Episode 45: A Romp in the Rain

Lily and James dig a little too deep into the secrets of the Lighthouse at Ocean’s Gull Point and find themselves in a high-flying, rain-soaked battle. Meanwhile, Fahima, Uggo, and Siv become enforcers for the pirate, Whitebeard. And when the team reunites, a drunken midnight excursion could get them into big trouble. This is one of the most packed, hilarious episodes in TDR history!

##### **DM/GM Intro**

It started as a simple dungeon run, but that was a long time ago, or a long time in the future depending on your point of view. Our heroes are in the unique position now of having both perspectives since they have been magically transported back in time, many years before the moment when they first met each other, and began their journey together. Now they inhabit the lives of five sell swords in the employ of the infamous pirate captain Whitebeard. A villain they vanquished in their own time, but who twenty years before is still very much a force to be reckoned with. When the heroes of Bingle arrived in this time, they found themselves marching a triton named Cho' Ran across a desert island to be delivered to Whitebeard, who planned to collect a sizeable bounty for his capture set by the mighty Shaxen Gao empire. Cho 'Ran pleaded with the heroes to spare his life, and help him rescue his family and in exchange he promised to bring them to the treasure cache of the crown. The Shaxen Gao Dynasty's secret stockpile of riches and magical items. The team managed to persuade Whitebeard to forego the bounty and peruse the more valuable prize, to sail to the Isle of Rum and reunite Cho' Ran with his wife and son in the town of Boster. But when they arrived Cho’ Ran’s family and the man, he had trusted to protect them were nowhere to be found. Instead, they found more bounty hunters looking to collect the price on his head. A wild tavern brawl broke out but the heroes managed to isolate the barkeep long enough to learn the Cho-Ran's family had fled to the Castle Rum, a terrifying haunted manor, isolated and only accessible by boat. Anyone foolish enough to attempt the trip would have to steel themselves against the horrors of the castle by imbibing a mysterious drink called the Liquor of the Dead.

Siv growing impatient with Cho’ Ran decided to stab him unceremoniously. Which somehow garnered Whitebeard's approval. The pirate decided to bring the team with him to his favorite pastime in Boster, the brutal underground fighting ring known as the Mud Pit. But first they stopped off at a local soothsayer a Sea Hag who seemed to know an awful lot about the events of the heroes past. She assured White Beard that the mini desert Bulette’s he acquired would win their Fight in the mud pit even as she foretold his own demise. The team decided to split up Fahima, Uggo, and Siv accompanied Whitebeard, Cho’ron and Whitebeards loquacious first mate Loudmouth to the mud pit, while Lily and James headed east to the mysterious lighthouse on Oceans Gull Point to learn more about the liquor of the Dead. At the mud pit the Sea Hag’s premonition about the Buelette's prove to be true, as one emerged victorious in a vicious battle with a rancid spitter, earning Whitebeard a sizable amount of gold. When the pirate suggested one of the heroes test their mettle in the pit. Uggo volunteered much to Fahima’s chagrin. In an intense mud splattered battle. Uggo managed to defeat a halfling monk named Ellery in one-on-one combat, but he refused to end her life, choosing instead to escape the pit with her unconscious in his arms. Fahima used the chaos of the battle to sneak herself into the holding pens to find the injured Bulette and to give Uggo  the stink-eye.

Meanwhile at Oceans Gull point, James and Lily ascended the lighthouse to find a strange sight indeed. A bloated gassy shell of a man calling himself by Viscount Winger Styx envoy held court amidst skeletons and crazed seagulls. Clearly disturbed the man nonetheless offered Lily and James some of his liquor of the Dead a brew he said could only be made by fermentation inside the corpse of a decomposing creature. In exchange they agreed to ignite the beacon at the top of the lighthouse, and promised their own corpses to him should they meet an untimely demise. As we ended last week James and Lily had begun the awful process of digging up some liquor of the Dead, when they uncovered a noxious vine growing in among the graves. One of its sickly bulbs popped and poisonous fumes assaulted their noses. They rolled initiative and that is where we're picking up this week