D&D: Die, Dopps, Die

Last night we played some D&D! Here's last time.

Our heroes are standing outside the home of Barry, one of the Night Strikes in Cian, as another of said Strikes, Ronan, gravely informs his wife of his demise. The four of them talk amongst themselves, and decide that they need to get some sleep before they go hunting down trouble. Ronan returns and they offer condolences, and then head back to the north end of town for their rooms at the Clumsy Archer.

In the morning, they talk about their options. They know that the "manor" - the one that burned some weeks back - is potentially significant since Dara heard the doppelgangers mention it when they were plotting. They also know, however, that two of the Strikes, Imogen and Aodhan, have not been accounted for. Zook points out that Dara saw them being impersonated and the doppelgangers have historically not tried to impersonate people they can't account for, which probably means they're dead. In the end, they decide to leave the city and go check out the manor, but before that, they find one of the Strikes currently on shift (a woman named Mairead) and tell her of their plans. They also come up with a code word ("fiddlesticks," obviously Zook's choice) so that they can protect against impersonation, and tell Mairead that they're leaving town for a while so if they're seen over the next couple of hours, it's not them.

They start heading towards the southern gate, and a man in a green cap approaches. "Zook Timber?"

"Who's asking?"

"...me." 

Zook rolls his eyes. "And?"

The guy explains: he's a messenger, and has a message for Zook Timber. "Gnome, wizard, traveling with three other people who aren't gnomes, jaunty hat? That's you, right?" He hands over the message and stands there until Zook gives him a couple of silver, and then sods off. The note is from Darragh Bumpshadow, the now-proprietor of the magical trinket store that her late father ran. She says she has something that belonged to Zook's father. 

Zook is immediately suspicious - sounds like a trap - but it's on their way out of town. He consults the keek-stane and sees that stopping there has the potential for both weal and woe (at which point Aisling drops her head and groans "UGH PROPHECY"). They decide to stop by, however.

The shop is on the second level of the building. Clara goes up the stairs first, and hears clinking noises from inside, like someone is moving a whole bunch of metal objects. She shushes the others and peeks around, and sees two men robbing the place and a gnome woman, probably Darragh, behind the counter. She quickly relays this to the others, and then catches the woman's eye and mouths "DISTRACT THEM" to her. She nods slightly, and then says "you'll never get away with this!"

The two men turn and Clara bursts into the room! She rocks up one of them, but he whips around and draws a short sword...but it catches on the scabbard and Clara dodges. Aisling comes into the room and casts a sleep spell, and Darragh and the other robber both collapse. Dara enters the room and gestures at the robber's sword, casting a spell to heat the metal. He yelps and drops it, and then backs up and grabs Darragh off the floor, and puts a dagger to her throat. "You let me go, or she's dead."

Aisling tells him that if he hurts her, he won't leave here alive, and he says that's fine - he'll drop her and go out the back. The heroes don't love that, but they don't want the gnome to get hurt, so they agree. The man drops Darragh and heads into the back room and Clara covers the distance quickly like the nimble little monk she is, but when she gets to the doorway (next to the counter where Darragh was standing, "Darragh" explodes into the white, lumpy form of a doppelganger and pummels Clara! Worse, the "robber", still in the back room, does likewise!

Zook enters the room and flings magic missiles at the one he can see, and the doppelganger roars in rage and yells "KILL THAT GNOME, AYLT". Suddenly the second "robber", who has army-crawled over to Zook, shifts into doppel-form and bashes the gnome's head with its massive fists, knocking him down. Aisling closes and stabs it, and then thinks better and casts a cloud of daggers on its lumpy ass.

Meanwhile, Clara dodges past the one in the doorway into the back room, and jumps up on a desk. Dara casts an Entangle spell to trip up the one that follows her, but the plants don't impede him and he pounds Clara into unconsciousness. Dara attacks her opponent, Perd, with a flame blade and he roars and strikes back, injuring her, but she turns into a panther and fights with tooth and claw!

The one facing off against Aisling (Aylt) grabs her and pulls her into her own dagger-cloud, which rips her up a bit before she can drop the spell. Zook revives himself and fills Aylt full of magic missiles, and then positions himself so that he can better get a line on, Perd, the one fighting Dara. Dara, for her part, claws and bites, but as the doppelganger in the back room, Fench, emerges, it punches her and drops her back into her elf form.

Perd screams in rage and starts for Zook, but Zook throws scorching rays at him. Two of them miss but one goes straight into his mouth and he collapses, his head melting. Fench, seeing this, surrenders to Dara, which drives Aylt to curse him for a coward and charge Aisling...who drops him with a crossbow bolt. 

The heroes tie up the doppelganger and revive Clara ("guess we won?"), and call for the Strikes. Fench tells them that he'll happily inform on the remaining doppelgangers, but they need to let him go, and they'd better decide quick before the Strikes get here. He tells them that all he wants to do is play his lute and eat some good food; he's not ambitious. The heroes decide that ending the threat is worth the risk, and agree.

Fench tells them that the two they killed here, Aylt and Perd, were violent and bloodthirsty, always talking about wanting to kill people, especially Zook ("never shut up about it. 'Agh, gonna stab 'em! I wanna kill the lights!'"). But it's really the other two Nock and Zere, that are the dangerous ones. See, Fench, Perd, and Lilk (whom Fench says hates being in the city so has been acting as a lookout - he's probably the one that the characters saw coming into town) came this way after the Shiny Belles incident and met up with Nock, Aylt, and Zere at the manor. They'd killed everyone in the house, stacked the bodies in the basement, and run the place into the ground, but had bigger ambitions.

The plan was to take over the Night Strikes and then work their way into the armory, steal all the magic shit they could, and get out of Cian, but the heroes fucked that up for them. Now the other three are back at the manor, waiting on these three to bring everything from Darragh's store ("why?" "so we can sell it!") and get out of town. He warns them that Nock has some wizardry skills, and Zere is the planner. They'll need to catch them by surprise. 

The heroes warn Fench that if they ever see him again, he's a dead monster. They can sniff him out - rather, Maeve can. Fench turns into Zook to test that out (and Zook gets to watch the lumpy white flesh turn into his skin, which is a bit disquieting), and Maeve growls at the false Zook. Maybe the doppelgangers figured out the sleep spell trick, but can't nobody fool a doggo. Fench also tells them he doesn't know where the real Darragh is; she wasn't here when they arrived.

Fench leaves out the back just as the Strikes arrive, and Beren of the Sworn arrives shortly after. Zook explains what happens (and is honest about letting Fench go), and while Beren isn't thrilled, he trusts the adventurers' judgment. A cabinet opens and Darragh pops out - the cabinet was something her father made, and it renders anyone inside invisible. She gets the item she found that belonged to Zook's father ("oh, I thought that might have been a trap") and it turns out to be a set of goggles with the name "Zeb Timber" burned into the leather strap. When Zook wears them, he can see in the dark, even better than his gnome eyes usually allow.

The heroes take a quick rest and then accompany Beren and a contingent of guards out to the manor to finish this!

They get on horses (Zook's dog-saddle isn't ready yet) and head out of town, to the Illister Manor...or what's left of it. It's basically burned down and collapsed. As they approach, they spot a carriage. The coachman sees them, jumps off, and runs into the wreckage. 

They ride up and free the horses, and Beren instructs his guards to watch all sides of the house, but to work in pairs and not to let the other out of their sight. "You see anyone coming out of the house alone, scream." 

The five of them find a staircase and descend into the basement. It's dark, of course, but most of them can see pretty well (and Zook gets to try out his new goggles, which work a treat). Aisling activates her driftglobe, and Zook sends Edna, his spider familiar, to scout through the rubble. A moment later, she finds something and screams! (I mean, telepathically; she is a spider and thus has no voice.)

A doppelganger (Zere) bursts from the rubble and attacks Clara, and another follows (Lilk) suit and attacks Zook. A third (Nock) emerges near Aisling and strikes, and the battle is joined! The characters find that there are piles of ash around, and moving through them kicks up clouds that make them choke, but this works just as well on the doppelgangers as them. Nock battles Aisling, but after a couple of solid hits (including being burned by Dara's Moonbeam spell), retreats into a dark corner...but that, unfortunately, is no safe haven from Zook's magic missiles. 

Clara faces off against Zere while Lilk pounds on Beren, Dara, and whoever else is nearby, but the characters are moving in synch and kill him fairly quickly. Zere strikes Dara and knocks her down, and then tries to run for the exit, clearly intending to kill Dara with a boot to the face on the way out - but Beren clubs it in the head, and Zook stabs it in the kidney on the way past. The threat is finally over, and the doppelgangers are gone (assuming Fench was telling the truth). 

The characters climb up out of the basement and head back into town for some rest. And, as Clara notes, another bath is probably not a bad idea. 

(And now we have a bit of a hiatus because folks have vacation-y stuff to do in July, but don't worry! One-shots will happen!)