(Is there any chance we could have retroactively hunted game along the way, to bring something of value into the town? Meant to say in my last post, apologies for delay. If so, Soar would be bringing game in to sell at whatever market she finds.)

Soar whispers, "wow, didn't know you could do that. Can you do that whenever you want? I'm sure it comes in handy. Stay within sight of me, but why don't you range out and try to listen in on what people are saying? Gossip and news, of course. If anyone's talking about us, that would be important to know. We want to know what's been happening with the cult, with dragons, with big rumors, with the elves. The Alliance too, though I doubt people even know about that. I'd find that incredibly useful, En." Then in a more conversational voice, she says "Gwen, stay close to me, and I'll give you a tour of a town. First you've been in, for a long time, I think?"

If she's got game, she'll head to the market to sell it. If not, then yes, head to a tavern, but only after a walk down the main thoroughfare, eyes alert for anyone giving them a lot of attention, or anyone she recognizes. Then to the tavern. Keeping an eye out for any shops, too. And of course any cult markings.

(Yes, that's fine.) With a 15 survival rolled in Discord with Jalt's help, you caught a few rabbits and prepared them; you might be able to find a buyer in town.

It's late in the day and the market is packing up; you can try to sell your rabbits, though - it will take time, so give me a Persuasion check. I think with disadvantage, unless Soar has particular experience in commerce, which I believe she does not?

Gwen will stick close, gazing at all the goods for sale but a little nervous about the people. En agrees to your plan and seemingly flies off.

Yeah Soar is not mercantile and has not spent time in markets selling things.

But she is good at pretending?

Soar persuasion: 19 and 16, so 16

She also, as she often does when she's in populated places, keeping an eye out for anyone who seems injured or diseased. Her fingers twitch with lay on hands energy should she see anyone, but she won't make any obvious move at the moment.

How's the general mood of town?

Insight, if applicable: 17

if Soar needs help Persuading people to buy some of the rabbits, Jalt will help out by talking about how the gods blessed Soar's hands in catching the game. 

Soar, you do a good job and get a decent price; 12 copper pieces total for four rabbits. You'll be able to buy a few mugs of ale in a tavern if you wish to.

The general mood of the town is calm with an undercurrent of worry. You hear some people talking about dragon cult attacks, but far away; more commonly people talk about the indirect outcomes of the current instability and the effect on trade - this is a major stop on a main trade route and the violence around Baldur's Gate is having knock-on effects here.

There are folk with injuries; you see a beggar, a halfling woman who seems to be sick with a disease you don't immediately recognise, sitting and begging at the edge of the marketplace. She is looking in your direction and catches your eye hopefully, perhaps desparately.

I think Jalt stayed behind outside the town.

Soar holds up two copper and approaches the woman, and presses them into her hand. As she does she lays on hands for 5hp to heal her of her disease. “Pray with me?” and she speaks a brief prayer of acceptance and perseverance to Kelemvor. “I hope you feel better. And if you happen to have seen anyone wearing dragon insignia, probably surly, come through town I would love to hear about it.”

She will otherwise go to the market to grab some very basic foodstuffs that they cannot forage for. She keeps a couple copper for a drink and a milk at the tavern and will move there to sit and listen for a spell. She has to prioritize food over drinking and gossip but if she can learn anything else she will try. Otherwise she will head back with supplies. Before she leaves she will cast locate object for her ring to see if there is a ping.

Thank you, miss, the beggar says. She doesn't seem to flinch as you heal her; you get the sense that this is something she has experienced before. And bless you, in Tyr's name. No, there's tale of the dragon worshippers here and there but I haven't seen any in town, not since they attacked the market some four months ago. Madness, that was. They were cut down before they could do any real damage. They wanted death. I suppose it's the way of such folk. Her tale told, she resumes her begging, her pleas to the passing traders and customers sounding a little stronger with the healing magic working its way through her body.

You can't really afford enough to compose trail rations, but you can get a few herbs for 4 copper that will help flavour what you have at least. That will leave you enough copper for one ale and one milk and exactly nothing else.

You enter the tavern, the Lady Luck, and see a busy and noisy common room. You get an ale, and a milk for Gwen; she stares at the various folk in the tavern, many of whom seem to be travellers, adventurers, or perhaps thieves, wide-eyed but unafraid. There are plenty of interesting-looking folk in the common room; will you join a group at a table, find a place to sit with just you and Gwen, or sit at the bar?

Apologies - thought the coin would get us further… PHB says 1lb of flour is 1cp and 1 chicken is 2cp. So assumed we’d get more.

But! I also belatedly remembered Soar did get some basic equipment from Altand, and I have 50 foot of silk rope in my inventory. So she will seek out a general foods store and sell the 10gp rope for 5gp (and if either J or B want to retroactively have offered something from their inventory to sell in town she will sell that too). With that, she then buys some bulk goods to supplement the game and fish (she got fishing tackle in Altand!) and veggie forage they have been surviving on. Salt, and some mundane herbs and spices work nicely. And she buys Gwen some baked good treats, the poor girl. 

Then she goes to the tavern and orders those drinks and joins a table if there is open seats and tries to charm her way into the good graces of whoever is there, getting the news, listening for more clues of the cult, and anything about the road to Waterdeep, or news from the city. She will mention seeing those odd plants near where Gwen was found and see if anyone seems to know what they are (I assume this is somewhat close to where she was found) and if someone seems trustworthy she would share that Gwen is a foundling and looking for her family. But she avoids any talk of adventuring or battling the cult.

As Soar heads into the village of Daggerford, Bazavur busies himself with setting up camp. He does his best to maintain an awareness of his surroundings but he’s lost in his own thoughts. Once the camp is situated he’ll go out and find enough wood to keep a modest fire going through the better part of the night and then sit and tend it until we’ll after the sun has gone down. 

Soar, you are able to get 5 gold pieces for the rope, and spent 3 silvers on the various items you mentioned.

You join a group of two humans, a halfling and a dwarf who seem to be exchanging travel tales and open to welcoming a stranger - they seem like they've only recently met, perhaps on the road. They talk of the cult, but it seems to be distant; there's also talk of some kind of political trouble in Waterdeep, but the person talking about it heard it from someone who heard it from someone else, and the details are a bit fuzzy - some lord or other who lost his job, but they don't know the name.

You begin to think about how you will raise the topic of Gwen, when you hear shouts - and then screams - come from outside the tavern. The common room was not quiet, but it quietens quickly as people look up in surprise, and as the noise dies down you hear many, many shouts of panicked people coming from outside, and a sort of loud crashing sound, and then a loud thump.

Jalt and Bazavur, you see, in the early evening twilight, a large white dragon swoop in from the north; it flies once over the town, drawing shouts of fear from the townsfolk. Then it turns and flies again, this time unleashing its deadly cold breath as it flies - the shouts turn to screams of fear, though you cannot see the people affected from where you are. The dragon lands heavily somewhere in the town, and you feel the thump as it hits the ground even from your camp. You would need to spend a minute or two at full speed to reach the dragon, if you wished to.

Soar's blood goes cold. Does it sound like a dragon-sized thump? Or an explosion?

She looks around and finds an empty booth, and moves Gwen over to it. "Stay here, and I will be right back. I'll check to make sure it's safe," she says at a whisper and then she goes to the door and looks outside, not exiting but trying to locate the source of the panic and the thump. She fingers the battleaxe at her side, having left the flail back at camp because a hunter would not have a flail.

She casts armor of agathys at second level on herself.

(Realizing Candelabra never went away and would likely have stayed in camp -- an elk being a little memorable. So if so, Soar reaches out telepathically to him and says, "something happening here in town, I'll try to get back if I can, you okay?")

Hearing/Seeing the commotion Bazavur sighs heavily, scatters the fire a bit so it’ll die down on its own. He gives Jalt a quick glance, “No time to die like the present, unless you have a friend that can bring you back from death.” His tone is very dry and monotone. And he begins running towards the city. 

Soar whispers, "En? Are you here? Do you know what's going on?"

Bazavur and Jalt both head off at pace into the town of Daggerford, passing people fleeing in the other direction. A few look at you like you must be crazy, or very foolish - but they don't hang around long. Ahead you think you see the dragon, a huge white shape mostly hidden by the buildings and rooftops - you have some way to go before you reach it.

Soar, it doesn't sound like an explosion, more like something crashing onto the ground. You reach the door and look outside; a few people rush in from outside, pushing past you and making it difficult to see for a few seconds, but once you can you see the market square, and across the other side, a large white dragon which has landed on cloth and wooden stalls, crushing them beneath its massive weight. It is not looking in your direction particularly. You notice that while most of the patrons are fearfully glued to their table or scrambling to look for a cellar door, a couple come up to the door behind you - a human and a gnome. As they do so, the dragon turns around, sniffs the air as though detecting something, and then it speaks, a loud, cruel voice, speaking in common:

Worthless creatures of this town: you hide my prey. I smell them in your midst: the heretic Jalt, the weakblood Soar, the dragonwhelp Bazavur. Bring them to me as tribute, and save yourselves. If not, I will break your town and consume the remains. Be quick!

Another blast of cold comes from the dragon's mouth, and a few buildings at the side of the market are shattered, with their inhabitants fleeing - if they are not crushed in the rubble. 

There was no response from En.

Soar, crouched by the entrance, closes her eyes, tilts her head down, and says to herself, “why did I ever even dream I could ever leave this life. It will be with me until they end me, or I end them. No more. Jalt and Bazavur, I wish you well. Find safety and peace. Kelemvor, grant me the strength to face this threat with honor.” 

The quiet but audible almost-prayer ended, she opens her eyes and looks at the dragon again. She tries to see what is around it, and if she can have a path that gets her within 30 feet of it, moving through alleys or buildings to get to the market. She fastens her shield and grabs the mundane battleaxe. (If there is no route to sneak closer then she will resort to plan B, which will involve her looking like someone else and a direct approach and some subterfuge.)

Hearing the dragon call him out directly, Bazavur starts seething, his blood begins boiling, almost to the point of bubbling over, but he manages to contain himself. (For now at least)

He continues to run straight towards the dragon yelling out his own retort as soon as he’s within striking distance of it. 

“I’m right here, you pathetic witless wyrm. Took you long enough to find us. I was beginning to think you ran off and hid. Not sure you’ll survive a second bout.”

Bazavur steels himself for the inevitable conflict. Glaive held in front of him, his hands wringing the haft. 

Soar, there is a route to approach the dragon, if you wish. It is not facing directly towards you, so you may be able to get within 30 feet without attracting its attention. You move forward, intent upon doing so. Make a Stealth check. As you move away, one of the other patrons sticks his head out of the door, and then pulls back.

As you do so, you hear Bazavur's cry and see him and Jalt both running up the street towards the dragon. You will reach it first though; they're still some dozens of feet away.

You also see something rather strange; a series of what looks like runes appears on the ground in front of the dragon; it's not terribly easy to see them given the distance, but you can also make a Perception check to try to see what they say.

Will Soar, Jalt and Bazavur keep approaching?

Soar begins to move forward and eyes a sneaky approach, but stumbles a bit and scuffs her feet. Ruing the loss of her boots and armor, hearing the clunking of the purloined mail, she realizes that trying to sneak up on this dragon will get her killed with no benefit. She adopts a cowering, questioning-life-choices stance and takes another approach, and moves forward. It doesn’t take a lot of acting because she is scared and also questioning her life choices.

Before she calls out to the huge beast, she spies the runes and tries to make out what they could be, and if she should pick a route that steers clear of them. 

Perception: 9 (rolled in avrae)

She can’t quite see them so she steps forward more. 

“I… I think I saw them, it could have been them, just off the road? In that copse over there. I could show you, if… if you like,” she says in a tremulous voice, like a hunter trying to save her own skin (and get the dragon away from Gwen and the town before any fight breaks out).

(Deception roll?)

Jalt will approach very cautiously, war hammer at the ready behind the rushing Bazavur.

Jalt and Bazavur come running up, weapons at the ready - you make it into the market square and can see the dragon, and Soar in her disguise approaching it.

Soar, the dragon's head jerks in your direction. It seems distracted by the shapes on the ground, and as you follow its gaze, though you still cannot make out the runes, you do see what appears to be a small, floating humanoid creature. A very strange one. And definitely not En. The dragon seems momentarily confused, and then it sniffs loudly, and its eyes turn and fix directly upon you. An unpleasant smile appears across the familiar face of Arauthator, and...

The tiny hovering creature moves slightly, and a little bead of orange light appears in front of it.

Roll initiative please.