SC.4.3 The Contract Complete

Session Preface

The scent of fresh pastry, rich umami, and savory, succulent beef wafts through the open windows of Trollskull Manor. Lit candles dance on the window sill to the rhythm of the autumn winds as the world makes the slow turn towards winter. A chill in in the air and it brings your neighbors in to enjoy the warmth and welcome of not one, but two beef wellingtons made with care and a competitive spirit.   At one table sit the genasi couple, Enric and Avi. Steam rises off of Enric's molten rock form as he laughs at one of Avi's soft-spoken jokes between sips of decaf coffee. They are joined by Tally of the Bent Nail, who listens along while appreciating their own craftsmanship with the titular troll's skull they carved, now displayed over the mantle.   At another table, the gold dragonborn Rashaal sits with a book, curled up in a chair, their tail flicking back and forth with delight and anticipation. They are near the end of their book, riveted, knowing a good meal makes the excellent pairing with a good ending.   A third and fourth table are combined, some eight chairs wrapped around them, Fatima al-Umari of the Zephyr Post and her extended family, the same family who happened to travel into Waterdeep with Hawk, Mya, and Thaust. The parents, Arty and Del, toast to Fatima's generosity in letting them stay with her this long, while their children, Sera, Cill, and Jeshir watch Lif working behind the bar with wonder and fascination.   At a fifth table, Vincent Trench sits with Fala, your neighbor across the street who operates the apothecary. They are joined by her longtime friend, Ziraj, the assassin of the Black Network. He has left his massive longbow and black arrows behind for the evening, though you count no fewer than five knives, some the size of short swords, tucked across his person. Despite this, he smiles kindly as he listens to the detective Trench tell a riveting tale of his exploits.   The simple sounds of community and revelry fill the air, giving the tavern a glow of warmth and familiarity. There's the feeling of a deep breath of contentment. Thoughts of recent events and forthcoming threats are set aside, if but for a moment, with the realization that, one day, perhaps, this could simply be the end of a normal day. Not one filled with curses, devils, or deals in shadowed corners.   And yet, today is a mix of all of the above, as Xorone of the Libram steps through the doorway of Trollskull Manor. The local residents of Trollskull Alley notice his presence, but pay him little mind, lost in their own conversations and contemplations. He walks to sit at the bar, watching the evening with an unassuming eye.   Mya, working in tandem with Lif, serves drinks and tends to each neighbor's needs as the activity in the kitchen crescendos into the finale. The moment everyone's anticipated. A pair of beef wellingtons, ready to serve, along with a stream of accoutrements.  

Session Summary

  In addition to the beef wellingtons prepared by Hawk and Endriel, Thaust creates a true Heroes' Feast, sharing in the festivities with all gathered. The night passes on in joy and revelry, a community gathered in a cozy, warm setting of humor and hearth. Both meals are declared delightful successes, with Endriel's winning on taste and Hawk's winning on presentation and his performance in serving the delicious meals.   After the guests depart, Xorone conducts his ritual of Locate Object, discovering three other copies of the Script of Sending. The first resides in a Dock Ward warehouse. He believes this to be a minor operation and assures the party the Arcane Watch will see to it. The other two, besides theirs, reside in the Shadowfell. One, he cannot locate further, describing it as behind some thick mist or fog the spell cannot penetrate. The other, however, is in Drowningdeep, the Shadowfell mirror of Waterdeep. The party makes arrangements to planar shift their in the morning using scrolls Xorone can requisition. He also offers them the Planar Manacles as a means to trap the Rakshasa.   The next morning, Thaust wakes to find the tavern in disarray. Setting himself to cleaning it with the help of summoned woodland creatures, it is not until Hawk and Endriel arrive downstairs they realize the Bag of Holding has been stolen. Their search for it turns up empty, though they conclude Ulric to be the most likely suspect after he wasn't seen at the party the night prior and there were no signs of forced entry. In the searching, Endriel finds Vincent Trench who, upon learning of their intent to capture the Rakshasa working with the Cassalanters, offers his assistance.   Using one of two Plane Shift scrolls, the party find themselves falling through a void of shadow, transported to a husk of Trollskull Manor in Drowningdeep. Thaust uses the Mace of Disruption's holy power to channel his magic and locate the presence of the Cassalanters. Moving through the streets, they find themselves unwelcome outsiders by various denizens of the familiar-yet-unsettling city trapped beneath ink-black skies and a world of greyscale and shadow. They track the Cassalanters to a dilapidated distortion of their own manor. The local guards at the door inform them they are welcome guests, invited by their hosts to join them for dinner. With trepidation, the companions follow to the dining hall.   Within, they find patriarch Victoro at the head of the table, opposite his wife, Ammalia. Between them, all four of their children — Osvaldo, the eldest, the twins Elzerina and Terenzio, and the adopted Elya, whom Thaust recognizes from The Prestige, where she showed him performative magic tricks with glee. Hawk and Thaust agree to join for dinner, while Endril and Vincent keep their distance, standing near the door.   Over the course of the meal, Victoro and Ammalia, with nowhere left to turn, offer their explanations and defenses. They express their shame and remorse over accepting the devil's bargain, believing they could pay off the debt before it ever affected their children. The necrotic siege of Waterdeep ruined that for them. They then described, without details, how Ellian further interfered, ruining their contingency plans. It was at this time their strategy pivoted to growing the cult of Asmodeus, which the companions then undermined during the Liar's Night masquerade.   The Cassalanters explain how, once they realized their efforts to get from under the contract were insufficient, the only source of hope offered to the came in the form of Cyric. They pledged their lives to his cause, using the Asmodeus cult as a front for their darker intentions. Through these revelations, the companions learn of their machinations. Namely, using the Scripts of Sending to coordinate with Cyricists and Asmodeus cults to track illegal magical artifact transactions. The Rakshasa would then intervene, killing the targets and stealing the magical items. The Cassalanters coordinated with operatives throughout the city to smuggle these items through Skullport to Cyric's operations elsewhere, the full purpose unknown to them.   As for the bodies, Nalaskur's vampiric spawn would then recover the bodies, taking them back to his shadowfell prison. Trapped by the mists, Nalaskur has contrived a device he believes capable of cloning himself, so that while he remains trapped in his domain of dread, the copies of himself might lead the Crimson Cord in their efforts to dominate Waterdeep. Then, with no trace of the magical items or corpses, these disappearances were all the easier to chalk up to gang violence and kept quiet in the broadsheets, thanks to the involvement of Xorone of the Libram prior to his realization of how awful the events taking place actually were.   The companions also confirm the unfolding of recent events, in which the Rakshasa killed and replaced Ulric, now fed to Nalaskur's cloning device, in time to discover where they kept the Cyrinishad and Infernal Contract, recovering both between their visit to the temple and after the festivities of the night before.   With their newfound understanding, the companions offer the Cassalanters two options — to summon the Rakshasa so they might capture or kill it, bringing their work to an end, or to kill them and summon the Rakshasa themselves to the same end. Victoro offers a third option, for the companions to forget all they know. He signals to Elya, who, revealing herself to be the Rakshasa, plane shifts all of them to Avernus, the first layer of Hell.   Along the shores of the River Styx in a ruined battlement, the Cassalanters and Rakshasa face the companions and Vincent Trench once and for all.   While Endriel is nearly able to subdue Victoro, the Cassalanter patriarch shatters the embankment the heroes stand upon with an earthquake, threatening to send them reeling into the River Styx, wiping their memories of all they know. Endriel manages to escape the opening fissure, while Hawk and Thaust fall, gripping onto the ledge with desperate hope. With his flying cloak, Hawk manages to pull himself to safety. Thaust, unfortunately, fails to pull himself up or call upon Zeus' divine intervention. Falling into the River, his last thoughts are of his friends, and his failure to save the children doomed to dark, cruel fates by the Cassalanter's greed.   Atop the barricades, Vincent Trench reveals himself to be a Rakshasa as well, the brother of the companion's mark. He grapples with the fiend, subduing it to aid in trapping it within the planar manacles. As the chaos of combat ensues, Hawk manages to restrain their target, and the companions turn their attention to the Cassalanters. Endriel and Vincent Trench make short work of ending the affair, the Rakshasa bringing both nobles to a brutal end, declaring the case closed, since their souls are already in Hell where they belong. Vincent shattered the Rod of Domination trapping his brother beneath the Cassalanter's influence, and offers the ruby gem to the companions as proof of their contract complete as they recover their Bag of Holding, along with the Cyrinishad and Infernal Contract for further proof.   Racing to Thaust as he scrambles out of the River Styx confused and terrified, Hawk and Endriel are just as lost as to his condition as he is. The firbolg strikes at his former companions in fear, but they manage to subdue him long enough to teleport him back to Waterdeep. Arriving back in Trollskull Manor the same morning, Thaust's panic rises as he realizes how much he has lost without understanding how or why or who he is. As he sits beneath the tree in the courtyard of Trollskull in disbelief and bewilderment, his friends do their best to comfort him, as they grow increasingly aware of the terrible severity of his loss and their inability to restore him to his former self.   Their conversation is interrupted by a vision from Cyric, first for only them, and then a proclamation of war made across the Sword Coast.  

Campaign Epilogue

• EM.Lore Cyric's Proclamation
• EM.Lore The Cyrinishad