The title isn’t entirely accurate, just mostly. The group was finishing up one mission for the Allegiance of Allsight, and I gave them the second mission for the Cobalt Soul next. My group, however, being ever cautious, did a silent stakeout, then a too-late chase, so the mission didn’t take a lot of in-game time. I’d been planning a storyline for one of the players who ended up still down with COVID, as well.
So, beyond that, I didn’t have anything planned for the group this week. I set up some characters they had expressed interest in talking to. I have a conference all week for work, so I didn’t even make any more Take misssions. I’d worked on backstory and off camera action, but nothing to specifically toss in their path, yet. They had all of Ank’Harel to play in, people to talk to, memberships to pursue, puzzles to research. I let them have the reigns. This lead, as it often does, to a split party.
Most of the group took the opportunity that the campaign vehicle of the Slayer’s Take teleportation circles provided, to head home to Asarius for the afternoon. They had a sword and a set of armor to pick up/purchase from previous dealings. Another had experimental potions to report back on. Several members then purchased more of these, as well. Yay chaos!
One of them did go check in on something I’d prepared for later. Checked in with his Den, and found the gnoll they’d gotten arrested had made a bloody escape and taken a few kids with him. This pulled them back into my big plot: cultists of Ceratos gathering and plotting, so that was good. Others just wandered around, eating street meat in much cooler weather than they’d been dealing with down in Marquet.
The other pair of the group went off to deal with some weapons from Bazzoxan. Weapons dedicated to a Betrayer God were metaphorically burning a hole in their pockets. They had decided to “donate” them to the Allegiance/Crystal Chateau for study, but also for “considerations” in their desired membership with the Allegiance. This went well, and I think I’ve got Headmaster Cryon more firmly in my head now.
I also took the chance of this pair being away from the group to attack them with the assassin following one of them around. The player/character was aware of his presence, as I had him join the Rivals back in Bazzoxan, and has always kept an eye out, but assassins are hard to see. He’s a drow, so he has the knock-out poison on his bolts, so it wasn’t a knock-down drag-out fight, he just shot at them a few times from the roof. But when he didn’t put his prey down, and the town guards were called, he made his exit. It did surprise me a bit that they then reported him, name, description, and affiliation, to the guards, but I guess it really shouldn’t, given everything. I’ll have to consider how that will play out. Likely, he’ll just disappear back into the shadows until everyone gets down below.
Despite having no concrete plans, I think the night went well. Now they are level 8 and ready to head down into the sunken city, and the pace will pick back up for a while. I’ve got some work to do to translate the challenges for this highly skilled party.