Session 3 summary

[chadsansing]

Key NPCs

• Dril, the silent partner, scales in the dark
• The Silver Mask, Root Stoneshaper's chief handler
• Petra Bladebender, an atificer

Key locations

• The Burnt Turtle, a Soma bar in the Soma Ring of the elvish forest
• The Outer Ring, the thickening, blasted ring of used Soma trees around the dwindling elvish forest
• Portia, wasteland dwarves' capital and trade city

Key events

• Wally, unaccustomed to Soma and dreading the prospect of confronting Petra, becomes intoxicated and passes out at the Burnt Turtle. Maik agrees to watch him for the group.
• The party leaves the Burnt Turtle and establishes a key-phrase to encrypt their conversations on the red shard crystals ahead of their mission to find Petra in the Outer Ring.
• The party travels to the Outer Ring on horse back, using Faelin's Astral Eyes spell and Psalt's Scout Sprite spell to locate Petra's cup-shaped hiding place high up in a blasted nodule of a spent Soma tree.
• It seems like there's a small, contained fire in the hiding place and a fuzzy area that messes with its observer's vision somehow.
• Psalt also discovers 2 elvish sentries guarding the tree.
• The party stops out of sight of Petra's tree, and Kilvar uses his Messenger spell to summon a giant millipede to deliver his blue crystal shard to Petra. The millipede makes it past the sentries.
• Kilvar sends a clear-text message to Dril, potentially giving Petra and her networks Dril's name.
• Kilvar uses "Gotnafiskr" to get Petra's true name from the Silver Mask, communicating with the Silver Mask over the red crystal shard network.
• Using the blue crystal shard network, Faelin opens negotiations with Petra, sending a key-phrase encrypted with her true name and then implying that the party will take what it wants from her unless she deals with them.
• Petra tells the story of the hunter in the dark and demands Faelin's true name before calling off her sentries. Faelin shares his true name, potentially sharing it with Petra's other networks, as well.
• Kilvar and Ob go into stealth and begin flanking Petra's tree.
• Petra agrees to meet the group up the tree in the cup-shaped nodule she's using as a hideout. She wants to be free of Root forever, and is willing to deal or die to achieve that goal. She says, "Root is not what you think."
• Kilvar knocks out one of the sentries.
• Psalt calls in a Shard Spike from Dril on the blue crystal shard network. They party hears the sound of a marble shattering.
• Ob knocks out the other sentry.
• The party rendezvous at the base of Petra's tree and climbs to her hiding place.
• The party finds Petra under a a kind of curtain or tarp made of overlapping rows of small crystals that seem to reflect, together, whatever they face.
• Petra has been gravely wounded by the Shard Spike. Believing that the party is there to kill her, she whispers, "He's not Aarok," before casting Meld to phase down through the floor of the cup and fall to her death at the base of the tree.
• Ob searches Petra's body, taking scale mail, a shard, and a rag he later discovers to be the schematics for the crystal artifact.
• Kilvar kills and searches a sentry, staging the body and recovering a bow and arrows, some gold, and a crystal.
• Psalt interrogates the remaining living sentry, extracts his true name to ensure coöperation, and frees him.
• The party destroys the crystals Petra and the sentries were using after Psalt determines they belong to a network of 9-10 mercenaries in the Soma Ring.
• Before going back to Portia, the party collects Wally and resupplies.
• On the road to Portia, Psalt tries to deal with Dril, who is upset the party is also working for Root. Dril wants the artifact and its plans and has promised double the original reward for the mission, but is clearly upset about Root and impatient for the party to declare for one patron or the other.
• Also on the way back to Portia, Faelin lies to the Silver Mask to buy time with Root, saying that Petra escaped and the party needs to resupply before pursuing her again. The Silver Mask buys it.
• The party decides to work for Dril and tosses its red crystal shards into Ob's Shadow Cache.
• The session ends at the safe-house with the party reflecting on its experiences and figuring out how best to proceed with Dril.

Key understandings

• Petra would have done anything to never see Root again.
• Petra had a working prototype of the designs she stole.
• Petra created a kind of crystal, camouflage mesh that reflects what it "sees."
• Petra quotes: "Root is not what you think he is," and, "He is not Aarok."
• Aarok is known among living wasteland dwarves as the boogeyman who holds a child's hand to the fire when they goof around in a parent's workshop.
• Infosec matters on missions, but can also lead to creative solutions combined with characters' play.
• It's important to agree on key-phrases before they're needed and to use them for symmetrical encryption.

Key decisions

• How does Wally deal with Petra's death and the party's decision to stop working for Root?
• How will the party approach Dril?
• Where will party ultimately stay? How will it improve its safe-house?
• How will characters grow to reflect their experiences?
• What will the party do with Petra's artifact?
• What will the party do with Petra's design schematics?
• How will the party deal with Root in the future?
• What's the next step?

Key rewards

• Each player has 2 Talent Points.
• The party has 2 Strategic Assets to spend.
• The party can keep its horses as mounts.
• The party is at 7% risk.

See also

• 6

• 7

• 8

Players, add your insights and questions below to get ready for session 4 on May 8th, 2018!

[pfzenke]

Ob sharpens his punching danger and catches up on some sleep.

[chadsansing]

Moved to https://github.com/chadsansing/cineris-campaign/session-notes/session-3.md