The Copper Piece Gang

D&D Session Summary

The session opened with the party taking stock of the mess they had created inside the Ashen Ledger, and with a clearer understanding of what the Ashen Ledger actually was. It was not a literal ledger book at all, but the infernal tower itself. That realization framed everything that followed. The group had already committed to a wild infiltration plan, and the recap made clear how bizarre and effective it had been: disguises, false roles, fake credentials, and one extremely suspicious baby carried into a devil-run tower under the pretense of registering for a baptism of fire.

Their cover identities were ridiculous enough to work. Zarnak disguised himself as a servant, Nucky posed as a baby efreet tucked into a carrier, Krovuur helped smooth the way with magic and deception, and Rae played his part as a minister of fire with all the confidence he could muster. Their excuse for entering the tower was to handle baptism paperwork, which gave them access to the records floors while they quietly tried to climb higher toward their real objective. The whole operation hinged on improvisation. At one point the baby got loose. At another, they leaned on distractions, dazing effects, and desperate lies to keep the staff from realizing they did not belong there.

Once they reached the correct level, the party found the vault they had been after. That was where the job stopped being a con and turned into a heist. The vault was sealed by a magical lock that required two stones used together in a ritual. They had to observe the opening procedure and wait for the right infernal functionaries to appear. Trozo and the winged librarian-like devil who had become a recurring menace were central to that process, and the party had to stay calm while pretending not to be casing the room.

The breakthrough came through one of the strangest tricks of the night. The party sold a story about a frosty devil in urgent need of a fire baptism before he froze solid. That created enough chaos to bring the right people and the right stones to the vault. Nucky, still fully committed to the role of infernal baby, became the centerpiece of the distraction. The vault was opened under pressure, and the party watched closely enough to learn the ritual. Once the door vanished open, they rushed the objective. Inside were rows of scroll cases, and among them was the one they needed: the black tube with a red end and glowing green lettering.

Then everything came apart at once. Zarnak tried to seize the moment and instead accidentally grabbed the wrong stones, producing one of the most memorable and dumbfounding beats of the session. That immediately blew the cover and kicked off the fight. Alarms rose. Trozo started writing Zarnak’s name on a contract scroll. The sexy librarian devil attacked. Krovuur and the rest of the party scrambled to salvage the mission before the vault sealed itself again.

In the middle of that chaos, Nucky managed to grab the target scroll. Krovuur then pulled off one of the most important plays of the session, teleporting Nucky out of the vault and repositioning Rae at the same time. The timing was perfect, because the vault door snapped back into existence almost immediately afterward. That kept the party from using the vault again and turned the heist into a running crisis. They had the document, but the plan required more than stealing it. They needed to alter it and somehow get it back. Nucky wrote the crucial line, making it state that Vladyn owed Zarnak a favor, but that created a new problem. The forged scroll was now out in the open, and the party no longer had a clean way to return it to the vault.

That realization changed the goal from complete the mission neatly to get out alive and figure out the rest later. The party decided the best remaining option was to escape the tower with the altered document and later use Vic, his door guy, and their proposed reverse-steal plan to get it back where it belonged.

With klaxons blaring, the session shifted into an extended escape sequence through the Ashen Ledger’s internal ritual chambers. The first chamber was a brutal furnace of vents and erupting gouts of flame. Zarnak used stealth and the turbulence from the flames to conceal their trail. Rae read the room well enough to realize the fire was trying to herd them in the wrong direction. The group manipulated the timing and learned how to move against the room’s intended flow.

The next room raised the pressure again. Here the danger split into two choices: punishing winds above or poison below. The party had to choose whether to fight the gusts or risk the toxic lower route. Zarnak and the baby improvised windborne parkour through the upper path, while other party members used endurance, healing knowledge, arcane insight, and raw physicality to push forward. One of the better payoffs came when the poison was not merely identified but bottled, turning a hazard into future ammunition.

As the challenge escalated, the party eventually realized they were moving through an actual baptismal system built into the tower. That sparked the boldest idea of the session. Instead of merely enduring the baptismal chamber, one character decided to complete the ritual properly. By willingly giving up all of his healing surges and embracing the fire, he finished the baptism of fire for real. The result was enormous: the chamber shut down, the heat feeding the tower faltered, and the devils elsewhere in the Ashen Ledger weakened as the system failed. Better still, the shutdown created a perfect distraction. On top of that, the group earned a story-worthy badge of honor: they had literally been baptized by fire in the City of Brass.

That was not the end of the danger. After emerging through the baptism and cleansing areas, they still had to fight their way out. Trozo was waiting, furious and accusatory. The fight that followed was shaped by how well the party had performed during the escape. They were battered and low on resources, but not broken. Enemies included Trozo, flying infernal attackers, and at least one fire drake rider with support. The party escaped alive with the forged document, survived the Ashen Ledger’s traps and defenders, and created a future path to finish the job by sneaking the scroll back in later.

Quick Recap

• The party confirmed that the Ashen Ledger was the infernal tower itself, not a literal ledger book.
• They infiltrated the tower in disguise, using a fake baptism registration as cover.
• Nucky posed as a baby efreet and became the centerpiece of multiple distractions.
• The party located the vault and learned it required two ritual stones and two users to open.
• They identified the target scroll as a black tube with a red end and glowing green letters.
• The heist went loud when Zarnak fumbled the moment, blew the cover, and triggered the alarm.
• Nucky grabbed the scroll and Krovuur teleported him out just before the vault sealed itself again.
• The party altered the document so Vladyn owed Zarnak a favor, then realized they still needed to get it back into the vault later.
• Their escape became a series of deadly skill challenges through ritual rooms filled with fire, wind, and poison.
• The group bottled poison gas during the escape, turning a hazard into a possible future weapon.
• One character completed the baptism of fire for real by sacrificing all healing surges, shutting down the chamber and weakening the tower’s defenders.
• Trozo confronted them again near the exit, leading to a hard fight with infernal flyers and a fire drake rider.
• The party escaped alive with the forged document, but Trozo, the librarian devil, and the unfinished return-the-scroll plan all remain unresolved.