Sora goes full The Thing

Sora hunts Armand’s ass down to a bathhouse, constantly blowing high level spell slots just to keep her disguise up. She waits till a guard has to go to the latrine and follows him and just starts fighting his ass. Thought she could get it in one, but sorry hater, this guy’s got a stat block. She steals his face as he calls for help and does a whole “Shoot him! I’m the real Barry!” and poor Steve totally falls for it, murdering his friend Barry while Sora, stealing his memories in a black mist, pretends that it’s totally some kind of magic thing and that’s why he didn’t revert back to his normal self? I call bullshit, but I didn’t at the time, so here we are. Anyway Steve’s arcana is pitiful.

The corpse lies there and Sora thinks about her stoneshape spell and whether she can entomb this poor soul under here. Thousands of years from now, when Argot is covered in lava and ashes and is recovered by an archaeology expedition, a grad student finds Barry’s body, under a slab of stone in the toilets of a bathhouse. How did this man get here? How was he buried here? How could these stones have been moved?

“So, you murder this guy and take a shit”

Sora follows Steve back to Armand’s place and, suspicious, Armand orders Sora to lay down her arms (her rapier disguised as a short sword), and then goes upstairs to do some business after gladhanding at the bathhouse–after all, he has some positions to fill with hopefully friendly faces.

Sora charms Steve (magically but also friend-wise) and heads upstairs to Armand and stabs him in the throat so he can’t scream. More blood. More prestidigitation. She sneaks back downstairs to the toilet, and then doubles back with Steve to discover the body together. “I’ll avenge you!” she cries out, like a nut, and takes her rapier back and starts fleeing. Phew. In the clear–

Looks like someone needs some rakshasa balm

Someone spots her in the commotion, and she flees, on her broom, flies up between two buildings, and the pursuer flies up too. Curious. Oh it’s the Bakasura. “Maybe I can hit him a few times before running away,” she says to herself, I assume, and as they land and he lays down three great sword blows (two of which hit) that, I believe, bloody her, she peaces the fuck out, turning a corner, and flying up, home free.

Except the Bakasura is in pursuit, has the fly spell which doubles his speed, and he can easily catch up to her. Through some bobbing and weaving, Sora manages to miraculously evade capture as the Bakasura’s spell runs out. He lands and she watches as a full scale riot breaks out over Armand’s death.

“I have always been on your side.” Smash cut to montage of Sora betraying and blackmailing Leandro

Bells toll in the temple district as Sora makes her way to Leandro’s. She talks to him and tells him that Hespero is the one who killed Armand! I’ve been you friend all along!

Yeah Leandro doesn’t buy it. Probably why he wanted that contract because he did not trust Sora, heck nah.

Sora is the Leandro to the Duchess’s Sora

Sora arrives at the Duchess’s camp, greeted warmly and offered a small seat and the Duchess shrinks down to once again eat small. Serena tells Sora she considers her a great friend (in spite of all the deception, like taking Sora’s identity in order to trick Sora’s friends to letting her kill Paloma to obfuscate her own role in murdering Prince Riffrick, and tricking Sora and the others into doing a 9/11). So really from Serena’s perspective, Sora’s a great friend!

Anyway, Sora asks for help killing Hespero and getting the Pontia legions inside of the city, so Sora can get her cash prize, but Serena wants 2 million in gold (or equivalent land, giants gotta eat) and Sora doesn’t think she has that kind of sway. But the Duchess is still down, war-wise, to help with the battle.

Sora stays at the camp, every now and then checking in at Livius’s mansion to see if her friends are back.

Ethically sourced blood

Casimir hisses at the others from Nahk’s shoulder as they continue agonizing over the whole murdering a sentient creature for its blood thing. Woof. Can’t we all just get along?

Livius just can’t believe they did that and Abe yells, “It was your idea!”

“We did it and it was a mistake!” Livius cries out.

“For the greater good,” is bandied about, and the retort “More like for the greater bad, am I right,” is also bandied about.

It’s like boggle but you get addicted to it and you lose all your money

They head down the mountain and run into General Beren’s army, recently released from Zulon’s capture (unlike thousands of civilians), as part of the deal that Livius and Natalya brokered, which the whole gang is ready to tell all the soldiers about.

They are thankful, if a little, you know, tired, from the torture and the fighting. Natalya invents a portable gambling addiction, I mean, gamblebox, I mean, boggle but with water, I mean, Argoti Dice for the soldiers who are excited and distracted somewhat from their woes. The heroes go around applying rakshasa balm, whatever that is. Perhaps everyone’s hearts grow just a few sizes to feel like at least they saved someone.

Who got the monkeys, he got the monkeys

They arrive in the city in triumph, the people of Argot finally glad to get some good news. The people throw flowers at the arriving soldiers and Hobbes Genies around the crowd, making sure everyone knows who the real Prince Ali is (it’s you guys). Abe and some others protest being called the Damage Sluts, but after no one is able to come up with a replacement names, Damage Sluts it is.

“I am damaged and I am a slut,” someone says. Who can say.

They keep getting the nose wrong!

They find a wanted poster for Sora for, like, murder, like six murders, I think at this point:

1. Shirley
2. The guard in the rain whose name has been washed away with time
3. Barry
4. Calantha
5. Nestor
6. Armand

1,000 gp please for the capture of this lady, don’t worry about her being a dragonborn and don’t ask about who she murdered please, Pontia is totally still our ally, she is a weird rogue agent or something

– The Triumvirs, probably

Sora appears and they all have a little chat.

Abe has a moment with Baltsaros apart from the others. Abe tells Baltsaros what to do should he perish: Clean up my books, and Baltsaros says he totally can, after all he was a crime boss and humanoid trafficker, so yeah he knows all about money, honey, uwu. “Get me resurrected somewhere far from here, somewhere on the 13 Islands. We’ll finally start that bed and breakfast.”

Natalya reads about the War of the Devils and Demons that Zulon has enlisted her and Livius in. Uh, it is not a huge comfort.

But Nat and Livius bury themselves in their work and get started on making something with this god ichor. They manage to get a working staff for Livius. It’s gone from a goat staff to a the greatest of all time staff. I mean, OK.

The heroes come up with a plan to kill Hespero, using the cover of claiming the reward on Sora and bringing her in. Nat makes some trick manacles. Sora asks her friends if they’re not going to like actually turn her in though, right?

Right?

Travel Quests

• Parley with Zulon ☑
• Free Mallory ☑
• The Liminal Arrow ☑

Skill Challenge Per Day Quests

• Counterintelligence ☑
• Undermine Calantha ☑
• Disrupt Mineosi Operations
• Kill the Bargainer ☑
• Exorcise the Binder of the Dead ☑

Single Moment Quests

• Casino Heist
• Kill Hespero and Armand
• Kill the Duchess

It is day 56 since the Battle of Aurochs Island, the first engagement of the Argoti-Mineosi War.

The Argotnauts are at Livius’s mansion, plotting the assassination of Hespero.

You have two solid cubes and a ring of seven keys:

• One of the pine wood cubes is on the floor of the ship
• Livius Anastasius Cratius has the cube made of bone found in Iskos Valley Village’s elders’ hut
• Natalya has one of the pine wood cubes and the ring of seven keys; she dropped the obsidian cube containing her heart into the ocean

Zulon has been on the material plane for 25 days.

The Deathless One’s invading military are expected to arrive in 4 days.

Previous episode: in search of lost sessions

Next Episode: ill be rolling small today