Aerois - Episode 8: Cattle Rustlers

Katie Morrison as Aila

 Kim Richards as Nova V'ger

Rhiannon Frost as Sentry

 Tom Hazell as Qillek Ad Khollar

**Cattle Rustlers** is the 8th episode of the Aerois Campaign. It was broadcast live on both the the Yogscast Twitch channel and highrollersdnd Twitch channel on 2nd September 2018 from 5PM to 8PM BST.

*Something strange is happening with Sentry, and Lucius razes the steaks!*

## **Summary**

### **Announcements**

* Mark welcomes everyone and introduces the players: everyone is back this week.
* There will be some breaks coming up while people are away.
* Today's sponsors are D&D Beyond and Brilliant.
* HR will be doing a new 10-part mini-series in collaboration with Wizards of the Coast and Idle Champions. It will be streamed on Mondays at 6pm BST on HR and DND Twitch channels. The new series is A Rogue's Gambit - a Mission Impossible/James Bond style adventure that uses parts of the new module, Dragon Heist.
* HR is collaborating with Idle Champions for this mini-series. There will be rewards given in-game during the stream, and the more people who play the game, the more dice the players will get.
* New merch - Aerois shirt, plastic dice set, hoodies, mugs, and more. Tote bags coming soon.
* Please email all fan art to highrollersdnd@gmail.com.

### **Recap**

"*At the very start of this campaign, the party were aboard a skyship called the Sparrowblade, which crashed into a dangerous part of the Lowlands called the Bitterwood. The party met two acolytes of the goddess Siaska, who were travelling with a young girl called Valla. Also above the airship was a Dwarven merchant called Arval Dagos. When the ship crashed, Arval was injured, and after several encounters with local Wild Elves the party eventually made their way to a town called Rosehall, about a week's travel north. In Rosehall, the party found themselves lodgings whilst their companions had to stay out in the barn, as they had lost their coin in the crash. They had set to finding the funds to heal Arval's injuries, and so had gone to explore a large chasm called Dwalinden in search of treasure, as well as possible information about the mysterious race known as the Guardians. Descending into the chasm, Qillek fell after the rope they used to climb down broke free, leaving them stranded. Down in the depths, they discovered a trio of buildings that had remained intact despite the destruction, but they were attacked by ghoulish creatures as well as a feral Guardian that seemed to have some connection to the local smith. They found a few secure metal containers, one of which contained a magical hammer as well as some quality steel ingots and a set of wyvern hide. Clearing out more of the ghouls, the party still have a few buildings to clear, but must wait for the following day for Nova to regain her ability to levitate to get them out of the chasm.*"
### **Part 1**

*The darkness of Dwalinden is getting to us, and now something strange is happening to Sentry!*

The putrid smell of rot and death hovers in the air around the chasm after battling and defeating the ghouls. The party is battered and bruised after their fight, and Lucius collapses dramatically to the ground, worn out: the rest encourage him to keep moving so that they can search the workhouse that they have just emptied of ghouls. As they approach the building, the smell of death becomes overpowering – Quill casts Gust to disperse some of the odour. Inside the longhouse, there are four bodies in varying states of decay – one is essentially just goo, and probably months old, another is much fresher, and badly bloated. Most bodies have parts missing, bite marks are evident, and they have clearly been torn apart.

Lucius sends his Dancing Lights around the room, and they see a decrepit workhouse with rotting benches and artisan’s tools. They do see some things that might be of use: a backpack with a lantern and a shovel sticking out of it, and arrow tips are evident which sit in a quiver, partially buried in a pile of bodies.

Between them, Aila and Nova manage to find 2 climber’s kits, three torches, a lantern, a crowbar, a shovel, a longbow, 20 arrows in a leather quiver, two scimitars with animal bone on the hilts, engraved and bound in leather (found on the body of a Wild Elf with no tartan), a very shiny dagger in the Elf’s belt that is incredibly light and very well made. Nova begins to get a stinging feeling in her hands after digging through the dead bodies.

Sentry sends echo down to the last building, called Ergot’s Emporium: the door is five feet high, and there are the same small arrow-slit windows that they saw at the blacksmith’s building. Inside, the shelves are cut into the stone of the wall itself. There is debris from falling stone, rotten wood and linens, and there does not appear to be anything of interest or value around.

Quill does a ritual to cast Detect Magic: aside from what they had already identified as magical items, Nova asks about the dagger, which Quill and Lucius recognise as aetherium alloy – steel which has been infused with aetherium to make it lighter, stronger, and tougher. The dagger is not magical, but is uncannily accurate (+1 to hit, but no extra damage). Because of its weight properties, aetherium alloy is of great benefit to medium armour as it allows the wearer to use more of their natural agility to defend oneself. Lucius believes that the dagger itself is worth 300 gold.

Quill notices that part of the stone wall near the floor behind the counter is a hidden compartment: it contains a safe that his Detect Magic cannot penetrate. They look around for a key but cannot find one. Sentry decides to try to use her heat beam to open the safe: she fires it, and it comes out larger than expected – it blasts off a chunk of stone and melts off the side of the safe. Inside, Aila finds a tiny wooden chest (the safe must have been airtight, because the chest is intact) containing 30 gold of pre-Sundering coins, a silver pocket watch with a beautiful Dwarven design worth 50 gold, and a strange flat metal disk with a crystalline top inscribed with arcane runes. There is illusion magic associated with the latter, and it is possible that it is able to record and display an image.

They take a rest with Aila taking first watch – she thinks she can hear the dull cacophony of thunder far in the distance and it resonates within her. While Sentry is powered down, she experiences flashes of memory that may have been triggered by encountering the feral guardian – she almost gets a message from its matrix: FIND THE PRIME. When she wakes up, she finds that she has scratched the same message deep into the stone beside her.

Nova dreams a familiar dream…

> *She is in a dark corridor with green lines all around it, around metal frameworks, a long slender dark corridor. At the end appears to be a light – Tiangong hovers in place in the middle of the greenish light that all other lights seem to feed into. It is reminiscent of the shuttle where she first found him. As she approaches, the lights begin to pulse and glow. She feels another sense – POWER… GIVE ME POWER. She senses the magical aura of the hammer that the party recovered and the need for Tiangong to feed.*
>
>

Sentry wants to go back to the dead forge guardian because she thinks that he may have some answers: she does so and finds that it is just lifeless, as is its echo which lies beside it. She begins to pull the guardian apart to try to access its matrix: eventually she gets to its solid, blackened crystal core. The crystal is cracked and dented, and within it is a horrid miasma like a series of dark veins or tree roots within the crystal itself. She reaches in to grab the matrix, and touching it triggers a brief memory:

> *She sees another guardian’s face. It is in the same chasm she is in now, standing outside the blacksmith’s shop. A guardian, made from resplendent gold metal with luminous and glowing wings of energy, descends from the sky, and she (as the feral guardian used to be) looks up to watch. The new guardian has a large circular disc behind its head and carries with it a long spear carved with a brilliantly shiny aetherium metal tip. At first wary, she listens to the new guardian speak in a language she does not understand, then hears it say, “We’ll find a way. We must find the Prime”. She sees the new guardian as a sign – as a saviour.*
>
>

Sentry does not return over the four hours of Lucius’ watch, so he wakes the rest of the party who are alarmed. Quill runs off to look for her and sees her in front of the dismembered body of the feral guardian; he pushes her back and asks her what is going on. Sentry is beside herself, rambling senselessly on about having to “find the prime”. She tells them of her vision. Aila touches the matrix of the dead guardian and its matrix, and nothing happens. Lucius touches the blackened crystal matrix:

> *It is like nothing that he has felt before. In directly touching the matrix, he immediately feels an overwhelming sensation of mad thoughts, garbled information and words that don’t mean anything spring to mind. He hears the word “Prime” but knows immediately that he must let go or his mind will be overwhelmed by its madness.*
>
>

As they are discussing what they have found, a gentle light begins to filter into the chasm – the morning sun has risen. Nova casts Levitate on Aila who is then able to attach the rope to the walls of the chasm. Quill tries to climb up but cannot climb up with his one arm: Aila goes back down to get him and helps him climb to the top. The rest climb up and are exhausted by the time they reach the top; Nova slips part way up the rope and drops some items back down into the chasm (iron ore, inkwell, quills, lanterns, a shovel, and rations). Lucius comes up last and also slips, dropping mostly coins behind him into the gloom.

### **Part 2**

*Out of the dangerous Dwalinden, Lucius discovers a much greater threat in the farmlands of Rosehall...*

It is a crisp, cold morning that greets them at the top of the chasm: the rolling hills of Suvonna, the lands south of Rosehall stretch out before them, and the town is still about a day’s travel to the north. Nova and Lucius are exhausted, so travelling takes longer than normal. As they travel, Nova keeps herself busy by discussing the possibility of making a counterbalance or new wing to help Quill fly again – she thinks that with research and experiments, she may be able to fashion something out of leather and feathers. Quill is reluctant, saying that he feels that he must have lost his wing for a reason, and that he is not sure why he didn’t die when it happened – Nova wants to know how it happened.

Quill relates his story: he is from a guild of aarakocra messengers that fly all over Aerois and was one of their elite members. He was sent on a mission that separated the expert fliers from the rest in the Valley of Storms on the continent of Voksar. (The storm there is a mystical storm that never dissipates and remains in place. There are a lot of rumours of what has caused it, most of them are tied to the god H’esper, while others relate to an ancient blue dragon that came down with the dragonborn from the Dark Beyond. There is apparently a temple hidden in the mountain at the end of the mountain if you can get through the valley – only the aarakocra know the truth about this and they don’t say anything.) Normally the aarakocra fly in and out having taken precautions not to get hit by the storm - for a reason he does not know, Quill got hit by the lightning and fell to the lowlands. He thinks he should have died but woke up in the lowlands after seeing what he thinks was H’esper. It was after this that he suddenly had the ability to do magic, and shortly after this that he found Sentry.

Lucius goes in for a hug with the “poor birdie”. Nova asks if he wants his wing back: Quill tells her that he does not… yet. She asks if he would eventually like it back since it will take time to research – he is prepared to let her research it but wants her not to be disappointed if he later turns down the offer. Aila is concerned that her affinity with lightning must be uncomfortable for Quill given what she has just heard about his history: she does not know why she can produce lightning but is trying to work it out. Aila says that she left her clan recently when she started demonstrating this power and began looking for answers: the clan that she left had adopted her after she was abandoned and raised her from a child; none of the wild elves from her adoptive clan had anything more than the usual magic abilities. Once she started manifesting her abilities with lightning, they gave her a scrap of tartan from her “real” clan, but she does not know who that is or whether they even exist anymore.

They travel for a day and get about halfway to Rosehall because of Nova and Lucius being so exhausted. They make camp in a small valley and get prepared for a long rest: Nova examines the Glamour Disc that they have found and works out that it can store an image of a medium-sized creature or object and project it if activated (see trivia for more information).

Lucius takes first watch and hears a noise in the second hour that he has never heard before – it is a distorted moan and the jangle of chains or bells. He wakes the rest of the party and tells them that he can hear the movement of bodies nearby: Lucius tells them that they are about to be attacked by a zombie with chains on its head. The others hear the lowing of a cow and a cow bell and say that they are going to bed; Lucius does not know what a cow is when they identify it to him. Nova tells Lucius to go and milk it, but Quill jokingly tells him to attack them and gives him Bardic Inspiration: Lucius sneaks up on the cows seeing three of the black and white creatures over the hill.

Lucius sees one of the cows lean down to eat some grass… “Satanic creature!” he whispers as he flings an ice knife at it. All three cows take damage as the ice knife explodes, but one particularly dextrous cow rolls out of the way and moos. “Daddy!” cries Lucius: the first cow is killed by the ice knife and is covered in frost. The other two still live, one of them bleeding heavily. “***Take the flames of the elves!***” screams Lucius as he firebolts the bleeding cow and incinerates its furry body – “***Begone, creature of undeath!***” rebukes Lucius. The last cow flees in terror and bolts toward a distant field in abject terror. Lucius wipes his clothing down, clicks his fingers and strides back to the camp. “I did it, I did it! They’re all dead!” he tells them, “It was terrifying”.

“You’re welcome, everybody,” says Lucius to the group, “I’m a true hero, but I couldn’t have done it without your moral inspiration”. “HOW HAVE YOU NEVER SEEN A COW BEFORE?” asks an incredulous Quill. “I’m glad I haven’t,” replies Lucius, “evil creatures”. Nova asks Lucius if he has drunk milk, worn or used leather items or eaten steak – he replies in the affirmative, so she asks him where he thinks those items come from. “From tradesmen and whatnot,” is his response, “from some sort of animal”. Nova advises him that the tradesmen deal with farmers who own the cows – the cows that are then turned into steak… “We eat ***zombie*** meat?” asks a disturbed Lucius. They explain to him that a cow is not a zombie, but a normal lowland creature that is made into food. Lucius is disturbed that not one of them stopped him slaughtering food. “HOW HAVE YOU NEVER SEEN A COW BEFORE? repeats Quill. Lucius faints briefly: when he comes to, he feels terrible about slaughtering the cows. He says that he saw some of the cows chewing on the earth itself which he assumed was some sort of threat like “I’m going to eat your skin”. He is now really concerned that they let him do this thing: Lucius thought he was forming a kinship with them all, but they let him slaughter some ‘cowies’. Aila is impressed that he doesn’t know what they are but that he has already given them a nickname – Lucius says he knows them inside out now, because he blew one up. Quill tells Lucius that he can apologise to the cow that escaped if he sees it again; Lucius is perplexed as to why they are eaten if they speak common and says that it is barbaric. Quill tells him (straight-faced) that the cows tell people that they want to be eaten – Lucius thinks this is bizarre and says that he will never understand lowland life. They move camp for the remainder of the night and finish their long rest, proceeding to Rosehall in the morning.

The Harvest Guard wave them through the gate. They make their way back to the Dalegeld Company provision store and see Maximillian who welcomes them back. Nova shows him the dagger and asks for 400 gold – he gives them a counteroffer of 150 gold. When Nova says that they should take it to Daysa, he ups his offer to 200 gold. He offers them 35 gold for the silver watch, which they decline. Quill asks about the pearls in the cabinet – he will sell them one for 100 gold. Nova notices that her hands are somewhat inflamed.

They decide that they will see Daysa and Navill to see what they will offer instead. Daysa is busy dealing with two men who are trying to threaten her: they are “Brookstone’s boys”. A few weeks ago, Brett Brookstone sold her and a few other merchants some poor-quality iron that was of no use; she went to the Field Warden who managed to get Brookstone to refund the merchants and craftsmen. Brookstone keeps sending his “boys” around to try to get his money back and threatening them, which Daysa does not appreciate. They show Daysa the aetherium dagger, she says that she only has 150 gold in coin, but that it is worth 250-275 gold and she is willing to trade. She recommends taking the spear tip to Navill for identification.

Aila asks if Daysa can upgrade her hammer in any way. Daysa says that it needs to be counter-balanced and shows Aila on the pommel where it has been sheared off leaving the head a very heavy, unbalanced item. She offers to trade the dagger to fix up Aila’s hammer, but they reluctantly decline, needing the money for Arval’s leg repair fund.

Finally, they go to Navill’s Quills and Quandaries: it is a miserable-looking, half-squat, domed building on the very corner of town. There is no sign, but they get directions from locals. The windows have thick black drapes on the inside, the roof is patchy and leaking, and the outside is overgrown with weeds and unwatered pot plants – it is a complete mess. When they go to open the door, it is locked.

Nova needs new writing gear, because she dropped all of hers into the chasm on the way out. Aila looks through the windows and sees a shape moving around inside, so knocks on the door and is met with a cranky sounding “who’s there?” When she says they are potential customers, the high-pitched, irritated voice calls for “Richard” to get the door which opens to them – there is a vaguely humanoid shape as if the air has come alive in the doorway. Aila goes to pat Richard to thank him, but her hand goes through the apparition: it is an Unseen Servant.

They step into the shop which is a hoarder’s hell: scrolls, books and garbage are piled everywhere. There is a large leather armchair full of holes with a stoat running along the top, and in it sits an old gnome with a pipe in his mouth and uncontrolled curly black hair. His dark goatee is long and thin like a dagger, he wears many layers of rough, shoddy-looking robes and coats, and one of his boots has a big toe sticking out of it. He glares at them and asks, “WHAT???”

Navill is a cranky old man: he has moved to Rosehall for peace and quiet and sees this visit by the party as an intrusion. He becomes more interested when Nova asks him to identify the spear tip that they had found. Richard passes him the spear tip, he rummages around in his multiple layers and their pockets for a pearl, puts it in his mouth and casts the spell. There is a glow that emanates from within his mouth. He takes the pearl from his mouth and pockets it again, “Very interesting,” he says, “this was once part of an old Elven relic called Blackthorn”. He pulls out an old tome and tells them that the spear used to belong to an old clan of elves when they descended from the skycities (before they became wild elves). Blackthorn was said to have powers over the environment around vines and plants: the spear tip is missing its haft, and it would be much more potent if the two halves could be combined. The tip itself can cast a number of spells per day: Thorn Whip, Spike Growth and Entanglement, all druidic magic. He then wants 100 gold (reducing it to 50 gold) for the identification.

They offer to sell the spear tip to him, and he offers them 1,500 gold (and a scholar’s kit). He sends Richard to get the money (in coins and gems). Nova also wants to buy a pearl, and Navill offers her the one he just used – Richard is sent to clean it up. Navill is not interested in purchasing the dagger, and he does not sell potions. Quill shows him the blacksmith’s hammer, which he offers to identify for free (out of curiosity) if he can borrow the pearl he has just given to Nova. It goes back in his mouth, then back to Richard for cleaning again. He tells them that the blacksmith’s hammer belonged to a Dwarven smith called Gadwyn. It is magically enchanted to make it better able to hit what you need it to hit as well as doing more damage. It can cast the Mending cantrip a number of times per day as well as the spell Heat Metal. It is moderately enchanted and is a light weapon.

Navill offers to buy their guardian, saying that there would be a noble in Goldthrone who would pay 20,000 gold for a living guardian. They decline the offer for Sentry but agree to selling the spear tip in exchange for 15,000 gold, the pearl, a scholar’s kit and the two identifications that had been done. “Well,” he says, “if our business is done, fuck off!” The door is slammed behind them by Richard at Navill’s insistence.

## **YouTube Timestamps**

00:00 - Episode Start
09:05 - Intro
11:11 - Part 1
19:45 - Equipment loot
30:20 - Aetherium dagger
46:00 - Safe loot
54:30 - Alia on watch & inner storms
55:12 - Sentry de-powered & memories
59:17 - Nova’s dreams & Tiangong’s secrets
1:02:37 - Matrix memories
1:11:27 - Lucius touching the matrix
1:23:03 - Break time/Donations
1:23:17 - Part 2
1:27:00 - Quill’s story to the group
1:30:06 - Quill’s full name
1:33:00 - Aila’s goals
1:34:32 - Lucius’ tragic story
1:35:30 - Magical Disk info (Glamour Disk)
1:39:00 - Horrifying creatures from the depths of the abyss. FEAR IT!
1:48:13 - Lucius does have a point & Quill raging
1:51:11 - Wanted bounty fraud
2:15:47 - Hoarder’s Hell
2:16:13 - Meeting the Gnome Wizard Navill
2:29:10 - Like assessment from sour gnome
2:29:25 - Pleasant farewells (That call for Richard was glorious)
2:29:40 - Outro/Donations

## **Featured Characters**

#### **The Adventuring Party**

* Aila
* Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto (played by Mark)
* Nova V'ger
* Qillek Ad Khollar
* Sentry

#### **New NPCs**

* Navill
* Richard (Unseen Servant)

#### **Returning NPCs**

* Daysa Goodsmith
* Maximillian Elias

#### **Mentioned NPCs**

* The Prime
* Torval Blackhammer

## **Featured Locations**

* Dwalinden
* Rosehall

## **Trivia**

* Mark makes it clear that despite Nova’s expertise in science, no one knows how guardians work.
* Nova has 2 levels of exhaustion by the time she gets to the top of the chasm, Lucius has 1.
* We get a lot of Quill’s back story in this episode, especially regarding how he lost his wing.
* We hear some of what Aila knows of her back story in this episode.
* **Item description**: *Glamour Disc*: Does not need to be attuned. It can store an image of a medium-sized creature or an object that is no larger than 5 cubic feet in diameter: it cannot scan part of an object or creature and will only work if it scans the whole object or creature. The disc can then be activated to project an illusion of the stored image for up to 1 minute (it is the same as the minor illusion spell and silent image spell for checks). It can also be used to record up to 1 minute of action but does not produce sound or any sensory effects (same as the Silent Image spell). It is an action to scan something and an action to activate it. One does not need to be a spell caster to use the disc. The disc recharges on a short rest. It is pre-Sundering technology, and not particularly rare.
* Lucius’ battle with the three cows has become relatively infamous and come to be known as “The Cow Incident”. A fan animation was done on YouTube.
* Mark says in the donos that he would love to do some Cyberpunk 2077, “but that’s not going to happen”. It did in December 2020.
* **Item description**: *Blackthorn (Spear tip):* The spear used to belong to an old clan of elves when they descended from the skycities (before they became wild elves). Blackthorn was said to have powers over the environment around vines and plants: the spear tip is missing its haft, and it would be much more potent if the two halves could be combined. The tip itself can cast a number of spells per day: Thorn Whip, Spike Growth and Entanglement, all druidic magic.
* **Item decription**: *Gadwyn’s Hammer:* A blacksmith’s hammer that belonged to a Dwarven smith called Gadwyn. It is magically enchanted to give a + to hit and damage. It can cast the Mending cantrip a number of times per day as well as the spell Heat Metal. It is moderately enchanted and is a light weapon.