel.” and he pulls out a necklace with a broken clasp and two orange beads on it.
Fala (Xaul's downtime buddy who owns Corellon’s Crown):
“I was watering plants in the greenhouse on the second floor of my shop when the blast blew out some of the windows. Lucky I wasn’t injured! Through the smoke, I saw a cloaked man take something from the body of a dead gnome, then start limping away. He was badly burned and casting glances over his shoulder, like he was afraid someone might be following him. He was headed toward the Bent Nail.”
Rich lady who had just left the Tiger's Eye:
“I tell you, it was not a man. More like a puppet shaped like a man. A puppet without strings. It was on the rooftop. It hurled something into the crowd below that caused the explosion. I saw those halflings burned alive! I saw them!”
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
Sehaethas looks at the broken necklace, thinking that it might be a necklace of fireballs. He asks the boy, "Do you have anywhere to go, or were the halflings your family?"
"Oh I have my own family. The halflings are... Were my friends."
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
Sehaethas replies, "They were pretty good. I'll miss hearing them. Sorry, but I have to talk to others to try and find out why this was done and who did it. May I have the necklace as a clue?"
Persuasion check. DC8 (so for a cha class it's almost not worth the check)
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
Persuasion 8, just barely made it!
(Haha. For an all Cha party we really have been struggling with some of these checks)
He passes it over to you. And around the same time, the guards arrive and corden off each entrance and exit to Trollskull Alley. And the Griffin rider is circling. Sehaethas can still talk to the other eyewitness (as can others) but you can't leave at the moment
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
Damros leans against the front of the tavern, watching the guards come in and gain control of the area. "Not the worst clusterflock I've ever witnessed," he mutters to himself as the guards go about their procedures.
He is also tightly wound up as he watches Sehaethas continuing his canvas of the area and witnesses. "They best not get their butt tossed into a cell..."
Passive Perception: 14
You see that the guard aren't doing their own investigation, but are purely keeping the area 'secure'. From experience, the city watch will investigate but will take slightly longer to get here. They can be expected in a few more minutes. They don't seem concerned by you guys asking people questions
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
More out of habit than any pressing worries, Skye comes down from the tower and closes the Inn’s door, making sure there’s no excuse for a watchman to just ‘wander’ in through an open door.
For the sake of knowing what knowledge the party know, can I please have confirmation of which of those three eyewitnesses people have spoken to (or will speak to. With Fala, they will always be around so you can just mentally make a note for now and ask them later. The lady will be hard to find once the watch leave as she isn't familiar to but you can speak to her at any point between now and then)
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
Sehaethas we'll be trying to talk with all of them, which includes ones who don't know anything useful. So up to the DM as to how many he actually talked to. If he is asked why he is asking questions, he explained that he's one of the partners of one of the businesses affected.