So dirty in someone else's dice tray

Session 51

We resume in Paul Pelinost's room at the inn, where he is dead under his bed. The murderer is an incubus that was disguised as his victim, but has now revealed itself to Yahnist, who has been enthralled in its charm. It's physique is amazing, muscular and taught, with bat wings and horns. "I'm so bored with this place. There's nothing. There's no debauchery. Nothing! Did you know it used to be a real party here?! I'm starving," he says, as he pulls out a piece of maroon-black paper from a small wooden box, loosening the cord wrapped around it.

Cass hears the last part of this rant, from being nearby while casting Dream again on Popofsky, and goes over to watch and listen. She sees the demon speaking a language she doesn't understand while reading the scroll, which is burning away as it's being read, and readies a reaction for any damage coming to Yahnist. Once the entire scroll has been read, the incubus says, "Now that that's done, I'm going to tell you what we're going to do..."

He picks up Yahnist's heavy crossbow and puts it into Yahnist's hands as he relays, telepathically, instructions of what he's to do with it. When he's finished, Yahnist then stands and walks out of the bedroom. Cass tries to follow, but Yahnist is too stealthy to keep up with.

Kra'naelen, Briya, and Prophet and many of the other maze participants are gathered at the exit. Some are walking away and others are chatting about how their time was, etc...

Maltheo, who had been teleported to the maze entrance, is brought to the temple as well by a priestess wearing a nice gray dress with a tabard, scarf, and a cloak with a hood placed on her head in a decorative style. She carries a staff with the balance scales on top. "Congratulations on coming out of the maze from the correct exit. Congratulations indeed. Come... let's have a conversation."

Maltheo intones that he's surprised the maze was actually a real test and not just for fun for the festival. "Indeed, it is a test of morality. You seem to swing from one extreme to the other, and that seems to have caught the attention of us, and even maybe those above. As per tradition, this gives you right to a boon. Are you interested?"

Maltho isn't certain that he'd need a full blessing from Erathis, the Law Bearer. He knows there are things he could want, but that there are others who could need them more. "There's this person in town, Leslie, marked by death, and they still carry their scars. Perhaps you could help them instead?"

"So you'd like us to heal Leslie of her marks of death? What would you do about yours? You've died before; it's all over you," the High Priestess replies. Maltheo is surprised, nervous about being in a temple, and a bit drunk. "Oh, damn. You're good..."

"I'm a lot of things. People will say clairvoyant, oracle... but I think I just listen better than most."

"Yes, I did die, and..." but at that moment a crossbow bolt crashes through a stained glass window. Maltheo catches it with amazing reflexes and says, "We're under attack! Go!" The attendants rush back into the temple to hide and protect the High Priestess, and there's a commotion outside in the courtyard.

There, we see a huge-sized creature, floating through the air, wearing some sort of cloak made from torn shreds of fabric. It's very scarecrow-like and even has a necklace of bones.

Combat!

In hiding, Yahnist flubs his first attack, accidentally revealing his location on the roof of a nearby building to Maltheo. Maltheo then cloak-apparates to right behind Yahnist in a wisp of smoke, and activates his spectral self. Yahnist takes a few points of force damage, and as he does it knocks him out of the incubus's Charm effect. The scarecrow wraith kills a villager. Cass and Kra'naelen have a bit of bad luck.

One of the assistant priestesses taps Kra'naelen on his shoulder and whispers into his ear to try and charm him, but he resists. It was a deep and masculine, sexy voice though, not the one you'd expect in this body. Knowing it didn't work, the disguised creature runs toward the temple. The high priestess begins to move deeper into the temple and casts shield of faith on herself.

Out of his stupor, a direct hit from Yahnist reveals the wraith is immune to being poisoned or taking poison damage, and resists cold, fire, and lightning.

Seeing that things aren't going well for him or his creature, the incubus disguised as the assistant priestess says, "Well played, that was fun. Enjoy my pet!" as he vanishes right in front of Kra'naelen.

Maltheo kills the wraith and it melts into a pool of black ichor on the ground.

Kra'naelen, thanks to his arcana expertise, realizes that even though he's seen many forms of teleportation before, like Dimension Door and Misty Step, this particular instance was very different. It wasn't really a teleport but more of a stepping into another plane, like the ethereal plane. On sharing this knowledge, Maltheo immediately goes and chases the high priestess to check on her; Kra'naelen follows. He finds her coterie casting a magic circle around her; she's fine and seems OK. Maltheo relaxes slightly, but knows the being could be anywhere nearby. We chat with the High Priestess and she says there's never been an attack before in this manner. Malcontents and rude youths, before, sure, but this was new.

It's then we notice that the Righteous Brand seems to be somewhat conspicuously missing. Mary Pelinost and Peter arrive a bit later, and both land in the courtyard. It seems the Righteous Brand has been focusing on all the wrong things. Tipsy townies instead of actual threats.

Vandleth seems to have been more aware of the goings on than we thought as well. She's sitting near the maze exit comforting some younger ones, but seemingly keeping an eye on more than just them.

The High Priestess says she'll have to report it all to the authorities, but Maltheo is worried it would draw the eyes of the king. Everyone else doubts that though since he's so busy with other things, and nothing too bad really happened here.

She prays, and her empty staff scales suddenly have golden cubes inside them. She takes one and hands it to Maltheo, saying, "This one is for your friend that carries death with her. And the second one is for you. I feel... you've earned it."

"Oh thank you! And someone I know, who is indisposed at the moment, wants to meet you. In the meantime, have you heard anything lately about the Fire Ashari nearby?"

"The Fire Ashari? Yes, they came for a bit, purchased supplies and some wines. It was nearly a year ago though. Come to me tomorrow morning when I've had time to prepare and I can try and help you find them."

During the battle, Kra'naelen's wild magic surge seems to have made him 1 inch shorter, and so he asks the High Priestess if it's changeable. Her answer seems to say that it was "an act of the universe that gave you your powers, and thus this is from the universe too. To undo this, you'd have to rewrite reality in some way, like casting a wish spell."

We leave the temple and find Leslie who has exited the maze; Maltheo gives to her one of the two blessing cubes, which she holds and seems to pray on. After a moment, Yahnist's crossbow stops glowing. She says she doesn't feel different. Maltheo asks, "Did it work?" She pulls open her shirt, and the necrotic wound has turned into a regular scar instead of an undead mark.

Mary is barking orders in the distance. She realizes Paul still hasn't arrived. She starts grabbing people: "Where is my brother!?"

Yahnist quietly explains what happened with Paul's body and the incubus to Kra'naelen and Maltheo. Kra'naelen is afraid that when Mary discovers the corpse in his room at the inn, they'll be implicated, since the table of soldiers witnessed Paul and Yahnist go upstairs alone. But it was right when the maze of debauchery announcement happened, so maybe that will be our saving grace.

We decide to let things lie and see what happens naturally as we head back to the inn.

Maltheo & Leslie get the dick down. Cass casts Dream again on Popofsky. Yahnist gets lucky with another bar patron. Kra'naelen studies the Steamforged chain from his trivia prize winnings.