Skip to content

Cleenseau - Session 15

_in Taelgar, January 25th - February 7th
7 Robert I / DR 1720
Cleenseau and vicinity,
on Earth: June 2nd, 2024

Summary and Major Events

Rumors and Information

New People Met

Timeline

Narrative

Thanks to Kiya for this, it is lightly edited, mostly to crosslink places and add details that would be too much on Dreamwidth

Then of course we got the band back together by promptly reuniting with our missing lunatic, who we encountered on the road between Dallet and Beury. He and The Rangers - Vahaiya, Tristan, and Remille had been clearing out undead dregs in the East Bog.  After a brief reunion, Tristan and Remille, along with Emilie, now reunited with her companions, head north toward the Aveil Hills in order to figure out what had happened to their friends - Damien Montrichard, Enzo Brightwood and Adra Brightwood; Vahaiya remained, because they was concerned about the fey-realm portal we had previously discovered. So a bunch of them went one way, and they went to keep watch over the portal and see if there was a pattern to it doing anything, and we all went to figure out what nonsense had happened in our absence.  

Mostly there was a lot of petty administrative bullshit to work on to start with, which is primarily Robin’s problem, with a side of being Viepuck’s problem as Robin’s squire, social secretary, and too-many-people filter. Celyn checked in on the local Wyrdling temple in our secondary base of operations then tried to be helpful with administrative nonsense.  

As we were dealing with petty grievances and generalized nonsense, we started getting news from Embry. None of which was great! Because yes, sure, a tax levy to deal with this whole situation is reasonable, but the part where the scrambled army orders is being blamed on the people who were trying to follow them not so much, and definitely blaming the Duke for how things were handled in Wisford when he only managed to deal with the problem basically by mutiny because he was being sabotaged every which way was not on. Also the undead rising problem was blamed on some necromancers who had infiltrated the Night Queen temple, several senior priests had been put to death, and several were wanted for question - particularly including Lenora Belles and Raoul Boulain, the cleric who had set up the ‘destroys all the undead’ thing. We are cross. We send a letter to Rosalind, and another to Susanne Garay.

The whole thing appears to be set up to neutralize anyone who has been effective about the problems. The party is (at least currently) outside of the relevant hierarchies which means the problem in the court - we theorize some powerful warlock of the Gloomshaper, an enemy of the fey queen of Tyrwingha, where Celyn and Robin are from, who has claimed this area, apparently - cannot use that sort of order-giving to mess with us. Messing with us will have to be more direct.  

We start setting up counter-rumors talking about the Duke’s heroism and so on with Izgil puttering around going “Hmmm, but this doesn’t make sense” about the particularly not-sensey bits.  

We have also heard news from the western part of the area - the roads aren’t so great that way - about other undead attacks and stupid army orders and how that’s being dealt with. Eventually Viepuck sends his (fast swimming speed) eldritch octopus upriver to investigate what happened there.  

The rumors about the necromancers came with the warning that apparently the ritual they did was supposed to raise the dead every new moon, so we spent the week or so remaining before that training our local troops to deal with magical combat situations, monsters, and the like, using illusions and no-damage magic. It seemed the thing to do. Izgil talked to Brot and Diesla Starsearcher, who were working on siege engines - and who really would rather be working on telescopes - about finding a compromise position and working on constructing solar mirror weapons ala Greek ship-destroyers.  

As we were working on that, scouts reported a rag-tag band of Sembaran scouts coming up to the bridge over the river, so we went out to meet them after hastily constructing a banner for Robin to display. They turned out to be from the detachment of the army that had been sent away from Fellburn before the skeleton siege turned up, who had been sent wild-goose-chasing into the badlands and had encountered a series of unfortunate events. After Izgil surreptitiously checked them to see if there were signs of magical effects or other issues, their scout approached him to ask what he was doing; the resulting conversation led to him saying he thought they had been followed by some weird invisible singing creature, to which the party collectively went, “yeah, hostile fey action, we’ve been waiting for more of that”.  

Rene: Fey? But we weren’t in Tyrwingha.  

Celyn: exasperated sigh, eyes rolled heavenward

(Apparently the only thing that reliably gets Celyn grumpy is people failing fairy 101. But he is at this point a sort of slowly simmering kettle of perpetual low-grade exasperation about that.)  

(Well, that and the eel. That made him mad. In most senses of the word, really.)  

Anyway we reassured the scout that he wasn’t crazy, it was the world doing so, and if he was not-seeing things like that again he should please tell us. Also would he please help train our forces in not-seeing things like that?  

Then we discussed the need to add to Robin’s Instructions for Undead Uprising Prevention an appendix of Celyn’s Hostile Fairy Management Advice, at which Celyn was vocally frustrated until Robin got him to calm down and stop being grumpy about the people who didn’t grow up with this stuff.  

Viepuck’s familiar reported in that the town it was sent to investigate tasted sad and angry and chaotic and human, and after determining we couldn’t get it to give a message reliably, we tried for an unreliable message. unfortunately the problem with a six-month-old eldritch octopus is it’s not great at a lot of things, so for example when Viepuck tried o talk to it about Ida, our local ally, it reported there were six to ten Idas there! They have the same vibe, you see! Viepuck tells it to tell one of the other Idas to write to Ida, and to do it as a dog so it wouldn’t scare people, and got back a sense of cheerful satisfaction at a job well done, so … okay!  

As morale-based preparation for the possible undead uprising, Robin organizes a religious rally, basically, to provide spiritual bolstering to the local people. Celyn offers to help; Robin asks him to offer a blessing, Celyn meeps a bit in the “you are a much better speaker than I am” way; Robin assures him that people respect him too, they appreciate the Wyrdling’s blessings, you can do it.  

(Stats-based perspective here: Robin charisma 16 and actual skill at public speaking; Celyn charisma 12, no relevant skills, gives impression ranging from ‘daft’ to ‘possibly mad but probably not dangerous’ most of the time. Both common impressions of Celyn are incorrect in wildly different directions.)  

Robin delivers his speech on the virtues of charity and mutual support; Celyn backs that up with a bit about finding hope in each other. Robin inducts Odo into his knightly order. Izgil lights up the event with magical moonlight just to nail the theatre of it all. After extensive celebration and generalized bonhomie, there is some sleep, until the alarms go off at 4am about invading undead. One, a skeletal force consisting of a bunch of orc skeletons led by an ogre skeleton that seem familiar to us, and two, some zombies staggering out of the local haunted forest. Overall, a bit dregs-y but still a problem to deal with, especially since the village next to the forest is largely unprotected.  

We split the party: Viepuck and Izgil take some cavalry to go harry the skeletons with the goal of bringing them in range of the town wall where the townsfolk can contribute to their defeat (and to test the catapults), while Robin and Celyn take the infantry and a small contingent of light cav to take out the zombies. Both enemy forces are eliminated; the only fatality on the part of the living is one guy’s horse. Rinault the acting lord who really wants to be In On The Action got to beat up a zombie and is talking himself up as a hero (Celyn actually finished it off and is letting him have his win).  

So now we have dealt with that, have a month clear before we are worried about it potentially happening again, and are working on our plans to go figure out where the hell the baroness is, who is supposed to be in charge here, and who has not sent any word anywhere since she was installed and who may be hiding in the hills which are, currently, reputed to have unsolved zombies. (This is where our allies went to investigate.) One of our allies is keeping an eye on the fey portal that we discovered and is not happy about its apparent behaviors.  

Aaand… our check-ins with local villages do not turn up any undead attacks but do turn up the tax collector. So we go to figure out what’s up with that. There are protocols for this.  

It turns out the tax collector is not following the protocols. (There is a set amount he is supposed to collect, and he’s trying to get more than that; there are set people and procedures for this, and he’s basically trying to extort cash from randos on the road. Randos on the road include the party.)  

It also turns out that the tax collector is someone Viepuck recognizes … from the whole orphan-murdering ring at the Lord Mayor’s Workhouse. Viepuck, used his Circlet of Telepathy to inform the party, “He’s evil!” each in turn, just before the guy starts trying to do a shakedown on the group, starting with Robin.  

Robin is unimpressed by evil.  

The tax collector is aggravated that Robin is not impressed with him. We all have a bad attitude at him. Viepuck settles back to read his mind while we are uncooperative.  

Robin gets to be fabulous:  

Gareth of Tollen: Are you resident here?  

Robin, coldly: I am Sir Robin of the Order of the Charitable Wanderer I am not resident anywhere.  

Gareth of Tollen: But surely you wish to contribute to the common defense?  

Robin, glancing indicatively at his mud-coated armor from the fight against the zombies: I. Contribute. Regularly.  

Celyn asked what news of the baroness. We haven’t heard anything, after all. Izgil chimes in with a, “For months.” The tax collector continues to try to get us to cough up some cash right up until Viepuck suddenly comes out with local property law about standard procedures for tax collection in this regard and makes clear that he’s aware the guy is squeezing for more than he should and keeping half.  

The guy flinches minutely - Celyn spots it - and proceeds to tell Viepuck he’s nuts. Viepuck meanwhile has decided to call out the guy for his accomplice status in the whole orphan-murdering ring thing and adds fraud and banditry to it. Celyn adds a, “Do you really think you can lie to the Wyrdling?” but the guy is running.  

Robin teleports in front of him.  

The guy dodges around Robin.  

Celyn teleports in front of him and lacking a clever one-liner or any actual intimidation skill says “Boo.” This does not work, but Celyn can in fact do this all day, more or less, and plans to.  

Robin manages to grab the guy’s horse’s bridle. Viepuck puts some people to sleep. Two of the strongbox guards make a break for it. One of the other ones starts to chase them. Chaos continues and is only enhanced by the moment when - to the startlement of every human present - Robin suddenly doubles in size, which makes it a lot easier to control the horse, for sure. (Every human present because it was Izgil who cast it and he is not human.)  

Robin has this perpetual problem that the rest of the party keeps making his reputation grow but this is perhaps more literal than average.  

In any case, we apprehend the apparent crooks, get the help of the honest guards, and head back to Cleenseau to figure out what the fuck to do with them. Which, after a trial, turns out to be ‘execute the ringleader and his buddy, get the other two bandits who weren’t in on it and one of whom turned state’s evidence if only under the influence of magic to join the local army, and return the money to the Erick Murtha who is confused until we explain that we want to make sure he has cash for the legitimate tax collector.