March 4, 2026
Up a creek
March 4, 2026
Up a creek
Down in Downfall
Down in Downfall
Hey, I missed logging the last couple of sessions, so here's how they've been going! We held session 4 in late March after another long-ish break between sessions because life got busy (as per usual). My memory of this session is somewhat foggy, so here's what I do remember. Our party had a new member join up! Our friend who was busy and couldn't make it for the first few sessions officially joined the crew as Blorp, a bullywug (frog-guy) cleric of an obscure god named "Glarb". It was nice to get the full crew all together, and adding a life cleric to the lineup will definitely make the party a good deal healthier in fights.
The party spent a good deal of time chatting with the current king of Downfall, learning that he had recently acquired the Big Book of Bad Blood. He really needed to get rid of this book that really belonged to the hag Bavlorna. The party agreed to be entered into froggy nobility so that they could personally see to it that the book be returned to Bavlorna. Book in hand, they did a bit of haggling at a strange storm-cloud balloon to not much avail, and then headed to the center of the swampy town to get that book back to its rightful owner, and maybe see about getting Bramblewine's sense of creativity back.
The party made it back to Bavlorna's hut, and found that it was, predictably, a bit of a mess. The ground floor had a large pool in the center of it with a well, but it had grown pretty gross and un-maintained. They explored the rest of the ground floor a bit, finding a bunch of strange knick-knacks and taxidermy projects. Gathering their courage, they headed upstairs, but not before Blorp fell through the rickety stairs a couple times, provoking a few swarms of bees that had taken up residence above the 2nd floor doorway. After dispatching the bees, they came upon the redcap that they had feared when escaping the hut earlier, but found that she was more concerned with a pair of buzzards that were harrassing her than the party exploring the hut. After dispatching the buzzards and chatting a bit, they went to meet with Bavlorna.
Bavlorna turned out to be a good deal more hospitable than they expected, and also a good deal more chatty. She happily offered the party that she might be able to negotiate with them if they could run a few errands for her, including returning that missing book, fetching some tribute from town, and cleaning up her restoring pool on the first floor. The party agreed, and decided to start with the pool cleanup process, since that was the nearest objective. Also, having survived meeting a hag, they all leveled up to level 3! Peering into the well, tied up to a safety rope, Red plunged in and found that it was blocked by an ooze! He scrambled back out just in time before the ooze emerged as a tall cylindrical Gelatinous Tube. (I described it in-game as like when a can of thanksgiving cranberry sauce escapes its can.) This is where we left off for the end of that session, and it was about another IRL month before our schedules all lined up last weekend.
Upon reconvening last weekend, battle commenced, and the party quickly stacked a bunch of dagger clouds on the Tube, chopping it down to size. Despite that, the Tube did manage to engulf Bramblewine brifely before the rest of the party was able to burst it down. Sticky, but relatively unscathed, the party headed back to town to gather Bavlorna's tribute. They found it in the house of the anti-king conspirators, and after they reported their findings about the king to them, they walked away with a nice crate of furs and hunting supplies for Bavlorna. Once they returned it to Bavlorna, it was time to negotiate properly.
Bavlorna explained that if they wanted to get Bramblewine's creativity back, they'd need to steal a portait of her sister Scabatha from the realm of Thither. If they could do this, she'd relinquish what Bramblewine had lost as a child. The trouble is, they didn't have an easy way to make it to Thither. To make things worse, Bavlorna's contract stipulated that they only had 8 days to accomplish the heist! Bavlorna told them that there was a guide in town that knew the way, some scarecrow she thought. It turns out the party knew that scarecrow, and that he was in need of his head which had been stolen by the Harengon brigand Agdon Longscarf. So, the party made haste back to the Brigand's Tollway to confront Agdon.
The party decided to make their assault under the cover of night. They made it to a large tree stump in the centre of the Tollway where it seemed like Agdon was holed up, and Red scouted ahead in the swampy water. After a brief ambush of some guards, battle was joined with the remaining guards of the Tollway. During the fight, the party happened to make a number of critical hits that all targeted the guards' eyes, so the party took up a cry of "EYEBALLS!" every time they moved from guard to guard. They decided in the moment to start calling themselves "the sight-blinders", and that they were out for revenge for their earlier defeat at the hands of these Harengons. After quickly dispatching the guards, they scaled the tree stump to find Agdon asleep in his throne, atop a pile of stolen trinkets. Yelling out "EYEBALLS!", they got to fighting him, and had a really had time pinning him down. It turned out that Agdon was incredibly fast, and his magical branding iron made him functionally invisible to many of the party members after hitting them with it. Thanks to some good old fashioned magic missiles from Hemlock, Guiding Bolts from Blorp, and melee backup from Red and Snuffy, they got Agdon to give up, once it was clear Agdon couldn't escape or beat them. He said if they let him go, he'd give them all their stolen items back, but that the scarecrow's head was actually back in Bavlorna's treasure hoard. Cursing, they dispatched the Harengon's leader, and headed back to Bavlorna's hut to gather the head.
Upon return, Bavlorna chuckled and gave them the scarecrow's head, saying that she "...totally forgot that rabbit even gave me this! I guess you'll need it, eh?". With a groan, the party accepted it, and headed back down to Downfall to return the scarecrow's head, and begin their journey to Thither. That's about where we ran out of time for the day, so we called it there. We're meeting this upcoming weekend for the next session, so we'll be getting right back to it soon enough!