Session 37, A Daring Heist and also eloping

Last session was a great victory in battle but Kormatin was still reeling from a psychological attack spell that made him relive the death of Tihalt and then see imagined scenarios where his other loved ones died in vivid and graphic detail.   Needless to say, he was rattled.   Aleesia and Kormatin talked about what a courtship between Brigid and Duke Vern Palbuc would be fairly complicated but their courtship didn't have to be. Applying YOLO arguments, Aleesia convinced Kormatin to agree to have Priest Benek marry them on Deorac lands.   No time for a honeymoon, Kormatin has been planning a heist for a long time and his heist has a narrow window of opportunity. Aleesia would stand out like a sore thumb on said heist, so they separated. But both Keepers and Rovers knows that their vocations make them have to travel apart fairly often.   Kormatin and company learned that Swynfaredian managed to conquered a small piece of Fumayan land because the Fumayans knew where and when they were invading, they set up a defense that made the Swynfaredians pay dearly for these gains. Besides killing a bunch of troops on the front line, a sneak attack led by Noggra the tengku, captured and/or destroyed a large quantity of potions behind their supply lines. A promising start to the war, but the Fumayans are still the under dogs.   For months, Kormatin and his allies have been brainstorming and planning how to rob the Royal Palace of Swynfaredia while the queen and most of the royal family away at a lavish Otectum Party hosted by Count Rohdri ap Gruffyl.   The main objective was to steal the ancestral armor of House Deorac that is displayed as trophies in the banquet hall of the Royal Palace. They would grab other items if possible.   Ultimately, they decided to use disguises and forged credentials to walk in and claim that much of the Banquet Hall decorations was being replaced and they would relocate the armor on display as well as the bronze statues of the Nine in draconic form.   Spymaster Ralnor gave them detailed descriptions on what the uniforms needed to look like, and, Ragani's brother-in-law, a skilled tailor, made them.   To get legitimate seeming orders, they needed a code phrase into the royal palace. And to obtain this code phrase, they didn't bribe or intimidate one of the mid ranking palace staff or contact the Blood Dragons. The Blood Dragons are a Swynfaredian high level mafia group and they already have some of the palace staff bribed and/or intimidated.   Kormatin, Brigid, Ragani, and Bendek crossed the border without incident and made it to the Swynfaredian capital though they had to take some detours to avoid patrols or prying eyes.   Kormatin and company managed to make contact with the Blood Dragons (via a ranking member named Emrys) and initiate the deal but they had to fork over over a 1000 silver worth of loot (including their small stash of magical cocaine, ending Kormatin's career as a part-time drug dealer).   While Ragani was haggling over that, Kormatin opened up a second deal and gave the Blood Dragons another 500 drams of reagents in exchange for an occasional offer intelligence in the war effort. Besides offering reagents and coin, Kormatin pointed out that a long drawn out war will give the Blood Dragons more opportunities to make profit and helping out the underdogs will drag out the war.   They seemed happy to accept this deal. The plan is for them to send missives under a pseudonym to the Temple of the Winds in Prophet's Pass.  

Ragani portrait by Eron12 using Hero Forge

Ragani the gnome Guardian

"The Blood Dragons were tempted to kill us and turn us in for the bounty, but they figured that the price of the bounty was not worth the price in blood they would pay taking us down.   During our negotiation, I had to pretend that they were taking almost all of our money. When in fact that were taking less than a quarter of our money. If suspected how much money we were really carrying, I am certain they would have tried to kill us.

 

As convenient as Bags of Holding are, in the future, I suggest we don't carry so much on our persons going forward. We can store some of our wealth in a secure location or perhaps divest some of our wealth to our allies to help with the war effort."

  With the fake credentials, Brigid pretended to be a fang warrior and Kormatin and Bendek pretended to be ordinary soldiers. Bendek and Kormatin were careful not to cast a single spell around any Swynfaredians while undercover.   Ragani held back with their bags of holding and most of their usual magic gear.   Usually, Bendek is putting his foot in his mouth and Kormatin and Brigid are covering for him. But this Kormatin put his foot in his mouth and Bendek covered for him. This was a quirk of the dice rolls, but we came up with a story reason for this. Bendek is good at hobnobbing with ordinary soldiers and dealing with casual ribbing. Kormatin has mostly dealt with stoic holy warriors and wasn't very good at the nuances of dealing with the rank-and-file secular soldiers. Especially the part of tossing insults at each other that they don't mean.   They also brought some wine and shared a lot of wine with the barracks to win friends, which helped a bit.   The fake orders passed inspection and the trio managed to not arouse undue suspicion while staying the night. But they did get some suspicion, the head of security gave them a much larger escort on the way out.   This possibility was planned for so the trio started on the itinerary to their fake destination while Ragani beat them to their third inn. Then they gave their handlers the slip, abandoning their cart, horses, and some of the suits of armor to stash the Deorac armor, the dragon statues and whatever else they had room for in their bags of holding and flew off in the night, escaping back to friendly territory without needing to spill blood once.   They crossed the Swynfaredian without incident, making it safely into Duchy of Palbuc. They dropped the armor off with Baron Fyodor Deorac IV and there was much celebration.