Cosmo's Kitchen: Episode 01

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==Synopsis==
The party, comprised of staff from Cosmo's Kitchen, and a local Hunter, set out into the forest to capture a Unicorn in the forest. The party on their search encounter a Bullywug attack and go to the Bullywug village to speak with the elder there. The Bullywugs turn upon the party again, so the party fight their way out.
The party manage to lure out the Unicorn by having Sweet Potato's little sister become lost in the woods and the Unicorn save her. The Unicorn escorts the party out of the forest, but the party turn upon the unicorn and capture it. The party also capture the hunter, Jowgen, who has sided with the Unicorn. The hunter however escapes when the party return to town. The rest of the party manage to get the unconscious unicorn back to Cosmo's Kitchen where it is slain and cooked into meals.
==Recap==
=== Introductions ===
First to be introduced is Mrmouton's character, and the apprentice chef Sweet Potato. He's is a Gnome who is described as an introvert who is unsure of himself, he's an overachiever and is subserviently to Cosmo, holding him in high esteem. Sweet potato is a Gastromancer, a custom class for the first time ever, which specializes in buffs and support spells, specifically short rest buffs from magical food. He is also described as a psychopath who will do anything it will take to advance his position at Cosmo's Kitchen 
2ndly, GreenZerg introduces his character, The Maître d' Mathieu Dupont, He is a half elf Monk who speaks in a French accent (elf in Arcadia) and is responsible for hosting, he's the face of the restaurant and is responsible for keeping the customers happy. Methieu's character could be described as haughty in the most generous of terms, and up his own ass in less generous terms.
3rd, is Patch aka Tierzoo playing Jowgen, a self described CEO of an up and coming big game hunting org. Jowgen is a Halfelf rogue, and acts as the guide and tracker for Cosmos kitchen. He is outcasted by the local elves, likely from his line of work. 
Last but not least is PokemonChallenges playing a Gnome dust addicted Human Fighter named Kenji, who is a linecook who is never seen sleeping, hes a bit of a workaholic, always working and never sleeping, except to do bumps of said Gnome dust.
===Adventure Begins...===
The party leaves Cosmo's Kitchen with their task at hand - capture a Unicorn and deliver it to Cosmo, the great chef himself. Everything is at stake as failing Cosmo will undoubtedly bear dire career consequences for the staff involved. Jowgen promises to bring his impromptu team deep into forest in order to track the mythical creature. Sweet Potato, much to everyone's surprise, decides to bring his little child sister along under the deceitful guise that he simply wishes to show his dear sibling the Unicorn. In reality, conniving gnome wished to take her with him for the sole reason to use her as bait for the good-natured legendary creature. Kenji, stressed by the situation, continues to snort gnome-dust in hopes to suppress his ongoing anxiety.
The party briefly contemplates splitting up to gather information about the Unicorn, but decides against it. Discussion turns to creating some sort of food-based bait that the Unicorn would enjoy eating. However, Neal informs the party due to their successful nature check, that the creature they are after is immune to poisons and paralyzing effects. Clearly coming to an impasse, the party comes to a conclusion that they should head into the woods and try to figure things out as they go - perhaps talking to some small beasts, perhaps finding semi-intelligent mushroom people to glean insight from or getting lucky enough to find some Unicorn tracks. Another great nature check from Jowgen spots a set of horse tracks some twenty miles into the forest. The party follows this presented clue until they find out that the horse-creature was not alone, but instead there were at least a few of them. Wanting to find out more about this situation, Sweet Potato decides to find a small beast to talk to. He finds a badger and, after an awkward, yet cute, exchange of gestures - the party gleans that there have been 3 or 4 centaurs that passed through the place. The badger, being the excellent business-beast that it is, coaxed a ration out of Sweet Potato for the great service he provided to him. Even though this clue didn't lead them to the Unicorn, the badger did make it clear that the mythical creature did indeed preside in these woods. The search continues.
Discussion of how to proceed goes, rather disturbingly, back to bringing Shelly (Sweet Potato's sister) deep into the woods and abandoning her in hopes that the mythical creature takes pity on the innocent child and reveals itself. Jowgen suggests, no doubt in an attempt to preserve some sanity, that it would make sense to try other options first. He proposes that the party should try to find bullywugs and extracting more information about their target from them. The team heads towards the edge of the swamp.
Some travel after, they reach their destination. Mathieu hides in the bushes, so does Sweet Potato - though the former does so well and the latter does so abysmally. Mathieu suggests Sweet Potato to create a bonfire and cook up a hearty meal, which is what he does and the meal turns out to be quite fantastic. The rest of the party attempts to conceal themselves. A wild bullywug appears, the meal was super effective. The team spots the creature instantly. The bullywug jumps out of the water, and... Goes for the meal that it actually wants, which is not whatever Sweet Potato was cooking, but rather the poor gnome himself. After a brief surprise round, five more additional bullywugs emerge from the muddy waters. Combat ensues. 
Shelly screams in terror and flees as her brother gets wounded by the filthy creatures. Jowgen succeeds at sneak-attacking one of the bullywugs, slaying it instantly with a swift arrow to the neck. Matthieu jumps out of his cover and attacks one of the creatures that is locked in combat with Sweet Potato, killing both of them with two precise strikes of his quarterstaff. Sweet Potato casts sleep and puts two bullywugs into a 1-minute slumber. The single remaining hostile creature makes the wisest decision in its life - it retreats and disappears into the distance. The battle is won.
One of the unfortunate survivors of frog-people is alive but dazed and the other has a nasty skull fracture that makes it difficult to guess whether it will survive or not. They put the surviving tied-up bullywug into a pot of cold water that is slowly coming to a boil. Luckily, this poor bollywug is a genius among its kind and speaks Common. It immediately surrenders all the information it possesses about Unicorns and its tribe. It confirms that the Unicorn is a common guest of the swamp, but specified that should the party want to know more about this issue they should visit The Bullywug Queen. The frog-man promises to bring the party back to its home. The party thinks this to be an excellent idea as they let the bullywug out of the pot. After a very natural and logical push-up competition between Kenji and the frog-person (which the line cook wins due to the magical properties of Cocai... Gnome-dust), the team eats Sweet Potato's hearty meal. The night passes.
New dawn rises and with it the party's new adventure towards The Bullywug HQ™. They make their way through the bog and reach the bullywug village. It is clear to everyone that this village used to belong to either humans, elves or some other intelligent race but the nasty frog-people took it over at some point in time. Matthieu suggests that Jowgen should be the one to do the talking, which really is not surprising considering that other options are a psychopathic gnome and a gnome-dusted line cook. The party is allowed to make their way into the largest building around, where The Bullywug Queen with her strongest minions resides. While, at first, the team's claims of self-defense seem reasonable, the reality quickly dawns on them that they were being spied upon as they pot-tortured the surviving bullywugs and butchered the rest of his kin for meat. Needless to say, this is not the best start of negotiations. Well, the start and the end of them as another combat begins. 
Sweet Potato casts Dragon's Breath, burning The Queen and her shaman and bodyguard. One of the bodyguards darts its very long and strong tongue out and grabs a hold of Matthieu, but the snobby M'aitre deflects the damage due to his awesome monk powers and instead pulls the frog-man towards him. Jowgen shoots one of the bodyguards with his shortbow, wounding them. The Bullywug Queen rallies her troops and grabs Sweet Potato with her tongue, pulling the gnome towards her before taking a large bite out of his tender flesh. Queen's shaman throws Poison Spray towards Jowgen, which burns the rogue greatly. Kenji attacks one of the bodyguard and slices their ankles with his longsword but misses with his battleaxe. One of the bullywugs decides against participating in the battle and attempts to simply survive the ordeal. The mass of ordinary bullywugs begins to pour into the hut and starts biting and otherwise swarming the party. Sweet Potato casts Dragon's Breath once more, burning The Queen and one of her bodyguards. The bullywugs continue their assault, trying to bring Matthieu and Jowgen down. The Rogue disengages the melee and attempts to hide himself in the corner of the hut before shooting the shaman with his shortbow, delivering a killing blow to the caster's skull. The Bullywug Queen bites Sweet Potato yet again, which makes the gnome pass out from the sheer agony of it. Not having her bloodlust satiated, she jumps down and bites Kenji, taking a good chunk out of the line cook's thigh. Kenji flails at the bodyguard, missing all of his attacks before using Action Surge and... Misses another set of attacks, what a shocker. The bodyguard, however, fails their moral check and attempts to flee the combat. Matthieu kills one bullywug, turns his attention to another one and kills once more before performing another attack at the bullywug at the door and wounding them. The wounded bullywug flees. Yet, the flow of frog-men from outside doesn't stop as more of them pour in and bite M'aitre with renewed ferocity. Queen's bodyguard takes a few swings at the elf, bringing him to near-death. Sweet Potato fails two death-saves with a karmic Nat 1 that he earned by attempting to boil one of the bullywugs alive. Jowgen shoots The Queen, wounding her. The Bullywug Queen smacks Kenji into the wall, concussing the line cook. He recovers and climbs the steps up to his quarry, taking a hefty attack of opportunity from her before delivering his own blows to her... Which miss. Kenji, distraught by his impotence in offense, uses Second Wind to heal himself. Matthieu releases his grappled opponent and rushes towards The Queen and hits her with a flurry of blows that land the giant bullywug to the ground, though still alive. Sweet potato survives another round with a passed death-saving throw. One of the remaining bodyguards fails their morale check and flees. Jowgen climbs a set of barrels and delivers a devastating blow with his rapier. The Queen gets up and pleads for her life. The battle is won.
The Queen of bullywugs informs the party that the Unicorn is, apparently, many days away from this village, within the heart of the forest. Bullywug Queen also tells them that what little she knows about the mythical creature came from the mouths of pixies as they were boiled alive. The party appreciates this culinary stroke of genius. The team spares The Queen and heads into the direction they were advised to go towards. Additionally to a location, they have also found out that the Unicorn is friends with werebears. The party debates whether they should try finding these creatures or head straight towards the Unicorn instead. They settle on going towards the mythical creature and take a short rest. Sweet Potato regains consciousness and cooks another hearty meal. After an almost full recovery, the gang continues on their quest.
The party decides to avoid elven territory as best as they can as they enter the forest. Soon enough Jowgen spots tracks of a party of five. A brief discussion later they decide against engaging with this set of tracks. Before long the team reaches Red Wood Forest, the home of the Unicorn. At this focal point of their mission, the gang decides (at this point to surprise of no one) that they indeed want to use Shelly as Unicorn-bait. Sweet Potato tells his little, innocent child sister that he want to play a game of hide-and-seek with her. The girl asks if it truly is such a good idea to be playing such a game in the middle of foreign and dangerous woods. After a minute of discussion, the small child is convinced by Sweet Potato and she scurries into the thicket as the party counts down and begin the game. However, when the team begins to search for the girl they quickly realize that they have direly underestimated just how good she is at hide-and-seek. Shelly is now lost in the woods. Jowgen and Kenji suggests that Shelly is dead, much to Sweet Potato's chagrin. The gastromancer panics and begins shouting for his sister, announcing that she won. The party begins to shout unicorn-provoking lines that might attract it to the innocent child in peril. No luck. The sun begins to set. A Nat 1 on survival check. The shadows grow long and night settles in. Shelly seems to be lost for good. 
Matthieu asks if Sweet Potato is alright, he is not but the reason is not his lost sister but their dwindling prospects of finding the Unicorn. The sun rises and Shelly is nowhere to be found. M'aitre takes a long walk around the camp trying to find any clue about either the girl or the mythical creature. He does manage to find a set of horse prints. The party quickly gathers and begins following the tracks. Jowgen deduces that these tracks were left by the Unicorn on purpose. The gang reaches a large clearing and finds... Both Shelly and the mythical creature, and the girl gives Sweet Potato the nastiest look that speaks of several things - newly acquired childhood trauma and a mighty grudge that may never leave her innocent heart. This doesn't concern the gastromancer as he pretends to affectionately call out his sibling. Shelly shushes him, saying that the Unicorn is sleeping as she tightens her embrace on the creature's mane. The Unicorn, telepathically, communicates to the party that it is not, in fact, asleep. It expresses its deep concern regarding the fact that the team has lost a child in the middle of the woods, to which three out of four party members swiftly reply that it wasn't their sister to take care of - throwing Sweet Potato, rightfully, to the wolves. After a series of weak excuses, the gang asks if the mythical creature would be so kind as to lead them out of the woods. Begrudgingly, the Unicorn makes Shelly mount its neck before agreeing to this request. The party gets giddy as they prepare to execute the last part of their devious plan.
Sweet Potato's evil mind concocts yet another ploy - to attempt to act out a fall to slow the unicorn down. And, yet again, the gastromancer's plan turns against him as he really does hurt his ankle in the process. Oh dear. Sweet Potato attempts to walk as his comrades ask him to get a move on, but the gnome is simply unable to walk. The Unicorn advises the party that they should quickly build a wooden sled and tie it to the mythical creature. Kenji tests the Unicorn's hearing and, after doing so, he and the rest of the team begin formulating their assault. Jowgen expresses doubt about the whole thing as he now thinks that the creature doesn't deserve such a demise. Sweet Potato finds some magical mushrooms to make a good meal for the Unicorn. The party reaches their final stretch towards their home town. Kenji suggests that the gang should take Shelly hostage (truly, Cosmo's staff are all paragons of virtue) so that the Unicorn can't teleport away from them. Matthieu asks his comrades if they could simply ask if the mythical creature would teleport them across the river as the gnomes can't swim. They reach the river.
The gang acts out their little spiel in front of the flowing water. But the Unicorn doesn't seemingly fall for the ploy as it says that the path they're taking is very shallow. As they approach the bank, Matthieu whispers to Sweet Potato that the gnome must drown. Kenji starts fake-crying. As he bursts into tears and the Unicorn attempts to comfort the very distraught line cook. He tells her a very believable sob story about his father dying in the river when Kenji was a child. The mythical creature casts Calm Emotion. Sweet Potato beckons Kenji towards him and casts Catnap on the line cook, making him go unconscious with a Catnap spell, which causes Kenji to fall into the water. The Unicorn asks Shelly to demonstrate to the clearly inept party that the river is safe to cross and does exactly that. The Unicorn casts Healing Touch on Kenji and ten minutes later he comes to his senses. Jowgen pulls the party to the side and tries to convince them to leave Cosmo's Kitchen altogether as what they want to do is abhorrent. Sweet Potato finds the idea ridiculous, unlike Matthieu, who actually wouldn't mind having a way out of the mess. The Unicorn casts another Healing Touch to heal the gastromancer's leg. As it is about to leave, Kenji swings his battleaxe at the mythical creature. Combat begins.
Two successful, brutal hits land on the Unicorn's pristine body, causing it great harm. Action Surge is used and two more blows land on the mythical creature. It looks almost dead. Sweet Potato casts Sleep at 3rd level, and it fails. Shelly comes to be in front of the Unicorn to protect it. Kenji swings his weapons once more, ignoring the child's pleas. Three hits land. Matthieu throws a dart at it, bringing the creature down. Jowgen has a moment of clarity and he reprimands the party for their terrible actions before raising his bow at them. Nobody cares about the ranger and so they simply decide to kill/capture him as well (shocker). Jowgen lands an arrow on Sweet Potato's shoulder. The gastromancer casts Flame Blade at 2nd level. Shelly has an absolute breakdown as she shoves her brother to the ground. M'aitre rushes to be behind the rogue ranger and effectively surrounds him. Sweet Potato casts Sleep on his sister and she falls into slumber. After a successful Stunning Strike on Jowgen, he is tied and restrained. The party debates whether to eat the hunter, let him die in the woods, kill him or bring him to Cosmo's - all of which perfectly describe this gang's moral compass. Jowgen uses Cunning Action to escape his bindings and flees. The party doesn't chase him. 
The Unicorn is delivered to Cosmo. The party is praised and relieved that their careers live to see another day. Unlike the Unicorn. Or Shelly's brutalized psyche. Or a bunch of murdered bullywugs. Sweet Potato received a bigger hat as he gets a promotion. Kenji received a set of sharpened damascus steel knives. M'aitre receives a new apprentice. All's well if it ends well. 
Category:The Lazarus Expedition Episodes
Category:Save Or Die Episodes
Category:The Lazarus Expedition