Session 160 Bunnies, Snakes, and Rats, Oh my!

Session 160 (Homlett) Day 27

Dear Diary 💖

Elmo decides to play tour guide and drag us around the “town” to kill some time before the vendors open.  Granted, “town” is a very generous word for this place.  Elmo points out this church of St. Cuthbert and that it’s a new faith.  There’s also this old faith that’s run by some guy who lives in the woods.  I bet he knows the Robin Hood knock-off.  Speaking of which, I met a guy at the inn who had similar clothes if I remember correctly?

We ask for more info about all of this, and Elmo says he’ll trade news for treasure.  I would feel bad about giving him financial support for his drinking habit, but it’s hard to find good fighters these days.  He seems to have some sort of mutual understanding with the bartender, which I find rather odd.  If information is as valuable as gold in this town, I should start bribing the bartender.  I bet he has overheard some interesting things from drunks.

Elmo must have had a bunny attack him when he was younger because he has some serious emotions to process about bunnies.  The fluff ball must’ve climbed out of the nine hells themselves and demanded his soul for him to be like this.  Despite everything, he has channeled his trauma into art.  It’s just a shame that the art really isn’t that good.  If you’re going to have emotional outbursts like that, you might as well make a profit off of them.  Maybe someone will buy them if he becomes one of those “tortured artists”?  I think the vendors talked about a gnome or someone riding a giant rabbit at one point.  Maybe I’ll have him chase Elmo around for a little bit.  New business idea:  profit off of Elmo’s childhood trauma of bunnies.

For some reason, someone thought it was a good idea to go visit some cabinet makers.  I think they knew that there were some carpenters in our group?  Our carpenters are just very interested in doors, but to be fair, cabinets are just mini doors if you really think about it.  If they did know that we had carpenters in our group, I’m glad they decided to keep it civil.  I doubt committing arson to a shop that’s somewhat close to a church is a good look.  When I die, a bunny may drag my soul to hell.

Anyways, the bard asked to have a snake painted on his flute, but he decided against it due to it taking too much time.  He should’ve casted an illusion on his flute to have a snake on it.  A snake illusion would work quite well against rabbits.

Elmo takes us to the brewer for an excuse to day drink, which I’m fine with because it’s never a bad idea to have some liquid courage before heading into danger.  Then, we sell some stones, a dagger, a chain, and an ivory box for a decent amount of coin to a guy with two hellhounds.  They probably chased the bunnies out of hell, and now they’re domesticated.

We go to the traders, and they don’t have a single book on the town’s history or on some of these faiths.  I don’t like the traders, but maybe that’s because I just tend to not like people in general.  I also don’t trust the majority of the people that we’ve met so far.  For example, we tossed one of our hostages to a wizard, and we haven’t heard anything about what happened with that yet.  The wizard, BURNE, seems a little too eager for information.  I wonder if he changed his name when this whole elemental nonsense happened just to fit the aesthetic.  I’ll investigate and have a chat with him soon.

If Elmo keeps whistling during these little strolls to the moathouse, I might poison his ale at some point.  Actually, I’m sure his liver is so strong that it’ll process any poison without a problem.  He tries to talk to the mule at one point, but the mule is even annoyed by the whistling.

We get to the moathouse, and we investigate some noises upstairs because that’s a thing we’ve been doing now I guess.  An adventurer's lifespan would be significantly longer if they just ignored some noises here and there.  Low and behold, rats spill out of the hallway.  I cast an illusion of a giant snake, and the only name I could think of was “Steve.”  This choice will haunt me for eons to come.  Maeve is still drunk from earlier apparently and throws an ax at Elmo.  It was hilarious.  She can handle weapons, but not her liquor.

We kill the rats and find a flask of oil.  I’m surprised Elmo didn’t immediately start chugging the flask, but he was able to find the restraint.  We find a set of stairs, so I send Steve down them.  I don’t trust the structural integrity of this building.  Everything seems fine at first, but then Rufio starts growling and barking at something.  We decide to take the subtle and tactical approach by throwing a lit molotov cocktail, and two large slime balls fall from the ceiling.  They immediately burn, and the place smells even worse than before.  As if we haven’t made enough poor choices today, we go downstairs…

Session 159: Is that... Deeb?

It's halfway through Day 26 of Patchwall and our troop is feeling battle-worn after our encounter with the lizard and ticks. Lucius first floats the idea of returning to Homlet because he's low on healing spells and another encounter with a dangerous creature could be disastrous. Elmo chimes in that there are three good reasons to head back and they are: ale, ale, and dinner. Can't argue with that.

We are in pretty good spirits on our expedited walk back to town (thanks to our competent guide) when Emberia catches sight of a familiar face. Deeb! Our former compatriot peeks out from behind a bush and asks "found anything today?"  He seems to be feeling out his decision to leave the group. Francis produces a goblin skull as if it's something to be valued, but Deeb just rolls his eyes. Eris mentions our haul of 33 copper pieces (which, is not much, but it's not nothing!). Nobody brings up the sundry other items we've found. Perhaps it's because their value isn't as tangible. Deeb decides he will join us on our walk. I ask him what ever happened to those two adventurers he was planning to join up with. He has no clue what I'm talking about. Maybe it really was all just a dream.

Back at the Welcome Wench, Francis and Elmo are drinking ale (what else?) and Elmo is telling Francis that his collection of skulls is a little pedestrian. Collecting common woodland creature parts (like a snake skull -- even if it is a giant one) will make people believe you are common. What he needs is something legendary! The rest of us order dinner and Burne the wizard walks in. I go over to talk to him and relay the information we have gathered so far about the moat house. He rewards our group with five silver pieces each with a promise of more for additional information or evidence of bandits of the Temple of Elemental Evil. 

Most of us turn in for the night, but Eris and Francis linger in the dining hall. Eris meets and chats with a fellow named Zert. He's a mercenary for hire whose usually quarry is guarding caravans, but he has some time until the next one rolls out. Zert is intrigued by the moat house and the prospect of finding treasure there. He offers himself as a hireling for tomorrow's excursion, but Eris demurs and says she will need to get permission from the entire group. Francis, meanwhile, chats with the druid Jaroo. He knows Burne and is also interested in whatever intel he can gather about the moat house. Jaroo entices Francis to indulge in some "nature's punch" (which is just water) and a plate of delicious mixed nuts. What a wholesome guy! Certainly his motives are pure and he is to be trusted! After this thrilling nightcap, the last two of the party retire.

It's the morning of Day 27 and the party straggles back into the dining hall where we hear of Eris' offer to extend our party by one. Tylendal and I are happy to put another beefy body between us and danger, but Contristo and Lucius are loath to split the pot any further. So with no hard feelings, we tell Zert his services are not needed. Instead of heading straight out, we plan to visit some shops this morning.

Session 158: Ruined Ruins and a Reptile Rumble

 Day 26 of Patchwall

After my morning prayers and mediation, I headed to enjoy a filling breakfast the inn had cooked up for us. It was quite delicious. When I sat down to enjoy the meal, I absent-mindedly sat down next down to Burne, the mage in charge of half the town it seems. Any who, he wanted to all about the day's previous adventures in the moathouse. He mentioned that nobody had been there in a hot minute and was quite interested in what the group encountered while there. I of course told him about the giant spider attacking Maeve, the large snake attacking the group, and some large tracks that were discovered, possibly by a humanoid creature. Since none in the party were rangers, we couldn't make heads or tails of the tracks. Burne thanked me for the information that I could provide and mentioned possible rewards for further information: if we brought scalps or other things of value from the suspected bandits that call the moathouse home. He said that the moathouse was once a base of operations for an evil cleric who worshipped a demoness name Loth, and this evil cleric was a member of this bandit gang. 

Following this chat the group chatted up the new hireling, that is free with his ale cups, named Elmo. He demanded a battleaxe before he will join the party, and oddly enough the party agrees. Emberia went to the local trader and purchased one, but not before apparently being hassled by the shop keeper about how the previous hireling Charles was treated. When the elven fighter delivers the axe, Elmo took off, apparently to get ready for the adventure. Constristo and I went to the traders. He needed some glasses bottles or vials I think, and I wanted to kill time. The shop keeper wanted some additional answers from me and Constristo, and we tried to answer them as best we could about the group's treatment of Charles. I think he accepted our answers a little more than Emberia's. We headed back to the group when Constristo got what he needed from the shop. The group is met by Elmo who is ready to go: fully clad in chain mail armor and battleaxe in tow. 

Elmo is one heck of a guide. He guides us in more efficient paths we wouldn't have thought to take, and we make it to the moathouse in record time. When we enter into the ancient den of evil, Elmo takes notice of the footprints and comments that they are less than a week old. He points out the different prints: some belong to the party last time they adventured here, other prints belong to other humanoids, and some belong to a gnoll. He decides (with group consensus) that it would be best to sweep the tracks as well as those of tracks we leave behind. We show him the various areas we have explored, and upon seeing the headless corpse of the snake, he comments and takes offense. He says something to the effect of respecting natures creatures, and then puts the body of the creature in the moat. I don't know about you, but I respect something until it tries to eat me, then all bets are off. The group does a bit more exploring and Emberia finds a pouch of broken glass, Maeve finds a leather ball, and Eris finds a pair of ugly green boots. She uses her cantrip and dyes them black, and immediately puts them on. She is a weird one for putting on garbage boots without checking them first. Tylendale finds a bottle of reddish hue liquid which may or may not be a container of blood. The group entered a room with a few wooden chests. When Emberia gets close to one of the chests, a creature bursted up from its hiding place and attacked Emberia. It is a giant lizard. 

Constristo, trying to show off I think throws some daggers at it, and misses it wildly. Maeve missed in her thrown attack as well. The lizard, who initially saw Emberia, attacked her, but she easily dodged out of the way. Tylendale hit it with his staff, and that made it mad. The party tries to hit it, but most miss their attacks. The lizard does bite Emberia, but I ended up healing her right back. After several more misses Elmo strikes and kills the creature. The lizard was guarding a light crossbow and bolts, and a scale mail tunic. Constristo graps the tunic and Tylendale grabs the crossbow and bolts to sell in town. Maeve heals Tylendale (he had been hit by a few of the party's darks) with one of her healing potions. 

Emberia leads us to a room that looks kind of like an old kitchen. When she enters, a large tick-like creature attacks and attaches itself to her face. She tried to clear it off with her sword, but the angle was too awkward, and she is unable to do so. The rest of the party are unable to figure out how to attack or remove it without hurting Emberia. Elmo finally just rips it off and throws it against the wall, killing it. In the commotion, another tick showed up to attack the party and attacked and knocked out Tylendale. The party takes turns attacking the creature, but I finished it off squishing it with my staff. 

Session 157

 Day 25

Dear Diary,

We went back to the moathouse today.  It was the same moathouse where I was like super heroic and killed that giant spider.   There’s this guy that keeps following us for some reason.  He really doesn’t do anything other than just huff and grumble.  If he actually killed anything, then maybe he would be useful.  Granted, I’m not even sure why I’m with these people in the first place.  I joined for like one job, and now I’m doing this other thing with them.  It’s one of those things where I wasn’t planning on being here for long, so it would just kinda be too awkward to back out now.  I’m not even sure if I was actually invited to be honest.  I just heard there was money, and I decided to follow that sweet sound of gold clinking together in a pouch.

Anyways, some of the people were really into the doors.  Not sure if they’re just carpenters or what, but they seriously examined every door and random details within the rooms.  I think I’m following a group of aggressive carpenters.  I bet they want to kick out those vendors from Hommlett, so that they can take their business and become a monopoly.  I don’t know how businesses work, but I’m guessing we’ll be fighting the vendors soon.

At one point, I nearly died.  There were some bats that flew by and nearly took my head off.  After that scare, we were met with this giant snake.  That guy who was following us did nothing of course, while we did all of the hard work.  I think his name is Milk?  I casted Spook on the snake, and one of the carpenters killed the snake while it was fleeing to the water.  He decided to go for a swim as if giant frogs weren’t in the water the day before, but he lived I guess.

We finally got back to town, and a drunk guy comes in and starts asking for people to pay for his drinks.  He offered to help us with this whole moathouse thing, and a part of me died a little because I was hoping we weren’t returning to that place.  The giant creatures were annoying but fine.  The place just smelled like mold.  I’m sure this drunk guy’s aim will be a lot better than Milk.

One of the carpenters talks to Milk, and Milk loses his mind and storms out.  I’m pretty sure the chainmail was a rental, and I think he thought he was going to be able to keep it?  Not sure.  Doesn’t really matter now because we have the town drunkard.  Just a silly little group of several carpenters, a birthday clown who was probably fired from their previous gig, a band nerd with an alarming amount of skulls in their collection, a town drunkard, and yours truly. 💙

To-Do List:

• Figure out how business works
• Find out how many skulls in a collection is considered an alarming amount

Session 156: From Hommlet to the Moathouse (Patchwall Day 25)

From Emberia's notes:

Decided on our plan to visit the Moathouse in search of adventure and treasure, and accompanied by our new pal Charles, we prepared to leave town. The trader sold us a few more items, including some machetes to cut through the apparently-overgrown trail we were headed for.

We followed his directions out of town until the trail diverged, then asked Charles which way to go. He seemed to think we should know the way, so we assumed the more-overgrown of the two trails was our correct path and took it. Some of the others assisted as I hacked away at the weedy, thorny growth and cleared a path along the trail. It was hot work and slow going. Contristo kept offering to take over for someone—for a price—but no one wanted to pay for a break. After an hour the flies and mosquitos betrayed some boggier land ahead, and soon we could see the jagged silhouette of a building of some kind. We weren't too far from our goal when Eris finally decided she was worn out and paid 2 silver to hand over her machete to Contristo.

As fits the name, the moathouse was surrounded by water with one strip of land that led to a rotting drawbridge. The whole thing appeared to have seen better times. The roof was damaged and there was a lot of rubble where walls were broken or falling down. As we looked around at it all, some creatures appeared from the weeds and quickly hopped toward us: giant frogs!

Two frogs attacked Francis and his mule, Jequavious. One of them managed to wrap his tongue around the bard and begin dragging him off the mule and into the water. The others attacked Maeve, who was also taken by the huge tongue of an enormous frog. I leapt in and cut off the tongue of the frog that had Francis in its grip, and the wily bard managed to play a sleep spell on his flute long enough to put them all to sleep. He really seems to be as skilled with that flute as some of us are with a sword. As soon as the frogs passed out we finished them off.

Charles took too much credit for killing one of the frogs, then refused to help by crossing the drawbridge first, so I used my 10-foot pole to test its sturdiness and crossed to the entrance. One of the two doors fell as soon as I pushed on it, and we stepped inside. It was dim but I could make out a courtyard area, and one door immediately to our left.

Francis was oddly determined to take the skull of one of the frogs, so he slung the creature's dead body across his lap and rode toward the entrance. Jequavious easily crossed the rotting bridge, but as soon as Francis steered him through the door and into the courtyard the mule began braying loudly, so the bard walked him back out and tied him up on a tree outside. Jequavious stopped braying and warily chewed on some grass.

There was rubble and stone littered across the floor and we split into two groups to trace our way around the edges of the room. Past the closed door to the left, part of the wall was broken down in a large pile of rubble. To the north there were three windows that looked into three rooms. To the northeast there were stone stairs up to another door, opening up into another larger room. We could see a few sets of footprints of some kind in the dust on the stairs and into the next room, but they appeared to be headed out, not going in. The large room was a huge hall, seemingly richly-decorated before it was destroyed.

As we glanced around the hall (and the distracted bard continued to saw away at the frog’s head), Eris and Maeve took Charles and headed back toward the entrance to see what was behind door #1. They opened it and saw gold! There were coins on the floor, along with some bones and husks… a suspicious scene that made Maeve immediately lift her torch toward the ceiling, where she discovered a giant wolf spider descending toward them! They all attacked, creating a ruckus that alerted Rufio to their plight.

Rufio began barking loudly and the rest of us immediately turned and ran back toward the entrance. Contristo got there first and tried to join in the melee, narrowly missing Maeve with a thrown dagger, just as she managed to kill the spider. After Maeve finished her victory dance, we examined the floor and found an ivory box, along with some gold and copper coins. We decided to use the empty ivory box to keep our group treasure.

Despite having no skill, Contristo tried to harvest the poison sac from the spider. We all held our breath, fully expecting him to turn green, but the dolt somehow managed to do it! It was slimy and gross, but he lifted it out and deposited it in his bag. That guy is a bit too obsessed with poison, and not the smartest. If he suggests cooking for the party, I think I'll stick to my hard tack for meals.