S11E21 - The Nun, the Lions, and the Bag of Holding

The heroes start the session with an invisible Nemo entering Borius Fang’s shop, trailing the orc mistress. Borius closes the door, and the mistress names his next victim, Zhermos, and gives him the address. Borius promises to get it done within two or three days and then the orc leaves.

Nemo follows the orc to a quiet alley, where she sits and sobs for a while. She then visits the market, gazing longingly at the knitting stalls, before returning to Lord Boq’s villa through the back entrance.

The party visits Hjalmus and presents the evidence: a notebook containing a generic kill log with interspersed emotional observations, and a separate kill list, with fewer details, whose last entries match the recent murders of Bane devotees in exact order. Hjalmus has a minion inspect the documents and, based on his comments, becomes convinced that Lord Boq is behind the murders. After a brief ceremony, he casts a spell to restore Lyra’s alignment and expresses his hope of working with the party again.

Searching the market for someone who recognizes the initials HN, Ike meets Master Po, a friendly dwarf merchant and retired painter. Po explains that Hojo normally lives in Zoqoi but has spent recent weeks near the Oasis of Zurk, seeking the rare woods his increasingly specialized craft demands. He gives Ike a list of merchants who might stock Hojo’s wood.

Po also offers a map of the Red Sea desert. His price: Ike’s body, should the force animating him ever fail. Ike refuses.

The party spots a lion watching from a side street, but it disappears. Later, while discussing their next move, they notice Paquito stalking them from a nearby stall. Brand sneaks around and grabs him from behind. Paquito has left Paco because he wants to see the world and Brand already agreed to let him be his squire. Brand tells the reluctant Paquito that they must first go see Paco and get his approval and that it’s the first lesson in his training. After casting Heroism on Paquito, Brand makes an impassioned appeal to Paco. Moved and with tears in his eyes, Paco agrees to let Paquito choose his own path.

While Ike checks the other wood merchants for spare parts, Brand takes Paquito to find a forge. They plan to split the dead angel’s greatsword into two weapons, giving the new squire a proper blade. With Lyra and the blacksmith helping, the work will take three nights.

After that they all meet at their appointed place, the Weeping Colossus, in the Great Souk. There, right before they are going back to the inn, Ike notices a stray dog with one missing eye, a wary look in the other, and a bad leg. Ike feels drawn to the dog and follows it for a few minutes. The dog leads him into an alley, where a woman lies in a pool of blood beside a pretty dagger. Ike pockets the dagger, then casts a healing spell on the woman, bringing her back from the brink of death. The woman regains consciousness and screams when she sees Ike holding the dagger. Before she can flee, he casts Hold Person and asks what happened. She says that three demonic creatures assaulted her and cut her open for no reason. Ike pulls her out of the alleyway and shouts that the woman needs help and runs away with his new toy.

By early evening, the heroes return to the inn. The tearful innkeeper tells them that Klik and Klak ran into the street two hours earlier. Bernabette followed, and none of them has returned.

The heroes leave the inn to look for them. As the party crosses an alley, Sister Bianca’s three lions ambush them, trapping two teenage aristocrats there as well. Lyra tries to reason with the lions, but they block both exits and refuse to abandon their orders to kill the heroes. During the first round of combat, one of the teenage girls who was trying to escape gets attacked by the lion and starts dying. Then Sister Bianca appears on a rooftop overlooking the alley and tries to cast a spell on them, but Ike counter-spells her. While Nemo, Soto and Lyra are attacking the lions, Brand commands the assassin nun to approach him. She fails her saving throw and starts climbing down, but she slips and hits the ground hard. Ike then casts fireball, killing the two lions that were still alive and seriously hurting Sister Bianca. Then the rest of the party focus on knocking Sister Bianca unconscious. Bianca tries to cast the spell again, but Ike counters it again, and the party then knocks her unconscious. After the fight, the heroes heal the two teenagers, who promptly flee. They then sever the lions’ heads and take their gold collars, with Soto keeping one to make into a helmet. They dump the bodies through a sewer grate, then bind and gag Sister Bianca and stuff her into the bag of holding. The party scampers away just before the guards arrive.

At the slave plaza, the heroes find Bernabette. Through Nemo’s telepathic link, she tells them what happened: three of Lord Yaggira’s minions, the Night Shadows, captured her and the children. They replaced her citizen collar with a slave collar, cut her tongue so she couldn’t complain, and sold her.

She doesn’t know where Klik and Klak are. She suspects Yaggira has them. He’s the creepiest of the slave lords, seldom seen around his villa, especially in daylight.

When Bernabette comes up for auction, she attracts no other bids. Ike buys her for two gold pieces and is registered as her owner. Back at the inn, Ike excitedly announces his plan to rename Bernabette Maria and keep her as his permanent slave. Soto objects fiercely. Ike quickly gives in and the party then removes her slave collar and puts it on Sister Bianca. Bernabette receives one of the lions’ gold collars, though it will need adjusting.

With Bernabette free, the heroes turn to Lord Yaggira’s villa. Their plan: use her to get inside and rescue Klik and Klak.