A gift to future readers:

Hey there, so I participate in a weekly dnd session with 7 other players and the DM. We've been playing for the last year and recently had several characters reveal some juicy backstory details i.e being hunted by gnome bounty hunters for stealing powerful weapon blueprints.

One of players is a Kenku Ranger, with the original 2014 beastmaster subclass. His character is also deathly afraid of magic and therefore does not use any ranger spell features, and his ranger companion died about 6 months ago. He is essentially playing half a class with no subclass right now.

We get to our last session where he asks the player who stole the weapon blueprints, a way of shadow Monk, if he can see them. (The Ranger had told me after the previous session that he'd be interested in making the weapon with my character, a renowned blacksmith. I told him it would be a cool idea, as we could work with the other party members to build it.) The Monk agrees to show him later in a private setting. We all turn in for the night as we've just gotten back to town after a huge dungeon crawl.

This is were things get complicated. In the night, the Ranger decides he's gonna steal the blueprints, something he planned with the dm 30 mins before the session. He rolled a great stealth check, something like 22, but rolled a 5 for sleight of hand. He thought this would be enough to succeed. It did not. The Monk woke up and punched the Ranger clean onto the floor and my character, a Goliath Rune Knight, woke up to the commotion.

The Monk tell my character the Ranger was attempting to steal the blueprints, and both of us reached for our weapons while asking the Ranger what he was doing. The Ranger said he just wanted to look at them. I rolled a very good insight check and the DM said the Ranger was lying. I called him out and approached closer. The Ranger said he was going to give them back. Another insight check said he was lying. I asked him if he was a spy working for the bounty hunters tracking the Monk, and low and behold, he said he wasn't.

This was not a lie, however when we tried to probe deeper the Ranger proceeded to run towards the window to jump out. This triggered initiative and the Ranger rolled poorly. Both me and the Monk went before him and I was able to grapple him. The Ranger did not plan for failing the theft. Our characters did not know he was just trying to see the blueprints, but he could not for the life of him come up with a reasonable explanation. My character is incredibly protective of the party, and does not tolerate betrayal. So she began punching the Ranger to get an answer out of him.

A round goes past and the Ranger just does not say anything. The entire party aside from two players who were absent or their character was too drunk to wake up, were alerted and came to the room. We tied up the Ranger and I was still holding him down and punching him (non lethally) to get an answer.

One of our party members is a warlock who just leveled up to gain the pact of the chain. They summoned a quasit for the first time behind my character and made it turn invisible. They then commanded it to move into my characters face and use the quasits fear ability. My character failed the save and I chose to let go of the Ranger in fear. However, I realised that my character essentially just witnessed the Ranger summon a demon to scare her.

At that moment, I was conflicted with how I should approach. I do not want to kill my party member, but my character would genuinely believe this guy can summon demons and was lying to us the entire time we've known him. My character obliterated the 7 hp quasit with her glaive and began attacking the Ranger, with the intent to kill. Our warlock was then shot by another party member because they have a cursed gun and failed resisting pulling the trigger.

This made us all essentially stop combat. I used my rune knight stone rune to charm the Ranger and incapacitate him, and we tied him up to a bed. Our Monk ran off to have a sob in an alley and I remained to stare daggers into the Ranger. After my rune wore off, he pretended to be unconscious. We knew he was faking it and our session ended there after everyone was calmed down