Blood's Awakening 05/18/2023 session recap

♣ Blood's Awakening: the party
♣ Blood's Awakening recap - part 1 - part 2 - part 3
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• The Rose of Winds arrives in Pietralunga, a village near Lexiapolis, later that day. They meet with Rosa, a half-orc woman who served as a caretaker for the late Tiberius Filium, a wizard.
• Rosa tells everything she knows about the defense system Tiberius installed in his villa. It's not much, but it's enough so the party can have a rough understanding of what could be going on.
• As part of the negotiation, Rosa demands that the party doesn't destroy the house, since she bought it for herself. She also wants any magical object the party finds, since she'd like to donate those to the University of Lexiapolis. Vittorio then makes a counter offer: if the party does an immaculate job and doesn't break anything, they could take something for themselves, on top of the regular payment. Rosa will have to consider it when the job's done.
• The party decides to rest for the day and get ready to fix the house's defense system the following morning. They spend their afternoon doing small tasks: Edna and Celio perform in the streets of Pietralunga, Vittorio helps the local farmers with their horses, while Caliban, Polvere, Serpico and Winter stay at the local inn, playing chess (rather competitively on Polvere's side) and chatting.
• When it's almost dinner time, the whole party is reunited and Caliban suggests playing a game of "What the heck is up with that". Winter wins the first round, and it asks Serpico what they're reading: it's a book about theology in their native language, and Serpico, a little shy, mutters that it's not that interesting.
• Then Caliban wins. He asks Vittorio if he'd rather keep everything that happened in Casarino, including Vittorio's past with Aidan, to himself. Vittorio opens up and admits he's very sorry for trauma dumping everything on the party, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to talk about Aidan anymore — it'll just be very hard. He admits openly that he loved him, and that they were also best friends, but now Aidan is a complete stranger to him. Polvere is confused by people who are best friends and lovers at the same time, but he also seems to have forgotten everything about Casarino.
• Celio loses, and Vittorio asks him why he's so friendly and yet so hard to approach. Celio admits that being a soldier at war for three years didn't help with that side of himself: since then, connecting with people on a deeper level and caring for them intimately has been hard (thus making his and Caliban's love even more special). He still respects the party a lot, he just needs some time and space to get adjusted to everything. Vittorio understands and reassures him that he will leave Celio all the space and time he needs.
• It's Polvere's turn to win, and he asks Serpico something that he's been curious about for some time now. In the past, Serpico mentioned someone that traveled with them, and they talk about Fleur-de-Lys (or Fiordaliso in Italian): she's their teacher, a paladin whom Serpico greatly admires and respects, someone that has helped them greatly in the past. Serpico still writes her letters from time to time.
• Winter loses and Polvere, the winner, asks it why it's been staring at a letter for almost hours now. Stuttering a little, Winter tries to explain its situation: the fear and abandonment it felt, its teacher Corrado, and everything about it. It's hard for Winter to talk, and a bit for Polvere to understand.
• The last round of the game is won by Serpico, who asks Edna why she got so competitive at the ball, against Marina Portobello. Edna lightens up and talks about her passion for the arts and how it deeply fuels her, especially when someone - like Marina - is being arrogant and unpleasant. She simply cannot stand bullies like her. Serpico thanks her for the explanation and also adds that it was a beautiful show.
• The next day, October 22nd of 357, the Rose of Winds is ready to face Tiberius Filium’s magic house. In the courtyard, they immediately get attacked by an earth elemental and a couple of gargoyles; the elemental proves to be especially strong, but with some focus fire the party is able to take it down easily.
• They decide to approach the house from the front door. Caliban uses Detect Magic and he can see that something is on the door; a magic lock, maybe. Winter, with the magical help of its friends, manages to lockpick the door beautifully, and the party gets inside.
• Cautiously, Caliban dispels two suspicious statues in the entry room, and then the party slowly proceeds inside the house. Everything seems to be fine, until Caliban doesn't detect a glyph (probably protected by a non-detection spell) and steps on it. The glyph triggers an alarm (the late Tiberius Filium's silly voice) and the spell Stinking Cloud surrounds the party. Also, two air elementals are summoned into the area. Cliffhanger!