Session 8 - Dealing with Jarlaxle

Session Date: December 17 2019

Youtube link: Part A

Stats and Drork head into town, escorted by Rollie try to offload some of their spare gear, finding an area of town called the Bizarre Bizarre [sic], dealing with a strangely tall goblin-like man, who seems to be a few goblins standing on each other inside of a big coat. Stats buys essentially a sleep potion (they call it "full stop") from the goblins for 30gp and a threat.

Some time-killing having been done, the crowd has gathered for the evening's horse-pulling.

Silvaeran (the original welcoming hobo who greeted the town as they came into town) seems to be the selected victim of the evening, and has been shorn and bound in chains. He's accused of spreading blasphemy against Aurel, the Goddess of Winter, and the folks at the winter palace have "greased the wheels" to get him set up as the next victim of the quartering. As the horses are about to pull, he glances at Drork with a pleading look, and then Stats conjures some lions to appear in the crowd to create a distraction. The lions maul some of the spectators and indeed cause a great distraction. Drork runs in and frees Silvaeran, hustling him off into an alley and clothing him. At this point, unwanted visitors with blue fringed clothing and icy fingers descend upon the party, calling them out as "Traitors, Blasphemers!" Drork asks what he did, and he says he just wished for a short winter, being a hobo. This, apparently counts as blasphemy to the denizens of the Winter Palace.

A fight breaks out and the attackers seem to be mages of some sort from the Winter Palace, and are quite powerful, casting cones of cold and other icy spells. The party manages to repel their attack, but take some heavy casualties in the process and both Sirac and Silvaeran are killed in the fight.

Hearing the approach of the town guard, the party carries the body of Sirac away, leaving Silvaeran there, and fleeing the scene and heading back to the Happy Cow Tavern. Drork hangs out around the side of the Tavern and tends to the body of Sirac. Raloric and Hammerfeet go in and talk to Lily too inquire about setting up an appointment with Jarlaxle.

In the tavern, Raloric and Hammerfeet encounters a strange drow, who seems to be part shu and who seems to be essentially wearing blackface to fit in with the Drow. He introduces himself as Ken Chang and says he is the right hand man of Jarlaxle. The party explains that they are trying to help Lily negotiate with the Bregan D'aerthe and Ken invites the group to meet him at Whitesails Harbor after sunset, and they agree to meet him after they've had a meal and some rest. Lily gives the two some counterfeit coins that will permit entrance to the back room of the tavern later.

Hammerfeet and Raloric rent the group a room for the night. Meanwhile outside Drork is looking for a shovel and finds one amongst some gardening tools and starts digging a hole out back of the tavern.

Stats chats about for rumors and some of the townsfolk blame the arcane brotherhood in the great tree tower for the Lions. When asked about them he said they stick to their island, but they can be identified by their purple robes with stars on them. Stats then goes to a tailor's shop and buys Rollie some fine clothes.

Stats then comes and helps Drork finish up burying Sirac behind the tavern. Stats etches a headstone "here lies someone with daddy issues who never resolved them, don't be like him." They go inside and join Hammerfeet and Raloric in the tavern. Raloric catches them up on the plan to meet Ken Chang at the docks.

The party then turns in for the evening and rests for a while before heading out to meet Ken. Meanwhile Rollie comes back from the tailor in a loud green tuxedo and Stats sets him up with a bag and some note-taking materials. Rollie goes to do some scouting towards the docks and comes back with some information unintelligibly etched on his notebook. When asked to translate the chicken-scratch, he reports that there are Zhentarim agents watching the docks and that we may need to go in under disguise or ready for a fight.

The party then does some planning on how to get Lily over to the boat without beeing seen by the Zhents. Raloric suggests using the scroll of gaseous form to get her to float over there. Stats suggests that Rollie drink the sleeping potion in front of the guards and pass out as a distraction as well.

Heading out, the group approaches the docks, Lily uses the scroll and turns to a cloud of gas. Rollie sneaks ahead and looks to see if the situation is still the same, and Stats advises him to go ahead and run a distraction. The party heads forward past the thugs that are watching the docks, and Rollie goes ahead and drinks the potion, stumbles a bit, and passes out. The Zhentarim don't seem to interfere, and make it to the dinghy that Ken is waiting in. They make it to the Eyecatcher, and ropes are thrown down, so the party scrambles up to the deck. Up on deck, the group sees many drow seamen, and a couple that are kind of tanned, and have some sort of device (a pistol) on their hips. There are also two strange constructs, and Ken says they're curious creations that Jarlaxle found in Lantan. Lily asks if there's any food onboard, and Ken says Jarlaxle is always ready to entertain and points the group to the captain's quarters.

Entering in the group finds an ornate room, large for a ship's cabin and see a strange looking drow with an ornate dark purple suite and a hat with a feather. He's covered in jewels and buttons and gold and silver, and clearly this is Jarlaxle. He introduces himself and asks the party to introduce themselves and they do.

Lily introduces herself and states her purpose: to team up against the Zhentarim. Jarlaxle basically agrees right away, that he can help do that for a small sum or favor. Asking what sort of favor, Jarlaxle mentions the counterfeit coins that Lily has been making and that in the springtime he's going to Waterdeep to put on a show, and that Lily will be bankrolling them. The deal seems to be struck at that point, and Jarlaxle pours out some wine for everyone. He asks the group what they're doing with Lily, and Drork explains briefly that they came along looking for information about giants.

Jarlaxle explains that some Frost giants came and had a strange artifact that allows the user to locate the nearest creature of a particular bloodline with a drop of blood. He holds the device himself (and maybe the party can go back to him with some of Sirac's blood to help located his father... as part of the Find Artus Cimber quest).

Jarlaxle also explains that he was hired to steal the Dawn titan and bring it to Ironslag. When asked where Ironslag is, he tells the party that it can only be located when the forge is active, at which point it'll be obvious where it is, in the northwest of Faerûn near Citadel Felbarr.

Raloric asks a bit how this was accomplished, and Jarlaxle says in his travels to Lantan, the land of the gnomes, he found an item called the Iron Flask, which looks unassuming but can contain even immense creatures like the gods, and that they've already been paid for the service into a special account in Daggerford.

Stats asks if Jarlaxle has anything interesting to trade, and he reveals a feather, similar to the one in his cap, which is a Feather of Diatryma Summoning and he says he'll sell it for 200gp.

Hammerfeet asks about the relic he's looking for as part of his quest to Search for the Lost Relic and Jarlaxle mentions that the cloud giants seem to have been amassing a collection of relics. Drork asks about Hill Giants and Jarlaxle says that there was an attack in Goldenfields by Hill Giants. Drork thinks this is worth investigating.

The group says their farewell, and Jarlaxle uses some magic in his hat to transform Lily into a human man so they can sneak back into town easily. The party then departs and heads back to the Happy Cow, where she pays the party 100gp each. Stats pays Rollie a bit to keep him in the group for a bit as well.

TODO next session -
 * Investigate the winter palace and see if there is any leads on Find Artus Cimber - that magic item the frost giants had that Jarlaxle now has could be useful... need to dig up Sirac again real soon and get some of his blood.
 * explore the tower of the arcane?

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