Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...
Session 59 - 8th of Leftember, 1392
This week's adventurers:
Blossom (Rogue 5)
Mayfly (Magician 4)
Cherwe (Cleric 4)
Liminal Space (Changeling 3)
Mechtilde (Fighter 4) Bacifer de Snorley (Frogling 1)
Ulf (Magician 2)
Franz Croakenbell (Frogling 1)
Hirelings: Gerung Floating Disk (MU 2) + The Rest
Downtime in the Village
Several members of the party spent the week carousing after our excellent haul the previous week. Verinka reaches level 3 and learns the spell Animal Friendship. Mechtilde goes out drinking and reaches level 4 (becoming a proper Hero), however, as a side effect, she's very hungover and Bacifer de Snorley takes her place in the party this week.
Blossom seeks out rumors on the Brotherhood (of Thieves and Assassins) and learns that the Bishop of Lychgate purportedly employs the Brotherhood (of Thieves and Assassins) for his own purposes.
We also discuss an RPG format of having 5 DMs run a game for 1 player. I'll report back once we test it out.
Back on the Road
This week, the party is headed to the bishopric of Lychgate to seek out (and steal) a magical item that the Brotherhood (of Thieves and Assassins) possesses. We depart on our 2 day journey on the morning of the 8th of Leftember. The weather is muggy and grey and the road is incredibly muddy.
Blossom is scouting for the party and sees a group of men ahead when she suddenly hears a gruff voice shout out "who goes there" from her right hand side.
Turning, she sees a man in black chainmail holding a weapon that looks like a large firepoker.
"Gaaaahh"
She sees 3 men on horses, with at least 10 up ahead.
"Your name is Gahh?" the armored man asks?
"No, you startled me, my name is Blossom, I'm on my way to Lychgate."
She recognizes these assholes as members of the Company of Devils, a company we chose not to hire when we traveled to Blackleg. They're a company of bounty hunters and man catchers, a disreputable lot.
The man informs her that this is now a toll road - 2gp per person (or 1gp and they get to take one of your legs).
Blossom politely declines and turns around to rejoin the group.
Dealing with Devils
As the party rides up, we see that they seem to be torturing three people who evidently couldn't pay the toll.
Liminal hypnotizes the leader of the three, and his two companions ride off when they see him cast magic.
"Kneel before me and beg," he commands the leader.
He dismounts and we tie him up with rope.
Once the spell wears off, the man starts to call out for help but Liminal puts his sword to his throat.
"Are you sure you want to do that? You might cut yourself," he warns our prisoner.
This terrifies the other soldiers enough for them to flee and their would-be victims thank us while Mayfly binds their wounds.
They explain that they were traders on their way to Lychgate and the Company killed their mules and tried to rob them.
Liminal interrogates the tied up guy and he explains that they have a base in a keep to the southwest of Vollage. There is a ruined manor in the swamp.
"We gotta go to Swamp Manor," Liminal exclaims.
We untie his feet and Mayfly tells him to tell the Company to clear out of the manor by time we return or we will burn down the manor and sell the souls of everyone we find there to the foul creatures of Nightwick.
The merchant gives us 100sp as a thank you and we invite them to travel to Lychgate with us.
Denziens of the Dark Country
As we near the Witchfort, Blossom spies in the distance a group of Dogheads, dog-headed men, both bipedal and "centaur built." They are fleeing a group of men on horses, who she identifies by the gleam of their golden helmets as the Corbies, who looted the magic items from the battle of Vollage. Mayfly wants to reclaim the items, but the Dogheads and Corbies both number around 100, too many for us to engage in.
The Corbies chase the Dogheads into a nearby bog and we give them a wave while we wait for the ruckus to pass.
Ea-Nasir's Wagon Wheel
We eventually move on and as we approach the still rebuilding Vollage, Blossom spies a camp of Froglings that are having a loud argument.
She doubles back and fetches our two Froglings to act as interpreters for us. The group is mad that one of them bought a second-rate wagon wheel from a merchant in Vollage and now it has already broken.
Bacifer de Snorley (who has the worst French accent of all time) offers to let them hire us as guards while they return to Vollage to get a new wheel.
The Froglings, of the van Toad family, orders Bacifer to return to Vollage, fetch a new wheel, and bring it back, and warn the merchant that if he sells a cut-rate wheel again, the van Toads will cut off his head.
The van Toads pay us in advance with a silver necklace worth 1000sp.
We reach Vollage and the town is still being rebuilt. We catch the carpenter and Cherwe pays the man 50sp for a wheel. We return immediately with the wheel and they reward us with another 100sp.
We stay the night at Vollage at the Wanton Witch.
9th of Leftember, 1392
Onward to Lychgate
The next day, it is hot and muggy, which helps dry out the mud but makes for otherwise miserable weather.
Around noon, Blossom spies a tree up ahead from which a number of bodies hang and a number of poles with breaking wheels upon them that people have been hung from.
Inspecting the bodies, it doesn't look like the work of robbers, but looks like a more official punishment.
Moving on, we reach Lychgate without incident.
We're charged 34sp to enter into Lychgate, but the Froglings are not allowed into the city as it is too close to the evening and they are not allowed in town.
We all decide to instead turn around and all stay at the van Toad house.
10th of Leftember, 1392
Lean Times in Lychgate
We're up early and some of the first in line to enter the city. We each pay 2sp to enter the city, leaving our horses with the van Toads.
As we enter the city, we see a large square with burned stumps to our left and a church with a large graveyard to our right (Church of St. Simon).
Given what we know about the Brotherhood (of Thieves and Assassins), we decide to search in the Old City of Lychgate, near the Cathedral of St. Gax.
As we walk through town, we spot an interesting group of Dwarven beggers. Passing over the bridge to the Old City, we notice several spots along the city wall where the sewers (poop sewers, not storm sewers - why would a medieval city have storm sewers???) juts out.
We pass by a number of the Bishop's servants (all dressed in his livery), about 50 of them, all drinking to great excess.
Leaving them behind, we pass to the far side of the cathedral.
Good Hygiene
There is a bathhouse on the far side and several women who work there attempt to coax us to visit. We all decide to go into the bathhouse to gather information. Liminal tips the staff 10sp to that end.
He learns that men in masks and dark hoods do occasionally exit the sewer through a certain entrance (the one opposite the merchant's guild).
He thinks there's something she's trying not to say, but after an additional tip, she reveals that she thinks there's an entrance to the Brotherhood's lair in the Whore's Nipple (a tavern in town).
Mingling With Scum and Villainy
Mayfly plans to sit in the Whore's Nipple and cast ESP.
As he casts the spell, Mayfly is assailed by the population density of the spell. Blossom goes in with him to help point out potential Brotherhood members. However, everyone in the tavern looks sketchy enough to be a potential member to Blossom.
Liminal Space goes up to the bar and orders a drink from the bartender. He orders mead with a large tip and asks where the Mumblty Peg is.
The bartender points Liminal in the direction of Toothless Tom Smiler. Liminal goes to Tome and offers to play him, but if he wins, Tom has to give him a secret and a kiss.
Here, the DM goes on about how in medieval cities, it's not normal to wear armor and only nobles can carry swords so everyone just carried around Messers - four foot long knives. (Presumably, they won't be playing Mumblty Peg with messers).
The Tom Smiler Special
Liminal asks about his nickname and Toothless Tom Smiler, who has a mouth full of teeth, produces a bag filled with a large number of teeth.
"Sir, you've raised more questions than you've answered."
Tom Smiler claims to have taken the teeth of every man he's killed. Tom tells Liminal that if he wins, he wants 10gp.
The game begins. Tom hits the back of his palm on the first strike and screams in pain. Liminal completely misses his hand but wins by default.
After a few moments of screaming (which no one in the inn reacts to), he composes himself and pulls the knife out of his hand.
Liminal receives a kiss on the cheek, which he promises to never wash, and asks Tom how to get in good with the Guild. Mayfly focuses in on Tom's mind as Liminal asks his question.
Mayfly picks up that Tom considers lying, but sees him thinking of a specific grate on the square outside of the inn that we walked by earlier.
Tom tells Liminal to meet him on the next street over later tonight. As he says this, Mayfly picks up a mental image in Tom's head of Tom and some other bandits killing Liminal and dancing over his corpse.
Liminal awkwardly shakes his hand and they depart.
After that, we regroup and call it a night. We earned 1200sp total and next week, we go after the Brotherhood (of Thieves and Assassins).
We each earned 106xp and 160sp.
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