Babysitting The Stars

an adventure starring Wing, Willy, and Jade.

Tweet Length Description: An odd morning turns into an explosive evening! Join Willy, Wing and Jade as they attempt to wrangle one feisty young dragon and learn a little about themselves in the process.

Setting:

Elysian Fields, Argentine Estate

NPCs:

* Stella Argentine
* Sterling Argentine
* Ruby Argentine
* Bonaventura Halevy
* Misty Saidi
* Mia Purrkins
* Joonas Khan
* Derek Novakova
* Avi Persaud
* Mister Salvaticus

Plot Summary:

We start our adventure in the Firebreathing Kittens guildhall. It is a slow morning, with members Jade, Willy and Wing just lounging around. Little Nugget is sleeping inside the big pocket of Wing’s hoodie. The only job that is on the board is a quest to slay a blue dragon, something that seems above the gang’s current expertise.

With all this time on their hands, Jade and Willy have time to study Wing, who seems to have been getting in worse and worse health these last couple of weeks. They go back and forth with questions and magical investigation to find out what could be wrong. Nugget seems to also be under the weather, with his scales having taken on a dull color.

Wing is convinced that he must be having food poisoning or something, since he does eat a lot of weird stuff.

Willy watches through the window as a fancy carriage approaches the guild hall. Their guildmate Stella steps out of the carriage and greets the gang. She was apparently supposed to be watching her little sister Ruby today, but she has a modeling gig that she really has to get to, so she would really appreciate it if her fellow Firebreathing Kittens could watch her little sister in her stead.

Since there’s no new jobs to do anyway, the gang is happy to help out. They all board the carriage and ride of towards the Argentine Estate, which is located in Elysian Fields.

On the way there Stella explains that, unlike herself, Ruby is a full dragon though she is still very young. She might be a bit of a handful, but probably nothing that a group of seasoned adventurers can’t handle.

The carriage arrives at the Argentine Estate and the gang marvel at the splendor of the manor and its surrounding grounds.

Willy and Wing try to keep a low profile as they had previously had dealings with the residents of Elysian Fields when they offered them illusory dragon guard systems that didn’t really work out.

There is some confusion whether or not some of the unmelting ice sculptures in the gardens contained people, and they were almost destroyed by Jade, but luckily cooler heads prevailed.

The gang enters Argentine Manor and are surprised by someone swooping over their heads and picking up Stella. This is revealed to be her brother Sterling, who likes to play pranks on Stella. Sterling introduces himself and his assistant of illusions Misty. They work together to create Sterling’s magical archeology streams that are popular throughout Niqamui.

Because of Sterling’s profession he’s interested in the ancient sword that Willy got in the Sword Rock Cafe. He examines it and has a discussion about it with Willy.

Stella brings Ruby from her room somewhere upstairs in the mansion. Ruby is very energetic and playful, but can’t speak common very well. Luckily Jade and Wing can speak Draconic so they have a means of communicating. Willy also has Comprehend Languages which comes in handy.

After explaining how to care for Ruby and giving the gang a leash that’ll keep Ruby on the ground in case she wants to fly away, Sterling and Stella leave for their respective appointments.

The gang decides to take Ruby outside, ignoring the leash of course, to play in the pool that they saw earlier in the grounds surrounding the mansion. Ruby and Wing go for a swim, while Jade stands guard next to the pool (not a lifeguard), and Willy uses his uncanny ability to not have to breath to walk on the bottom of the pool and pretend to be a sea monster.

Some drinks were procured by Wing, who may or may not be able to drink, and the gang have a jolly old time. After swimming it is time for snacks and Ruby rushes back into the mansion. She is quite impatient and when one of the servants goes to fetch some meat for her, she tackles him and knocks him out.

Luckily Jade can cure him with her lay on hands abilities, and she uses this as a teaching opportunity by over exaggerating how much effort she has to do to save the servant from ‘death’. Jade’s parenting skills really shine here, after all she raised 2 kids who both survived.

Taking a cue from this teaching moment, the gang entertains, scares and exhausts Ruby who afterwards warms up to them more and listens better. She’s also quite tired from all the playing so it’s nap time. Ruby and Nugget curl up together for nappies. Jade takes a moment to rest from all the excitement while Willy goes to investigate a dragon statue/altar that he saw in the gardens. It appears to be quite new and both very solid and expensive. There must be some kind of religious significance to it.

Wing takes this time to scamper off and snoop around the Argentine mansion. He makes his way onto the upper floor where he finds a locked door. Not good at taking a hint, he fashions some lockpicks with his duplication skills and tries to pick the door’s lock. This is a terrible idea of course and a glyph of warding is triggered to accentuate this point.

A large boom is heard echoing through the mansion! Jade stays to guard the dragon babies in case this is an attack and Willy charges up the stairs, summoned sword in hand. He finds a black scorch mark on the carpet and some singed parrot feathers. Wing had gotten a cloak made from parrot feathers from Stella earlier as a gift. Willy follows the parrot feathers into, what turns out to be, Stella’s room where he finds a blackened and just barely conscious Wing sitting against the bed drinking away at some bottles of fancy brandy that he found under the bed.

Sighing a sigh of both relief and exacerbation Willy takes Wing back downstairs to Jade and the dragon babies. Wing promptly passes out from the combination of exhaustion and alcohol. While Jade plays with the now-reawakened Ruby, Wing has a strange dream.

In the dream, Wing is inside an office space where a familiar devilish face smiles down at him. It is Bonaventura Halevy, the very devil that Wing had sold his soul to!

Bonaventura explains to Wing that he is displeased with his performance, as he was supposed to recruit suckers, ahem, clients to the scheme that he signed into when he sold his soul for a million gold.

Wing didn’t really understand the terms of the agreement they made so Bonaventura explains that because he wasn’t recruiting people, his rain of copper coins had stopped and he wouldn’t be getting any more money. Also he reveals that the reason Wing is getting more and more sick is because he doesn’t have his soul anymore, which turns out to be important.

Shocked by this revelation Wing tries to get his soul back, but Bonaventura wants something for it. Either the million gold that he had traded it for or some information that Bonaventura needed. It turns out Bonaventura has gotten into a business relationship with the Ekenblim and now he wants some inside information on them that he can exploit to his benefit. If Wing can arrange this, he can get his soul back.

He also hinted that maybe Wing should go see the Amazingly Talented Talent Show, because apparently the members there were also getting sick because of Wing.

As Wing reawakens he tells Willy all that he had just heard in his dream, and as Jade joins into the conversation, they try to think of ways to either get the info that Wing needs in exchange for his soul or to plan a great heist to steal the soul out from under the devils nose! Something straight out of Large Bodies of Water 10.

And so another adventure is concluded, with a dragonsitting job completed without any fatalities and with some personal revelations revealed.

Memorable Quotes:

"I've got two hit points; I'm good." -Wing.

McCail Island Sunrise: A layer of orange juice + champagne and a layer of maraschino cherry juice + liquor.