S2: Bready or Not

With the
increased workload that the WPs had to take on, it became immediately apparent
that they needed more hands on deck. After a quick candidate search, they
decided to take on Hildae, the crab bard who is DEFINITELY OKAY WITH THE FACT
THAT HER GIRLFRIEND WANTS THE RELATIONSHIP TO BE OPEN. DEFINITELY. OKAY?

On a
particularly slow day at the facility, Goober was trying his hand at creating
some soup and was trying to get everyone else to sample it. Aurora turned her
nose up at his offering and told him that it smelled and tasted terrible. When
he stormed off with tears falling down his face, the rest of the gang felt
decidedly awful for Goober and decided that they should do something for him.
After someone suggested that they find a way to help him improve his cooking
skills, Aurora and Lur both suggested that they visit their mutual
acquaintance, Jared the Baker, who was established out of the wharfs on a boat
made out of bread where he would sell his wares to anyone passing by.

A short
trek past all of the various stalls selling fish brought them to the docks
where Jared’s ship was tied up where an enormous snaking line awaited them.
Some snooty rich folks waiting in the line traded some barbed insults with Lur
and Hildae and things looked like they could escalate before Aurora rolled her
eyes and told her party that she knew a secret way into Jared’s shop via the
loading bay. Sneaking on board proved to be relatively easy as Aurora and Gerdo
scaled up some ropes while Lur and Hildae climbed up the side of the ship. They
found themselves in the storage area of the bakery with all of the food and
wares, when a loud presence could be heard approaching from the front of the
shop. A man wearing an absurdly large chef’s hat burst into the storage room
and looked momentarily furious before recognizing Aurora and Lur.

A short
catch-up was followed up by Aurora and Lur asking their baking buddy for advice
on how they could improve Goober’s cooking. Jared spent a few moments thinking
before suggesting that they get some spices from his local competitors just
down the street, the Desmonds. According to Jared, the Desmonds were absolutely
horrid bakers, but they had some “damn good spices”. It became quickly apparent
that Jared wasn’t suggesting that they get the spices via legal means and after
some initial apprehension, it was decided upon: they were going to steal those
dang spices.

Strolling
up the street and passing by more fish vendors, they quickly happened upon
Desmond’s bakery, which was difficult to miss with its disproportionately large
sign on an otherwise homely little building. Trying to be as discrete as a pair
of crabs, a drunk-monk and a swordswoman can be, the four of them tried to
intimate themselves as customers as best they could while scouting out the
place. As Jared had indicated previously, the place was largely empty, with
just one snoozing customer waiting in line. Mrs. Desmond, an old and somewhat
disorderly lady, appeared to be running the kitchen by herself. Surprised at
having this many customers, she began to try to take down everyone’s orders,
which Aurora took as an opportunity to try to sneak off to look for the spices.
Unfortunately, it appeared as though the security for the place was tighter
than they had expected, as a magical alarm went off when Aurora grazed a rope
barrier that was blocking off the entrance to the upper level. An argument
ensued and Mrs. Desmond called for her large hulking assistant Sonny from upstairs,
who thudded menacingly down the steps as he came.

While
Aurora tried and failed to come up with excuses for touching the barrier, Gerdo
carefully snuck past the rope barrier and made his way upstairs without being
noticed. Mrs. Desmond opted to go in search of the Red Guard and told Sonny to
keep an eye on them while she did so. Things were beginning to escalate towards
a fight when Aurora challenged Sonny to a duel, and in spite of Hildae’s
attempts to calm things down and distract Sonny with a song, it seemed as
though things were going to come to blows. Thinking quickly, Aurora resolved
the situation by casting a charm person spell on Sonny and telling him to go
and convince Mrs. Desmond that there was no reason to call for the guards.
Meanwhile, Gerdo narrowly evaded some traps as he forced his way into the
attic. A quick search of the musty old room yielded a small lockbox neatly
labeled “Special Spices” which Gerdo pocketed along with some old yeast that
smelled like burnt dead gross awful garbage for the purposes of trying to brew
his own alcohol.

Not wanting
to overstay their welcome, the Witch Pinchers turned tail and rushed back to Jared’s. Jared’s bakery was closing up shop due to having used up all of their supplies and the line remained quite large. The snooty rich folks who had
scoffed at the Witch Pinchers earlier in the day were still waiting in line and looked horrified when the four of them jumped the line and nobody in the bakery stopped them. Lur and Hildae took a moment to verbally dunk on them before entering. The problem of the lockbox was overcome through the use of some
impromptu breadmancy from Jared using the old yeast Gerdo had stolen to create a key. The box turned out to be a container which had been segmented into three
sections each containing their own special spice. Jared pocketed a decent amount of the spices, paid the heroes and gave them some excess spice, telling
them that combining the three of them together would make anything taste amazing (and would have a vitality increasing property that would accordingly adjust the consumer’s hypothetical “health points”).

Our heroes returned to the Mattress Warehouse with money in their pockets and prize in hand. They were eager to show Goober what they had gotten him, but were in for a shock when they found him. Sprawled out across the mess hall table and covered in soup with a knife sticking out of his chest, Goober was dead. Lur paused a moment before positing, “.. did he die from fucking the soup?”