Session 5.1 - Ssera's Journey

## I'm Never Drinking Again

As Ssera comes to,
she finds herself in a caged wagon with three other inhabitants: A bear in a
top hat and bow tie, a tanned, emaciated gnome, and a sickly dryad. The bear
frightens her, because she has a traumatic history with bears. The bear introduces
her to the others and she finds out from the dryad that groves in the Elfwild
have been disconnecting from each other for unknown reasons.

Furthermore, she
discovers that the gnome is Ehra’s former lover and that he left her for the
dryad. It is implied that the bear did something pretty intense to incur the
wrath of the Rovers. It is at this point that Ssera learns that she was taken
not only for her part in the killing of the Rovers’ pet wyvern, but also for
striking Kaven during the party in which they were drugged, charmed, and robbed.

It is also at this
point that Ssera discovers that all of the prisoners will be taken to Rover’s
Den, a meeting of caravans, and sold as slaves and that they are cursed. The
bear, Fig, has a strange affectation of speech in which he has to start every
sentence with “Seems as though,” the gnome, Magwead, can not express any kind
of emotion in his speech, and the dryad, Shalei, is struck with a different
plague every day. Magwead posits that Ssera is already cursed, noting that they
typically take some time to manifest.

## Message in a Flower Bottle

Ssera apologizes for her
overreaction to being locked in a cage with the thing she fears most and
formulates a plan to communicate this information to El and whoever else is
alive and coming. She tells everyone to freak out like something stinks when
she signals them, and tells the bear to bite her on the shoulder. Fig obliges,
and she extracts a large splinter from the wound, sharpens it on the corner of
her manacle, and then pulls out a catkin of her flowers. She strips a section
of the flowers and carves a brief message into the stem, then folds the
remaining flowers over it. When everyone freaks out about the smell, she chides
them for their overreaction to a perfectly natural biological process and agrees
to throw it out of the cart. The guards all buy the ruse.

## Tipping the Scales

After further
discussion, they decide that their odds of rescue decrease dramatically if they
arrive at Rover’s Den, Ssera comes up with another plan to stall their
progress. She fakes a fight with the massive bear, timed so that when the cart
hits a large bump, Fig and Ssera will slam into the side of the cart, tipping
it over and hopefully breaking the wheels. After exchanging irate words, the
bear and Ssera jump into the side of the cart, successfully breaking the wheels
and delaying progress. Francisco enters the cage to break up the fight. After
calming everyone, he mutters something about his love and Ssera remembers that
Voila stopped dancing with her to dance with a man who… Yes, that is him. She
talks to Francisco about Voila and he confesses his love for her to Ssera.

## Of Love and Larceny

Ssera sees another
opportunity to disrupt the Rovers, and attempts to convince Francisco to leave
the Rovers with the slaves and some of their stolen stuff as an offering of
goodwill to El and V, who she hoped were in pursuit. Ssera makes a convincing
argument and this nearly works, but at the last available second, Francisco
realizes that Ssera is using her Fey charm on him and orders the slaves bound
and gagged and blindfolded. Ssera is livid and starts ridiculing Francisco for
his lack of commitment to peace and to his love of Voila; and she ends by threatening
the group with the wrath of the Birch Bitches. As the gag comes down over her
mouth, she sees one last opportunity to sow disharmony and begs one last
question and then she won’t fight anymore. They oblige her. She motions for the
lead guard to lean in and asks

“*Why did Francisco leave them the dagger*?*”*

They do not seem
particularly impressed, thinking that Elophia still has the dagger. She points
out that someone left them the dagger, which they counter is her right. Ssera
questions whether it’s her right to get them all killed, and the gag comes
down. All that’s left is to
wait.

Wait and hope.