• 2018.07.17
• Present: Alex, Carlos, Chris, Corey, James, Ryan
• Party:
  • 😈 Fisty, Tiefling Fiend Pact Warlock
  • 🦆 Ducky, Gnome Wizard
  • 🛡 Tumutch, Human Vengence Paladin of the Silver Flame
  • 🛠 Dug, Dwarf Forge Cleric
  • 🦎 Mayonez the Slav, Lizardfolk Drunken Master Monk
  • 🎸 Pankas, Wood Half-Elf Bard of Whispers

tl;dr: Ducky tries and fails to fake Yarno's death in order to protect him from Fisty, but Fisty didn't kill him, so yay it worked? The gang plans a HEIST. Dug gets all kinds of cool and/or magical loot for the gang.

1. Who Killed Yarno?
2. Burial
3. Planning a Heist
4. Resurrection
5. Steak and Eggs and Rewards

The scene opens as Dug smashes in the door to Yarno's inner chambers and finds a grief-stricken Ducky kneeling over Yarno's dead body. She locks eyes on Fisty and cries out, "You did this."

Fisty is like, "Nuh uh."

Dug casts Identify on the body and determines that it is in fact a dead body. He raises an eyebrow at Ducky, still suspicious.

Ducky reaches up and smooths Dug's eyebrows back down.

Not seeing much else to do here, Dug leaves and goes back to the site of the cave-in, where Hiro morphed into Dragon Paws and crashed through the ceiling, and retrieves the ring and the cloak that he left there.

Ducky and Pankas pilfer through Yarno's room. Ducky finds a couple of magic scrolls which she gleefully--but while still grieving--stuffs into the pockets of her cloak. Pankas finds a half finished carving of a ship. He scoops it up and starts whittling at it, trying to complete the carving.

Fisty snatches up Glasstaff's glass staff and affixes his crystal gem to it. Tendrils of magic reach out from the crystal and reach into the staff, swirling around, and then the magic blinks out.

Suddenly a booming voice fills the caves, singing drinking songs of revelry and ribaldry. Mayo the Slav saunters into the room and cries out.

Mayo: "It's a-me! Mayo! I've been waiting for you guys at the bar for days! Whoa, dead body? Fist, you killed this dude, eh?"

Fisty: "Nope! Nope. Nuh-uh."

The gang decides to go bury Yarno. They drag him up to the trapdoor at the entrance to the caves but find it locked from the outside.

Fisty: Ohhh, somebody must have blocked it from the outside.. Hmmm.

So, Ducky gives her grappling hook to Dug, and he and Tumutch return to the cave-in. Dug expertly hurls the hook up through the hole in the ceiling and it catches on the first try.

Dug starts climbing the rope but is weighed down by his heavy armor and by his heavy coin purse and the small arsenal of weapons he carries. He slowly slides back down the rope to the ground.

Tumutch approaches the rope and easily clambers up. He retrieves the hook, circles back around to the trapdoor, clears the barricade, and opens it up.

Ducky tries to lift the body but cannot. Dug shakes his head and hoists the body up and through the trapdoor. Tumutch pulls it out.

The procession proceeds to the orchard outside town. Ducky quickly digs out a shallow grave and the body is lowered down into it.

Ducky performs a small religious ceremony. Tumutch takes a step forward to perform the Rites of the Silver Flame, but something holds him back at the last minute.

Ducky fills in the grave. Fisty and Droop stay at the grave side while the rest of the group returns to town and to the tavern to "drink their faces off."

A couple of Carls approach Pankas.

Carl: Boss! Boss! Say, do you think we can, you know, get back to work now? Now that the Redbrand is gone?

Pankas: Yes. Get back to work!

Carl: Okay, so there's this hunting lodge southeast of town that this shady bunch of people seem to be using to have mysterious meetings every couple of days. I think we should rob them!

Pankas: Yes. Go case the joint.

Carl: exits to go case the joint.

At the Sleeping Giant, the gang orders a round of Fire Whiskey and raise a toast to Yarno.

Ducky leaves to clear her head and "get some fresh air". Dug accompanies her.

Tumutch and Mayo make up for lost time and get properly smashed.

Pankas asks around about The Lodge and notices a few Carls in the back of the tavern who have sketched out some blueprints and schematics of the building.

Pankas: Good enough for me! Drunk boys! Let's go!

Tumutch and Mayo, arms around each other's shoulders, stumble out of the bar and follow King Carl Pankas through town to the remote area where the lodge is.

It appears empty, and protected by some kind of magic barrier. Tumutch turns his full attention to prodding the barrier, but he is drunk, so his fullest attention resembles that of a--hey, you ever notice that the more a vacuum sucks the better it is? lol. Anyway, Tumutch electrocutes the crap out of hisself after meddling around with the magic wall.

Mayo pick him up and receives a gentle shock of his own for his troubles.

Tumutch magically graffitis up the wall with come crude epithets and giggles to himself. "Dicks. Haha."

Pankas: New plan. We stake the place out. Next time the lodge-goers go to the lodge and lower this barrier, we sneak in behind them, rob them blind, and then sneak back out.

Carl: 👍

Tumutch: I - hic - oh no my boots are untied.

Mayo: oh no your boots here let me (falls down)

Pankas strolls back to town and to the Stone Hill Inn, humming to himself and whittling on his wooden block. Tumutch and Mayo stumble along behind him trying to re-tie each others boots while walking.

Dug confronts Ducky as she leads them back to the orchard where they just buried Yarno.

Dug: Look, I have a pretty good idea of what you did. But I don't know what you plan to do now.

Ducky: Well neither do I! I thought faking Yarno's death would help him out of the whole "Fisty has to kill him" jam, but it's not going as well as I thought it would, and now I have to go dig him up before he comes back to life and then suffocates to death under ground. So, off we go!

They come into the clearing in the orchard where Droopy is just banging around being Droop, and Fisty is in a meditation of sorts, communing with the glass staff. At some point, the staff and the gem react to each other one last time. There is a bright flash and the gem is gone.

Ducky approaches with stealth and caution, and then Dug comes crashing through and calls out.

Dug: Hey, Fisty! Hope we're not interrupting! Ducky buried Glasstaff alive and needs to dig him up.

Ducky: (sighs)

Ducky proceeds to dig up and revive Yarno while chiding Fisty for keeping secrets and not being a good team player, choosing to ignore her own secret plots and machinations.

Yarno wakes up and is less than happy at his circumstances. He demands his staff back from Fisty and Fisty is like, "Ha, chump," and he flies away up into the air and out of reach and is all like, "Neener neener neener." Yarno makes some half-hearted threats but then is ultimately ready to just give up the staff and just go back home.

Ducky and Dug convince Fisty--or they don't and he just decides on his own--to come back down and return the staff. Fisty winks at Ducky and tosses Yarno his staff.

Ducky gives all the potion ingredients the collected in Thunder Tree to Yarno and asks him about her evil book. He says thanks for the ingredients, and that book is evil and that it could be opened by "sacrificing some life energy" to it.

Ducky asks what he knows about doppelgangers, specifically how one can be identified, and Yarno is like, "I dunno, lol."

He goes back to his lair below Chesendar Manor, and Dug and Fisty and Ducky and Droop go back to the Stone Hill Inn.

The group reconvenes in the inn. Toblerone is pissed and glad to see them in a confusing kind of greeting. Dug smooths things over by applying money to the problem.

A disgusted Toblerone gives them Buldrick's burlap sack, which contains a severed face. Ducky's like, "Oh yeah, I got that. I'll take care of it." and takes the bag. Toblerone remains disgusted.

Everybody winds down and prepares to bed down for the night. Mayo takes Hiro's old room. Pankas is offered Buldrick's old room, but opts to go sleep behind a barrel out in the alley, like the Hobo King of the Bluebrand Carls that he is.

Dug takes some time to identify the ring and the cloak that Hiro left behind, and to craft a pauldron.

Ducky takes the last face and adds it to her collection. She sneaks down to the kitchens and prepares and preserves the items, salting and smoking them, and stitches them together into the much anticipated Mask of Several Faces.

Ducky sneaks back up to Tumutch's room and ask him for a Rat Dance. He plays the Pipes of the Sewers and they have a great time watching the rodents dance around.

Everybody goes to sleep and they don't wake up until the next morning.

Ducky skips down the stairs and asks for the continental breakfast. Toblerone is not amused. "Steak and eggs then!"

Dug has already been up for some time, rose with the sun, and is at the Minor's Exchange, meeting with his Zhentarim contact.

The contact first warns him about the traveling tiefling minstrel who gave him the orders to loot the dragon cultists, saying he doesn't actually work for Zhentarim but is a mercenary of sorts and also a master of disguise, and he has a fireball flinging hoodie.

They then tell Dug that he must empower his teammates and give them the opportunity to prove their loyalty to him. They give him an assortment of powerful items to distribute among the Reserve.

Dug leaves with the booty, makes it back to the inn while the rest of the team is still having breakfast and magnanimously hands out some special loot:

• Platemail to Tumutch
• Ring of Spell Storing to Fisty
• Pipes of Haunting to Pankas
• Gulthias Staff and Ring of Regeneration to Ducky
• Cloak of Protection to Dug

Everybody is like, "Coool!"

The end?