From his spot on the roof Theldrin watches as Xanrym and Wraven seem to make it safely to the mayor's house. He wishes from a moment that he could shapeshift into a cat like Liarin could, smiling to himself at the thought. He tries to embody cat nature as he crouches low and scans the streets of the sleeping town for anything that seems noteworthy.
Xanrym and Wraven return from the mayors house with grim expressions on their faces.
About twenty or thirty minutes after Xanrym and Wraven left to go to the mayor's house, they return to the intersection between the Golden Grain Inn and the jail. They're still moving without a light to avoid attracting attention. As they come into the dim light streaming out from the inn, you see clearly that it's just the two of them: the mayor is nowhere to be seen.
Xanrym glances at Avery and shakes his head curtly. He sheathes his shortsword and thanks Wraven for the escort. As Wraven relieves Avery and rejoins Lldryk in guarding the jail, Xanrym says, "We'll see you in the morning, Wraven. Hopefully, the cult is satisfied now, and the rest of the night is peaceful. We'll be keeping watch at the inn, so raise an alarm if you have any more trouble tonight."
Xanrym returns to the inn with the rest of the party. He looks asleep on his feet, but he briefly explains that they found the mayor's door open. No cultists but signs of a struggle. He says, "It looks like the cult kidnapped Mayor Ormond. I suspect that they plan to take the mayor to the naga so that she can enchant him and force him into the cult against his will. Now that we overthrew the cultists at the Temple of Merrika, they need a new base of authority in Orlane, and the mayor would give them that. That must be what Cirilli's father meant by his comment."He sighs deeply, clearly feeling guilty about leaving the mayor alone at his house. He continues more optimistically,"Of course, to do that, they need to keep Mayor Ormond alive, and where there's life, there's hope! I think that we were all planning to attempt to find the naga's lair anyway, and it looks like Mayor Ormond planned to offer us a handsome reward."Xanrym takes a folded sheet of paper out of one of his books and smoothes it out on one of the table. The letter is signed Zakarius Ormond. Mayor of Orlane. It reads like a contract, naming the party members individually and tasking us with finding the den of Explictica Defilus in the Rushmoors and eliminating the naga in the hope that it will free the charmed people of Orlane and lift the darkness that has engulfed the village. The letter promises the party a reward of 1000gp. He says, "So...that's just gives us extra incentive to defeat this naga. If we can find a guide and gather supplies tomorrow, we can head toward the naga's lair. Maybe we can even catch up to the cultists and free the mayor before they even reach the naga's lair?"
Xanrym will remain down in the tavern of the inn only long enough to answer questions from the other party members, but he heads up to one of the bedrooms as soon as their curiosity is satisfied. Xanrym had the first watch shift. He hasn't had any sleep yet, and he's in no condition to discuss their plan for the morning. He goes upstairs to their bedroom, takes off his blood-stained amor, and finally collapses into bed and a deep sleep.
Theldrin's relief at seeing Xanrym and Wraven return unscathed quickly turns to concern once he sees the look on their faces. He doesn't seem surprised as he listens intently to the news, nodding quietly with a scowl and a sigh. "Let's head out as soon as we can on the morrow then," he says quietly before bidding everyone good night.
Alright, so Wraven and Lldryk stay at the jail, Wraven says to you all "The mayor entrusted you with the elimination of the naga. You must rescue him as well, while your at it." He talks in the matter of fact tone of a hardened mercenary, but you can tell he really wants the mayor rescued.
You finish up your night at the Golden Grain Inn, finishing a Long Rest.
Remind me if anyone was doing anything like identifying magic items or something and I can let you know what you've got. Additionally, when you all wake in the morning you have all levelled up to Level 3!
Let me know what your movements are for the next day. Are you going to visit other spots in Orlane? Or are you heading straight into the Rushmoors?
In the morning, Liarin speaks up. "I'd think we need to speak to the loner in the elm grove, they are likely a druid and I'd like to check in with them before we go. If the rest of you want to rush to the Rushmoors instead, I'm all for it."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Coriana - Company of the Grey Chain Wagner - Dragon Heist: Bards. DM - The Old Keep
In the morning, Liarin speaks up. "I'd think we need to speak to the loner in the elm grove, they are likely a druid and I'd like to check in with them before we go. If the rest of you want to rush to the Rushmoors instead, I'm all for it."
Xanrym says, "No, you're right. As much as I'd like to catch up to the cultists who took the mayor, we need to find a guide. I'm not confident that we could find or follow the cultists trail, especially once they reach the Rushmoors. I mean, that's not just a little bog. If we head straight south, we'd have to cross 30 miles of swampland before we reach the Javan River. And then the Rushmoors stretch all the way to Shiboleth in the east, some 200 miles or more. Perhaps your druid in the elm grove or maybe Alan Clayborn, whom the mayor said was a former ranger of the Dim Forest."
Xanrym also suggests, "We also need to buy some gear. Some oil for my lamp, maybe another bag of caltrops, and some healing potions if we can find any. We used all of ours at the temple yesterday. If we're heading into the lair of a naga, we might also want to try upgrading our armor, and Theldrin was looking to buy a pearl, right? The tricky part is that we may have to get other people to buy this gear for us because Cirilli said that her father, Isiah, is the one who runs the general store. I doubt that he'll sell us anything now that he knows that we're working against the cult." He has been dividing up their treasure over breakfast. They have the coin that they found under the Golden Grain Inn and all of the treasure and gems that they took from the cultists at the Temple of Merrika yesterday.
Xanrym is worried about how many people in the rest of the town are cultists, but they are in a hurry. He suggests that they could split up, maybe in 2 pairs. If Theldrin goes with Liarin, then each group has a healer in it in case they get attacked by the cult. Of course, don't be afraid to run away! At this point, the party has everything they need from the cult other than its location.
Liarin and Theldrin
Visit the druid in the elm grove
Visit Vilma Merridie to see whether she has a pearl to sell
Avery and Xanrym
Visit the farm of Alan Clayborn
Try to convince someone to buy some things at the general store for them
If they could do all of that before dinner, they could possibly get 8 miles (1/3 of a day's march) away from Orlane before they have to camp for the night.
I'm just going to divide the treasure among the 4 party members who went to the tunnels under the inn and fought through the temple.
A 1/4 portion of the treasure we haven't divvied up yet comes to ~273gp in value each. Some of that will be in coins and some in gems.
I'm not sure whether we can find it in Orlane, but note that Avery has enough treasure to buy splint mail (AC 17) if he wants.
We have the following treasure (combining the chest under the Golden Grain Inn, the chest guarded by the mimics, the chests in the room where we found Cirillli, and the coins on Jocelyn, the monks, and Abramo):
277gp
1470sp (147gp value)
2189cp (21.89gp value)
1 garnet (100gp value)
9 gems at 50gp each (450gp value)
10 gems at 10gp each (100gp value)
Hopefully, we can dump the bulky treasure (cp, sp, and maybe some of the gp) in buying equipment. If we assume that we can use the gems to pay for items at their listed value, then I guess we can wait until we've purchased gear today and subtract purchases from the character's 273gp share of the treasure. Then, based on what everyone has left-over after their purchases, we can just take gems and coins from this hoard to figure out what everyone should add to their character sheet for later.
For example, if Xanrym purchases studded leather armor (45gp), a couple of potions of healing (2 x 50gp), and some smaller items (~10gp), he'd have 273 - 155 = 118gp of treasure left. Maybe he'd take 1 of the gems worth 50 gp, 3 of the gems worth 10gp, 36gp, and 20sp.
The party may also want to consider pooling their money to buy a donkey or draft horse, saddle bags, and some feed. If we find a big treasure chest full of gold in the naga's lair, I know that Xanrym won't want to be the one carrying it through the swamp back to Orlane. (Draft horse + pack horse saddle + saddlebags + feed is ~62 gp.)
(OOC: regarding pack animal -> yeah, that always depends on the DM. Some DMs like to give the party a treasure hoard in a remote location, and then the next part of the adventure is all about how to get the treasure back to the party's base without getting robbed. If the DM isn't interested in portage, they'll generally throw a bag of holding or portable hole at the party pretty early on. 🙂)
You can of course purchase a pack animal, the livery stables are next door to the Golden Grain Inn. You would have seen them working on the horses throughout your time here. If you wish to talk to them then you can absolutely do so, perhaps at the end of the day when you've both completed your other jobs. So your days today look like this:
Morning: Liarin and Theldrin go to elm grove at 27. Xanrym and Avery go to Alan Clayborn's farm at 23
Afternoon: Liarin and Theldrin go to Vilma Merridie's house at 20. Xanrym and Avery try to convince someonw to buy something for them at the general store at 12.
If they find a guide, perhaps the guide has a draft horse that they could hire for the trip. Then they could skip the stables and try to get out of Orlane that evening.
If not, then Xanrym mentions that he was tired and in a hurry last night. He's not sure whether it's worth having Liarin and Theldrin search the mayor's house today at some point. He doubts that the mayor has any additional information about the cult: "We seem to be way ahead of him there." But perhaps someone important like the mayor would have acquired a potion or scroll or something else useful for their mission over the years? He wouldn't feel bad about stealing and using it since it would also be in service of rescuing the mayor himself.
If they want to search the mayor's house, Wraven can let them in. He and Avery can probably handle purchasing a draft horse by themselves.
Also, other than a pearl, Xanrym and Avery need to know Liarin's and Theldrin's shopping lists.
Xanrym also says, "It occurs to me that Theldrin might have a faster approach to our problem with the store owner. Maybe he could just put them to sleep? Then we could gather what we need, leave a fair payment so that we're not actually stealing anything, and then get away before the owners wake up." It's an idea. Xanrym isn't sure whether it's a brilliant idea or a crazy idea: he's just looking for ways to speed up their day and get out of Orlane that day, if possible.
Alright when you’ve all worked out a plan for today we’ll move on. It’s important I know the definitive plan before because if you’re splitting up there might be things I need to take into account.
Got it. So Avery is at the jail with Lldryk. Liarin is in with your other companions while Theldrin keeps an eye from the roof.
From his spot on the roof Theldrin watches as Xanrym and Wraven seem to make it safely to the mayor's house. He wishes from a moment that he could shapeshift into a cat like Liarin could, smiling to himself at the thought. He tries to embody cat nature as he crouches low and scans the streets of the sleeping town for anything that seems noteworthy.
Stealth: 11
Perception: 10
Although no one sees you on the roof, you are unable to notice anything noteworthy around the village at this time.
Xanrym and Wraven return from the mayors house with grim expressions on their faces.
About twenty or thirty minutes after Xanrym and Wraven left to go to the mayor's house, they return to the intersection between the Golden Grain Inn and the jail. They're still moving without a light to avoid attracting attention. As they come into the dim light streaming out from the inn, you see clearly that it's just the two of them: the mayor is nowhere to be seen.
Xanrym glances at Avery and shakes his head curtly. He sheathes his shortsword and thanks Wraven for the escort. As Wraven relieves Avery and rejoins Lldryk in guarding the jail, Xanrym says, "We'll see you in the morning, Wraven. Hopefully, the cult is satisfied now, and the rest of the night is peaceful. We'll be keeping watch at the inn, so raise an alarm if you have any more trouble tonight."
Xanrym returns to the inn with the rest of the party. He looks asleep on his feet, but he briefly explains that they found the mayor's door open. No cultists but signs of a struggle. He says, "It looks like the cult kidnapped Mayor Ormond. I suspect that they plan to take the mayor to the naga so that she can enchant him and force him into the cult against his will. Now that we overthrew the cultists at the Temple of Merrika, they need a new base of authority in Orlane, and the mayor would give them that. That must be what Cirilli's father meant by his comment." He sighs deeply, clearly feeling guilty about leaving the mayor alone at his house. He continues more optimistically, "Of course, to do that, they need to keep Mayor Ormond alive, and where there's life, there's hope! I think that we were all planning to attempt to find the naga's lair anyway, and it looks like Mayor Ormond planned to offer us a handsome reward." Xanrym takes a folded sheet of paper out of one of his books and smoothes it out on one of the table. The letter is signed Zakarius Ormond. Mayor of Orlane. It reads like a contract, naming the party members individually and tasking us with finding the den of Explictica Defilus in the Rushmoors and eliminating the naga in the hope that it will free the charmed people of Orlane and lift the darkness that has engulfed the village. The letter promises the party a reward of 1000gp. He says, "So...that's just gives us extra incentive to defeat this naga. If we can find a guide and gather supplies tomorrow, we can head toward the naga's lair. Maybe we can even catch up to the cultists and free the mayor before they even reach the naga's lair?"
(OOC: I think that catches everyone up.)
Xanrym will remain down in the tavern of the inn only long enough to answer questions from the other party members, but he heads up to one of the bedrooms as soon as their curiosity is satisfied. Xanrym had the first watch shift. He hasn't had any sleep yet, and he's in no condition to discuss their plan for the morning. He goes upstairs to their bedroom, takes off his blood-stained amor, and finally collapses into bed and a deep sleep.
Theldrin's relief at seeing Xanrym and Wraven return unscathed quickly turns to concern once he sees the look on their faces. He doesn't seem surprised as he listens intently to the news, nodding quietly with a scowl and a sigh. "Let's head out as soon as we can on the morrow then," he says quietly before bidding everyone good night.
Liston agrees.
Coriana - Company of the Grey Chain
Wagner - Dragon Heist: Bards.
DM - The Old Keep
Alright, so Wraven and Lldryk stay at the jail, Wraven says to you all "The mayor entrusted you with the elimination of the naga. You must rescue him as well, while your at it." He talks in the matter of fact tone of a hardened mercenary, but you can tell he really wants the mayor rescued.
You finish up your night at the Golden Grain Inn, finishing a Long Rest.
Remind me if anyone was doing anything like identifying magic items or something and I can let you know what you've got. Additionally, when you all wake in the morning you have all levelled up to Level 3!
Let me know what your movements are for the next day. Are you going to visit other spots in Orlane? Or are you heading straight into the Rushmoors?
In the morning, Liarin speaks up. "I'd think we need to speak to the loner in the elm grove, they are likely a druid and I'd like to check in with them before we go. If the rest of you want to rush to the Rushmoors instead, I'm all for it."
Coriana - Company of the Grey Chain
Wagner - Dragon Heist: Bards.
DM - The Old Keep
Xanrym says, "No, you're right. As much as I'd like to catch up to the cultists who took the mayor, we need to find a guide. I'm not confident that we could find or follow the cultists trail, especially once they reach the Rushmoors. I mean, that's not just a little bog. If we head straight south, we'd have to cross 30 miles of swampland before we reach the Javan River. And then the Rushmoors stretch all the way to Shiboleth in the east, some 200 miles or more. Perhaps your druid in the elm grove or maybe Alan Clayborn, whom the mayor said was a former ranger of the Dim Forest."
Xanrym also suggests, "We also need to buy some gear. Some oil for my lamp, maybe another bag of caltrops, and some healing potions if we can find any. We used all of ours at the temple yesterday. If we're heading into the lair of a naga, we might also want to try upgrading our armor, and Theldrin was looking to buy a pearl, right? The tricky part is that we may have to get other people to buy this gear for us because Cirilli said that her father, Isiah, is the one who runs the general store. I doubt that he'll sell us anything now that he knows that we're working against the cult." He has been dividing up their treasure over breakfast. They have the coin that they found under the Golden Grain Inn and all of the treasure and gems that they took from the cultists at the Temple of Merrika yesterday.
Xanrym is worried about how many people in the rest of the town are cultists, but they are in a hurry. He suggests that they could split up, maybe in 2 pairs. If Theldrin goes with Liarin, then each group has a healer in it in case they get attacked by the cult. Of course, don't be afraid to run away! At this point, the party has everything they need from the cult other than its location.
If they could do all of that before dinner, they could possibly get 8 miles (1/3 of a day's march) away from Orlane before they have to camp for the night.
Theldrin is definitely still interested in the pearl, as well as healing potions and a new quarterstaff.
Dividing the treasure.
I'm just going to divide the treasure among the 4 party members who went to the tunnels under the inn and fought through the temple.
A 1/4 portion of the treasure we haven't divvied up yet comes to ~273gp in value each. Some of that will be in coins and some in gems.
I'm not sure whether we can find it in Orlane, but note that Avery has enough treasure to buy splint mail (AC 17) if he wants.
We have the following treasure (combining the chest under the Golden Grain Inn, the chest guarded by the mimics, the chests in the room where we found Cirillli, and the coins on Jocelyn, the monks, and Abramo):
Hopefully, we can dump the bulky treasure (cp, sp, and maybe some of the gp) in buying equipment. If we assume that we can use the gems to pay for items at their listed value, then I guess we can wait until we've purchased gear today and subtract purchases from the character's 273gp share of the treasure. Then, based on what everyone has left-over after their purchases, we can just take gems and coins from this hoard to figure out what everyone should add to their character sheet for later.
For example, if Xanrym purchases studded leather armor (45gp), a couple of potions of healing (2 x 50gp), and some smaller items (~10gp), he'd have 273 - 155 = 118gp of treasure left. Maybe he'd take 1 of the gems worth 50 gp, 3 of the gems worth 10gp, 36gp, and 20sp.
The party may also want to consider pooling their money to buy a donkey or draft horse, saddle bags, and some feed. If we find a big treasure chest full of gold in the naga's lair, I know that Xanrym won't want to be the one carrying it through the swamp back to Orlane. (Draft horse + pack horse saddle + saddlebags + feed is ~62 gp.)
(OOC: Thanks for doing the bookkeeping. Good idea to get a pack animal)
(OOC: regarding pack animal -> yeah, that always depends on the DM. Some DMs like to give the party a treasure hoard in a remote location, and then the next part of the adventure is all about how to get the treasure back to the party's base without getting robbed. If the DM isn't interested in portage, they'll generally throw a bag of holding or portable hole at the party pretty early on. 🙂)
You can of course purchase a pack animal, the livery stables are next door to the Golden Grain Inn. You would have seen them working on the horses throughout your time here. If you wish to talk to them then you can absolutely do so, perhaps at the end of the day when you've both completed your other jobs. So your days today look like this:
Morning: Liarin and Theldrin go to elm grove at 27. Xanrym and Avery go to Alan Clayborn's farm at 23
Afternoon: Liarin and Theldrin go to Vilma Merridie's house at 20. Xanrym and Avery try to convince someonw to buy something for them at the general store at 12.
Evening: All go to the livery stable at 8.
Let me know if this looks right.
I'm having a hard time uploading to Imgur so here is a link of the map if anyone is interested:
https://djuradjgnip.artstation.com/projects/N59yGd
If they find a guide, perhaps the guide has a draft horse that they could hire for the trip. Then they could skip the stables and try to get out of Orlane that evening.
If not, then Xanrym mentions that he was tired and in a hurry last night. He's not sure whether it's worth having Liarin and Theldrin search the mayor's house today at some point. He doubts that the mayor has any additional information about the cult: "We seem to be way ahead of him there." But perhaps someone important like the mayor would have acquired a potion or scroll or something else useful for their mission over the years? He wouldn't feel bad about stealing and using it since it would also be in service of rescuing the mayor himself.
If they want to search the mayor's house, Wraven can let them in. He and Avery can probably handle purchasing a draft horse by themselves.
Also, other than a pearl, Xanrym and Avery need to know Liarin's and Theldrin's shopping lists.
Xanrym also says, "It occurs to me that Theldrin might have a faster approach to our problem with the store owner. Maybe he could just put them to sleep? Then we could gather what we need, leave a fair payment so that we're not actually stealing anything, and then get away before the owners wake up." It's an idea. Xanrym isn't sure whether it's a brilliant idea or a crazy idea: he's just looking for ways to speed up their day and get out of Orlane that day, if possible.
Alright when you’ve all worked out a plan for today we’ll move on. It’s important I know the definitive plan before because if you’re splitting up there might be things I need to take into account.
Liarin could use hide armor, but otherwise approves the plan. I also have a slightly used quarterstaff up for grabs.
Coriana - Company of the Grey Chain
Wagner - Dragon Heist: Bards.
DM - The Old Keep