• 2018.05.10
• Present: Alex, Carlos, Chris B., Drey, Ryan
• Previously: Dragons? Dragons!
• Party:
  • 🤹 Buldrick, Eladrin Swashbuckler
  • 🦆 Ducky, Gnome Wizard
  • 😈 Fisty, Tiefling Tome Pact Warlock
  • 🛡 Tumutch, Human Vengence Paladin of the Silver Flame
  • 🎸 Pankas, Human Bard of Whispers

tl;dr: Pankas joins the gang, they turn in the cart and claim their rewards, and in what will come to be known as The Incident, murder a bunch of gangbangers and burn their corpses in the middle of the town square.

1. The group arrives at Phandelin
2. Tumutch/Pankas Jam Session
3. Human Fisty and Ducky Stash the Cart
4. Buldrick's Solo Adventure Redux
5. Run!
6. Rumble in the Road
7. Epilogue

As the gang approaches the walls of Phandelin, they pull over and Ducky and Fisty unload the goblin corpses and stash them in the trees.

Fisty magically disguises himself and takes the shape and form of a human.

At the gates themselves, the gang is harassed by one of the town guards. Under his questioning, they realize that they don't know what the heck to do with this cart. They don't know who to deliver it to or anything. Why didn't they get a contract or any kind of paperwork with this assignment? What is this amateur hour? They end up seeming super suspect and shifty, to the guard, and to themselves.

Eventually, the guard's like, Whatever my shift's ending. and he waves the gang through. This closes #2.

As soon as they enter the town, Hiro, Dug, and Mayonez drift away and aren't seen for the rest of the night.

The gang decides to find lodging for the night. The first inn they arrive at, The Stone Hill Inn, is a busy, bustling place.

There are no stables and no place to store the cart, but the barkeep suggests the farm down the way. Fisty and Ducky leave for the farm. (After Fisty buys rooms for the whole gang and, realizing he can trust no one person with all the keys at once, distributes one key to each person and lets everyone decide on their own whether or not they make it into their own bed at the end of the night. Spoiler: not everybody does.)

Tumutch is delighted to see a bard strumming a lute, and immediately approaches and starts jamming out on his bagpipes. Pankas, the bard, is like nah dude, and conjures up a mage hand to smack Tumutch in the back of the head. "Knock that off! I'm working here! I am Pankas the Entertainer!"

The two actually end up really hitting it off. Pankas is super generous to the travelers and offers to buy everybody a round of drinks.

Buldrick leans in and winks at Pankas and sneers, "Those drinks are gonna cost you!" Which at the time sounded like regular Buldrick nonsense, but which ended up being quite prophetic after all.

A lot of drinking and merriment ensues, and everybody has a good old time, except for Buldrick, who notices that there are no wenches in the inn whatsoever, and so leaves and goes off on his own to the other bar. Which means that Tumutch and Pankas are left on their own to get, apparently, completely annihilated on tavern ale.

Ducky and "Human Fisty" head to toward the barn. From a distance they spot who appears to be the owner of the barn, the farmer, Kaylin Alderleaf.

Before approaching, Fisty re-disguises himself as "Human Fisty the Halfling" and proceeds to try to charm the farmer. Ducky is super excited to talk to somebody her height, face-to-face instead of face-to-knees. Kaylin identifies the cart as belonging to Barthen Provisions and suggests that they may be able to turn in the cart there and claim their payment.

She shakes her head in bewildered confusion as they leave.

Excited at the prospect, Ducky and Human Fisty the Halfling, racing against the setting sun, hurry across town to the provisioner.

The dock hand at the provisioner's is aghast at the state of the cart and the state of the supplies, and says he just can't possibly pay full price. Human Fisty and Ducky proceed to relay the whole story of the goblin ambush, the rescuing of Sildar, the kobold ambush, and finally the dragon ambush, but the provisioner can't ignore the fact that the supplies are just all messed up.

He pays Human Fisty well. But not handsomely.

This closes #10.

Human Fisty is sure to plant some rumors questioning Sildar's mental wellness as well as his ability to accurately recall events surrounding the trauma of his dismemberment and rescue.

The dock hand shakes his head in bewildered confusion as they leave.

Now on foot, Ducky and Human Fisty walk back to the town square where they saw Buldrick earlier walking by himself toward the other bar.

Buldrick approaches the other bar, the Sleeping Giant. A bunch of thuggish looking ne'er-do-wells in red cloaks are milling around outside shooting dice. Buldrick confidently walks right up to them and says to them slyly in thieves' cant, while also not-so-slyly saying the same thing out loud, "Hey, boys! Where's the action at?" They icily stare him down and don't say anything. Buldrick's like "Well, see you later!" and goes inside.

The only woman in the establishment is the bartender, a dwarf named Grista. Buldrick reluctantly parts with a couple silver in exchange for a drink, and starts to try to smooth talk Grista, who is having absolutely none of this nonsense.

Buldrick, who seems to at all times require at least two out his needs met (murderin', drinkin', wenchin'), is getting visibly distressed.

Tumutch and Pankas decide to leave Stone Hill Inn and head over to the Sleeping Giant to check on Buldrick, but mostly to continue drinking.

They arrive and see the very same thuggish ne'er-do-wells shooting dice in the doorway of the tavern. Pankas approaches them and, streetwise popular entertainer that he is, is welcomed into their gambling game.

There's some good natured shit talking. Pankas tries to pickpocket one of the thugs, but fumbles, and everybody in the entire alley sees him do it, and they all laugh it off. The attempt was so obvious that it couldn't have been made in earnest. "Get out of there, Pankas!"

They shoot some craps and play some blackjack, and at one point Tumutch and Pankas are ridiculously up. They've got, like, all the gold. The thugs are rather put out and are really looking forward to the opportunity to win their money back. So much in fact, that they try to bypass the whole gambling part and demand all the gold that Pankas and Tumutch had just won.

Seeing that Pankas and Tumutch aren't giving up their winnings, one of the thugs then claims that Pankas owes him money and it is time to pay up. Tumutch, seeing that this is no longer just a friendly group of criminals gambling, reaches into his coin purse, palms a few silver and then throws it at the thug that is demanding money. Pankas, aware that a handful of silver was no where near what he owes the thug, turns to Tumutch, and yells , "RUN." Tearing off down the street.

Tumutch gleefully follows, all the while, laughing and throwing copper pieces in random directions yelling, "Here's your money you rapscallions!".

Inside the bar, Buldrick hears some shouting and some scuffling. Thinking there might be some killing to be done, he heads outside in time to see his buddy Tumutch and that lute-playing fellow tearing off down the road with a horde of thugs in hot pursuit. He falls in with them.

With impressive timing, Fisty and Ducky arrive at the road at roughly the same moment.

Before all out combat starts, Ducky tries to distract the thugs with an illusion of gold coins spilling across the alley. The thugs aren't really fooled, but Tumutch drunkenly squats down and starts trying to scoop up armfuls of nothing.

Stuff inevitably gets physical.

One of the thugs slashes at Fisty, which sets off his blood lust ("HELL YES."), and ignites said thug with otherworldly fire.

Pankas leaps into a barrel and goes all Solid Snake with it, moving it from location to location, sniping at people from his mobile cover.

One of the thugs scoops up Tumutch from the ground, where he's still fumbling with coins he can see but not touch, grabs him in a headlock, and starts dragging him back to the bar while Tumutch says something like, "If you wanted a hug, you could have just asked!". The gang focuses their attention on him, with Ducky eventually casting the biggest, loudest tolling of the bell she's ever done, which shakes him loose from Tumutch. Angered by the unsolicited manhandling, Tumutch grabs his morningstar with both hands and brings it down on the stunned thug bouncer, crushing his face.

Eventually the dust settles and the remaining thugs have thoughts of self preservation and run. Buldrick taunts one of the nearby thugs, "Bluebrand Carl sent us!" before delivering a killing blow.

Having flashbacks of orc gambling matches and the associated bloodshed, Tumutch yells into the night, "Where are you going?! I have money to win!" He then trudges, key in hand, towards the inn and the bed that awaits him there.

The group tries to clean up their mess, hiding the bodies on the side of the alley and burning them with some torches and booze someone stole at some point.

Buldrick starts chopping up one of the corpses because, Buldrick. And Ducky rushes over to guide him through a more careful, methodical, and scientific dissection of the body because, Ducky. To everybody's horror, Buldrick removes the face of one of the fallen and starts wearing it like a mask.

Group character defining moment: If anybody was aghast at this behavior, nobody did anything to discourage it. Group Evilness +1.

The group steals a couple of the red cloaks. Pankas passes out in his barrel in the alley, and everybody else makes their way back to Stone Hill Inn and into their beds.

As everybody is drifting off to sleep, Ducky spends an hour summoning her familiar, Thatso Raven the Owl, in the form of a rat.

This closes #7

She then goes to Tumutch's room and wakes him up, knocking on the door. She asks Tumutch to play his bagpipes for her, and he happily obliges. As he plays, Thatso Raven the Owl the Rat scampers out into the room and dances around to the music.

Ducky gasps and tells Tumutch that he has summoned a rat with his bagpipes! He never needed the Pipes of the Sewer at all! The magic was within him this whole time!

Finally, everybody gets some much needed rest.

This closes #6

the end?

• Debut of Pankas the Bard!

• Chris O. was hanging out for about the first hour of the game, "haunting" the party as a dragon-shaped phantasm. When he left to keep his prior appointment, he parted with "Looking up you see a shooting star crossing the heavens. You don't know why, but you feel special." Which was heartwarming.