Episode 1 - The Lonely Lurker

> "*Welcome to Wildcliff, School of the Arcane ...*"
> ― Luke, introducing the School
>
>

## Description

"In this introductory episode of Trials & Trebuchets, we meet our 3 adventurers and follow them on some light mischief as they chase a cat."- Episode description

## Synopsis

After Luke describes Wildcliff, School of the Arcane, we find the party among 12 chairs with 11 people occupying them. Evidently, the 11 of them are there to perform individual assessments with Professor Underbough and be assigned to three person teams. We're introduced to a majority of these 11 people; Winsler Wallaby, Mira Marchand, Integrity Idleberry, Silvilax Light-Sun, Murundeen Purebone, Allena Hollyfield, Kurt Orlain ... and a halfling with a metal puzzle box who is not named at this point. (This is later implied to be Veldon Deeplake).

While waiting around, Winsler's cat, Mr. Wiggles, complains to him of a racket down the hallway. Winsler agrees to a deal with Mr. Wiggles that, in exchange for 'tummy scritches' that he will investigate and hopefully put an end to this racket. When he attempts to leave, Mira approaches him, gushing over his cat and asking if he can talk as she believed she overheard a much deeper voice than Winsler's talking to him. Winsler explains and Mira decides to tag along with him. Another bump in the road to the hallway racket occurs when Silvi (Silvilax) stops them due to Professor Underbough's instructions, directing them to stay put until assessments are through.

Integrity, taking interest in the goings on, takes the opportunity to attempt to persuade Silvi that she will go with them and keep them out of trouble. This serves to intimidate Silvi slightly, but she allows them to leave under Integrity's supervision.

They follow Mr. Wiggles to a door down the hallway, at which they are briefly interrogated and informed by Tol that it is the Evocation Department Storage Room. They knock on the door and get a response from someone who evidently is making the noise inside. After some brief convincing that they are not dangerous, they enter to find a small, cyclopean, scaly creature named Teb who informs the group he is looking for his Green Stone and that if they could either help him find a replacement or help him find the stone, not only would he stop making so much noise, but he would show them the way to his house.

While Mira and Winsler seem very excited to have met this strange creature, Integrity, while not exactly put off by the encounter, appears to hold her feelings about it to herself. Winsler surmises that the place Teb dropped the stone, which he described to them, must be the Reliquary, also known as the Storage Chamber for the Enchantment Department.

They make their way toward the Reliquary and Integrity, in an effort to show how sneaky she is, puts up her hood and moves close to the wall, slipping past the notice of the Alchemy Professor she has slighted - Professor Happel.

The group finally enters the Reliquary and after some brief searching, notice that the pool of water in the center of the room only appears to be a layer of water rather than a solid-bottomed pool. Mira takes the opportunity to leap into it, requiring a cast of feather fall to not hurt herself. Integrity believes herself to be a safe person and ties a rope on the railing, rappelling down into the pool. Winsler follows suit, snatching up Mr. Wiggles, struggling up the railing, and following Integrity down.

Finding themselves in the Forbidden Section of the Reliquary, the party is confronted by the taller of a pair of Stone Golems named Jeed. Mira lies to him and claims that Professor Austen asked them to come to the Reliquary to retrieve an item he had dropped. When asked, the party tell Jeed their real names, which they almost instantly regret when he leaves to go retrieve Professor Austen.

Realizing time is of the essence, the party scour the room for the Green Stone, fairly immediately noticing a glint underneath the grate in the floor, which appears to be a dust collection bin. Mira uses mage hand to pull the stone up and out and is fairly quickly accosted by the smaller of the two Jeeds, who asks very abruptly to be Mira 'and others' friends. They, mostly Mira, agree to be his friend and agree to come visit him, if he goes and stops the other Jeed from bothering Professor Austen. Mira lies once more and tells him that they hadn't told Professor Austen they would be down here, which could potentially cause him issues as well, but that they had taken up his task without telling him in order to help him out.

As Jeed leaves to stop Jeed, Integrity notes several more shelves and doors in this level of the Reliquary and the party decides to take some extra time to look around, given the fact that they are already likely in trouble - how much more could they get into? They also reason that they can say they're looking for a way out, willfully ignoring the fact that there is a rope behind them that they could use to climb out. Winsler, in fact, attempts this, presumably to avoid being in as much trouble as possible, but is unable to do so, acquiring rope burn on his hands. While exploring, Mira finds a box labeled 'Doss Loot' and decides it's about time they leave, allowing Winsler to climb on her back like Yoda and climbing out on the rope.

Upon exiting, the party witness the Jeeds presumably interfacing with one another, pressing their crystal ball heads together. They quickly make their way back to Teb's location but are stopped by that same sweeping Golem Janitor who has made surprisingly little progress in the time they've been gone. While the rest of the group lies about where they were and what they were doing, Winsler lets the truth slip because, in his words, "Lying is bad." They proceed to lie about their names, but the Golem resolves to go retrieve Professor Underbough despite this.

They retrieve Teb who says he's going to take them to his home, The Sunken Hatch, now. He locks the door, showing he has an entire key ring of keys to the school, and Mr. Wiggles seems to indicate that Teb seems to be trustworthy enough.

After leading the party through several tunnels, they end up in the kitchen, which they somehow mistake for being his home when it's really just the entrance to his home, which is behind the spice rack.

Entering a large cylindrical room with a spiraling staircase, dilapidated statues, and a distinct hatch at the base of the 250 foot room, Teb leads them to his home, a small cave through a hole behind an alcove that one of the statues sits in. Teb also notes that something else lives down there with him, though nearer to the hatch. Winsler has the dawning realization that this location was not included on the brochure for the school.

Upon entering his house, the place is noted as looking a bit trashy and smelling poorly, being full of magical trash that is pretty to look at. Teb also talks about how he dislikes the golems above - as they kicked him once when he stole their keys. Winsler takes the opportunity to peruse the bookshelves that Teb has filled with absconded and unmissed books from the school. In particular, Winsler takes Rise of Gold and Limit of the Banished from the shelf, but only keeps the latter.

After finding that Teb has gathered up a rather large amount of rare Cinder-Ivy, which is used in alchemy to create Fire Breathing potions, Integrity buys it from Teb. While Teb does not understand how money works, he does understand how pretty, shiny things work and accepts the payment of only 3 gold coins; which is less than 1% of what it actually would sell for normally.

The party's curiosity is drawn to The Sunken Hatch as the episode draws to a close.

## Puns, Jokes, and References

Other than a few references and several funny moments, not too many puns or overt jokes were made this episode.

When speaking about the book, Rise of Gold, Luke attributes the story of King Midas, who had been cursed with the power to turn anything he touched to gold, to being a historical narrative rather than a mythical one.

As well, the Rise of Gold book speaks about a man who turned another into solid gold with the intent to sell him; which Luke makes a pun about, saying "You could say he got his weight in gold." much to the delight of Sarah and the dismay of Ben

Sarah compares Winsler to Klaus Baudelaire of a Series of Unfortunate Events when he talks about the brochure.