Mowenites Unite - Episode Seven

## Summary:

Mowen had granted individuals the experience needed to hone their skills. In exchange, these people were called to begin their charge. Whether the agents attended the once secret but prestigious academy or were in service to the empire or owed them, six people were sought out and called into service to work the lines of diplomacy, sometimes within the shadows, getting done what needed to be done. Safety was not guaranteed. Mowen was working on a new defensive construction that the world had not seen since the Golden Age of Magic. The six were required to engage in skullduggery, cloak and dagger diplomacy, and questionable missions in service to the empire, all in an effort to build something important.

## Agents:

* Asher "Whiffle-Tongue" - Lizardfolk Wizard
* Gobin Glowstep - Halfling Druid
* Krixx Sharptooth - Kobold Artificer
* Merdaer - Drow Rogue
* Tar'ren r'Eehp r'Eehp - Frogfolk Warlock
* Xilon Harkus Starrati - Half-Elf Wizard

## Adventure:

After leaving the home of Qajiotha, the ship reached the perpetual fog surrounding Aabar. The wayfinders hired on the crew were able to move them through the fog. The wayfinders were curious about what was on the island and asked if there was any treasure.

Xilon said that there was nothing at the tower, but he was not very persuasive. Krixx said they found the coral they were looking for, though it took a while to find, which was why the journey took so long.

The ship reached Aabar. As they made port, the people on the ship slapped backs and said it was lucky that it was sunny. They led the team off the ship rather quickly.

Xilon pulled his hood up. The last person he knew who claimed to come from Aabar was Diamondrock, who had swindled the noble houses of Abishot, so Xilon was wary.

Gobin had one heavy trunk of "belongings" with him. He slowly dragged it off the boat with the help of Asher and a crew member.

The party got the sense that they were being rushed, shoved off the boat as fast as possible. Once all of the stuff was off, the crew shut up the ship and bolted.

Gobin, as the most perceptive, kept an eye on the sailor who helped him take his trunk off the ship. The person had a skip in his step. He took off his shirt and shoes and ran along the beach, then laid in the sun. Gobin squinted and looked in the distance, noticing plenty of people lounging on the beach.

Gobin dragged his trunk onto the beach. It creaked as it went. Krixx wanted to know if they could get a room first. Asher said that sunny days were apparently rare; it might be their only chance to experience it.

Asher went down to the beach and asked someone where the nearest inn was. Tar'ren meanwhile gave Gobin a golem butler to carry his trunk for him. Whatever was in the chest got jostled around quite a bit.

The person Asher approached yelled at him for standing in his sun. Asher moved out of the way and chatted with the person, befriending him. Derrick or "Fruitcake" offered to let them stay at his red house. Derrick shared rice wine with Asher and Asher shared fireball whiskey with Derrick.

The town was primarily loggers and fishermen, so the group saw a lot of tool shops and fisheries. There was also a cart shop. Beyond the shops were the houses.

Gobin built a sandcastle which got so big that it started casting shade on people. Someone named Ackley confronted Gobin and said that when it wasn't sunny, he'd come after Gobin. Gobin kept arguing with the person. He cast Mold Earth to move his sandcastle closer to Ackley.

Ackley boiled into a blind rage, giving Gobin an evil eye. He huffed and laid back down.

"Yeah that's what I thought." Gobin moved the sandcastle away from Ackley. "And if you'd asked nicely I would have done that at the start."

The man ignored Gobin.

Merdaer went to the beach to watch Gobin and his antics.

Asher led Krixx, Xilon, and Tar'ren through the town. They found two or three logging bases with piles of wood. Everything looked abandoned because everyone was on the beach.

Asher and Xilon had a good heart to heart about resting. Xilon was wary about leaving their stuff in some random stranger's house, but Asher said that Derrick seemed like a trustworthy person.

They reached the house, which was quite nice and humbly decorated. There was artwork on the wall, some of which seemed to have been done by a child. There was a family portrait. One person in the portrait was Derrick but much younger.

Krixx revived Steelsong and had all his pets guard the luggage. Xilon asked if Tourmaline could get a secret waterproof stash built into his body. Krixx said that was a possible idea, or he could create something smelly that would pop when Tourmaline came under attack.

Back at the beach, a young-ish woman approached Gobin's sandcastle. It was odd because no one else on the beach was walking. The woman said that the sandcastle wasn't structurally sound. She pulled a stick the length of her leg out of her pocket and offered it to Gobin.

Gobin threw sand balls. The woman batted the ball into the structural issue, which caused a third of the castle to crumble. Gobin yelled, "We're being besieged" and threw another sand ball.

The ball hit the woman on the thigh. The woman sighed and said he should let her help him. She put the stick in the sandcastle and used Mold Earth to cover it, fixing the section of the castle.

Gobin pointed at the woman and screamed, "Witch!"

"I think you've been in the sun too long buddy," the woman said.

Gobin slunk down into his sand castle.

The woman started talking to Derrick about logging and who that weird guy was. Derrick said he'd sent some people to his house. The woman said Gobin could be a psychopath from the Wretched Vault.

Derrick asked the woman, who was called Sandra, to tell him the story of how she was escorted by sharks. Sandra clarified that one of the fish she caught had jumped off the deck into the sea and chased off the sharks surrounding her. She lassoed the fish and it pulled her back to shore. The story sounded unbelievable, but Sandra stuck to it.

The rest of the group made it back to the beach. Asher laid in the sand. Krixx taunted Gobin, saying it would be a shame if a tail knocked down the castle.

Krixx explained to Derrick that there was a metal alligator, a songbird, and a spider in his house. Derrick asked Asher for a sip of his fireball whiskey. Asher gladly shared.

Sandra shared a story about how Derrick was afraid of seagulls because they tried to eat his hands. Derrick issued a challenge, saying that when the fiesta happened that night, his fingers would succeed at cornhole. Krixx was excited at the prospect of games.

Tar'ren went for a swim.

Xilon was surprised there were no giant crabs on the beach, being familiar with Abishot's beaches, and had to get used to it.

There were lots of activities happening at the party that evening. The MC of the evening was the town leader, a pig farmer named Joesia Lamton. Joesia said that it would likely be foggy tomorrow, so they would enjoy themselves that night. The townsfolk laughed at that but seemed defeated by the prospect of more fog.

There was arm wrestling, archery, pig wrestling, rodeo, pie eating, shell games, telephone, and more.

Gobin wanted to do the rodeo. Krixx said that they could turn him into a pig and cheat to win, which Gobin said sounded provocative and wrong.

Krixx wanted to do archery while Asher wanted to catch pigs. Xilon wanted to do the shell game. Tar'ren went for pie eating. Merdaer meanwhile snooped around for valuable items.

Merdaer saw some really cool conches. He also saw that Hannah the pie maker had a rather strange attachment to her pie cutter. She cut the pies and refused to let anyone else touch the pie cutter.

Xilon looked for shells on the beach. Asher and Gobin also joined the competition. Sandra hid the shell. Asher, Gobin, and Xilon closed their eyes and covered their ears until she returned.

Xilon asked if Sandra hid it near the water. She said yes. Xilon moved near the shore.

Gobin asked if she hid it in the sandcastle. Sandra said no, but Gobin checked in the sandcastle anyway. He saw a few shells, but not the one that she hid. He did notice that the footprints over there did not match Sandra's.

Derrick asked, "Is it near Hannah's pies?" Sandra said it wasn't, but she bet he was going that way anyway. He did.

Asher asked if the shell was near Xilon. Sandra said it was just as near to Xilon as it was to Asher. Asher moved along the coastline.

Xilon looked at the footprints and saw Sandra's, following them down the beach.

Gobin went up to Sandra and checked her pockets. He got a handful of pocket sand. Sandra slapped him for his rudeness.

Derrick thought about pie, but explored near the sandcastle. He knocked it over.

Asher asked if the shell was near a tree. Sandra said yes. He moved nearer a tree and yelled the information to Xilon. Xilon checked the branches of a tree near him, but didn't see anything special.

Gobin ran over to Derrick, who said he wasn't doing anything. Gobin could tell he was lying. Derrick moved closer to Asher.

Asher looked over the sand near a tree but didn't see evidence of the shell. He moved to a different tree.

Xilon looked around the rocks near the trees and saw disturbed earth on the southwestern side of the rock. He started digging and felt something hard.

Gobin looked over the damage to the sandcastle. But he smelled something, and all of a sudden a pig came shooting through the sandcastle and plowed into Gobin. It dodged around and ran off. It had a rotten apple in its mouth. Gobin tried to grab the pig but it slipped out of his grasp.

Asher saw Xilon digging and prepared to clap for him. Unfortunately Xilon accidentally broke the shell, but he cast Mending to repair it.

Gobin yelled at the pig for destroying his sandcastle and told it to help him with the rodeo. The pig apologized and said it'd be back later. It ran away and Gobin chased it. Derrick laughed hysterically.

Asher played interference to keep people from realizing that Xilon broke the shell while Xilon mended it. He did very well making it seem like things were okay.

Xilon fumbled a little bit. Sandra saw that Xilon had found the shell and clapped for him, but then she noticed that he broke it. Xilon lied and said he didn't. Sandra believed him and declared him the winner.

Tar'ren looked over the pie contest and saw that many threw up after three pies. There were apple, blueberry, and lemon meringue pies. Tar'ren picked apple, blueberry, apple, blueberry, and lemon meringue.

Two people started eating pies along with Tar'ren. Asher and Krixx were in the crowd cheering Tar'ren on. One person immediately choked. Tar'ren also choked on the first pie, but Krixx cheered for Tar'ren and used Flash of Brilliance, helping Tar'ren get the pie down.

Tar'ren handily swallowed the second pie. The other person choked on the second pie, so Tar'ren won. However, he decided to continue to see how far he could go. Unfortunately, he choked on the third pie. He was stuffed. The chair creaked under him.

Tar'ren rolled out of the chair and talked to Hannah about the spices she used in the pies. They were far more filling than Tar'ren expected. The secret was nutmeg. Hannah made an inappropriate joke about filling the pies with the souls of children. She laughed awkwardly and asked if Tar'ren tried the lemon meringue. Tar'ren asked her to join him for a slice. She gladly agreed.

Gobin went for his rodeo bout. He tried to calm the boar at first and did rather well calming it. Unfortunately, Gobin only made it one round before falling off.

"Hey, where'd my boar go?" he asked, sitting on the ground.

Asher did his pig catching contest. He ran to a pig and scooped it up in a bear hug. Joy filled his voice as he declared himself a winner, cuddling the wriggling pig.

Krixx was competing against three locals shooting apples off the top of a table. If he hit the apple, he would move on to the next round. If he missed, he would be eliminated. The contest used shortbows, which Krixx didn't have, but the people graciously let him borrow one of theirs.

All four people made it through round one without issue. The next round was a strawberry. Krixx hit the strawberry, and only one of the other people hit.

For round three, there was a grape to hit. Both Krixx and the other person missed twice. Krixx shot his third arrow and critically failed, though the other person missed as well. It was a draw.

Krixx mingled with the townsfolk and saw a table full of mushrooms. He was told not to eat the mushrooms until near the end of the party. The mushrooms were called Manticore's Mane, a local delicacy that provided clarity but left one weary and weak after a few minutes. Krixx chilled with the people, chatting and enjoying the presence of others.

Some people talked about how ridiculous it was that Sandra said she was saved by a fish. Krixx said he'd seen some weird things out there. It could be true. Everyone was fussy about how Sandra said she lassoed a fish.

The people also talked about merfolk who talked to people in flashing lights, but the people who had seen them were all drunk at the moment.

Merdaer heard all the weird lore that went around in the fishing and logging village. One story was that deep in the everfog, a fisherman caught a fish as large as the boat, but when the fog thinned, the fish had shrunk. No one believed him.

Another person talked about the Year of the Lost, which was when a dozen children went missing in the Lightwood. The worst part was that the thirty adults who went looking for them disappeared as well. Few people stayed in the woods after dark.

The evening was rather enjoyable. The group got their fill of food, eating plenty of meat, fruits, and rice wine. Each party member got a bottle of rice wine to keep. Monkeys scuttled around and snuck strawberries and grapes. A couple tried to steal a bottle of wine. A few of the party members saw it happening. Merdaer stole the bottle of wine from a monkey and threw the monkey to a tree.

Derrick went up to Gobin and said no hard feelings. Most days it was just work, so they liked to have a bit of fun.

Tar'ren decided to go home with Hannah that evening.

Xilon took a mushroom to study while most of the other party members ate the mushrooms.

Most of the party went to Derrick's house. Asher noticed that Derrick slept on the couch and actively avoided the hall with the family portrait. The party was allowed to use the bedrooms. They had a peaceful sleep.

Gobin dragged his chest into the room where Derrick was. Derrick woke up to a dirtcastle built in his house. It startled him, but he chuckled. He got up and started to make breakfast.

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