Welcome to Falas

Session 22

 * Google Document (8-23-2019)

The party heads to Grinlief’s office, where they find him at his desk, not really sure where we went, but happy to see us. One of his arms is in a cast, though. Things have been wild in Vilais Watch since we left, and we tell him we’ve had a rough one too. He offers to trade stories over tea. Kilwin accepts, but Reides was hoping to drink something a little heavier. Grinlief explains that the Dark Oak Tavern is closed for the next week, since the Vizinis are dealing with the fallout from the accusations against Drakov. We agree to postpone alcoholic drinks again, and Grinlief goes into another room to make the tea.

He comes back with a copper tea set and we all take our cups. Kilwin tries to explain that, like he said before we ushered Grinlief out of the mayor’s manor, we were being pursued by dark forces, mostly undead creatures, but that we’ve taken care of the immediate problem. Grinlief starts his story by trying to make his encounter with the ghoul sound impressive. Kilwin asks if he’d like him to take a look at the wound, which Grinlief does. He unwraps his arm and Kilwin examines it, discovering inflamed claw marks from the ghoul’s paralyzing venom. Kilwin casts Lesser Restoration and Grinlief’s arm returns to normal. Grinlief thanks him, but says he can’t really pay him for his help. Kilwin is fine with this and kind of feels responsible for Grinlief getting attacked in the first place! Grinlief does suggest we talk with the head guard though, since he has something for us in return for our help apprehending the mayor. Kilwin asks if the mayor is still alive, and Grinlief explains that he’s still awaiting trial in a specially constructed cage made out of silver. Reides and Kilwin are alarmed, but Grinlief tells them that it’s not like the entire cage is silver, so the mayor’s not being constantly burned by it. Grinlief is in charge of the mayor’s prosecution and he feels really confident about his case. Marcyra sniffs the tea to try to figure out what kind it is. It has a woody aroma, and she realizes that it’s dark oak tea, which is a local export. Reides asks Grinlief what kind of tea it is and he explains that it’s dark oak tea, which is a local export. Erak asks about the position of mayor and, learning that there’s going to be election, encourages Grinlief to try for it. Grinlief isn’t sure it’s the job for him, but he says he’ll think about it!

Grinlief continues his story and tells us how, after he recovered from the ghoul’s paralysis, he wrapped up his arm and went back to the mayor’s manor, where he found the mayor unconscious and his maid dead. Grinlief thinks that the mayor killed her, but Reides and Kilwin are skeptical. Kilwin tells Grinlief that he thinks Tyrian killed Meredith. Erak chugs the rest of his tea, so Grinlief offers to pour him another cup. While Grinlief is out of the room, Erak quietly tells Kilwin to stay away from that subject for now and that they’ll talk about it later, which confuses Kilwin a lot. Instead of explaining, Erak takes Reides’s cup of tea and chugs that too. Grinlief comes back and Erak tells him that he just really loves tea and to give the new cup to Reides. Reides burns his tongue on it a little. Grinlief directs us to a guard post west of his office and explains that he doesn’t have the resources to put up a reward and that the townsfolk pooled the gold at the urging of the Vizinis. Reides asks where we can stay since the tavern is closed and Grinlief offers to let us stay in his office overnight, but suggests we check at the tavern first, since the Vizinis might let us stay anyway.

We thank Grinlief and head for the guard post. Erak considers trying to get in through the window, but we just knock on the door instead. One of the guards we ran past while fleeing Vilais Watch answers, half-armored. We tell him that Grinlief sent us to collect the reward, and he’s a little exasperated at the thought of Grinlief, but Kilwin can tell that the guard doesn’t hate him or anything. He hands us a bag containing 100 gold and thanks us. We thank him! Erak suggests giving part of the reward to Grinlief since he helped us a lot. We all pretty much agree with him! We decide to stop by the Dark Oak Tavern first though, in case we also need to ask Grinlief if we can sleep in his office.

We knock on the tavern door and Drakov answers. He’s very happy to see us! Reides gives him a hug, which Drakov returns. He tells us we’re welcome to stay the night at the tavern. We’re very happy to see him alive! We also briefly discuss Meredith’s death and find out she was decapitated- Reides is just glad that wasn’t him! Drakov leaves to tell Natasha and Vladimir we’re here. Natasha hugs all of us (except Slumberjack, who prefers space, which Natasha respects). She thanks us for our help and tells us we can stay as long as we like (within reason) before showing us to our rooms. Kilwin writes a letter before going to bed.

The night passes uneventfully and it’s now Firstlight 14. The weather is still clear and the townsfolk have started to leave their homes and get about their business. Erak asks where he can get some dark oak tea for the road, and Natasha gives him ten bags of it. We make plans to stop at Grinlief’s, and then Kilwin potentially wants to talk to the mayor. We head back to Grinlief’s office, where he’s a little surprised to see us back so soon. Marcyra jokes that we just missed him, but he takes her seriously. Kilwin, who has been handed the bag of gold, explains that we couldn’t really have apprehended the mayor without his help, so we wanted to give him part of the reward. Grinlief is surprised but very appreciative, and also apparently not really in a position to turn down money. Erak gives Grinlief his share of the reward, so Kilwin gives Erak half of his share. We also attempt to figure out whether or not Grinlief is taller than Marcyra. We determine that he’s taller than Erak and shorter than Slumberjack, and also that Grinlief doesn’t actually know how tall he is, but we end up with inconclusive results. Grinlief is very confused and also isn’t sure what science is, but he’s a good sport about it! As we leave, Grinlief tells us to stay safe.

Kilwin finds a merchant in town who’s going through Cowersby anyway and pays him to deliver a letter to Glasny Whitehall, who lives at the Temple of Alethus there. He rejoins the rest of the party and we start trying to find the mayor. We check the cages by the mayor’s mansion, but they’re empty. Kilwin asks a guard, who calls Irwin a scumbag and directs the party to the town square. We find the mayor inside his cage, covered with rotten fruit. We feel kind of bad, with varying degrees of sympathy for the mayor and the fruit. Kilwin almost immediately thinks this was a bad idea, but keeps going with it anyway. The mayor asks if we’re here to gloat (Marcyra jokes that she is), but Kilwin says that the mayor is probably going to die soon and he was wondering if he wanted to talk about that with someone, acknowledging that he’s probably not the best person to do that, considering he’s partially responsible for the mayor’s impending death. The mayor thinks that Alethus has forsaken him since he became a werewolf and that if he’s going down, he won’t go alone. Kilwin asks what made him think that Alethus has forsaken him. The mayor partially transforms as a demonstration and says that no god would take him like this. Reides says that the mayor might have been forsaken for being an ass! He also points out that Drakov is a good guy and he doesn’t think any god is about to forsake him. Kilwin argues that the mayor is still clearly a person, werewolf curse or no, so Alethus wouldn’t forsake him just for being a werewolf. Reides turns the subject to Meredith. Irwin explains that Meredith was his maid and he turned her. She wanted to help him, even though he didn’t understand why. Marcyra hates literally everything about this conversation and wishes she hadn’t tagged along! Kilwin tells the mayor that we don’t think he killed her, and the mayor agrees it wouldn’t make much sense for him to do that, but that it’s easier to just blame the monster. Kilwin tells him there was more than one monster in the town that night. The mayor says that he appreciates that Meredith stayed by his side regardless. As we leave him, Kilwin tells him that he hopes Alethus has mercy on him.

As we leave, Erak decides that it’s time to clue Kilwin and Reides in on who really killed Meredith. He gestures toward Slumberjack! Slumberjack tries to play it off, but Erak persists until they punch him. They also bring out their wings, which frighten Erak and Marcyra. Slumberjack asks Erak if he’d like to retract his statement, but Erak just points out that Slumberjack is acting extremely guilty. They try to punch him again, but he dodges this one. Marcyra is mostly confused why we care that Meredith died. Slumberjack says they did it to protect the party from getting pursued by werewolves on top of revenants, and asks if Erak just feels bad because they’re both dogs. Erak points out that leaving a corpse by a revenant is a really bad and dangerous idea. He drops his quarterstaff, rages, and punches Slumberjack in the gut before breaking their nose. Kilwin pushes his way past Reides and Marcyra (getting frightened by Necrotic Shroud in the process) and tries to use magic to calm Slumberjack and Erak down. It works on Erak, but not Slumberjack, who’s still extremely mad! Kilwin tries to ask everyone to slow down and explain what’s going on. Slumberjack lashes out and shoves Erak down, telling him he’s free and can’t understand, and accuses Kilwin of not really knowing what’s right and wrong but insisting he does anyway. They also admit that they were the one who defiled the God of Death’s altar. Erak says the only reason he hasn’t turned them in for any of the stuff they’ve done here is because they’ve saved his life multiple times and accuses them of using the party’s well-being as an excuse for killing Meredith. He’s willing to agree that they don’t understand each other, gets up, and walks off. Slumberjack tells Kilwin that their wings come from somewhere they can’t control and that he at least chooses to worship his god. Reides is upset that this whole thing was kept secret and says that when he keeps secrets, they at least don’t have anything to do with the rest of the party. He runs after Erak. Over Marcyra’s protests that she thinks she gets where Slumberjack is coming from, Slumberjack walks off, saying that it’s this or death for them, and they may as well leave the party since there’s nothing here for them. Marcyra runs after them, with Kilwin close behind.

Erak hears Reides behind him and slows his pace a little to let him catch up. He’s still mad and needs a drink, as does Reides. As they head back to the tavern, Erak takes out his axe and cuts his chest a little, which seems to calm him down. Reides is extremely alarmed and concerned, and Erak says he’ll explain over a drink. After buying a bottle of whiskey from Drakov, Erak asks Reides what he knows about drow. Reides knew what drow looked like before meeting Erak, but otherwise, he doesn’t know much. Erak explains that drow are uniformly awful and that their society is constantly on the verge of falling apart. Their main things are killing in the name of their god Lloth and bloodline. Erak was immediately considered an embarrassment to other drow and the only reason he wasn’t killed at birth was because of how his mother would have reacted. Erak considers being abandoned by his mother the best thing to ever happen to him. He was traded to a carvan of deep gnomes, which was eventually attacked by a tribe of goliaths (who Reides also does not know about). The goliath huntmaster decided to adopt Erak. Unfortunately, he was an embarrassment to the goliaths too because he just didn’t get it. Erak explains that goliaths have markings on their bodies that they believe are tied to their fates, and since Erak didn’t have any, the goliaths called him “fateless” and he was nothing to them. Reides very strongly protests that Erak isn’t nothing! Erak’s adopted father made him promise to never mark his skin, but he says he’s not great at taking orders! He doesn’t need the pain from a cut to rage (he can do it at will), but his scars are a promise to himself that he won’t be bound by fate. Eventually, Erak was exiled from the goliath clan, which he’s not ready to talk about just yet, but the last thing the goliaths saw was Erak drawing his axe across himself in front of their high priest. He also almost starved to death immediately after he left, but that’s a different story. Considering all that, Erak really doesn’t like to hear that he doesn’t understand whatever Slumberjack is dealing with! Reides is extremely supportive and really respects Erak for taking control of his life like that. He says he went through something similar, although not on the same level, when he decided to leave the tritons. Erak encourages Reides to drink, and Reides continues to talk about how he felt conflicted about it, but ultimately doesn’t regret it. There wasn’t any murder involved, but he has dealt with overbearing people trying to force him into stuff he didn’t want, so he can relate to a lot of what Erak talked about. Reides also really appreciates Erak telling the rest of the party about what Slumberjack did, but he also wants to apologize to Slumberjack for getting mad that they keep secrets when he keeps secrets of his own. Erak questions how people can be considered responsible for their actions at all if there’s no such thing as free will before he and Reides unwind a little by trying to give Pepega some whiskey. Drakov stops them, real owl or no, and gives them some “enchanted water” to give to her.

As Slumberjack walks away, they hear two people following them, one of whom is clearly wearing heavy armor. Marcyra says that she thinks she understands what Slumberjack is dealing with and that they don’t have to go. Slumberjack stops and takes off their mask, revealing their broken nose. They say that they’re done talking now. They say they may as well leave because all they seem to do is cause problems for the rest of the party. Marcyra points out that if Slumberjack wasn’t around, she’d get hit more often, which makes Slumberjack accuse her of only valuing them as a buffer. Marcyra explains that she also gets a voice telling her to do bad things and things that other people told her were bad after she did them. Like the voice compelling Slumberjack to do their crimes, it lives inside Marcyra and she’s had it since she was born. Slumberjack insists that she can’t know what it’s like to have something tell her to her to kill her family, do it, like it, and then do it more. Marcyra is still pretty sure she gets it! Unlike Slumberjack, Marcyra had a home, although she feels like she can’t go back to it anymore. Slumberjack says it was a privilege to have ever had that in the first place. They say that they have a body count high enough to fill Vilais Watch, but their voice still isn’t satisfied and never will be. They take some of their armor off, revealing layers on layers of scars. Marcyra unwraps some of the bandages on her arms and slightly lifts her skirt, revealing scars on her arms and legs. Slumberjack asks if Marcyra still has her voice. She does, although she’s learned over the years that she doesn’t have to listen to it. Slumberjack’s has abandoned them and they don’t understand why. They do things like murder and shrine desecration to try to please the voice again, but sometimes it does things like tell them to kill Erak or Jorah. Slumberjack asks Kilwin (who has been very quiet this whole time because he realized he was totally out of his depth very early in this conversation) if he knows about celestials. He knows a little, and Slumberjack asks where he thought their wings came from. He sheepishly admits that he thought it was a drow thing that he didn’t know about, but realizes that’s not the case now. Slumberjack says that this is bigger than any of us. They ask Kilwin if he thinks he can kill a god, which is not something he’s ever really wanted to do! He heals their nose though and offers to help them how he can. Slumberjack thanks him for the temporary relief, but he keeps talking about how he apparently doesn’t actually know Slumberjack that well, but the time they’ve spent traveling together has to count for something and he doesn’t want to see them hurt! He doesn’t know how to help Slumberjack at this point, but he wants to try because he want them to keep suffering. He also extends the same offer to Marcyra. Slumberjack isn’t sure how to react, and Marcyra is just startled. Slumberjack asks if Kilwin would kill them if that was the only way to help them. He really doesn’t want to, and is pretty sure there’s a lot of things to investigate and try before we get to that point! Marcyra offers to promise to kill Slumberjack, but they would rather die by their own hand and were just trying to see Kilwin’s limits. Slumberjack tells Kilwin and Marcyra to keep all this secret and just tell the others that they were just really mean and yelled at them. Kilwin’s not sure about that, but he’ll keep the secret! Slumberjack leaves to spend some time alone and pray for forgiveness, and Kilwin tells them that he hopes they find it.

Session 23

 * Google Document (8-30-2019)

Jorah enters the Dark Oak Tavern, apparently recovering from a bout of heavy drinking, and finds Reides and Erak getting more drunk. Jorah is down for some hair of the dog, so he joins them, taking a drink right out of the bottle. The three of them get progressively more drunk as they talk. Jorah, noticing that half the party is missing, asks what happened this time and if Tyrian got out or something. Thankfully, Tyrian is still in the bag, but Erak admits he might have made the party split up and chugs some whiskey. Reides is pretty sure Kilwin isn’t actually mad at them and isn’t sure about Marcyra, but Slumberjack was really mad. Jorah asks if Erak fought them, and Erak responds by saying that a nose was broken. Reides and Erak both showcase their unbroken noses. Jorah wonders if they should find Slumberjack and get them drunk too, since that might solve this particular problem. Erak likes that plan, but Reides isn’t sure what to say to them and Erak isn’t really sure what to do either. Jorah admits he barely knows any of us, but Erak tells him that all he needs to know is that we’re sexy beasts, which drives Jorah to take another drink. Jorah wonders if Slumberjack can drink through their mask. We’re pretty sure they can, and everyone is impressed by it anew. Julius watches them getting more and more drunk disapprovingly, but Jorah says she’s used to this. Erak gets very excited by her presence, but Jorah tells him that he’s already tried giving her alcohol and she won’t drink it. Erak tries to give Pepega whiskey again and does a very bad job of trying to hide it from Drakov and is ultimately unsuccessful. Jorah is willing to send Julius after the scent of one of the missing party members, but no one has anything on hand for scent. Erak suggests using some of Slumberjack’s blood that’s still on his pant leg, which Jorah agrees would work. Erak tries to start casting Speak With Animals to ask Julius directly and tells Jorah and Reides to keep talking with each other, but he’s fully drunk at this point. Jorah asks Reides why his hair is green, and Reides says he was born with it. Erak calls Reides’s hair seaweed, so Reides gets a little mad and lightly shoves him and Erak pretends to be knocked over. Reides says that one of his brothers has blue hair, briefly mentions having two brothers, and then says his brother Viglis is an ass and that he doesn’t want to talk about him. Erak makes fun of Viglis’s name, saying someone named Viglis has to be an asshole and that it sounds like Wiggles. Reides thinks that’s very good and wants to call him that now. The group also takes aim at the name Hubert. Jorah starts getting concerned about Erak’s ritual and isn’t sure he could handle Julius speaking in a people language, especially since Julius has peed on his bed before. Reides tries to convince him that’s a sign of trust. Erak does a little dance, which makes Jorah more concerned. Erak tries to shush him and picks up Julius before declaring that he’s too drunk for this and he can’t do the ritual. The group decides to let Julius track Slumberjack’s scent the normal way, although Erak complains that he didn’t think about needing to walk around and follow Julius. Erak buys 3 bottles of whiskey from Drakov for the road, leaves him a huge pile of gold, and picks up Reides and holds him over the counter so he can grab the bottles. They leave without waiting for change, Jorah carrying Julius, Erak carrying Reides, and Reides carrying 3 new bottles of whiskey.

Julius starts to lose Slumberjack’s scent around the scene of the fight and she’s torn between two scent paths. She also gets really distracted by some food carts. The group starts to wander around, calling out for Slumberjack, and eventually come within earshot of Kilwin and Marcyra. Kilwin sees them drunkenly ambling around and is immediately concerned, but Marcyra is pretty sure they’re fine. Erak and Jorah try to make up a story about how there’s an even worse undead thing after them named Byrian, but it’s pretty obvious they’re just drunk. Erak is fascinated by a beetle by the road, which convinces Kilwin that there’s no threat going on here. Marcyra says that Slumberjack said to tell the rest of the party that they were very mean and yelled at her and Kilwin, but she admits that Kilwin has already decided to not say that. Kilwin says that Slumberjack left to pray and take some more time to themself, but that they’re planning to come back. He asks Erak if he’s fine with that, and Erak says that he’s fine and he’s honestly too drunk to really care about anything. He offers the whiskey to Marcyra and Kilwin. Marcyra takes a sip and immediately gets drunk. Kilwin is tempted because it’s been a rough one, but he’d rather get to the tavern first! Erak is very comfy on the street and Reides is a fan of the bugs outside. Jorah calls everyone lightweights as he gets comfortable and starts hugging his dog. Kilwin insists though, so we start to get ourselves together to head back to tavern, if only because there’s more alcohol there. Julius has to more or less carry Jorah while helping Kilwin shepherd everyone there.

Back at the tavern, Erak’s gold is still on the counter, untouched. Erak starts to worry that it wasn’t enough, but Drakov explains that he was just concerned! Jorah finishes off a bottle and officially becomes smashed. Kilwin takes a drink too, but stays more or less sober. Drakov goes through the pile of gold and hands most of it back to Erak. Erak gets very excited and throws it in the air to celebrate getting so much gold. As he’s rolling in it, Marcyra takes one of the gold pieces. Kilwin explains that he’s pretty sure that Slumberjack is open to working on the murder thing, and that they’re definitely going through some stuff he doesn’t really understand, but he’s confident that Slumberjack will tell the others about it when they’re ready to. Marcyra is eager to just forget about today, and Jorah suggests more whiskey as a way to do that. She admits she’s typically been more of a wine person, but she’s starting to prefer this whiskey. Reides says that the whiskey is the best thing the surface has ever made. Erak asks if they have alcohol underwater, and Reides explains they can’t drink anything but there are sea herbs they can eat to get high. Erak is very excited and wants to try the sea herbs at some point! Reides also confirms that tritons have bussies. Kilwin, totally lost, takes another drink and finally gets tipsy enough to ask Reides what a bussy is. Reides slaps his own ass to demonstrate. Kilwin is a little embarrassed but excited that he learned something new! Jorah takes a nap, leaving Julius to watch on disapprovingly. Marcyra falls in love with the whiskey and starts cuddling with one of the bottles. Reides mentions that it was one of the first things he drank once he came to the surface and that he really enjoys being able to drink fluids now. Erak remembers hearing that humans turn red when they drink, and since Jorah is asleep, he decides to test this out with Kilwin. He leans in a little close and pokes Kilwin’s face, which does turn red. At Erak’s urging, Kilwin takes another drink, but doesn’t manage to get any drunker or redder. Erak is a little disappointed!

It’s only a little past noon, but we decide we can’t really leave Vilais Watch since Jorah is asleep. Reides asks if there’s carriages that they could take, but Kilwin is pretty sure there won’t be here. Reides explains that there’s carriages underwater, pulled by giant sea horses called hippocampi. He mentions that his brother Viglis has one and calls Viglis stupid again. Erak calls out to Drakov and tells him he loves him. Drakov is confused and Erak realizes he forgot to ask his actual question. Drakov doesn’t know what hippocampi are, but explains there are coach cabs that travel with caravans that we could hire out. Kilwin is worried that traveling by carriage would make it too hard for Slumberjack to catch up with them. Drakov tells him that the carriages aren’t actually that fast, but Erak is thinking about spending another night in a bed and likes that idea more. Now that the party is spending another day in Vilais Watch and they are drinking, Kilwin gets the idea to invite Grinlief over. He asks Drakov if it’s okay to bring one more person in, but Drakov would prefer he didn’t. Kilwin accepts this, but he’s a little disappointed! Marcyra is relieved because she’s not sure she could be nice to Grinlief in this state. Kilwin defends Grinlief a little and Marcyra admits he’s not that bad, but she has an image to uphold.

Since Grinlief can’t join in on the fun and the party has a full day ahead of them, we take an hour to try to sober up. Kilwin and Reides get more or less sober, Erak and Marcyra get less drunk, and Jorah is still drunk and also sleeping on his dog. Erak asks Drakov to make some tea for us, but to maybe hold off on Jorah’s cup for now. We decide we can’t leave now since Jorah’s still asleep, but Kilwin suggests leaving a note at the tavern if we have to go before Slumberjack comes back. Marcyra expresses some doubts about her part in that conversation, but Kilwin tries to reassure her that she did a good job talking to Slumberjack and he was glad she was there to say that stuff. Kilwin reflects on the fact that half the party got arrested in Vilais Watch. He really wishes he was in the other half! Marcyra is surprised she didn’t get arrested and mentions that Tyrian bought her way out the last time she did. Reides mumbles under his breath that he was arrested once back home. (Meanwhile, Jorah is muttering in his sleep that he doesn’t want to go back.) Speaking of imprisonment, Reides asks Kilwin if he still wanted to hold onto the bag of holding. Kilwin agrees and takes the bag so that Reides doesn’t have a guy who wants to kill him directly on his person anymore. Erak asks for some more details on Reides getting arrested. Reides explains that it wasn’t so much that he committed a crime that his dad didn’t approve of him going to the surface and was trying to stop him. He really hated it and it kind of puts his damper on his excitement at the prospect of getting arrested on the surface. Marcyra offers Reides a high five because they both have awful dads, which Reides hesitantly returns.

We try to wake up Jorah. Erak and Marcyra start poking him and Reides briefly pinches his nose. Eventually, Jorah jolts awake, saying again that he’s not going back. He is, in fact, still drunk. Kilwin is a little concerned, but Jorah insists he’s ready to travel! He’s still drunk, but his horse isn’t. Erak is forbidden from getting Jorah’s horse drunk and he gets a little sad that we won’t let him get any animals drunk. Kilwin is also reluctant to leave without giving Slumberjack more time to cool down, although he’s still committed to the note idea if we need it. Marcyra isn’t sure that Slumberjack is planning to come back at all, but Kilwin is pretty sure that they have every intention of doing so! Reides says that friends fight sometimes, but that Slumberjack is our friend and they’re nice and help us even if they have done some extra murder. Marcyra points out that murdering happens, like with the goblins to try to defend Slumberjack being mad enough to leave. Reides and Kilwin agree with her! Reides is still very confident they’ll be back and we’ll finish making up!

Erak teases Jorah a bit, which makes Jorah ask if Erak wants to find out what it’s like to have a crossbow bolt stuck in an appendage he’d miss. Kilwin attempts to calm him down, because he really does not want to have to try to reattach Erak’s pinky toe. Since we’re not leaving just yet, Kilwin mentions that he was hoping to fix Grado’s door since he’s learned how to cast Mending. Erak and Reides wanna see this! Marcyra volunteers to stay behind and chaperone Jorah, who is being a menace. Marcyra doesn’t want to make eye contact with Kilwin, since she feels bad that he overheard what she said about hearing voices, but he’s more or less oblivious to this.

Kilwin knocks on Grado’s door, but no one appears to be home. The group goes around to the back and finds the door loosely propped on his frame. Kilwin casts Mending on each of the hinges, reattaching the door. It’s a nice surprise for Grado to find later! Instead of waiting for Grado to come home to explain how his door got fixed, Kilwin, Reides, and Erak go back to the tavern to make sure Jorah hasn’t shot anyone yet. Kilwin mentions that he’s never been that drunk before and asks if he said anything embarrassing. Reides assures him he was fine, and Erak said he got a little red, but otherwise he was mostly normal. Back at the tavern, the party decides against setting out since it’s starting to get a little late (although Jorah and Erak consider the wolves coming out at night a good reason to get out there). At the end of the day, the party turns in for another night at the Dark Oak Tavern.

In the morning, Kilwin asks Natasha if Slumberjack came back last night. She says they didn’t, so Kilwin asks her to give them a note if they come back to the tavern. Jorah is hungover and mad about it. He asks if we still wanted to get a carriage but says that Gin is a riding horse, so he’s not sure he can pull all of us. We decide to just walk to make it easier for Slumberjack to catch up!

The next day on the road is Firstlight 16, which is Reides’s birthday! The rest of the party congratulates him on being hatched 30 years ago! Kilwin rummages through his bag and ends up sticking a full-sized candle in a cupcake-sized bread ration that he got from Pat. Reides is very confused at first, but Marcyra explains that it’s a tradition, although the baked good is usually sweeter and the candle is usually smaller. You blow out the candle and make a wish! Kilwin admits that not all of the wishes he made this way have come true, but that it’s just a nice thing for luck. Marcyra asks if he needs help, but Kilwin uses his tinderbox to light the candle. Reides blows out the flame and starts eating the bread. Kilwin also gets a book out of his backpack and gives it to Reides. It’s titled Fish Tales and Fish Tails and contains a collection of fisherman stories, some of which involve tritons. Kilwin admits he’s not sure how accurate it is, but Reides is excited to learn about surfacer perspectives on the sea and he really likes it! Reides also keeps the candle for sentimental purposes. Erak suggests hitting the whiskey again, but we end up agreeing to hold off on that until we get to Falas.

Four days pass (4/20!), and the party starts to see more farms and fields of wheat as they get closer to Falas. The paths also change from dust to cobblestone. Also, there’s a distinct cow smell as the farms get denser. We’re about a day away from Falas and can see a large structure in the distance, but dusk is approaching, Slumberjack still hasn’t caught up, and we’re close to an inn called the Traveler’s Boon. We decide to check it out! No one is inside the inn except for the innkeeper, an average-looking human man. He welcomes us and tells us we were wise to stop, since this is the last place to stop before Falas and guards have been running off travelers who try to sleep on the road. None of us like this! The innkeeper tries to think of a word to describe the situation, but can’t come up with it. Kilwin can tell he’s genuinely forgetting the word, but still isn’t sure what he’s getting at! Reides wonders why the inn is empty. The innkeeper says that the rooms are 2 gold per night. Kilwin is pretty sure this is why! We consider taking our chances with the guards, but Jorah is really hungry and running out of rations, so he decides to stay and the rest of us stick with him. Jorah goes to see about getting a stable for his horse before the innkeeper leaves to get our ale and steak started. Reides is visibly uncomfortable with how fancy this place is, but Jorah props his feet on the table, which makes the innkeeper upset until Jorah stops. Reides asks the innkeeper for his name and, after some hesitation and coughing, we learn that his name is Donatello. Jorah uses Primeval Awareness to see if the man is some kind of creature, but he appears to just be a regular guy! Mostly though, Jorah is just really hungry.

Session 24

 * Google Document (9-6-19)

Marcyra jokingly says we should revolt and take over the inn. Reides doesn’t wanna do that, but admits that he could use the money! Donatello asks what the rest of the party wants to eat, since Jorah’s already ordered steak. Kilwin just wants food, and the rest of the party ends up getting roasted pheasant. Reides doesn’t know what pheasant is, but Kilwin tries to reassure him it’s just poultry. Donatello leaves to put in our orders, and Marcyra almost immediately starts expressing some skepticism about all this. She wonders if this is like the Ogre’s Pot and there’s only Donatello here, although Reides and Erak insist that Bel’s brothers were real. We all pretty much agree this place is too fancy, and Marcyra jokes that she’ll steal some stuff to sell, but Kilwin believes her completely and begs her not to. Jorah’s steak comes out first and it’s not poisoned, but it apparently tastes awful! It’s mostly burnt, but he tries to pick around at the non-burnt parts. Kilwin offers him some water. When the pheasant comes out, Erak and Marcyra’s are undercooked, Kilwin’s is burnt, and Reides’s looks okay. Erak and Kilwin try to make due with their bad dinners. Kilwin offers the people with undercooked food some of his burnt pheasant, and Marcyra takes him up on it. Reides offers some of his to Jorah, but Jorah almost chokes on it because it’s absolutely coated in pepper. Reides blows on it and some of the spices actually come off. Donatello comes back to ask how the food is, and Marcyra tells him it’s awful. Kilwin says it’s true but she shouldn’t say it! Donatello goes to the back to have a word with the chef and the party hears two distinct voices in heated argument from the kitchen. Reides hopes we’re not in trouble, but Marcyra is pretty sure we’re fine since it’s not like we’re asking for a refund or anything. Marcyra and Reides go to eavesdrop. A rough voice from the kitchen says that this is his dream and blames us for being too picky about the food, but Donatello says he has to learn how to actually cook. When Donatello says he can’t deal with the chef, Marcyra and Reides take that as their cue to go back to the table.

Donatello comes back as soon as they sit, and he apologizes to us. He explains that this chef is new and offers us some bread left over from the old chef, although he admits it might be stale. Kilwin is fine with this, since the new chef is still learning! Reides asks how long ago the old chef left, and Donatello tells us it’s been two weeks. The bread is going to be stale! We let him get it for us anyway, though. The bread that Donatello gives to Kilwin and Marcyra has mold on it and is probably not safe to eat. Reides decides to just eat a ration, so Kilwin takes his bread. It’s really hard and difficult to eat. Reides suggests that Erak go back to help out in the kitchen, but Erak is pretty sure he’d be murdered for showing disrespect. Donatello confirms that the chef prefers to have the kitchen to himself. He offers to show us to our rooms, so we go upstairs. There’s a single room for everyone. Reides asks if some of us can room together, and Donatello says we technically can, but there’s only one bed in each room. Marcyra just immediately goes into a room and closes the door. Reides doesn’t really want to sleep in a room alone, but he says he’ll have a sleepover with Pepega then. Kilwin offers to stay in Reides’s room and sleep in his bedroll, and Reides accepts. Erak and Jorah take individual rooms though. Kilwin checks for a lock on the door for once, but there isn’t one. Marcyra checks out her bed and it seems clean as far as she can tell. Reides stays up a little to read a nice story about a mermaid and a sea giant from Fish Tails and Fish Tales, which makes him feel a little more comfortable.

Kilwin and Reides are woken up in the middle of the night by the door to their room opening slightly. Reides screams, but Kilwin just asks who’s there. It’s Donatello, and he says he’s checking on them to make sure they’re able to rest since he feels bad about what happened with the food. Kilwin discerns that he’s hiding something. He asks Donatello if he’s checked on anyone else in the party and tells him that he shouldn’t check on anyone he hasn’t already, since they would not like it and might not be as nice about it. For his safety! Donatello apologizes again and leaves, and his light disappears from the hallway. With Donatello gone, Reides freaks it. He and Kilwin double-check that their things are still there and start gathering them up, with Kilwin paying extra attention to the Bag of Holding. Kilwin opens the door and finds a burly half-orc man in the hallway, who immediately tells him to go back to bed. Kilwin says he doesn’t want to! The man asks if they have a problem, and Kilwin says he hopes not and makes up a very unconvincing lie about how he has to talk to his friends about something important immediately. The man doesn’t buy it one bit. Reides says it’s about his “condition,” the man does believe that Reides looks sickly, but the man still won’t let them leave and closes the door in Kilwin’s face. Kilwin and Reides do not like this one bit and try to figure out how to gather the party. Kilwin doesn’t have anything, but Reides has rope. Kilwin likes that idea, but isn’t sure how they’d get back into the inn. Kilwin knocks on the wall between their room and Jorah’s to talk to him and hears a loud crash. Reides is extremely concerned about Jorah, but Kilwin tries to convince him (and himself) that Jorah was just startled and fell out of bed. Reides remembers that he can send Pepega to try to gather everyone, opens the window, wargs into Pepega, and flies over to Jorah’s window.

Reides sees that Jorah is on the floor by his bed, holding his head. Julius is sniffing at him. Pepega pecks at the window, which gets Jorah’s attention, but confuses him. He opens his window and tells Pepega it’s nice to see her. She shakes her head. Jorah asks if it’s not nice to see him. Pepega stomps her foot. Jorah wonders why Pepega came over if she’s just gonna be rude. Reides tries to appeal to Julius, who tilts her head and barks at Jorah. Pepega comes into the room, and Jorah opens his door. He sees the half-orc and tells him that his friend’s bird is in his room and acting strangely. He asks if he can take her for a walk. Reides gives up on getting through to Jorah and flies over to Marcyra’s room. Pepega pecks on the window, which wakes up Marcyra. She panics before opening the window and asking if anyone is dying. Pepega shrugs. Marcyra looks out the window and mostly sees the surrounding farms, but also notices a bin with a lot of flies around it and that the window to Reides and Kilwin’s room is open. She shouts out to them, but neither of them can hear her from their room. Reides returns to his own body and tells Kilwin that he might have to write a note to tell Marcyra what’s happening. Marcyra casts Message, though, and manages to contact Reides, who tells her about Donatello and the half-orc man in the hallway. Reides sends Pepega to try to wake up Erak. Marcyra goes through her stuff and discovers that the bracelet that she uses as an arcane focus is missing. She immediately freaks out because that’s on her body and tells Reides about it. Reides relays this information to Kilwin. Reides discovers that Erak is still sleeping, sprawled out on his bed. He also learns that Erak sleeps in the nude when he has his own room in an inn. Pepega pecks on the window to wake him up and then goes back to Marcyra to try to get her to Message him. Once we all figure that out, Marcyra fills Erak in on what’s going on and Erak checks his stuff for missing belongings. He finds out that Qbby is missing, immediately rages, and kicks his door open as he tries to track them down.

Marcyra starts gathering her things, grabbing her staff as her backup arcane focus. She leaves her room and sees Erak completely naked. She’s very distressed and wonders if they stole Erak’s clothes! Erak walks up to the half-orc, yelling and asking where Qbby is. Kilwin opens the door again and sees the half-orc staring down at something and follows his gaze to Erak’s dick. Like Marcyra, he also gets flustered and refuses to look at Erak because he’s gay, but in the opposite direction. Kilwin asks if we can please de-escalate this conflict, because he has a way to find Qbby and he doesn’t particularly want to fight this half-orc man. This is bad, but we can still work it out! In response, the half-orc turns back to the stairs, announces “Don, I’m killin’ ‘em!,” and pulls out a spear to attack Erak. It hurts! Jorah steps out of his room, sees the half-orc and naked Erak, and just goes back into his room. Marcyra forces herself to look at Erak so she can aim her spells. Kilwin casts Calm Emotions and says a whole bunch of stuff about resolving this peacefully that no one really listens to. The half-orc seems to relax and starts walking back toward the stairs. Erak, unaffected by the spell, attacks him though, so he turns back and attacks Erak again. Jorah, hearing the fighting in the hallway, comes out of his room again and joins in. Reides also leaves his room, nods his appreciation of Erak’s dick, and casts Ray of Frost on the half-orc to help out. Kilwin sheepishly touches Erak’s shoulder while not looking at him to cast Cure Wounds, since he’s looking very rough at this point. He casts Spiritual Weapon and gives the half-orc a whack. The half-orc, who is looking rough, continues focusing his attacks on Erak. Reides considers attacking the half-orc again, but he thinks of Tyrian and freezes up in fear instead. Kilwin tries to knock out the half-orc, but can’t hit him again. The half-orc succeeds in knocking out Erak though. Jorah kills the half-orc with a crossbow bolt. Marcyra checks his body for her bracelet, but he doesn’t have it.

Kilwin heals Erak and says we can’t stay here now. Erak leaves to get dressed. When he comes back, he tells Kilwin not to cast Calm Emotions on him again, and Kilwin agrees not to. Kilwin casts Locate Object to try to find Qbby. He discovers that Qbby is downstairs and follows the spell to the kitchen, where Donatello is cowering. He begs us not to kill him and tells us our stuff is behind the cabinet. Marcyra and Kilwin move it out of the way, and Marcyra finds a little hole with a bunch of stuff inside it, including her bracelet and Qbby. She takes her bracelet back and returns Qbby to Erak. She also finds three copper necklaces, a fancier amulet, a familiar-looking red vial, and a scroll of parchment. She casts Detect Magic and discovers that the amulet, the vial, and the parchment are magic items. Marcyra takes the amulet and necklaces, and gives the scroll and vial to Reides. Reides is a little conflicted, since this stuff is cool, but it was stolen from other people who stayed at the inn! Kilwin asks Donatello what he knew about the half-orc. It turns out his name was Festus and he was Donatello’s partner in crime. They took over the inn two weeks ago, after the owners “went on vacation.” Reides isn’t sure what we should do with Donatello, who is still terrified of us, and asks what surfacers do with people who steal things. Kilwin is pretty sure they usually go to jail. Reides feels electrical energy coming from the scroll, which turns out to contain the Thunderwave spell. Donatello explains that he’s not sure what it is, but he took it because he thought it was cool. Reides is still conflicted, but he really really wants it. Kilwin tells Donatello that Festus is dead, and Donatello says that he figured that’s how Festus would go out. If Festus had family, Donatello doesn’t know about them. Marcyra puts on the amulet, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. She hears clicking mechanisms from inside it though. Kilwin asks when the owners are coming back from their vacation. Donatello says it won’t be for a very long time. Marcyra says they’re probably dead, but Kilwin doesn’t quite believe her. Donatello blames Festus for what happened to the innkeepers. Donatello, still terrified of us, offers us a big bag of gold if we’ll let him go. Kilwin asks what he’s planning to do after this, and Donatello says that he’ll be a changed man. Kilwin buys it! Donatello backs toward the door, drops the bag of gold, and books it.

As Marcyra counts up the gold, Kilwin and Reides wonder if they did the right thing by letting Donatello go and, after some discussion, decide to run after him and at least ask him more about what his plans are, and potentially bring him to Falas to be arrested. By the time they leave the inn though, Donatello is long gone. Kilwin decides it’s not so bad to at least give Donatello a second chance out there, and Reides is willing to accept that. The two of them also notice the bin with the flies and figure out what’s in there, although Kilwin feels obligated to check anyway. He wants to give the innkeepers a proper burial, since he feels like they’ve waited long enough for that, although he also wants to find out if they have family in Falas so he can tell them where they are. If they want the innkeepers buried elsewhere, they can be re-interred. Kilwin also wants to bury Festus, but in a different location. When Kilwin and Reides go back inside, Kilwin grudgingly admits to Marcyra that she was right about what happened to the innkeepers. Marcyra distributes the gold to the party evenly, and Reides uses Identify to find out that the vial is a Potion of Healing and Marcyra’s new necklace is a Clockwork Amulet. Before we bury Festus, Reides checks his body and ends up taking his spear. He offers to Erak, but he doesn’t really want it, so Reides just holds onto it for now. We stay the rest of the night at the inn, with most of us keeping watch for part of the night so someone can explain what happened here if anyone else comes to the inn. The rest of the night passes uneventfully.

In the morning, the party gets ready to leave and sees Slumberjack approaching. Reides and Kilwin greet them excitedly! Slumberjack remarks that the Traveler’s Boon seems a little too fancy for the party. Kilwin says it was and also that their stay was a complete disaster. Slumberjack is briefly filled in on the events of the night. Reides also apologizes to Slumberjack for overreacting to them keeping secrets and admits that he keeps his own so he wasn’t really being fair to them. Slumberjack seems a little uncomfortable with the apology and says it’s all water under the bridge. Reides enjoys the reference to water. Reides says he would hug them but he respects that Slumberjack likes their space, which they appreciate. As the party finishes the last leg of their journey to Falas, Slumberjack pointedly ignores Erak. Reides tells them all about everything they’ve missed over the past few days.

Dusk approaches on Firstlight 21. The structure that the party spotted from the Traveler’s Boon was actually the gigantic walls surrounding Falas proper, and their sizes becomes more apparent as we get closer. The walls are surrounded by a sea of shacks and townhouses. The walls themselves are covered in intricate carvings representing ancient legends, including the creation of Alethustria and important historical events. The carvings include Alethus shining a light with the world as its center as she shapes the lives of everyone, with Caugus behind her, stealing forms to turn into monsters. There’s also a vortex under the pantheon, representing K’thalios. There’s also carvings of Lyvernia, the legendary hero who banded the humans together to drive the dragons from the main continent to the unpopulated land of Dregonus. Lyvernia became the first empress of Falas and the continent Lyvernus was named in her honor. The party passes by blacksmiths hammering at their craft and groups of children running around, who wave at them. Reides waves back. The people of Falas are more diverse than those of the places we’ve visited so far- Erak doesn’t seem to be drawing any attention, and while Reides is getting a few looks, no one seems shocked to see him.

The party approaches the main gates, as well as a nearby inn. Reides looks around for a merchant selling gold dust, but concludes that the main market is probably inside the walls. After a little bit of back-and-forth across the party, Reides and Kilwin decide to approach the guards by the main gate to report what happened at the Traveler’s Boon. The guards recognize Festus’s name and tell us that there was a bounty on him and Donatello, although they admit that Donatello probably isn’t his real name. The guards say they’ll send a unit out to investigate the scene tomorrow. They tell us that the two main inns in Falas are the Outer Wall and the Falas Guest House and that we should stay at one of them so they can find us if they have further questions. Kilwin and Reides tell them their names. Kilwin mentions that he doesn’t have a last name so they’ll have to use “of Cowersby” for him if there’s any ambiguity. Reides says that he’s Reides and that’s all they need to know, babey! One guard suggests the Outer Wall and says that the innkeeper, Urli, is a good guy. The other says that the Falas Guest House is better. We decide that both are probably good, but since the Outer Wall is right there, we’ll stay there.

The door to the Outer Wall is set into the walls around Falas, and the building itself is carved into the wall. As we enter, the barkeep, a red-haired dwarven man with a trimmed beard and freckles, welcomes us to his hole in the wall. Everyone in the inn groans, except for the party because we love it. Rooms are 5 silver per night, but food is included. The special is roast pheasant, so the party is a little hesitant. Urli asks if we had a bad experience with pheasant, and the party tells him about everything that happened at the Traveler’s Boon. Urli is sad to hear about the innkeepers and says they were a nice human couple. Jorah’s not particularly concerned that we’ll get in trouble for killing Festus, since there was a bounty on him and he was committing murders, so they probably don’t care if they get him alive. He asks Urli for tips on bounties around Falas, since he doesn’t know the guard here yet and bounty hunting is technically his actual job. The party introduces themselves to Urli. He notices that Erak and Slumberjack don’t seem to be getting along particularly well. He suggests that exploring ancient ruins together might help with the group dynamics. The party is generally intrigued! Urli tells us that his clan wasn’t the most famous or the most prosperous, but that they forged some powerful weapons in their heyday, which were left behind in what are now ruins. Urli offers to point out these ruins on our map and let us keep the weapons, in exchange for a cut of the gold. Jorah asks how many people Urli tells about this place, and he admits it’s like 40% of the people who come through. During this conversation, Jorah makes a conscious effort to drink in moderation after getting wasted in Vilais Watch. Urli acknowledges that we probably already have business in Falas, but we agree to ask him about it again after we’ve delivered our letter. Urli does warn us that one group of adventurers already took him up on the deal but didn’t return from the ruins, so it’s not without risks.

The pheasant comes out and looks incredible. Since Jorah complained about Festus’s excessive use of pepper, they held the pepper on his pheasant. He doesn’t want to look like an ass, so he skips his usual poison check this one time. Kilwin asks Urli how they could get a letter to the emperor, which distresses Jorah and Reides. Kilwin is sure it’s fine to ask! Urli tells him that the emperor lives in the Royal Terrace, which will be open for visitors tomorrow afternoon. The party retires for the night and has a normal time at an inn for the first time in a while.

The next morning, some of the party heads out early to go shopping- Jorah wants some new clothes if he’s going to be meeting the emperor, and Reides is still looking for spell components. Kilwin and Marcyra tag along. Inside the city walls, the party sees tons of cobbled streets and huge terraces suspended above them, with elevators powered by large waterfalls. The buildings are made of white stone, instead of the wood and plaster that we’re used to. There’s a small bustling square in front of us. The main terraces are the Royal Terrace to the south, the Crafts Terrace to the west, the Market Terrace to the east, the Holy Terrace to the north, and the Central Terrace, where we currently are. There are also several smaller residential terraces. We entered the city from the northwest. We make our way to the Market Terrace, riding an elevator up to it. We’re all very impressed by Falas, although Jorah is from the Atemcester area, so he’s a little less overwhelmed than the rest of us. The party spots what appears to be a boat docked by a short bridge in midair. Everyone freaks out except Jorah, who recognizes it as an airship. He doesn’t get how they work, but they’re just a thing! Kilwin is especially alarmed by the existence of airships and the bustle of the city in general. Reides goes searching for alchemical supplies and finds someone selling enough gold dust to cast Arcane Lock, although it’s somewhat upcharged. He’s fine with that! Jorah goes to look for a tailor, since his traveling clothes are pretty worn out. Marcyra wonders if she needs new clothes too, but Kilwin thinks she’s good! He compliments her fashion sense, which makes her a little happy. Reides pretends to be offended that his fashion sense wasn’t complimented, so Kilwin tells him he also has very good fashion sense. Meanwhile, Jorah finds a tailor selling very fancy clothes, mostly in very bright colors with lots of ornamentation. He tells the halfling shopkeeper that he has an important meeting and needs nicer clothes, but asks if there’s some more neutral colors like navy blue. The shopkeeper can do that! He charges 20 gold for the clothes, and an extra 5 gold for a rush job, which Jorah kind of needs. He seems to assume that Jorah is going on a date and tells him he’s going to look great.

Session 25

 * Google Document (9-13-19)

After seeing Jorah’s fancy new clothes, Marcyra changes her mind and gets her own set of fine clothes. Kilwin figures that he’ll get back to the inn and swap out his regular clothes for his vestments before we go to see the emperor. Reides thinks the clothes are pretty, but initally doesn’t plan on buying anything because it’s too fancy for his tastes. He caves to the temptation though, and buys a nice navy cloak with teal trim for himself. Pepega gets to rest in the hood while it’s down. Reides and Jorah match now!

Kilwin spots Erak in the crowd and waves him over to the rest of the group. Reides tells Kilwin he wants to cast a spell to further secure the Bag of Holding. Kilwin gets it out and Reides casts Arcane Lock. Reides configures the spell so only he can bypass it and there’s no password to let other people undo the lock. Kilwin hides the bag in his backpack again, and everyone is a little more at ease with Tyrian stuck in the bag even more. We wander the city a little more, keeping an eye out for a place to buy rations. Kilwin comments that the city is very exciting, but a little much for him! Reides wonders why he bought a cloak since he tends to overheat Erak wonders if he can buy meat-flavored candy.

We go back to the Outer Wall to wait for the guards who wanted to talk to us about Donatello and Festus. Urli greets us and compliments our new looks over breakfast. A guard arrives, searching for Reides and Kilwin. He has an image of a dog engraved in his armor, like all the other guards in Falas. He recognizes Reides and approaches the party. We tell him about how Donatello and Festus had killed the innkeepers and taken over the inn to steal from people, and how we killed and buried Festus but Donatello escaped. The guard takes his notes and reassures us that it’s fine that we killed Festus, since his bounty was for his capture dead or alive. Kilwin asks what crimes Festus and Donatello committed. The guard says that Festus had a lengthy criminal record, including murder, robbery, and arson. He apparently had trouble controlling his anger. Donatello was supposedly the calmer half of the duo, but he was also charged with murder. His original crime was embezzlement, but he just spiraled from there. The guard says a platoon will go to the Traveler’s Boon to confirm that Festus is dead and try to track down the family of the innkeepers so they can get some closure. As the guard is leaving, he compliments Jorah’s clothes.

Since it’s a few hours before court opens, we take some time to run errands. Kilwin changes into his vestments with his armor, which aren’t fancy, but they look nicer than his normal clothes. We try to find a general store to stock up on rations, and Jorah steers us in the right direction. The store is called Whisper’s Wondrous Wares and the shopkeeper is a tabaxi with a tabby pattern. They direct us to the far corner of the store for the rations. The rations come in traditional, meat-based, and vegetarian varieties, and most of the party stocks up, taking the opportunity to change things up a bit. At one point, Whisper thinks they hear someone munching on the rations and stands up, revealing that they’re about 7 feet tall. Erak thinks that’s kinda hot. Erak also buys some seasoning for his future cooking efforts. He asks Whisper about where to get clothes and weapons. Whisper suggests asking the rest of the party about clothes and checking out the Royal Armory for weapons and armor. Marcyra tries to cast Detect Magic, but Whisper stops her, telling her magic isn’t allowed in the store. Reides browses for nautical-themed stuff and shiny things. Since Falas isn’t really a port city (the only ships that ever come through are river barges), he doesn’t find much on the nautical front, but he does find Whisper’s jewelry section. Most of it is normal stuff like gold chains, silver lockets, and copper rings, with some jewels thrown in. There’s also a gold crown, inlaid with pearls, which has an amethyst hanging from the front. Reides is not sure what to make of it! Kilwin tries to identify it, but it doesn’t mean anything specifically to him. Reides ends up asking what it is, and Whisper explains it’s a Band of Intellect, left as collateral for a debt by some mages from Atemcester. Apparently, it’s used to help train lesser mages by improving their starting point. Erak asks if magic items can change their appearance, but Whisper explains that all they can do is shift their size to fit the wearer. We all kind of decide that we’re good on the intelligence front, especially considering the crown is probably extremely expensive and also very gaudy. Reides also has a bad track record with holding onto headwear. We thank Whisper for the rations and head to the Royal Armory.

The Royal Armory is easily identified by the black smoke rising from its smithy. We see the blacksmith, a dwarven man, working and Erak is a little intimidated because of the guy from Dwarven Delights. He greets the blacksmith though, and the blacksmith wipes some of the grime from his face and grins at him. He’s very pleasant! He tells us that the items for purchase are on the other side of the store, but he’s more than willing to chat with us. Erak asks if he sells magic items or has the ability to enchant things. While there’s no enchanter at the Royal Armory, there are a few older pieces with magical properties, although the blacksmith warns that magic is expensive in Falas. Jorah points out that magic is expensive everywhere. Erak still wants to look into mixing up his combat experience with a new weapon, and the blacksmith recommends that he check out the mauls.

We head over to the other side of the store, where the weapons are on display. The regular weapons are generally of a higher quality and more durable than ours, although the crossbow that Jorah bought from Castel looks like it might just be an older model of the ones from this smithy. Marcyra looks at the quarterstaffs and sees that they’re made of metal instead of wood. We find the magical weapons near the back of the store, behind a counter, including an axe, a sword, some plate mail, and a shield. Jorah looks at the sword, which is basically a longsword with a strange angle to the end of the blade. It’s also covered in dwarven runes. The writing is archaic, so he can’t read all of it, but he does recognize the words “orc” and “slay.” Jorah really really wants it, but is pretty sure he can’t afford it. He asks the shopkeeper, a bored-looking elf, who tells him it’s 10,000 gold. The axe costs twice as much. He explains that the sword is ancient, dating to the founding of Lyvernus, and it was wielded against the dragons, orcs, and other evil races who rallied around the dragons. The reference to “evil” races makes Marcyra, Erak, and Slumberjack uncomfortable, although the shopkeeper tells them that tieflings and drow weren’t part of that. Since none of us know anything, he explains that the drow especially played a role in the liberation of Lyvernus and fought alongside other elves, but were corrupted later on. All races are welcomed in Falas in remembrance of the drows’ contribution. Erak is glad to learn about this and thinks there might be some hope for the drows’ future. Moving on from the expensive magic items, Erak looks at the regular mauls. He hefts one around to get a feel for it and really likes it. He buys it for 15 gold, although the shopkeeper also shows him a magic one for comparison’s sake. The magic maul is much easier to handle because of a basic enchantment and is also inlaid with jewels. It costs 1000 gold. Reides browses through the crossbows along with Jorah. Reides is looking for one that’s easy to fire and relatively cheap, and ends up buying a light crossbow. The shopkeeper points out that he’ll also need crossbow bolts to actually fire, but throws in a bundle of them for free, since Reides is a first-time purchaser. Before we leave, Reides asks the shopkeeper if he would buy the spear he took from Festus off him. The shopkeeper offers to buy it for a reduced price, since the metal could be melted down. He’s a little rude, but quickly apologizes. He just really wants to go home already! We sympathize and Reides hopes that his shift ends soon! Reides also asks his name and learns that it’s Sindra.

We quickly visit the blacksmith again, since Jorah wants to talk to him. Jorah asks if he sends adventurers out to recover lost weapons, like the ancestral pieces showcased in the store. The blacksmith explains that he only does that when he knows something is out there and that he doesn’t have any leads right now. No job for us! The smith identifies his clan as the Wildhammers, though, in case we hear anything about them. Erak also shows off his new maul and does a little dance. The blacksmith isn’t sure why he’s doing that, but he thinks it’s cute!

We take Erak back to the tailor’s shop, where he picks out his own set of fine clothes. He looks for stuff that makes it obvious he’s a barbarian and keeps his titties out. He ends up buying a pair of flowy pants and a wolf pelt rug repurposed as a cloak. With him decked out, it’s almost time for court to start, so we head to the Royal Terrace. Unlike the other terraces, there’s no water elevator to the Royal Terrace. Instead, the platform is magically propelled, and our ride is both faster and smoother than the one we took to the Market Terrace. On the way up, Jorah pulls down his hood and fixes his hair into a ponytail. We’re all really nervous! Kilwin confirms that he has the letter. None of us read it since it’s sealed. We wonder if maybe says to kill us, although Kilwin is pretty sure it wouldn’t! If it does though, he thinks we should run. Jorah agrees with that plan!

When we reach the Royal Terrace proper, we see a lot of really large buildings, but the scenery is dominated by one that’s clearly the emperor’s palace. It’s surrounded by 20-foot walls and made out of white brick that’s smoother and more refined than the stone we’ve seen in the rest of the city. The palace itself also has stained glass windows. The palace gate is flanked by four guards. The senior-most guard, whose armor has gold accents, approaches and asks if we’re here for court. She tells us where to go, but says she needs to take our weapons first. We hand them over without much argument, including Jorah, who has an absurd number of weapons on him. We enter the palace through large oak doors. The hallways are big and illuminated by natural light from the stained glass windows. It’s very pretty but doesn’t make any of us feel more at ease. We follow a red carpet to more oak doors with a small figure beside them, wearing white robes and scribbling things down. He asks our purpose and then directs us to the line in the throne room, where we wait for about an hour. The throne room is very long and is lined with more stained glass windows. The throne is golden and flanked by a lot of dogs, who are lying down by it. Jorah is relieved that he left Julius at the end, so she doesn’t have a chance to cause some chaos. Our attention is mostly drawn to the gigantic dragon skull mounted on a placard over the throne. Marcyra hates to see it! Emperor Eurystheos XIV is slouching across the throne. She’s a young woman with black hair and she seems kind of bored as she listens to her people’s grievances. When it’s finally our turn, she asks what our grievance is. Kilwin explains that it’s not so much a grievance as a delivery. He presents the letter and explains the gist of what happened with the Broken Crown, and the emperor has her counselor check it for safety before she reads it. The emperor says that there’s probably more than information about the Broken Crown in the letter, since Uncle Corvus usually writes extra things in his letters. After reading the letter, she says that Port Valor’s militia is probably sufficient to deal with the orcs, but she plans to send a platoon over anyway. The emperor asks why Corvus sent a group of adventurers instead of a regular courier, and Jorah explains that we uncovered Tyrian’s plot, so he was probably only certain he could trust us. The emperor also speculates that the remnants of the Broken Crown might try to reorganize, even with their leadership dead. She’s also troubled by word of orcs gathering magical items. Kilwin summarizes what happened on the day Keras died. Her counselor says she can’t afford to spare two platoons, but she’s going to do it anyway. She bangs her scepter on the floor and adjourns court. The dogs around her throne begin to sit up as the counselor ushers us out of the throne room so we can be paid. Away from the emperor, he says that he’s not sure she needed the extra worries, but pays us the typical reward for delivering an important message of 100 gold, wrapped in a nice pouch. Jorah asks the counselor what’s going on in Falas that already has the emperor worried. Apparently, dragons have returned to Lyvernus and are attacking from the southeast. Marcyra is extremely uncomfortable with this. The dragon attacks are scattered for now, but there’s worries that they might return in full force. There’s apparently a large bounty available for anyone who can bring a dragon’s head to Falas. Jorah doesn’t know about that! Kilwin thinks maybe someday! Marcyra would rather not!

After leaving the palace, we collect our weapons again and start planning our next move. Jorah suggests dealing with Thorak or dealing with whatever made Tyrian a revenant. We all really hope the necromancer stuff and the dragon stuff aren’t related, but they could be! Marcyra groans. Jorah is hesitant to follow up on Urli’s job offer now that he knows that there’s dragons around, but Kilwin tries to reassure him that if see one, we can run for it. We head back to the Outer Wall, where we tell Urli we delivered the letter and that we’re interested in his offer. He asks another employee to cover the bar and takes us to a room in the back. He gets serious and tries to warn us off if we’re not sure we’re ready for this. He reminds us that the last group he sent didn’t come back. Marcyra suggests they just ditched him. It turns out they were some of his closest friends. It was years ago and Urli still doesn’t know what happened to them. We end up deciding that we’d like to at least try to recover the treasure and if it seems like it’ll be too much for us, we’ll try to bail out. Urli wants 20% of the gold, as well as one item, but otherwise, the stuff in the ruins is ours. The item he wants is a box with dwarven runes on it that the Dwarvish-speaking party members (Jorah and Kilwin) should be able to read says “To my dearest son, Urli.” Kilwin is now determined to recover this box! Urli quickly explains that he’s actually Urli the 14th, and the box was originally intended for his grandfather. Urli the 12th had to abandon the box when he was run out of the hall and he never forgot it. It’s the last thing Urli would have to remember his grandfather by. The ruin is called Earthbreaker Hall and it’s about 2 days away in the northeast in the Falas Foothills. No one knows exactly why it was abandoned. Kilwin asks how long ago this happened, and Urli points out that dwarves have long lives, so it was about 500 years ago. Urli tells us that the ruins look like a stone quarry, but are marked by dwarven runes and should open up if someone waves their hand over them. We decide to set out tomorrow morning, since we’re still waiting on the guards to deliver the bounty from Festus, even though Urli offers to hold it for us.

Marcyra asks if there’s a library in Falas, since she has some research she wants to do. Urli directs the party to the Central Terrace. The library is huge and mostly visited by learned people, although there are other adventurers around. Jorah immediately starts looking for the fiction section. Reides starts looking for books on the memory plague. Jorah tries to get some distance from that and looks sad, which makes us all realize he has some experience with the memory plague. Reides remembers that we learned about it from Grinlief and none of us knew about it, but Kilwin realizes that Jorah wasn’t present for that discussion. Kilwin tells Jorah he can talk about it if he wants to, but it’s fine if he doesn’t. Jorah doesn’t want to talk about it right now. Reides tells him that if he ever changes his mind, we’re here for him. Jorah thanks him and walks off to find stories about adventurers and rangers specifically. He finds stories about ancient elven rangers from Malino’re who fought the poisonous green dragons before the liberation of Lyvernus. Their leader was a legendary hero named Jorah, who is actually our Jorah’s namesake. The historical Jorah had a rivalry with a battle master who wielded a sword, but that story’s not in these books and Jorah can’t recall the details from the stories he heard roughly 15 years ago. Meanwhile, Reides finds that the tomes on the memory plague are all dusty and 15-20 years old. The symptoms are weakness, fever, and a slow loss of memory, starting with childhood memories and progressing until the victim can no longer remember their name or their essence. It struck the town of Hommlin, where it wiped out roughly half the population. While the memory plague isn’t prevalent anymore, isolated cases still occur, although the means of transmission is unknown. The books also say that the best treatment is a quick death. Reides hates that! He and Kilwin agree that death isn’t really a cure. Jorah wanders back to them and tells them that it’s still better than dealing with the memory plague itself, since no one recovers from it. Because the memory plague seems to have a magical source, it’s resistant to magical treatments. Jorah acknowledges that extremely powerful clerics can cure it, but they tend to be busy with other stuff. Kilwin recognizes that’s not him yet, and Jorah agrees, although Reides thinks Kilwin could do it.

We all split up to do our own research. Kilwin tries to research celestials to get a better idea of what Slumberjack is dealing with, and learns some basic things about aasimar, including that their guides are called devas and fallen aasimar lack devas. He also tries to research revenants, specifically to try to find out how Tyrian might have been revived, but just finds another copy of Revenants: A Dark Oath. Reides does some research on tritons and finds a few scattered, dusty books describing triton government structure and biology. The research seems very heartfelt, but there’s a few mistakes here and there, which Reides finds very charming. Marcyra guiltily sits down to research tieflings and dragons, since she doesn’t know as much about them as she feels she should. She learns that tieflings are descended from people who made pacts with dragons. While some tieflings have actual draconic ancestry, not all do. Marcyra really hopes she doesn’t have actual draconic ancestry! She also reads about the ancient leader of the red dragons and learns that his name is Smoulderwing. She also realizes that it was his skull hanging over the emperor’s throne. Smoulderwing was renowned for his brutality and fearsomeness. His lair was in a volcano on Dregonus and he scared away all other dragons who tried to roost there. Marcyra does not like any of this and bangs her head on the shelf as she puts the book back. Reides goes up to Erak, who has just been standing around awkwardly this whole time, and asks if there was anything he wanted to look at, offering to read it aloud for him. He also offers to teach Erak how to read over time, if Erak is interested! Erak is excited about this, and also wants to hear a mystery story. Kilwin overhears and tries to find Sleuthing for Slobs, since he remembers Grinlief saying that was a mystery novel, but there doesn’t seem to be a copy in the library. He asks around a little and finds out that it was a limited release since no one bought it, so it’s hard to find. Reides finds a book about a tabaxi detective/bounty hunter called Tracks in the Moonlight. She’s fictional but inspiring, although Reides absolutely believes she’s real. Somehow, Erak knows in his heart, but he decides to let Reides believe.

Session 26

 * Google Document (9-21-19)

As the party gets ready to leave the library, Kilwin suggests visiting St. Vashreen’s Law Academy. He doesn’t really know what exactly he expects to get out of this, but he’s just really curious what it’s like there! The party agrees to tag along. St. Vashreen’s ends up being pretty easy to find. It’s an austere building, about 30-40 feet tall, with lots of arches. However, the gates are closed and no one seems to be around except a few groundskeepers. Erak calls out to one of them, who seems surprised to see anyone and explains that school is off today before getting back to work. Kilwin was hoping to get a feel for the people there, but for now he’s just satisfied that the school exists. Marcyra is a little surprised that it’s real.

Kilwin also wants to visit the Holy Terrace, just to see it. Reides wants to tag along, but the rest of the party isn’t particularly interested and just goes back to the Outer Wall. The Holy Terrace is very busy and has cathedrals for all the major deities, with many smaller ones for lesser deities. The Cathedral of Alethus is the largest building, and it has a central place in the terrace. Kilwin and Reides go inside. The building is much fancier than Kilwin’s temple back in Cowersby, with stained glass windows and made of white cobblestone like most of the buildings of Falas. It’s not too extravagant though, built for worship rather than to show off the wealth of the worshippers. Kilwin takes some time to pray, while Reides just sits next to him and admires the architecture. When he’s done, Kilwin thanks Reides for coming with him and gets ready to leave. On his way out, he’s approached by a human woman wearing a plain Alethus vest. She seems somewhat surprised to see a cleric of Alethus, since clerics and paladins seem to be trained proportionally less often in Falas. She asks Kilwin what he thinks of Falas and he says it’s cool but a little overwhelming, since he’s from a pretty small town. He also thinks the temple is very fancy, but he clarifies that he means it in a nice way! He and Reides also introduce themselves. The priestess introduces herself as Kima and asks where Kilwin is from. Kilwin tells her he’s from Cowersby and almost immediately starts explaining where it is, but Kima mentions knowing of a priest of Alethus living there. Kilwin asks if she’s talking about Father Glasny, and it turns out she is! Apparently, he was trained in Falas before moving out to Cowersby, but he’s still talked about and has a very positive reputation with the clergy in Falas. Kilwin didn’t know any of this, but he thinks it’s really cool. Kima asks Kilwin if he’ll let Glasny know the clergy of Alethus in Falas says hello, and he says he’ll mention it next time he writes to him. Kima leaves to excitedly discuss the interaction with another member of the clergy. Reides remarks that Kilwin’s dad is famous! Kilwin gently corrects Reides that Glasny technically isn’t his dad. “Father” is just a church title, and while Glasny raised Kilwin and is the closest thing to a dad he has, they’re not technically related! He says Glasny is somewhere between an adopted dad and a grandpa to him, though, so Reides says that Kilwin’s dad-grandpa is famous!

Back at the Outer Wall, Kilwin and Reides join the rest of the party for dinner and drinks, and then the party goes to bed. Before turning in, Kilwin knocks on Slumberjack’s door. He says he had something to ask them and was waiting for a good time, but there was never going to be one, so he just needs to talk to them privately. Slumberjack lets him into their room and closes the door. He reassures them that if they give him the answer he won’t like (which will be obvious), he won’t do anything about it. Kilwin reminds Slumberjack about the stories of brutal murders in Port Valor that the rest of the party heard in Quadroad and asks if that was them. Slumberjack admits it was, for the sake of keeping things honest between them. Kilwin says okay cool! He’s a little freaked out, but doing his best to pretend he’s not! He explains that he chalked that up to Tyrian or whoever seems to have raised him, and he wanted to check how deeply he needed to worry about that. He says good night, and Kilwin and Slumberjack both get to escape one of the most uncomfortable conversations either of them has ever had.

In the morning, Kilwin wakes up to someone pounding on his door. It’s Slumberjack, still in their pajamas and clearly distressed. They come into his room, close the door behind them, and tell him that their guide communed with them last night, and all it would say was “More blood.” They’re hoping Kilwin has come up with an idea of what to do. Kilwin suggests talking to Marcyra, since it sounded like she might have some practical advice, but he struggles to come up with anything himself. He mentions that there could be some kind of monster in Earthbreaker Hall that Slumberjack might be able to fight, but he doesn’t love to suggest that either. He also suggests resisting the urge to follow through on the murder, but immediately admits that if it was that easy, Slumberjack would probably have this under control no problem. Slumberjack tells Kilwin that he’s clearly done all he can and turns to leave. Kilwin stops them and tells Slumberjack about an atonement ceremony that’s typically performed for paladins who have strayed from their vows, but could be applied more generally. Kilwin knows how to perform the ceremony, but isn’t sure it will work or if he’s up to performing it successfully or if Slumberjack would even want to try something like that. He asks if they and their guide have always been like this, and Slumberjack says they have, but they’re willing to try anything to get control of their life again. Slumberjack asks if he’s still willing to do what he promised in Vilais Watch if this doesn’t work. Kilwin says we shouldn’t hang all our hopes on this one! Slumberjack makes sure he knows they’re not talking about praying for their guide to leave, since they’ve tried that a lot, but Kilwin knows they meant killing. Slumberjack thanks him for his help and asks him to ignore any talk he hears about random killings in Falas, just in case. Kilwin tentatively agrees.

The party eats breakfast together while waiting to see if a guard will deliver Festus’s bounty. No one arrives by the time we finish, so we ask Urli to hold it for us. He agrees and wishes us luck. Kilwin is sure we’ll be back with his box and potentially some closure regarding his missing friends, but Urli’s not too confident about that last part. It takes two days to reach the area that Urli described, where the party splits up to search for the dwarven rune that marks the entrance. Marcyra finds a marking she doesn’t recognize and calls the rest of the party over. Kilwin translates it as the rune for “Open.” He waves his hand in front of it like Urli said, and there’s a rumbling noise as two huge stone doors open in front of the party. Gusts of wind come from the inside of Earthbreaker Hall, so Erak ties his hair up to keep it out of his face. Reides is just used to his hair being in his face! The party walks through the doors and down several slopes into Earthbreaker Hall proper.

The inside of the ruin is extremely dark, so Kilwin and Reides cast Light so they can see. The vestibule has several dwarven statues that have seen better days and much of the stone is covered in moss. Reides wonders if he can eat the moss. While he acknowledges that some mosses are edible, Kilwin advises him against trying this one. The party discusses the likelihood that there’s traps in the ruins, and Kilwin mentions that he has Detect Traps prepared, but thinks he should probably save it for later. For now, no one sees anything amiss. Erak kind of hides behind Reides. Slumberjack walks to the front of the group with Kilwin, but tells Erak that they need to talk later and entrusts Marcyra specifically with watching the rear. Erak agrees, but he’s a little scared! Kilwin examines the large stone doors at the end of the hall. They’re covered in carvings, including some dwarven writing that Kilwin can make out as prayers for safety and a hot forge. Everyone is very nervous, but Kilwin tries the door and it opens easily. Erak pushes ahead and isn’t immediately killed by anything, which he loudly announces to the rest of the party, waking up the giant spiders.

Three spiders descend from the ceiling, one of which bites Erak and ensnares Kilwin in its web, restricting his movement. Another spider webs Erak, but Slumberjack gets him out almost immediately. Kilwin manages to break out of the webs too. Reides kills the first spider that’s in the doorway, but another one crawls over it to take its place. Erak gets caught in the webs again, and since they can’t get a good angle on the spider through the doorway, Slumberjack frees him again. The third spider crawls up to the ceiling and drops in the middle of the party. Marcyra wants to vibe check it. Since the spider is about 25 feet up, Slumberjack tries to throw Erak to the ceiling, but he’s a bit too heavy for them to throw that high. Kilwin kills the second spider on the ground, which angers the one on the ceiling. Erak tries to jump up to the spider on his own, but he falls on his face and gives a thumbs up from the ground. Once the spider descends to the ground, Erak jumps up and crushes it with his maul, killing it. The floor cracks from the force of the impact and the walls tremble and give off some dust. The party is a little worried about that, but mostly glad that we won’t be killed by giant spiders.

Kilwin enters the room where the spiders were sleeping and immediately gets his legs caught in more webs. He looks around to see if there’s more spiders and doesn’t find any. Erak looks around for light sources and notices sconces on the walls, but they’re out of fuel. He asks Marcyra to light a torch for him and starts burning the webs. Reides studies the spiders, which are mostly self-explanatory, but he figures out that they actually can’t create webs to trap people very often. He squishes one of the spiders a bit for fun. The room has pipes directing water into a canal, which is still flowing. It’s hard to tell how deep the water is, but it’s almost certainly shallow enough for the party to wade in and it seems relatively clean, despite some moss growing in it. There’s a plank bridge across the canal and space under the grate leading to the next room, large enough that someone might be able to fit through. Reides also checks the canal for fish, but doesn’t find any.

There’s a door on the other side of the plank bridge, which Kilwin nervously opens. This door also opens easily, but the room behind it has mostly collapsed. Kilwin manages to make his way through the rubble and finds a small room with an altar with a statue of a dwarf holding a large hammer. Kilwin recognizes it as Odan, the dwarven god of crafts. There also appears to be a dwarven man kneeling before the statue and praying, although he’s translucent and has a slightly bluish tinge. The rest of the party makes their way through the rubble, although Marcyra twists her ankle and Erak gets owned. The ghost takes notice of us and asks if we seek treasure. Kilwin greets him and tells him that Urli sent us. The ghost is glad to hear that his house continues and warns us about a golem that’s still active and roaming the northern halls. He tells us the golem can be deactivated, if we cut through the deep ones scouring Earthbreaker Hall for coin. No one really knows what he’s talking about, but none of us are hyped to hear about it. The ghost says he regrets that Urli wasn’t able to get his gift. Kilwin explains that that’s what we’re here for, although we’re technically getting the box for a different Urli. The ghost thanks us and tells us to follow the right wall. As we walk past the ghost, we notice that the air around him is significantly colder. In the next hallway, there’s a door on the righthand side, which Kilwin opens uneasily. Behind the door is a small room with a small chest on the floor. The chest has dwarven runes on the lid, reading “To my dearest son, Urli.” Kilwin takes it. Reides examines the room more closely, but only finds some scattered dwarven bones.

The party feels like that might have been too easy, but we also haven’t gotten anything other than the box to give to Urli. The party ends up agreeing to backtrack to place the box closer to the entrance just in case things go bad, and we’ll come back here later. As we return to the room with the altar and the ghost, the ghost asks us clear the halls of the invaders. Kilwin says okay! We can at least try! The ghost describes the invaders as deep ones and dark ones, before gesturing to some writing on the wall. It says “For the Spider Queen” in Elvish. Erak hates it! He doesn’t want to do this because he doesn’t want to deal with drow, and Slumberjack doesn’t want to do this either because they don’t like how this ghost talks about drow. They ask Kilwin to banish the ghost, but he doesn’t want to, since the ghost seems to just be existing for now and maybe the ghost will move on naturally if we help him. They get into a big argument with the ghost, which ends up telling them to leave his sight.

Tentatively agreeing to help the ghost, the rest of the party returns to the hallway and heads through the northern door instead to a room with several canals with plank bridges across some of them. Erak and Slumberjack come along reluctantly. We find a locked door, which Marcyra offers to do something about before realizing no one has thieves’ tools. Erak ends up using his crowbar to open the door. As the door opens, the walls rumble again and pebbles fall from the ceiling. The room is mostly collapsed, but there’s an interesting gleam in the rubble. There’s a shield emblazoned with a symbol of an eye, which Kilwin recognizes as the symbol of the Sentinels, an order of dwarven warriors who served as guardians. The shield is in pristine condition, even though it’s very old and hasn’t been maintained. Kilwin is reluctant to take it off a skeleton, even though Urli told us we could take anything we want. Still, since dwarves tend to be pragmatic and not want things to go to waste, Kilwin decides that the owner would be okay with it. He takes the shield and equips it.

There’s another door on the east side of the canal room. There’s no bridge across the canal separating that section of the room, so we all manage to take a running jump across the canal. From the next room, we hear rattling bones and light grunting as two voices discuss something in Elvish, although the dialect is new to Kilwin. They’re complaining about needing to search this room again. These are probably the drow! We’re not sure if we want to actually confront them. Reides defers to Erak’s opinion. Erak is genuinely scared and would rather not deal with this, but he also doesn’t feel good potentially leaving a band of drow raiders so close to Falas. Kilwin wants to ask the drow what they’re doing here, in case they’re just regular scavengers who happen to be drow, but Erak says that if we do this, we have to be ready to just kill them, since drow usually use tranquilizers in their crossbows and this could go really badly. Kilwin thinks we should say hello first, but Erak doesn’t want to tip them off and wants us to sneak in and spy a bit if we’re really determined to give them the benefit of the doubt. Kilwin tries to sneak into the room, but gets spotted by one of the drow immediately, who raises the alarm for surface dwellers.

Slumberjack almost doesn’t want to join the fight, but then they figure they may as well do some murder. They rip into the drow that sounded the alarm with their battleaxe. Kilwin tries to persuade the wounded drow that we don’t have to fight if they’re just random adventurers or if they’re willing to back down. The drow doesn’t speak Common though, so he’s just a little confused by this. He teleports away and starts levitating across the canal. He yells at the other drow to send out the beast. Reides hits the floating drow with Ray of Frost and he falls to the floor, dead. The second drow also starts flying away, and Erak is genuinely upset, especially with Kilwin for blowing it. The beast appears! It looks vaguely drow-like, but it’s gigantic, with four arms and wolf-like features. The creature casts a spell that confuses Marcyra, Kilwin, and Slumberjack. All three of them are too disoriented to move, although Kilwin and Marcyra quickly recover. The remaining drow attempts to charm Reides, and although Reides thinks he’s hot for a second, he resists the effect. Erak recognizes the monster as a half-drow, half-demon creature, although he can’t remember its exact name. He asks Marcyra to take care of the last drow as he heads for the monster. He calls it an abomination, but the creature implies that Erak is an abomination too. Still confused, Slumberjack attacks Erak, but they miss and Erak asks them to please pick some other time to try to kill him. Kilwin starts realizing how badly this went and focuses on the draegloth. Marcyra kills the second drow, and there’s another rumbling sound. Reides attacks the draegloth from outside its room, but it seems to be less affected by the cold. There’s a crashing sound from the water to the south of us a huge, metallic-looking lizard appears. The draegloth wonders how we’ll do in the darkness it grew up in and creates an orb of darkness that consumes the room with it, Erak, Slumberjack, and Kilwin. Kilwin’s Light spell is interrupted. Kilwin manages to find Slumberjack in the darkness to heal them. Slumberjack and Kilwin keep trying to fight the draegloth, but Erak is out of there. The lizard creature leaps and lands on Marcyra, knocking her to the ground. The darkness disperses and Kilwin sees Slumberjack bleeding out on the ground, but he manages to heal them. Marcyra jumps across the canal to get away from the lizard, but she slips in some blood from one of the drow and falls down. Now that he can see the lizard, Kilwin remembers hearing stories about burrowing creatures called bulettes, which are carnivorous and extremely territorial. They’ll kill and eat anything and also they sense their prey’s movements through vibrations. Kilwin moves toward the door and heals himself and Erak, since they were both doing pretty badly. The draegloth swears in Elvish, since none of this is going according to his plan. Erak loves to hear it! Marcyra burns up the bulette with Scorching Ray, and Reides gets out his new crossbow and shoots it in the eye, killing it. Erak taunts the draegloth for being male as he misses Erak twice and starts getting more frustrated. Reides shoots it in the throat, killing it too. It chokes out “Lolth take you” as it dies.

Erak takes a spidersilk cloak off one of the dead drow, although it’s not of the best quality and will dissipate if he takes it into the sunlight. It’s the only really valuable thing that the drow have on them, since they were relatively low-ranking. The party goes into the room that the drow were searching. The canal flows through it, but it’s shallower here. The walls are lined with dwarf skeletons, and this seems like it was their last holdout before they were killed. Kilwin spots an apparatus on the back wall with a switch. Judging from what the ghost said, we figure this is the off switch for the golem, but Kilwin can’t cast Find Traps anymore and no one is really in a state to deal with anything else going wrong, so we resolve to leave Earthbreaker Hall and rest before hitting the switch or exploring the rest of the ruins.

Session 27

 * Google Document (10-5-19)

The party makes their way back to the entrance of Earthbreaker Hall to rest. However, we hear the flapping of very large wings outside, as well as something barking and growling. Everyone's a little hesitant to investigate, assuming the worst and that it’s dragons, but Kilwin works up the nerve to peek out of the ruins and check on whatever’s barking, whether it’s Julius or just a regular dog who wandered out here. Kilwin tries to be stealthy (but fails at it) and sees Jorah and Julius with two wyverns circling over them. Jorah is understandably distressed! Kilwin calls the rest of the party out of the ruins even though it’s not good out here, and no one really knows what to do! We kind of decide we need to get Jorah out of this though. Reides suggests using Fog Cloud to give Jorah some cover so he can run over to the rest of us, if anything, especially because we’re still beat up from the bulette and draegloth. Marcyra freezes up, not sure what to do. Kilwin tries to judge who’s more likely to be attacked first out of Jorah and Julius and can’t tell, so he picks Jorah to cast Sanctuary on. He also tries to signal to Jorah from the entrance of the ruins. Jorah sees him and is still mad about all this. Slumberjack ignores what Reides said about Fog Cloud and throws a javelin at one of the wyverns, which gets its attention. The other wyverns tries to attack Jorah, but whiffs it with both claws. Reides wracks his brain for things that wyverns can be scared of, and mostly thinks of larger dragons. He casts Minor Illusion and, despite never having heard a dragon before, manages to produce a very good imitation of very large, very angry dragon’s roar. This gets the wyverns’ attention and they get ready to turn away from the ruins. Erak is enjoying the show and gets his grappling hook out. Jorah is also fooled by Reides’s illusion and starts running away from the party, although Julius doesn’t care and starts running toward them. Marcyra uses Message to tell Jorah that there’s not a dragon and to please not run in the same direction as the wyverns. One wyvern leaves without incident, but the other tries to grab Jorah as it’s flying away. He just barely escapes its grasp.

Reunited with the rest of the party, Jorah wonders why this stuff always happens to him when he comes anywhere near us and asks if we made a wyvern god mad or something. We swear we didn’t and we didn’t even see wyverns on the way in. We made drow mad though! Reides tells Jorah that he did some cool stuff with his new crossbow, and Jorah says he’ll have to see that later. Kilwin explains that we were leaving Earthbreaker Hall to try to get some rest after fighting the drow, although if there’s wyverns outside, it might be better to take our chances camping out inside near the entrance. Erak isn’t happy at the idea of taking his chances with the drow, since he’d be tortured a lot longer than he’d live if he got eaten by a wyvern, but we decide to set up camp inside the ruins. Jorah props up his tent to the side of a wall to make an alcove where someone can sleep while pretending there isn’t a dead giant spider in the same room. Erak moves the spiders into the doorway to make a barricade that will hopefully alert us if something tries to move past it, and we set up watch duty for the night. On watch, Erak contemplates that horrors that the drow commit in the name of the Spider Queen. Kilwin isn’t sure what to make of this place, since the Dwarvish carvings are so ancient that they’re almost alien to him, and feels like the walls might be closing in for part of his watch. He hears a clatter in the distance, which he warns Reides about, but otherwise nothing happens. Reides mostly listens on his watch, since he wants to scribble some more notes about the draegloth in his journal. He thinks about how its skin was almost human-like, which he doesn’t care for. Marcyra barely pays attention on her watch, since she spends it staring at a rusty coin she received long ago and thinking about the creatures she saw today.

The night passes uneventfully and we get ready to head back in. Jorah tries to think if wyverns are normal in this area, but isn’t sure. Kilwin leads the way through Earthbreaker Hall, warning him that there’s a ghost in the altar room but that it’s chill. Jorah is fortunately not afraid of ghosts. The ghost gives Erak a meaningful look, which Erak returns with a solemn nod. The ghost also warns him to be careful, since there’s still drow in the ruins, although not many. Erak thanks him! Kilwin also warns Jorah about the bulette and the draegloth, whose bodies are still there, but he’s mostly chill about it. Erak explains that draegloth are made by a drow having sex with a lower fiend, which Jorah does not care to hear. Erak wonders how many times he’s gotta tell us that drow are messed up! He also tells us that some drow are magically fused with giant spiders as a punishment. Hope we never meet one of those!

Back in the room with the switch, Jorah notices that the only skeletons in the room with armor or weapons are the ones closest to the door, and that these dwarves were mostly civilians. Kilwin explains that we think the switch is supposed to turn the golem off and now he can finally cast Find Traps to confirm it’s safe. Jorah questions if we should turn the golem off since it might be our ally against the remaining drow, but we don’t know if the golem will consider us enemies. Since the ghost mentioned the golem as a warning and gave us a tip on how to turn it off, the rest of the party feels better with it turned off. Kilwin offers to hit the switch, but asks who wants to stay in the room and who wants to leave before he does that. Everyone except Reides steps out. When Kilwin hits the switch, there’s a distant grinding noise, and Reides and Kilwin bolt out of the room.

Kilwin hops back across the canal, since that’s the direction that the drow flew in, so he figures that the rest of the drow are probably that way. He finds a door that’s slightly ajar and the party hears a sinister voice speaking in a language no one in the party understands. Jorah suggests we get our weapons out, since they can probably hear us too. He aims his crossbow at the door and gets ready to shoot anything other than a dwarf that comes out of it. Technically, the person who opens the door is a dwarf, but he has ashy gray skin and yells back into the room in the language none of us know. We hear the shrill sinister voice again before the duergar pulls out a warpick and gets ready to attack. He may be a dwarf, but Jorah shoots him anyway. Behind this duergar and two others, we see the source of the more sinister voice, a drider perched on the wall. It climbs down and comments in Elvish that now they know who killed the others. It casts Faerie Fire on the party, which sticks to Erak, Marcyra, and Slumberjack. Marcyra kills one of the duergar, and Erak asks the drider how it feels to be about to disappoint “mommy dearest.” The drider snarls as Erak casts his own Faerie Fire, hitting the two duergar. The drider takes out a longbow and fires three shots, taking down Slumberjack and hitting Erak too. Kilwin runs into the room to heal Slumberjack and also kills one of the duergar. Erak tries to get into the crowded room to attack the drider, but trips on a corpse. He gets up and pretends nothing happened, and finishes making his way to the drider. Reides kills the last duergar with Magic Missile. The drider drops its longbow and pulls out a longsword. It knocks out Slumberjack and bites Erak, and it likes to taste him. Jorah drops his crossbow and pulls out his hand crossbow and his longsword and gets in there and does a bunch of damage. Erak tells the drider that the Spider Queen can kiss his ass and smashes into its side with his (dwarven-crafted) maul, making the drider scream in agony. It keeps attacking though, and Slumberjack and Erak continue to have a bad time. Slumberjack is barely standing and Erak is knocked out. Julius jumps on the drider and tears its throat out, killing it. Julius leaves the dead drider behind to sniff at Erak, who gives her a big hug after Kilwin revives him. Erak tells her he owes her a meat chunk after we’re out of the ruins. Jorah also dotes on her and tells her she’s a good girl.

In the room past the drider and duergar, Jorah finds a golem kneeling on a pedestal, and a druegar who’s been smashed into paste. There’s a pile of treasure behind the golem, but Jorah would rather not get killed by a golem. Reides suggests throwing a body in there, so with his help, Erak punts a duergar corpse into the golem room. The golem doesn’t move. Kilwin casts Find Traps and detects the golem, but it seems to be a low threat level. Reides pokes it with Mage Hand, and it turns toward the spectral hand (which Reides immediately dispels) and slaps at it. Reides sends out Mage Hand again and goes around the golem and picks up a few coins. The golem doesn’t react, so we figure it’s fine as long as we don’t touch it. We find 600 copper, 8000 silver, and 500 gold, which Kilwin starts dividing into Urli’s 20% share and shares for the rest of us. There’s also a carnelian, a jasper, an onyx, a star rose quartz, and a zircon. Erak takes the onyx, Reides takes the quartz and jasper, and Marcyra takes the carnelian and the zircon. There’s also an empty gray cloth bag, a hat, and a deck of cards that Jorah seems to immediately hate. The deck has 15 cards in it. Reides starts casting Identify on the hat, since he likes it, while Erak examines the bag. It appears to be empty, so he puts a meat chunk inside, but it disappears when he closes the bag and opens it again. He finds a fuzzy thing inside the bag, which he takes out. He places a copper in the bag, but nothing happens to it. Erak drops the fuzzy thing, which turns into a badger. Erak is absolutely baffled, but starts casting Speak with Animals in case the badger can explain what’s going on. Reides determines that the hat is a Hat of Disguise, which allows the wearer to cast Disguise Self at will. He immediately uses it to create his whitesona. He turns his attention to Identifying the cards. Erak starts talking to the badger, who asks if he’s the new boss and says it’s been a long time. He explains that he and seven of his friends hang out in the bag. He and Erak bond over being bad at math as Erak adjusts to the idea of being the boss and caretaker of 8 animals who live in a magic bag. Erak asks if they have any dietary needs, and the badger tells him that most of them will be really happy with more meat chunks from time to time, but one of them would prefer some grass. Marcyra nudges Erak to ask the badger his name, but it turns out that none of the animals have names. Erak asks permission for us to give them names at some point, and the badger is cool with it! Erak decides to let the badger just hang out and chill with us. Reides determines that the cards are a partial Deck of Illusions. A card from the deck can be thrown down to create a variety of illusions, including one of the user. Erak asks Reides if he would fuck his clone, and Reides would but can’t since it’s just an illusion. Erak is disappointed! Reides takes the deck.

Session 28

 * Google Document (10-12-19)

Reides offers the Deck of Illusions to Slumberjack, who gladly accepts it. As we leave the golem room (with Slumberjack fighting the strong urge to touch the golem even though it’s deadly), Kilwin points out a side passage that Erak noticed earlier. We follow it and find a circular side room where the night sky is above us. Everyone thinks it’s kinda neat! Kilwin is a little confused because he didn’t think it was that late, until he sees a sign in Dwarvish, explaining that this is a planetarium, which he explains to the rest of the party. Erak jokes about jerking it in the star room, so Kilwin and Reides just wordlessly leave him to it before Erak runs after them. We pass through a ruined corridor with a lot of rubble. Reides wants to take a rock, but he’s worried it might be cursed somehow. Erak rearranges some rocks into a smiley face, and Reides makes a little stack of rocks. We follow the passage back to the first room with the canal. Reides takes one last look at the dead giant spiders and contemplates harvesting some of their venom, but he doesn’t have a flask to keep it in, unless we want to drain an entire bottle of whiskey right here and now. Kilwin thinks that is a terrible idea and Reides wants to save the whiskey for a special occasion anyway, although Jorah says he could do it. Slumberjack gets in the canal because they feel kind of grungy, and Erak starts to leave them behind. They say they’re fine with that and point out that they still haven’t talked about what happened. Since nothing attacked Slumberjack in the water, Reides dips a hand into it.

As Erak enters the entrance hall, he sees the ghost dwarf in front of him. Erak says hello! The ghost thanks us for clearing out the hall and says it means a lot to him. He tells Erak that he knows it might have been hard for him to fight his kin, but that if it wasn’t, they can relate on that. Erak says that the drow were no kin of his. The ghost also tells us that we’re free to take the items we’ve collected, since the dwarves of Earthbreaker Hall have no further need of them. He and Erak share a chuckle before the ghost says we might be heroes, thanks us one last time, and fades away. The party is a little sad, but mostly glad that he was able to move on. We leave Earthbreaker Hall behind, but Erak doesn’t feel like walking down the cliffs and tries to use his grappling hook to climb down the first level. He falls about halfway down. Kilwin rushes forward to make sure he’s okay, and Erak swears he is. Pepega lands on Erak to shame him. As Reides moves on, Erak waits on the ground for Kilwin to keep going so he can roll off the next cliff, but Kilwin doesn’t move, so Erak reluctantly just rolls down the path with the rest of the party. Kilwin sticks close to him to make sure he doesn’t fall.

We start heading back to Falas, but it starts to get dark so we set up camp. The terrain is more mountainous than what we’re used to, and we set up on a rocky outcropping that seems mostly defensible except from above. Reides studies the scroll he got from the Traveler’s Boon and learns the Thunderwave spell. Kilwin says pog and ends up teaching the rest of the party that it means “Wow” in Dwarvish. Reides reads a story from Fish Tales and Fish Tails to Erak, about a battle between a kraken and a legendary sailor. Reides is a little afraid of krakens, since they’re extremely big, and Erak does not like to know they exist now. Reides has never seen one, but he’s heard stories. Erak is a little disappointed that the sailor could only repel the kraken and couldn’t kill it, but Reides insists it’s still extremely impressive. We get ready to go to bed. Kilwin takes first watch, and it passes uneventfully. Erak spends his watch cuddling with his badger (tentatively named Booboo), and they both stay very alert. Booboo starts sniffing at the air and rears up. Erak looks up to see a wyvern flying overhead, although it doesn’t seem to notice the party. Erak doesn’t like it but just resumes his watch until a group of four wyverns fly past us. Although they also ignore the party, Erak figures it’s time to wake everyone up. None of us like to hear it, although we’re thankful for a potential false alarm. We all move our bedrolls under some nearby trees to get better cover and go back to sleep. Almost as soon as everyone else is settled, Erak hears the sound of massive wingbeats and sees a huge shadow passing over us. He looks up and sees a silver dragon overhead. It looks at Erak and seems to grin before continuing to fly after the wyverns, which it seems to be chasing. Erak tries to smile back at it, but he’s too dumbfounded to react before the dragon is gone. The winds that had been picking up suddenly die down as it leaves us behind.

Erak wakes up Reides for his watch and tells him about the dragon. Reides thinks it’s interesting but also terrifying. He asks if Erak could tell if it was a friendly smile or a hungry smile, but Erak couldn’t tell. Erak leaves Booboo with Reides before going to bed. Reides gives Booboo some hugs to try to get on his good side and maybe focuses on that a little too much during his watch, until he hears a thudding noise in the forest. He immediately wakes up Kilwin, who figures out from the flocks of birds flying away that the noise is coming from the south and heading in our general direction. Reides and Kilwin just wake everyone up. Erak asks if it’s the dragon, and Kilwin is very surprised to hear that he saw a dragon. Before we can get into that, a creature approaches us. It stands about nine feet tall, and has very long arms, sharps claws, and bumps on its shoulders. It looks us over, licks its lips, and lets out a roar. Kilwin asks it to just not, but it claws at Erak, immediately knocking him unconscious. It also takes some attacks at Kilwin, but misses both of them and snorts in frustration. Reides has immediately had enough of this and uses Fog Cloud to obscure the troll. He runs into some brush to the side of camp, but stops when he realizes he ran toward the cliff. Kilwin heals Erak and pulls him to his feet before running around the fog to the road. Erak, Slumberjack, Marcyra, and Jorah follow him. Reides realizes that we’re all heading back toward Earthbreaker Hall (and the wyverns and dragon) instead of Falas, and turns back. Kilwin also heads back, stopping at the campsite to collect everyone’s bedrolls and some other belongings. Within the fog cloud, the troll thrashes around. Slumberjack and Jorah run through the fog cloud to the south of where the trolls was, screaming. Erak runs to the campsite and stops to help Kilwin pick up, loading some items onto Booboo. He also rages as a comfort thing. Marcyra runs through the campsite too, although she sees that Kilwin and Erak have the packing up situation under control, so she keeps running. Kilwin, seeing that most of the remaining items are small things that can easily be replaced, figures it’s time to get out of here, so he books it, with Erak and Booboo close behind. Slumberjack yells to Kilwin that they’ll find him if they get separated, and clarifies that they mean this in a totally non-threatening way. Kilwin is touched by this and promises that he’ll look for them too, but he’s pretty sure we’ll be okay. The party manages to get enough distance that the troll won’t catch up with us. Kilwin finds the new campsite, a secluded spot off a dilapidated path. Kilwin hands out the bedrolls he picked up, and we set up a new watch order. The rest of the night passes uneventfully, although the party wakes up around noon. Kilwin asks Slumberjack if they’re okay, since they seemed very out of it during the troll attack. They say they don’t remember the previous night, which makes Kilwin a little sad because they were nice to him. They reassure him that they’re better now though. Slumberjack asks how he’s doing and he admits he’s a little frazzled, but unharmed. Slumberjack jokes about wishing that Healing Hands worked on emotional wounds, and Kilwin admits that being able to magically heal emotional damage would be very helpful. The rest of the journey to Falas is uneventful, with the party arriving just as the gates are getting ready to close around 6 PM.

Session 29

 * Google Document (10-19-19)

As the party arrives at the Outer Wall, Urli greets us, glad to see we’re still alive. Kilwin gives Urli his cut of the gold and the box. Urli takes the gold unceremoniously but handles the box with a lot of tenderness and care. He pulls out a small silver object, decorated with images of dwarves mining and smithing. Jorah asks what it is, and Urli says we’ll see in a second and maybe we’ll learn that the best treasures may not be gold or magic. Urli opens the object, which turns out to be a music box, and it plays its song as it shows images of dwarven adventurers traveling and eventually arriving at their underground home, with the last dwarf going to a room with a cradle inside. Urli thanks us for doing this for him with tears in his eyes. Reides says we were happy to do it, and Kilwin is glad because he’s a bit too emotional to really form sentences. Urli says that he feels like still owes us a favor and announces to the inn that all drinks are on him tonight. Everyone goes hog wild. Reides wants to party and knocks back a drink very quickly. Urli suggests that maybe Reides should slow down, but Reides says he’s happy and wants to drink very fast. He really wants someone to join him, so Kilwin drinks a little ale also. Reides gives Urli a quick rundown of what we found in the mines, although Kilwin has to fill in most of the details. Urli expected something like the giant spiders, but he’s surprised that drow were involved, especially since his father never mentioned anything like that.

Jorah silently drinks out of his flask, which has some fire whiskey he got from somewhere. Kilwin asks if he means that time we all got really drunk in Vilais Watch and Jorah doesn’t really remember. Kilwin thinks that tracks since Jorah definitely got the drunkest that time. Marcyra gets out her half bottle of fire whiskey and offers it to Reides, who drinks it with his ale and gets tipsy. Kilwin drinks some too. Urli asks Jorah if he’d like to try something with some more bite than fire whiskey. Jorah asks if it has spices or something, and Urli says it’s not spiced with herbs. Jorah says why not and Urli produces some magma wine for him to try. The magma wine has steam coming off it, so Jorah takes a small sip to make sure it doesn’t burn and instantly gets drunk off it. Reides thinks Kilwin should try it. Jorah says it might be a little strong without mixing it with something, so Urli takes a really small amount and mixes it with a glass of water. Kilwin thinks this is still a bad idea! Jorah takes a sip of the diluted drink and instantly gets wasted. He loves it and wants a whole bottle of the diluted magma wine to take with him and tells Urli he does not care how much it costs, but Urli cuts him off. Jorah’s face is red and steam is coming off him, so Reides thinks he’s turning into a dragon. Jorah is very alarmed, but Kilwin tries to reassure him that it’s just steam from the magma wine. Kilwin is very concerned about Jorah, but Jorah insists he is fine and stands up with great difficulty. Slumberjack decides he’s had enough and picks him up easily, even though Jorah tries to escape. They ask what they should do with him and the party pretty much agrees he should go to bed. Reides suggests tying him up so that he has to sleep. Kilwin notes that it was a very short party night and holds the doors for them. Slumberjack swaddles Jorah in bedsheets to make sure he doesn’t wander off and get hurt. Kilwin thinks this is a good idea, since Jorah threatened to kill people the last time he got this drunk, but is a little worried that he might not be able to get out in the morning. We leave him to rest though, and Kilwin figures he’ll check on Jorah and his hangover in the morning.

Downstairs, Reides tries to pressure Marcyra into dancing with him, but she agrees pretty easily. Marcyra laughs and initially just tries to follow along, but Reides is drunk enough that she ends up having to lead him in a jig. They have a good time! Meanwhile, Erak is standing on top of a table and juggling some empty mugs. When Reides and Marcyra finish dancing, Reides declares that it’s time for Kilwin to drink, to Kilwin’s alarm. He’s not sure about this magma wine! He has shopping to do tomorrow! Reides really wants someone to successfully drink it though, and since Slumberjack is straightedge, Kilwin is the most likely to pull it off. Kilwin figures that the worst that can happen is that he gets drunk though, so he takes a sip of the diluted magma wine. It’s strong, but he’s pretty much unaffected. Urli is impressed and says he’s ready and gives him some of the pure magma wine. After a little hesitation, Kilwin takes it and immediately gets drunk. It’s very strong and this is the drunkest he’s ever been in his life. We realize that the tavern-goers have gathered around Kilwin and seem impressed that he’s still standing. They all start clapping, and Reides starts clapping too. Kilwin doesn’t really get why people are clapping, so he just starts clapping too. Like with Jorah, Kilwin’s face is red and steam is coming off him. Reides says he’s turning into a dragon too, but Kilwin is pretty confident he’s not and if he is, that’s probably okay. Marcyra jokes that Kilwin would look cool with tiefling horns, and Kilwin thanks her. The inn’s clientele start chanting for Kilwin to take another shot of magma wine, and Reides and Marcyra join in, but Kilwin thinks that might be a bad idea. Slumberjack steps in as the voice of reason and tells Kilwin to stop and that they’ll be disappointed in him if he gets as drunk as Jorah and they have to swaddle him. Kilwin thinks being swaddled might be kind of nice, but concedes that Slumberjack is right. Slumberjack offers to swaddle him if he really really wants, but Kilwin’s okay actually. Slumberjack contemplates starting a fight, but before they can, a half-orc steps out from the crowd and says that if Kilwin won’t drink it, he will. He downs most of the bottle of magma wine and almost immediately starts to sweat and steam. His face flushes and he coughs, letting out a puff of smoke, before falling to the ground unconscious. Kilwin tries to cast Spare the Dying on him, but he’s already stable. Reides pokes him and he’s hot to the touch. Urli comes in with a bucket of water and throws it on the half-orc, saying that occasionally someone gets too cocky and tries to drink the whole bottle, and it never works. Kilwin thanks Slumberjack from stopping him from drinking more. While everyone is distracted by the half-orc, Erak takes the bottle, which has a little bit of magma wine left in it, and drinks the rest. He also immediately gets drunk and starts steaming. Reides asks if Erak can breathe fire now, but he can’t. Kilwin thinks that a good thing because having fire in your mouth would probably hurt most people. Urli says he can and pulls out a flask of orange glowing liquid, takes a quick drink, and breathes out a jet of fire that extends down the whole bar. Reides is extremely impressed! Marcyra uses illusion magic to make it look like she can breathe fire too, which excites and startles Reides before she explains it was just a party trick. We all decide to go to bed since most of the party is pretty drunk and we don’t want Jorah to think we had too much fun without him. Before we disperse, Kilwin stops everyone to tell the party that he really likes all of them and likes being with them. Reides says he feels the same way about everyone, even if we have almost died together multiple times and that’s a little stressful. Kilwin points out that we’ve survived by working together! We’re a good team!

Jorah wakes up in the middle of the night, still drunk, not sure where he is, and wrapped in bedsheets. He’s upset that this happened again and is pretty sure he’s been kidnapped. He tries reaching for his waist knife, but has trouble reaching anything while wrapped in the sheets and also doesn’t actually have a waist knife. He tries to struggle out of the sheets, but they’re tied together too well. Jorah calls for Julius, who walks into the room, and asks her to undo the knots. She doesn’t really get it though, and just sniffs at the sheets. Jorah wiggles around until he falls out of bed and squirms out of his room and to the stairs. He successfully gets the sheets caught on the banister so that they unravel as he falls down the stairs. It’s around 3 AM and he recognizes the tavern once he’s downstairs. Several lingering patrons are staring at him. He announces that he’s going to stab whoever did this in the dick once he’s sober, collects his bedsheets, and goes back to bed until he wakes up to the worst hangover of his life.

Slumberjack, Marcyra, and Reides manage to wake up around their usual time. Marcyra is a little surprised that Reides held up so well, but they figure that the others probably aren’t doing so well. They find Slumberjack enjoy some split pea soup by the bar after their morning exercises. They get Reides and Marcyra some soup and invite them to join them for a workout session some time, since they’re both pretty scrawny. Reides insists that he’s not that unfit and that he’s a very strong swimmer. Slumberjack admits they can’t swim at all, between growing up in the bowels of the earth, not spending a lot of time around water after leaving their clan, and constantly wearing heavy armor. Also, they don’t like having wet socks. Reides offers to teach them, though! Slumberjack apologizes for not being the best party member but says that they do trust most of the party and want to be friends. Reides tells Slumberjack that they’re already friends, but they silently get a little uncomfortable about the whole fake name thing when he calls them Rilineth. Slumberjack holds the Fog Cloud giant incident over Marcyra’s head a little, which she admits is fair.

They all silently bond over soup for a while before Kilwin comes down. Erak is also awake but indisposed for most of the day. Kilwin is having his first hangover, but is more or less okay. He asks if Urli’s seen Jorah, which he hasn’t, but he did hear some patrons talking about seeing a ghost fall down the stairs in the middle of the night. Kilwin is pretty sure that Jorah isn’t a ghost, but checks to make sure he’s alive. Jorah is sleeping Urli asks what the party is planning on doing, and Kilwin asks about the bounty for Festus. Urli produces the 200 gold he’s been keeping for us, since it arrived the day after we left. We divide it among the party. Kilwin says he needs to shop for spell components and Reides wants to look for spell scrolls and magic items. Urli warns him that magic items (other than potions) tend to be much more expensive in Falas, since they’re imported from Atemcester. He says that some merchants are open to bartering, or reducing a price in exchange for doing odd jobs, but we can’t count on that and the jobs wouldn’t be glamorous. We all kind of agree that we’re not particularly glamorous anyway.

Before heading out, Kilwin checks on Jorah one more time and finds that he’s woken up for a bit. He’s hiding under his covers and alarmed that someone is coming into his room. When Kilwin identifies himself, Jorah just asks him to stop being so loud, even though Kilwin was speaking on the softer side of normal. Kilwin tries casting Lesser Restoration to alleviate some of the pain, but because magma wine is magic, it’s resistant to the spell. Jorah asks Kilwin why he hasn’t cast it yet, and Kilwin feels bad but tries to convince Jorah to just take a sick day. Jorah says he can’t because he needs to stab whoever wrapped him up. Kilwin tells him that Slumberjack just didn’t want him to wander off and get hurt. Jorah wants to have some words with Slumberjack that might involve stabbing! He still can’t see because light hurts though, so he asks Slumberjack to stab themself for him. If Slumberjack can hear him, they ignore him. Kilwin convinces Jorah to let them get away with it since it was a first offense, so Jorah grabs his blankets and Julius, gets under his bed, and says he’ll need ten minutes. Kilwin tells him to take all the time he needs before quietly closing the door (although it’s still very loud to Jorah) and heading out for the day. On the way out, Kilwin asks Urli if there’s anything that can help with a magma wine hangover, but Urli says Jorah will just have to wait it out. Kilwin thanks Slumberjack again for stopping him from drinking more.

Reides takes Kilwin to the alchemical shop where he bought his gold dust, where Kilwin buys 25 gold’s worth of powdered silver (although it’s upcharged). Reides looks for a potion shop, hoping to buy some healing potions, but decides against it when he realizes the cheapest potions are 50 gp each. Slumberjack is also turned off by the price. The party also finds a Potion of Fire Breathing, which appears to be what Urli used to breathe fire instead of any kind of alcohol. It’s also way too expensive for any of us to want to buy. Reides also finds a shop selling spell scrolls and browses it with Marcyra. While he can’t read most of the scrolls, he finds one for Blindness/Deafness and one for Acid Arrow. Reides ends up buying the Acid Arrow scroll. Marcyra sells the gemstones she’s gotten on our journeys, after checking to make sure no one needs them for spell components. Marcyra also asks Reides to cast Identify on the ring she took from Tyrian, just to see. Reides casts the spell and the ring shatters. He discovers that it had a modified version of the Alarm spell on it, designed to ward against intrusions on people trying to magically track the origins of an item. He can also tell that the spell was placed on the ring at some point after Marcyra took it. None of us like to hear it! We briefly wonder if whoever cast the spell could have been using the ring to spy on us somehow, although that wouldn’t be Tyrian since he could track Reides through the revenant curse. We also wonder if Tyrian can hear us from inside the Bag of Holding, and Marcyra and Reides yell some insults at him, while Kilwin hits him with some stern disapproval. We figure that we can’t do anything about the ring now, so we settle for being glad we don’t have it anymore.

Kilwin pulls Slumberjack aside to tell them that he got the materials he needs for the ceremony he mentioned, although he forgot to prepare the spell properly because he got too drunk, so they can do it tomorrow at the earliest. Slumberjack still wants to do it, but admits they haven’t been totally honest and they can’t imagine the spell would work without Kilwin knowing their real name. Kilwin asks if it’s Rilineth. Slumberjack explains that, while they’ve been Rilineth since coming to this continent, their actual name is Slumberjack. While living on the other continent, Slumberjack did things that they don’t necessarily regret, but they’re not sure how they feel about them anymore. They’re a bit unsure of how they feel about anything right now. Still, they trust Kilwin enough to tell him this and want this ritual to work. Kilwin thanks them for telling him and also makes sure that they want this kept secret from the rest of the party for now. He’ll let Slumberjack tell them in their own time. He tells them that it sounds to him like they want to start being a better person (or at least are thinking about it) and that he wants to help them with that however they can. He also tells them that Slumberjack is a very cool name. Slumberjack is genuinely pleased and thanks him, since if Kilwin likes that part of them, then they might be able to accept it too. They go back to pretending they aren’t emotionally vulnerable and tell Kilwin that they hope this doesn’t make him an accessory to their crimes before walking away. Kilwin hopes that too! He figures they can work on some form of restitution for Slumberjack’s victims later on.

The party (minus Jorah and Erak) reconvenes and discusses their next move. Marcyra suggests visiting Atemcester, since Pandora said they might be able to get help with the Tyrian situation there. Kilwin and Reides feel like Tyrian himself is under control so we might not need the Atemcester mages, but they still might know something about what could be behind Tyrian. Also, Reides wants to visit Atemcester someday anyway, just to see all the magic. Kilwin points out that that’s also where Julia is, so he feels weird about us making a decision to go there without Jorah being present, and it’s also very out of the way. Reides thinks that Jorah might not want to go, and Kilwin agrees. We table going to Atemcester for now. Kilwin suggests the mountains near Port Valor, where Thorak has his base (although the last time we fought anyone from the Fireaxe Clan, Kilwin almost died and Keras did die) and Port Valor, which has the library where Tyrian spent a lot of time going through books. If we tried to retrace his steps, we might learn what else we’re up against. By backtracking, we’d also pass through Vilais Watch again, where we did tell Grinlief we’d have drinks with him. Kilwin admits that only he and Reides really committed themselves to doing that, but of course everyone is welcome and he likes Grinlief, so he’s looking forward to it. Kilwin quickly points out that the area where Keras was originally from is to our south, and while we don’t have to do anything about it really, he did mention a friend in the early pages of his journals who might be wondering what happened to him. We end up not making any clear decisions about what to do next.

Back at the inn, Jorah (who is still hiding under his bed with Julius) hears someone come into his room. He draws his shortsword and sends Julius out, but when he sees Julius wagging her tail instead of preparing to attack, he sheathes his sword. Urli asks if Jorah is in there, and Jorah tells him to stop being so loud. Urli is talking in his regular voice though. Jorah emerges from under the bed. Urli offers to do a favor for Jorah and asks to see the sword he got from the drider. Jorah is confused on which of his swords Urli wants, but eventually figures it out. Urli’s not really a smith, but he thinks he can tell Jorah some information about the sword. Jorah eventually hands the sword over, and Urli points out signs of dwarven craftsmanship. The sword was originally a dwarven blade, but was tampered with by the drow who took over Earthbreaker Hall. He tells Jorah to keep the blade out of sunlight for now and take it to a smith he recommends, who can undo the drows’ enchantments. Urli is also reasonably sure that the original sword was called Quickbrand, which was never a legendary blade, but still imbued with magic.

Jorah, still very hungover, manages to find his way to the smith Urli recommended, although it’s difficult. It’s a shabbier smithy than the Royal Armory, on the outskirts of the town. The building is extremely run down and the smith is a much older dwarf. Jorah approaches and says hi before getting knocked down by the door swinging open. The smith, who has wild eyes and food in his beard, starts yelling at Jorah, asking who goes there. Jorah says he’s a customer, and notices that the dwarf seems to be blind. The dwarf manages to find Jorah with his hands and feels his face to get an idea of what he looks like, and notes that he’s taller than expected. Jorah explains that he was told that the smith could fix Quickbrand and asks his name. The dwarf says Jorah will learn his name when he’s good and ready because he’s going to engrave it on the blade. He takes Quickbrand before Jorah can react and goes to work. Jorah sits outside the smithy (away from the door), petting Julius and trying to convince himself that he can deal with this guy, even while hungover. The hammering sounds coming from the smithy don’t help that hangover at all. Jorah waits for several hours, from early evening until 4 AM. (In the meantime, the rest of the party eats dinner at the Outer Wall- Reides studies his new spell scroll and successfully transfers Acid Arrow to his spellbook, while Kilwin pointedly sticks to milk and water for drinks.)The smith emerges and remarks that Jorah is the first person to actually wait. Jorah says he learned patience at a young age. The smith presents Jorah with the reforged Quickbrand, wrapped in a cloth that manages to stay clean even though the smith’s hands are grimy. Jorah inspects the blade and sees that the spiderweb markings are gone and the blade is engraved with dwarven runes that read “Galnur.” The smith finally introduces himself as Galnur the Smith. Jorah compliments his work. Jorah says the blade clearly has history, which is what he’s looking for. Galnur says it’s good that he cares about the dead- and the still-living smiths. While Galnur isn’t from Earthbreaker Hall, he recognizes the weapon as Quickbrand and says it was wielded by the hall’s master to protect its people. It’s ironic that it was corrupted and used by the people who destroyed Earthbreaker Hall. Galnur tells Jorah that all he can ask is that he use the blade to do good, although some mischief is fine too. Galnur explains that his ancestors would be cross with him if he didn’t say the thing about doing good before walking back inside while having an argument with the spirits of his dead ancestors. Jorah slides some coin under Galnur’s door in thanks for the sword, but Galnur kicks it back out and says he didn’t want coin. Jorah tells him he was the last one who touched it so it’s his before returning to the Outer Wall.