21/04/2020 - Social Shenanigans, Halfling Hardship and Rumours of Revolution

## **TL;DR**

* Spent an evening of frivolity with Horden and a couple of other officials, getting access to horses for the expedition
* On the ride out of town encountered a slum occupied by native halflings who recommended that the group leave as soon as possible because the island is a terrible place
* Traveled along the coast and followed the river up a valley, towards into the mountains
* Heard curious throaty music as night began to fall and most of the group crossed the river to find the source
* Came across a camp containing a halfling bard who was vehemently opposed to the ATC and keen for allies

## **Horden's Hoedown**

Having returned to the ship and collected those who wished to join in an evening of merriment, the group entered Horden’s spacious office where the evening’s proceedings were to begin. They were adorned in the garb suitable to the occasion and felt jolly at the unexpectedly warm welcome to the island. Across the office as they entered were Horden, a scholarly-looking high elf strolling about with hands clasped behind his slender form, and a female dwarf with a great big bushy beard. They were quickly offered drinks by the various servants who were of a similarly indecipherable heritage as others they had encountered.

No sooner had Rocky declared that he was keen for ale than Horden clicked her fingers and he was presented with a selection of tankards brimming with the finest beverages. Downing one, he chucked the others to Elyan  who followed suit to the tune of ‘weeee like to drink with Elyan …’. With empty tankards in hand, Elyan began to do what he does best - perform. As everyone watched, he began whipping all three tankards up into the air in graceful cycles before chucking one to Rocky , who eagerly got involved. Unfortunately, he was somewhat less experienced at the ol' tankard juggle and began fumbling them about. Nonetheless, what he lacked in grace, Elyan more than made up for with his natural agility. Between them they create a dynamic dual performance, one ‘intentionally’ clumsy and fumbling and the other catlike in his elegance, that greatly entertained all present.

Khrom  then suggested that they repeat the performance with blades. At Rocky's  eager agreement, and the general egging on from Blagden  and the dwarf, Kelda primed herself for the healing magic that would inevitably be required. Scribbulus had very much enjoyed the initial performance but furrowed his brow at the inclusion of weapons and leant a touch of magical guidance to the grinning goliath. Naturally, Rocky  pulled it out of the bag with sheer enthusiasm and managed to avoid wounding himself or anyone else in the process. At this the dwarf began clapping and laughing and even the other two, more haughty in nature, were impressed in spite of themselves. “Juggle the halfling!”, chimed in the dwarf, clearly a big fan of the circus. Both Scribbulus  and Blagden  were happy to get involved and, held in Rocky’s  broad palms, were launched into the air over the top of one another. Scribbulus  once more guided Rocky  with a little dose of magical enhancement and Blagden  showed off with a flip at the zenith of each arc. The crowd of officials, the rest of the party and even the servants went wild at this epic climax to the performance and clapped them into a flamboyant finish.

With the ice utterly smashed by this display of raw skill by the party’s most talented specimens, an evening of chatting and merry consumption ensued. Khrom discovered that the previous expedition from the guild had made quite an impression. Horden seemed amused as she told how they’d fled after supposedly being attacked by a ‘witch’ - a woman dressed in rags casting spells, so they said. Kelda mentioned that it didn’t sound like any witch she knew, which piqued Tamsin’s  interest. Pursuing this, Tamsin  found out that Kelda had never formally studied magic but was more of a nature-based, ‘herb witch'.

Blagden  got a little bored with mere chatter and decided to show Horden a magic trick. Tamsin  introduced him formally and everyone gathered around as he stood before Horden. ‘I am an expert magician Mrs Heron lady. Have you got a gold coin? I can persuade it that it wants to go from you to me!’. ‘If you rob me child, I will throw you in the dungeon’, she responded drily but with a smile, drawing the coin out. Seeing the coin materialise, Blagden  began to focus. He extended the grasp of his invisible mage hand towards the coin while speaking directly into Horden’s mind. ‘Hi coin it’s me Blagden , leave the lady's stupid fat hand. She will spend you on a smelly cabbage, I will make you the pride and joy of my collection’. At that, the invisible mage hand grabbed for the coin and made it begin to judder over towards him. Despite her calm demeanour she couldn’t help but be drawn into his compelling performance and exclaimed ‘Ooh, child!’, with a laugh. ‘Sorry I would give it back but it’s decided it wants to be with me so it’s out of my hands’, Blagden intoned with his best honest face.

Over the course of the evening, each of the officials present was introduced to the group. The dwarf was the commander of the island’s guard contingent, and was by that point doing her best to get utterly wasted, while the high elf, somewhat more restrained in his consumption, was the religious figure-head on the island. Tamsin noted that the elf’s robes displayed the symbols for each of the gods of the Triad  - the major deities of the Trifecta. It turned out that each of the officials was from a different island in the Trifecta, the dwarf originating from Taehua, like Tamsin herself. As the evening drew to a close, Horden hooked them up with her seal to present at the stables, giving them access to whatever horses they required for 6 days. Rocky  twisted her arm to get a night off the ship in a comfy bed, and she made an exception to their ship-confinement rule for the charming goliath.

## **SlumKhrom Wilburnaire**

Everyone woke up reasonably early despite the evening’s beveraging, eager to make a start on their journey. After breakfast they reconvened in the central courtyard of Branxom and made their way to the stables. Upon their arrival, they were greeted by a familiar face. ‘Papers, I need papers’, Konn stated bluntly, standing in front of the largest pile of oats anyone had ever seen. Blagden immediately made his way to this absolute hoard. Thankfully, Konn was distracted by the sudden emergence of Wilbur’s considerable head in the doorway, and Blagden  made it away unnoticed with a hefty haul.

With Horden’s seal presented, Konn was satisfied and set about getting them suitable mounts. Khrom was allocated the largest draft horse that could be found (‘Big horse for big man!’), while Elyan scoped out the one with the shiniest coat and immediately mounted his handsome steed, beginning a little prance. Blagden  tried to invoke kharma for Elyan's  hubris and gave the horse a rump-slap with his mage hand. Sadly, it was far too well behaved. Tamsin found a swift grey and pulled Blagden  onto the saddle with her, Kunai also scoped one out for speed, and Kelda found a chestnut mare with a white spot on her nose. At that, Scribbulus  clambered up onto Wilbur’s spacious back and they were off.

For the first few minutes everyone was entertained by Kelda communicating with Khrom’s horse, whom he wished to get to know. She reported that the horse’s name was Baxter, and that he thought of himself as a strong horse in both mind and body. However, as they passed out of the clearly well to-do town, all noted an area of great deprivation occupied by despondent halflings outside of the walls. Scribbulus  immediately took Wilbur over there and the others followed. People began to scramble away into their homes at the sight of a group of mounted strangers led by a hulking dinosaur - Scribbulus’s cheerful greeting of ‘hellooooo’ did little to calm their fearful reaction. To be closer to their level, Scribbulus  and Khrom dismounted and managed to hail a couple of the halflings before they all escaped indoors. It was revealed to them that this community and others lived out a very poverty-stricken existence under the heel of the trade corporation, and had done for years; their roaming sheriffs brutally enforced the law and quashed any resistance. There were some pockets of resistance fighters in the valleys and forests about the island, possibly in Rocksend and Spittal, but little organisation. Khrom handed out his rations while Scribbulus  aimed to give them comfort for at least one day with a selection of goodberries. The two were humbled by the scale of their gratefulness.

## **Viva la Revolution**

Revolution was the topic of conversation for the first major leg of the journey along the sea front, towards the river mouth. Kunai  argued that the pragmatic solution was not to start a war, and that it was impossible to fight every single wrong you come across. Tamsin agreed, and said that so many places were as miserable or worse than this. Khrom pushed the cause, making the case that he always feels like he’s done something worthwhile if he can help just someone to have a better life. Others raised the issue that, all else aside, sparking a rebellion against the powerful corporation while representing the guild could have catastrophic implications. Through all of this, Scribbulus  rode off ahead, shaken by the misery he had seen yet unable to contemplate that violence was the only answer. Khrom eventually cantered up alongside Wilbur and asked how he was doing. They agreed that, if nothing else, they had already made a tiny difference and before they left they must make a larger one.

To find out more and pass the time, Khrom then began to chat with Baxter by himself after a few minutes performing a small ritual. Baxter filled him on about all sorts of stories about life in Branxom and about Konn. ‘Is life happy here?’, Khrom  asked him. ‘In the town, life good for 2 legs and horses’, Baxter responded. Then, a little more gossiping ensued. 'That horse is a strumpet!' Baxter snorted, nodding towards Elyan’s  elegant mount. ’Sounds like me!’, the bard retorted upon Khrom  informing him of this.

## **Just Around The River Bend**

It was midday before the group reached the mouth of the river, and they spent little time there before continuing along. The mouth itself was a flurry of activity, boats constantly moving back and forth and ATC workers loading and unloading equipment and ore. As they began to climb into the valleys of the island it wasn’t long before this hustle and bustle was a distant din in the otherwise peaceful environment. As evening began to fall they were high enough to be able to take in the breathtaking beauty of the island at various points when the forest thinned. Looking upwards and to the east, they could see the towering and snow-capped peaks yet to be explored, while the west featured gentler slopes trailing down northwards back towards the river mouth.

It was while admiring the panoramas from one such vantage point that Kelda’s keen hearing began to pick up on a deep and mystical music. As she led them westwards, in the direction of the sounds, others began to detect it too and could pick out a combination of acoustics and a much more resonant, throaty humanoid component. Khrom  described it eloquently as ‘if you’d been stabbed in the throat and were trying to speak’. Kunai crept to the head of the group and, assisted by the birds-eye view of Tamsin’s raven, Ellie, quickly isolated the source. Unfortunately, it was the other side of the river. Blagden argued that crossing was stupid when they were already on the right side to climb the mountains, but a vote ultimately made the decision that they would go over there. Curiosity had been sparked among the group.

Kunai  scoped out the part of the river with the slowest flow and, while everyone else was debating how to get across, nimbly dived in and popped up on the other side within a few seconds. Tamsin decided to follow and did so successfully, though with slightly more difficulty than the wiry reptilian. Kelda discovered that the horses did not back themselves to make it across, confirmed by a ’Nayyy’. Scribbulus , Wilbur and Ash offered to remain behind to protect the mounts. Everyone seemed to ignore Scribbulus’s repeated insistence that Wilbur could simply ferry them across and instead hatched a plan to get across. Elyan  attached Khrom’s  grappling hook to his crossbow and, after finally sighting a tree in the forest, made his shot. The hook found satisfying purchase on the first attempt and they all used the rope to guide themselves across.

While this was going on, Tamsin took the opportunity to speak with Kunai .

‘Hey, Lizard’

‘Yes, human’

'Blagden  likes you. He’s not got many people he likes so be good to him.’

'I’ve been good to him since I met him. I respect him a lot for his abilities though he can be rough around the edges. It would be good to know more of you - you have remained an enigma since you were introduced. It would be good to know more about the nature of your…abilities’

'Theres not to much to tell, maybe later.'

She pulled out her quarterstaff and lit up the tip.

'There, party trick.'

'I appreciate the effort.'

'Just keep him safe.'

'I will keep us all safe if possible. Thats why I’m not keen to start a war while we’re here. I get the impression that you’re also someone who likes to be in and out without a trace.’

They finished their conversation as the others made it across and made their way deeper into the shadowed woods, now all but totally shrouded in darkness.

## **Digging up a Coup**

It was evident from the volume of the musical gurgling and the flicker of firelight through the brush when the source of the noise was close. Beyond the edge of the clearing, the animated oranges cast by the fire lit up a scattered circle of tents and one figure in particular sat atop a boulder. Kunai , Blagden and Elyan  skirted the camp, though the latter two crunched painfully through the busy forest floor as they traversed it. Kunai  grimaced and continued his ghostly passage. Khrom  led the way directly towards the clearing while Kelda and Tamsin followed with the quarterstaff still lit.

The cacophony halted as the halfling saw them, his rapid cello playing cello coming to an immediate pause. ‘Who are you? Are you with them?’, he asked, looking concerned. ‘Depends who they are - if you mean ATC  then no, I don’t like them at all’, Khrom  replied, doing his best friendly face. A wave of relief washed over the halfling, though the distinct snapping of twigs behind the camp made his eyes narrow once more. 'And who are your friends?’, he gestured to the pitch black tree-line where Elyan  and Blagden were creeping. Seeing the game was up and to deflect attention from Kunai  they stepped out sheepishly. Tamsin messaged directly into Khrom’s  mind to ask if it was safe, which completely dumfounded him for a brief moment before he politely answered ‘yes’ out loud. Her and Kelda entered the camp.

The halfling introduced himself as ‘Finnian' and revealed that he knew of the previous group from the guild, and like everyone else seemed to be amused by them. Nonetheless, he wasn’t aware of any ‘magic sticks’ around and asked if they'd be doing any digging. Tamsin put to him that they probably wouldn't be, and Khrom  suggested that the only thing they might be keen to dig up was a coup. Finnian was enlivened by this suggestion. Under questioning, he made it clear that while he was not a fighter in the traditional sense, he used his instruments and his words where necessary. Elyan  asked if he considered himself a bard and the grinning halfling confirmed that they must have heard his music on the way up, which Ellie immediately began to mimic.

Khrom  then asked him for a private word. This was achieved somewhat successfully by Khrom  lying down and sticking his head inside one of the tents after Finnian scrambled inside. Khrom  explained to him the journey they’d had on the island thus far, and how they’d been struck by the poverty and hardship among the halflings. Finnian was overcome by how fortuitous it was that there might be people from off the island keen to ally themselves with the halflings against the ATC , but still thankful for it.