Session 19 - Recovery in Diamond Lake

 

The party collapses at their Observatory, resting and bathing for a few days while discussing profits and plans. Mesmer animates the taxidermied goblin butler and names him Jeeves, and starts setting up his laboratory and library. Finally, somewhat rejuvenated from their adventures below, they decide to head into town for a warm meal, some shopping, and most importantly, some good carousing.

They discuss hiring Kullen as a guard for their new shared home and loot while they travel abroad, and send for him. He arrives the next day, looking somewhat conflicted, and when Mesmer expresses faith and fairness in him Kullen suffers an emotional break and insists they accompany him into town where Smenk is engaging in a power move to seize the Dourstone holdings.

Smenk has successfully lobbied the mayor into executing Dourstone for harboring the cultists in his mine, but the party casts suspicion back on him with the use of some illusions, and disavow the credit he claims for rooting them out. Mayor Neff summons Father Burin to cast a zone of truth and he does, and the two differing opinions are allowed to exchange questions to witnesses until the truth comes out: that while Smenk did indeed hire the party to interfere with the cultists, it was from fear of his own corrupt dealings with them, and the next day Deacon Fry successfully exorcises the clouded submission from Dourstone while Amanon reveals the full relationships from the Faceless One's diary. Yet Fry advocates for mercy on Smenk, and the local Baldur's Gate captain agrees to descend into the mines to confirm the defeat of the threat.