Favor, Episode 20: Meet and Greet

## Starring

Sage Stafford as Aoife Flannery
Naseem Etemad as Fittonia 'Toni' Silvertail
Katie Budabin as Lluvyras 'Lu' Ssath
Celeste Conowitch as Dungeon Master

**Episode 20: Meet and Greet** *(2x20)* is the twentieth episode of the Venture Maidens Favor campaign.

## Synopsis

*Another week to earn some gold*

*Or the codex's trail goes cold*

*But first, let's enjoy a brew*

*With the growing Coven crew*

### Week 2 - Lu

Knowing that the gold bars that Toni received from Tandy are important, Rook and Lu decide that it is in their best interest to offload them as quickly as possible. They discuss the plan to go talk to Frieda and possibly resell the gold at a higher rate to the same rich people it was stolen from. They take off in the Chicken Hut and head for Chasiana, where Lu greases some palms to figure out who the best fit is to move the gold bars. She finds a business that has been involved with the law and is on hard times in her families dossier of possibilities. Before going to meet with the potential buyer, Lu makes Rook a stein of honey lavender mead to try, employing her Epic Destiny feature to increase their chances to convince the buyers into purchasing the gold bars. During the negotiations, the buyers dance around the topic of the bars until Rook slams her elbow onto the glass case housing the merchant’s wares and grabs the man’s collar before looking to Lu, her eyes begging the drow to let her handle the man. Lu nods and the conversation gets a lot easier at that point. They manage to wring 750 gold pieces from the man and pass the hot goods off to the fence.

### Week 2 - Toni

Toni, knowing she needs room to spread out when making her potions, gets chummy with Tandy. Tandy asks the half-orc if she is a mixologist when she sees all of the tools that Toni pulls out. Tandy offers the use of the bar if Toni agrees to be a mixologist for the bar, and Toni agrees provided she gets paid. Tandy empties the cash register and tosses the money to Toni. The fighter picks a lot of the herbs from the garden and shops for the remainder before attempting to brew some healing potions. She feels like the first two days go alright, but she is trying to balance the expectations of Tandy and the memory of how good of an herbalist her own mother was, which causes her to work to suffer. Something clicks on the third day when Toni realizes that Tandy actually has no expectations whatsoever and she can do literally anything she wants. She also realizes that her mother sent multiples of everything in the kit to help her get started and to remind her that it is okay to mess up while you are learning. Finally, Toni manages to achieve the perfect shade of red in her healing potion and to create a total of four potions.

### Week 2 - Aoife

Aoife plans to spend her second week researching. She begins by asking around town to gain information on the rare book dealer. She greases the right palms and learns that Tortimor has become reclusive in the last several years and has gotten up there in age. He sends a few servants out into town to collect his groceries and other necessities, but will accept a one on one appointment in his personal home for those interested in purchasing books from his private collection. The satyr writes a letter of introduction and sends it off, gaining a meeting with the reclusive book seller the following Saturday afternoon.

She sets out for the appointment draped in her finest dark academia ensemble, wandering the streets of the Sunnyside District, which she is familiar with as it houses Mistress Silk’s dress shop. It’s one of those districts that caters to tourists, full of shops with barely anything in them. There are a few rows of affluent town houses, some of which are the houses of members to the Witch’s Council. As she walks up to the house, she notes its Victorian architecture and potted plants before knocking on the door. A small lizard-like individual, wearing a servant’s uniform, opens the door and greets Aoife. The kobold leads Aoife into the house and takes her coat, hat, and scarf, before carrying them up the stairs into the main living area. He reappears moments later and informs Aoife that she can go upstairs to meet his master.

At the top of the stairs is a beautiful parlor room full of treasured knickknacks and furniture. As Aoife steps into the room, she can hear a scraping and shuffling coming from a door on the far end. A stooped and ancient Tortle drags his cane across the floor and he comes out of the doorway and addresses the satyr, welcoming her to his home. He offers her a snack and Aoife sets about making herself and the book dealer a spot of tea. After being served his tea, Tortimor brooches the subject of what brings Aoife to his home and she explains that she looking for the Enigma Codex. Tortimor hasn’t heard the name in a long time, and passes it off as a legend, but inquires why someone as young as Aoife is looking for it. The bard tells the book dealer that one of her friends has found herself in a bit of debt and is required to fetch the book in order for the debt to be wiped clean. Tortimor apologizes, informing Aoife that he only deals in certainty. Aoife nods her agreement, but hopes he can at least tell her about it so they know what they are getting themselves into. She can tell he is holding something back and is trying to get the measure of her character before trusting her with his answer.

He apologizes that he cannot be of more help and attempts to brush her off, informing her that he has a lot to do as he is attempting to chronicle his centuries of existence. Aoife informs him that she is a bard, and would be more than happy to assist him in any way she can in exchange for the information she needs. He asks about her penmanship and she whips a piece of parchment from her bag, scrawling a quick sentence across the smooth vellum. He inspects it and he agrees to look around his archives for information about the book in exchange for her assistance in writing his memoirs.

Over the next few days, Aoife makes the journey back to the manor and helps the tortle transcribe his chronicles. He seems to enjoy her company and she makes quick work of the memoir, finally drawing the information out of him. He thanks her for her work, and asks her if she is absolutely sure she wants to know more about the Enigma Codex because the last person to ask about it did not have a happy tale. Aoife reasons that she will be happy knowing the end of the story, and Tortimor launches into what he knows about the book. The Enigma Codex is mostly a legend talked about in stories. It contains every word that has ever been written and, while remarkable, can drive whoever reads it mad. They get lost in its pages and lose touch with what is real and what is fiction.

Aoife asks if Tortimor knows anything about Penny Dreadful, and Tortimor admits that she is the last to ask about the book. He does not know what happened to her, but produces a book of receipts. He pulls out a slip and informs the bard that he used to ship the archfey boxes of books, handing her a receipt with an address on it.

*The Pendragon Inn*

*16 Briar Rose Lane, Room 3*

*Storyville*

Aoife pockets the receipt and Tortimor tells her that nothing good has ever come with that book, urging the satyr to be cautious in her pursuit. She promises him that she will be careful before taking her leave.

### Dinner with Kel

Upon Lu’s arrival back in Coven, Toni shows them her cleaned up garden at the Witch’s Brew. Aoife immediately begins to put a board together and heads to Imagine It, where she buys fabrics from Kel and informs him of the party, hoping he will invite his fathers.

Kel is surprised to be meeting Aoife’s adventuring friends but agrees to come and bring his dads. He offers to bring brownies but Aoife informs him that Lu is a professional cook and that would likely not be the best way to impress her. Aoife suggests he brings some drinks and he assures her that he will think of something. Aoife insists that they take a break and go for a small date.

In the days leading up to the party, Lu comes to realize that her and Aoife have vastly different organizational styles. Lu’s style veered more towards structure than Aoife’s more creative leanings did and every day that Aoife would leave her finished work, Lu would reorganized it and make it useable. She is letting Aoife think the satyr is planning the party while keeping her own notes and plans behind the scenes.

Toni takes the trimmings from cleaning the garden and makes some arrangements, followed by hanging the lights and various decorations. She realizes that only a few people have been invited to what is turning into a large party and suggests that they have Tandy charge five gold pieces as a cover charge if anyone else wants in. She and Lu briefly discuss it and Lu sighs and goes to fetch another notebook.

Tandy happily makes signs for the event and agrees to accept money. They get the event set up and have one of Tandy’s friends playing guitar when guests begin to arrive. Bert arrives draped in a vivid blue outfit, his cheeks red with glee. Standing beside him is his wood elf husband, wearing green, and carrying a longbow strapped across his back. Behind the two of them, a much taller blue furred Firbolg walks in with a styled black faux-hawk and a nice outfit befitting the occasion. They all look impressed with the party setup when Aoife skips over and grabs them to yank them over to Lu and Toni for introductions.

Bert immediately takes a liking to Toni due to her size, referring to her as a beautiful giant woman. He introduces his husband and son, thoroughly embarassing Kel in the process by loudly declaring that Aoife is his girlfriend. Toni offers to get him a drink and puts her arm around him as she leads him off. Lu is momentarily left overwhelmed by Bert’s exuberant personality. She approaches Kel and offers to fix him a plate of food, to which he agrees after a proper introduction with a firm handshake. He holds out a package of brown parchment paper and informs the drow that he made something for her as a thank you for welcoming him into thier “home”. Lu unwraps the package and discovers a stack of food-themed embroidered tea towels made from a variety of fabrics with a set of oven mitts stacked on top. He mentions that Aoife told him that Lu wouldn’t want food, so he hoped that this gift would be useful for her. Lu looks at him with an angry expression that makes him stop talking, and she barely holds back tears as she asks if he made the gift himself. He confirms that he did, in fact, make them and Lu thanks him before demanding that he gives Aoife the same amount of consideration every moment of every day.

She starts to grill him on his life’s ambitions when Aoife steps in and Kel extricates himself to fetch drinks. Lu tells Aoife that Kel is very thoughtful, but he needs to stand up straight. Aoife guarantees that she will rub off on him and give him the confidence he needs, to which replies that she hopes that is the case because it is Aoife’s responsibility if she wishes to continue the relationship. She clarifies that Aoife needs to be liberal with her kindness and compliments because it is important. To emphasize the point, Aoife smirks, runs up to Kel and pats him on the butt and looks back at Lu as she grabs his hand.

The evening proceeds well, with Kel constantly offering to help Lu with anything because he doesn’t know how to approach her but knows her approval is the one he needs. Lu puts him to work every time he asks, which means that Aoife does not see much of him throughout the party. Toni and Bert spend the night exchanging family stories, and she learns that Bert was a bard in the Eldrin Empire. His job was to collect stories and travel around. Ernie compliments her weapons and her military service, which Toni takes in stride. Not many outside guests come to the event, but Tandy manages to start a fire pit where a fire pit did not exist previously and spends the evening with her friend.

As the night winds down, Toni drunkenly stands on the fountain and toasts the beautiful young couple and his amazing family. She thanks everyone for coming to the soft opening of the Bushy Bruha and advertises Lu’s food cart to many cheers. Lu pulls Toni off of the fountain after her speech and asks the fighter to accompany her to the cellar to fetch more wine. Upon entering the cellar, Lu looks at drunk Toni and decides to bring up the topic of the two parental figures of the group butting heads at times. The drow is hoping to get to know Toni better, and asks if she had plans after they take care of the Whistler situation and if she would wind up going back to the army. Toni admits that she hasn’t thought that far ahead, but hopes that her Captain will allow her to finish her last year of service so that she could receive her sign-on incentives.

Lu asks Toni if she has any loyalties to the Empire since she was in the army, and Toni informs the drow that she joined the army for herself, and not because she had any loyalty to the Empire. She traveled around with her family for a long time and wanted to see more of that, and she really enjoys fighting and not talking to people. She prefers to deal with people forcefully, except for Bert and Ernie, going on a drunken ramble about having a good time with her friends. Lu admits that Toni seems to have some ideas about the chef’s family and was wondering if the half-orc was intending to keep that information to herself, or if that is something she will have to worry about when Toni returns to finish her military obligation. Toni reassures Lu that it really isn’t the Empire’s business at all.

Toni reminds Lu that she was doing some sort of service as well when she left with the group initially. Lu tells the fighter that she could technically walk away whenever she chose to because she had no contractual obligation to stay. She also brooches the subject of possibly, one day, having Toni join the family if she were interested in it when the time came and managed to remain close-lipped about the family’s business. Toni awkwardly gives a drunken bow and Lu tells her not to make it weird. They take the wine back upstairs and finish the party., netting a profit of twelve gold pieces and miscellaneous objects from the myriad fey that decided to attend.

### Week 3 - Aoife

Aoife takes the opportunity, while in Coven, to work on her fashion assignment in Mistress Silk’s shop, where she has access to tools she might not otherwise be able to access. Mistress Silk has cleared out an area for the satyr to use. Silk greets her, introduces her to four other individuals, and then departs to tend to her own duties. Aoife is left alone in the room with four other people that are all vying to have their own designs recognized by the Mistress. Throughout the week, Aoife and a young tiefling woman, Apocrypha, become snide to one another. Every interaction is pure daggers between the two, and on the third day of working there, Kel comes in to deliver some fabric and have lunch with Aoife. The tiefling makes a comment about Aoife sleeping with the fabric guy, insinuating that she is only doing it to get ahead, further cementing Aoife’s distaste for her.

Aoife designs her first outfit with Rook in mind. She designs it in such a way that the length and width can be manually adjusted to account for the cursed woman’s constantly changing body. The design took into account the styling, full of natural earthy tones with hints of gold and sharp angular corners, while remaining functional and flowey.

### Week 3 - Toni

Toni, still trying to get the hang of basic potions and the use of the herbalism kit her mother had sent her, spends her third week in the Chicken Hut. She attempts to memorize formulas and her notes from when she initially brewed the healing potions. Toni utilizes the magic of the Chicken Hut to summon the books she requires to get a better understanding into the alchemical process.

Every once in a while Rook will be around, much to Toni’s surprise. At the end of one of the days, Rook tapped on Toni’s door and asks her if she wants to go on a bounty the next day. Before Toni has a chance to really respond, Rook removes herself from the conversation. The next morning the strange cursed fey stopped by again to ask if Toni needed anything, even offering up a snack. Toni thanks Rook, but assures the (now) woman that whatever she needed the house could supply and it is best to save some money where they could.

The following day she asked Toni if the half-orc ever wanted to train. Toni agrees to train with Rook and takes off her leather apron before grabbing her sword. While sparring, Toni gets the sense that Rook wants to spend time with her, which is strange and entertaining.

### Week 3 - Lu

Lu spends the beginning of the week working on her food truck menu, testing the variations of recipes and having people try them. A lot of actors and street performers have begun to hang around Lu because she keeps offering free food.

Eventually, Lu becomes satisfied enough with the menu and she moves on to the cart. Tandy had finally returned it with all of the necessary upgrades that the experienced chef had requested.

The drow sinks into her creativity, turning the cart into a lavendar and sage green dream with light colored wooden accents. A little chimney sticks out on the side since Lu had the entire wagon fireproofed, allowing her to cook meals directly in the cart.

She sets out a box of fresh herbs next to the order window, and every time she plucks an herb, it quickly grows back anew.

Bedecking the front of the wagon is a sign that bears the symbol of the Witch’s Brew, wreathed in lavendar and thyme leaves. Lu asked Tandy to find an animal to draw the cart for her and the Dryad returned with a clearly Feywild Touched goat with an extremely fat udder that nearly drags on the ground. Its fur is entirely shaded green and giant curly horns grow from its head. Tandy took it upon herself to place a large hat on the goat’s head.

### A World of Potential

These three weeks are the first time that the group has had a chance to truly spend time together and get to know one another, including Rook. They have all come to realize that this isn’t just a life they have had to adapt to because of circumstances, but that it is also a sustainable one. It has given them a chance to learn and grow and have strange and exciting opportunities that they may not ever have had if they had stayed in their old lives. However, this world of potential is full of danger, and that danger looms large in the Maiden’s minds as they realize they have one week to bring the Enigma Codex back to Hecate.

As they rest, they find themselves swept up in a dream. It takes them a while to figure out that they are all sharing the same dream. They find themselves in a marble hall filled with music, light, and laughter as people in gorgeous costumes spin and dance across the floor around them. They can’t see the musicians from where they are because the Maidens are surrounded by people dressed in eleborately painted masks, like a masquerade ball. A tall columned platform rises in the middle of these dancing people, and a slight woman twirls in a pure white ballgown made of layers of feathers atop it. Her mask is styled like that of a swan and she spins around the platform.

From where they stand, the Maidens can see that there is dust crumbling from the column that holds this woman nearly a hundred feet in the air. They can see the column is beginning to decay and crumble beneath her and the platform is sinking to one side to the other. The woman appears to be completely immune to what is happening around her and cannot see that in mere moments, she will fall.

The three Maidens are scattered among the outer edge of the room, dressed in finery, and have a mass of people dancing between them and the column. Lu begins running towards the pillar, screaming that the pillar is going to fall and pleading with the woman to get off. As she is pushing her way through the crowd of dancers, the drow finds herself being swept up as someone grabs hold of her. The figure wears an elaborate mask decorated to look like the night sky full of stars. She is dressed in a gown of pure dawn and light, and Lu instantly knows she is dancing with Hecate.

The fey admits to Lu that is has been a long time since she had danced with anyone and asks the drow to stay for a while. Lu denies the fey and draws away, but is swept up by someone else that turns out to be Hecate again. Glancing around, Lu can see that so many of the masks in the crowd are Hecate and a moment of panic sets in.

Toni looks down to see if she has her mother’s brooch around her neck. She finds that she is wearing an elaborate gown she would never have chosen herself, but does not have her necklace or weapons. Toni recognizes that she is in a dream and looks around to see Lu fighting and struggling with someone that looks familiar to the fighter. To her other side, off in the distance, she spots Aoife among the crowd. Everywhere the half orc turns, and every mask she sees, fills her with a sense of familiarity.

A hand lands on her forearm, attached to a figure masked like a cavalier soldier and dressed in a uniform of red velvet. Toni recognizes the eyes of Rook as the woman bows to her and asks her for a dance.

Toni asks Rook if she is dreaming too, but the figure blinks without a sign of human recognition that makes it apparent that she is a part of the dream and is not the true Rook. Toni asks Rook if she can help save the woman or Lu and Rook tells the half-orc that she can help her do anything as she pulls her in close. Toni takes this moment to twirl Rook in Lu’s direction.

Aoife, realizing that the woman on the pillar is going to fall, gathers the train of her gown and thrusts it out, using the logic of dreams and her innate magic of creation to instantly form a rope as a life line. A tall human man, gaunt with slightly salt-and-pepper hair, catches the rope before it can reach its intended target. He lifts his mask with one hand and Aoife recognizes the face of Whistler. He tugs Aoife closer with the rope, reeling her towards himself. Before he can get his hands on the young woman, he falters as someone slaps him with a fan, causing him to disappear in a cloud of silver.

Aoife knows the figure that saved her as the dragon headed man from her dreams several weeks before. He takes up the rest of the girl’s train and asks if she is ready to stop all of this as he hands the train back to Aoife. She spits where Whistler once stood, vowing to remember his name.

Without hesitation, the young bard takes up the dragon headed man’s hands as they join in a waltz. The music changes to match their waltz, and the dancers follow. The dragon headed man tells Aoife that the dance has already begun and that all of the pawns were in place. He tells her to watch everyone in the dance, explaining that no one is immune to the dance. Aoife does her best to try and memorize anything she can about the dancers around her. The dragon headed man looks at her and nods, and this is where our episode comes to an end, until next time! -Venture Away!

## Featured Characters

### Player Characters

* Aoife Flannery
* Fittonia 'Toni' Silvertail
* Lluvyras 'Lu' Ssath

### Non-Player Characters

* Rook
* Tandy
* Tortimor
* Kel
* Ernie
* Bert
* Mistress Silk
* Apocrypha
* Penny Dreadful (Mentioned)
* Whistler
* Hecate
* Felix

## Locations

* The Wildes
	+ Coven
		- The Witch's Brew

## Quotes

“Are these store-bought chips? In my house? This stinks of plotting.” -Lu

“Two sugars please, no cream.” -Tortimor

“I need all these fabrics that I’m gonna buy from you and by the way you’re having dinner. Oh, and just bring your dads, that’ll be great too. It’ll be like one big family dinner.” -Aoife

“I make a nice… Brownies? Is that fun?” -Kell

“Mom!”-Aoife

“I’m not your mother!”-Lu

“Then stop acting like it, for christ’s sake!”-Aoife

“I’ll remember the feckin’ name.” -Aoife

## Trivia

Halflings own 70% of the businesses in the Mother’s Delta.

Rook is 32 years old as of this episode

Celeste made a ruling that if a player spends 4 solid weeks of downtime training, they could get a new proficiency in a skill or tool.