Hardcore Heroes: Episode 34

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== Synopsis ==
In Shirebrook, Kain and Malakai set out to secure passage to Redport but face delays and obstacles. Kain is deeply concerned about Tyrus' fate and the potential bloodshed, while Malakai negotiates with various captains to find a quicker route. As tensions rise, Van helps Tyrus and coordinates with the temple before joining the group in a hasty departure. They eventually board a ship to Rockwave and then set out towards Talon. On their way, they encounter a dangerous cave, where they battle and defeat leucrotta creatures. After some exploration and setbacks, including a run-in with mountain giants, they finally reach Talon. They devise a plan to avoid direct confrontation with hobgoblins and their allies, finding a hidden underground chamber as a temporary base.
==Recap==
=== Tuesday, 1509-11-01* ===
In Shirebrook, Kain and Malakai are making their way to the docks to charter passage to Redport when Kain speaks up. He still doesn't want to leave Tyrus alone to be killed by the Count and presses on that if Tyrus ends up cutting down the Counts men the situation inadvertently will get worse. A no win situation with bloodshed on both sides and Shirebrook losing possible supplies in a situation where it has a large percentage of starving populous. Kain thinks that perhaps the reward from the Count could be him sparing Tyrus's life, but Malakai laughs about the stubbornness of dwarves not allowing that to happen. 
Malakai continues on to the docks and asks the harbormaster if there are any ships leaving for Rockwave anytime soon. There's apparently 1 ship leaving for Redport in next 2 days, but it doesn't stop at Rockwave however. 
Malakai finds the captain of the aforementioned ship, Shiv, and talks to him about leaving early, hopefully tomorrow. He whispers to him that Count is sending men to apprehend Tyrus and there will be bloodshed here so it would be best for Shiv to gather his crew and leave early. Unfortunately tho the goods Shiv was planning on shipping to Redport only arrive late the next day and by time they’d be loaded in the tides wouldn't be suitable for leaving port. He ends up telling the man that he'll scout if anyone else is willing to leave early, but if nothing else pops up he'll just go with Shiv. 
With all his wizardly intimidating aura he goes to the local sailor infested tavern and finds himself a captain. They make some small talk, the guy asks him about his father, offering condolences when Malakai says he's dead now then they get to business, turns out that an incognito trip to Rockwave for their group would cost 160 gold so Malakai ends up going back to Shiv and booking the trip with him for 75 gold instead. 
Van naps himself in the inn and re-memorizes spells, then goes back to Tyrus with some healing power. Before he goes off to do other business he asks if they can keep it quiet about him helping the wanted criminal, but Tyrus points out that all of his men saw it as well. 
Next he goes to the main temple and finds Fredrick, informs with what they were tasked to do by the Count and asks if he can tell whoever arrives that they did in-fact do what was requested of them. 
Then he runs back to Tyrus again and tells him that there were supposed to be supplies on the ship that's arriving in town and he should try not to run it off before the said supplies are distributed among the populace in need. 
Malakai retires early leaving a message for the party. 
Kain goes to Tyrus as well, interrupting him for the 4th time today which gets him slightly annoyed. Kain asks him what does he intend to do and tells him that he cannot expect not to fight the Count if he is to stay. Tyrus sarcastically asks should go and rot in the Counts dungeons then. Kain goes on then once more reiterates that it'll be a bloodshed and the guards might get involved too, but eventually with a plea for Tyrus to think more about the future Kain leaves. 
Van visits Malakai in his home and offers to trap his spellbooks in case they were to be stolen or he died. Malakai graciously refuses, somewhat paranoid in his head that Van might know he killed Aldric now since he just discovered that in his spellbook there is an explosive runes spell.
Back in Halfpint Kain confronts Van about letting Tyrus do as he pleases because it might end with a lot of dead people on the docks, but Van refuses to engage him anymore. Van ends up telling him how they once used to be wanted men, but when they were in Wake county almost nothing came of it therefore even if count would put a warrant out he doubts it would mean much to them.  
They end getting drunk together and talking about their previous adventures. Van notably doesn't mention Croak too much. Kain mentions moving to another country altogether and Van seems to imagine it in a good light. Eventually Kain falls asleep at the table and Van goes back to his temple. 
=== Wednesday, 1509-11-02* ===
Late at night Van is awoken to armored footsteps walking towards his sleeping chambers. He immediately sneaks behind the door to a corner and stands in a defensive location until he realizes that it's Tyrus. 
Tyrus apparently having changed his mind is ready to leave within the hour in middle of then night and together with Van go to collect their friends. Once they get to Malakai he explains himself that even though he's tired from running, doesn't want to get the rest of the town in trouble just because of that. They collect an extremely drunk Kain from Storybrook inn and inform Jeeves in a very jumbled and confused manner to go to Redport and wait for them at their usual inn, whichever that was.
They get back to Malakai's house, collect the items they've been storing under his floorboards including Malakai sneakily collecting Aldric's spellbooks and go to the docks. 
The captain is introduced to them as Biden. Party decides that Rockwave is going to be their destination. On their way there Kain questions why Tyrus changed his mind and the ex-sheriff tells him that he'd rather keep moving that see the town he calls home be destroyed or damaged just because he is too lazy or too self absorbed to move on. Tyrus shrugs off being called a good man though. When offered to join them in their exploration of Talon he refuses citing having left the adventuring life. 
They plot about enchanting the bejeweled sword to emit daylight and trying to sell it off as an enchanted weapon. They argue with Tyrus about what constitutes a Baron and other things. 
=== Friday, 1509-11-04* ===
Party arrives in Rockwave without issue. They reminisce about all the dwarven enemies they've made in their time around Wake county, reciting that time he pissed off Redbeard and won a drinking contest against a dwarf. Tyrus gets angry at him about wasting a potion of vitality on a drinking contest, but the fact that Malakai used it to live through spider poison calms him down. Malakai tries to get a hair from the old sheriff, but Tyrus won't have any of it so in the end they part ways.
They put all their items in a Wizard locked, Weighty chest-ed chest and store it in a rented inn room paying 3 weeks forward on it. 
Party set's out towards Talon. 
Partway on their journey they hear what sounds like a woman screaming. Immediately Van is on guard and having had experience with this sort of trap before he takes out his chess set and casts Augury with it. The premonition he gets is that great dangers will be overcome. Based on this and based on fact that no rewards are mentioning Kain advocates for finding a way around this danger while Malakai is keen in investigating first. 
The wizard goes invisible and goes to scout the hillside cave from where the voice is coming from. Close to the beach there's a cave with a creek coming out of it where the voice is coming out of. He creeps closer to the entrance until he smells the stench of rotting bodies and death. Satisfied that it really is dangerous he goes back to the party. 
Van hearing this immediately comes up with it being a leucrotta explaining that they're ugly quadrupled creatures that lure people in and then feast upon their flesh. Them being nasty, but not incredibly dangerous satisfies the party and they decide to go for the bait. 
They sneak upon the entrance to the cave, weapons in hands. Kain shoots a light arrow into it and Malakai goes to scout it out, still invisible. The arrow is extinguished and the voice changes from crying to help to saying it can make it. They creep even closer and look, but see nothing so Van loudly challenges whoever is inside. Now that everyone is in view of the cave another light arrow is shot at it and they see the odd horse-bodied badger-headed creature inside.
The original beast gets peppered with magical and regular arrows, but 3 more of these beasts appear and spread themselves against the back of the cave. Fireball kills one. They try to negotiate for their lives and offer riches, but Van won't have any of it and they slaughter all of them.
Party explores the cave, but apparently the treasure is well hidden because they cannot find a lick of it. 
For purpose of getting Van's armor fixed they head back to Rockwave which for a backwater town is somewhat lucky to have an armor-weapons smith. The process will take almost a week so Van stays in town while the other two go back to the hilly leucrotta cave dead set on trying to find the treasure there. 
=== Saturday, 1509-11-05* ===
After resting in town the ranger wizard duo trek back to the cave. Malakai casts Strength on Kain and gets him to 18/20. In the cave Malakai detects a magical glowing rock. 
Even with carefully studying Kain cannot seem to find any leads where treasure could be or if there are any more of these creatures in there. They continue exploring until Kain suddenly hears a familiar rumbling sound, the sound of giant footsteps. 
Two of them hide in the deeper parts of the cave and wait for the giants. Language they speak seems not to be general giant and Kain cannot quite understand it. Once some time passes the giants walk past the cave entrance, they appear to be slightly shorter, but stockier than hill giant's and they figure that they are mountain giants.
They end up sleeping trough the night in the cave.
=== Sunday, 1509-11-06* ===
Malakai casts strength on Kain and invisibility on both of them, and they both sneak back to Rockwave. 
Having lost each other along the way they meet up in the tavern and then find Van, sharing the information with him. 
They wait around town until Van's armor is finished, Malakai using the time to learn spells and Kain fletching arrows. 
=== Wednesday, 1509-11-09* ===
Malakai fails Comprehend languages. 
=== Sunday, 1509-11-13 ===
Malakai learns Phantom steed. 
Van's armor finishes being repaired so the party is ready to go out to Talon. Jeeves has likely landed in Redport by now.
They talk to a local man in the tavern who says that yeah there is indeed a clan of mountain giant's out there. The female is their leader. The man mentions that they joined up with some hobgoblins and fishmen and tried to sack Redport a while back.
They make plans to approach Talon while invisible and if they get attacked and separated retreat to the leucrotta cave. 
Following the seaside the invisible party, tethered to each other with silk rope, force march to Talon and find the ruins of a former city. There they can see outlines of what used to be stone buildings, most of the stones seeming to have been taken. There's a leftover stone pier and a still standing stone tower farther up a hill.
While Van is inspecting the stone tower and others are just hanging out they notice 3 hobgoblins coming off from a hilltop. Party watch them just hanging out for a while until they grow bored so Malakai memorized a meeting point in the ruins and then goes off to the tower, still invisible. 
Meanwhile, Van notices a bird approaching, they watch it closing until becomes apparent that it's a gryphon. The bird creature swoops lower and enters the tower through a window. Malakai seeings this jogs back to the party having confirmed that something does indeed live in the tower. 
Kain seems somewhat worried about there being too many of them, but Van reassures that they could take a few of these especially if they're inside a building. After Kain mentioning that they might need to take care of the hobgoblins as well Malakai goes to check out the boulder that hobgoblin scout disappeared behind and discovers that there's an entrance there leading below. 
They decide that perhaps if they can they should avoid killing the gryphons, but hobgoblins are definitely on the menu. Party sneak to the boulder, but before they enter Van casts augury spell and asks what will befall them if they enter, he gets back that their enemies will cower before them. Now confident everyone readies their weapons and Kain slowly opens the door. 
Malakai sneaks in first and Coloursprays the whole 4 hobgoblins inside. A quick knife work later the dwelling is theirs. Turns out this carved underground chamber system has all the necessary commodities, a lot of weapons, food, water. So much that it could serve as a base for a large force of hobgoblins. They argue for a while about there possibly being 500 hobgoblins waiting around corner while Malakai just wants to barricade in a room and sleep. In the end they decide to stay here and just barricade themselves in somewhere.
They pull the hobgoblin corpses into a side room, cover the blood splatters with beds and then go to sleep in a barricaded room with a single exit.
== Experience and changes ==
* Malakai gains 8th level and rolls +1 HP, for a total of 15 HP
* Malakai learns Polymorph self, learns Lesser Geas and fails Polymorph other
*Dates are extrapolated from a previous mention of an exact date.
Category:Hardcore Heroes Episodes