Session 15: The Goblin and the Sphinx resolved.

Game Date: 10/27/07

The next morning, Rowan, Grumble, Quirky and Badger are eating their breakfast at Morwen’s when in walks Nialia on the arm of a strange woman. The woman bids Nialia a fond farewell and departs, mentioning that she must see some farmers who’ve been leaving poisoned meat out for the wolves in the area.
Rowan reveals to the party that she’s asked Father Tilok to cast True Seeing on her so she can try and find Ysadryl before time runs out. Quirky suggested that if the priest could cast it multiple times, two could cover more ground than one.
Nialia related her encounter with the bounty hunters tracking Rascal, and Araven’s subsequent butt-whooping of the same. The party discussed what to do about Rascal, who was still locked in a trunk in Badger’s room after last night’s bout of drinking and his ill-advised remarks about Badger’s looks vis-à-vis his own. Quirky, happy to see Rascal’s stock on the Badger market falling like an adamantine brick, wonder’s why the party simply doesn’t sell the gnome out. Badger points out that these bounty hunters have been hired by the von Hawkmoor family, and fears that Rascal would sell her and Grumble out to try and save himself. So letting Rascal fall into the bounty hunter’s clutches was out of the question.
The party interrogated Rascal again, getting the full story out of him: his theft of the von Hawkmoor diamond, his inability to sell it for it’s total value, his flight after finding the Twinblades on his trail, his subsequent sale of the diamond to a wizard in an adventuring party headed for an old ruin a few days south of Miel. It is unclear whether the bounty hunters are more interested in recovering the gem, Rascal or both.
Locking Rascal back in the trunk, the group set out for the temple. Meeting Father Tilok, Quirky volunteered to be the other searcher. Father Tilok cast True Seeing on Quirky and he sped off to check the North and West parts of the city. Tilok cast it again on Rowan, who sped off to the East and South.
Rowan spied Ysadryl eating in a shadowy corner of a pub, but not before she ran by Potter Holm’s smithy, verifying once and for all that Potter is indeed a half-elf, and not the shape-changing monster her dream warned her of. Rowan, feigning eating at a nearby table, cast Stalker’s Brand on Ysadryl, then followed her back to the goblin sorceress’ house in the slums of Miel.

Once everyone was back at Morwen’s, tactics and plans are discussed. Quirky and Badger set out to do recon on the house itself, while the rest of the team set out on other errands. Nialia warned the towns watch of their plans to assault the house. The watch was fine with it, but couldn’t lend them any support due to a manhunt that had just begun south of the city.
Rowan went to notify the temple that they might need healers in a hurry later, only to find that the temple had been turned into a triage. Rowan was told a strange woman had offered some of the local farm children poisoned food, and of those that ate it, many were not expected to live.
Grumble paid one last visit to the half-orc smith, who promptly kicked Grumble out and told him never to come back. Grumble visited Potter’s next to pick up his new armor. Potter asked a few discreet questions to Grumble about Rowan, and Grumble eventually told Potter that Rowan “wanted his bone,” in true dwarf subtlety.
Meanwhile, Quirky and Badger did their recon, and found traps on the door, but soon discovered they made pretty poor undercover agents.
Back (again) at Morwen’s, the party made their final plans for taking the sorceress in her house. The party decided to take Rascal along to try and disarm the trap on the front door. Rowan also found out what Grumble had told Potter, and informed the dwarf he would get no help from her with the half-orc as a consequence.

At the house, Grumble covered Rascal while he worked, while the rest of the party waited for Badger to unlock the back door. Sniffing the air, Nialia realized that not only could she smell Ysadryl nearby, she knew that the goblin was on the second floor. Rascal failed to disarm the trap, and nearly died when a cone of cold went off. Grumble took a bit of damage as well, and decided “the hell with it” and just broke down the front door. The party assembled downstairs, knowing that their quarry was alerted to their presence. Charging up the stairs and into the upper room, they found no-one there. Once again, Nialia’s nose alerted her to the presence of the goblin hiding behind the door to the upstairs room, and the druidess cast Faerie Fire, illuminating the invisible sorceress.
Battle ensued, the sorceress summoned several hellhounds to aid her while hammering the party with offensive magic. Grumble single-handedly took out one hellhound, and Nialia occupied the other with a summoned enraged wolverine. Rowan engaged the sorceress, who once more cast invisibility on herself, but Nialia countered with yet another Faerie Fire spell. Eventually, the Rowan and Grumble brought the sorceress down, and Quirky stabilized her just in the nick of time. Restoring her enough to interrogate her, the party asked questions, but as an answer, Ysadryl tried to cast one last spell at them. Badger was too quick, and put her new gauntlets to good use, sending a crossbow bolt through the forehead of the goblin.
The party decided to try healing themselves by consuming massive amounts of goodberries that Nialia had been creating over the course of the last several weeks. While effective, the party agreed that the heartburn and bloating kinda sucked; both Nialia and Rowan were barfing goodberries for quite a while. So much for the Lembas bread and goodberry Pop-Tart idea…
The room and the goblin were looted, and then who should appear but Ujaset, the ghostly gynosphinx! While Ujaset didn’t really thank the party for avenging her death, she promised not to haunt the party any more, and told them where the rest of her treasure could be found, which for Grumble amounted to pretty much the same thing.

The party dropped Rascal, now suffering from hypothermia, off at the temple for healing. They found that none of the children had died. From there they reported to Lady Juliet and Mayor Miel of their success. Miel told them they could keep the treasure they found as a reward for services rendered to the city. She also invited them to join the hunt for the elf woman who poisoned the farm children, specifically asking Nialia and Rowan for aid. Lastly, she told them that the Duke of Pythia wanted to hear their account of the Havensford affair in person, and asked them to depart for the capital city, Pythus, within the week, or as soon as their other business in town was resolved.

***NOTE***
The party leveled up to level 5 at the end of this session.