Session 92: Good Criminals and Bad Criminals (October 9, 2025)
Last session, our heroes climbed and flew into an upside-down house to find their captured Harengon agent was awake. She introduced herself politely as Eden of the Farlands, and attempted to explain herself while the building around them slowly dropped and Wild Magic effects popped off inside. A crowd seemed to be gathering around the house, including an angry dwarf the party assumed was the owner. In addition, the clanking of Central Command boots could be heard approaching from a distance.
The building settled down another foot, sending Eden out the window, hanging onto the sill for her life. Heph flew out, Maho jumped out and grabbed Eden, aided by some of Eden’s “fey bullshit”, and the party set about trying to get out of the area.
While the other goliaths took off down an alleyway, Maho and Heph split up. Heph unsuccessfully tried to convince the onlookers to disperse. Eden Hasted Maho and she zipped off away from the action, unaware of her own speed. Upon encountering a group of Central Command soldiers, Eden Dimension Doored them both away to a far off rooftop. Heph flew high above the soldiers, who again rolled shit and failed to recognize him. The party ran and flew across the rooftops to meet back up, and decided to head back to the safehouse to regroup while the building collapsed, immersing the onlookers in clouds of debris.
Back at the safehouse, Eden cast Detect Thoughts on Heph, who allowed her to see all the details that he knew, including the fight where he removed her mask rather than killing her, in an attempt to get her to trust them. Eden left the safehouse, standing not far away as she cast Find Familiar, with Karrl keeping an eye. Maho expressed her concern that she would return to Sentin, since she seemed to be explicitly seeking him out and trusted him, but Heph told her to wait and see. After Eden summoned her owl familiar, she sent it up to give her a sense of her surroundings. However this place was so unfamiliar from Fleetwood and the other locations she had been that she returned to the safehouse and asked to spend the night.
After piling food on the starving Eden, Maho used her Bidirectional Bivalve to head back to her home, now in Ivalgo. There they decided to spend the night, surrounded by an eerie calm. Three victims of Sentin, one as-of-yet not fully aware of its extent.
- We hear the clanking of silverware as Maho’s Father prepares
himself a late night snack, and Maho knocks on the inside of the
door and yells out “Dad?”
- We hear the silverware drop and he seems to compose himself, and then cautiously says “Maho, is that you?”
- Maho explains we decided to drop into Ivalgo, and he is a bit surprised and not ready to receive guests, and Heph offers for Eden to come to his parents house
- Maho says Joerg needs to watch his snacking, it’s not good at his age
- Maho decides to accompany Heph and Eden to Potion Pitstop, and tells her Dad she’ll come back in a few hours
- His house landed on an in-construction pre-school, and he hasn’t been out because people are mad about it, and the atmosphere is very different to what he is used to from the desert
- He acknowledges Eden and says it’s nice to see her awake, and then gives us some sandwiches for the road
- Heph takes the group on a brief tour of Ivalgo,
showing them the Alchemist Guild, university, and other
major sites
- Eden sends out her owl to scout out the city from the air and try to familiarize herself with it
- Her owl sees the ships and some flashes of light; Heph sends up Karrl but he doesn’t notice the flashing lights
- After doing a brief lap around the school/market district, the group arrives at Potion Pitstop, and Heph lets himself in, sending a Message to his Mom as they approach to let her know they aren’t breaking in
- Heph explains why we are there, and introduces Eden
- Amble seems a bit upset, likely because of the information she learned about Spraus, but Heph asks about potions to help with hunger and Amble leads us to the work room
- The two people whose masks we removed are in the guest room, and as we walk by Heph waves to them and says he’ll be back in a minute to say hi
- Their memories are coming back a bit, and they apparently remember fighting Heph and his group
- Amble shuffles through a bunch of potions, and eventually finds the right one
- She explains to Eden that this potion will settle her stomach and help settle some of the side effects of hunger to help stabilize her system
- While she is explaining this Eden subtle casts Purify Food and Drink to ensure it isn’t poison, but triggers a wild magic surge that causes a sparkly butterfly to appear on her shoulder
- Amble notices the butterfly and notes how pretty it is as she hands the potion to Eden
- Eden has another wild magic surge and gets an extra action, and she drinks the potion super fast, surprising everyone, especially Amble, who looks worried and asks if it worked
- Eden realizes that the background hunger and discomfort that she had been experiencing was very distracting, and suddenly she is free from that and can notice how Amble is reacting much more clearly than she had previously been
- Eden is a bit surprised about how surprised Amble is, and there is a brief exchange about how she really shouldn’t keep the drain cleaner next to the food potions
- Heph asks his mom if there’s any food, and she offers to make a veggie pot pie while we go talk to the boys
- Heph heads into Tal and Gurt’s room to introduce Maho
and Eden, and they seem to get a bit nervous as Heph
comes in
- Heph blurts out a bunch of information, explaining a bit about what happened with Tal and Gurt and introducing Maho and Eden, explaining that Eden had also been in a mask until recently
- Tal seems a bit receptive to what Heph is saying, and although Gurt relaxes a bit he is still definitely a bit tense
- Tal seems to have been into Heph’s room a few times, but Heph doesn’t really mind a whole lot, as long as he’s been pretty safe
- Maho asks them how they are feeling about Sentin, Tal is not a fan and Gurt seems to growl a bit at the mention of Sentin
- We learn that both Tal and Gurt were purchased as prisoners
- Eden asks if there is anyone in this house that isn’t a criminal, and Heph responds that his Mom isn’t, and she calls out from the kitchen that Spraus is
- Heph explains there are good criminals and bad criminals, and the bad criminals are the ones that act with no regard to others
- Amble calls out that the food is ready, and Eden Dimension Doors into the next room to get away from the criminals, unzipping the portal, stepping through, and zipping it behind her
- In the dining room, the food smells delicious, and Eden checks for poisons, but finding none she digs in and finds the food to be excellent
- Maho also digs in, saying the food is very good
- Amble, realizing the food is all vegetarian, grabs a potion she has been working on to rapidly cook meat, and goes to cook up some meat quickly
- She pours it over the chicken and the chicken no longer looks raw, but definitely doesn’t look cooked, and after testing it herself she gives it to Maho, who eats it gladly
- The discussion over dinner turns into a discussion about good people, good bad people, bad bad people, good criminals and bad criminals
- Maho asks Eden what her deal is, and she responds that she doesn’t kill people, but she was a guest of Mr. Thornwillow’s
- Maho asks about before that, if Eden has always been an upstanding citizen of her hometown, and she talks a bit about being in school and studying magic to try to control her powers
- Maho interrogates her a bit about things she has done, and Heph asks if she’s accidentally blown things up or burned things down, and after establishing some common ground about being chased out of town, she seems a bit uncomfortable about having common ground with criminals
- Maho whispers to Heph and gives him a look, and he messages “What?”, to which she replies “She wants to go back to Sentin”
- Heph responds “She wants to talk to Sentin, not go back to him, once she understands who he is I don’t think she’ll go back”
- Maho replies “You saw the nerds hanging around him”, and Heph replies “They didn’t have us to help them understand”
- Eden is detecting thoughts on Heph and gets the sense that Heph really believes that Eden will not be on Sentin’s side when she fully understands
- Eden switches detect thoughts to Heph and gets a thought from Maho of trying to figure out if you can break through the side of a ship with a greataxe, and she switches back to Heph
- Amble breaks into the silence to offer to clean up, and
Heph apologizes for Messaging at the table
- Eden switches her detection to Amble and gets an overwhelming sense of her wondering if she failed as a mother
- Amble cleans up food and goes to grab some bedding, Heph asking Eden where she’d be most comfortable
- Eden asks Maho if her Dad is a criminal, and Maho hesitates, which Eden interprets as a yes
- We ultimately decide to have Eden stay in Heph’s room after removing some explosive materials, Heph will stay on the couch
- Eden isn’t willing to help fight the war we are a part of, but does offer healing
- Amble goes off to bed, asking us to not do any accidental arson
- Eden asks a bit more about the ships attacking, and Heph explains a bit about Kogar’s plan
- Maho asks more about the school, and Eden explains it’s a boarding school, Ms. Mildred’s Academy for Magically Gifted Girls, which Heph has heard of and knows to be prestigious and expensive
- Maho thinks Eden is a preppy bitch for paying so much for school
- On that note Heph tells Maho to go get some sleep, and after she leaves Eden asks if Maho is always such a bully
- Heph explains that Maho just doesn’t like Eden and thinks she is more trouble than she is worth, but Heph disagrees and expresses that to Eden, which she seems slightly comforted by
- Heph moves all of the explosive material out of his room temporarily to get it away from Eden, and they settle in for the night
- Eden is bothered by some non-flammable oil in Heph’s room that is a bit smelly, and casts Counter Smell to make the room more comfortable, figuring out a bit about her ring in the process
- Maho wanders over to the university before heading back to her
Dad’s house, and finds herself getting into the richer area of town
- It is past midnight, and this late it seems even the university is fairly quiet
- Maho is keeping her distance, but notices “The Mortimer Slaan Memorial School of Cool Wizard Shit” glowing sign that has been painted over many times to try to hide it
- She observes from a distance for a bit before finally muttering to herself that her Dad wanted her to have a good education too and then walks back to her Dad’s house
- Entering the door, the light is on in the kitchen, and her Dad is asleep face down on the table, next to a half-eaten plate of food
- Maho carries him up to his bed and tucks him in, and he mutters that he is going to stay healthy and be around for a long time
- Maho then settles in for the night herself, spotting the occasional flash of light from the direction of Arkos, and seeing torches alighting one-by-one on the decks of the many ships stationed out in the sea, and the lights getting brighter as the ships get closer
- Maho heads back to Potion Pitstop and starts
sending Heph messages to wake him up, and after 3 tries finally
manages to do so, and Heph looks out through Karrl’s
eyes to figure out what is going on, and sees the ships approaching
- Heph is also able to discern that the quiet of the city is people scared and not knowing what to do, but the second quality of the quiet is of a predator animal hiding in the grass waiting to strike
- As Karrl flies over the harbor and docks, some amount of activity in the harbor is starting to occur, and Heph sees guards and soldiers emerging, as well as people not in uniform
- He sees students wearing various shades of mismatched wizard robes and other assorted garments, heeding Heph’s advice to use magic against the invading army
- Haphazard siege weaponry constructed late evening by engineering students is wheeled out
- The city basically is waking up to fight the invasion and the forces are mustering
- A rock flies from one of the trebuchets and disappears into the night, crashing through the deck of a ship a few moments later, beginning the defense of Ivalgo
- Heph tells Maho we have some time before the fight really gets going, and we should rest up and join the fight fresh in the morning