Eon: Unsolved Mysteries (Fall 2008)

In which the party avoids the war raging across the world like the plague, instead choosing to procrastinate on running errands for their patron Vishnu and becoming minor (or major) superstars of the only neutral territory left on the face of the earth.
== Episodes ==
=== Season Premiere: Lost in Translation ===
:Three months after the Battle of Malvont, a dead man and a mindflayer walk into a bar.
:No one is surprised; they've been renting the entire top floor of the adjoining inn with their companions for quite some time, and this is Corinth. They join the even more eclectic group eating at a table in the corner, and give them an update on the news from Malvont. It isn't overwhelmingly good, but at least Malvont has managed to reclaim Kingspire and the Inner Circle. However, it still doesn't look like they can safely go back there any time soon, and what do the others think?
:The group's leader, Yolanda, agrees that returning to Malvont may not be in their best interests. Sil'meelen has spent the past months adventuring and collecting followers for a mercenary group she calls The Holy Returners, who will be dedicated to driving out the invading Baldur forces from Malvont. She has two devoted followers at current, Stumbleduck and Fauntleroy. She wants to go back to Malvont, but realizes that she may not yet be ready. Similarly, Shiolay has pledged to help Malvont, but knows that their group launching a full-on attack will accomplish nothing. Tobo is happily working on his epic poem about the Battle of Malvont, but has no vested interest in returning to an occupied Malvont. Ethan agrees that subtlety will serve them far better than an outright attack on Baldur, and Ashra points out that perhaps they should think about the underlying causes of the attack, since they may be more tangled up in them than they think.
:Before they can discuss things further, the door opens. A dwarf walks in, spots Yolanda, and rushes over to give her a manly hug. She returns it, asking him how the hell he managed to survive after sailing after a battle cruiser with only a skiff and a sword at his disposal. Ulfgar tells everyone, very sadly, that he lost the skiff, but he finally made it to the Southern Continent. He figured that the party would be here, since the inn has such an awesome name, but everyone stares blankly at him until Ulfgar realizes that the name "Rock Rock Rock" probably lost something in translation from Dwarven to Common.
:As Ulfgar sits down and gets some food as well, a young half-elf man leans over to Ethan and asks if they know any more about the issues going on in Baldur. He lived there with his mother, who was Elven nobility, until the Revolution of 1441. His mother was killed during the Ride of Nerull, but he managed to escape with the aid of his mentor, who he refers to as Mr. Gucci. He hasn't seen or heard from his mentor since. Mr. Gucci, he explains, is a master tailor. He himself is Richard the Beautific, a tailor and diviner. Ethan says that he might be able to tell him a little more and asks if he can call him Fab Dick. Richard sighs and agrees. As Ethan starts to fill him in on what he learned over the past year about the uprising in Baldur, a tiefling enters the bar and asks for the leader of The Toggenburg Corporation.
:Yolanda beckons him over and asks what his business is. The tiefling says that the mayor of Corinth has heard about their involvement in the Battle of Malvont, and would like to meet with them. While Corinth wants to remain neutral in the conflict between Baldur and Malvont, he has heard about the Toggenburg's past as a weapons smuggling group, and wants their advice on how to quietly funnel weapons into Malvont. Yolanda agrees, and the tiefling leaves them with the orders to meet at the City Hall the next morning, and to come peacebound.
:The party, realizing that they're going to have to dress nicely and maybe even bathe before tomorrow, begins to disperse. Yolanda invites Fab Dick to join them, since he and Ethan seem to be getting along so well. Fab Dick offers to make everyone the most stylish orange ribbons that you could ever use for peacebonding, Ulfgar gets himself a room, and the night passes uneventfully.
:The next morning, the party peacebonds some of their weapons and conceals others. Ashra, after some contemplation, ties a ribbon around one of his tentacles. Fab D teaches Ethan the most stylin' way to tie ribbons around one's fingers. After Sil'meelen passes a critical eye over all of the attempts to hide weapons and deems them acceptable, the party heads out for City Hall.
:City Hall is just across from a large fountain with a very odd stone centerpiece. A heavily muscled human male is frozen in the act of wrestling something, and a live young bear tends to hang around the fountain and scare tourists. While the statue does not look like it was installed professionally, it is very realistic.
:Yolanda makes it partway up the stairs to City Hall when she feels a sting in her neck and finds that someone just shot her with an assassin's dart. She rips it out, takes off the orange tie on her bag of rocks, and starts administering beatdowns on the soldiers pouring out of City Hall. The rest of the party scrambles to follow suit, though the mage raining fireballs and Stinking Clouds down on them from the roof of City Hall is kind of a distraction. Ulfgar considers the side of the building and the mage, and then starts climbing. Ashra alternates between trying to intimidate and mindblast the mage as Ulfgar ascends. Shiolay summons a Celestial Bee at the top of the building to harass the mage further. Fab D fireballs back, Ethan walks into the Stinking Cloud and dares anyone to play kill-the-mage-first in there, and Sil'meelen scoops up a very injured Tobo and runs him back to the inn. Having rolled a two on his reflex save against the fireball, Tobo is also powerfully hungry.
:Ashra finally succeeds in mindblasting the mage, at which point the Celestial Bee and Ulfgar beat the mage unconscious. Back on the ground, the others finish clearing out the soldiers, and Yolanda goes up to City Hall to demand an explanation for this bullshit. City Hall is deserted, and so Yolanda quickly finds the signed hit out on her and any other available members of the Toggenburg. She grabs it, marches back out, and tells everyone that it's time to leave.
:Sil'meelen and Tobo meet them at the door of the inn with Sam Ash, Kytia, Stumbleduck, Fauntleroy, and the party's stuff. Ridding themselves of the last bits of orange ribbon, they race for the dock where their ship, the Jade Kraken II, is moored. While they briefly consider going back to grab the statue of Jose, common sense and the prospect of hauling several hundred pounds of stone win out.
:As they reach the docks, they find a cloaked and hooded woman sitting by their ship. She stands and takes off her hood as they approach. Much to the party's surprise, it's Aura Larellian. Ethan tells her that her former lover Baudin Dommilan is gone, so she doesn't need to hit any of them with Flaming Spheres. Really. Seriously, someone just fireballed us like ten minutes ago.
:Aura sighs and tells them that she's not here to kill them. While she isn't happy with the existence of Ashra and Ethan, she's a lot less happy with Grax's rise to power in the Baldur government, and she knows that they are definitely not on Grax's side. To that end, she noticed that Corinth isn't safe for them any more, and so tells them to go to Port Townsend instead. They can be as anonymous as they like there, and if they trust her enough to take her advice, she can send them to someone who will help them. If they go 40 miles north of Port Townsend, they will find a man named Simora. He is also a member of the Circle of the True, but he will obey her orders to spare their lives. With that, she walks away. The party gapes after her for a bit until Ashra reminds everyone that they were running for their lives a couple of minutes ago. Some hasty preparation later, the party sails away from Corinth until the shore fades away in the distance.
:Once they're out that far, they have the time to discuss their next destination. As they haven't been doing much weapons trading in the past few months, the party coffers are starting to run low. Ulfgar suggests that they go to Xenteroth's Tower, a nearby goblin civilization. They can properly restock for a long journey such as the one to Port Townsend there, and also load up on such fun items as black powder as well as the more mundane barley. Shiolay sets the ship in that direction while Yolanda and Ethan debate the pros and cons of carrying a lot of black powder on a month-long overseas journey. It would net them a lot of money, but it is also a fairly risky prospect. Ulfgar assures them that it can't be too bad, and that Baudin did mention having done it at least once.
:They sail along the coast for the most part, though they sail a day out of their way to avoid Yarmoth and any Neogi who might still be hanging around. They explain to those who were not there that they had a very interesting experience the last time that they were there, and it isn't one that they feel like having again any time soon.
:They aren't far out from Xenteroth's Tower when a storm hits. Tobo, having never experienced a proper storm at sea before, is so excited that Ulfgar offers to tie him to the mast so he can experience it in its full glory. Tobo agrees. Meanwhile, Shiolay, Ashra, and Yolanda hang onto the helm for dear life, Sam and Ethan barely manage to take down the sails before the wind really hits them, and Sil'meelen rounds up her followers to help bail out the ship as needed.
:(Ulfgar would like to mention that Tobo was tied to the prow, creating a veritable figurehead.  Also, it was this storm, Ulfgar believes, where the crow's nest began to fill with water, and tip the ship.  While everyone else combined strength on the helm or bailed water, Ulfgar climbed the mast, and shattered the bottom of the nest with his shatterspike, potentially saving the ship.)
:(Yeah. About that.)
:The storm comes complete with pounding rain. Yolanda notices that something has gone awry with the mast, and after a few seconds of staring, Ethan realizes that the crows' nest is filled with water. He then goes catatonic and collapses from the combined stress of dealing with being soaked (not fun for the undead), risking spending the rest of his undeath at the bottom of the ocean if the ship sinks with no way to save himself, and having dredged up memories of his extensive time spent on ships during his life. While Shiolay makes a detour from the wheel to hit Ethan up with Calm Emotions, Ulfgar decides to take matters into his own hands. He scales the mast, heedless of the potential to fall to his death on the deck and/or off the Jade Kraken II entirely, and takes a swing at the crow's nest with the Shatterspike. This does, in fact, empty the crow's nest of water. Ulfgar also takes several gallons of water to the face, and loses his grip. He manages to roll when he lands, explains defensively that it worked to anyone who points out that they are now kind of lacking in the crow's nest department, and goes to help hold the wheel steady.
:The party rides out the rest of the storm, puts the sails back up, hauls up the anchor, and continues on their way. That hurdle past, they make it into Xenteroth's Tower a few days later.
:Yolanda and Sil'meelen convince the overseer at the dock that they don't need to pay very much to dock, as they lost the grain that they were transporting in the recent storm. This is a blatant lie, but it keeps the overseer from searching the Jade Kraken II and finding a drow, a mindflayer, and a deathlock hiding below decks.
:As the more presentable members of the party get ready to head out in search of supplies, they meet a cleric who is perfunctorily asking everyone who comes into dock about Yarmoth. When Yolanda and Ulfgar reply in the affirmative, she says that her boss is looking for people who know anything about the enslavement of Yarmoth by the Neogi. Just then, a Helping Hand appears behind the cleric and beckons her back. The cleric says that she has to go back, and if they want to come with her, she's staying at the local inn. Yolanda and Ulfgar tell her that they need to resupply for a trip north first, but they'll be sure to stop by. Shiolay and Sil'meelen go with her to scope out what the whole story might be, while Ulfgar, Yolanda, Fab D, and Tobo stock up on rations, barrels to hold water, grain, and barley. To Ulfgar's delight, they also pick up some gunpowder of moderate strength. Ulfgar also personally obtains several FFF bombs, to the party's mild terror and dismay.
:(Ulfgar: The party also got a metal grate to replace the bottom of the crow's nest, so as to prevent water from collecting there. Rule 1.)
:Purchases made, Sam and Fab D ensure that their stuff makes it back onto the ship and below decks intact and without anyone noticing their more untoward crewmates. Ulfgar and Yolanda stop in at the inn and find the cleric, Shiolay, Sil'meelen, and a beautiful halfling woman having drinks together. When the cleric tells the halfling that these are the people who know something about Yarmoth, she asks to speak with them privately, and agrees to come back to the Jade Kraken II to talk it over.
:Once aboard, the rest of the party introduces itself and those who can explain what they remember of their trip to Yarmoth and subsequent experience with the Neogi. The halfling sighs and said she'd expected something like that. She tells them that she is Andrey Hilltopple, the daughter of the cleric that they met in Yarmoth. Thus, she is essentially the princess of Yarmoth. Gid is her companion and bodyguard. After the enslavement of her parents and her tutor Jose Freespirit, she vowed vengeance against the Neogi. She gave revenge a try once and lost her hand as a result, but that isn't slowing her down. Yolanda tells her that Jose was freed, but was later turned to stone by a Beholder in an act of self-sacrifice. A spell of Stone to Flesh should easily cure him, if she can get to Corinth and cast it. They tell her that after this, they're heading for the Northern Continent and possibly for Port Townsend.
:Andrey nods, and asks if she can join their group. She wants to go north and find out if anyone there knows anything about the Neogi, and she's never been there before. No one is particularly opposed to gaining two more clerics, so they agree. When they shrug off hearing that they will be traveling along with a couple of crates of black powder, the party knows that it was destined to be.
:Several weeks of very careful sailing later, the party discusses which city to go to first. Their options are Baldur City (right out), Port Wyatt (full of the Baldur navy), Port Mariner (probably similar), Barrensburg (probably safe), Port Brogan (ostensibly neutral territory), and Port Townsend (possibly safe, possibly with the Circle of the True waiting for them). They decide to try Barrensburg first, just to get a feel for how Goneril is doing. However, as Barrensburg comes into sight, they see black clouds billowing up from the city. Ethan asks if Barrensburg is supposed to be doing that. No one else has been to Barrensburg or really knows anything about it, so they decide to leave it alone just in case they are that unlucky and have just come across another city in the process of self-destructing. They head northeast to Port Brogan instead.
:Port Brogan is refreshingly intact, and is a primarily dwarven community. The party gets their priorities in order and locates the nearest bar: The Stumbling Duck. It isn't on the main island, but is instead built into a massive, partially sunken ship on a tiny island off the southern coast of Port Brogan. They tie up the Jade Kraken II at its docks and Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Ethan go inside to make some business connections. Yes.
:Once inside, Yolanda makes a beeline for the bar and strikes up a conversation with the staggeringly drunk half-orc there. Ulfgar and Ethan follow, and soon find themselves talking to Jaxil Motherfuckin' Icewinton, a man who has no pants and needs no pants. He is convinced that the trees have it in for him, and he needs to go north to the Ruins of Eldergrin without incurring their wrath somehow. A dizzying series of logical leaps later, Jaxil decides that the Toggenburg Corporation can easily protect him from the trees as their plans for heading north involve ships. Yolanda, Ulfgar, and Ethan return to the Jade Kraken II shortly thereafter, slightly tipsy where applicable, and suddenly up one crew member. After a fast round of introductions, no one else has any particular problem with Jaxil joining the company, though at least three people ask him to put on some pants. Jaxil roundly ignores these requests.
:Shiolay takes the Jade Kraken II back into port and moors there, this time for good. The party piles off of the ship, leaving it in the care of Sam, Kytia, Fauntleroy, and Stumbleduck, and heads out to find a suitable inn. Inn found, they settle in after a few amicable squabbles over who rooms with whom and who gets to watch whom sleep. Tobo spends some quality time in the dining area and returns not only with a list of potential buyers for their various items, but with an interesting proposition. The mayor of Port Brogan, Vait Umgart, is offering a sizable reward to any adventurers who return his daughter Arten to him. She was kidnapped by ogres over a political dispute, and he is unwilling to give on the matter. She must be returned safely and with chastity intact. However, rumor has it that Arten is in fact none too chaste, and so this could be a trap in more than one sense of the word. Still, a reward is a reward, and the entire point of coming here was to build up the Toggenburg Corporation's net worth.
:The party retires for the night, debating whether or not it's worth it to deviate from their expedition to Port Townsend in favor of spending a few days rescuing the local princess. They figure they'll have to stick around for a little bit in order to sell off their wares, and they can get more information in the morning.
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:(Notes: Oh good lord. I think this actually might have been all in one session. A lot of the things that turned into paragraphs actually went by pretty quickly, so there's that.)
=== Episode Two: Sorry, Yolanda, But Your Princess is in Another Castle ===
:The next morning, the party sets out to sell off their grain and black powder. Grain is an especially precious commodity on the Northern Continent these days, due to the war and winter having just passed, so Yolanda, Ulfgar, and Tobo are able to turn a good price on it after some judicious haggling. Next, Tobo locates a potential buyer for the black powder at the docks, and finds that said buyer is willing to have a quiet meeting aboard his own ship to discuss the very black-market matter. When Sil'meelen hears the name of the buyer, she decides to take the lead in haggling this one, since she has quite the history with him.
:The rest of the party troops along, backing her up in roles ranging from 'leader of the Toggenburg Corporation' to 'public relations specialist'. Upon boarding the ship, the buyer turns, sees Sil'meelen, and greets her very warmly. Sil'meelen introduces him to the rest of the company as the Dread Pirate Lucifer, also known as Lucy. He is accompanied by his brother Lando Jackson and his friend Kruglor. Lucy explains that he has a ghost cannon, and is always in need of more black powder. He would be very obliged if Sil'meelen could hook him up. With the black powder. Yeah. He offers a price, Sil'meelen haggles a bit in full, flirtatious style, and a price is reached that is acceptable to Yolanda and Ethan. Lucy goes with them back to the Jade Kraken II, inspects the black powder, haggles with Sil'meelen a bit more, and eventually hands over his payment and carts the black powder away, inviting Sil'meelen to stop by any time she likes. As one, everyone in the party save for Ulfgar breathes a sigh of relief at no longer transporting several boxes of high explosives in a wooden ship. Ulfgar calls them all wusses.
:Goods sold, the party divides up the money amongst themselves by shares and heads out to the market to buy general company supplies as well as fun personal things. Ashra stares longingly at wands, Ethan points out that civilized people own more than one set of clothes and get more when their old set is completely wrecked, Yolanda and Ulfgar inspect armor and new weapons, Shiolay gets his full plate tuned up a bit, and Sil'meelen looks into magical equipment and supplies for her followers. Tobo heads off to get all the juicy local gossip, Gid and Andrey ask around about the Neogi, and Jaxil yet again refuses to get pants.
:The party reconvenes at their ship, where Tobo spills all the news. The ogre clan that claims to have kidnapped the princess of Port Brogan is probably in the Juniper Mine, which is in the highlands to the northeast of the main city. As the dispute really is purely political, they might be open to negotiation rather than a brute-force rescue. The party decides to hell with Port Townsend and the Circle of the True for now, and plan to head for Juniper Mine the next morning. Tobo fills them in on a few more local rumors, such as the locations of various troll territories, and then goes back to the market with a revamped version of The Sailor and the Barmaid. Several hours later, Tobo is impressively rich and a complete hit among the twenty and thirty-somethings (or equivalent) of Port Brogan. The elder members of Port Brogan are less impressed, but do concede that he has style.
:The next morning, the party sets up for a several-mile hike, finds the most suitable road, and heads out. Jaxil hacks away at the underbrush as they go, gleefully informing the party that his favored enemy is plants.
:They're about halfway to the mine when they encounter a troll raiding party. The trolls demand tribute of meat or slaves, neither of which the party is willing to provide, and the battle is on. Sil'meelen and Tobo warn the party of the trolls' regenerative properties, and tell them that they can only be truly killed with fire. The party wastes no time in pounding them unconscious, at which point Shiolay and Fab Dick use fire summons and a Flaming Sphere to dispatch them. Ethan yanks out the axe embedded in what used to be his heart and offers it to the melee fighters, all of whom decline an axe of subpar quality dripping with formaldehyde. After a quick round of heals, the party continues.
:Upon finding Juniper Mine, the party discusses how best to approach them. Tobo decides to go in and fascinate the ogres with a new little song he whipped up last night, and to take Ethan, Sil'meelen, and Ulfgar with him for backup charm and protection, respectively. The rest of the party follows at a distance, keeping Ashra between the two groups so that they can just barely stay in telepathic contact. A few hundred feet into the mine, Tobo comes face to face with the leader of the ogres, named Ovak. He casts Tongues, introduces himself, and immediately launches into song. After five minutes of shredding away on the banjo, Tobo concludes with a smile. After a looooong pause, Sil'meelen and Ethan offer a slow clap, each of them using their fantastic bluff checks to neither crack up nor ask what the hell that was. Ulfgar telepathically tells Tobo that he is awesome.
:Ovak is, in fact, fascinated. A few more high-ranking ogres appear behind him, also impressed, but still wary of why they're there. They guess correctly that the party has arrived because of 'the hot chick', and tell them that they refuse to return her until they get what is rightfully theirs. Upon further inquiry by Tobo, he learns that the mayor of Port Brogan promised to give them the Sword of Saleem in exchange for the land upon which The Nautilus stands. However, he reneged on his offer completely, which seriously pissed off the ogres. They tell the party that they'll return Arten if they can obtain the Sword of Saleem and bring it to the ogre settlement. Ovak gives them two days in which to talk to the mayor and bring them the sword. If they don't do it by then, they'll have to renegotiate. Tobo quickly translates this for everyone else, and upon general approval, tells the ogres that they'll do it.
:The party heads back to the main city, discussing who Saleem could possibly be. The clerics put their heads together and eventually figure out that Saleem is the southern name of Obad-Hai. While they have no idea why the Sword of Saleem would be on the Northern Continent if it was so named, they figure it could have initially come from anywhere. They also debate amongst themselves why they're agreeing to go on all of these fetchquests when they theoretically have to go meet a guy on a totally different part of the Northern Continent. Eventually they reach the conclusion that two more days won't matter, and no one in the party really objects to doing a good thing when they think about it like that.
:Upon returning to the main city, the party heads straight for City Hall and asks for an audience with the mayor. The attendant recognizes Tobo, gets his autograph, and sends them in as Tobo the Entertainer with his personal guards. Once inside, the mayor admits that he did kind of like Tobo's song, even if it is corrupting the youth and so on. Tobo plays a bit of a more refined song and also recites part of his in-progress epic in order to show that he is a man of many talents, which appeases the mayor somewhat. Yolanda then asks why the mayor would have gone back on his agreement with the ogres, since the party has a strange kind of honor and objects to wiping out an entire settlement over a legitimate political tactic, as assholish as it was.
:The mayor admits, after some looming over him by Yolanda and Ulfgar combined with Sil'meelen's and Ethan's smooth talking, that he doesn't have the Sword of Saleem. He wanted the Nautilus because he thought it would have wondrous treasures in it, but when he sent scouts in, half of them died in the first room. The ones who survived never figured out how to get past said first room. There was a trap in there that apparently delivered at first little pricks, and then bigger and bigger ones. Angered at what seemed to him to be the ogres' betrayal, he didn't bother to find them so much as a fake Sword of Saleem. The party asks if they can go check out the Nautilus. The mayor agrees and waves them off, saying that if they can survive it, whatever they find inside is mostly theirs. He'll reward them handsomely if they can just get his daughter back; he doesn't think the loss of her is worth holding his position on this, but he can't give the ogres the Sword, since he doesn't have it.
:The party promptly turns and heads out for the Nautilus, mindful of their two-day deadline. It'll be a decent walk, since it's at the southeast corner of the island, but walking is far safer than trying to guide the Jade Kraken II through the deadly reef around that area of the island, not to mention the cliffs that they'd have to climb. Port Brogan is small enough that the walk can easily be done that day leaving them time to spare, and a few hours of hacking away at more underbrush later, they find a strange, broken-down temple: The Nautilus.
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:(Notes: I think we ran into trolls. I might be wrong about that.)
=== Episode Three: You Spin Me Right Round, Baby ===
:The party soon finds the door leading into the Nautilus. There are words in Common inscribed on the door: “Cuthbert has fallen. Nerull will rule all men.” The last two words are backwards. Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Ethan all stop and stare at the door for a minute. Once they realize that half of the party has no idea what is so interesting about this, they explain: they acquired an amulet in King's Reach a while back with the same words written on it, also with some words backwards. Shiolay, being the local expert, tells them that Nerull did once beat St. Cuthbert, but the battle was overall inconclusive. At no point has Nerull ever ruled all men -- not since the tieflings, at any rate. The party shrugs that off, picks the lock, and away they go.
:The room inside is a 40 x 40 ft. square, with a pool of water near the center of the room, an altar at the far side, and a strange organ against one of the walls. There are no more doors. The organ has thirteen keys of equal size, with seven silver stones set above the organ as if holding sheet music. The altar has a pattern of 13 x 8 spirals: 13 on the long side, 8 on the short. Tobo, having the best knowledge of music, goes over to the organ and presses one of the keys at random. He is immediately electrocuted. Tobo shakes this off and then starts to press all of the keys in turn.
:When Tobo presses the first key, he is not shocked, and a light on the organ goes on. The light goes off when he presses the second key, and stays off as he presses the third. The tones go up in minor thirds. When Tobo presses the fourth key, the light stays off, and Tobo is shocked once. He repeats the one-two-three sequence and presses the eighth key, which also keeps the light off and delivers one shock. He goes to the twelfth key from there. The light stays off, and Tobo is shocked twice. Little pricks and then bigger ones, indeed.
:By this point, Ethan is convinced that he's heard this music before and Ulfgar hauls Tobo away from the organ for some heals before it kills him. Jaxil ponders the organ for a bit, and then hits the first key, second key, third key, and fifth key. When he is not shocked, he continues on to the eighth key, then to the thirteenth. The organ slides away from his hands and reveals a door behind it. Jaxil explains to the party that the sequence was a series of numbers, each the sum of the two previous ones: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13. As the party continues on into the next room, they start to sense a pattern. While the first room was fairly spacious, this room is only 25 feet by 25 feet.
:Inside this room, there are living quarters, a mirror, five tapestries, and the number sequence Jaxil had just described written backwards on the far wall. The tapestries seem to be telling a story in sequence. The first depicts an impressively large tower. The next has a displeased-looking male paladin in dark, old-fashioned armor with a glowing scimitar over his head and an ankh pendant. He is delivering a deathblow to a mindflayer. There is a dark, glowing stone in the background of this tapestry. The third tapestry shows the tower in ruins, with the paladin walking away with his head bowed. His scimitar has diminished in size from the second tapestry. The fourth tapestry shows the same paladin surrounded by royalty, all praying to the ankh. In the fifth tapestry, the paladin is handing down his sword. He is holding it out in the direction of where a sixth tapestry would be, were one there. (So, wait, where was the tapestry of interlocking gears? Help us, Karijou, you're our only hope!)
:After some general wishing that they'd paid better attention to their history, the party finally concludes that the massive tower is Xenteroth's Tower, predating its destruction. The paladin's armor style is that of someone from about 100 years ago. This was also about the time when mindflayers emerged en masse into Eon. The ankh is an extinct symbol of the god Obad-Hai. Xenteroth himself was a mindflayer lich who was struck down 40 years ago by a group of adventurers, including the former president of Baldur and Andrey's mother. Xenteroth created golems in his tower, and the tower is rumored to be connected to the origin of the mindflayers. There is no record of the adventurers destroying Xenteroth's phylactery, which would have made his death only a minor inconvenience. The dark, glowing stone in the second tapestry is an emotion stone, which infuses anyone in its radius with a single, pure, powerful emotion. Despair, ecstasy, and arrogance are popular ones. Mindflayers use them to train growing mindflayers how to feel, and occasionally carry them around as toys.
:Some further investigation reveals smoke damage behind the second and third tapestries. The party's attention then turns to the mirror. It does not provide accurate reflections: anyone who looks into it sees themselves distorted, with a large head and eyes, and comparatively small body. The party has some fun shoving each other in front of the mirror and mocking each other, until someone finally notices the similarities between their reflection and Ashra's appearance. As some members of the party have very strange dungeon-crawling reflexes thanks to Olidammara, Ethan takes out a mirror and uses it to look at the larger mirror. When the party crowds around, they can all see a large wooden door where the mirror on the wall would be. Ashra then takes out his own chatty mirror that he got from the Hall and looks into the large mirror with it. He sees the face of another mind flayer, to whom Ashra says "Door" (in Illithid?). When he does so, he sees a door reflected in the other mindflayer's eyes. He tries to keep looking at it, but the image is so disturbing to him that he has to look away. While he takes a moment to recover, the rest of the party investigates the mirror and finds a bump in it where a doorknob would be. A bit of experimentation with their reflections later, the party makes it through the mirror and into the next room.
:The next room is 15 x 15 ft., and is filled with corpses. There are about thirty-five of them. The bodies are perfectly preserved, but the party deduces that they are quite old. Some are wearing armor in the same style as the paladin from the tapestries, and some are holding weapons. To their right, they see a small shelf with a pedestal on it. There is a golden ankh on the pedestal. It's pretty crowded for eleven people, especially with corpses all over the floor. The party also realizes that they have been moving at right angles in every room. They are traveling in a spiral inwards, each room counting down in length along the number sequence that Jaxil figured out. Ulfgar finds a secret door under the small shelf. Further investigation turns up the key behind the pedestal. When Ulfgar opens the door, all of the corpses animate and attack. The party has a merry time beating them down. Andrey's holy nuke was probably involved. Her holy nuke is pretty freakin' awesome, I must say.
:Zombies dispatched, the party starts squeezing into the next room. This one is only 10 x 10, so several members of the party have to stay behind due to sheer size limitations. This room is filled with shelves containing shells. The shells appear to be almost exclusively snail shells of varying types and sizes. There is a simple wooden door on the right wall. Ethan turns on the magic-dar and wanders around until he finds one magical shell. It contains thirteen small glass beads of different colors: 1 purple, 1 orange, 3 green, 8 blue. There is no lock to the wooden door, nor is it trapped. It opens easily, and the party peers into the room beyond.
:The next room is tiny, at 5 x 5 ft. There is a steel door on the right, and a small fountain opposite the wooden door. It has no water in it, and has a drainage hole at the bottom of the fountain that is one inch by one inch. There are four equidistant, bead-sized holes on the steel door. The party grabs the shell full of beads and starts theorizing about elemental directions and colors. After Sil'meelen and Ethan have an extended brainstorming session, the party finally works out that a blue bead goes in the top left slot, a green bead in the top right, the orange bead in the bottom right, and the purple bead in the bottom left. The door opens to reveal an equally small room that is empty but for a small golden plaque, with an inscription in Common:
:You shall find among my possessions the victory
:Sword of Saleem, once under the control of the lich
:Xenteroth, slain by water, fire, earth and air. It
:Will be mine forever.
:There are no more doors. The party starts working out syllable counts per line and possible double meanings. The syllables per line don't lead to any significant number patterns, nor do the number of words per line. (The sequence 11 7 3 1 3 5 factored in somewhere.) Tobo informs everyone that 'saleem' is also the name of a two-pipe woodwind. Eventually the party reads only the words from the sequence that Jaxil derived in the first room, and find "You shall find my victory under water."
:The party heads back to the pool of water from the first room and give it a much longer look. The pool of water is fifteen feet deep. Ashra, having the best eyes, sees a chest at the bottom with "sinful reordering" carved into the side of the pool just above it. Ulfgar decides that there's nothing for it but to go down there and retrieve that victory from under that water. After ten minutes of refusing to be talked out of his crazy idea, Ulfgar dives into the water with only a rope and his dwarven constitution to help him. He ties the rope around the chest and flips the thumbs-up to the people at the top. As the entire remaining party hauls on the rope, Ulfgar swims under the chest and pushes it upward even as he begins to run out of air.
:Once the chest is securely on the floor, Ulfgar unties the rope and begins to investigate it. Sil'meelen offers to check for traps and open it if necessary, but Ulfgar eschews such things in favor of using the Shatterspike to bust the chest open. This promptly triggers a trap that poisons Ulfgar badly. Undeterred, he looks into the chest and finds a scimitar and two rings. The scimitar is the Sword of Saleem, which is a +2 scimitar that confers an additional +2 bonus when used against aberrations. The rings are a +2 Ring of Armor and a Miser's Ring, which gives +5 to any check involving protecting an item from destruction. Jaxil gets the Ring of Armor. The party considers giving the Miser's Ring to Ethan, who is carting around a fair amount of strange and potentially powerful magical items, but then they all remember Ulfgar and the Shatterspike.
:Ulfgar, meanwhile, drags himself to the organ to try to figure out how to close the door again, electrocutes himself in the process, and is hauled away by the three clerics. The party decides that they've gotten what they came for and head out before things get any weirder or mindfuckier. As the party heads back to the main city, they discuss whether or not to explain to the mayor how to get into the Nautilus, now that they've emptied it of what treasures they could find. They figure that this can wait for another day, and focus on getting Ulfgar back to the ship where he can rest and restore all of the poison damage that he took. They get back to the Jade Kraken II very late, where they have some pie and get some rest.
:(Notes: Oh, that's MUCH better. Yay, written notes!)
=== Episode Four: Even the Trees Hate Us ===
:The next day, the party sleeps in, has some more pie, and takes some well-deserved relaxation time. After a warmup, Tobo takes his banjo and two ballads with him to the center of town. Yolanda tells the party that it's her birthday and she wants to go party at The Stumbling Duck, and everyone's invited. The non-rockstars do a little light shopping, then head out for the bar. As they leave the market, they see that Tobo already has picked up a crowd. As Ashra has no interest in bars when he's not terrorizing the bartenders, he remains on the ship with Sam and Kytia.
:Yolanda, Jaxil, Gid, Andrey, and Shiolay all go for ale. Fab Dick gets the froofiest, pinkest drink that he can find. Ethan actually gets something with taste since he's not going to get anything else out of it, as does Sil'meelen for similar reasons. Ulfgar asks about the most potent alcohol that the bartender has available. The bartender eyes Ulfgar for a bit, then brings out a bottle of a deep purple liquor. He explains quietly that this is whiskey laced with Absynthium Orientalis, which catches Ethan's interest. He tells Ulfgar that this variation has some similar effects to Wolves' Milk, the drug made directly from Absynthium Orientalis, but is less severe than the drug itself. Ulfgar buys a flask's worth of it and starts doing shots. Yolanda also buys a round of drinks for everyone else in the bar.
:Sil'meelen, meanwhile, spots Lucy, Lando, and Kruglor at a back table. She heads over to join them, and eventually the rest of the party follows. Lucy congratulates Yolanda on her birthday, buys her a drink, and continues to tell Sil'meelen about the conditions in Goneril these days. The country's ruler in perpetuum, Barron Ganth, isn't happy about Baldur's militarization and has started drafting for his own army. This is a tedious process for him, and there is a fair amount of reluctance to actually adhere to the draft among Goneril citizens. However, it does mean that there's an upswing in the market for weapons and supplies for an army in Goneril, should Sil'meelen want to capitalize on that.
:Yolanda and Ulfgar drift away from the conversation and start talking to a nearby group of goblins. They are very welcoming, but their leader Ibo steals 50 gold from Yolanda anyway. Once Yolanda notices, she decides to get Ibo roaring drunk or otherwise drugged and then convince him to return the gold to her. Ethan palms her some Wolves' Milk while Ulfgar offers Ibo a shot of his whiskey. Ibo gladly accepts, but his constitution is nowhere near as strong as Ulfgar's. He starts hallucinating intensely after a short period of time, saving Yolanda the need to surreptitiously add Wolves' Milk to his ale, and eventually throws himself out of a window in the throes of his hallucinations. The bartender sighs and charges the rest of the goblins for the now-broken window. They drop the required money and rush out after their leader. A man who had been sitting alone at one of the other back tables pays and follows them out.
:As the chaos dies down, Lucy takes a sip of his drink and immediately begins choking. Kruglor and Lando try to figure out what could be caught in his throat, but they see nothing. Shiolay hurries over and checks Lucy's glass, and finds that the inside of the glass was somehow coated with poison. He takes the glass to the bartender, where Yolanda asks the bartender if he knows about the poisoning. He insists that he doesn't. Ethan takes a look at the glass and says it isn't any of the drugs that he knows, but after a minute, the bartender figures out what it is: anicen. It isn't particularly fast, but it is deadly. Given the amount in the glass, he estimates that Lucy has about an hour to live. The only person he can think of who can make up the remedy lives at the top of Mount Juniper, so they'll have to act quickly if they want to save him. Sil'meelen says that she'll try, even if no one else does, but the rest of the party assures her that they'll help.
:Yolanda picks up Lucy, and Lando says he's sending Kruglor with them to make sure that they do as they promise they will. The party agrees, and they and Lando each depart on their respective ships. Shiolay and Andrey take turns caring for Lucy as they sail back to the main island. Once there, they send Fab Dick and Gid up the main road to the top of Mount Juniper. The party thinks that the main road will take too long, but if Gid and Fab Dick do beat the party up there, they can ask for the remedy while the rest of the party heads up the mountain in a straight line. Jaxil sets the path, cutting down every tree and plant in his way.
:The larger group does reach the top first, and in the growing darkness, look around for some place where an apothecary could possibly be. When Ethan hears a voice, he checks everything for magic and finds that some of the trees up there are magical. He realizes that they're all treants, and asks if any of them are the apothecary to whom the bartender sent them. The oldest-looking treant there says that he is, but that he doesn't necessarily want to help them because Jaxil has been running around Port Brogan and killing plants.
:As they're running out of time, Jaxil manages to overcome his dislike of plants enough to bluff an apology and remorse for his actions, though it isn't the greatest bluff in the world. The rest of the party backs him up by generally giving the impression that Jaxil is kind of touched in the head, and ask that the treant not let Lucy die because of Jaxil's actions. The treant is appeased, and makes the remedy for Lucy. As Kruglor administers it, the treant tells Jaxil to behave himself around plants, and departs.
:The party heads back down the mountain by the main road, meeting up with Fab Dick and Gid on the way back. As they reach the docks, Lucy begins to regain consciousness. Sil'meelen explains what happened, and Lucy thanks the party profusely and invites them to stop by the next day, as he owes them and wants to settle that debt posthaste. They meet Lando on the docks and send Lucy and Kruglor off, then return to their own ship. In the distance, they can hear a faint OONSE OONSE OONSE emanating from the center of town. Ashra tells them that Tobo hasn't returned yet. Yolanda sails back to The Stumbling Duck to ask the bartender a quick question: a man ran out of the bar shortly before Lucy drank the poison, and she wants to know who he was. The bartender tells her that the man was named Tyrese Ragun. Yolanda thanks him, buys one more pint, and returns the Jade Kraken II to the main docks.
:Most of the party goes to sleep not long after this. Tobo staggers back to the ship just before dawn, thrilled to pieces by his enthusiastic reception and informing Fab Dick and Ethan, the only two people awake, that he has groupies. He then goes back to his own bunk, carefully puts his banjo away, and collapses.
:The next day, the party goes by Lucy's ship before heading out to meet the ogres. Lucy freely tells them about his recent exploits and all of the rumors he's heard about Port Brogan lately. He's been exploring around the northern shores of Port Brogan, since the stories about that area are pretty wild and crazy. While it's a decent area in which to settle, the people who live up there have been steadily disappearing. Every family who moves up there vanishes, and even the team sent out to build a port on that side of the island just up and vanished. The cliffs on that side of the island are pretty fearsome, but that doesn't seem to be the problem. There is also a rumor that there's a stone circle on the north side of the island that might be the source of the trouble, or as the locals call it, Stone Step. Lucy had a friend vanish on that side of the island, and is pretty invested in figuring out what happened to him, but also has his business to attend to.
:He also notices the engraved stone that Jaxil carries, and says that it looks a lot like a relic rumored to be in Ravinia. Jaxil explains that he got it from a man named Valeria Oak III, who told him that if he brought the stone to the Ruins of Eldergrin, he would be able to find a cure for the Red Plague. As Jaxil's sister is currently in magical stasis due to the Red Plague, he has a vested interest in finding that cure. Ethan finds the story familiar, and then remembers that Baudin asked him to bring him a stone from Ravinia that looks a lot like the one that Jaxil is carrying. Ethan wonders if Baudin was as crazy for asking for something from a mythical city as he had seemed. Jaxil slaps his forehead and announces that sinful reordering rearranges to ruins of eldergrin.
:Lucy then asks what he can give the party as a gift in addition to information. He eventually settles on earrings of hearing for Sil'meelen. After a lingering farewell between the two, the party departs for Juniper Mine to meet with the ogres. Tobo asks Sil'meelen if her ears are even pierced, to which Sil'meelen tells him that they certainly will be.
:(Ulfgar: "Ulfgar wanted a cannon for their ship, which Lucy seemed to consider, but the rest of the party disagreed, even when Ulfgar said that he really wanted it to be a Dwarf Cannon, capable of shooting Ulfgar to an enemy ship, where he would use his Shatterspike to sink the ship and just swim back to the Jade Krakken II, shatterspike clenched between his teeth.")
=== Episode Five: You Want Me to Ask St. Cuthbert for WHAT Spell? ===
:Before they leave the city, the party pauses to consider how they're going to return Arten as a chaste maiden if she wasn't one already. Sil'meelen, after a long silence, tells the party that there is such a spell as Restore Lesser Virginity. None of them know it, but Shiolay eventually says that he could try to ask both St. Cuthbert and his astral deva grandfather for the dubious blessing of that spell.
:The party retreats to the ship to allow Shiolay to prepare his spells in a very special way. His prayer to St. Cuthbert is answered, and Shiolay is granted the spell and a strong feeling of I don't even know what you're using this for and please don't tell me but here you go. Thus fortified, the party stops in at City Hall to tell the mayor that they've survived The Nautilus and are taking the Sword of Saleem to the ogres. The mayor is indifferent to this, asking only that they bring his daughter back safely, and by any means necessary.
:The party yet again makes the trek to Juniper Mine, whereupon Tobo casts Tongues again and heads inside, the party at his heels. He greets Ovak, plays them a quick song, and informs him that they've brought the Sword of Saleem. Ovak is skeptical, and asks to see the sword before he returns the princess. Shiolay holds it out for Ovak's inspection, and after some initial miscommunication, Ovak and his advisers are eventually satisfied. They bring out Arten, who has been tied up and gagged, and a careful exchange is made.
:Ovak asks where the party found the Sword. When he hears that the Sword was in the Nautilus the entire time, he is furious at having been tricked into giving up both the Sword and the Nautilus, even though the mayor couldn't make use of either. On the other hand, he admires the party's efficiency, and tells them that if they want another job, he would reward them handsomely if they procure a gold ring with a purple jewel in it, of a size fit for an ogre. Ovak tells the party to inform the mayor that if he crosses them again, the trade won't be so clean next time, and the ogres retreat back into the mines. Yolanda cuts Arten free and tells her that they've come to bring her home, and that they'll protect her on the way back. Arten is unimpressed by their appearance, but agrees to be escorted by them.
:As they head out of the mines, the party has a quick telepathic conference wherein they ask Ulfgar if Arten is, in fact, a total babe to dwarves. Ulfgar gives her a none-too-surreptitious once-over and tells them that she totally is. Arten glares at him and stands well away from him, preferring to stay with her fellow princess, Andrey.
:At the back of the party, Shiolay prepares to cast the spell, and then realizes with horror that it is, in fact, a touch spell. A very specific kind of touch spell. One might even call it a bad touch spell. A telepathic discussion later, Shiolay realizes that he might be able to administer the spell without Arten noticing if he is very good at sleight of hand, which he normally isn't. The party hesitantly lets him give this a try, but it fails radically and ends with Shiolay getting slapped and thence banished to the back of the formation.
:As they don't have much time left, the party starts wondering how to distract Arten so thoroughly that she wouldn't notice a second attempt when Ethan has an insane idea. If they punch Shiolay within an inch of consciousness, it won't matter if Arten catches him, because he can cast the spell and Ethan can then Magic Missile Shiolay, therefore giving the appearance that he killed him for the transgression. Then Gid, who is already so slow that she's lagging behind the rest of them, can fall back a bit and heal Shiolay so he can sneak back to the Jade Kraken II. Then, if needed, Tobo can tell all sorts of stories about the monster who tried to grope the beautiful princess, exaggerating it so thoroughly that a week later, Shiolay can probably show his face in Port Brogan again.
:Shiolay agrees, and as he moves forward from the back of the formation, every party member in turn whacks him on the back of the head until he is barely standing. He fails at sleight of hand again, but successfully casts the spell and braces for impact. Ethan hits him with Magic Missile, and Shiolay does his best to pass out in a manner befitting one just killed.
:Arten is initially shocked that Ethan would kill one of his subordinates, but Ethan explains that he did promise to bring Arten back safely, and that he doesn't like it when subordinates disobey him and grope innocent young girls. Arten believes it, though she does feel kind of weird, and after a moment of kicking Shiolay's 'corpse', most of the party continues onward. Gid lingers until the party has gone far enough away, and then heals Shiolay. She sees him safely off on a separate route to the ship, and then hurries to catch up with the main group.
:The party delivers Arten to her father unharmed and chaste, as per the request. Arten tells her father that the ogres didn't try anything with her, and even though one of the group of adventurers had been overcome by her beauty, their leader had killed him for the attempt. The mayor kind of stares at Ethan, who repeats the explanation that he gave Arten. As the mayor was none too pleased with someone trying to grope his daughter and probably would have ordered a similar fate, he lets the issue of a young half-elf casually murdering people lie. He then sends Arten home to get some rest and turns to the issue of the reward: money, a title, and land on the northwestern side of the island. First, he wants to know to whom he is granting this title. After a hurried conference, wherein Yolanda and Ethan both realize that accepting titles probably isn't a great idea given the hits out on her and being dead, respectively, the party turns to their own personal rockstar.
:Vait bestows the title and lands upon Tobo, making him 'Sir Tobo of Port Brogan' now. He gives them directions to Tobo's lands, tells them that it comes with a manor and serfs, and hands the monetary part of the reward off to Yolanda and Ethan. He thanks them again for the safe return of his daughter. Ethan mentions that the ogres are kind of annoyed about having traded away the Nautilus for something that was in the Nautilus all along, but the mayor assures them that he is equally annoyed about having gotten a temple that was booby-trapped to hell and back and not nearly as full of treasure as he wanted, and so he and Ovak will have plenty to talk about.
:The party takes their leave and returns to the ship, where they find a still rather woozy Shiolay in the kitchen with Sam and Kytia, eating pie and reading. The party tells him that their own personal rockstar is now local nobility and they have land in an actual neutral territory, so they're going to go check it out and he should come too. One voluminous cloak and a careful disguise later, the party sets off through the city to check out their new place. Tobo lingers for a bit in the marketplace, promising to return later and tell them the stories of how he and his buddies rescued the beautiful princess from the ogres, waves to his fans, and keeps going.
:They find that Tobo now has about six miles of land, a manor with two whole stories, and three serfs who speak only Undercommon. Between Tobo casting Tongues and Ashra's knowledge of Undercommon, they manage to impress on the serfs that Tobo owns the land now, and that he wants them to carry on doing whatever it was that they were doing for the previous occupants.
:Sil'meelen inspects the grounds, and then asks Tobo if he would mind if she set up headquarters for her Holy Returners here. They could see to the management of the property and the serfs, as many of them spoke Undercommon, and it would give her a home base. She could recruit followers from the neutral Port Brogan and train them on these relatively spacious lands. Tobo thinks that this is a perfectly good idea, and so Sil'meelen sets about getting Stumbleduck and Fauntleroy to do work in her stead.
:The party spends the night at the manor, discussing what their next move should be. Jaxil reminds everyone that they now have a place on the northern side of Port Brogan, and that people tend to disappear up here. In fact, they don't really know what happened to the previous occupants of this place. It might be in their interests to take a look at Stone Step and figure out whether or not they would be spirited away if they happened to stay here on the wrong night. Sil'meelen points out that they do need to go to Port Townsend sometime soon, but she also has a vested interest in her followers not vanishing into the aether. Ethan says that Tobo needs to at least stick around for a little while longer and use his rockstar influence to divert attention away from Shiolay, and Yolanda figures that it can't take too long to go look at a circle of rocks. This settled, the party decides to check out Stone Step the next morning and then decide where to go from there.
=== Episode Six: In Which Ulfgar Abruptly Has No More Bombs ===
:The party spends the night somewhat on guard. Yolanda and Ulfgar wait up the needed four hours so that Fab Dick and Ethan can spend the entire night on watch, and the party gets some much-needed sleep in actual beds. Truly, they are living a life of luxury now. However, the night passes uneventfully, leaving Fab Dick and Ethan hanging around the manor reading books and playing Never Have I Ever for the next eight hours. ("Never have I ever...died." "DAMMIT.")
:The next morning, the party hauls out what few maps they have and try to find a good way to get to Stone Step. It's just about the northmost point of the island, if their information is correct. Again, while it seems easier to sail, there is a deadly coral reef just about everywhere around Port Brogan save for at the main city. Also, the party would have to scale the Cliffs of Moradin's Rage, which only sounds like fun to Ulfgar. For added excitement, they'd be sailing past The Laughing Rogue. The party has been informed that they'd never see a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than that one, though just about everyone starts ticking off places on their fingers for comparative purposes.
:Ulfgar is even somewhat intrigued at the idea of visiting The Laughing Rogue, especially if there is trouble between them and the main island that he could solve with copious amounts of liquor, but the party sets that aside as something to be considered after this little joyride. Yolanda does make a note to ask the mayor about The Laughing Rogue, though, especially in conjunction with the people who have been disappearing to the north. After all, it's becoming a personal issue rather than idle curiosity now that they have lands of their own up there. They were told that Tobo's property used to be the Masterson property, but the family up and left one day.
:That approach discounted, they have the option of either returning to the main city and walking northeast, or of starting out from their current property. The only cleared road that goes anywhere near Stone Step leads from the direction of Brogan's Cave towards Stone Step itself, but won't take them the entire way. The party decides that there is no need to detour all the way back to the city when they're going to be going over rough terrain either way, and Jaxil volunteers to do some personal landscaping to make travel easier. Ashra points out that the treants did want Jaxil to stop it with all of the cutting down of trees, and that it's a bad idea to piss off treants. Jaxil cares nothing for a treant's good opinion, but he does care about not letting his companions get fatigued by spending the day trudging through underbrush. Eventually the party is persuaded to let Jaxil take the lead.
:Jaxil sallies forth, Ulfgar and Yolanda right behind him, and starts laying waste to trees. Whereas most lumberjacks are merely skilled, Jaxil has made an art of cutting down trees. The runes on his father's axe start lighting up as he cleaves his way through the trees. The party progresses for a few miles, and then Jaxil's axe lands in a tree and does not immediately fell it. As he hauls his axe back, puzzled, there is a faint "oh shit" from Ethan, who just caught up and saw that said tree is magical, and then the tree hits back.
:Jaxil is thrown all the way back to the squishy mage end of the party. There is a quick poll of who wants to run the fuck away versus who wants to fight a treant, which is ended by Jaxil staggering to his feet and hobbling back towards the treant, murder in his eye. Shiolay runs after him, heals him, and asks if he really wants to do this. Jaxil tells Shiolay that he needs to go deal with the treant, but he understands that if it gets bad, the rest of the party should retreat and leave it to Jaxil. He then charges forward, catching up with Yolanda and Ulfgar. Shiolay facepalms.
:As the three of them cope with slam attack after slam attack, Ethan, Shiolay, and Sil'meelen start frantically discussing what repercussions this could have on the non-treant inhabitants of Port Brogan. They have no idea what kind of treaty the dwarves or ogres struck with the treants to be allowed to use and possibly even clear the land, but they're pretty sure that they've invalidated it. They don't even have the excuse of being ignorant outsiders, since they now have Port Brogan nobility among their ranks. As a battered Yolanda comes flying towards them, they decide to deal with this after Yolanda, Ulfgar, and Jaxil aren't being beaten to a bloody pulp, and split up. Shiolay and Sil'meelen join the ranks of the clerics healing the melee fighters, standing them up, and sighing heavily as they rush back in. Ashra repeatedly tries mindblasting the treant and fails. Tobo takes cover by another tree and starts up an encouraging story about how this one time at bard camp, he found these really angry birch trees. Ethan grabs Fab Dick and the two of then run well out of range of any and all treants before regrouping, discussing what spells they have between them, how best to look like noncombatants, and holy shit is Jaxil even still breathing after that one?
:Then the trees surrounding the party come to life.
:These trees aren't treants, but they are also possessed of a pretty mean slam attack. After taking two branches to the face, Tobo casts Expeditious Retreat and GTFOs with the party's blessing. Ashra realizes he can't levitate away from trees and joins Ethan and Fab Dick in backing away slowly. Meanwhile, Fab Dick busts out a Flaming Sphere and Ethan surrounds the party with zombies as a distraction to the trees. Gid retreats to the back of the party and heals the squishy ones who took slam attacks. Andrey and Shiolay support Yolanda, Jaxil, and Ulfgar, and Shiolay also starts throwing down the Celestial Bees for additional distractions. Sil'meelen shrugs off her wounds and heads forward to help the melee fighters.
:Eventually, Ulfgar lodges a killing blow at the treant's trunk with the Shatterspike. The treant wavers, and then starts to fall. Everyone else in the party is well clear of the treant, except for a nearly-unconscious Jaxil. Sil'meelen drags herself to her feet and throws herself towards him, knocking him out of the way. Ulfgar braces himself to catch the treant, which fails utterly. Despite his incredible strength and constitution, he is flattened under the treant's corpse. Sil'meelen almost cleared the treant with her flying leap, but it breaks her left arm as it falls. She crawls away to Jaxil's side just as all of Ulfgar's FFF bombs explode.
:Once the smoke clears, the party races over to see if there is anything of Ulfgar left. There is, though he's fading rapidly. He informs the party that he's kind of running out of rage and once that goes, he'll be just about dead, so if they could kindly slip him some heals...
:This request is hindered both by Ulfgar's broken jaw and by him being utterly pinned under the treant. A few seconds of brainstorming later, Tobo takes out a lot of rope and casts Grease under the tree as Ethan summons a huge zombie to help lift the treant. Tobo slides under the treant's body, ties the rope to Ulfgar, and hauls him out just in time for Shiolay to heal him. Most of his limbs are shattered. Jaxil and Yolanda are also badly beaten, and between them, Sil'meelen's broken arm, and the cleric group project that Ulfgar has become, the party decides that it's time to go back to the Jade Kraken II for some goddamned pie.
:Sil'meelen asks Jaxil, who she thinks would know the most about treant customs, what the proper method of honoring the dead would be. Jaxil lies that carving weapons out of the treant corpse would be best, so Sil'meelen splints her own arm and tells the party that she'll catch up in a few days, and she'll be perfectly fine out here by herself. Gid and Shiolay take turns carrying Ulfgar, and after a detour to the mansion to rig up a stretcher, the party troops back into the city. Some serious pie and a night's sleep later, the party journeys to the Temple of Moradin and prices the Restorations needed to repair Ulfgar's limbs. It isn't cheap, but there's only so much that pie can fix. They slink out of the city, trying as best they can not to look like a bunch of people who just pissed off the entire forest, and head back to the manor to meet Sil'meelen and figure out what the hell to do next.
=== Episode Seven: Buried Doors? Under My Stone Step? It's More Likely than You Think. ===
:Gid and Andrey part ways, as Gid has had another offer of employment and Andrey feels she'll be safe with the Toggenburg Corporation. The party takes the road to the manor that is the furthest thing possible from trees. Sil'meelen isn't at the manor when they get back, and the serfs haven't seen her since the party left for Stone Step the day before. Jaxil admits to the party that he might have kind of told her the exact opposite of what she should be doing if she wants to honor a dead treant, and she didn't seriously stay behind to...she did? Whoops.
:Ethan asks Tobo to go find out what kind of agreement the treants and other inhabitants of the island had, so that they can figure out how to make amends, ensure that the treants don't kill everyone else on the island, and maybe even go near the forests again. Tobo heads for the edge of the forest with a little backup, casts Tongues, and says that he wants to talk to the treants. Shortly thereafter, a pissed-off treant lumbers out of the forest and glares at him. Tobo says that they're really sorry and Jaxil is really touched in the head. What laws did they break, and how do they fix it? The treant tells him that if they plant trees to replace the ones that they cut down, it will make amends such that the treants won't go into Port Brogan and start beating people to death. Fruit-bearing trees would be preferred. Tobo agrees to this, and after a quick expedition to the city, he instructs his serfs to plant lots of apple trees. While that happens, Shiolay and Andrey fetch Sil'meelen back, heal her broken arm, explain that Jaxil lied to her and she should really leave off, and bring her back to the mansion.
:(Ulfgar also returned to the treant to pay his respect, by which we mean, take an arm of the worthy foe as an awesome greatclub in future entanglements.)
:Just before the party heads out for Stone Step again, the Speakstone rings. Two minutes of Ethan hunting through his stuff later, he finally finds it and answers. Vishnu tells them that while some people are off in la-la land, he's fighting for the freedom of Malvont in his mech, and it sucks. He's getting shot at by ghost cannons from Nyasa, Baldur keeps sending dragons at him, he hasn't risen in the king's eyes as much as he wanted to, and then he starts sort of shrieking incoherently. Once he calms down, Ethan tells him that they've been in hiding in Corinth until they found that someone had a hit out on them, and now they're in hiding in Port Brogan. Vishnu tells them that he'd rather have them in hiding and being productive. For instance, they could actually follow through on that job he wanted them to do regarding killing his competitor Jenka. Or, if they're so intent on staying away from Malvont, they could find him the Eye of Moradin. If he had that, the ghost cannons would no longer be a threat. Ethan says they'll think about it, to which Vishnu tells him that they had better, and hangs up.
:The Eye of Moradin is added to the ever-lengthening list of Interesting Things We Could Do, Vishnu's relationship to the Toggenburg is explained to their newer companions, and the party goes very carefully through the forest to Stone Step, sticking to premade paths whenever they can find them.
:Stone Step is an unassuming ring of four large stones, each with a dwarven rune inscribed on them. The translations of each rune are crudely written in Common below them: honor, loyalty, fate, and destiny. Jaxil pokes each of the stones with his axe a few times, and after several hours of trying to correlate the runes lighting up on his axe with the stones, Ulfgar finds a door buried two feet underground next to the fate stone. Everyone swears a lot at the simplicity of it, and decide to stop and eat before continuing further.
:(Ulfgar would like it pointed out that the party gave him a lot of grief about wasting money on the shovel...until he found the door.)
:Ulfgar then takes a crowbar (By which we mean shovel applied with leverage) and opens the door. It pops as it opens, revealing that whatever was inside had been hermetically sealed. Some Light spells and Everburning Torches later, the party is ready to go down the stairs and see what's inside.
:The first room that they find isn't too thick with dust, though there are cobwebs and bones on the floor. Fab Dick sees a green glint of light from the far left corner of the room and goes to investigate. He finds two emeralds, but they're set into the eye sockets of the skull of a dragon. After a minute of assuring Ethan that the dragon is dead, and no, he doesn't need to kill it more, Fab Dick returns to studying the emeralds. He's used to seeing them as components for divination spells, and is wondering if they could be part of some kind of static scrying spell that would allow someone to keep watch over this room. He waves Ethan over to take a look at the emeralds and tell him if they're magical, but as Ethan gets closer, the emeralds light up and the dragon gets to its feet.
:It seems to be made of drapings of green hide, bone, and cobwebs, but the acid breath it spits at Fab Dick makes it seem more lifelike. Sil'meelen can't tell if it is truly undead or not, so she sneak attacks it anyway. Ulfgar, Yolanda, Jaxil, and Shiolay start beating on the dragon, Andrey heals Fab Dick, Ashra spams mindblasts to no avail, and Ethan starts laughing hysterically and throwing spells. Tobo sits down on the stairs and starts going through the first draft of La Batalle Malvenia with banjo accompaniment, skipping ahead to the part where they fought two dragons.
:The dragon is quickly curbstomped back to death. Andrey patches up the rest of the party as Ethan starts dismembering the dragon. Fab Dick claims dibs on the emeralds and some of the teeth, which Ethan hands over. He grabs a few teeth for himself as the rest of the party searches for the dragon's loot. They find a handful of emerald and onyx, which Fab Dick and Ethan respectively take, some gold for the rest of the party, and red dragonskin boots. (I think there were also a couple of weapons here.) Ethan trades away the boots he stole from Pyotar after the incident at King's Reach to Jaxil in exchange for the dragonskin boots.
:Fab Dick interrupts Ethan's post-dragon killing reverie in favor of a discussion of the gems they found. Fab Dick recognizes the emeralds as scrying tools, and Ethan knows that onyx is a component for some of the more powerful necromantic spells. Fab Dick tells the party that they probably just fell over a warning system, so someone might know that they're here. Ashra points out that this area was hermetically sealed, so even if someone initially was watching this room, they might long since be dead.
:The party picks their way through the acid residue and continues to explore the room. There are four additional doors leading off of this room: fate, destiny, honor, and loyalty. Ulfgar tells the party that these are the four main tenets of dwarf society, and that there is a huge difference between fate and destiny. However, Ulfgar tossed traditional dwarven philosophy aside long ago, and it's a difference that he can't quite explain to non-dwarves anyway. The idea is that one is malleable and the other is not, but he can't quantify it.
:The party first opens the loyalty door. Inside, they see rows upon rows of shields lining the walls. Tobo has a joygasm upon recognizing that each shield is a different dwarven clan's heraldry. Yolanda and Ulfgar try to pry a few of the shields from the wall, but find that the shields are fairly well fastened on. There are double doors at the other end of the hall, but the party leaves shields and doors alone and move on to the next room. They open the (honor or destiny) door next. Inside, they find only a caved-in passage and the skull of a great wyvern. After that, they open the fate door. (I think this was the fate door. Maybe.) Inside, there are two elaborate stone sarcophagi. One of them contains the corpse of a dwarf, and has Moradin made a bet with Nerul engraved on it. The other contains the body of a halfling, with Olidammara made a bet with Nerul written on it. (I don't think this was in Common. What language? Infernal or Abyssal?) Ethan recognizes the text and compares the smiling gold he picked up in The Hall of Many Things to the halfling sarcophagus. The halfling sarcophagus doesn't contain anything else of interest to him, so he moves on to the dwarven one.
:Meanwhile, Fab Dick investigates a strange fountain on the other side of this room, thinking it might be connected to the scrying trap in the first room. As he gets close to the water, it leaps out of the fountain and attaches itself to his face. Ashra, Shiolay, Andrey, and Ethan all recognize it as a water elemental. Ulfgar tries to pull it off of Fab Dick's face, but fails, as he can't get a hold on water. Shiolay eventually casts Dispel Magic on it, and the water falls to the ground, inanimate. Fab Dick goes to sit down for a minute and catch his breath.
:Ethan goes back to looking at the dwarven sarcophagus. The corpse inside is wearing a necklace with a metal half-circle pendant. Ethan takes a closer look at it, finds the words Moradin has fallen. Nerul will rule all dwarves inscribed on it, and takes it. Nothing untoward happens to him, so the party close the sarcophagi back up, make a couple of 'that belongs in a museum' jokes, and return to the surface as night begins to fall.
:Most of the party decides to camp on the surface, but Ulfgar chooses to sleep on the stairs instead. The party sets up rotating watches and gets some sleep.
:Partway through the night, while Ashra is on watch, he hears a strange rumbling. He pokes Ulfgar awake, who wakes up everyone but the casters, and the party lays low while they try to figure out what is happening. Ashra finally spots a huge dark mass moving against one of the mountains, but it seems to be staying far enough away from the party that everyone goes back to sleep rather than investigate further.
:The next day, they return to the underground room and look at the last door: (honor or destiny). Fab Dick listens closely at the door and tells everyone that he hears a strange mechanical grinding from inside. The party opens the door and sees a massive cylindrical stone structure with four pedestals around it. Sil'meelen and Ulfgar check around the room and find a secret door, which leads to an altar with a small box on it. Ulfgar opens the box and finds seven spheres: one gold, two silver, and four bronze. He checks them against the pedestals and finds matching grooves there. When he puts the spheres into the grooves, the cylinder rotates.
:The party soon figures out that there are four concentric stone cylinders, each of them a different color. Each cylinder has a gap in it. Each pedestal corresponds to a different one. The bronze spheres rotate the cylinders 45°, the silver spheres rotate the cylinders 90°, and the gold sphere rotates the cylinders 180°. As the party tries to figure out the orientation of the four cylinders so that they can line up the gaps, Sil'meelen checks out the passageway on the far side of the room and finds it relatively quiet, though she does hear voices behind a door as she approaches the far end. Leaving that for another time, she returns and helps the party solve the cylinder puzzle.
:At the center of the cylinders, there is a pedestal with a golden sphere on it, surrounded by treasure chests. The sphere turns out to be the Eye of Moradin, which Andrey takes for safe keeping. Sil'meelen cracks open the other treasure chests and presents the party with gold, a Wand of Scouring, a tortoise shield, a spyglass, the Mask of Moradin, and gauntlets. There are also four stone tablets of spells in archaic Dwarven, which only Andrey can read with ease. She identifies them as Flesh to Stone, Stone to Flesh, Landslide, and Meteor Swarm. Ethan, after he and Fab Dick identify the Wand of Scouring, tell the party that if you push the big red button, it deals 10d10 to all organic matter including the wielder, so no pushing the big red button. Ashra ends up keeping it, and the rest of the loot is split among the party members, especially to those who didn't get much from the dragon.
:The party continues down the passage that Sil'meelen checked out earlier. Ulfgar and Sil'meelen sneak ahead and listen to a conversation being held in the next room. They hear a man, a woman, and a strange, inhuman voice. Sil'meelen peeks into the room and sees a nondescript man, a tiefling woman, and a large stony creature called a Delver. The three of them are complaining about not being paid on time by their boss, and how they spend all their time herding peons. Ulfgar and Sil'meelen return to the rest of the party and wave them back into the first room. They decide to check out that area at some other time when that room is unoccupied, and go back to the double doors in the shield room.
:The double doors open onto dwarven catacombs. Ulfgar pokes around a bit and eventually finds a lever, which he convinces Tobo to pull. This triggers all of the corpses to animate and start crawling out of the walls to attack the party. After a lot of yelling goes around and Ethan finds that the zombies have no idea that he's there, Andrey says that she has a power that will nuke basically every undead thing in the general vicinity, but it tends to produce a lot of shrapnel, so maybe they should start heading back out so she can let it rip.
:Ethan promptly bolts out of the room and closes the door against any holy explosions. After some initial yelling back and forth through the door ("Don't lock us in here!" "I didn't!" "Oh.") most of the rest of the party vacates. Jaxil stays behind, and then Andrey calls down the sunlight.
:All of the zombies vaporize. Jaxil takes some splintered bones to the face. Andrey apologizes and heals him as Shiolay cautiously opens the door and investigates the carnage. The party stands around and admires Andrey's handiwork, smacking down the few zombies who managed to hide from it as they do so. The party investigates the room again, leaving all levers alone this time, and find nothing significant other than a whole ton of dead bodies.
:They head back through the room with the cylinder puzzle and on towards the next room. This time, only the Delver is present. When they go up to him, he asks how they managed to get lost this time, and bemoans his life herding peons. The party, after a startled silence, kind of plays along in order to figure out where they should go from here. They ask what the Delver is looking for, and find that someone hired him to dig under Port Brogan to connect the Underdark to a mysterious dwarven dungeon that should be directly behind them, as the Delver tunnels. The other two people who were with him earlier were his co-peon-herders, Tyrese Ragun and Poetry Brysis. The man who hired him apparently wants to get something related to Nerul from that dungeon. Ethan asks after this man. After some initial confusion, wherein the Delver can't figure out where Ethan is due to a lack of heartbeat, the Delver tells him that his boss has only ever introduced himself as The Mayor.
:Ethan recognizes the nickname, realizes what he picked up in the dungeon, swears, thanks the Delver, and starts looking through the paperwork on the table nearby. He tells the party that Tyro Avampour is back, and he is not going to be happy if he realizes that they're here. Ethan finds a set of blueprints of City Hall and of Port Brogan itself, each with notes on them in Infernal. City Hall is marked with "tunneling under {description of rocks under City Hall}" and "HOSTAGE SITUATION?" Port Brogan is marked with "Ravinia throwback?" City Hall is circled on the Port Brogan blueprints and labeled "Deceptive". Ethan takes notes and then puts the blueprints back as they were. He and Yolanda start to discuss what Tyro's reappearance could mean for them, and then Ulfgar announces that he has a great idea.
:Ulfgar tells the Delver that clearly he's trying to tunnel into the dungeon that they just came in from, in their peon confusion, and wouldn't it be much easier if the Delver were to just go along the path over there? The Delver thinks this would be a fantastic idea and plunges off, just as the rest of the party yells at Ulfgar that Shiolay, Ashra, and Tobo are still in the tunnel.
:Shiolay, Ashra, and Tobo take one look at the massive, blind, acid-coated creature barreling towards them, turn, and run like hell for the surface. They make it out through the trap door and back to Stone Step, and then ponder what the hell to do next.
:The rest of the party glares at Ulfgar as the Delver carries on forward. Hoping that their three now-missing comrades won't be inadvertently killed by the Delver, they gather around as Yolanda, Ulfgar, and Ethan tell them all about Tyro Avampour. He's arrogant, he's powerful, he has resources, and the party tricked him out of the amulet that he hired them to get. While Ethan has never met Tyro beyond seeing him at a distance during a fight between several different parties, Yolanda and Ulfgar are personally known to him. They decide to wait in this room for the night, hoping that Shiolay, Tobo, and Ashra can make it back to them and that this room will remain relatively safe. As they're stuck between a tunnel to the unknown and an acid-coated tunnel with a Delver in it, they have little other choice.
=== Episode Eight: So, We Meet Again! ===
:Those of the party who were not chased off by the Delver search the room for other interesting items, and only find a passageway leading up at a slant. They don't have anywhere else to go, so they move out.
:Less so for Ashra, Tobo, and Shiolay. The three of them make it out through Stone Step and wonder whether or not they should just head back to the mansion and hope for the best. Ashra decides to levitate back to Tobo's property. Tobo and Shiolay eventually find the cave from which the Delver emerged the previous night, and decide to explore.
:Jump back to Party #1. Partway down the passage, they find that it forks. One way is level and quiet. The other way leads down a bit and sounds like rushing water. They follow the path with rushing water first, and find that the passage lets out over an underground river. As the party has no boats, and eventually rejects the notion of building a boat, they go back and try the other way.
:Aaaand Party #2. Just inside the mouth of the cave, Tobo and Shiolay find two guards wearing cheap black armor. Remembering the Delver's assumption that they were just peons who had gotten lost, Tobo convinces the guards that they're here to join up and got confused about the way in. The guards, exasperated, point them in the direction of the meeting hall and let them past.
:Party #1-a-go-go! On this second path, they start to hear voices. Sil'meelen stealths ahead to check it out, and reports back that there's a huge room ahead that is occupied by about thirty young humans and dwarves. They are mostly men, and they're all wearing cheap armor painted black. Just then, they hear footsteps behind them, and the entire group tries their best to become one with the walls.
:Party #2, Electric Boogaloo: Tobo and Shiolay walk into a huge room occupied by about thirty young male humans and dwarves, all wearing cheap black armor. Tobo promptly decides to make some friends and find out what is going on. This does not go as smoothly as he hoped. First, Shiolay's shield draws a bit of attention, and Tobo has to convince his new friends that Shiolay is actually a cold-blooded killer who will wear any insignia as a trophy. Second, Tobo's reputation has already begun to spread, and his is a bit of a familiar face. Tobo quickly explains that not only is Shiolay a cold-blooded killer, but he also plays the banjo, and Tobo is just holding onto it for him. Shiolay tries to play a tune for extra veracity, but fortunately everyone is distracted from his subpar plonking by...
:Flash to Party #1! The entire party has managed to hide well enough that neither Tyro Avampour nor his bodyguards notice them as he marches down the passageway and into the large room. They wait as Tyro walks into the middle of the room, gets everyone's attention, and starts in on a fabulously self-congratulatory speech. He recaps their mission to break into Stone Step. Meanwhile, the party undergoes a series of hand signs and innuendo checks to argue over whether or not to shank Tyro in the back and whether it is a good idea to stab the leader of this army while they are in their base. Eventually, the Shanking Tyro plan is a go, and just as Tyro gets down to the army's mission for tonight, Sil'meelen makes a flying squirrel leap out of hiding and stabs him in the back.
:All hell breaks loose. But hey, at least the party is reunited!
:Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Jaxil all burst out of the tunnel and start tangling with the bodyguards and assorted other mooks. Fab Dick tries to cast Fireball, but it inexplicably fizzles. As he stares around in confusion, Ethan notices that the mage bodyguard has the exact same expression. It seems that the enemy mage and Fab Dick inadvertently counterspelled one another. Fab Dick, thoroughly pissed off, levies another Fireball at the mage this time. It casts, and the mage is no more.
:Shiolay and Tobo run around to the back of the room, pretending to be lending aid to the army while actually trying to meet up with the rest of the party. Shiolay passes Tobo back his banjo and breaks out his own sword. Meanwhile, Ethan compares his own black clothes to the black-clad army, sees a convenient line of fighters on the far side of the room, and runs up to them and says he's on their side and please hide the squishy mage. They wave him to the back and helpfully form up around him, whereupon Ethan and Tobo have another silent hand-waved conversation. Thirty seconds later, eight large zombies stand with Tobo and Ethan against the wall, a pool of grease in front of them. Ethan and Tobo decide that it's party time, and Tobo sounds off a Power Chord.
:The fighters turn, thinking they have a squishy mage and squishy bard trapped, and fall in the puddle of grease in their haste to reach said squishies. The zombies beat them into submission, aided by a few more Power Chords and a Celestial Bee and scorpion from Shiolay. Once this group is dealt with, the three move on.
:On the other side of the room, Jaxil, Yolanda, and Ulfgar are having a fine time with Cleave and Great Cleave. Sil'meelen and Tyro are trading blows, and Fab Dick is nuking anything that looks hostile and moves from low orbit. While the bodyguards were a bit of an obstacle, the assembled young humans and dwarves go down much more easily. The party tries to knock out as many of them as possible rather than outright kill them. Eventually, so much of the army has been defeated that those left start running down the passage from which Tobo and Shiolay came. Unfortunately for them, Tobo thought ahead and cast Grease on the slope leading up to the passage. One mage manages to crawl away, but the others slide back into the room and are knocked out.
:Tyro, faced with the command of an army that can't keep its balance when standing in a puddle of oil, surrenders. Sil'meelen and Yolanda punch him unconscious before tying him up. Ethan, Tobo, and Shiolay get started on tying up those of the army who are still alive. Ulfgar and Fab Dick start stripping down the corpses of their armor and weapons, and then do the same for the living. The party gathers in the middle of the room, counts up all of the breastplates and longswords that they now own, and start devising a way to get all of their newfound loot out of the dungeon. Once the loot has been split amongst the party such that no one is unexpectedly in a medium load, they dump the unconscious mercenaries onto the grease slicks and turn to the series of cages in a corner of the room.
:There are several dwarves in each cage; the party has found the people who went missing after moving to northern Port Brogan. Including, awkwardly enough, the family whose lands Tobo now owns. The party frees them and gives them food. In turn, {name} Masterson tells them how they were captured. Not so long after they moved to northern Port Brogan, they met a man named Tyrese who offered to show them the best farmlands around. Instead, he took them to the Underdark and kept them prisoner. In a move of stunning intelligence, Tyro and his companions often had discussions in their presence. The Mastersons tell the party that Tyro was digging to find something important, that a dragon was involved, and that Tyro was trying to break directly into the Underdark. {name} Masterson says that the only other person he had recognized was Poetry, of the Laughing Rogue.
:The party offers to escort them back to the main city of Port Brogan. The dwarves gratefully accept, and the party herds them together with their conscious prisoners along the passageway, following Shiolay and Tobo's directions. As they reach one of the larger caverns, they just barely have time to notice all of the barrels in the room before the barrels explode.
:The first blast and ensuing fire kills all of the civilians, all of the prisoners save for Tyro, and Jaxil. Ethan and Fab Dick look up and see the one mage who had escaped. Fab D vows to counterspell him until eternity in the afterlife, and Ethan kills him with a very special kind of fireball. The party takes Jaxil's body, refrains from looting the civilians, and trudges back to the main city as darkness sets in. They swing by the manor and pick up Ashra on their way.
:While they had initially planned to tell the mayor of Port Brogan about Tyro's plans, the party's failure to rescue the dwarf prisoners combined with the destruction of Tyro's army (and thus the proof) would make that conversation kind of awkward. Instead, they return to the ship, tie Tyro to the mast, and pass out on the ship for the night. The next morning, they send out their own personal rockstar to find out who does reincarnations on the cheap, no questions asked. Tobo returns within the hour with directions to an ogre settlement unrelated to the clan at Juniper Mine, and the news that he has a fan club now.
=== Episode Nine: No Bars Were Hurt in the Making of This Session ===
:The party leaves Tyro to the tender mercies of Kytia and Sam and head out for the ogre settlement with Jaxil's corpse. They debate, as they go, whether or not they should warn the mayor of Port Brogan that someone was trying to tunnel under City Hall and then connect to the Underdark from there. They decide that since it didn't happen, he probably doesn't need to know about it, and it would bring up the still majorly awkward issue of all of the people who had been with them during their rescue attempt being dead, save for Tyro.
:This ogre settlement is above ground, and is a small and relatively peaceful village. Tobo casts Tongues, asks around, and gets directions to the local druid's house. He then leads the party to it. Remembering how well he'd hit it off with Ovak, he knocks and then plays a song when the druid answers the door. Once the druid is done staring, he and Tobo haggle over how much it would be to reincarnate Jaxil. The party pays him in gems and gold, which satisfies him. As he prepares the spell, he and Shiolay discuss pottery, and Shiolay ends up buying a bowl from him.
:That settled, the druid begins the spell. Several luck rerolls away from 'gnome' later, a red-haired elven woman appears, completely naked and fascinated by her new body. Rather, his. Jaxil notes that it is fuckin' cold and realizes with dismay that his previous clothes probably won't fit. Ethan offers a set of robes, which Jaxil ties around his waist. He notes, with some pride, that he still isn't wearing pants. He then goes through the pockets of his own corpse, takes back his things, and puts on his leather vest and boots. He then realizes that, by Goneril naming conventions, his name is now Jaxis. He isn't sure whether or not he wants to make the name change, and he still thinks of himself as male. The rest of the party doesn't even bother to try to break the habit of calling him Jaxil and head back, leaving Jaxil's half-orc corpse behind.
:Back at the ship, the party discusses what to do next. Eventually, Yolanda points out that there are no distractions on Port Brogan to keep them from heading up to Port Townsend. You know. That place that they initially headed up north to find. Port Townsend is deemed an acceptable location across the board, and the party heads out to buy provisions and outfit the ship. As they head into town, Sil'meelen tells the party that she wants to stay with the Holy Returners in Port Brogan, but she did meet this one guy who could be persuaded to sail them to Port Townsend. Tobo is perfectly fine with leaving her to oversee his manor in his absence, and Yolanda asks to meet the new guy. Sil'meelen heads out and returns shortly thereafter with a young, heavily armed man.
:He is the Dread Pirate Gauve, and he's willing to sail the ship in exchange for whatever treasure he may find and being allowed to call himself captain of the Toggenburg Corporation in order to further his reputation. Yolanda, Ethan, and Gauve work out a system of titles that allows Gauve to be captain and Yolanda both first mate and company leader. Gauve then inspects the Jade Kraken II, finds some of its provisions lacking, and gives Yolanda a list of things that he will need before taking the party anywhere. Ulfgar and Ethan go back into the city to pick up an anchor, an extra set of sails, more rope, more buckets, a pulley and winch, some chain, and a set of Port Brogan colors. Meanwhile, Gauve stares at Tyro and eventually asks why the party has a really pissed-off dude with a fabulous hat tied to the mast. Yolanda explains that Tyro is a douche and if they hand him over to the Port Brogan authorities, he'll probably escape and keep hassling them. Gauve accepts this and goes with Ashra to load up the cargo hold with enough breastplates and longswords to equip a small army -- oh, wait, it was equipping a small army.
:Ulfgar and Ethan return with sailing supplies, Gauve fails to convince Yolanda and Ethan that he should have the captain's cabin, the party bids Sil'meelen goodbye, and casts off.
:En route, Gauve and Tyro bond over their mutual opinion that the party is a pack of idiots. After about a day, Ethan checks if anyone has remembered to actually feed Tyro, and receives a five-minute tirade from Tyro about how he's hungry and can't feel his legs and is really tired of pissing himself, so if they're going to let him die of starvation, they might as well just throw him overboard and get it over with. After some discussion with Yolanda, Ulfgar, and Ashra, Ethan negotiates that Tyro is tied to the mast on a five-foot leash rather than directly to it, and Gauve starts eating meals with Tyro.
:Ethan also starts hanging out with Tyro and talking to him about local politics, Grax, Baldur, and the amulets. Tyro is none too forthcoming on what the amulets do, and has a new story about how many amulets there are and how much he knows about them every time. Ethan, both entertained and sympathetic, starts wondering if there is a convenient stretch of abandoned territory where they can set Tyro free without worrying about the havoc he would wreak on anyone nearby. It doesn't help that the rest of the party's opinion of Tyro ranges from "a pretty cool guy" (Gauve) to "a little bitch" (Yolanda).
:Upon docking at Port Townsend, the party first devises an anti-theft system for the Jade Kraken II above and beyond having an archivist and drow on board. They ask Sam to turn the sails a really fabulous shade of pink with Prestidigitation while they explore Port Townsend itself. Tobo heads out to make a name for himself and pick up some of the local gossip while he's at it. Fab Dick insists that as the only well-bred person on board, he wants to find a proper dining establishment without the interference of the plebes. Andrey and Ethan both stare at him, and then respectively remind him that they are, in fact, nobility. Granted, one is the princess of an enslaved village and the other one is the awkwardly half-human now-dead son of an even more dead elven guild leader, but 'well-born' is, in fact, an acceptable descriptor for both of them. Andrey joins Fab Dick in finding a local restaurant of some refinement, whereas Ethan goes with Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Jaxil on their bar-hopping spree. Gauve and Ashra stay on the ship with Sam, Kytia, and Tyro.
:The bar-hopping group first hits up an establishment packed with people who wear a lot of black and mope in corners while a handful of bards groove on about the 'beautiful people'. The bartender is a strange, eyeless, fiendish creature with a really tenuous grasp on Common. The party quickly realizes that it only addresses customers based on life-sense, and that half of the people around them are ordering in Infernal. Really, really bad Infernal. Yolanda and Jaxil look at each other, at the bar, at each other again, and say in unison, "We're in a goth bar, aren't we."
:Ulfgar, Jaxil, and Yolanda toss back their drinks, and Ethan manages to make some underaged guy trying to look like the undead cry by providing acid commentary on his really terrible Infernal accent. The four of them decide as one that that shouldn't have been as entertaining as it was, and go look for a more promising establishment.
:Meanwhile, Fab Dick and Andrey meet a local halfling of no insignificant position in his nearby village, Yondalla's Lagoon. He and Andrey talk about the fate of Yarmoth, and he expresses significant approval of her mission. He then tells them about the boat race that will soon occur in Yondalla's Lagoon, and invites her to come watch it with him. Fab D can come too. Fab Dick, in turn, asks for news of his mentor, Mr. Gucci. The halfling says that he doesn't have specific news about Baldur City, but he has heard a few interesting rumors about Graxboro. When neither Andrey nor Fab Dick recognizes the name, he explains that the name was recently changed from Landover in honor of Highman Grax. Or, rather, Absolute Dictator Grax.
:The bar-hoppers have, by then, located another bar. This one is refreshingly seedy and free of underaged teenagers trying to look like liches. Ulfgar spots a Hill Giant drinking at one of the tables, and asks the bartender for more information about him. The bartender says that the giant is Philip, a local Drunken Master. He has a fondness for whiskey made with Absynthium Orientalis, and has several smashed-up bars to his credit. Ulfgar gets himself a drink of The Purple Whiskey and heads on over. He first asks for lessons in becoming a drunken master. When he is rebuffed, he goes back to his companions and asks what they would think of a nice, friendly bar fight. Jaxil and Yolanda both point out that Ulfgar wants to pick a bar fight with a drunken master. Ulfgar is unconcerned. Ethan explains that he doesn't have very much to contribute to a bar fight, but he'll be around if anyone else wants to be a dick and throw lethal damage into the mix. Ulfgar then heads over, gets Philip's attention, and throws a punch.
:Yolanda and Jaxil wade on in after him, Jaxil still adjusting to his new body. Philip takes a swig from his own supply of The Purple Whiskey, powers up, and starts pounding on anyone who comes near him. Yolanda passes out first, though she takes most of the bystanders with her. Ulfgar fistpounds a still-conscious Philip before he collapses onto a table. Jaxil then knocks Philip out, staggers back to the bar, orders a pint, and chugs it. His alcohol tolerance is nowhere near what it used to be, and he passes out on the bar. Ethan looks around at the wreck of the bar and his unconscious companions, and then announces that he wins. The bartender sighs and says that his is the fifth bar that Philip has destroyed in the past month. Ethan drags the others back to the Jade Kraken II before the bartender remembers that Ulfgar threw the first punch.
:(Ulfgar would like to intercede here and give his recounting of the story.  As Yolanda, Ulfgar and Jaxil rolled into the bar, the fight was already underway, with two hill giants, only one of which, Philip, was a drunken master, already in a brawl with no less than six dwarves.  By the time Yolanda had passed out, all but one of the bystander dwarves were down, or thrown out of the bar.  Ulfgar dispatched the first hill-giant, before realizing what he was up against, as the hill giant kicked the last unfortunate dwarf into, or through, a wall...on the other side of the room.  Jaxil backed off as Ulfgar moved in, and after several good exchanges, Ulfgar dodged a final swing from Philip and returned with a pair of blows that dropped the drunken master.  THEN, Jaxil had the nerve to catch Ulfgar off-guard with a blow to the back of the head with a chair, or barstool, Ulfgar doesn't remember.  However, the bartender did tell Ulfgar, the next morning, that Jaxil had then proceeded to take a swig from the pint and pass out.  The bartender seemed to boast to Ulfgar that he had been the winner, since his drink had taken out the last fighter standing. The next morning, the town guards, in service to the pirate king, arrest Philip for starting the fight, and damaging the bar, and leave Ulfgar and the other patrons where they lay.)
:(Ethan had forgotten how epic this truly was and would high five you, sir. But I still won, not the bar. All glory to the hypnotoad Toggenburg.)
: (Ulfgar: Ethan may have been in the bar, but was not in the bar FIGHT, so challenge stands.)
:Andrey and Fab Dick join them back at the ship shortly thereafter, with plenty of rumors and tea cakes. Tobo also reappears, a local rockstar yet again. Andrey and Fab Dick tell the party that there's a boat race happening at Yondalla's Lagoon, with an interesting prize. Whoever wins will not only get a monetary reward, but a strange artifact that will allow the bearer and any companions to pass through the Underdark safely, insofar as no sentient occupants of the Underdark will attack them on sight. The party reasons that Yondalla's Lagoon is in a northerly direction, so they might as well stop by the next morning to ask if there really is anything forty miles north of Port Townsend. Yeah. Directions. Not getting distracted from their mission at all.
=== Episode Ten: Game Canceled on Account of Black Pudding ===
:The party is distracted from moving out by discovering an Athatch waiting for them on the docks. He tells them that he is looking for a dwarf named Ulfgar on behalf of the Pirate King. The Pirate King heard that Ulfgar beat down Philip the Drunken Master, which allowed him to capture said drunken master. As the Pirate King is the local leader of Port Townsend, he gets annoyed when drunken masters destroy bars, scare off tourists, and otherwise disrupt his plentiful income. Thus, he wants to reward Ulfgar, and will honor him with a personal meeting. Ulfgar, unsure of how to respond, edges back towards the party and accepts Gauve elbowing him in the ribs and whispering that he had better act grateful and accept. He then turns to the Athatch and asks if his friends can come along too. The Athatch says that the Pirate King will decide, and leads them off.
:The Pirate King receives Ulfgar gladly, tells him he can bring as many of his companions as he likes, and offers him a feast and a reward. Gauve hauls Ulfgar aside again and tells him he'll have to return the favor by entertaining the Pirate King. They look at each other, and then look at Tobo. Ulfgar turns back to the Pirate King, tells him that a feast sounds fantastic, and he has a wonderful bard with him. In fact, he's an international rockstar with a repertoire ranging from epic poetry to techno remixes of The Man from Goneril. The Pirate King realizes that this sounds familiar, and asks if that's Tobo of Malvont and Port Brogan. Tobo says that he is, and asks what the Pirate King would like to hear.
:The Pirate King ushers them all into a feast hall and asks if Tobo has any stories about the Battle of Malvont. Tobo tells him that he was at ground center during the battle itself, and he has talented friends who will act it out for him if the Pirate King so desires. After a quick telepathic assurance that Tobo is awesome at on-stage coaching, Yolanda, Jaxil, Gauve, Andrey, and Shiolay agree to reenact their actions, even though more than half of them weren't there. The Pirate King, meanwhile, collars Ethan and puts him with his other bitches. Ashra sort of follows, and the Pirate King is amused enough by a mindflayer trailing after a half-elf with an alarmingly low core body temperature that he gives Ashra a place among his bitches as well. He seats Ulfgar close to his left hand, and the show begins.
:Tobo quickly mentally proofreads the choicest bits of La Batalle Malvenia, translates it into Common, throws in a few dirty jokes, and starts telepathically giving commands as he tunes up his banjo. Fifteen minutes of recap accompanied by lots comical running around and flailing ensue. Said running and flailing is fully acted out by the players. Ulfgar kicks back and enjoys a beer, Ashra is vaguely alarmed at being surrounded by lots of scantily clad people fawning over the Pirate King, and Ethan is highly entertained by being surrounded by lots of scantily clad people fawning over the Pirate King.
:Tobo concludes with a bang, throws in another riff as an encore, and the rest of the party is seated at the table while trying to look as dignified as possible, given the circumstances. The rest of the meal descends into local gossip, especially about the upcoming race at Yondalla's Lagoon. Eventually the topic returns to Ulfgar's reward, and after considering what he could get for the sum the Pirate King is offering, Ulfgar asks for the best halfling racing boat that the Pirate King can offer. The Pirate King asks if Ulfgar plans to compete. Ulfgar considers his size in comparison to a halfling's, then his lack of sailing prowess, and then looks at Gauve. Ulfgar says he's willing to back an entrant, but he's going to need a ship first. The Pirate King decides that this is an acceptable reward, and writes a letter for Ulfgar to take to the shipyard in order to receive his boat.
:On their way out, Ulfgar and Yolanda ask after Philip the Drunken Master. The Athatch tells them that he's in a cell nearby, and he won't be getting out any time soon, if Ulfgar wants to go and gloat. Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Jaxil all troop together towards the cell, and as Yolanda and Jaxil distract the guard, Ulfgar gives Philip a shot of the purple whiskey. He and Philip fistpound, Ulfgar palms the flask back, and the three of them head out and meet up with the rest of the party so that they can be conveniently gone by the time Philip has gone Super Saiyan.
:The party then makes an expedition to the shipyards, whereupon one of the shipbuilders proudly awards Ulfgar the finest ship around. It's small, light, and beautifully made. Yolanda easily hefts the ship over her shoulder, and the party heads back for the Jade Kraken II.
:They've just caught sight of the pink sails when a strange sharklike creature bursts out of the ground, takes a bite at Jaxil, and dives back underground. Most of the civilians scatter, whereas the party mobilizes on sheer principle. Gauve tells the others that it's probably a land shark, which loves to eat halflings. Tobo and Andrey stare at each other in horror, and then the land shark re-emerges.
:After a lot of swings and misses, including some Ghoul Glyphs going awry and several attempted mindblasts, Ulfgar takes matters into his own hands. That is, he takes out two FFF bombs and announces his intention to ram them straight into the land shark, which he figures will at least put it off guard. Ashra stutters through several objections, can't articulate a convincing one, and eventually shrieks that this should not be a viable strategy. Ulfgar assures him that of course it is, and readies himself for detonation.
:The land shark surfaces again, and Ulfgar whirls and slams both bombs into its torso. The land shark flops around for a moment and then dives back underground. Ulfgar dusts himself off, deems it a good use of bombs, and wonders if it's worth it to rinse and repeat. Tobo suggests an alternative: he can cast Blink on himself, stand out in the middle of the street looking appetizing to land sharks, and everyone else can beat down the land shark when it reappears. The rest of the party agrees, and as Tobo casts Blink, everyone clusters around and breaks out the melee weapons. Yes, even the wizard (the mindflayer just raised his tentacles).
:Seven attacks of opportunity later, the land shark flops around on the ground, and then Gauve shanks it to death. The locals are impressed both by the Toggenburg Corporation's battle prowess and by their willingness to jump into battle to defend others without being promised a reward first. Yolanda awkwardly brushes it off on the behalf of everyone else, and attention is quickly diverted to Tobo once he un-Blinks and starts putting together a retelling of the event on the spot. After some rocking out, the party continues on their way to Yondalla's Lagoon, land shark corpse in tow.
:The land shark garners them a warm welcome, and Gauve entering the race gets them some serious respect. A little bit of asking around also informs them of the widespread cheating that will be taking place. If they want to stand a chance, they'll have to figure out some subtle cheating of their own. Once the entire party is convinced that cheating is basically part of the rules and therefore totally legit, they huddle together to pool their resources while Gauve inspects the halfling boat and starts adjusting it to his satisfaction.
:Ashra has mindblasts and the ability to be a telepathic radio tower. Ethan, Fab Dick, and Shiolay have summons. Tobo has Power Chords. Yolanda has blunt force trauma to the head. Jaxil has cutting down trees like nobody's business. Andrey has a crossbow hand. Ulfgar has the Shatterspike. Yeah, we're set.
:Before they head out, Fab Dick places a bet on Gauve winning the race, with decent odds. Gauve is an unknown, but his boat is one of the finest around, so he could be one hell of a contender.
:Gauve conceals every weapon he feasibly can and finishes his boat preparations as the rest of the party hides in the forest along the race track, spacing themselves out and leaving everyone escape routes towards the others. As the contestants bottleneck up into the starting formation, the party begins to wonder if this is overkill, since they haven't come across anyone else hiding in the forest.
:They are about to discover how very, very wrong they are.
:The judge raises his flag, lowers it, and then drops it and runs like hell off of the docks as the race begins.
:The boats are fast and maneuverable, but the sabotage begins almost instantly. Several boats are shoved off course and capsized within the first twenty seconds, others smash through any boats in their way, and one racer in particular takes out a very strange tindertwig on the end of a stick, touches it to the back of his boat, and rockets forward.
:The party starts to worry that they may, in fact, be underkill.
:Gauve makes it through the first crush unscathed and easily pulls ahead into the top ten. Ashra keeps him notified of all the sabotage attempts the rest of the party will be making, so that he knows who might be spinning out of control around him. However, things just weren't exciting enough: behind him, two other men rise up out of one of the boats, each carrying heavy repeating crossbows, and start firing at anyone who looks like a threat.
:The mass of boats passes Tobo first, who sounds off a Power Chord. Even more boats crash into one another, blocking the entryway to the race for several crucial seconds. While some of the racers resign on the spot, unwilling to deal with the mass endangerment of life and limb, others plow ahead.
:Ethan waits until Gauve has made it past before fucking things up even more by summoning zombies onto every boat that comes within thirty feet of him, adding unwanted weight and bite attacks. 
:Gauve is among the top five now, along with the rocket boat, the boat with two heavy repeating crossbows on board, and one very determined halfling who seems to have gotten this far on pure sailing skill. The rocket boat soars on ahead, whereas the crossbow boat takes the time to fire off a manyshot volley at Gauve. He dodges most of the bolts, but takes a few painful hits. Now that he is way out of line of sight of the judges, he decides that it's on now and un-conceals all of his weapons. The rest of the party assures him that they'll take down the crossbow fuckers if he can keep sailing, so he concentrates on hanging a right around the first corner.
:Tobo takes out his sling and starts launching pebbles at the various pilots. One such pilot decides he's had enough of these motherfucking zombies on his motherfucking boat, and takes a shot at it with a crossbow. The shot goes wide and lodges in the hull of another boat, and the zombie turns into a Black Pudding.
:There is panic among the racers, and every boat that hadn't gotten as far as the black pudding turns the hell around or otherwise resigns. The frontrunners have extra incentive to speed ahead, especially after seeing the boat that had formerly contained a zombie crushed under the black pudding. Tobo figures that the first bottleneck is covered now and takes off into the heart of the forest. Ethan realizes that he's trapped where he is by close-growing trees and starts cursing like a sailor. Fortunately, the rest of the racers are too busy sailing away and screaming to notice.
:Meanwhile, the frontrunners have made it to the part of the racecourse involving sinkholes. Gauve navigates them smoothly, but takes a few more crossbow bolts to the face for his troubles. The rocket boat skids around the corner and pulls ahead, though he's starting to run out of steam. A few less skilled boaters get fouled by the sinkholes and are left behind. Ahead, Jaxil starts eyeballing the best place along the river to fell a tree. Between them, Shiolay summons a Celestial Bee to go after the crossbow fuckers and then stealths his way towards the riverbank with the intention of tagging Gauve with the heals as he passes by.
:Yolanda and Ulfgar have also made their way to the riverbank at this point, hoping to disable the crossbow fuckers once and for all. Between their interference and Jaxil bringing down a tree at just the right time, Gauve shoots ahead, receives a significant heal, and meets up with that one halfling sailing on pure skill and badassery. Behind him, the rocket boat jumps the tree and keeps going. If one listens closely, one can hear a faint, "And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you damned kids!" coming from under the tree.
:Back at the race entryway, Ethan learns that black puddings can move very quickly in water, whereas he moves very slowly through thick underbrush. The first slam attack nearly kills him. When he heals, it kills the vegetation in a 20 foot circle around him and deals some damage to the black pudding, but the black pudding isn't the least bit intimidated. After the second slam attack, Fab Dick mans up and takes matters into his own hands. He runs over and nails the black pudding with a Magic Missile to the back of the head. Blob. Whatever.
:Ethan manages to get back into the forest as Fab Dick soaks a slam attack and is not instantly killed. He then turns and bolts back into the forest, his work here done. The black pudding, bereft of wizards to snack on, returns to the river. Team Acid-Covered Wizard meets up in the forest and staggers towards Andrey, leaning on each other the entire way.
:Speaking of Andrey, the three racers are almost to her section of the river. (Hijinks with methane bubbles go here. Suffice it to say that while Andrey want big boom, Andrey also had some alignment issues.) While she would have been more than happy to take down the crossbow fuckers, she can't fault the halfling sailing past on skill. She also doesn't want to mess with the rocket ship, since he hasn't done anything else except, well, have a rocket ship. At this point, it's going to be up to Gauve to win the race. As the three round the last corner, she jumps across the river and bestows a much-needed Create Water on Team Acid-Covered Wizard, along with the heals for Fab Dick.
:The badass halfling sailor, alas, runs afowl of the crocodiles lying in wait in that corner of the course. Gauve and the rocket ship evade them, and as Gauve pulls ahead, the rocket ship's sailor reaches back, attaches an extra canister to the back of the ship, and lights it. Gauve looks back, sees the rocket ship gaining, and throws himself off of his ship and over the finish line just before the rocket ship overtakes him.
:The judge runs over to them, tells them that the race is over and for the love of god let's get out of here before the black pudding gets any ideas seriously where did that even come from, so Gauve heaves his boat out of the water and takes off towards the town. The rest of the party flees out of the forest in the other direction, and circle around to meet up with Gauve in the center of town. Ethan thanks Fab Dick for saving his life, to which Fab Dick tells him that well-bred Baldur wizard half-elves have to stick together, even if he is going to eventually kill Ethan for his secrets and for general vengeance on his path to becoming a lich. Wait, what?
:Gauve, meanwhile, accepts his prize and title, moves into his free room in the inn, and relaxes at the bar as people buy him drinks and hang on his every word for the next five hours. Pimpin', baby.
:(Notes: There were exploding methane bubbles in this somewhere. Also, did the Shatterspike play a more prominent role in this than I remember?)
=== Season Finale: Now, I Know That He'll Know That I Know That He'll Know...===
:Those of the party who eat join Gauve to get some food and catch up on the local gossip, because the party loves local gossip that leads to sidequest hooks. They can't even deny it at this point. Ethan hides out in Ashra's room, fixes his makeup, and sulks over his acid-ruined clothes. Between Gauve's presence and the land shark incident, any of the party who wants a free drink gets one. Andrey is also a local hit, and spends much of the night telling stories of her attempted vengeance against Neax Hiss for her parents' enslavement. Tobo manages to get the bar involved in a singalong of a really bawdy song, securing his reputation as an awesome rockstar in Port Townsend.
:The next morning, Gauve receives a summons from the halfling matriarch, who wants to congratulate him on his victory in the boat race. Gauve attends, and a crazy set of sleight of hands ensue as he steals from the matriarch as fast as she steals from him. After all, she is the best thief in town. While Gauve covets a particular sword and even manages to hide it down his pants at one point (...unf?), he walks out with most of the things he started with, part of his prize money, and a few trinkets. When he gets back to the inn and takes stock of his items, he finds that far too many of his weapons are no longer masterwork, and heads back for more.
:Some bluff checks of contrition on both sides later, Gauve almost makes it out with the sword again, the matriarch gets another handful of his gold (...unf), and Gauve reclaims his weapons. This conclusion is acceptable to both parties, and Gauve takes his leave of her. The party then heads back to Port Townsend proper so they can drop off the boat at the Jade Kraken II and decide what to do next.
:Once the skiff is safely in Sam's care, the party realizes that they can count their adventure hooks on one hand. There's the rumblings up in Landover, now Graxboro, that Ethan and Ashra are interested in. There's the meetup with Simora that the party originally came here to do, 40 miles north of Port Townsend. There's also a coven of vampires hassling people up in that direction. A potential direct confrontation with the Circle of the True, not to mention vampires, sounds a bit more dangerous than snooping around Graxboro. The party figures they'll get there eventually and start making plans for an overland journey to Graxboro.
:Sam agrees to hang with the ship and keep the sails pink. Ethan asks him to pick them up an extra set of sails, just in case, and also some Port Townsend colors if he can. The party leaves him with some money to make these purchases and otherwise get on with, stock up on trail rations, and find the nearest road to Graxboro. They put Tyro on a leash with his hands tied, alternately leaving him in the care of Gauve and Ethan, who are the two people least inclined to punch him in the face every waking minute.
:En route, those of the party who aren't familiar with Highman Grax's shenanigans are brought up to speed by Ethan, Yolanda, Ashra, and Tyro. He led the invading army in the Revolution of 1441, the Circle of the True orchestrated an assassination attempt on him in Landover shortly before that, he's really popular with orcs, and he's really unpopular with humans. Tyro utterly despises him and wishes he could hate Grax to death.
:Gauve suddenly announces his own theory about the true nature of Grax: that he is a polymorphed lich, and in thinking that he is a mindflayer, we're all playing into his grand master plan. Somehow. It turns out that Gauve has a thing about liches -- namely, they figure into every conspiracy theory he's ever come up with. Even Tyro stops to give Gauve a look of utter confusion. Ashra insists that Grax's actions only make sense if you consider them like a mindflayer's, and who best to analyze one space brain than another space brain? The party leaves Ashra and Gauve to thrash that one out as they continue on.
:Later that day, Yolanda notices that they're being followed. Shortly thereafter, a troll raiding party appears, tells them they're trespassing, and demands compensation. For instance, they'll take Tobo and a guarantee that they'll leave in exchange for the trolls not killing them. This proposal is roundly rejected, and it is so on.
:The party is, by now, accustomed to the pattern of beating trolls unconscious, dodging their death throes, and setting them on fire. Gauve demonstrates that he is a master of evading attacks, Ethan has fun with Cause Fear and inadvertently destroying all plant life in a 10 foot radius around himself, and Ashra capitalizes on the Cause Fear with a Silent Image. In the end, two of the trolls escape due to having fled in terror, and the rest are killed. Fab Dick and Ashra take care of the bodies with Flaming Sphere and Burning Hands. The party dusts themselves off, Andrey and Shiolay heal up the massive claw wounds in various party members, and they're off again.
:They stop to make camp for the night not too long after that. Ulfgar sees a strange figure in a nearby handy-looking clearing. When he goes to investigate, he discovers a covered pit trap full of spikes. He discovers it with his face. Slightly miffed, he climbs back to the top, pries a few spikes out of various parts of his anatomy, and discovers that the figure is just a scarecrow-like thing made of hay and twigs. Ulfgar claims it as a prize. The party realizes that they're still in troll territory, and that the troll colony knows they're there and they're dangerous. A quick huddle later, the party decides to make a fake campsite in the handy clearing, and then actually camp deeper in the forest.
:As sun sets, the party rapidly sets up tents and a firepit in the clearing. Ulfgar covers the pit back up and puts the scarecrow on top, and then hides in the pit itself amongst the spikes, Shatterspike drawn and a skin of Alchemist's Fire readily available. (Hey Ulfgar, is this how the spike pit went down, or did you dig your own later?) There is some general disbelief that the trolls would fall for their own trap, but it can't hurt. Fab Dick sketches a few Exploding Runes around the campsite. Yolanda realizes that the tents will need occupants, so Ethan provides zombies and all the Ghoul Glyphs he can cast for various tempting pieces of loot so conveniently scattered around the campsite. You know, like the weapons that the party looted off of the trolls' bodies. That kind of thing.
:Fake campsite created, the party retreats back into the woods, leaving Ulfgar to keep watch over the fake campsite and Ashra to monitor the area between the two. They let Ethan and Fab Dick get their needed four hours of focus, at which point the half-elves take watch. Not long after that, the trolls arrive.
:Two trolls fall into the pit trap, three are paralyzed by Ghoul Glyphs, one takes some Explosive Runes to the face, and Gauve nails another one with a sneak attack. All that's left after this is cleanup duty (IN FIRE WE ARE CLEANSED), which the party quickly does. They figure they're probably going to need to rinse and repeat this tactic until they are well out of troll territory, but they have a strategy now.
:The next night passes quietly. Ethan continues to talk to Tyro about the amulets and starts asking Gauve questions about liches and their phylacteries. Ashra and Gauve continue debating whether or not any other creature could properly imitate a mindflayer's intelligence. Ashra insists that even if someone could fool most creatures, they wouldn't be able to fool another mindflayer. Gauve mentions that he hasn't seen a mindflayer aside from Ashra in ages, but then again, no one really has.
:The night after that gets exciting. Gauve and Ashra are on watch when a strange light appears, bobbing and weaving in the distance. Ashra tries to think of what spells could do that, whereas Gauve goes, "ohhh shit," and gets closer to it for a better look. He knows a lot about the fae, and he soon recognizes the light as a will-o'-wisp. He telepathically tells Ashra that will-o'-wisps usually appear to lead one somewhere, and they tend to lead people into deep marshes or off cliffs. Ashra asks what happens if you refuse, to which Gauve tells him that will-o'-wisps are pretty persuasive. Ashra offers to mindblast Gauve to keep him from wandering into a marsh. Gauve hesitates, the will-o'-wisp moves to indicate that he should follow it, and Ashra mindblasts Gauve. The will-o'-wisp, put out, shocks Gauve within an inch of his life. Ashra hurriedly lets the mindblast go, admits his error as Gauve curses his name in five different languages, and starts shaking other members of the party awake.
:Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Shiolay decide to follow after Gauve with some rope. The will-o'-wisp, however, moves in a very erratic fashion, so Ulfgar is the only person left still tracking it by the time Gauve reaches the bog. Gauve sighs heavily, plunges in, and starts swimming after the will-o'-wisp. Ulfgar follows at a distance, though he ends up more treading water than anything else. Yolanda catches up to him and throws him a rope, because you can always use more rope.
:The will-o'-wisp leads Gauve out the other end of the bog, along a path, and to a very large tree. It then moves to the side, and Gauve immediately goes to his knees in preparation for what is coming next. Just as he does so, a dryad appears. Gauve manages to not be struck dead by her unbelievable beauty, and actually speaks Sylvan well enough to understand her. She tells him that there is a foreign object buried under her roots. It is unnatural, and she wants it taken out of the forest immediately. Gauve says that he is, in fact, on his way out of the forest and that he would be happy to do this for her. Pleased, the dryad shifts the roots of the tree to reveal a small, dark box with an aura of unnatural evil. Gauve takes it, wraps it up, and allows himself to be returned to the party by the will-o'-wisp.
:He meets up with Ulfgar, Shiolay, and Yolanda on the far side of the bog, where Shiolay heals him. Gauve glares bloody murder at Ashra upon his return, goes back to his tent, hides the box very, very well, and passes the fuck out. The rest of the night is, thankfully, uneventful.
:Late the next day, the party happens across a strange rock formation that might have once been a castle. It's at the top of a hill, and the party considers investigating it as a place to rest. None of the people with any knowledge of Baldur's geography have any idea what it could be, but given its condition, there are probably goblins living in it. The party instead opts for a nearby cave. There is a strange, shallow pool of still water in it, as well as a lot of animal bones, and the whole place makes Ethan really twitchy for some reason. Ulfgar splashes around in the water and is unharmed. After a while, Gauve says that this cave might be the residence of an adolescent dragon or some similar creature. They like still water, and the bones suggest that something large and meat-eating is living either in the cave or nearby it. Ethan starts tweaking out, at which point Yolanda puts a restraining hand on his head and explains to the uninitiated that Ethan and dragons do not mix. Even an adolescent dragon is an intimidating prospect, so the party is careful to keep at least three people aside from Ethan on watch at all times during the night.
:Nothing untoward returns to the cave that night, and the party moves on in a hurry the next morning once everyone has rested. They're getting close to Landover, they think, so they stay off the road and try to move through the woods as quietly as they can. This soon pays off, as Ashra spots a caravan heading towards Landover. The party debates whether or not to intercept it, and eventually decide on sending Gauve and Ethan down to the road. The two decide to pose as scouts checking out Landover on behalf of a merchant, do their best to look like normal travelers, and race down to the road before the caravan gets within sight of them. The rest of the party follows at a distance, ready to intervene if things get unpleasant.
:Just as planned, the caravan stops by Ethan and Gauve. It's a party of low-ranking Baldur soldiers, but they seem pretty relaxed about finding two random men wandering around. The leader asks what their business in this area is. Gauve explains that they were sent to check out the local economy in Landover -- oh, wait, sorry, Graxboro now, right? -- and see what goods are most needed. The leader of the soldier nods and asks casually who their patron is. Ethan and Gauve sort of look at each other, start by mentioning the Toggenburg, and then start entertaining themselves by coming up with similar-sounding names as other guesses at that name that they just can't quite remember. ("Was it the Hindenburg?" "No, no, I think it was the Toboggan.") Meanwhile, the leader of the soldiers freaks out at the name of the Toggenburg, and warns them that their patrons are wanted criminals in Baldur. Ethan expresses relief that they got cash up front. The soldier asks for their names; Gauve makes up some aliases on the spot. He and the leader of the soldiers chat for a while about the upcoming speech that Highman Grax himself will be giving in Graxboro ("Oh, we're going to be around to see that? Wow."), and eventually the soldier party departs, still a little uneasy about what Ethan and Gauve have told them.
:Ethan and Gauve look at each other, wait for the caravan to go out of sight, and race back into the forest with the news. Tyro, upon hearing that Grax will be coming here, starts seething. Ulfgar, Yolanda, and Ethan remember what happened the last time they were in Landover and Grax showed up, and remind the party of this fact. Ulfgar wonders if they ever rebuilt that bar. Ethan wonders if Aura Larellian will be here again, and if so, if she'll be annoyed that they never got around to meeting up with Simora. Yolanda says that rescuing a princess is totally an excuse.
:As they reach the outskirts of Landover, Ulfgar recognizes a very gaudy house at the edge of the forest. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's Sluf's House of ILLUUUUUSION. Ulfgar wants to go say hi again, so he and Jaxil venture out to the house and knock. Sluf opens the door and rattles off a nonsensical phrase. Jaxil fails utterly at understanding it, and says a nonsensical phrase right back. Sluf brightens and holds the door open for them. Ulfgar and Jaxil, bewildered, head inside.
:Ulfgar and Jaxil eventually figure out that Jaxil somehow said exactly the right code words to make Sluf think they were his co-conspirators in...something. This something rapidly becomes clear as Sluf tells Ulfgar that there's going to be a reprisal of what went down the last time Ulfgar was here. To that end, he wants them to meet Claire, and points up.
:Ulfgar and Jaxil see a teenaged girl sitting in the rafters with a crossbow casually trained on them. Sluf assures them that she doesn't kill guests unless she really feels like it. She's an assassin that he's hired to kill Grax, and to that end, he ordered a special bolt made of acadia wood for her death attack. He's waiting on the delivery from Vishnu. A series of confused explanations of how Ulfgar knows Vishnu later, Sluf seems to think that the Toggenburg Corporation has come here on behalf of Vishnu to make sure that the bolt gets to its destination. Ulfgar and Jaxil roll with it, and eventually head back to the party with the news that they might have kind of somehow found themselves agreeing to help out with The Assassination of Highman Grax Two: Electric Boogaloo. Tyro sulks over being a prisoner while everyone else has all the fun, half of the party demands to know how the hell they managed to get mixed up in this, and various members of the party eventually resign themselves to being a part of this and that it's for the greater good. Then the Speakstone rings.
:Ethan answers, gets yelled at by Vishnu for about two straight minutes, and eventually tells Vishnu that they have the Eye of Moradin and they seem to be just outside Graxboro, and were you going to send a magical bolt to this ugly fucker named Sluf? Vishnu admits that he was, so Ethan tells him they can send the Eye back with the messenger. Vishnu says he wants the Eye now rather than later, to which Ethan tells him that Grax is coming here in short order, so having the magical bolt now rather than later would also be nice. Vishnu considers this for a minute, and then asks if the Toggenburg are easily frightened. Ethan says that he isn't, and the rest of the party is probably tough enough to deal with it. Gauve lies through his teeth about not being weak-willed at all, no really. Vishnu nods and tells them to be ready for the Furies. Yolanda asks to talk to Vishnu, and the Speakstone is handed around while various party members quietly negotiate for rewards in exchange for the Eye. The Speakstone eventually makes it back to Ethan, whom Vishnu tells to be ready and waiting at 5 p.m. the next night. Ethan agrees, and Vishnu hangs up.
:The party goes to the House of ILLUUUUUSION to tell Sluf that his bolt is on the way, and that he'll have it in less than a day. Sluf nods and tells them that showtime is 7 p.m. in Landover, so they should get a good night's sleep and make their preparations now. Ashra wants to know more about Grax and his motivations. Sluf first tells him that Ashra is the first mindflayer he's seen in ages, and to those who aren't used to mindflayers, he kind of looks like Grax. Ashra asks where all the other mindflayers are, and Sluf tells him that all of the mindflayers in Baldur disappeared. Ashra wonders if Grax made them disappear, or if Grax's political ambitions and other un-mindflayer-y actions are a reflection of a Mother Brain gone insane. 
:Ashra then starts asking about Grax's political history. Sluf tells him about how Grax gained a lot of power after the death of one of his political rivals: Lady Elan, the Elven member of the High Council and leader of the Elven Guildhome. Her successor, Charilus, was an ardent supporter of Grax and a vocal opponent of Edmund Vargus. Lady Elan's death was linked to The Scarlet Brotherhood, but Sluf notes that everyone knows that Grax was distinctly elsewhere during this time. Very. Distinctly. Elsewhere. When Ashra asks about what elsewhere this might be, Sluf tells him that Lady Elan and her entourage were all killed by a black dragon during a diplomatic trip to Goneril, and Grax was very much in the public eye when this occurred.
:As Ashra starts speculating on how Grax might have manipulated various underlings into killing Lady Elan, Ethan tells him to stop talking about it. When Ashra, confused, asks why, Ethan tells him that Lady Elan is his mother, you asshole. When Ashra tries to get more information out of him, Ethan snaps and runs out of the room. Yolanda remembers that Ethan once told her that a black dragon killed him, and Ashra puts two and two together to get oh snap.
:A bit thrown, Ashra thinks for a bit, wraps up his discussion about why Grax might have wanted Lady Elan dead, and then goes to retrieve Ethan. He manages to get Ethan to come back as far as Shiolay, who tags Ethan with Calm Emotions. This scales Ethan back down to merely twitchy as opposed to total mental breakdown, and Ashra continues. He thinks that the first assassination attempt was something that Grax himself orchestrated. The Circle of the True is a very militant and reactionary organization, and it would be easy to incite them to stage a flashy assassination attempt. Grax could easily evade such an attempt, especially if he was expecting it, and it would create nothing but support for him. After all, the first assassination attempt was the turning point before the Revolution of 1441. Thus, either Grax has a man on the inside of every side, or he is incredibly persuasive and can easily conceal his identity.
:Ashra tells everyone that in order to beat Grax, they're going to have to think like a mindflayer. This is probably going to end up in a tangle of "I know that he knows that I'll know that he'll know..." but Ashra can, in fact, keep track of that sort of thing with his ridiculous space brain. He also reveals that he, too, is originally from Baldur, and thus Grax is kind of like his sibling. If any of them can track Grax's thought processes, it's Ashra.
:The party disbands for the night. Gauve goes to keep an eye on Tyro and rant about how Grax is totally an evil lich, Jaxil starts pondering the merits of getting a Dire Beaver as an animal companion, and Ethan and Claire hang out and talk over a distance of twenty feet. Ulfgar and Yolanda spend some time with jingling objects, and Shiolay and Andrey pray to their respective deities for guidance.
:Meanwhile, Ashra goes back to the darkest corner of the table, folds his hands in front of his face, and a plan begins to take shape in his vast and terrifying mind...
Season Three Complete.
== Previously/Next Time on Eon ==
Previous Season: Eon: Infinite Horizons (Summer 2008) 
Next Season: Eon: Southern Dreadnought (Winter 2008)
Adventures with this party will continue in Eon: The Frozen Fates (Spring 2009)!
== Characters ==
Starring:
*Yolanda
*Ulfgar
*Ethan of Malvont
*Ashra
*Shiolay
*Sil'meelen
*Sir Tobo of Port Brogan
Introducing (in order of appearance):
*Richard the Beautific 
*Gid
*Andrey Hilltopple
*Jaxil Motherfucking Icewinton
*The Dread Pirate Gauve
*Claire
== Live Accounts ==
Master Rhapsody Tobo Lakhanai faithfully kept a journal of his time with the party. You can find in-character observations, additional details, and other entertainment in this story of one bard's transformation from personal entertainer of a crime lord to international rockstar and nobility of Port Brogan.
Category:Seasons