Episode 14: Dream a Little Deal With Me

**Episode 14: Dream a Little Deal With Me** - The vanquished Muck MudTurtles carcasses sink to the bottom of Lily Pad Grotto and the world is better for the lack of obstinance and vitriol, but sadly, there’s always a bigger Turtle out there. With the upper levels of the Sacred Tavern cellar cleared of monsters, the depths await, but not before they tie up the very scary little loose end of The Manticore, but they choose a somewhat unconventional route. That is quickly becoming our brand. Non conventional and convoluted solutions to fantasy adventurer problems. And in our “bookends”, we continue the troubled story of Inverted World adventurers entered the cellar from below with BONUS Turtle murder!

## Episode 14: Dream a Little Deal With Me

The Manticore and a hopefully binding contract

### Episode

**Episode 14: Dream a Little Deal With Me**

## Cast

### Nearlies

Josh | Xenator Brisbane
Kathy | Lavaleen Crest
Andy | Martin Sirque
Amanda | Gwendylyn Cloot
 Robbie | The Speaker
 Aaron |  Production & Sound

### NPCs

APPEARING
 Sarah
Todd
 Manni
 Orgess Ungerverden

## Summary

The Nearlies, having once again brought peace and order to the Lily Pad Grotto explore. In an underwater cavern, Martin an Lavaleen discovery a Sulfyr, who decides to follow them back and merge into Xenitor's Gnarlwood Staff. After a rest, they return to the camp of Orgess Ungerverden. She gives them a couple of quests, but prioritizes the danger down the Corpse Chute and whatever mutated those rats.

They head down without much difficulty, but they steal have to deal with the Manticore. It is confirmed that the portcullis is still down, and the Manticore is still imprisoned. They make a deal with the Manticore for his help and release him. His rapid exit leaves the Nearlies unconscious, but when they awaken he has left them assorted weapons as part of his aid.

## Synopsis

### Prologue

The story opens on the mercenaries from the Inverted World.  They look over the precipice that one of them had nearly walked over and see debris and rocks floating upwards.  The group is not certain if it is a turnover or an inversion that they’ve just found.  Impulsively, trusting on one of their parties’ instincts, they jump into it. They plummeted down, then inversion flipped, and they were plummeting upwards.  The group ends up in the Lily Pad Grotto, and are confronted by the Muck Mudturtles.

### Episode

The Nearlies are cleaning up after their battle with the Muck Mudturtles, and take a respite to recover after the battle.  Sarah gathers up some turtle parts and begins to teach Gwen make how to make Hard Back/turtle soup. While waiting for the soup to cook, the Nearlies checks out the lily pads.  The flower blossoms growing on them are excellent for healing, so the group harvests them.  While searching below the water, Gwen sees the apparent path that the Muck Mudturtles took to get into the grotto, but the entrance is too narrow for Gwen to explore further.

Martin, still aided by his flipper feet, and Lavaleen dive underwater to check out the fissure.  After some swimming through the channel, they make their way into an underwater cave that looks like a geode.  They observe some glow worms and a tiny flying creature.  Lavaleen picks up a Flash Stone that will light up when touched. Martin, with his childlike wonder, starts drumming onto the Glow Wall.  The flashing lights succeeds in stunning Lavaleen, entertaining a small object that has made it’s way into Lavaleen’s backpack, and doing absolutely nothing to harm Martin.

Once recovered, Martin and Lavaleen make their way back to the rest of the group, although Lavaleen was able to harvest a shifty crystalline on the way back.  The group then notices that there is an incredibly large turtle in the corner. The creature, a sulfyr; that has smuggled it’s way in Lavaleen’s backpack has landed onto Xenator’s gnarlwood staff.  It merges itself with the staff.

The group then consumes some soup that Sarah cooked, and turns their attention to the giant turtle, the Great Old Gritch.  The smaller turtles had gathered to worship him. He’s extremely dangerous and powerful, but is very slow.  The group decides to leave the Gritch for a later time, as the tunnel he’s blocking goes to one of the underworlds, which is above their current ability level.

They return to Orgess Ungerverden’s camp.  She gives them the possible quest of killing the Great Old Gritch, but prioritizes the side quest, down the corpse chute, and they still have to deal with the Manticore.  They send Todd to check it out, and the last thing Gwen gets shown is the open portcullis to the Manticore cage.

The group needs to go save Todd, so they sneak, poorly, down the hall where the Manticore is.  Gwen thinks she runs right into the Manticore and that it’s escaped.  She is the only one that sees this and all the others sees that the Manticore is where it should be, and see that the portcullis is still down.

The Manticore chose Gwen because she went to sleep first.  In exchange for his freedom he agrees to help the Nearlies with their battle with the Glorious.  The Glorious is what caused the rat mutations and general havoc.  After some debate, Xenator and Lavaleen use their experience to construct a magically binding contract to prevent him from hunting intelligent creatures and to help us with the Glorious battle in exchange for his release.

The Manticore swears to presented contract and the Nearlies release him.  The Manticore flies out, rendering the Nearlies unconscious.  Upon awakening, the Manticore is gone.

### Epilogue

The Mercenaries have encountered the Muck Mudturtles in the Grotto.  They engage in combat.  Their leader is overwhelmed, and it is hinted at that the rest of the group will not do well in their encounter.

## Notables

Episode 14

 Objects Acquired

 Spells Used

 Metamorph Attempts

## Quotables

Gwen:  “Grandma Ninn always called these a beautiful nuisance, and that’s what she always called me.”

## External Links

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