Blood's Awakening recap: part 2

♣ Blood's Awakening: the party
♣ Blood's Awakening recap: part 1
♣ Blood's Awakening recap: part 3
♣ SESSIONS RECAPS START HERE 

Alice: hello hello, I'm back with part 2 (out of 3) of our wonderful recap!!
The party finally reached Lexiapolis and is ready to get onto some nice city adventures, and the party finally gets to meet some major recurring NPCs!!

Revelations before the ball

• Aurelia gets home safe and sound. Her parents invite the party to a ball they’ll hold in a week, honoring their daughter’s return.
• With the exception of Vittorio and Edna, who are staying at Vittorio’s place, the party stays at the Belmonte tavern. In the morning, a body is discovered in one of the rooms: the party tries to investigate, but two guards tell them that Andro Montini, captain of the city guards, doesn’t want adventurers to meddle with his business.
  Ever curious, the party decides to go to Avandra’s temple, since they know that’s where bodies are prepared for the burial. They hope that the priests of the goddess of death could answer their questions.
• While going to the temple, Serpico has another vision: they see Aurevia in front of them, staring at a thermal bath’s door. Serpico stops the party and they go investigate right away.
  There, they find a secret passage that leads to an underground cultist hideout. The party defeats both the cultists and the demon they summoned.
• The party then goes to Avandra’s temple and takes a look at the body. It looks like the man was killed by a shadow coming out of an enchanted ring he was wearing. The ring was made by Gilberto Giunchi, a famous jewelry maker in Lexiapolis. Polvere casts Speak with the Dead, and the body reveals that he was in Lexiapolis to meet with some friends, that he was betrayed and that they can find his family in Altia, the capital of the kingdom.
• Having seen him cast Speak with the Dead, Caliban understands that Polvere is a cleric (Polvere thinks he’s an innate caster, like a sorcerer). Knowing his issues with religion and deities, Caliban waits for the right moment to tell him.
• Meanwhile, Celio isn’t with the rest of the party: he wandered off in the temple after hearing a faint humming that sounded exactly like his mother’s voice. Once he stands in front of an altar of Avandra, he has a vision of himself in the River of the Dead, with Avandra by his side, asking him which path he will choose for his life. Before he can answer, the vision stops. Trembling, Celio takes a symbol of Avandra with him, pretty sure now that she’s her patron, and goes back to the party.
• Celio tells Caliban his whole story, death and resurrection and everything.
• The group goes to Aurevia’s temple to inform them of the cultists they just defeated. There they meet the Great Priestess of Aurevia, Lucia, who seems distressed by the info she just received, but deeply thankful to the group.
  The following morning, a ceremony is held at the temple, and Serpico officially becomes a paladin, swearing an oath of vengeance against evildoers. His friends celebrate him.
• Celio goes to Avandra’s temple to tell them that she’s his patron. He speaks with Ciro Garema, the Great Priest of this temple, and shows him his sword.
  Ciro tells him that the sword Celio carries is called Kalevolg: it’s a legendary weapon held in the past only by champions of Avandra, and it usually resurfaces in times of great danger and need. The undead are Avandra’s sworn enemy and she opposes them with all her power, so naturally Celio starts keeping his eyes open for any undead threat that might come.
• Serpico goes to the temple of Tolium, the god of knowledge, to have their left eye checked: a rune appeared where their pupil used to be after being possessed by a demon 10 years ago.  The Great Priestess, a funky old gnome lady named Cornelia Zenium, tells them that the rune is abyssal in nature, but she doesn’t know what it means.
• Camilla, Vittorio’s best friend, has a quest for the party: a worker in the shipyard she owns went missing in the sewers, and so did the guards who tried to investigate. In the sewers, the party finds several beasts who seemed corrupted by something, as well as some monsters. The culprit is an alchemist who’s throwing his alchemical waste in the sewers, and the party decides to bring him to the guards, thus meeting Montini, the city guard captain. They give him the alchemist’s notes and tell him that he might be involved with the Red Hand, and Montini coldly thanks them.
• Celio and Caliban confess their love to each other.
• Vittorio and Edna start having sex: they were attracted to each other since they met, but for various reasons (age difference, he was her boss at the beginning) they didn’t act upon it until now.
• Polvere does a lot of research about arcane and divine magic, trying to better understand his powers. He connects the dots: his magic is divine, not arcane; he’s very upset but doesn’t tell the others why.
• Serpico tells Polvere their whole backstory: how they were possessed by a demon 10 years ago, killed their brother and had to flee to Altia. Polvere tells them that he’ll be by their side no matter what happens.
• The ball is here! To everyone’s surprise, Montini and his wife are also there, but not to have fun: one of the guests, Lucius Ceusis, is dealing illegal hard drugs to the other guests. The party finds the culprit, and Vittorio recognizes him: the Ceusis,  much like the Respighis, are a family of cloth merchants. They used to be the richest cloth merchants in Lexiapolis, but lately a strike of poor financial decisions has been ruining their business.
  Montini arrests Lucius. His wife Cecilia leaves him: her husband is a cheater and their relationship has been in shambles for years, with Montini only thinking about work all the time; this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
  There’s a bardic show off between Edna and Marina Portobello, a beautiful violinist coming from one of the kingdom’s richest families. Edna absolutely destroys Marina, and a rivalry sparks between the two.
  Polvere confesses to Serpico that his powers, too, come from a god. He’s distressed, but Serpico consoles him.