It’s like some sort of bizarre haggling simulator.

-Probably @enrique explaining our campaign to someone

-Eric

• 2018.05.17
• Present: Alex, Chris B., Chris O. Corey, Carlos, Enrique
• Previously: blah
• Party:
  • 🦆 Ducky, Gnome Wizard
  • 🛡 Tumutch, Human Vengence Paladin of the Silver Flame
  • 🛠 Dug, Dwarf Forge Cleric
  • ⚔️ Hiro Protagonist, Dragonborn Samurai
  • 🎸 Pankas, Wood Half-Elf Bard of Whispers
  • 🧙‍♂️ Glasstaff, Fighter 1/Wizard 5

• Guest appearance by Enrique, playing the enigmatic Glass Staff

tl;dr: Everybody rests and levels up. Find a goblin named Droop who tells us he can help us find Rave Echo Cave and the Black Spider, so he joins our team. We go shopping and get some gear. Collect some side quests. Dug joins a gang and nobody knows it. We go kill some orcs and Talon finally lets go of Hiro.

Contents:

1. Interrogation
2. Tidy Up
3. Haggling Simulator
4. Thirst Quenching

The scene opens on Tumutch, Dug, Ducky, and Yarno after they just cleared out the room full of goblinoids at the end of last episode. Tumutch is grappling the hobgoblin they took hostage.

The little goblin that fainted at the start of combat wakes up. Dug attempts to grapple the goblin, but it proves pretty nimble and dodgy, and Dug misses.

The group attempts to intimidate the hobgoblin, pressing for the location of the Black Spider and/or Rave Echo Cave: Yarno sits down in front of the hobgoblin and peers deeply into its soul, while Ducky punches the air near its face.

The interrogation is ineffective because--

1. those aren't good ways to intimidate an hobgoblin, and
2. the hobgoblin didn't know anything.

But at this point, Droop, the frail goblin, pipes up, "I know where it is!" much to the surprise of everyone there.

Hiro is escorting the Dendrars out of the cave and finds Pankas chilling in a beautiful orchard playing his recorder.

They commiserate over Hiro's bladehand.

Pankas reaches out to Tumutch via his rocky talky, and they agree to head back into the cave to meet up with the group.

All back together again, the gang decides to further explore Talon's behavior by turning the hobgoblin over to Hiro. Hiro runs the hobgoblin through with no discernible change.

Ducky successfully retrieves the hobgoblin's face.

Everybody heads back to Glass Staff's quarters to rest. Ducky and Glass Staff compare spellbooks and trade arcane knowledge.

And everybody levels up! 🎉🎉

Tons of non-combat encounters follow.

• We meet Derin Andermathy, the tree farmer, who asks the team to clear out the foul necroman-("WE'LL KILL IT" -Tumutch)-cy near Old Owl Well.

• Pankas disguises Droop as a darling little school boy.

• At the Mining Company, Dug glares at the front door and it, knowing his reputation, opens of its own accord. (Dug: 4/Doors: 1) Inside, Dug haggle talks his way into getting a large diamond for Ducky (for free, for clearing out the Redbrand) and is then--unbeknownst to the others--recruited into the Zhentarim.

  They also buy a hooded lantern and oil, and a grappling hook.

• At Barthens Provisions, Dug haggle talks a great deal for five health potions and a pearl so that Dug can identify stuff now.

• At Costco, they chat with the proprietor for a while.

• At Town Hall, they meet the Town Master, who is an obese, sleazy, oily, manipulative politician. He plays down the Redbrand threat (is he in cahoots?) and talks the gang into clearing out some orcs on the Triboar Trail with vague promises of some kind of a reward.

The gang prepares to proceed straight toward Cragmaw Castle, but is convinced at the last minute by Hiro and, by proxy, Talon, to head to Wyvern Tor and smash up some orcs.

So they walk out the rear gates of the town and approach the valley.

There's one orc near the entrance to a cave. Dug lures him out with the sensory illusion of a woman crying while Hiro stealthily positions himself behind a tree and readies himself for an ambush.

Hiro assaults the orc, much to Talon's delight, and with Pankas cheering him on, he makes quick and easy work of him, lobbing off his head. Talon almost visible twitches, almost audibly sighs with satisfaction.

Sounds of orcish revelry drift out from the cave, awakening something in Tumutch. He scrambles forward and gathers up his pipes, and proceeds to play the most beautiful music any of us have heard him produce, to the astonishment of everybody present. Pankas joins him, adding the sweet stylings of the jazz flute.

Several orcs venture out of the cave. Tumutch throws his arms open in a gesture of welcoming and camaraderie. The orcs prepare to attack him, and Yarno blasts them back to the friggin stone age with a well aimed fireball. Half of the orcs are instantly vaporized and those remaining are charred.

Some fine fighting ensues. Hiro has a cool new green flame thing that his sword does, and as the battle goes on, Talon releases its grasp on him more and more. Yarno flings some firebolts. Droop faints. Dug crushes some orc bones with his hammer as though they were flimsy doors. Ducky manages to toll one of her loudest bells yet, nearly rattling one of the orcs into fine pieces. In fact, it's almost all over so fast that Pankas only has time to put his flute away and get into a defensive stance before Hiro is facing off with the final foe.

Hiro lands the killing blow on the last standing orc, the biggest and meanest of the bunch. It falls to the ground, and Talon finally fully relaxes and releases its grasp on him.

This closes #23.

the end?

Hello my friends,

First off, I want to thank those who graciously turned over their previous holdings to the party treasury. Thanks to you, we grew our group funds considerably. As our collective wealth increases, as does our position in this world. I can confidently say there are some new opportunities in the works that will aid in our rise.

For the first time since my election, we made some fine purchases to further our joint cause. We bought some much needed gear and consumables to aid in future adventures. Additionally, we finally acquired and distributed the diamond and pearl that were needed by Duck and I, respectively.

All in all, continue the fine work. If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself!

May no door confine you,

Dug Hammerhound

Treasury totals are as follows:

• 488 Gold
• 615 Electrum
• 546 Silver
• 3 Garnets
• 3 Malachite

Oh. My. Gosh. Yarno is so cool! When we found those orcs by the caves near Wyvern Tor, and he friggin annihilated them with that fireball? 🔥

I almost fainted.

I've already learned so much from him. I can't wait to try out the new spell he taught me. I tried it today to hold the big orc when it tried to attack Hiro, but I didn't quite get it right. I hope we'll be able to start talking about reanimation soon. 🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️

Speaking of Hiro, he finally got Talon to release him after killing a few orcs! I think this supports my hypothesis that the blade might be imbued with an essence of Chesendar himself, a portion of him that has yet to stop battling the orcs during the siege of Phandelin. Now that it has released Hiro, perhaps he will allow me to study it. I wonder if ❤️Yarno❤️ might have some insight into it. It was stashed in his hidey-hole after all. I wonder if the Chesendar Spirit, or whatever it is, can communicate anything other than its bloodlust. I wonder how aware it is, if it realizes any time has passed..

I feel like I've really learned a lot and progressed in my studies recently! I've managed to copy a total of four new charts into my files just recently. I even managed to obtain a medium sized diamond necessary for one of the spells thanks to Dug! That was very selfless of him. 💎

Other notes:

• I do not like that Town Master! 😡 He is a nasty piece of work who seems to just enjoy being in charge and flaunting his authority. Whatever little authority he has. He can stand to be knocked down a few pegs.

• If we honor the requests of the tree farmer, we might be heading to the old owl well soon. Which bodes well for me and my studies if there is indeed necromancy at play. It will be tricky though with Tumutch around. I'll have to think about how best to manage him in this situation so he doesn't interfere with my studies. 🤔 Poor, sweet, delicate Tumutch.

• Where has Fisty been all day?