Lux and escaped cultist take off. Joffrey following/scouting.

Rest of party goes outside. Try to engage horses/track. Ogelsby, covered in apple butter, attracts the horses, feeds them. One with a pack seems encourages Ogelsby to mount. Horse has a pack, Ogelsby finds a map. Ogelsby goes to Cooks to get a vessel. Ogelsby orders a beer in a bar festooned with corpses. Orders from Standy. Ogelsby tries to clean himself with magic. It mostly works.

Trio (Kex, Jartha, Ogelsby) looks at the map. X marks the spot away from town – not exactly scaled, but gives them a general idea that it’s in a forested area NW of town. Some plains before a forested area. Kex looks at the tracks/tracking because Ogelsby doesn’t want to get his tux more dirty. Discerns that the opponents arrived from the western gate. “Applebutter away” cries Ogelsby towards his horse.

Back to escaped cultist and fake escaped cultist Lux. We go to south gates “halt, none shall pass”. South gates actually closed. We head towards north gate, go passed a café nothing doing. Lux tells cultist hold back. Lux goes to gate (open, but guarded) and tells guards this is of critical importance, talks about the battle – namedrops Gladius, Cooks, Morris. Persuades (for the moment).

Other western gate – none shall pass type treatment to the trio. Kex talks about the fight, the map. Wizard guard wants to see the map, Ogelsby not sure. Knights start talking privately behind the mage. Mage says how is this legit. Kex points out blood on himself, points out Ogelsby’ stain on tux. “That is a nasty stain sir!”.  Knights pantomiming guitar. Kex “yes, that’s me”.  Ogelsby does some magic to make the map animate a bit. Mage know what’s up. Guard steps forward “you -we’ve seen you perform – if you need to get through for a gig you can”. Kex says yeah we got a gig. Mage says no, stop. Basically asks for a bribe. Kex offers 5 gold, mage looks away. Mage not happy and says perhaps something heavier. Kex gives him 10 gold, mage walks away.  Kex signs the armor of the guards – both are blown away. Guards wanna shake hands/do paintings.  Guards open gate and say quick quick quick. On his way out. Ogelsby tries to get the mage to soil himself. Trio hears this god awful sound, knights say “Magus man, you gotta take that dog for a walk”. Ogelsby encourages AppleButter to move on.

Back to Lux. Dwarf guard says “my sister works as gladius’ assistant”. Make it worth my while. Uncomfortable exchange – lux doesn’t wanna pay – convinces them to let him through. Prison cultist roles up, we have to convince the guards again. Lux ends up dumping 20 gold on the guards. One guard bends over to get the gold, Lux/Cultist escape on horseback.

Back to trio. Jartha tries to track the owl on way out of town. Can tell that north is the way to go. Trio heads north. Discussion about where the rest of the party might be.

Lux and Pyriel (she has a name now)  start coming up the edge of the forest. Look – we’re almost there, reinforcements have arrived. There’s the camp. Lux motions to Joffrey towards Ash. Joffrey creates circle pattern. We role into camp – a number of individuals in the camp. Pyriel rides forward and says “hale”. Tells a tale of how they got destroyed. How we were only survivors. Knight comes forward – says youre very wounded. Did you find Gladius, and the warrior? Lux says we don’t know, we barely fled with our lives. They offer potions, fireside hangs etc. Lux advises to hold tight.

Back to trio. They connect with Joffrey. Kex encourages a stealthy approach. Joffrey starts making oval shapes towards a point over by the woods. Kex starts sneaking up towards edge of the trees. Can  see the camp, wagons, fire, two horses at the outskirts that were maybe just left there. Kex disguises self as dead cultist. Rolls into camp as if fatigued from battle.

Pyriel “look there – one of us”. Kex rolls up, says he pretended to be dead. Knight welcomes him. “Tell us were we successful in the mission” Kex claims amnesia/frazzled. Talks about the solider guy – Kex says he wasn’t there when he left. Knight talks about how the master seeks the warrior very earnestly.

Kex asks about the plan. We will wait for reinforcements. Kex says Dustcrown turned on us. Knight asks about the weapon – Kex says Dustcrown destroyed the weapon without using it.

Jartha/Ogelsby see a gaggle of torches coming from a distance. They hide their horses and selves in the woods. Looks like Joffrey is moving towards the army. Jartha/Oglesby try to creep up on the camp.

Kex starts playing the lute. Softer version of Thunderstruck. Mage gets into – one of the Cat People’s numbers. Lux know totally knows it’s Kex now. Gives him Lando nod.

Jartha and Ogelsby recognize the song. They talk for a while about what to do. Army behind, friends in front. Talk of magic, long range.

Ogelsby attempts to stop time on the mage and a warrior. Jartha busts out the bow, prones Pyriel.  Fight times.  Kex jumps and stabs a knight in the back like a boss. Ogels fireballs mage. So bows, some rapiers. The knight (barely fucking alive) points at Jartha “he’s the warrior! Get him! [sic]”. Knight, squire, etc. Kex pushes the knight into the fire.  Ogelsby does some sort of magic cube. The mage is blown away, and the suit of armor HAS NO FACE. Some more fighting. Cloud of daggers appears again! Lux, Ogelsby have nat 20s. We beat them all. A few cultists, knights, robot knight, a mage.

There’s a massive smell because of burning robot armor. We loot. Find a letter – from Hawkwind. “we have stored your reward in a cave north of here – with guards?”

Jartha wants to stage the knight killing the wizard. We talk about disguising ourselves to go to the cave. Lots of back and forth. We loot bodies and tents. Jartha puts on knight’s armor, Lux disguises as Jartha, 75 gold, spell book of mage survives.

Lux asks about past. Jartha was in Bone Devil squadron.  Then a debate about intelligence.

We end – need to rest. We will rest then do disguised trip to cave up north. We short rest. And we’re outside the cave

Next session: Friday, 9/22, 630pm pacific.