The Necromancy Was Coming from Inside the Temple - February 18, 2022

 - Two trancing elves and a halfling in a warm bed.

- Osiris drags Theophania out of her warm, soft bed and drags her to the Curlywit Boarding House for a planning session

- They can't decide between talking to the neighbor that Raiàn knows as a client, research at the library, Rusty reading the necromancy book to find out some ingredients they could see if anyone is buying in bulk, or more investigations in the sewers

- Theophania goes upstairs to purify Magnus's experimental waste bucket and asks him what he knows about portals, which is probably less than what she knows.

- Also, he has been really taken with fire magic lately and exploded a few small animals trying to imbue them with fire magic

- Tiff and Osiris head back over to the Temple while Rusty and Lyrielle go to the Hall of Justice

- Osiris speaks with High Priest Birel about whether the Speak with Dead spell is too evil to use

- Birel also tells her that the acolyte Cassandra who has assumed many of Osiris's duties found something disturbing that morning - the corpse she is currently preparing for rites, Warren Timison the halfling, who is missing his tongue and his heart - what's worse is that Cassandra is pretty sure he had those bits when he was delivered to the Rite wing.

- Osiris runs to the library to get Tiff who is still discussing book options with the librarian

- Tiff's examination of the body shows that the cuts where made with a very sharp knife and very precise cuts - to the point where very small incisions were made in the joint joints to allow the mouth to open wider for easier cutting out of the tongue. 

- They realize they may need a list of people from the Rites wing and Hospital wing who 1) had access to the wing and this body and 2) the skills to make surgical incisions - They start working with Cassandra to get this information

- The city guard brought Warren's body to the Temple, and the assumed cause of death is a head injury, though whether from a fall or a bashing Cassandra can't say

- Theophania may know a Starrly Timison, and they could go talk to her, but she doubts who he was in life has anything to with his organs in particular 

- Osiris and Tiff go to Headpriestess Marta to ask for a list of people in the Hospital wing who have the capabilities to do such surgical precision 

- Rusty and Lyrielle go to the Hall of Justice to ask Captain Swinson for some kind of documentation that will prevent beat patrols from trying to arrest them for entering the sewers, and she gives them a badge - It is the first time the party has seen her without barging in rudely, and she gives him a badge of sorts that will allow them into municipal places like the sewers without being immediately arrested if seen

- Raiàn spends some time writing notes to her clients who may live in or around the hill to see what invites to houses she can get in the next day or two

- Rusty and Lyrielle find Osiris and Tiff just outside the library and conference about what they have achieved. 

- Rusty recommends some security measures to prevent more body parts from going missing, so they go back to Birel to talk about guards on the doors and not letting in anyone who isn't on shift, etc.

- The keeper of the archives lets them in and shows them the things they ask about

   - Tiff asks about some correspondence Great-Aunt Thessalie had with a few people where she may have mentioned details about the undead and necromancers she fought in her adventuring days, Lyrielle helps since Thessalie had so many friends - They don't really learn anything useful

   - Rusty and Osiris go into the locked vault where they are hiding the book turned in just the previous day - They gather a list of several herbs, some of which are easy enough to get from a shop, but there are a few that will only grow wild that you would have to have good knowledge of plants to find, some would be available in the apothecary, but not all as not all the herbs have medicinal uses - They will have to check if any are missing from the apothecary

- George in the apothecary says they are low on belladonna, lavender, and lemongrass, which are from the short list they show him

- They check with Norman and he says that they purchase small amounts of the herbs on a monthly basis to rotate the stock, and the amounts George said were on hand are too low based on usage and how much had been purchased.

- They go back to George and ask who has been around and asking for / using belladonna, lavender, or lemongrass, but he's not observant (total stoner) and Sophia isn't here today (George responds to the question, "What number comes after six?" with "I mean, a lot of them.")

- 1,000 XP ea for 17,990 total ea.

Politics? That's Worse than Zombies! - February 11, 2022

https://semantle.novalis.org/

- The bookshelf that Osiris examines first looks like it has ledgers

- She grabs her arrow out of the wall and then one of the ledgers and it's just the household ledgers, but the name Blackmore is inside the cover, so she puts it back where she found

- Theophania says that they're obviously one of the big families in the city since they live in a big house on Winfair Hillock

- There's a noise from in the hall, and they rush to the fireplace which is where they came in, but the portal is not there.

- Theophania dives under the desk while Osiris gets behind the divan

- The door opens and a man walks in. He has a pointy noise and a pointy moustache. Then he stops and looks around then walks into the hallway and starts shouting for "Henry!"

- Theophania turns and throws open the window as quickly and quietly as she can and motions for Osiris and she hops out of the window into a little garden

- As Osiris is climbing out of the window and a different man walks in. One assumes it is Henry. He is tall and broad and wearing a leather breastplate and has a shortsword, he yells "Stop, thief!"

- Rusty goes to poke his head through the portal after a few minutes of not hearing from his friends and he just bangs his head against a stone wall

- Raiàn laughs

- Theophania and Osiris dash across the gardens and start scrambling straight down the steep side of the hillock

- Theophania makes it to the edge and is climbing down just fine, but Osiris is racing Henry to the edge and she has to dive to prevent him from catching her, so she goes completely ass over teakettle all the way to the bottom

- They dash across the street into an alley and catch their breath, Osiris having to coach the panting Tiff into a quieter form of breathing

- A very quick discussion between the two of them and they decide to head south to the Golden Bridge (the long way around) rather than crossing by the base of the Hillock to get to the Temple Bridge and they are going STRAIGHT TO Captain Abigail Swinson in the Hall of Justice to show her the necromantic book they found

- They take the quickest few minutes possible to clean themselves up and start heading that direction with Theophania worrying about her friends starving to death in the sewers because she is the one who has the maps

- Meanwhile, back in the sewer / necromantic laboratory, Rusty says, "That's a problem."

- They feel around for the portal a little bit more, but it's just gone.

- Raiàn accidentally brushes against the bloody apron, and gets a smear of blood on her hand. The apron then bleeds and the spot where the bloods was wiped away is immediately covered.

- Raiàn takes it down and folds it carefully and puts it in her backpack tucking it into a corner and holding it there with her water skin, you know, for evidence.

- They decide not to leave a note in case it incriminates them or the Temple (where they expect Osiris and Tiff would have gone)

- Finally, they decide to try to back track their way out of the sewers themselves 

- Rusty pulls out his Continual Flame lantern and starts looking for their footprints with Lyrielle helping to point out markings and things

- Raiàn occasionally pulls out the bleeding apron and uses it to mark the walls

- They find their way to a nexus where several tunnels, but there are footprints leading down two different tunnels

- It's quite obvious which set are theirs because of Raiàn's unique clawed feet are only going down one side

- The other set of tracks are obviously humanoid and are relatively fresh as they are walking over some of the party's original prints

- Holding up the "lantern" towards that tunnel just shows more tunnel

- Raiàn takes her bloody apron and writes "blood" in Orc for that tunnel as a note to themselves. Rusty also tells her it means strength in Dwarven

- Then they continue following their own footprints

- It's not too much longer after that they find their way to an exit from the sewers, and it's about dusk by this time

- Osiris and Theophania make it to the Hall of Justice and Tiff bypasses the front desk guard to dash straight to Captain Swinson's office door much to the guard's dismay

- They explain everything that happened after the dragon corpse to the captain and show her the book and she , and she asks them "Are you accusing Lord Blackmore of being a necromancer?"

- He is an Associate Justice of the Court, which means he is one of the five members of the court who try criminal cases, but he is not the Chief Justice

- Lord Blackmore is not the man with the super pointy nose and the super pointy moustache.

- Osiris asks Tiff to open the book, so she casts Mage Hand and opens it to a random page and Osiris tries to compare handwriting to the ledger she saw, but it's two different alphabetical systems

- Tiff draws the captain a map through the sewers to the necromantic laboratory for her records, but they take the book back to show to the leaders at the Temple

- They book it across the street and Osiris leads Theophania to her supervisor, Birel.

- He agrees to hear their tale after a bit of a jumbled explanation, and he gets the other two Headpriests so that they can tell the story only once and get everyone's advice at the same time

- Osiris calmly tells the story after Theophania gets the book out of the Bag of Holding as quickly as possible causing her to slam it on the desk a little bit to show them

- Headpriestess Rowan examines the book very briefly before declaring it an artifact of great evil.

- The explanation is given and the Headpriests agree to hide the necromantic ritual book for the short term while they are both put on special assignment to find the source of the necromantic incursion and root it out.

- They leave the book in Headpriestess Rowan's care for now

- They're heading for Tiff's rooms to talk about what to do about their friends when they run into their friends

- Tiff accidentally blurts out that they were in Lord Blackmore's study and Osiris shoves everyone into the nearest room, which happens to be a storage closet.

- Poor Tiff has her cheek smooshed against someone's thigh because of the cramped space.

- They briefly hear about each other's adventures then reconvene in Tiff's room, where Osiris and Tiff examine the bloody apron.

- Osiris determines that it is a bloody apron.

- Tiff changes the lenses on her goggles, feels the fabric of the apron, takes a little blood rubs it between her fingers (casts Identify as a ritual)

- She learns that the apron is enchanted to improve your abilities with knives and cutting weapons (A Butcher's Bib - once per turn you can choose to reroll your damage, but you must use the second result. Additionally, attacks with a weapon that deals slashing damage deal a critical hit on a 19 or 20. Requires attunement)

 - Raiàn agrees to give it to Rusty in the macabre way of using some of the regenerating blood to draw a plus sign on his forehead

- Rusty puts it on and he looks intimidating as fuck.

- Everyone agrees that it's okay for Rusty to use it as long as they don't have to touch it

- Rusty immediately pretends to hug Theophania and she in her tiredness just pulls out a screwdriver and a hammer and gives him a death stare

- 1,200 XP ea for 16,990 XP total ea.

The Black Knight Always Triumphs #ZombieMechanics - February 4, 2022

 UNDERGROUND ZOMBIE BATTLE

- Rusty moves forward to the nearest Skeletal Zombie and slashes it with his greatsword for 12 slashing dmg then slashes it again for 13 slashing dmg. The zombie's arm falls off but is still moving

- Raiàn casts Fireball on all but two of the zombies without getting any of her friends! She kills the zombie and it's arm are both destroyed

- Hunched Zombie (1) runs up to Rusty and belches over the entire party for 9 poison dmg and he smells AWFUL

- SZ3 moves towards Rusty

- Osiris moves towards the center of the cave at the bottom of the ramp and casts Turn Undead all the zombies within 30' pf her are Turned, which is all but one

- Theophania moves next to Lyrielle hands her a potion of Resilience and then casts Enlarge on her

- SZs are frozen in place with fear

- Lyrielle (BIG) moves to flank a zombie with Rusty and hits it for 14 bludgeoning dmg then she punches it for 12 bludgeoning dmg

- SZ4 is frozen in fear

- FZ2 moves towards Osiris

- Four more zombies appear out of a tunnel on the other side of the cave

- Rusty is unaffected by the miasma of the FZ1 and swings into it for 13 slashing dmg and does it again for 11 slashing dmg

- Raiàn backs farther up the ramp and casts Fireball on the four new zombies for 32 fire dmg killing them ALL

- FZ1 misses Rusty twice

- SZ moves away from Osiris

- Osiris casts Sacred Flame on FZ2 for 1 radiant dmg and she moves farther forward (She checks her holy symbol for dmg "I2 this thing on?")

- Theophania backs another 10' up the ramp and shoots FZ2 with her crossbow for 6 piercing dmg

- SZs moves farther away from Osiris

- Lyrielle drinks the Potion of Resilience but becomes Poisoned from the miasma of the zombie in front of her

- Zombies run away from Osiris

- FZ2 moves to flank Lyrielle with his friend and belches a wave of poisonous gas dealing 4 dmg to everyone except Osiris who took 8

- A new FZ appears from the turn

- Rusty succumbs to the poisonous miasma of the zombie in front of him, but he still manages to slice into it for 12 slashing dmg then again for 15 slashing dmg killing it

- Raiàn casts Firebolt at FZ2 for 5 fire dmg

- SK3 moves away from Osiris

- Osiris becomes Poisoned by the miasma, so she backs up and casts Zephyr Strike on herself and then shoots her short bow at the new FZ, but she misses

- Theophania shoots FZ2 for 8 piercing dmg as se moves 10' farther up the ramp

- SZs are frozen in fear

- FZ3 Dashes up to Osiris

- Lyrielle is still Poisoned by the miasma, but she still manages to smack it for 8 bludgeoning dmg and again for 11 bludgeoning dmg

- FZ2 punches Lyrielle for 4 bludgeoning and 9 necrotic dmg then does it again for 9 bludgeoning and 4 nectoric dmg knocking her unconscious

- Rusty shakes off the affect of the Poison then slices FZ2 for 17 slashing dmg then he does it again for 12 slashing dmg

- Raiàn casts Firebolt on FZ2 for 8 fire dmg

- SK3 wanders towards the base of the lamp

- Osiris shakes off the affects of the Poisonous miasma, Osiris runs over to Lyrielle and casts Cure Wounds on her for 12 HP 

- Theophania shoots FZ2 for 5 piercing dmg, killing it!

- SZs moves to within 30' of Osiris

- FZ3 moves to Rusty and belches poison all over the whole party for 19 dmg or 9 dmg depending on their save

- Lyrielle stands up  and she throws a dart at FZ3 for 8 piercing dmg and moves towards the base of the ramp

- SZ4 moves to within 30' of Osiris

- Rusty continues not being Poisoned, and hits FZ3 for for 7 slashing dmg then misses

- Raiàn casts Firebolt on FZ3 for 22 fire dmg

- SZ3 moves to be 30' away from Osiris

- Osiris casts Zephyr Strike then moves to flank FZ3 with Rusty then misses then she moves next to Lyrielle

- Theophania backs up 10' more then shoots FZ3 for 6 piercing dmg 

- SZ1 moves to be within 30' of Osiris

- SZ3 moves to be within 30' of Osiris

- FZ3 misses Rusty twice

- Lyrielle moves forward 15' feet, throws a dart at FZ3 for 6 piercing dmg, then moves back 15' again

- SZ4 moves within 30' of Osiris next to Rusty

- Rusty misses then slices into FZ3 for 10 slashing dmg

- Raiàn casts Magic Missile (Level 2) at FZ3 for 9 force dmg

- SZ3 wanders towards the base of the ramp

- Osiris casts Cure Wounds (Level 3) on Lyrielle for 21 HP 

- Theophania moves 10' up the ramp and then shoots FZ3 for 3 piercing dmg

- FZ3 punches Rusty for 4 bludgeoning dmg and 5 necrotic dmg then misses

- Lyrielle Dashes with Step of the Wind to flank FZ3 with Rusty then smashes it for 8 bludgeoning dmg

- SZ4 is frozen in fear

- Rusty ignores the miasma, then slices FZ3 for 14 dmg killing it (finally) then he slices SZ4 for 12 slashing dmg and one of its arms fall off but continues wiggling

- Raiàn casts Firebolt on SZ4 for 14 fire dmg then she turns and tries but fails to climb up to the next level of the ramp

- SZ3 is frozen in fear

- Osiris moves up a bit then shoots her short bow at SZ4 for 6 piercing dmg

- Theophania shoots SZ4 for 10 piercing dmg

- Lyrielle moves to flank SZ4 with Rusty then smashes it for 5 bludgeoning dmg then she punches it again for 12 bludgeoning dmg killing it! Then she moves to SZ3 for 5 bludgeoning dmg and it's leg falls off but keeps wiggling

- Rusty moves to SZ3 and slices into it for 11 slashing dmg then hits it again for 13 slashing dmg and it's arm falls off but keeps wiggling

- Raiàn casts Firebolt SZ3 for 6 fire dmg killing it!

- Osiris casts Sacred Flame on the last zombie for 2 radiant dmg killing it! 

- Everyone is quiet for a minute listening, but the cave is quiet

- They moves towards the passageway where the zombies came from and can see light 50-60' farther in

- They decide to have a breather before exploring further, so Theophania pulls out snacks then carefully picks her crossbow bolts out of zombie remains

- Once they are all feeling a bit more pulled-together, they head up the passageway that opens into another chamber lit with a Continual Flame sitting on a workbench with a book and some herbs and stuff 

- There is a cot against another wall

- There is a peg on the wall with an apron covered in fresh blood hanging next to the workbench

- Theophania feels a slightly magical pop like a bubble popping as they cross the threshold 

- The book is cold to the touch and seems to be bound in human skin

- Rusty can read the book as it is written in Dwarven and it has various necromantic rituals in it. There are also very graphic illustrations in it as well.

- On the far wall there are meat hooks with a bunch of limbs of humanoid creatures hanging from them

- Osiris casts See Invisibility and is wandering around the room examining everything and she find a camouflaged small doorway (about 3/4 the size of a normal door)

- Theophania determines the book is enchanted, so it probably can't just be burned, so she uses Mage Hand to put it in her Bag of Holding, she also grabs the Continual Flame object

- Osiris shows the group where she has found the Illusion covered door by putting her hand through the illusion

- She then shoots and arrow through the illusion without hearing any yelps from the other side

- Rusty pokes around and finds a golden tooth that he thinks is elven, but it could be human

- Osiris puts her head through the illusionary wall door and she sees her arrow stuck in a wall and she sees a very posh looking study with a divan and a desk and a globe and also windows

- Theophania walks through the illusion and looks out the windows to see the nice part of town on the Winfair Hillock on the southern side of it overlooking the city and the river (yellow house on the map) 

- Osiris goes to the door and listens and hears no one so she goes over to the bookshelf

- 5,000 XP ea for 15,790 XP total ea. - LEVEL SIX