Session 109: Maho Assassinates the Assassins (June 12, 2026)
Last session, our heroes finished out their downtime in Ivalgo. Maho, with the help of Izume, Heph, and Eden, tried to find a way to reduce Kogar’s influence on her axe. Attending a one-man-show at the Shadeby Stage, they very noisily carved a cloud rune into the axe head, removing Kogar’s violent influence. Although with it gone, Maho had to wonder how much of that impulse was in her all along.
Fast forward to the end of the downtime, the party then scryed on Maho’s mom Mana with help from Mort and a jacuzzi which Eden now legally owns. They saw a military encampment somewhere between Kohlburg and Cryptop, looking up at the imposing mountains high above. Scattered throughout the camp were a number of large crates and other enclosed containers. They zoomed in to a particular tent, and inside found pitch darkness where Mana was tied to a chair, being observed by a Central Command soldier with wild hair and an eye patch over one of her eyes. Weaving out of the darkness came a mask attached to a shadowy body. When it got close to Mana, her eyes went wide and she started mimicking its weaving motion. The soldier looked pleased. Just then the masked creature turned to look directly at Maho through the water of the hot tub, and with a burst of bubbles the spell ended.
As the scry broke, Maho felt herself simultaneously connected with a number of these shadowy creatures, scattered in many crates, tents, and wagons through the camp. And just as she was aware of them, she knew that they were aware of her. And that with so many at the base of Cryptop, they may be preparing an assault.
As the party prepared to make the trip to Hojo, the parents showed up. Spraus brought some duplicated Potions of Hill Giant Strength as well as a visible revelation that things were going well with Amble again. Joerg brought sandwiches, as well as a letter for Maho to give to Rei, a bookshop owner back in Hojo. He told Maho that she’d grown a lot since she was home, and that she can show all the kids who looked down on her what for. And with that, Maho popped her slimy shellfish and the party piled through a door into Mana’s house in Hojo.
There, they heard a strange noise coming from the other room, and investigated to discover a naked man spitting cherry seeds into a flower pot. Suzuki stopped Maho before she could axe him, explaining this was Goro, Mana’s housekeeper. Goro explained that with Mana away, he wasn’t actively being paid and so wasn’t keeping up with his work. He also assumed that Izume and Suzuki were off looking for her, as it seemed did many others in the village. Maho tossed him 10 gold, asked him to have some spicy wine waiting for her, and the party headed off to Rei’s Books.
Outside the shop, Eden spotted a human hiding in a tree, observing the village. The human noticed they were being watched and dropped out of the tree, scuttling away into the woods. The party went in to the shop, and Rei was excited to see Maho. He caught her up on what had happened in Hojo since she’d been gone. The Chief was old, and was putting more responsibility on her eldest son Isamu. He also said Maho’s childhood friend Himeji ran a business now out by Tavern 3. And Maho handed them Joerg’s letter.
As this conversation continued, Karrl and Eden’s owl spotted a group of humans stalking towards the shop from the treeline.
- As the assassins approach, Karrl and Eden’s owl scout further to make sure there are no other enemies approaching
- To start off the fight, at Heph’s urging, Eden walks
over to the window, opens it, and blasts the assassins with a fireball, using
Careful Spell to avoid lighting the trees, flowers and grass on fire, then
closes the window and retreats back a bit
- The fireball lightly damages a few of the assassins, and Eden notes they are a lot hardier than expected, although they are clearly a bit surprised to be hit with such a strong resistance right out of the gate
- Assassin 5 takes out a light crossbow and shoots at the window Eden had opened, shattering it and shooting a few more bolts at Eden
- Assassin 6 moves forward and fires 3 shots through the window at Eden, hitting two of them and bringing Eden down to 1 health
- Assassin 4 moves up and takes out an orb and tosses it through the window, it hits Eden and expands into a bubble that pushes her back, but with a bit of help from Heph she is able to avoid being pulled into the bubble
- Heph and Eden have no idea what it is, but Maho recognizes it as a force cage
- Assassin 2, 3, and 1 see Maho through the window and let loose a bunch of attacks on her, dealing some damage but Maho manages to largely resist the effects of the poison, although #1 completely misses all 3 shots
- Maho goes out the door, runs up to #2 and #3, and absolutely decimates #2, chopping him in half, and then turns to #3, banging him up pretty good and then binding him in fiery chains
- Rei, having not seen Maho since she was a kid, is pretty shocked at Maho’s capabilities, and as Maho glances back inside she sees Rei look between Maho and the letter with a mix of reverence and astonishment, and then looks out the Northern window towards the mountains, seemingly reminded of something by Maho’s display, and then hides behind a table
- Heph grabs Eden and drags her behind a bookshelf, healing her a little bit with a Cure Wounds
- Eden goes “Super Haren” (activates innate sorcery) and casts Slow
on them, managing to slow 4 of the 5 remaining assassins, only #3 remaining
unslowed, although he is restrained from Maho’s fiery chains
- #4 and #6 dash through the window but can’t do anything else due to Slow, and #5 fires a single shot at Maho which she deflects into #3, almost taking him out
- #1 attempts to trap Maho with a force cage, but she is Indomitable and manages to avoid being trapped inside, and then moves towards the door
- #3 takes three swings at Maho with a shortsword, but only lands one of them due to the restraints, and it doesn’t injure Maho too badly
- All of them fail saving on the Slow, and #3 fails on the save for the restraints
- Maho completely ignores the guy who is restrained by the chains and goes for Assassin #1, dealing some damage to him and pushing him back, and chasing after him she slashes him again and then cleaves #5, slowing him, then hits #1 one final time, getting him quite low and slowing him as well
- Rei continues hiding
- Heph pops out and hits #1, #4, #5 and #6 with a Hypnotic Pattern, effectively neutralizing them until Maho gets a chance to wail on them
- Eden continues to hold the Slow and heals herself a bit more, then
hops out the Southern window and walks behind the building
- #3 dies to the fiery shackles, and the rest are hypnotized and remain slowed
- Maho grabs 6 of the force beads from #2 and #3, then does non-lethal damage to #1, rendering him fully unconscious, and noticing the axe feels slightly lighter in her hand
- The group spends the next few rounds gathering the assassins and tying them
up, taking their weapons and force beads, which will expire by the next dawn
- Rei asks if it is safe, and Heph tells them that it is and that we will repair the windows before we leave, but Maho suggests they stand back a little
- After looting them we have 16 force beads, 6 short swords, and 6 light crossbows
- Heph takes one of the crossbows, and we burn the other 5
- We find evidence that they are from Central Command, but not much else, and they aren’t talking, they’re well trained and are just observing their surroundings
- Maho tells them she has learned the value of gathering information and when there is no response Eden casts Friends on #4, which relaxes him a bit, although he narrows his eyes when Eden asks him how he is doing
- She continues to ask him for information about what they are doing, explaining we weren’t trying to hurt them but we were just defending ourselves
- Eden is very convincing and #4 offers to tell her everything if we get him out of Central Command, and he seems genuine, so Heph drags him away from the other soldiers who are elbowing him to stop talking
- He introduces himself as Harry Nickel, and Eden introduces herself and curtsies, and we figure out he is the one she winked at in the tree earlier
- Maho hits #5 with the force bubble to restrain him a bit further so he stops elbowing anyone
- Harry smiles a bit at that, and Eden, with a slightly threatening smile, suggests he start talking and he isn’t completely out of the woods
- He starts to explain they are scouts and a cleanup crew, and his mission was
just to observe and report
- He brought the people in because he was spotted, and wasn’t expecting the level of resistance we responded with
- Heph suggests we deal with the remaining assassins before continuing the conversation with Harry
- Harry explains a bit more about how they were using the force bubbles, and Heph inspects them closer and notices a small embossed hawk on them, the mark of Euxine Wares
- Heph and Eden bring Harry away from the group to separate him from the other assassins, leaving Maho to watch over the other 3
- We learn Io, one of the chief’s children, is the current head of the guard
- Maho asks Rei to go get Io, and Eden asks Rei to make sure they mention Maho
- Rei claps Maho on the back on their way out and says “you really have grown”, to which Maho responds “yep, I’m more badass than the boys now”
- As Rei heads off, Maho notices Assassin 5 has undone his binding but is still pretending to be tied up
- Eden and Heph learn that Harry is a complete coward and
will tell us everything, but if he were to be recaptured by Central Command he
would tell them everything too
- He was unaware of the masks and is very motivated not to go back to Central Command though
- He tells us where the closest military encampment is, and it seems to be to the East
- He tells us that camp has a hundred or so soldiers, there are multiple camps totalling probably a thousand soldiers in total
- Eden asks if he knows who is working with Central Command, but he isn’t really aware of any specific individuals that are working with them
- Eden asks about shadow creatures and Heph asks if they have any tents that are kept sealed, but he isn’t really aware
- He starts explaining how light interacts with objects to explain that you can’t really seal a tent, but Eden interrupts this explanation to ask if he has seen any prisoners be isolated
- He has seen some prisoners be immediately sent down the mountain, but he doesn’t know what for
- Meanwhile, Maho slams her axe down next to the assassin who untied
himself trying to get him to stay in line, but he is unfazed
- Maho tells him he either can put his ropes back on or learn why Maho’s axe is called the Executioner’s Axe, to which he responds that she should kill him because he will kill her first chance he gets
- Maho looks to see if Rei is still around, and seeing that they are gone, she attacks #5, allowing the invisible hands to help, and also activating the Guillotine effect of the axe
- As Maho leans into the extra power of the axe, she feels herself black out for a second, and she briefly finds herself once again connected to the shadow creatures in the camp who look back at her
- Eden sees this happening and asks Harry why #5 is not fighting back, but all he really knows is that this is an elite squad that is trained to die for the cause
- Maho hits him again, and he is just taking it with his eyes closed, focused and trying to remain conscious
- It is comfortable how easily the axe glides through the air with Hooded Beth’s help, and she is taking out her anger on her home being attacked on this guy, and she feels perfectly aligned with Hooded Beth, her goals and Beth’s goals perfectly aligned
- Maho blacks out again, once again finding herself experiencing an uncountable number of creatures’ perspectives, completely overwhelmed by what they are sensing
- She gets flashes of memories, in the fairly small community of Wichthafen, which is not unlike Hojo
- She sees the word The Parish, seemingly how they referred to themselves, and she sees the more arcanely minded elders searching for how to make their community more close-knit and unified to live as one people
- The elders dive into complex magic, trying to thin the Shroud between people, but in the process thinning the Shroud between worlds, allowing Hooded Beth’s influence in, and ultimately achieving their goal of having a unified community
- As time passed for them, they became shadows and became more and more intertwined with each other, living in the shadows and living afraid of the light
- Central Command arrives in the town, torches at the ready, with crates full of masks to place on the creatures
- Eden and Heph see Maho completely
incapacitated as she experiences this
- Maho starts to pull herself back together and come back to her own mind
- She no longer sees Hooded Beth, but having accepted Hooded Beth’s help, she can achieve things she couldn’t achieve before beyond just the extra damage on the axe
- The connection has become stronger having failed a wisdom save with the axe, and the more she uses that affect the stronger that connection will be, increasing the benefits but also increasing the risks
- The connection to the shadowy creatures that Maho has is still there to some degree, and with Central Command having masked these creatures, they will likely become aware of our presence in the very near future