Thug Muggers In the Sewty 4/16/23
Table Talk:
Correction: Belgruus is a Grung. Polgruk is a Bollywog. Bollywogs are more toadlike - while Grungs are more treefroglike.
I had a conversation with Sarah last week and wanted to share a part of it with everyone. Basically I try to fill out the world as much as i can, and let the players actions dictate what happens. I usually have a few clocks in my notes that i use to determine what is happening outside of our sphere of influence. For instance, whether someone will find something, or how far away someone might run. I also have random tables i use to define where someone might be in town, or what items Devin might have, but the clocks are a direct result of the player's actions. If they had explored a different part of the sewers then they would have started different clocks. If they mention things to someone, that might start a clock. So in the last two big fights, who was and wasn’t there was really determined by what had happened beforehand and what the players had decided to do. Just a side note for players to remember their own actions.
Speaking of clocks, i had Ari start a 4 segment clock in her notes for her armor. Since this is the same armor she has had since before we got to the city, it is starting to wear pretty thin. After any encounter where she gets hit, she will mark a piece of that clock and when it is full, her armor will be marked -1 for having so many holes.
The past few weeks, i’ve been working on some new laser cut miniatures and figures for us. This time using a different method to hopefully get a cleaner result. 3 misc monster tokens (tiny small and regular), 25 blank markers (5 tall tiny, 5 low tiny, 2 tall small, 6 low small, 7 regular), 6 rat markers (3 or each design), a royal/city marker, a sexy orc marker, 21 monsters (2r, 6ws, 6fs, 7p), a Bostra, a Belgruuse, 3 Akris, 2 Ari, a Cypress a Cypress token, 2 Rae, 2 Sorin, and a clear "Invisible" of every pc and Akris. They're printed on clear sheets and then laser cut and glued to the laser cut clear plexiglass. Most have a second reversed image on the back side. Also, all of the player characters are to scale in height. I spent some time calculating to the closest .01mm using the given height on your character sheets in reference to the 28mm scale system I usually like to use
Mechanic talk: Scrolls.
“[W]e are basically going to adapt the D&D 5e mechanic in a way that anyone can use them. SO, if it is a spell you know already, you use the scroll and do not use a spell slot. If you are used to magic (a caster class) [all but Rae], but it is not a spell you know, you will have a casting penalty. If you are not used to magic at all the penalty will be higher, but still cast-able. The more you use these scrolls, the less of a penalty there is, and if you use the same spell a high number of times, you can learn it outright.”
This was all i could find on our home-brew rules for magic and spell scrolls, from the 7-2-22 Summary. So I will be codifying and defining the system around this. Deciding what those penalties are and some kind of basis for the learning aspect.
The last part of our Table talk was us reading the notes and Scrolls found by Cypress and Sorin in the last session. Some of them were in the last summary, but i actually hadn’t written them yet when we played, so we went over them this time.
“With Renny dead, remember we need To be careful walking The sewer hallways now. Fact maybe MT Those Top sTore rooms & seT gianT spider eggs jusT in case. We need To find anoTher Company man To “recruit” & fasT before [Symbol] finds ouT. Find someone less experienced This Time. Try The sTupid ironworker, or ThaT mechanic babe, buT definitely noT ThaT wizsard!”
“Did you hide the body like I told you two? Remember, if [Symbol] finds out about this, we’re in for a really BIG HEADACHE!”
“Overheard that The Company was worried about how long The JaC’s Took to replace afZTer Renny “went missing”, so be sure To get the JiM’s seT up down here fasT before Frogs catch on!”
“Remember to WASH that RAT MEAT before you send it down here again, the last “kabob” screamed and went insane”
“I have my eye on you. I covered them up, but be careful. And make sure you cry on these ones this time. You know how I don't like it when my “eyes” dry out. [Symbol]”
"And as we all know, people who regularly quote religious texts to justify their actions are historically so very cool and chill."
-Tybee Diskin, “Chasing Immortality: James Beranrd Schafer"
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿
Chapter 3: A Breath of Fresh Ari
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿 Chapter 3: A Breath of Fresh Ari
“The way of the rat if life, this you know. The way of the rat is you, you are the rat!” Sorin finishes and looks up at the others in the room. “And then it has that symbol drawn really big on it in some fancy gold ink.” He looks down and (with a nat’ 20 perception check) notices something off about the painted symbol on this scroll. Sorin tilts the scroll, dipping it forward and back and side to side, but the symbol stays perfectly flat to his eyes like a billboarded 2D Sprite. He stares at the two circles in the symbol, and is hit with the sudden paranoid scopaesthesia. He quickly rolls the scroll back up. He’s half expecting the symbol to stick out like a flat piece of metal, but the scroll curls easily and he tucks it deep in his bag. Then looking up at the otters he asks, “Cypress, are you still planning to come with me when I talk with Matteo?”
“Yes.” The one word answer seeming to convey steadfast self assurance as if this was never in doubt because Cypress's presence is so vital.
“Is it ok if we stop at the university first so we can have a quick bath?”
“Yes!” The one word answer conveys streams of relief as if they were finally released after being buried in mud for several days.
While this is happening, Rae is going one by one around the dead Gazers in the room, and slicing off any of the eye stalks she finds that are still intact, and turning them into some kind of horrible H.R. Geiger bouquet of body horror. In all, she collects seven (one full set and three left over) of the exposed eyeballs,and they’re scaly muscular tendril-tails, clutching them in her fist as they drip different colored oozes onto the floor.
We all leave the room, out the same door we came in and look at the Gelatinous Cube Lift. Rae and Ari want to ride it, but Sorin and Cypress push them on to keep things moving. So we march on north, leaving both the hidden Thug doors hanging wide open.
We come to another hallway and fan out a bit. Everyone has noticed how the hallways down here are so much wider, enough so that we can move in a diamond pattern now with Sorin leading, Ari and Rae in the middle, and Cypress pressing them on from the rear.
At the first intersection, Sorin goes left, following his and Akris’s little map. Ari and Rae stay still, and both look right. They can see a large iron grate, and beyond it, the hallway ends in a large stone door with a window.
“I wanna open it.” Rae says before getting checked in the thigh by a leather pauldron.
“Keep walking, scatterbrain. Don’t make me use Thorn Whip to herd you.”
Grumbling, Ari and Rae follow Sorin to the next intersection, they look behind them at Cypress, and then trudge on to the well lit room. Like the other surface pipe rooms we've been in, this one has, what else? A large pipe running up through the ceiling and down through the floors. On both floor and ceiling there are metal hatches allowing access around the pipe and holding it in place. There are also rungs along the body of the pipe so someone can climb up and down it. Unlike the other drain rooms, this one has a workbench along the far wall, it has wood and metal slats running across it, and something on top of it with chains wrapped around it.
As we walk over, Rae is hit in the shoulder with the torch, as it flies off the wall. She feels her Ki deflect it, and manages to catch it in an awkward juggle before it falls on the ground.
“What the hells?”
“We’re under attack? I think?” Sorin says as casts Blade Ward on himself, giving his skin a metal sheen.
“Yeah, but what from?”
“It’s the haunted torch monster.” Rae says as she carefully places the torch back in its bracket and stares at it waiting for it to fly at her again.
Cypress is looking around peering into any unlit corners when they hear something rattle on the workbench. They turn in time to see something gray slump off the counter. And also, just in time to watch as the hammer that something just threw hit them in the face. “Th-r-!” they say pointing and grabbing their bloody nose, “-y thuh werkbnch!”
Everyone turns to see the slimy gray puddle as it shifts its weight. It sluff-rolls its gloopy body onto the cobbled floor. Ari lifts a hand and cast’s Ray of Sickness. The ray is a perfect hit, landing in the middle of-
The thing on the floor opens a hole and the ray passes through the empty space in the middle of it, before it closes back together again.
Sorin holds out his hand now, and casts Chill Touch, causing me to have to look up what type of damage it does. 4 points of necrotic damage.
Cypress follows it up with Sacred Flame and for the first time in a while, it hits! The holy fire ignites in a dozen little spots along the oozing puddle for 7 damage.
Now the Gray Ooze looks like some kind of dirty slime with holes all over it, its membrane pierced so that several little streamers of gray gloop are flowing out of it. It rolls along the floor. Suddenly, a part of the puddle shoots out in a long sharp spike, impaling Ari. The spike opens at the end into several small fingery spikes that wiggle into her for 11 damage, and leave a shredded patch in her armor that starts to fall away from the acid before the spike retracts (leaving Ari’s armor now -1).
As the puddle spike-arm retracts, Sorin blasts the Gray Ooze with a Firebolt.
The Ooze falls apart into a lifeless puddle and the spike splashes to the floor as just a long line of dirty sludge… that Rae immediately scoops into a bottle.
With a hunch, Ari and Rae look around by the surface pipe for one of Devin’s marks.
“Found it,” Ari says and pushes her coin into the marking.
The coin disappears with a click and a hissing sound. Plumes of foggy smoke below out from the hole in the wall where Ari just dropped this coin. It fills the room with a haze, making it difficult to see. From behind us in the mist a leathery voice growls, “Why hello there travelers, I see-'' There is a squelching noise and the fog stops spraying out. “-Oh yuck, gross, I just stepped in a puddle of Gray Ooze, disgusting.” The fog separates a bit and we see Devin behind us looking down at the floor.
Sorin moves away and starts looking at the chain thing on the table and trying to be invisible.
Rae walks up to Devin and holds out her Bouquet De Oculaires. “I have seven Gazer Eyestalks, and some Gray Ooze jelly for you!”
“Hmmm…” The lizard man’s left head looks at the eyes appraisingly. His left hand is holding up the end of a bloody stalk, while his middle hand is stroking his chin. Meanwhile, his right head is watching his right arm scrape the Gray Ooze he just stepped in off of his foot and into a glass vial. “Unfortunately for you, I seem to have just recently acquired a fresh stock of Gray Ooze-”
“-Oh come on-”
“-but the eye stalks are valuable, I’l give you 75 gold for the complete set, and 20 for the incomplete…. Unless you were planning to wait and have me check the market for you…?”
“Nope, that’s fine,” Rae says, handing them over and greedily snatching up the offered baggy of coins.
Sorin has spent this entire time working up his nerves and he turns around, “Devin I have-”
“Oh yes you do, pretty boy. Gimme a spin and show me what you have!”
Without thinking, Sorin awkwardly shuffles around in a circle. When he faces Devin again, the right head is swaying from side to side with its forked tongue lolling out, as his right hand holds his right tail and swings it in circles.
“So what do you have for me, wizard boy?”
“A um,” Sorin swallows, “ A glass eye and a brass ring?”
Devin is all business now, with his three hands covering his faces, he whisper back and forth to himself. After a moment the left head offers him a small amount of gold.
“Um, no, uh, no thank you, uh, Sir.” Sorin turns away blushing.
“And are we buying today?” the right head asks.
“I don’t think-”
“-I have some specials on offer…”
Silence.
“Okay yeah, what are the specials?”
“Actually I have something I thought the young wizard would like,” he says holding out a jar marked ‘Glue: Uncommon’, “but I see he’s being shy.” he opens his kimono to put the jar back, then his right head also tucks into the opening and we hear a muffled, “let me see here…” Devins head and arm re-emerge holding a small wooden case, “For Miss Rae, the budding bastidopterist, a Skinner’s Kit.” He opens it to display some fine knives and delicate instruments that look similar to what we just left behind in the torture chamber. “With these, you can get better specimens off your gooey little animals, and I can offer you better deals.”
“Oooo yes, how much?”
“50 Gold.”
Rae sighs but hands over half of what she just earned, knowing it’ll help her make more money in the long run.
“Anything else?” Devin askes with all three hands steepled together, claws clicking.
Cypress steps forward smiling, “I have a question for you.”
“Yyyeessss?” The lizard man says with a gleeful tone.
“How does a farmer fix his trousers?”
“Hmm.. well I used to deal with a collective of Deep Delving Dwarf mushroom farmers that used to make a strong fungal leather… So I'll say mushroom leather!”
“With a cabbage patch!”
“Ha!” Devin barks out a laugh, “ooo and it would work as a mushroom patch too.”
Suddenly we hear a loud, ominous hissing and all turn around to look. The coin hole in the wall is hissing and sucking all the smoggy smoke back into itself. When we turn back around. Devin is gone.
As we get ready to climb up the pipe to the surface, Cypress sees Ari flinch and examines the wound from the Gray Ooze. He rubs some moss pulp into the wound for 11 Hp, and we all climb up to the surface.
We come out of the sewers in the middle of a small patch of grass by some footpaths near the arena. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and Sorin is dancing from foot to foot, either eager to be off, or really needing to pee.
“Okay, so what’s the plan?”
Cypress pokes a thumb at the nervous wizard, “I’m going with that one, so that puts you two together.”
Ari nods, “Do we need to get rooms somewhere again?”
“Not a bad idea, just in case.”
Rae put a hand up, and her staff lifts up with it, “How about the Nort Gate again?”
Okay yeah, we all know where it is so that’ll be easy to meet up.” Cypress reaches into a pouch, “Do you need some coin to cover the cost?”
“Nope,” Rae smiles, and before Ari can stop her, loudly announces in a cocky voice, “ I just made a bunch of money, so I have, uh, plenty of coins!”
Ari pinches the bridge of her nose, and through gritted teeth she says, “Maybe don’t say that so loud in a crowded street?”
“No no no, ssssay it loudssser, “ Akris Laughs, “Assss loudsss assss you can!”
So our two teams part ways, with Sorin and Cypress off to bathe in the university dorms, and Ari and Rae going to get rooms at the Nort Gate Inn.
“Actually… I mean, I think we’re going to bathe first too,” Ari says to the sky.
So our two teams part ways, with Sorin and Cypress off to bathe in the university dorms, and Ari and Rae going to bathe and then get rooms at the-
“Actually… I mean, I need new armor so that will probably be next,” Ari says to the sky.
Ari and Rae going to bathe and then shop for new-
“Actually… I mean, I don’t want to get out of my clean bath and then put on this disgusting armor, so- ,” Ari says to the sky.
Just start walking!
There is a sudden clap of thunder in the cherry blue sky.
Cypress and Sorin look over their shoulders at the random thunderclap behind them and shrug.
“So,” Cypress coughs, “this is a chance for us to bond, I guess.”
“Yeah! You’re right this is great!”
There is a long and uncomfortable silence.
“So um…”
“So…”
“Yeah…”
“Sorry, I was distracted thinking about my roommates,” Sorin says.
“Oh good! Tell me about them.” Cypress breathes a prayer of relief to Sheela.
“Well, there’s Herbert who you might actually get along with pretty well…” he trails off reconsidering, “maaaybee… um, he does really like plants.”
“I also like plants.”
“Yeah,” Sorin rubs the back of his neck, “and then there's Paisley…”
Cypress walks on in silence waiting.
“YouknowhowIkindahaveathingaboutrichpeoplewhothinkthy’rebetterthaneveryoneelse?”
“Yes, I am aware.”
“Well Paisley is as bad as they come.” Sorin knots his fists in rage, “he was literally born covered in gold.”
Cypress coughs, “As a medically trained-”
“Not literal gold, but his granddad is some Genasi King or something, so the whole family has shiny skin. He used to brag that even his placenta was prettier than… anyways, the guy is a jerk.” Sorin trails off.
On that happy note let’s jump back over to Ari and Rae.
“Is that really the same armor you’ve had this whole time?”
“Yeah.”
“Gross.” Rae laughs.
“What? Hey! You wear the same robes!”
“Yeah but…Still. Gross.”
“You’re gross,” Ari laughs and playfully pushes Rae’s shoulder.
“Weren’t you wearing that when I met you?” Rae asks, thinking back.
“No,” Ari gets a little sad, “I had to leave in a hurry then, remember?”
“Oh yeah… sorry.” Rae awkwardly pats the taller girl on the back, and mostly just comforts Ari’s gear bag.
“I got it a few towns after that, remember?”
“Do you know which one?”
“I dunno, they kinda blended together, that was back before you knew I was stealing from the crowds.”
“What!? You were stealing?”
Ari stops and looks at her friend, “I thought you figured that out.”
Rae looks confused and hurt, “I mean eventually.. When we really needed food but, I thought…”
“Sorry.”
“I guess it doesn’t change anything now,” Rae says with a sad shrug as the moral weight lands on her.
“Exactly, except that it means now I can get better armor.”
“Yeah,” Rae says and smacks Ari, “that still smells like those cow patches we had to sleep in.” She walks away laughing. After a minute of Ari not walking next to her, Rae turns around. “What’s wrong?” She asks, looking at Ari doubled over.
“You just smacked me,” Ari pants, “And right on a fresh wound.”
Rae laughs.
We shift from Rae’s laughter, back to Sorin and Cypress.
Cypress breaks the awkward sad silence between them, “I’m hungry. What’s good around this part of town?”
Sorin looks around. They’re near the Lesser Square here at the South Way and Turret Street intersection (technically the South Way, Turret Street and Areana Road interaction, but we’re on the turret road side. “What are you hungry for? What kind of food do you like? Salads? Meat on a stick? Bread?”
“Yes.” The halfling nods hungrily, then after a moment's thought, they look at the sky and shouts, “Anything but more Fruit Loops!”
Sorin walks them both over to an earthenware clay cart that is really just a giant clay with wagon wheels on the side. He grunts something in Dwarvish and drops some coins in the tray atop the cart. The dwarf behind the cart nods and lowers the visor on her shield down over her face and beard. She opens the door to the stove and an angry red glow illuminates her, a bit of her gray hair is singed before she pats it out. Then she grabs the stick next to her that Cypress mistook for a staff, and pulls the long handled shovel out of the ground. She reaches it into the furnace like a pizza paddle, sticking it a good few feet into the cart. When the dwarf pulls the shovel out, there are two onyx-black rugby-ball-shaped lumps on it, and the metal of the shovel is a bright orange. She slams the door to the furnace and Cypress sees the faint yellow haze on the visor showing it had started to heat up. The second dwarf takes a pair of long iron tongues and lifts the lumps off the shovel and into a bucket of creamy oil. Both lumps hiss and sizzle as the first dwarf pushes the shovel back into the hole in the ground (Cypress notices that the edges of the hole are all black obsidian glass). The second dwarf digs in the oil bucket for a minute, and pulls out the two lumps. They’re deflated now, and have an oily brown glazing over them. Sorin takes the two pies and hands one to Cypress.
“What is it?”
“Dwarf Miner Pie,” Sorin says through a mouth full of dripping meat and bread. He swallows, “they’re kind of a comfort food for when you have to do something though.”
As they eat these folded over pies (think like a Cornish Pasty), they both get a pleasant heavy feeling. That special kind of fullness you get after a big meal, where you feel like there is grease all the way down inside your toes. With a very good luck roll, Sorin gets a temporary +1 to his Constitution, and feels like nothing could push him over.
The two Thug Muggers walk away eating, and Cypress looks up at the wizard, “I didn’t know you could speak Dwarvish.”
“Nah, just enough to order off a menu really.”
Ari and Rae are moving up Main Street towards the greater square, and they too, are feeling their midday hunger as they look at all the people selling food.
“Hey, Ari, I don’t think I've ever asked you, what’s your favorite kind of food?”
“Potatoes,” Ari replies as she eyes a vendor, “they always remind me of home.”
“There's a guy selling turnips?”
“That’ll do!”
They go up and watch a 7 foot gray Troll tuning a hand crank and loading turnips into a little box. They watch the turnips turn and then drop into a shallow vat of bubbling oil for a minute, before the troll picks them up and pushes a stick through them, stretching them out like a coiled spring. Then he rolls them in some salted herbs and sets them on a rack to cool. They each buy two “Turnip Tornados” and walk away munching.
The fried roots have a perfect healthy crunch to them like an old chunky 1998 keyboards mixed with walking on dried leaves.
As they walk Rae comments, “I didn’t *crunch* know you got potatoes in *CURNCH* hell.”
“What? *crunch*”
“Potatoes, you said they *crunch* remind you of home. I didn’t know they *crunch* grew there.”
“Oh,” Ari grinded down another happy bite. “Hell potatoes.” She says, remembering when her tutor had taken her to watch the farmers, their giant crow bars cracking the rocks apart to pull out the root bulbs with their red glowing veins.
“Ah.”
“They’re a bit spicier.”
Sorin and Cypress walk past the triumphant gates and onto the familiar brick yards of the “University of Magic and High Understanding or The Natural Order of the Universe”.
We walk through the courtyard and glance up at the skeleton sitting on a plinth holding a brass globe. Sorin explains the significance of the statue being the literal bones of the school’s founder.
Cypress shrugs.
As we walk across the brick lined campus, Sorin gets a funny feeling from all the people looking at them, and after a little while he realizes why. The students aren’t glaring or rolling their eyes, but nodding or looking away. They think he has seniority. They look at Cypress, in his clerical smock with the holly and ribbons on his staff, and see a guest lecturer (since clerics aren’t really typical at the school). And they see him with his messy robes and adventuring gear and they think he is one of the higher student mages out on assignment or field work. They all must assume he has been asked to be some kind of escort for this cleric. They must think he rode with a caravan or something to bring Cypress here.
Sorin has to control himself not to grin with pride at each new face as they pass.
It’s an agriculture day in the Nibiru Greater Square. Farmers from the south are bringing in early harvests of cabbages and onions, cauliflower and kale, etc. Meanwhile the northern hill and mountain traders are bringing in seeds for the growing months, Sunflower and Poppy, Radishes and Tomatoes, and traders from the east are carrying seeds for every kind of grain.
The stage at the south edge of the square is divided into three auctions as farmers and traders alike bid on bags of goods, or chits to claim larger stores that haven’t arrived yet. Someone is selling chickens and everyone in the market can hear them squawk and holler.
Several people are leading mules and young ponies around, and no one is noticing the smell of Ari and Rae and the sewers.
Ari is looking around for Armor when she hears a barker winding up a sales pitch, “This will stop any spikes that come at you!” She makes her way over.
There is a tall dragonborn holding up, what looks like a large leather apron, “Yes, indeed my friends, this is genuine Mauldina Hog Leather, it’s matted down and comfortable, but the grain is so tight, you can butcher a cliff urchin and it’s spikes won’t get through!”
Meanwhile Rae is… Rae, what are you looking for?
“I wanna see a cow!”
….alright roll for cows i guess.
Back at U.M.H.U./N.O.U. Sorin and Cypress are pleasantly surprised to have the dorm all to themselves. Sorin looks around to see if he can figure out why. (but he doesn’t realize that i simply forgot all their names and voices and so they couldn’t make it today.)
Sorin shows the cleric around the little main room and points to the bathroom, “The bath is in there, I’ll let you go first if you like.”
Cypress nods, and goes in, closing the door behind him.
Sorin pushes the long noren aside and walks into the room he shares with Herbert. It is dark and musty, the windows are shut and covered so that almost no light gets in except for some reflecting from a pinprick in the curtains, off a green mirror on Herbert’s desk and onto the ceiling. Sorin steps over a box of potted mushrooms and goes to where his desk has been pushed over to one wall. He opens the attached wardrobe and retrieves a fresh set of robes, then stops when he goes to set them on the desk.
There is something on Sorin’s desk, staring at him.
The paper has his name on it, and is folded in the shape…of a heart.
Sorin pokes his head through the noren and looks around the common room. “Shut up or I'll Banish you!” he hisses at Akris to try and stop him from giggling. He sets his fresh clothes down and goes over to the thing on the desk. He wipes the sweat off his forehead and approaches slowly. He gets a letter opener and a long wooden pen from the shelf under the desk.
Sorin pokes the love letter and then flinches back.
Nothing happens.
He approaches again and, without touching it, he uses the pen and knife to unfold the letter as if he’s doing a delicate bomb surgery. Then he uses the instruments them to lay the letter out flat.
“Ah Ha Ha Ha Haaa Ha Ha!” Akriss flies off to the door to the bathroom and slams his head against it three times as a kind of knock. “Ssssorin founsss a lovesss letter on hissss desssk! Ansss, anss, ansss, and he’ssss too sssscared to touch it! Ah Ha Ha Ha Haaa Ha Ha! He’ssss afraisss it will eksssplode! Ah Ha Ha Ha Haaa Ha Ha!”
Sorn can hear Cypress’s deep rumbling belly laugh echoing in the metal tub as he reads:
𝒪𝒽 𝓂𝓎 𝓈𝑒𝒸𝓇𝑒𝓉 𝒻𝑜𝓃𝒹𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓈, 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒷𝑒𝑒𝓃! 𝐼’𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝒾𝓈𝓈𝑒𝒹 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓈𝑜 𝓂𝓊𝒸𝒽 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓈𝑒 𝓅𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓌𝑒𝑒𝓀𝓈, 𝓈𝒾𝓉𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒾𝓃 𝒸𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓈 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝑒𝓂𝓅𝓉𝓎 𝓈𝑒𝒶𝓉 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝐼 𝓊𝓈𝑒𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝒶𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒷𝒾𝑔 𝓈𝑒𝓍𝓎 𝒷𝓇𝒶𝒾𝓃. 𝐻𝑜𝓌 𝐼 𝓁𝑜𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝑜 𝑔𝒶𝓏𝑒 𝒹𝑒𝑒𝓅𝓁𝓎 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓈𝑒 𝓂𝓎𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓇𝒾𝑜𝓊𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝒸𝓀 𝓅𝓇𝑒𝓈𝒸𝓇𝒾𝓅𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝑔𝑜𝑔𝑔𝓁𝑒𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓈 𝒶𝑔𝒶𝒾𝓃! 𝒞𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝒷𝒶𝒸𝓀 𝓈𝑜𝑜𝓃, 𝓈𝑜 𝓂𝓎 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉 𝒹𝑜𝑒𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝒻𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝒶𝓅𝒶𝓇𝓉 𝓌𝒶𝒾𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑒𝓃𝒹 𝑜𝒻 𝑀𝑜𝓇𝒹𝑒𝓃𝓀𝒶𝒾𝓃𝑒𝓃’𝓈 𝐹𝒶𝒾𝓉𝒽𝒻𝓊𝓁 𝐻𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹!
Well then, isn’t that something? Back to Ari and Rae.
Ari rolls a 19 this time to find armor and so she gets… ok well i don’t actually know yet. I hadn’t expected her to go for it this session, so i didn’t have any really good ideas/armor/stats/magic items prepped for that. So Brooke and i agreed that this week i will find a suitable item that meets that good roll, and offer it to her at a good price.
On the other side of the square, Rae is walking up to the banner when a very friendly man puts his arms around her shoulders. Suddenly, the long eared man is smiling with his face right beside hers.
“Cows, yes’m, we gots cows, that's what the sign says, ‘nd that's what’s we got.”
With a bad Charisma Save, Rae just thinks this is part of how you see the cows.
“Tall cows, fat cows, mama cows, baby cows, we got everything, just step on up.” He steers Rae towards a kind of mobile standing desk on wheels that is being peddled around the square by an old man in a black and white cow-patterned felt hat with a feather in it. “Just gimme your name here to be added to my list.”
‘Oh,’ Rae thinks, ‘A waiting list, these must be very popular cows.’
“And then I just need your 6 gold,” the grinning man says.
“4 gold?” Rae says, thinking about the price of admission to pet livestock, “That seems a bit-”
“-Right you are then, 4 gold, and we’ll make it a baby cow.” The man holds out a hand and Rae passes him the coins before her brain kicks in. He spins her back around to face the desk. “Just sign here, and done. Perfect, thank you.” The man disappears into the crowd with his arm around another stranger.
“Wh-”
A dry cracked voice, and the sound of pen scratching interrupts Rae’s thoughts. “And where would Miss like the cow sent?”
“Sent? Cow? What cow?”
“The Cow you just bought, miss.” Says the old clerk as he scratches his pen on the paper she just signed.
And back to the others.
Back in his room, Sorin cr-
No wait. No, I need to see what happens with this cow thing.
“We deliver to all the farms in the valley up to the wetlands, though we no longer send to the Cambrian estates after the explosion…” The old man’s pen hovers for a moment over the page. “Or..” He waits, “For a fee we can deliver to a further farm I suppose…”
Suddenly Rae lights up. She gives the clerk the name of the village next to the monastery. “Care of The Witch Eda.” She says, trying to contain her laughter.
The man stamps a heavy inked ‘Nibiru Farm and Merchant Writ of Trade’ stamp on the paper, and Rae walks away smiling and laughing. “Hey, Ari, guess what I bought!”
Back in his room, Sorin takes a deep calming breath.
He panics. He grabs the letter, crumples it up and shoves it in a pocket of his robes.
Sorin takes a deep calming breath.
He panics. He pulls out the letter, rams it into a desk drawer, closes the drawer and leans against the desk.
Sorin takes a deep calming breath.
He panics. He pulls out the letter, throws it into the back of the wardrobe, slams the door and locks it.
Sorin takes a deep calming breath.
He panics. He falls on all fours and scrambles. He finds the letter, flattens it on the desk. in jagged letters writes, “Who is this?”
“So,” Cypress says, brushing their hair, you got a love let-”
Sorin looks up in a guilty panic, “No, I didn’t, you did! NO! No one did, nothing happened. I-MY TURN.” he grabs his fresh clothes and runs to the bath and Akriss laughs on the floor behind him.
After they hear the latch click, Akris turns to Cypress, “Let’ssss read it!” the winged snake flutters over to the desk and stares at the nervous, shaky ‘Who is this.’
“No,” the cleric sighs, petting the snake, “It’s his stuff and we shouldn’t.”
Akriss stares blankly at him, and then bites the paper. With his mouth full he says, “Wellsss I’mmm r-dding issss,” and he flips the letter over.
After they both get a good long read… and a reread… and third read just to be sure, Cypress carefully flips the paper back over.
We’ll skip Ari and Rae’s bath and Cypress and Sorin walk back through town, because this summary is already quite long, and we’ll just pick up at Ari and Rae walking into the Nort Gate Inn.
We walk in the open doors and up the red carpet, past the large map table, and past the small statue of The Traveler to the three tiered desk. After a moment of waiting, Ari rings the little bell there. We see a pale Drow emerge backwards from the wall behind the desk, and walk backwards before standing in front of us. He takes a few deep breaths, then lays his hand flat on the desk. When he does, his eyes open wide and a smile creases his face. A cheery voice said, “Welcome ye far flung strangers! How may we be of service?
“Umm…” Ari says, staring at the man's gritted teeth, “We need a room.”
“But of course, wanderers! And how many will your party be?”
“Uh.. four” Rae says and starts to notice the veins on the man's face standing out against his skin. “Last time we got a uh, an adventuring room, I think.”
“I apologize, but those are aAAall booked up,” The drow clerk says, his nails digging into the countertop. “We do have four beds open in a shared room, or The Tile Suite is available if you wish?”
Ari and Rae discuss for a second and when they turn back, the drow has tears dripping from his eyes. “Um, yeah, sure, the Tile Suite is fine.. Uh two nights!” Ari says holding up two fingers and trying to hurry this along.
“And do you wish to have all the keys or should we leave the other two here for when your Help arrives?”
Ari and Rae crack a smile thinking of Sorin getting called ‘The Help’ and then their faces go wooden as they think about Cypress, “Uh no, we’ll just take them.”
They exchange coins and keys and we notice a few drops of blood in the corner of the Drow’s eyes and the line of his lips. After he passes over the keys, he slumps over panting, then limps his way back behind the wall.
In the crowded South Road and Turret Street intersection , Cypress takes advantage of the milling masses to Wild Shape into a rat and crawl into Sorin’s sleeve.
Sorin steps off the main part of the Arena Road. He walks towards The Southern Free Stables glancing over his shoulder at ‘The Bins’.
As long as he’s been around, no one has been sure what ‘The Bins’ are, just that they’ve always been the, and some Crown Inspector comes around to check on them from time to time. There are two of them, each a couple stories tall and looking like weird gray and blue grain silos. Their walls are in a kind of curved square as if four circles got merged together. What makes them weird though, is what’s on top. Each one has a 6 foot floating pyramid atop it, held in place with four thick silver chains on their corners that seem to stop the pyramids from lifting into the sky.
Sorin walks on and looks at the chipped paint on the door of the orphanage. For a moment he thinks about going inside and saying hi to Nen and Orangina. The rat paws on his arm remind him he has a job to do and he walks on.
Past the orphanage, he goes up the stairs of the housing building, up the first and second landings, and around the corner. On the last landing he stops and looks around. When he thinks no one will notice, he steps over the wooden railing and onto the little brick ledge between the original third floor roof, and the fourth floor add-on. Gripping the siding, he shimmies his way around the ledge until he can step onto the roof of the church next door.
Careful to only step on the brick that attach to the walls, and not the wooden roof, Sorin makes his way over the church behind the housing building until he finds the rope. He grips it in both hands, pushes his legs against the wall, and climbs.
Halfway up he sees a few marks of torn paper that used to be glued to the wall here. When he stops to look for it, he can just barely make out the letters ‘exy’. The paint has run and washed and bleached it, but he can still see the outline of where the sexy Orc girl was pasted to the wall.
A minute later, he pulls himself over the roof and ducks down behind the little ledge just like he used to. As he skuttle-walks over by the chimney he hears an all too familiar voice.
“So, you came after all.”
'I don’t believe in Hell because it would make Heaven impossible.'
'Because you couldn’t enjoy Heaven if you knew those people were suffering.'
'I think if you’re capable of enjoying an eternal paradise while millions of other people are screaming in agony, forever, you’re a sociopath.'
-Amy Sullivan —David Wong (Jason Pargin), “What The Hell Did I Just Read”
Table talk:
I ended there because of the sense of drama, but don’t worry, it is Matteo.
Rae corrected her AC, since it went up when she leveled up, so it is now actually 14.
The ‘Skinner’s Kit’ that Rae got is basically me homebrewing a skill tree system. The more she focuses on animal collecting, or organ harvesting, or goop slorping, whatever we call it, the better items and the better prices she will get. So this is the next step up; having the tools to properly extract, harvest, or skin pieces from animals and monsters. If she finds a book on the subject, she might learn how to properly store them, or what bits are better to get, or what is and isn’t poisonous to touch (that’s right, there is a higher risk with the higher reward). We’ll see how this works out, but i’m excited.
I got some classic teacher-style foil star stickers that i am going to start using for Inspiration. I think this will end up working better than the coins. When i give one out i will note who got it, in the empty space on the paper, and then cross it off when it’s used. This way i will have a better idea of who has inspiration, to encourage them to use it when things are going wrong. For instance, Sarah got inspiration for helping me with the laser cutting and getting all the pieces prepped, and Nymbus got inspiration for making a point that the walking through town is a great opportunity for ROLE playing and focusing on character bonding.
I forgot the prices for some things like the Nort Gate Inn, or street food or baths and the like, as well as forgetting some names and descriptions of things around town like Herbert and Paisley. To help with this, i am going to try to make a chart of Nibiru stats for myself with names and costs. Hopefully i will also get some better ideas scraped together for things like shopping, so i don’t have a situation like Ari’s armor. If anyone has any good resources for this, please let me know.
