Session Thirty Two

The thirty second session of the Adventures of the Dragon Crag was on the 26th October 2022.

## Party Members Present

* Snorri Morgrimson
* Relnwe Adiath
* Professor Meino Osterhaus
* Aleksi Lehtonen (Late)

## Synopsis

### Sharing the Load

#### Dotri's Ranch

The time of adventure was once again upon us and the weight of our constant heroism was already heavy upon our shoulders, so we decided we needed something to share the load. After a short deliberation, the aquisition of a mule was agreed upon. There seemed to be very few animals in Deadgate, so we went off to Dotri's Caravans Office, where we knew there would be beasts of burden. We met with Grundi who said he had just the thing to meet our beastly needs. Grundi led us out of the eastern gate of Skalf's Hold and we soon came to Dotri's Ranch. There were other ranches, all manned by humans. At first, we thought that the ranches were built to house the humans like cattle, but it later became apparent that the dwarfs had, in fact, employed the humans to run the ranches.

#### All the Mule(s)

Upon entering Dotri's ranch, we saw a plethora of different beasts of burden. Snorri asked to talk to the stable boy who comes forth and shares his knowledge of mules. Snorri examined all the mules and chose the thiccest specimen. He was a mighty steed and we named him All the Mule. After money had changed hands, the Professor stepped forward and asked Dotri's Stable Boy about horse hoof clippings. The boy had feared this moment would come, as he had heard of this maniac Horse Botherer from the Stable Boy at Appleberry Tavern.

### On the Road Again

#### Out of Deadgate

With All the Mule in tow and loaded up with all the supplies and gear that we thought we could possibly need, we made for the road out of town and started our journey to find Nikolai in the Badlands. As we trundled along the main road of Deadgate, Aleksi couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched. He noticed that a group of cloaked people were following us in the side streets. However, they didn't follow us out of town as we came to the fields between the Deadgate and Dragon Tail Pass.

#### Signs of Battle

After a short while, we came to the western gate of Karak Azgal in Dragon Tail Pass. The gate wardens there looked somewhat haggard and their weapons were blood stained and used. We talked to one of the guards who said that a group of farmers with a cart had been attacked by two giant beasts in the night. They thought they had managed to kill of the beasts, or severely injure it at least. He showed us his shield which had been blackened and burnt by something. He told us that they didn't get a good look at the beast in the black of night. The trackers among us examined the battle ground for clue and they spotted some ooze that led off into the woods. We followed it and spotted some thick reddish fur caught on a hill. After a little while, we came to a cliff edge and the trail ended abruptly. We headed back to the gate and decided to continue onwards with ou eyes peeled.

### The Farmers' Feud

#### Stolen Goats

As we wandered down the soggy path (it had rained the previous night), we heard shouting up ahead - something about the Emperor and there not being Roadwardens. Hearing this, the Professor let out a little chirrup of glee and ran off ahead. We came upon a small group of peasants and a man from the Empire was accusing a woman of steeling eight goats. The Professor introduced himself as Steinway Richterson, Hand of the Emperor's Justice, and as they were all idiots, they believed him. The woman accused of burglary scoffed and walked off as the Professor vowed to bring justice to this occasion. He asked the man what had happened and the man, called Otto the Idiot Farmer, said that eight of his goats were missing.

#### Otto's Farm

Otto took us down one of the many little trails that led off the main path from Deadgate and thorugh the woods to a small valley. In the valley were several buildings that made up Otto's Farmstead. He told us that eight of his goats had gone missing from his barn, but that there was no sign of break in. The Professor said not to worry and that he, Steinway Richterson, inflated knob of the Emperor's swollen justice would solve the case. The rest of the party saw a glint in the Professor's eye that unnerved them. Otto went back into his house where his family and workers had gathered, including two brothers who looked quite tired, and waited for the Professor to pull something out of his arse.

#### Otto's Too Good for Circumstantial Evidence

Rel, playing into the Professor's judicial fantasy, searched the barn for footprints. She found some tracks heading off into the woods: seven goat tracks, two human sets of footprints, and a horse. This was clearly the work of those tired brothers. The Professor told Otto he thought as much and Otto was clearly sad. The brothers, Jannik and Walter Scholz, denied everything. There was much talk of cutting off hands and other body parts in the name of the Emperor's left testicle, but still the brothers didn't budge. Otto said he needed more evidence - clearly he had spent too much time with dwarfs who required an overwhelming burden of proof in their ancient and well thought through, if very slow, legal system and had forgotten that in the Empire, having a name that began with the same letter as the alleged crime was evidence enough for the greasy imperial officials.

#### Finding the Smoking G(oat)un

While the dwarfs lazed about with All, the Professor, Aleksi, and Rel followed the tracks into the fores. They came to a clearing where there were many hoof prints and some cloth caught on a branch. Aleksi examined the cloth and it smelled of his nan - clearly it was kislevian cloth. The Professor then returned to Otto with no more evidence than he had last time and demanded to take Jannik and Walter into seperate rooms. After some shoddy good cop bad cop with Rel, that was more bad cop terrible cop, Jannik finally broke and told the Professor that his brother took one of the goats and the bones were on his side of their bedroom.

#### Cut Red-handed

The Professor got Otto to take him into the brother's hut. There were two small beds and a cupboard in the hut. The Professor opened the cupboard revealing loads of dried goat. Given that the goat was slaughted the night before, it was miraculous that the meat had been cured and dried, but then it was remembered that these hills were famous for their quick-drying goat: a stinky delicacy served in all the taverns of deadgate. Upon hearing that his brother had betrayed him, Walter recounted the full story of the goat rustling: they had been paid 5gc each by a band of Kislevis to steal goats. Much to nobody's suprise, the Professor gleefully announced that it was time to chop both of the thieves' hands off in the name of his salivating majesty, the Emperor. (He actually had to be reminded that burglary wasn't a hanging offence). Thus, it came to pass that Blind Bertha, came out of the kitchen with a large butcher's knife and chopped off one hand each of the brothers'. In payment for his service, the Professor took the money the brothers had been paid by the kislevis as well as a live goat and enough quick-drying goat he could stuff into his pocketses. The Emperor's Justice had been served raw and wriggling and Otto had eaten it for his supper.

### Back on the Road

#### A Night under the Stars

We left Otto's Farmstead and made excellent progress down the path until night began to fall. We went off the path to find a place to rest when it dawned on us that nobody had brought shelter. The outdoors people of our party were clearly to blame: what do dwarfs know of sleeping outside? Who needs a tent when you have a mountain? Rel the Explorer really ought to know better - to go exploring an not bring a tent? Ridiculous! Not to mention Aleksi the Kislevian tracker, granola eating outdoorsy type. He sleeps in a literal tent every bloody night, and on this night he thought 'oh I won't need that - i'll just stretch out my massive kislevian foreskin', and left the damn thing at home. Idiocy of the highest order! Again, the dwarfs aren't to blame. Still, we slept in semi-comfort outside.

#### Kislevis in the Woods

THe next morning we followed the path down the river and Rel spotted an over turned cart ahead. A tree had fallen, or rather, had been pushed by some large beast, onto the cart. There were a few bodies and the carcass of a horse that looked as though it had been eaten by something with a very big mouth. The kislevi cloth that we found earlier matched the clothes of one of the bodies who had a broken spear. There were also traces of reddy/brown fur here. A bloody trail led off into the wood. Naturally, we followed it. Ahead, Rel heard the murmur of voices - a language she couldn't understand. Thankfully, Aleksi could. Aleksi snuck forward to listen better. He heard them talking about patrolling the woods via hunters trails. Some of them had been injured by the beast. They said they wanted to be relieved of their duty - two of them had been injured, leaving only four to patrol. They said they wanted some creepy girl to get them back on their feet.