Mystery Campaign Notes Session 13

Last time in the mystery campaign, the party attended to their various business interests and asked Hildy's father Davil for access to Hildy's journals. They had resolved at the end of last session to go and interrogate George Turnbuckle about the rumor that he had hired the turbanned figure for some purpose. This session turned out to be very special, for reasons you will see in the description. Read on for the summary and some insights about how the storytelling unfolded (and from all of us playing together). 

The session picked up where we had left off--with the party at their healing center, preparing to go to Turnbuckle Tower. They started on their way and were approached by a courier. Polly Bridgerman, head of the magic college, sent along word of glyphs, an alternate form of magic that allows spellcasters to create customized effects. I had created this system ten years ago for Listen Check, and I have been wanting to use it again since then. I trust this group of players to do some wild things with it, and they're all already magic users, so it was a great fit. And sure enough (spoiler alert), we had a glyph spell cast later this session. The party looked over these notes for a moment as they continued on their way. They passed by Riviel Jassimir, once again out handing supplies and food to the poor of the city, and chose to pass by without addressing her. 

They arrived at Turnbuckle Tower and were immediately concerned to find a key already in the door to the elevator. Cautiously, they took it upstairs and met a young half-elf named Hiero, who identified himself as Turnbuckle's new assistant. He also disclosed that Turnbuckle was forlorn and broken--a shadow of his former self. In an effort to impress Hiero and gain his confidence, Beor healed Hiero, who was shocked. Removing his shoe, he thanked Beor for having regrown his missing toe. Overcome by the situation, he advised the party to go to Turnbuckle. 

The party entered Turnbuckle's office, a small stone room with paintings of landscapes with architecture, and found him drunk and disheveled. He absently answered some questions and was evasive about others. He eventually admitted when pressed that he had a romantic relationship with Hildy over the last two years, and insisted it was consensual. He also admitted that he had hired a mercenary named Tajana to surveille multiple members of the Above and one member of the Below. Ais managed to read parts of a business plan, and Turnbuckle corroborated this by disclosing that he was working on a new construction company in collaboration with Riviel Jassimir's masonry company; with his lumber and her stone, they could corner the market on construction. 

There was a knock on the door. Ais opened it slightly and saw a woman wearing heeled boots, a black cloak, and a purple turban. After a short discussion, the party decided to open the door and let her in. There was a tense exchange, fairly brief: the party urged her to give herself up and account for the murder. Tajana confessed to the murder but refused to cooperate, declaring her intention to instead leave without further interaction. With that, she dashed away. 

The party began to fire spells at her. Ais cast a glyph spell to restrict Tajana's movements, but Tajana rolled exceptionally well on this and all of her saves in this encounter. Montana grabbed Beor and used "Dimension Door" to teleport to right in front of the elevator Tajana was running for. She manuevered toward the button for the elevator, and then the party jumped into action. Several more controlling and restricting spells were cast, all of which were evaded by exceptional rolls for Tajana. Beor entered rage and grappled Tajana; she allowed herself to be grappled, then pressed a button on a device on her wrist and moved backward in time, out of Beor's grip and into the elevator while the party was stuck motionless in frozen time. In a last ditch effort, Montana attempted to teleport into the elevator as it descended. I allowed this at high difficulty because (1) teleporting into a moving object is significantly harder than teleporting to a stable point, and (2) by this point, I wanted Tajana to get away so I can use her in a later, more momentous situation. I ruled that if Montana could roll an 18 Insight check to judge the timing of the spell, he would succeed; he rolled a 16 and ended up just above the elevator car. He used "Knock" to open the lock on the hatch door, succeeded on his second Strength check to lift the heavy hatch, and saw that Tajana had already disappeared into the city. 

We moved on at this point but later came back to the issue that the distance restriction on the party should have been triggered by Montana's teleportation. When the elevator reached the bottom of the tower, all of them should have been unconscious. Only Hiero would be able to immediately help, and why would he think to move their bodies altogether? I decided that going back through fifteen minutes of story to punish the players and create obstacles with not payoff wasn't worth it. Looking back, I wish I had asked my players if everyone was okay with that and made it more of a discussion. I'll do that next time. 

The party returned to Turnbuckle and questioned him further. Ultimately, they decided that Turnbuckle needed to be brought to Portia at the guard headquarters for the purpose of making a statement. Before they left, Ais was sure to take the business documents from Turnbuckle's house for further investigation. They descended the tower and began to make their way to Portia. On the way, they were encountered by Davil. He handed over Hildy's journal and had a sad, distant look in his eye. He said that they would find the information they were looking for in the journal. 

The final page of Hildy's journal. 

Suddenly, a chaos storm struck. All three party members were affected, the first time that has happened in this campaign. Montana gained a photographic memory for three days, all the liquids on Beor's person were turned into fine elven wine, and for six seconds, Ais turned into a potted plant. After a moment of recovering from the shock of the chaos effects, they continued on and arrived at the guard headquarters. 

Portia listened intently to the party's updates--how they had learned of Turnbuckle's hiring of a mercenary, of that mercenary's confession, and of the need to get Turnbuckle's knowledge put to use. She took Turnbuckle off to another room to get everything he could tell her. Having finished the journal and away from Turnbuckle, Montana shared that Hildy had been pregnant. [Montana's player emitted a pained groan when he read that part of the journal; it was nice to know that my hope for an emotionally impactful detail worked as intended.] But the mention of pregnancy caused Beor to erupt in rage, smashing the table and chairs in the room into bits. Montana managed to calm Beor a bit, and in an effort to bond the party together, Montana shared the story of how he had, for heartbreaking reasons, killed his own son. In response, Beor shared that in an early episode of being transformed into a bear, he had killed his own pregnant wife. Meanwhile, Izzunech--Ais' demon--possessed her and insulted Montana and Beor for sharing emotionally. Beor stabbed Ais with the demon-harming humanoid-healing dagger, and Izzunech shrugged off the damage. Shortly afterward, the possession ended, and Ais gradually returned to herself. 

This is where we ended for the night. It was pretty momentous stuff--I actually revealed all of the information I had planned for the next chapter as well, and quite a lot for the players to process. I ended the session by asking the party to tell me what their suspicions are and what their next plan of attack was so I could prepare. This strategy sounds like it could remove some of the intrigue--if the GM doesn't have a grand plan, where is it all going? But I think of it like this: I'm telling my players that the most important thing in the story is what they want to do. I get to find ways to complicate and reward their ideas instead of making them follow my logic. If you're curious, here's what they said they would look to next, in no order of priority: 

• Talk to the mysterious person known as Seven Fifteen at the tavern The World Map--they know about Tajana
• Investigate the strange abandoned shack in the city marketplace--they are told it is where Tajana asks for dead drops and first meetings
• Look in to more information about Riviel Jassimir--the party learned that she is the city's richest person and want to do some digging
• Talk to Lyssbetonk Cogswagon again for updates and more questions
• Find leads into the world of corporate espionage
• Ask distillery owner Birt Wizzoom about corporate espionage and Tajana--both of whom he knows about

One thing that bears pointing out about this session is that both Montana's and Beor's players voluntarily shared their secrets, which means no one in the party gains any further rewards for completing chapters (aside from the story milestone level ups). At the beginning of this campaign, I was genuinely worried that the players would want the rewards so badly that they just wouldn't personally engage, but just the opposite turned out to be true. It was more satisfying for the players to tell their own stories and engage with each other than to become more powerful in the game. I ruled that because their heart-to-heart happened after they completed the chapter's ending, they were granted a final reward, which was a more considerable one than before: a choice of either +1 Charisma or +1 Dexterity saving throws, which are what we use to avoid chaos storms. 

I'm very pleased with this session. We advanced the plot considerably, we effectively changed from a single-track story to a branching story, and the players all drove the story individually for a while. That balance is hard to find, and I'm just so grateful for my excellent players. Next time in the mystery campaign, the players will turn their attention to corporate espionage and finding Tajana. Until then, happy gaming!

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