Tale View

Arnari Rilynn'sithek, leader of the Cliffshadow Freelancers, looked up from the correspondence she was contemplating as 3 humans, a Rock sagani, a Maneki nekomata, and a gnome entered her office and found seats.  They would be looking for gainful employment, and she glanced at her assembled missions, assessing what they could handle.

Arnari, a dark-skinned half-elf, was seated at a mahogany desk; it was artfully carved, and covered in papers so haphazardly piled that most people wondered why they didn't fall off.  A large bearskin rug adorned the floor in front of her desk, beyond which were a couple rows of mismatched chairs.  The walls were lined with shelves, except to her right were two maps.  The back wall, under the shelves, had a rattan peacock chair up against it.

Minji, the Maneki nekomata warlock in a green dress, sat on the bearskin rug, luxuriating in the feel of it.
Peb, the Rock sagani, contented themself with sitting next to the head of the bearskin and petting it.
Lorcan, the quiet Pastoral rogue, sat front-and-center, watching Arnari attentively, fingers steepled.
Ricardo, the human with shoulder-length blond hair, sat off to the side in the front row.
Tim, the human with no hair, sat in the chair furthest from the door, but turned it so the door was in view.
Dominic, the human with greying hair and moustaches, walked over to the maps, studying them.

Arnari looked most closely at Tim and Ricardo (for some reason the wear on his traveler's clothes was not quite in the right places), then with a practiced twitch of her hands, pulled several pieces of paper from the middle of the stacks, without disturbing the others.  After racking the papers she went through them, listing a menu of available missions for the gathered Freelancers, starting with the most dog-eared.

• Two:  gryphon or hippogryph eggs. If you want them, standard fees apply.
• Go to Pirates River and do pollution cleanup.  Dunno what you will encounter, go find something unnatural and make it dead.  100 eagles/person.
• Moving west across the skylith, there's a problem in the village of Ophelia: lions attacking the cattle herds.  More info is available from the mayor of Cliffgate.
• Go to Hindmarsh, the bullywugs there are getting too bold.  House Ha'aheo wants Freelancers to find a camp close to Hindmarsh and wreck it, so herb gathering can continue.  This will pay 150 eagles each.

She stopped and looked at the group expectantly.

Lorcan:  isn't that… what mercenaries are for?
Arnari:  yes.
Peb:  what are we, if not mercenaries?
Arnari:  mercenaries for bigger jobs, generally
Ricardo:  clearly the lions are the most pressing issue so we should do them.
Peb:  Ah don't have any lion dung so would clearly want to go there; am also down for bullywugs
Dominic:  you realize if we go after the lions, we're riding them back.
Peb:  it had crossed mah mind
Lorcan:  what is the– we're supposed to– smash a bullywug camp?
Arnari:  the guide, Hirrithak, found it and can lead you there
Lorcan:  are we supposed to rescue anyone?
Arnari:  I don't think so
Lorcan:  where does Minji want to go?
Tim:  the 'wugs pay more, but I still want a flying mount, so eggs.  What do we know of the 'wugs?
Dominic:  there's a lot of mud
Lorcan:  we're on flying mounts.
Ricardo:  something tells me, "still a lot of mud"

An argument ensued, and somehow, they settled on going after the bullywugs, at which time Ricardo took stock, and realized while he had a pegasus, Legend, plus a fancy quill and rapier, he didn't have much in the way of gear for travelling across the surface of a 300-mile skylith.  Arnari fronted him some coin.

Dominic would ride his gryphon Wilson, so he loaned Tim his giant bat, Robin.  Robin accepted Tim as a mount (and Tim thought Robin was cool), but the bat clearly preferred Dominic.

And then they were off.

The first day of travel saw the Freelancers fly from Cliffshadow to Cliffgate, where the road opens up onto the central plains of the giant skylith.  On their way there, they flew over construction at the central stopping point for caravans and other ground travellers, where Ismay Wolfkiss was constructing a permanent inn.

But once they arrived in Cliffgate, they stopped at The Sleepy Dog Inn, which was happy to put the Freelancers up for the night and stable their mounts for 13 cats each.  The Freelancers had dinner in the common room, which was full of travelers to and from Cliffshadow, and had a bard busking.

The food was good and the ale made everyone mellow.  After eating, and between the bard's sets, Ricardo stood up, introduced himself as "Ricardo Monroe, Adventurer Extraordinaire," continuing with " I led the team that defeated the Beast of Berez, saved the town of Radience from an Ardnak by outwitting it in its own lair, and bartered safe passage for me and mine through the Nine Forests. Perhaps you've heard of me?"  Everyone settled into the tale, and Ricardo relayed how Ardnaks ate people and took on the appearance of their last meal…

Lorcan, Minji, and Tim were very impressed by Ricardo's tale, and felt more confident in his companionship against the bullywugs.  Dominic, having heard this tale before, was dubious that the bard, with his decorated black scarf over his eye, had done all these things.  Peb could tell Ricardo was lying, and assumed everyone else was in on it, so cued from them and pretended they were taken in as well.

Anyhow the next morning the Freelancers set out for Three Rivers.  Halfway there, they camped for the night; then flew long to arrive in the evening of the second day.  They took rooms at The Mule's Rest, and again visited the common room once the mounts were settled.

Three Rivers is where the road from Hindmarsh eastward forked to either Cliffshadow or Stormhaven; it also was the home of Duquesne's Bardic Conservatory, so the inn was large and the common room busy.  Lorcan and Dominic were keeping their ears open for gossip and rumours, news from other towns, etc.  Ricardo and Tim followed suit; the former for more material, the latter out of curiosity.  Minji and Peb were drinking, the Rock sagani weeping into their beer about Mary Jane, their mule, and how she should be here, enjoying The Mule's Rest.

One of the reasons Lorcan and Dominic were listening is that the Freelancers were subject to a lot of strange looks and whispering.  They started sorting through the rumours.

• Local gossip about who is beating whom in the bardic competitions at the conservatory
• Local gossip about Benaitus, dean of the conservatory, and how he was a skeezy bastard, which is why the famous Arnari Rilynn'sithek refuses to visit
• Rumours about Freelancers:
  • They are kidnapping children
  • They are keeping an orphanage
  • They are providing trained orphans for bodyguards or assassins (Ricardo wrote this down)
  • They were eating the babies

The person who said that last was at a table with bardic students, and was quickly shushed.  But, Dominic heard them and walked over to the table. "They don't taste as good, until they are trained assassins," the druid told them, entirely deadpan.  Three of the students looked at him, blood draining from their faces as they absorbed his words.  Over at the bar, Minji also heard him, and believed him, wondering why she hadn't heard of this stuff with children before.  Lorcan hid.

Ricardo walked up next to the older druid, drink in hand.  "I've been travelling with them for the first time," the blond human said confidently, "I had to show I could discern whether the meat came from an assassin or not."

Dominic nodded and went to the bar to get a Chianti, brought all the way from Commerce, as the silence spread like a fog from the table across the tavern.  It wasn't much longer before the Freelancers all withdrew to their rooms for the night.

Three days later, towards the end of the afternoon, the Freelancers flew wearily into Hindmarsh.  They had eschewed following the road after Three Rivers, and flew directly to the western city, camping as they went.  Ricardo kept them entertained with his tales around the fire, but these came across as less polished than the tale he'd told in The Sleepy Dog inn, and they had inconsistencies.

As they approached the tail end of the skylith, the Freelancers could see clouds and eddies looming in the distance: truly enormous funnels in the wake of Duquesne's passage through the air of Skyway.  These were backlit by the westering Daystar; to their left, the whirling funnels were sometimes waterspouts, picking up the water dripping off the southwest edge of the skylith below the marsh, the spray scattering into rainbows.

Closer in, Hindmarsh was sprawled in front of them.  Airships appeared to land, not dock, and be secured to the northwest; closer than that was a large arena; near it were pits that appeared to be topped with iron bars.  Large warehouses, with venting near the top, sprawled southward.  And everywhere else… well, it just kinda looked like a city.  Hardly something that appeared any darker or more dangerous than Cliffshadow.

The Freelancers were faced with a choice:  take rooms at the Tipsy Tornado on the north side of town, or the Anchor & Plough on the south side?  The first name was exciting, but Lorcan pointed out, "A lot of people pre-game for the gladiator pits at the Tipsy Tornado."  Minji's face fell, and she said "oh, not interested in that," and the others agreed, so they took rooms at the Anchor & Plough. 

Once everyone was settled, Lorcan cast disguise self to be a Maker gnome, with lighter skin, brown hair, and a much fuller beard, then headed towards the Tipsy Tornado.  Peb somehow noticed and decided to follow, shaping a dog to do so.  These activities did not escape the notice of either Dominic or Tim.  Dominic shaped a flea and rode along on dog-Peb.  Tim just followed from behind.

Minji had not been to Hindmarsh before.  She went exploring this new place.  Eventually she found the western overlooks where one could buy sturdy paper airplanes and watch them get picked up by the funnel clouds, which stayed lit until the skylith passed into the shadow of the central storm.  Minji bought a whole pile of them; she was so excited to watch their flights.

Ricardo resumed telling his tall tale about Radience and the Ardnak in the Anchor & Plough common room.  It was unclear if anyone believed him, but they did find his tale entertaining, and he was 5 eagles richer by the end of the evening.

Back at the Tipsy Tornado, Lorcan bought an ale, and looked and listened.  He was looking, cautiously, for anyone associated with Raquelle Mais-Quand; he was listening for any rumours of what had happened to her, or of either pirate ship Osprey or Clorinde.  Peb and Dominic were looking and listening too, but just in general, and Peb was a bit distracted by the flea biting them.  Tim just loitered, but somehow managed to escape anyone's notice.

Anyhow Lorcan heard nothing, and he couldn't decide if he was disappointed or relieved; so he went back to the Anchor & Plough after a while, making sure to drop the disguise self before he arrived.  He never did explain to the others what he was looking for.

The following morning, the Freelancers gathered their gear and headed to the warehouses to find Vaughn Quickrein, the supervisor for House Ha'aheo's warehousing in Hindmarsh.  They found him in short order to discover a practical-minded Rain sagani who greeted them, confirmed the information Arnari had provided, and immediately called over Hirrithak, a sturdy but wiry Black dragonborn.

Vaughn:  Hirrithak will take you into the marsh and point you at some bullywugs; and then he will, uh–
Hirrithak:  I'm not fighting.  I'm a guide <paused, looking at the mounts>  …I should ride pillion
Peb:  Ah can take ya

So they headed towards the marsh, the Freelancers with Hirrithak on Bettula behind Peb.  The humidity increased as they approached, entirely unabated by the breeze.  They were thoroughly soaked by the time they got to the edge of the marsh in the early afternoon.  Hirrithak, gazing down at the marsh below, became hesitant.  He was used to walking, and knew the way on the ground.  He suggested camping just outside the marsh, and continuing on the morrow.

The Freelancers assented, and while they set up camp, Hirrithak spent some time orienting himself, occasionally having Peb fly him up, so he could keep his bearings.  Lorcan watched him.

The next morning, as they prepared to leave, Lorcan suggested everyone fly low, so the bullywugs would not see the Freelancers' approach, and so Hirrithak would not lose his bearings.  They do so, and Hirrithak guided them to what he called a "fairly recent" bullywug camp.  It took most of the day to get there, and they saw a camp in the late afternoon which was recently established.

Peb cast pass without trace but Hirrithak, having experienced Freelancer raids before, asked to be put down.  Peb did so, and the Freelancers circled the camp, low and slow, unseen by any.

The bullywug camp was in a very marshy area, and had a couple walls, not yet built into a full palisade.  The Freelancers noted a couple pools of water, and trails in and out of the walls, but it was impossible to tell from these trails where the bullywugs originated.  Inside the camp were a couple of yurts; a couple bullywugs were out & about, and the heads of 2 giant toads poked out of the water of one of the pools.

The Freelancers withdrew until they were out of sight and landed on (relatively) dry ground to discuss their options, Minji's eyes wide at her first sight of a bullywug.

Ricardo <confidently>:  we are advantaged by the air and should press that.
Minji:  totally happy to eldritch blast, but up close is best.
Peb:  we could draw them out of the yurt. <to Minji> cat ride a bear!
Dominic:  we could call lightning on them
Ricardo:  just fly around, and let that happen
Dominic <to Ricardo>:  you circle, and take care of anything that comes out
Lorcan:  are we here to discourage future incursions, or just wipe them out?
Ricardo:  a few, fine; but it's important to destroy infrastructure.
Peb:  Ah still thin' Minji ridin' Peb is first, because you can't call lightnin' on enemies you can't see.  <to Tim> Maybe a few skeletons
Tim:  I wish I had skeletons.  Will the lightning interfere with the flying?
Ricardo:  fly in low, rain down close spells, fly back up
Dominic:  does anyone here have thaumaturgy?
Minji:  I do
Dominic:  can you speak Poroka?
Minji:  no
Dominic:  I'm planning on starting with erupting earth, then call lightning.
Ricardo:  you want bane?
Dominic <eyes wide>:  you have bane?
Ricardo:  yes
Lorcan:  so, the rest of us are just watching?
Dominic:  you can go in if you want, on Bear <nodded at Peb>
Peb <to Minji>:  did you want to get on mah back, and Ah'll turn into a giant hyena and we'll drop in
Minji:  why, when I can stay up here and eldritch blast?
Peb:  well, you wanted to vivisect one
<Here, Minji closed her eyes.>
Lorcan:  would rather drive them out of camp and them jump 'em
Peb:  isn't that what this is?!
Lorcan:  no; they are in the camp!

Somehow, falling out of this argument, Peb and Dominic prevailed, and the plan became: Minji would ride hyaena-Peb into the camp while Dominic cast erupting earth and Ricardo cast bane, then Dominic would cast call lightning and everyone else would do whatever they felt like.  <Narrator voice:  far away, on Commerce, in the wee hours before morning of Rochtag, 1st prime post-Apastron, Cathance had a nightmare.>

Plan settled, the Freelancers got into position, a situation for which we possess a reasonably useful diagram.  Peb, Minji, and Dominic approached from the northwest; Ricardo and Tim from the southwest; and Lorcan from the northeast.

Peb had Minji on their back, a most uncomfortable thing for the Maneki nekomata, as Peb also had a large shovel and a pronged poo-stick strapped to their back.  They had Bettula overfly the bullywug tending the fire in the center of the camp and dropped off the owl gryphon's back onto the bullywug, which did not feel good for anyone involved.  Peb raged, then transformed into a giant hyaena.

• Bettula attacked the nearby giant toad, who was totally not expecting it, slashing it with her claws and piercing it with her beak.  She tried to glide on by the creature, but it bit her leg and held her fast, pulling her out of the air, wounding her with its poison.

Lorcan, on Bandit, applied potent poison to 3 blowgun needles, and then shot the preoccupied giant toad with one.  The needle pierced the toad and poisoned it, and the giant toad died, letting go of Bettula.  Bandit flew across the camp, closer to the yurts.

Dominic cast erupting earth under the yurts, and the bullywug that did not have hyaena-Peb on it.

• The yurts collapsed, only a small part of the yurt closest to Dominic escaped the erupting earth.
• The bullywug in front of the yurts was basically shredded.
• A bullywug in each yurt seemed to survive, although the one closest to Dominic was injured.
• The ground in the entire area looked too torn up to walk on.

Tim cast shatter centered between the surviving bullywugs.  They shrugged off most of the damage.

• Robin swooped in and bit the bullywug closest to Dominic.

A young hydra, with only 4 heads, burst out of the pond with an angry roar.  Apparently it was friends with the dead giant toad.  It lumbered over to Bettula and bit her with one of its heads.

• Since its path took the hydra past hyaena-Peb, the young hydra got bit for their troubles.  It turned itself towards hyaena-Peb without moving away from Bettula.
• One of the heads but Minji, teeth easily piercing her green dress.
• The other two heads bit at hyaena-Peb.  One missed but the other got some teeth through the thick fur.

Minji jumped off the back of hyaena-Peb to learn that maybe doing so was a bad idea!

• All 4 heads of the young hydra tried to bite Minji, and 3 of them succeeded, to her dismay.
• Wounded, but away from the young hydra, Minji turned and cast eldritch blast at the two closest bullywugs.
  • The 1st blast crit on the bullywug next to Peb, killing them.  
  • The 2nd blast hit the injured bullywug next to Tim, killing them too.
• She called Chin-gu over, and mounted the bald eagle gryphon, flying away from these bitey creatures to be next to Dominic and Wilson.

Ricardo swooped into the center of the camp, on Legend, and cast bane on the young hydra, the bullywug, and remaining giant toad.

• The young hydra shook it off, so Ricardo cast silvery barbs to try again, but the young hydra was not to be baned.
• On the flip side, Ricardo directed the benefit of silvery barbs at Lorcan.
• Ricardo called out the bane to hyaena-Peb, granting them bardic inspiration.

The baned giant toad hopped out of the pond to lip at hyaena-Peb ineffectually.  <Narrator voice:  the bane actually resulted in the GM rolling a 0 total on the attack.>

The bullywug sang a song of froggy anger, magic woven about the tones.

• The song affected Peb, Tim, and the giant bat Robin, all of whom got a headache from it, but they avoided most of the debilitating effects of the song.
• Croaking angrily, the bullywug leapt over the camp's walls, running southeast.  The croaks were punctuated by hisses; while none of the Freelancers knew Poroka, they did get from the cadence that the bullywug was swearing and unrepentant.

Hyaena-Peb somehow got Bettula to understand she should attack the young hydra, then fly to safety.

• Bettula pierced the young hydra with her beak, but missed with her claws.  She flew up.
• Hyaena-Peb bit the giant toad.

Lorcan shot the young hydra with one of his poisoned blowgun needles, wounding and poisoning it.

• He then had Bandit fly down behind a wall and hide.  The wall was not tall enough for this effort to succeed.

Dominic cast call lightning, and had the lightning strike the young hydra, which was looking pretty bad.

• He started glowing like a starmap, where the stars were in the shape of an archer.  A mote of starlight bright enough to hurt the eyes shot out from him and crit the young hyrda, which sank to the ground, dead.

Tim looked at the prone hydra.  "Is it dead?" he asked.  "It's totally dead," Ricardo replied, his voice confident and satisfied.

• Tim looked at the fleeing bullywug.  Then the wizard cast chromatic orb at the giant toad.  The glowing sphere turned yellowish-green and settled on acid before striking the giant toad, searing its skin.

Minji flew up higher, then cast eldritch blast again, the leafy-green beams shooting forward from her hands.

• The 1st blast hit the giant toad, killing it.  
• The 2nd blast critfailed, and hit an unhappy Lorcan with force.
  • Lorcan had really thought he was hidden.

Ricardo swooped closer to the fleeing bullywug on Legend, casting vicious mockery on them for fleeing.

• He then scribed a glowing glyph in the air and pushed it towards Lorcan, both granting the Pastoral gnome bardic inspiration and also making damn bloddy sure Lorcan wasn't hidden.

The bullywug leapt 20' southwest, diving into a pool, hiding.  The only Freelancer who saw them hide was Dominic, and he kept that to himself.

Peb was a Rock sagani again, and on a hunt for hydra dung.  It took them a while to realize it would be in the pool.

Minji landed and dismounted from Chin-gu again.  She wanted to examine a bullywug corpse and study it, perhaps even bring one along to vivisect later.  She was disappointed, though:  2 were basically pulped by the erupting earth, and the others were not in a well-preserved state.  She took what notes she could.

Ricardo stayed in the air, but called out, "Are we destroying the palisades?"  Lorcan and Dominic landed and started sifting through where the yurts were, for clues, valuables, etc.  Lorcan also suggested harvesting the young hydra for parts, but was ignored by the others.

Pressing his lips together, Ricardo wheeled Legend and flew back to retrieve Hirrithak.  The bard was not interested in scrabbling in the dirt.

Hirrithak:  are you sure it's safe?
Ricardo:  there was nothing left that wasn't us.
Hirrithak:  very well

When they returned, Tim had joined Minji in investigating the bullywugs, but Tim had a more practical bent and was looking for coins and valuables.  Between Tim, Lorcan, and Dominic, they found 542 eagles, which seemed an unexplained large amount of coin.  Lorcan also found a scroll case tangled up in one of the yurts, and Tim found a +1 mace on one of the bullywugs.

Hirrithak dismounted, and started pointing out to the others where the walls were structurally unsound.  Dominic tried to fire them, but failed.

Ricardo <still mounted>:  wood will be wet
Tim:  magic fire!
Dominic:  totally magic fire

Once the walls were burning, everyone remounted and headed back to the edge of the marsh.  When they camped, Tim and Dominic determined the scroll in the case was a scroll of erupting earth, not uplevel'd; Tim took it for later.  Nobody but Peb could really use the +1 mace, so Peb took that.  They split the coin 6 ways, and gave the remainder to Hirrithak.  The Black dragonborn kept his opinion on that transaction to himself.

On return to Hindmarsh, Vaughn paid them 150 eagles each, reminding them to pay 10% to Arnari, lest Hanohano become wroth at worsening relations.  They assured him they would.

The return trip was entirely unremarkable, beyond Ricardo's stories becoming more polished as they made their way back across the skylith.

• Ricardo → lvl2!