[Session:: True]
[Recorded:: true]
DM - [Butter:: True]
Aerendyl - [Dragon:: True]
Shain - [Fluxy:: True]
Aragorn - [Andrew:: True]
Caitlin - [Nate:: True]
Session starts Dreamember 26th 800av 7:00PM.
- Last session, the general and his small army arrested the party for a tribunal hearing
- Their current destination is Intellectia for the tribunal.
- As the party prepared to set off, a detachment of about 10 more soldiers joined them, accompanied by 3 additional individuals who remained obscured. The journey to Intellectia would be mostly on horseback.
- The travel to Intellectia will take approximately three days, as the escort is in a hurry. They will stop for short rests but not long enough for proper rest.
- The party is provided with a tent that has soldiers stationed outside. They have privacy but not fully, as if anything suspicious is heard, the guards will peek in.
- Shain attempts to secretly pull out a “Shains Dodecahedron” checking to see if the guards would react. Nothing happens.
- Shain asks to speak with the General. The General reluctantly agrees to speak with him privately while traveling.
- Shain asks the General for the arrest warrant. The General provides him with what is likely a copy.
- The warrant states that Aragorn Mortensen and his allies are to report immediately to Intellectia for an emergency tribunal hearing. It also lists Aerendyl as a “current known associate”.
- Shain attempts to be friendly with the General, suggesting “some coffee or something” after the tribunal. The General dismisses him.
- Shain suggests asking Caitlin for her experience with lawyering.
- Caitlin states she has “tossed my hand from time to time when it comes to coercion”
- Shain asks Caitlin if she knows of “Thessalthorne,” (meaning Vezithor) the person who cursed him and made his fingers black. The blackness on his fingers has “definitely regressed” and is now “just the tips of your fingers”, indicating healing. Caitlin does not recognize the name “Thessalthorne” or “Mr. Bellvard,” another name Shain suggests.
- Shain then asks Aerendyl for the “five-finger discount” contract to examine it. He uses a temporal glimpse spell on the contract.
- The temporal glimpse shows the contract sitting in a safe, appearing pristine and legible. However, the physical contract Shain is holding is “not only just a little crinkled… But it’s also a little bit burned around the edges… parts of it are kind of cut up… it seems to activly get the edge burned off”.
- As a result of the temporal glimpse, Shain is temporarily blinded.
- While Shain is blinded, he attempts to get the General’s attention again, asking if “Whispering Hunger” or “Thessalthorne” or Vezithor rings any bells.
- The General “appears to be telling truth” when he claims to have never heard the name before.
- The party arrives at Intellectia and is escorted to a large building. Before entering, they are given clipboards and are asked to sign a contract before they can enter the tribunal.
- Shain is hesitant to sign the contract due to past negative experiences with contracts. Aragorn also refuses to sign it.
- A guard explains that “every person who’s into these halls have signed the exact same contract”. The General provides a transcript of a law passed only 26 years ago, stating that “all people that are part of any public ongoing or office must sign a contract of nonaggressiveness for any for any type of hearing or anything of the sort”.
- The contract explicitly states that participants must “refrain from casting any spell, incantation, enchantment or invocation of any magical force overt or subtle within the confines of tribunal halls”. It includes, but is not limited to, “offensive, defensive, restorative, divinatory or disruptive magics”. A breach would “immediately and involuntarily bellow forth at the peak of the vocal capacity and clear and undeniable declaration of their specific transgression”.
- Shain signs the contract under an alias.
- Caitlin asks to see the paper that has “Everybody who’s required to be here”. Aerendyl has it.
- Caitlin tries to discern the contract’s magic, confirming it is a “very basic magic magical contract that is generally very weak” and “is bound to the person that writes it regardless of how they sign it”.
- Caitlin attempts to fake signing the contract using Minor Illusion. The guards do not notice her casting Minor Illusion or faking the signature initially.
- However, on a subsequent attempt, the guard stops her and says, “the magic isn’t holding for you”, and tells her she’ll “have to sit outside” if she doesn’t sign.
- Aerendyl asks if it matters what they sign. The guard says “You may sign whatever you would like”. Aerendyl signs “the general has a very small pp” and “I would like to kill them” along with a request for poison, which amuses the guard who lets them through.
- Caitlin discerns that the contract can not be broken by an real means as it is “tied to the physical contract”. As such, the contract would have to be ripped in half for it to be nullified.
- The contracts are collected and taken to “another room”, their final destination is unknown.
- The party is brought into a main tribunal hall, which is filled with people.
- Familiar faces in the hall include the General, Dwalin Ironhelm (one of the cadets), Serenity Fendoral (the “real actual leader of the fingers discount”), and Orin, a bard that they met while traveling. These known individuals are sitting in specialized seats behind the general. There are also “two other women. One that is a just regular civilian and then one that appears to be in a guard uniform”.
- Three judges are present in raised seats. These include an actual general (the oldest one) and two lieutenant generals, with the General being the oldest and in the center seat.
- The lead judge (the General) announces the beginning of the “6,432nd Tribunal of the Bontrant Military” and instructs everyone to “refrain from speaking unless a question has been asked”.
- The charges against Aragorn and the party are read aloud by a lieutenant general: “four counts of collusion with criminal elements, three counts of misuse of military authority, one count of misuse of military personnel, one count of dereliction of training personnel, two thousand four hundred and thirty two counts of public endangerment, one count of arson, two thousand four hundred thirty two counts of purposeful inflection of harm, one count of inciting panic, one count of challenging military authority, one count of treason, one count of abuse of power”.
- The trial primarily concerns Aragorn Mortensen, with the rest of the party being considered “at minimum accessories, most likely accomplices”.
- The General (prosecutor) makes his opening statement, claiming Aragorn is a “criminal of the highest order,” who “colludes with criminal elements and has plotted to overthrow this very government”. He states this will be proven “not only by myself and evidence, but by our witnesses and the testimonies here today”.
- Caitlin is asked to make her opening statement.
- Caitlin asserts that she and her colleagues, including Aragorn, claim “not guilty” and will show their innocence. She also states that the prosecutor is “nothing but somebody who has a deep suited anger and a deep suited hungry for a false sense of justice held on by his false rank that was removed from him just stays pride”.
- The judge asks if the defense would like to call their first witness. Caitlin states the prosecutor can go first.
- The General calls Serenity as his first witness.
- Serenity testifies that an organization called “the fingers discount” approached her and required her to pay for protection. She points directly at Aerendyl and says, “I’m told he is the leader of the organization”.
- The General Judge allows Caitlin to cross-examine Serenity.
- Caitlin casts Zone of Truth on Serenity. Serenity gives in to the Zone of Truth. The spell lasts for 10 minutes.
- Caitlin asks Serenity the name of the underground organization she works for, and Serenity states, “The Fingers Discount”.
- Caitlin clarifies that according to documentation, Serenity is the leader of this discount. Serenity states that is “not entirely correct” and that Aerendyl “is indicated on numerous pieces of paperwork”.
- Caitlin questions if those documents carry Aerendyl’s signature or were forged, and if there are eyewitness accounts of him giving orders. Serenity confirms she is one of those eyewitnesses.
- Caitlin asks Serenity about her job, to which Serenity states her responsibility is “the upkeep in maintenance of the discount”. Caitlin then highlights that this contradicts Serenity’s earlier testimony of being a shopkeeper.
- Caitlin presses on Serenity’s previous testimony about Aerendyl asking for protection money, to which Serenity admits it was “not entirely” true.
- Caitlin reminds the court that Serenity has admitted to killing at least two people. She further elaborates that Serenity killed them because “they did not have money to pay” and were a “bargaining chip for their family”.
- Caitlin then asks Serenity if she does everything with all parties’ best interests at heart, and if she has “never killed anybody in this country”. Serenity confirms she has not killed anybody in “this country”.
- Once it is found out that Serenity was a murderer, the Judge immediately imprisons her.
- Caitlin then calls the General (Kaelen Reed) to the stand. She states her goal is to prove he is an “unreliable and ill equipped person”.
- Caitlin questions the General about his goal to jail Aragorn and if he sidestepped proper voting procedures to do so. The General admits he “could” have used the voting system but believed the people of Judicar were an “unreliable source when it came to Aragorn as he appears to have won over the masses”.
- Caitlin highlights the contradiction of the crimes being against the people of Judicar, yet their vote being considered invalid.
- Caitlin then asks the General if he holds any anger or resentment towards Aragorn Mortensen or the Mortensen bloodline, and he affirms he does.
- Caitlin questions if it’s “slightly reckless and or stupid to be directly involved in the jailing of Aragorn Mortensen when you yourself have a personal vendetta against him”. The General pauses for a second and says he feels he “must expand and acknowledge that even though I do have personal feelings against Aragorn Monson, I do not have any direct feelings or hatred towards his companions who are also accused of many of the crimes brought here today”.
- Caitlin then addresses Aragorn on the stand, asking if he abused his rank (aside from the previously exposed issue of not showing up to work on time).
- Caitlin asks Aragorn about the charge of treason, specifically if he committed treason by leading the dragon into the kingdom.
- Caitlin also questions Aragorn about his decision to fight the dragon rather than stay with his cadets on the night of the dragon attack, and if he believed his cadets would have survived fighting with him.
- Caitlin then asks Aragorn if he chose to put a cadet in charge of the rest of them, who it was, and if he had done any previous excursions or work with them that proved their qualification.
- Caitlin further questions if Aragorn sent his cadets into danger with that knowledge, and if he would have changed his actions knowing one had fallen.
- Aragorn, perfectily answering the questions, completely and irovocably proved that Aragorn and the party were innocent.
- The judge declares that he had heard enough and finds Aragorn not guilty.
- As the general is leaving, Caitlin tells him that if he doesnt provide gold or some ofering then she would file a lawsuit for “malicious prosecution”. The general quickly ofers a property in Amerihya instead. Fortunately, Caitlin accepts.
- Aerendyl goes to see Serenity in prison. Aerendyl tells her that he will kill her for her betrayal. She quickly disappears using some form of teleportation magic.
Session ends Dreamember 29th 800av 12:00PM.