Beyond the Tomb of Annihilation - Episode 2

In the previous session, our heroes were introduced to the city of Sigil and were given a direction: find a way back home to Toril. The presence of the Ring of Winter is on the radar of the city's governance and the de facto police, the Harmonium, dictated that the group needed to head to the Lady's Ward in the morning to register the magic item. Unfortunately for our heroes, the ring was stolen by a Githyanki gish in the final moments of the last episode just as Reggie was preparing for bed.

The Party
Reggie (Joe T.) - An over-eager human paladin of Torm who in the events of ToA had acquired the Ring of Winter. It had tried on multiple occasions to corrupt him, but his heart of gold has remained pure.

Klaus (Tom) - Half-elf fighter who had been hand-chosen to bear the Ring of Winter by Artus Cimber and Syndra Silvane. He has struggled with the fact that the ring found its way to Reggie, but is determined to help him safeguard it.

Dino (Cliff) - Human bard; Ubtao's chosen to return to Chult to renew faith in the exiled god. He wears a leather dino suit in reverence of his patron.

Azod (Joe E.) - A githyanki ranger who is a member of Sigil's Planeswalker Guild. He has been hired at the outset of the adventure to help the party navigate their way back home to Toril.

Reggie ran to the back alleyway of the Bottle and Jug and saw no trace of the Githyanki thieves. A bramble of vines began to speak to him, not unlike Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors, and said that it could tell them where the thieves went if they would feed it blood. After some contemplation, Reggie had moral reservations against this and decided to find another way.

The party came together to try to come up with a plan. Azod cast locate creature and picked up the signal of the bandits in a seedy part of town known as the Slags. The group traveled there and took notice of a crowd lining up near a door in a cramped alley. After some investigation they learned that an auction was taking place. Several failed attempts to get in revealed to the group that they weren't getting in without a proper amount of money to prove they were serious about buying. Reggie managed to get into the nondescript warehouse by bluffing that he was interested in selling his Dawnbringer sword. 

As Reggie made his way into the auctionhall who else should he take notice of making a bid on a magical crown but ACERERAK! No one in the hall wanted to upbid the lich and he made his way to a back room to finalize his purchase. Reggie made a number of bids on the next item with no possible way to bid, and went to the back room next to confront his adversary. Acererak warned Reggie against his temptation to strike (Acererak had no patience to deal with the aftermath of Sigil's legal system for killing him). Reggie and Acererak traded some words, and Acererak advised Reggie to find his home soon so he would have a chance to see it once more. An ominous warning...

Reggie found that this was a deadend. The object he bid on was a ring, but it was not the Ring of Winter he was seeking. He quickly grabbed it from the clerk whom he was dealing with and ran out the warehouse. Out in the alleyway, Klaus was tailing Acererak whom he recognized. He took notice as Acererak maneuvered down another alleyway and produced a key for a portal which he stepped through. The party had lost Acererak.

Empty handed, the party returned back to the Bottle and Jug. Barl Hoxun, the sour-faced bartender and proprietor, listened to their bad luck over the course of the evening. He offered, for a price, that he could give them a lead where they could meet with a known agent that worked with the Githyanki gang (known as the Red Seals). Barl said that a human man named Hulester was known to work out of a tavern known as the Ubiquitous Wayfarer. He has heard that Hulester worked as a middleman for the gang, arranging many of the deals with interested parties for their stolen goods.

Conclusion
The party ended the session empty handed. The next order of business that the party was dreading is that the Harmonium had bid that they make a meeting with the Fraternity of Order in the morning at the city's halls of justice to register the Ring of Winter (which they no longer have). They concocted a hasty plan to try to pass off the ring that Reggie had stolen from the auction as the Ring of Winter (which turned out to be a Ring of Earth Elemental Control). We shall see what the next session brings...

Quote of the Night
"Klaus...do you know who Ass-Crack is?" -Dino, in reference to Acererak

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