Daggerford: Intrigue & Investigations

 Game Date: 10/31/2020

Location: Roll20
Campaign: Daggerford, Session 6

System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:

Azul (Cliff) Dragonborn Fighter

Ezmerelda (Christy) Halfling Rogue

Khemed (Mike) Half-Elf Wizard

Neven (Steve) Elf Monk

Vanya (Matt) Half-Elf Bard

Boo - Neven's Riding lizard 

The Session:

We started the session in Cromm's Hold, and then traveled back to Daggerford.  After a tenday of downtime, we ran into Maechen, our guide.  We'd lost track of her when fleeing the dragon last session, and presumed she'd been killed.  Vanya asked her how she survived, but Maechen said we must have mistaken her from someone else.  This woman had no memory of meeting our party.

A few sessions ago we saw the execution of an evil wizard.  On a hunch, today we decided to dig him up.  "It's not grave robbing.  We're not going to take anything; it's grave voyeurism."  The body was still dead.  We looked for indications that the body was a clone, but the results were inconclusive.  He looked familiar, though.  In fact, he looked a lot like our party's wizard, Khemed.

We made an appointment to visit Daggerford's town wizard in seven days.  We saw town guards putting up wanted posters for a woman named Darwa Dalion.  We did some talking with various authorities, asking for more details about Dalion, and informed Sir Isteval about the Maechen's imposter.  Azul poked around and learned that Maechen was spotted in town while she was simultaneously leading us through the swamp.  

We rode out to the Florshin estate, to speak to Lord Darfin.  There was a lot of construction going on, as Darfin was in the process of building a home for the mentally ill.  Apparently madness has been running rampant in Waterdeep.  I wonder if that will be important later.

We poked around the estate, looking for clues about a recent murder in the library.  Our collective ears perked up when we heard about a fight that had taken place in the crypts.  Apparently some Red Wizards had stolen a key from the crypts.  Also, eight of their servants had been abducted.  

Our investigations led us to suspect the cult of Yan-C-Bin, an evil air god.  We headed back to Daggerford for more research.  Daggerford's priest of Lathander suggested we look for more information in Waterdeep or Candlekeep.  That didn't seem likely.  But Sir Isteval was able to give us more information about the stolen key.  Apparently there are four elemental keys.  Sounds like a good campaign hook.

We asked him about the remaining three keys.  He thinks they're somewhere in the Sword Coast area, and that the fire and earth keys might have already been found.  He also an idea who Maechen's imposter might be.  It was an old foe of his, a Rakasha named Nadir.  Why a Rakasha is so keen on meeting up with a black dragon is beyond our knowledge, but it's probably not good.

We believed our next step was to look for the water key, but we didn't know where to start.  While we waited for inspiration, a Duke came for a visit.  He told us that his sister had been abducted by the Baron.  He hired us to track down said Baron, and rescue his sister.  He was sending teams in three different directions to track down the Baron.  Our route was to lead us through an area called "Laughing Hollow", a canyon run by wild elves.

While riding through the snowy canyon, we encountered some mercenaries.  They fired some warning shots at us, and revealed that the Baron had hired them to keep us away.  We rolled initiative, and proceeded to kick ass.  Khemed took out two of them with a sleep spell.  Then Neven ran to the leader and pounded him into pulp.  Azul rode up to one, jumped off his horse, and skewered a merc with a dramatic dismount.

We finished off the last few, extinguished a burning tree (Khemed's work), and got back on the road.  The route became darker and scarier as we followed the Baron's path.  Ezmerelda suddenly fell asleep.  Vanya rode over to wake her up, when tendrils of grass suddenly started to entangle her and her horse.  

We heard giggling from the distance, and Neven went to investigate.  As he approached some dancing lights, Neven was hit by a sleep spell as well, but he was immune.  Three pixies materialized and started trying to calm Neven down.  They could only speak Sylvan, but Khemed had a Comprehend Languages spell.  They were asking for help.  

They led us down a path.  We saw a humanoid trapped at the bottom of a ravine, and a bunch of goblins were firing arrows at them.  Obviously the pixies wanted us to defeat the goblins and rescue the humanoid.  We had to end the session there, right before the battle was about to begin.

35 xp.