Tale View

Dryali and Fine Branch brought Nix and Quelenna in to check in with Mudra.  He was a short Holder dwarf with tan skin and bright red hair, and leaves & flowers woven into his hair and beard.  He explained the other groups also keeping security:  The Steel Dragons at night, Manticores in the manticore section, Flying Foxes in the giant bat section.  He reiterated he wanted the Freelancers to roam, it has been very effective.

They'd not seen the pterosaurs, so the Freelancers went to that section from Mudra's offices.  They saw pterosaurs of various sizes:  medium-sized, being sold by Mikumwes and Djogeon, large that could carry normal people, and some really big ones to carry up to 3 people.  Dryali explained to the others that was a normal sight, where he was from.  The enclosures had nets above, between the cedars.

The smaller pterosaurs were near the entrance to this section of the Mount Faire, and the creatures they saw were larger and larger as they wandered deeper into this section of vendors.  There were a couple groups selling quetzalcoatls, who were indeed big enough to carry 3 people.  Also someone was selling a hatzegopteryx, which was bigger in the shoulders and had a thicker neck than the quetzalcoatls.

The hatzegopteryx was ridiculously large.  It also appeared to be trying to escape.

The Freelancers watched it pacing, trying to take off, but the nets were too low for it to have room.  It was obviously restive, and perhaps hungry, from the way it was eyeing the smaller pterosaurs.  They glanced at the keeper… there was only one, a sleepy-looking firbolg with red hair.

Fine Branch frowned, there should be at least 2 keepers.  He couldn't tell if the hatzegopteryx was hungry or bored, so the cleric cast create food and water, dropping the carcass of a medium-sized goat on the other side of the enclosure.  The hatzegopteryx spun quasi-gracefully, then quad-launched into a leap and speared the carcass with its beak.  The firbolg jolted all the way awake.

Firbolg:  where'd that goat come from?!  o my gods
<He looked around, not quite panicked, for an opening in the enclosure.>
Fine Branch:  you need more hatzegopteryx enrichment in your hatzegopteryx enclosure.
<The firbolg nodded numbly.>
Fine Branch <sternly>:  so let me get this straight.  We have, let's say, a target-rich environment in World of Hatzegopteryx; it is the top predator here.  It's placed in an area where it could escape, and watched over by a vendor unfamiliar with its care and nurturing.  <paused>  One of us needs to stay here, and we need to tell Mudra.
Dryali:  yeah, suggest Quelenna, because she is fast.

Quelenna ran back to the central building, and burst in the door.

Quelenna:  are you aware of this animal here?  It's there, are there rules?  Because this is what's happening…
Assistant:  hold up, hold up, I need to get Mudra.

The half-elf assistant got Mudra, and the Wild elf explained about the hatzegopteryx.  The dwarf's eyes widened in shock, and he grimaced.

Mudra:  there should be at least another person there, if not two!
Quelenna:  also, handlers need training.
Mudra:  yes, where exactly?
Quelenna:  in the back of the pterosaur area.
Mudra:  I can't deputize this one… you [the half-elf] come with us.

The three of them returned to the hatzegopteryx, albeit more slowly than the monk's mad dash to the central building in the first place.  All in all Quelenna had been gone 20 minutes.  As they arrived, 2 more firbolgs showed up.

New firbolg <to Fine Branch & Dryali>:  oh, are you interested in our hatzegopteryx?  Fully trained, fine fierce mount!
<Fine Branch's ears flattened a bit.>
Mudra:  did you… really leave a hatzegopteryx with only one attendant?

The firbolgs tried to lie to Mudra, but the druid was not fooled.  He fined them, and decreed they must stay with the hatzegopteryx all the time.  "I don't really care, if you need food, hire a runner."

As they were about to leave the chastened firbolgs, Dryali asked diffidently about any paddock improvements.  Mudra walked around it, and applied druidcraft to reinforce the side where the hatzegopteryx had been poking.

He also gave the Freelancers a bonus of 50 eagles each.

Quelenna, having heard so much about it, wanted to visit the exotic mounts.  Perhaps she was hoping someone had a giant crocodile.

The Freelancers wandered back into that section.  They saw a small area for giant insects:  griffinflys, giant bees, wasps.  Across from that area were 2 elephants and a mammoth.  The sale of such included palanquins; on display, not worn, were slashing weapons to attach to the pachyderms' tusks.  Which was for which, was obvious by the mammoth's lazy spiral.

Another vendor had camels, both dromedary and bactrian, looming over their handlers and occasionally spitting at would-be customers.  But the vendor that was truly eye-catching was a wizardly type who was selling chromatic guard drakes:  green, blue, black, and a couple red ones.  He had 6 or 7 for sale, and an additional pair ( red & green) which were his own.  The patrons there had their own retinue.

The Freelancers didn't really see anything untoward in this area.  The vendors all looked like they knew their business, and they were focussed on the creatures they were selling.  The price of these meant they were all much more focussed and on their guard.  Dryali, having been here the day before, was focussed on the people wandering through the area, but nobody looked shady.  Quelenna was more focussed on the animals, and they all looked well-cared for.

Dryali had gotten used to Nix's wyvern Eris, but she was still exotic to him; at his behest the Freelancers took a tour around the wyvern area of the Mount Faire.

The wyvern area was small, and each paddock had no more than 3 wyverns, with at least 3 people manning the area.  A couple vendors had warming tents selling eggs, and in the center were small paddocks with mastiff-sized baby wyverns.  As the Freelancers wandered through, Nix realized that although Eris was full-grown, she hadn't yet achieved full adult bulk.

The colours of the wyverns varied from shiny dark green to olive green, and none to spectacular copper highlights and markings.  They were very pretty.  Nix was inspired and started asking around about getting bling for Eris, but she was directed to ask in the gear vendor section.  Quelenna asked about prices, and found out the trained adults were 15000 stars, an egg was 1000 eagles.

Dryali was again looking for any shady people, but the wyverns were well-watched and, moreover, very dangerous… as dangerous as the hatzegopteryx.  By now, gossip had started to spread about that as well, and the Freelancers overheard it as they wandered around.  "They only had 1 person!" "fools" "we're lucky no-one died" "Mudra went over there personally".

The baby wyverns, of course, stole everyone's attention.  They were very cute, and rolling around in the dirt.  Not yet big enough to fly much, they were taking short glides as they played mock battles under the watchful eyes of their handlers.

Mudra seemed to be expanding, as in the ground mounts' side of the Faire there was a section for beasts of burden:  mules, donkeys, oxen, llamas.  There were no dinosaurs here, probably becuase dinosaurs are mostly in the inner reaches and would not be up to large burdens further outward.

As the Freelancers looked around, they realized the entire area smelled like a barn; much different than the wyvern area.

The Freelancers spotted some shady people in the crowd.  As they kept an eye on these folks, they were suspicious-looking, but the Freelancers didn't see them actually doing anything, and couldn't determine intent.

Fine Branch found this untenable, so determined to do a divination ritual to ask The Cat for advice.  He found a patch in the walkway that the Daystar was weakly illuminating through the clouds, and laid in it like a cat doing catspotting.  As he did so, he focussed on The Cat, with the question Given the task we are here to perform, do we have reason to suspect these suspicious characters?  He also, not coincidentally, blocked a bunch of foot traffic.

Passerby looked at the Maneki nekomata strangely; the other Freelancers tried to look like he wasn't with them.

The Cat responded with some non-rhyming verse:

Suspicious is as suspicion does
Everyone can be suspicious
But suspicion is an action

After rousing from his ritual, Fine Branch said to the others, "Let's hang around; perhaps our presence will deter any stuff."  So they did so, and nothing unpleasant happened.

The next morning, at the behest of Nix and Quelenna, the Freelancers revisited the gear vendors south of the exotic mounts.  Dryali noted the barding got more expensive in the last 4 days, then started paying attention to patrolling as he considered a saddleblanket of protection.  Quelenna and Nix paid less attention, because they were shopping:  Quelenna for a winged harness to equip on Koka, her giant crocodile, and Nix for a decorative head gear that would fit on the head of a wyvern.  But the latter was also liking the idea of getting a saddlebag of holding, her own saddleblanket of protection, and having a Hostler's Charm attached to the pretty head gear.

Fine Branch and Dryali saw that the Cloud elf vendor selling lances was crossing the line, going beyond a simple sales pitch and full on intimidating one of his customers.  Dryali stepped up, declaring, "This is a public place!  Let him go," trying to sound intimidating and authoritative at the same time.  The vendor looked down at 4'11" Dryali and was not impressed in the slightest.

"Hey, I'm just tryin' to sell something here," he replied aggressively, "This person was gonna buy something," he added, in that way a bully leaves the "or else" unsaid.

Fine Branch does not like bullies.

The cleric stepped up and said, intensely, "Remember yesterday, when you grabbed the half-elf by the arm, and he turned out to be a devil, and you ended up in the Violent Hells for 10 minutes, and the Wall of Knives got closer, and closer, and you heard the screams of everyone you ever looked up to?"

Dryali watched Fine Branch in horror as he cast modify memory, converting his question into the vendor's lived experience, of having: used the same sales tactic on an unassuming half-elf, and been teleported into one of the hells, and only pried free by a supreme act of will.

The vendor looked extremely shaken, and started sweating.  The look on his face said it all:  wow, I am never going to do this again.  The customer was long gone.  <Narrator voice:  the GM rolled a nat 1 on the save.>

Dryali was also shaken, and questioning his own memories.  So much for buying a saddleblanket of protection.  His discomfiture was quite obvious to Fine Branch.  But they came to that vendor just as Quelenna completed buying a Hostler's Charm and a saddlebag of holding.

Dryali looked around the vendor's stuff, still distracted.  Fine Branch told him, "I really really don't like bullies, and this seemed a kinder way of dealing than more overt methods.  First time I've used it offensively."  Fine Branch tried to be persuasive here, and succeeded; Dryali was mollified.  <Narrator voice:  this was a contested roll, but Dryali's insight is for shit.>

Dryali snapped out of it, mostly, and bought Alanya a saddleblanket of protection.  Nix, meanwhile, arranged to return later with Eris for measurements for the head gear.

That afternoon they went back to the giant bats section.  A big section was maintained by the mercenary group Flying Foxes, who also patrolled the whole area.

Dryali and Fine Branch were still talking, and Quelenna was very distracted by all the fuzzy bats and their weird noses.  Many of the big bats subsisted on fruit, and would spit out the indigestible husks.  Nix was looking sharp, but she saw all the bats were well-cared for.  The mercenary company that cares about the giant bats simply kept everyone on their toes.

None of the vendors here were intimidating.  They were mostly orcs, and didn't really have to be.

Dryali started looking at the racks from which the bats were hanging.  They seemed to be holding up.  Nix saw him doing that and also looked, and pointed out the bat horks of the fruit husks appeared to be disguising the sign of replaced uprights.

The next morning the Freelancers decided to check out the pegasus section of the Mount Faire.  This section was divided up into subsections:  standard, draft, courser, destrier.  All of them were in a variety of colours, but some vendors for the draft pegasi sold teams with matching colours, in particular for fancy flying carriages.

<Narrator voice:  this news was challenged.  if there are flying carriages pulled by teams of pegasi, why doesn't Sonya Drogo on Duquesne have one?  The GM responded, "She's getting one now".>

The standard pegasi were available as ponies or regular size.  Also many traders had foals, some still with their mothers, it was also very cute; the foals were crowd-pleasers.

Fine Branch noticed a pair of pickpockets working the crowd.  They were subtle and focussing on the rich patrons.  They were dressed to blend in, and did not look destitute.  He told the other Freelancers, asking "Anyone have mage hand?"

Dryali cast detect magic, which lit up that these pickpockets had bags of holding. 

Dryali:  I have mage hand, but also… vortex warp.
Quelenna <after watching the pickpockets>:  I'm not well-equiped for this
Dryali:  you are if they warp in front of you
Quelenna:  do we want to fight?
Dryali:  we want to relieve them of those bags.
Nix:  best way to do that is if they are incapacitated.
Quelenna:  okay then, I can stun them if they are in front of me.

Nix watched the crowd and when the pickpockets were least surrounded by others, she used her sorcerous abilities to heighten hypnotic pattern around them.  One of them was caught in it, as was some of the crowd.

Fine Branch saw the other pickpocket start to look around, as the crowd movement subtly changed.  So he cast polymorph on the other fellow, converting him into a sloth.

Dryali looked at the two pickpockets, one a drooling statue and the other a sloth.  He crossed his arms and looked at Quelenna.

Dryali:  whaddya think?
Quelenna:  I can stun them
Dryali:  what?

The Dark elf walked towards Fine Branch a little, ready to cast vortex warp.  If the pickpocket caught in the hypnotic pattern was roused, Dryali would move him next to Fine Branch.

Quelenna moved up to that pickpocket, and deftly relieved him of the bag of holding, without breaking the stun.  Seeing that, Dryali just walked up and manacled him.  Then the Freelancers frog-marched him and the sloth to the central building to talk to Mudra.

Once in Mudra's custody, Fine Branch dropped the polymorph and the second pickpocket was relieved of his bag of holding, then the two of them were put in a holding cell.  Then Mudra turned both bags inside out, to reveal purses, daggars, lockpicks, and such.  His assistants started cataloguing the entire inventory, while Mudra looked at the two bags, and then at the miscreants in the holding cell.

"There's not a lot of time," he mused, "I'll retain one of these, and you can keep the other one."  He handed the Freelancers a bag of holding, and they left the building to resume touring the Mount Faire.

Both Fine Branch and Nix had bags of holding, and Dryali had a Handy Haversack.  So Quelenna got the bag of holding, despite having bought a saddlebag of holding the day before.  The others cautioned her not to put one inside the other.

The Freelancers swung through the manticores section of the last day of the Mount Faire.  Some of the smaller paddocks had emptied out, but there were still larger vendors with lion and tiger manticores, with stings on their tails, as well as panther and snow leopard manticores.  There was a sizable area with The Manticores mercenary company with lion and tiger manticores.

Fine Branch was a bit distracted by the stings, and was thinking about what it would be like to have stings like that on his own tail.

The Freelancers moved past that to where someone had adorable snow leopard manticore cubs.  Their coats were whitish-grey.  One of them had a steak and was defending it vociferously from all the other cubs trying to take it away.  The drama had drawn many onlookers, who were all trying to be quiet in an attempt to avoid disrupting the drama.

The Freelancers moved on.  Quelenna and Dryali noticed The Manticores doing general patrols of the area, and that the paddocks with adult manticores had at least two people present and taking care of things.  They got to a paddock with much younger cubs, still with their mama, watching carefully.  The cubs were not straying far from mama.

As they came up to the House Lykaion section, there was a very big male manticore with a full-blown lion mane, and two people brushing him out.  His draconic wings were the same colour as his lion coat.  This spectacle was also drawing watchers, but they were not getting too close.  The groomers were clear if people asked, they could pet his mane.

Nix asked, and they allowed it.  She issued top-quality scritches to the big manticore and was rewarded with a rumble of happiness.  As she did so, Dryali was looking around at the crowd; he didn't see anyone shady, but he noticed it was starting to thin out, as the afternoon waned.

After that, the Freelancers headed back to Mudra.  The Holder dwarf, still pleased with their results, paid them 250 eagles, admonishing them to give 25 eagles from it to Damakaios for Freelancers.

• Fine Branch → lvl10!!!