Quick facts
Campaign: Campaign 2 · Session: 81 of 83 · Arc: The Gallows · Where: Saline Coast: the Valedriss estate (flashback), the outer wharf, the festival square
In a flashback to the night of Thalorian Valedriss’s death, Catman crept onto a rooftop at the Valedriss estate and overheard Thalorian arguing with Lazra Vant. Lazra explained that policies Thalorian had been promised were off the table would be implemented quietly, so that by the time the public noticed, reversing them would be impractical. Thalorian protested that they would gut half the dock workers and cause unrest, but Lazra told him to focus on winning first. The VTC’s projections had him well ahead, and the company saw no need to interfere with Puss Wayne, whom it considered unelectable to the people who mattered and a joke to everyone else. Thalorian demanded a guarantee that his daughter would live. Lazra would only guarantee that she wouldn’t be killed, and gave him two days to win his election and deliver the Fellowship. As the door opened, Catman knocked a vase off a shelf. A hunched gnoll VTC agent with spiky red hair, Daask, dropped onto the balcony, having caught his scent. Catman tried to grapple him, but the gnoll trapped him in a shrinking detention orb. From inside it, Catman watched through the window as Thalorian grabbed a dagger off the wall, cried, “Not my daughter. You promised,” and lunged at Lazra, only to be struck down by an arcane burst before Nelda cut Lazra down. The gnoll told Catman, “You’re not prey because you lost. You lost because you’re prey,” and slipped the orb into his pocket.
In the present, Wilbur and Nelda sat Cabba down to question his intentions with Ellery. Cabba listed his hobbies as fighting, hunting sandworms, sparring, brawling, wrestling, and kickboxing, and won them over by saying he had always enjoyed the liveliness of Ellery’s mind. Masha watched the whole thing, still trying to work out how everyone in the group was related.
Meanwhile, Catman sat strapped to a table in an interrogation room in the outer wharf, questioned by VTC prosecutor Thaddeus Toffington. Catman dodged with jokes until Toffington brought up his parents. He then told the story of their murder. They were gunned down on the Saline Coast, seemingly at random, during a night out with their son. Puss Wayne tracked down the gunman and got his answers and his revenge, but it didn’t bring his parents back or make him a better man. That is why Catman keeps a no-killing rule and seeks retribution instead of revenge. Toffington declared that the city needed stability, which the company had provided, and accused Catman of setting fire to company vessels in the harbor and stealing something valuable from company stores. Catman demanded a public trial, but Toffington told him those rights had been suspended: his trial would be quick and end in a quick drop. Toffington laid out the case. Witnesses, including the merfolk, had described a masked cat and a man impersonating Thalorian committing a hate crime the night before Thalorian turned up dead with Catman caught in the building. When pressed about his allies, Catman warned that the Fellowship was resourceful, cunning, and crazy as hell. Toffington said they would plan for it anyway.
Wilbur thanked Bran for everything he had done, noting that Masha was now the sixth member of the FAM and Bran could be the seventh. He then told Nelda that before she joined they had been a ragtag group, and that she had become the heart of the FAM. He gave her a gift to wear so it would keep her protected and remind her of them all. She thanked him: “I love you, Dad. I mean, Wilbur.”
Catman was dragged in magical shackles that cut off his access to the Weave into a hangar where Khalor the Dreamreaper waited. Prompted by Toffington, Khalor shapeshifted into a perfect mirror image of Catman. Catman told him he hoped they killed him and that he’d enjoy being him, because it was one hell of a ride. Then he was gagged and hooded.
To a steady drumbeat, the FAM, each carrying an invisibility orb, slipped into the Splendor Festival square, where the festival stage had been replaced with gallows. Four hooded prisoners stood bound over trapdoors, and the executioner unmasked the first to reveal Catman’s cat eyes, cowl and all. The charges were read under the “lawful stewardship” of the Velvet Truffle Company: the murder of Thalorian Valedriss, vigilantism, assault on officers of the peace, trespass on no fewer than 41 occasions, unlicensed investigative journalism, obstruction of commerce, impersonation of a public servant, and jaywalking. As the party spread out around the platform, Masha murmured a spell that shook the earth around her and conjured a brown dragon, which spiraled down toward the stage. The prisoner pleaded “guilty as charged” and began to transform into an adult gold dragon. It was a setup. Khalor the Dreamreaper landed on the stage and scanned the panicking crowd for the party. Backing away, Escher bumped into the prisoner beside him, noticed a tabaxi tail poking out from behind, and pulled off the hood to find the real Catman. As Khalor gathered energy in the back of his throat, a snake slithered away across the platform. The executioner’s lever was gone, turned into a snake by Kip.
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