Chapter 7 - Short Engagements

**Chapter 7** of Greetings Adventurers is the beginning of next big story arc. Mike Bachmann goes through a trinity of fan-favorite characters, including Merendithas Bearcharger, Bananas Foster, and, most notably, Jett Razor. The mystery of Baldur's murder is set up, and the party enters the Underdark!

After the events of The Battle Above the Abyss, and the end of the Demon Apocalypse, our surviving heroes move on with their lives. Aludra Wyrmsbane has her brain bomb removed, and she and Jaela run off together to Yangahr, where Jaela is from. Titus Harper returns to his home as well, in Pelor's Hope. Everyone (still living) seems to have a happy ending...

Five Years Pass...

Aludra Wyrmsbane is no longer with Jaela. She is back in her home, Deephome, where the Dwarves reign. She is living with Bucky, who is an angsty teen now, and is engaged to be married to a Dwarf named Baldur Oakback. Baldur is nice, a good person, but Aludra does not love him. They have not seen nor heard from Jaela in "a while."

Meanwhile Jaela, wearing a black hood and looking goth as hell, rolls up on Pelor's Hope to see her old friend Titus Harper. A member of the royal guard, a minotaur by the name of Merendithas Bearcharger prevents her entry, unless she gives him "Shiny Rounds", which turns out to be money. She pays him and he leads her in to see Harper. He is now King! Having married the High-Elf Lady Ashayara Dayne of Galanthis, he has taken his place as the ruler of Pelor's Hope, and together they have 5 children, most of whom he named after his old family, or Zird. His eldest child is named Thom. Harper tells Jaela that he and Ashayara Dayne hate each other, and she is currently pregnant. Also, his sister Adira Harper has gone missing, and has recruited people to search for her.

Harper asks Jaela what she is doing here, and she admits that she wants to attend Aludra's wedding. Harper is apprehensive, sensing that she is going to start some shit, but, as long as she promises to be on her best behavior, he agrees to bring her along as his "plus one". Ashayara Dayne is not going. They board their familiar ship, the Chum Guzzler (with it's name boarded up), and set sail, bringing Bearcharger and a human fighter named Nyx (so that Jennifer Cheek had something to do). Along the way, they receive a message from Bucky asking them to stop by a city called Calsten to pick up a bard named Jett Razor. Also, the Pegasus named Princess Ivy Bluemoon that Jaela got as a reward for giving up Blood Drinker is with them. She has Pegasus diabetes, and needs regular insulin shots, but I digress.

On the sea, the Chum Guzzler is attacked by a beholder, and Bearcharger is killed. Nyx bests the beholder, punching it into mist. Jaela attempts to cast *Revivify* on Bearcharger, and it is unsuccessful. The minotaur gives a dying speech, claiming that Harper is his father, because of that one time he "fucked a cow", which Harper denies. Jaela accidentally revives a demon inhabiting his body, which flies off. They chase it to a nearby island full of talking monkeys, who it is attacking. Harper finally takes down the demon but not before one of the monkeys joins the fight.

He is Bananas Foster, a 503-year-old apeling who is a master of deception and chicanery. He claims to know Harper, that he was that guy who "fucked a cow," which Harper again denies. He also claims to be mortal enemies with Pyre of Mastwick. He asks to accompany them to Deephome, but they refuse, leaving him behind. Through subterfuge and having insanely good persuasion and deception stats, he is able to get onto the ship, disguising himself as various crew members. There is a funeral service for Bearcharger, and Tad, a fallen Chum Guzzler crew member, and the ape folk mention that they know Abu, who the party met a long time ago. Bananas disguises himself as Tad, which offends the rest of them, and is made to go down and fetch bananas for dinner. Unfortunately for Bananas and the audience, he is unable to survive the strain of carrying a crate of bananas up a ladder, and falls to his death. Jaela refuses to revivify him, and Nyx takes his skin.

Eventually the ship makes it to Calsten and finds the anachronistic musician Jett Razor playing at a bar. They are able to convince him to play at the wedding, and bring him along, after getting into a bit of a scrape with the locals. As they board the boat and leave, a man in a jackal mask shoots a poisoned dart at Jett, nearly killing him, but he is saved by Jaela. A note on the dart says to stay out of Deephome. They ignore this. Meanwhile in Deephome, Bucky is attacked in the night by another figure, but Aludra is able to kill the man and save him. He has strange currency on him that she hasn't seen before.

The Chum Guzzler crew reach Deephome, and begin to formulate a plan. Harper will casts *Seeming* on Jaela to make her look like his wife Ashayara Dayne to get her in. This works, and they are granted entry to Deephome, and meet Aludra again for the first time in a long time. They all go speak in private, and Harper removes the spell, so Jaela and Aludra can talk. It is revealed that after the Demon Apocalypse was ended, she turned her back on Erathis who wanted to call her back. She didn't want to go because of Aludra but then she felt that it should have been her to sacrifice herself and close the portal, so she felt like a failure, and left to do some soul searching. She then teamed up with the Raven Queen. Aludra and Jaela kiss, before the former tells the latter that she has a duty now, and Jaela can't just show up and expect everything to return to normal. She needs time to think. Everyone goes off their own way (although Aludra sneaks into Jaela's room and they share the night), and the next morning, a guard announces that Baldur Oakback has been murdered!

The Oakbacks are furious, and demand retribution. The party investigates, and learns that Baldur was aged exponentially, not allowing him to be revivified. He also has the symbol of Erathis carved into his chest, leading everyone to believe that Jaela was the culprit. They learn of another body similarly aged to death in the mining district, so they go there. This body has only a single stab wound. They determine that the only place the murderer could have fled to is the Underdark, so they head down there. Down in the tunnels, Jett Razor reveals that he is actually a changeling, able to transform his shape at will. They find a Kua-toa named Kipper who is not the killer, but he does tell them of a man in a rat mask, which they force him to lead them to. They find the mask before a drider cocoon, and inside is the unconscious body of the murder. Jaela wakes him up and they find more of the strange coins along with an unusual dagger. The man asks "Soloni why have you forsaken us?," and out "For Nareev" before killing himself with the strange dagger, which instantly ages him many years before he dies.

The party runs into Luccan, who is also searching for animal masked assasin. He has with him the mouse Wiggins, henceforth known as the traitor Wiggins. Nyx decides to join Luccan, and the two parties part ways. Our gang is then promptly eaten by a giant purple worm. Inside which, they meet a colony of mushroom people, and Old Man Weck, who was on his way to the wedding when he got swallowed by the worm. Hey, it happens. He reveals his true motives in secret: to deliver a message to Harper that someone or something is stealing magic from Ashayara Dayne's home of Galanthis, and it is shrinking! Harper drafts an official statement that he believes and supports Aludra's claim to her and Jaela's innocence, and then creates a teleportation circle to get them all out of the worm and into Pelor's Hope. They meet up with Ashayara Dayne, and there are many introductions, then they head on over the White Spire in Pelor's Hope. White Spires have the ability to teleport between each other, but there isn't one in Galanthis, so they go back to Deephome, to retrieve Bucky, whom they left. The head of the White Spire, Watson Copperfield, enlists Erynn Colleen and Marlamin Windlore to accompany them.

They teleport into Deephome to find it is at war. Colleen and Windlore are both killed instantly, and there is a long fight between Oakbacks and Wyrmsbanes. After things die down a bit, Ros teleports to their location and tells Harper that she has found Longcryer, the sorcerer who tortured and trained him. Jaela Revivifies Colleen and Windlore, the fight subsides, and Aludra meets with her family and the other dwarves. They all bend before her and swear her the Queen of the Dwarves! There is much revelry, and then the party sleeps for the night in a place called the Jerk Yert, a magically created Room of Requirement sort of thing that Jett can create for eight hours. The next morning, Aludra meets with the Oakbacks, who have captured Bucky, and have a noose around his neck.

There is a tense standoff, but the party springs on the Oakbacks, causing them to release the lever to hang Bucky, but Harper breaks the rope, so he falls to the ground. Jett magically compels the Dwarf who would have been their trial-by-combat champion to scream incessantly for one year or until he dies. Aludra runs to Bucky and they reconnect.

With Thorack Oakback being the only remaining opposition, they spare him, under the condition that they all step into a *Zone of Truth* so that Jaela can prove her innocence. He agrees, and Jett casts the spell, releasing the champion from his screaming. Aludra, Harper, Jaela, Thorack and some other Oakbacks enter the Zone and the party tells them what they know of the masked assassins. This seems to convince him, and Aludra suggest forming a special council of the six ruling Dwarven families, and a representative from Pelor's Hope. Satisfied, they all leave the Zone of Truth and set up the plans for the future.

With the chaos ended, and threat of war subsided, the party thinks of what to do next. Harper tells them all that he is going after Longcryer, and everything else can wait, the others can come with him if they want. One by one they all agree to join him. They take the tram out of Deephome, the griffons arrive, and Harper, Aludra, Jaela, Jett, Ros, Bucky, Erynn Colleen, and Marlamin Windlore fly off towards the east.

**Chapter 7**