Makara IC

Steam lays on the sweet talk, buttering up the T'siiryn's as best she can and leaning hard into the thought 'well, if Lolth wants this to go through, she'll probably help right about now.'
Deception to convince: 20 = (11) +7 +2

Ketha attempts to look around for something they might be proud of or otherwise useful in this...

perception help:

Parveth's actually genuinely interested in this family's work and strikes up a conversation about exploration and survival tactics in an enclosed system such as tunnels. She ends up not spending much time actually attempting to convince them to sell.

Survival: 12 = (6) +6
mhmm, that seems about right

Adelinde tries to convince them to focus on what a hassle explorers and monsters surely have been and other such negative aspects and wouldn't just be nice to make someone else put up with it for once? And better yet have them pay you for the headache?

persuasion roll:

Three days after first speaking to the Maeduis family the group returns to their estate to receive their payment for their work. They are let in and join Halxyra, Veszd, and Solenniss for lunch (Belraen being otherwise occupied on this day). After the meal Soleniss fetches the amulet that is a key, showing the group the mechanism that extends the body and teeth of a key from the ruby itself, and then hands it over to Parveth even though they've never met before. While this was occurring a servant brings forth a small bronze chest containing thirteen potions (6 blue, 6 white, 1 purple), none  of which are labeled. "A small token of our appreciation for your excellent work." Halxyra says and then after a pause asks, "Have you given any further thought to the other matter?"

---

Potions are as follows:
1 Sky blue
1 Blue potion that bubbles and steams as if boiling
1 Bottled blue lightning
1 Slightly blue tinted water
1 Muddy liquid with fish scales
1 Dark blue
1 Looks empty
1 Translucent white liquid with fog filling the top of the container
1 Clear liquid that floats at the top of its bottle and has cloudy white impurities drifting in it
1 Pale white
1 Inside of bottle looks frosted over
1 White swirling air
1 Purple

You can't cast Identify on these, but you can make Arcana checks for each to try and learn something about them if you wish.

Poisons
2 vials of basic poison (as found in the PHB)
2 vials of Drow Poison (Injury)

Drow Poison:

2 vials of Serpent Venom (Injury)

Serpent Venom:

"We have, yes. We have some conditions for making the sale at all however. The first is that the trade-off happens just before we are to leave. The second is that you not charge any of the citizens to leave as we mentioned last time. And the third is that the Earth Elementals be relocated as quickly as possible to someplace where anyone from the surface is unlikely to find them. I'll be blunt, there's a magical talent on the surface that I am... begrudgingly forced to work with... who I know can bind at least Fire Elementals. I don't want her getting access to the Earth Elementals." Adelinde takes a moment steady herself before continuing. "With that said, what would you be willing to trade for the control method?"

Halxyra considers this for a moment and nods, "Those are reasonable enough conditions. The single most valuable item we could offer that I am aware would interest you would be mihtril plate barding for your spider, an already valuable gift I am sure you would be interested in protecting. In addition to that...." she looks to her husband for his thoughts.

Veszd thinks for a moment and says, "We have spider plate armor that Ketha may find more comfortable than what she currently uses and I see. And perhaps Steam or Parveth would appreciate a set of spidersilk armor than can change appearance and the other would like a light armor made of spun planar glass?"
He looks to the group to gauge their reactions to these offerings.

---

Mithril Plate Armor Barding. So yeah... 18 AC for the spider without disadvantage to stealth checks.

Spider Plate Armor
Heavy Armor AC 18
This suit of plate armor is fashioned from giant spider chitin. While wearing this armor, you gain the following benefits:
-The armor doesn't impose disadvantage on your Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
-The armor doesn't impose disadvantage on saving throws made to resist the effects of extreme heat (see chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master's Guide).
-The wearer has immunity to the Web spell, the Web action of spiders, and similar effects.

Glamoured Spidersilk Armor
Light Armor AC 12 + Dex (not including the +1 AC)
While wearing this armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC. You can also use a bonus action to speak the armor's command word and cause the armor to assume the appearance of a normal set of clothing or some other kind of armor. You decide what it looks like, including color, style, and accessories, but the armor retains its normal bulk and weight. The illusory appearance lasts until you use this property again or remove the armor.

Spun Planar Glass Armor
Magical glass somehow spun into flexible material in interwoven dark gray, green, and purple stained glass.
Light Armor AC 12 + Dex
Advantage on any effect that would relocate wearer to different plane (if no save granted, grants appropriate DC Wis save without advantage)
1/1 Charge
1 Charge: Cast Flash
At the start of each day roll a d4, on a 4 it regains a charge.

Flash:

The group discusses amongst themselves briefly before deciding. Not thinking about earlier when we didn’t just jump at the first option available to us, Steam gives the ‘yeah seems good we’ll take it.’

You all shake hands on the deal and it is sealed. When you leave Zarethria is waiting for you in her strange carriage which, assuming there are no objections, you all (except Adelinde who I presume is taking the opportunity to get used to riding her spider) take for the trek to the Grand Temple of Lolth again.

---

This would be a good time for Identifying the key or making Arcana checks on the potions (one check per potion, made at advantage if someone helps) if anyone feels like doing so.
If nobody is interested let me know and I'll just move things along. Unless anyone has something they want to RP here.

Steam casts Identify on the Liar’s Key, making sure to still take out the Lockand and think the two together just to check if any special sparks happen or anything.
Parveth swirls some of the potions, seeing if she can sort of intuit what they might do.

Arcana checks:

The "Liar's Key" and the Lockand indeed do have a moment of magical connection when put together. Parveth and Ketha are able to puzzle out most of the potions to some extend or another.

Liar's Key:

Potions:

Steam gives a soft gasp as she recognizes the two keys interact. ”It’s a keyyyy”
She looks up at the others, a dangerous grin growing, and more excitedly repeats ”It’s a keyyyy!”

Ketha gives Steam a bemused look, as much as one can expect a dragonborn to express one, and glances at the Liar's Key, then back to Steam. "It's jewelry."

Unperturbed, the genasi tings the jewel and the key together, growing increasingly excited. “No, it’s a keyyy! Like this guy! It’s the Liar’s Key! It’s a Key! It’s- It’s part of the set! The bunch of magic keys we learned about days ago but now that I have two of them like I gotta collect more, right?”
She gasps, a wild look coming over her. “What if the other relic is also a key? We only get one though, right? But the collection...”

"Set?" Ketha didn't need to think too long to remember what Steam said about the first key she found...

quietkal wrote:The genasi blows a raspberry, unimpressed. "It locks stuff? Blughhh what a lame key. Why can't it like, open stuff? Or make things become filled with money? Or animate tiny figurines when locked inside?" She pauses, and taps the key to her chin in thought.  "Actually, it might do that last one, gotta find another key to pair it with first." She thinks for a moment more, before a thought occurs to her.  "Oh! Right! The magic that's everywhere! Ketha, how do you feel about personal space and me being all up in it?"

"I recall," recalls Ketha. "You said with another key, it'd animate things. Then you performed the medical exam on me."

“Yes! Exactly! But it doesn’t do any of the things I said it might, unless I said it makes you better at lying! In which case wow I can’t believe I called that!”
Steam turns to Zarethria(? the Lesser Councilor), bouncing on her seat. ”Did you know? Is this why you were interested in my key?” Steam gasps and stops bouncing. ”Have I been carrying your city’s relic this whole time?”
She thinks a moment, and then continues before anyone has a chance to speak. ”Hmmm, no you would have just not given it back to me if it had been that. That would’ve been pretty wild though, huh?”

"I did recognize it as being similar in nature, yes. It would have been quite interesting if it had been one of the relics, but no it isn't one." Zarethria replies a bit amused at Steam's realization.

I've only had these keys for a week, but if anything happened to them I'd kill everyone in this room and then myself.
"Oh sure! You see, it was a balmy summer's evening..." Steam begins with a grand sweep of her arm.
"Nope. Stop it right now. We are not going through your prologue." Parveth suddenly cuts in, having otherwise been sitting in silence as she is want to do.

"No fun." Steam pouts a little before turning back to Ketha. "I don't have a special connection with the key set, but it's good to be excited about stuff, yea? And besides, there's more keys out there than these three probably! Just think about how many different key sandwiches we could make if we collected them all!"

"'Excited about stuff.'" An idle claw lifts itself to scratch the scales at the side of Ketha's neck as she quotes Steam. "What else are you excited for?"

Steam mirrors the idle scratch. "Oh! You know, like...life? Things that are happening?" She thinks for a moment. "I guess if I had to name a couple of things: seeing what Char's up to, working on getting you and Adelinde to see your friends, maybe investigate if where the public bath is, just wander around in a daze for a while. Lots of possibilities!" She beams.
"Oh! Also this new armor set! Very excited to try out what definitions of clothes it'll accept." She winks.

While Adelinde follows the others on Nyx she turns to one of the other riders with her and asks them about giant spider care. Things like how much they eat and what and other similar things.

The other rider lets her know that Adelinde has it pretty easy as far as feeding goes with the spider she has. No need to carry around webbed up dissolving creatures or stopping in the middle of journeys for a few days for her spider to hunt and eat something. Just needs a diet of animals and just about the amount of food a person typically eats about as often as a person needs to eat. Even things more mundane spiders can't eat like like fiends. Though still not oozes or undead. She'll certainly prefer live or freshly killed meals, but she should be able to eat dried and cooked foods just fine. In a pinch her spider can try surviving off of the psychic energies of dreaming creatures for maybe a few days if there's no proper food available.

---

The group makes their way through the streets of Malnibonae and back to the Grand Temple of Lolth. Nendriia Mlezzoryn, the Grand Priestess, meets with Steam, Adelinde, and Zarethria Nailo inside and takes them to her private chambers. Zarethria presents Nendriia with "the Liar's Key" and Nendriia in turn presents "the Key of Truth". Nendriia begins casting Identify on the Liar's Key, giving your group the chance to do so on the other key if you choose to do so.

Identify results:

“Interesting!” Steam chirps as her ritual finishes. She turns to the other ritual, also presumably finished, “Before we come to a decision, could we try something?”
She holds Isa in one hand and flips the Lockand from out of her sleeve into her other hand. “Not often 3 keys are in a similar locale. Maybe if they’re all near each other they’ll...unlock something neat?”

Nendriia raises an eyebrow quizzically at the production of a third key and then motions her hand towards Steam and says, "As you wish." and hands over the Nota.

Steam activates the magic and......the Isa and Nota start vibrating violently and then fling themselves several feet away from each other with enough force that it knocks Steam out of her chair. Apparently lies and truth do not wish to be locked together.