Kay's Journal - 4/2/2021 - Reaper Errant #022

 Kay’s Journal, 4/2

• Sack of 300 gp (chest)
• Title to a piece of land that’s about 200 acres owned by Mark Mallory (chest)
• 48 gp (bandits)
• Ruby worth 50 gp (bandits)
• 1422 XP

We continued down the road toward the port town where we need to drop off Mushroom Lady’s trinket. It’s still cold, but the weather is getting better. There’s no snow, at least. We go past a couple of farmsteads, and Gooseneck buys a couple of chickens.

After the farms, I hear voices and the sound of wheels on the road, like maybe a wagon, ahead of us. Before long we see two men pulling an empty wagon – no horses, they are pulling it themselves. CornCob waves to them and moves off the road to make room for the wagon. They ask if we’re going to the port, and CornCob says ‘maybe’. They sold some stuff and are headed back to their farms. Their horse didn’t survive the year, but they’re trying to save up to buy another. They sold barley, whet, and some beer in town, but have no profits to bring home. They tell us there’s a small issue on the road ahead – bandits are camped out along the road and demanding a toll. The men tell us the bandits have a ‘devil dog’, and that they saw 5 bandits there. They tell us the bandits are about half a day ahead.

They also tell us we could avoid the bandits by going through ‘Troll country’. Fathom asks for details on that; it’s about a day west, then northwest of here. There’s an old road that goes through there. 

The guys with the wagon tell us the bandits have a big tent on the side of the road. There’s a landmark before the camp, a big oak tree with a heart carved in it with the names ‘Jolene and Bob’.

Fathom gives the men some gold to replace what they lost, expecting that we will get it back from the bandits. 

We get to the landmark. Abran and I sneak up a hill to surveil the camp. We see a dwarf and a human by the road, one on either side. There’s another dwarf and human sitting by a fire. A fifth person is milling about the camp. We watch the camp for about an hour, and see a couple more people come out of the big tent. Somebody still in the tent has a big appetite, as we see someone carry a huge plate of food in there. The camp is within longbow shot from where we are on the hill.

Debate, debate, debate. Pujol doesn’t want to assume that they are bandits. He casts invisibility on himself and goes down to the camp to look in the tent. Fathom gives him some chalk to use to mark the tent where Abran should shoot. Pujol, while invisible, does not do a stellar job of moving carefully through the camp, and knocks down the back of a small tent.

Gooseneck, Fathom, and CornCob continue on down the road, and get stopped by the bandits. The bandits ask them for 50 gold. Gooseneck has little patience for discussion, and tells them to let them pass or he’d cut them in half.

Pujol moves toward the big tent, and still doesn’t manage to move quietly. He uses his Mage Hand spell to disrupt one of the other tents to try to draw attention away from his location.

Abran takes a shot at one of the bandits on the road with his rifle, hits, does a bunch of damage, and makes a bunch of noise. CornCob casts a spell that calls up a burst of wind, which hurts three of them. Two more run up to the road. One goes to CornCob and swings a sword at him, and the other heads toward Fathom.

The ‘devil dog’ comes out of the tent. I recognize it as a hellhound, like we saw in that hell plane we went to. Pujol makes it into the big tent, which is now empty of people and creatures. 

The battle on the road continues, with Gooseneck and Corncob trading attacks with the bandits there and Abran shooting at them. Fathom talks to the hellhound, trying to convince it to leave its current companion and join her. 

The fight on the road continues. Pujol calls up an illusion of a large male troll making his mating cry. Fathom calls to the dog again, and it lines up on the road and breathes fire on one of the remaining bandits, CornCob, and one of Gooseneck’s chickens. 

That’s pretty much it for the bandits. CornCob and Abran do some healing. Pujol finds a large chest in the tent, checks it for traps, and sees a magical ward that sets off an alarm. Wisely, he waits for help opening the chest. 

Fathom gets the dog into its crate and feeds it some bandit to make friends. Gooseneck takes a short bow from one of the bandits, and we take a couple crossbows to sell, including a large experimental one.

We debate what to do with the hellhound, and decide to keep it around when we head into troll country, and send it back home after that. 

Kay's Journal - 3/19/2021 - Reaper Errant #021

We returned to the mill after the trip to the weird cave and brought back the missing child. Gooseneck asks if we can expect any trouble on the road ahead, and Sophie says no, it should be smooth travelling.

We take off the next morning, heading to the next town. There’s less snow, as we’re coming down out of the mountains. After a full day of travel, Pujol finds us a good spot to camp next to a river. We build a fire and settle in for the night.

On 2nd watch, Gooseneck heads something on the other side of the hill we’re camped by. He turns and sees a creature come running up the hill at him. It looks kinda like a large, scraggly rooster. He swings at it, which alerts Fathom who is sharing the watch. A second critter gets to the top of the hill as the first one bites Gooseneck. It seems to have some kind of poison, as his arm looks odd for a few seconds around the bite, and then he recovers.

Another creature gets to camp, tries to peck CornCob. Fathom shoots at it. Pujol wakes up and gets his weapon. CornCob casts a spell, which does some damage to the chicken lizard that is attacking him. By this time, I’ve woken up and spot two others in the distance. I stab the one closest to me. They are very ugly creatures – bat wings, scales, barely any features. Fathom shoots one, and it goes down.

Abran gets up and shoots at the one on CornCob. It goes down. Abran goes up to the top of the hill to shoot at one of the others. Gooseneck runs up to the one by the river, hits it and kills it. Only one is left, and we finish it off pretty quickly.

So much for the chicken lizards. Once we have a chance (and some light) to get a good look at them, we see they are cockatrices. They have a petrifying bite. They are also good eats.

Pujol extracts some of the petrifying poison so we can sell it later. In the morning, CornCob finds the cockatrice nest. A snake slithers away from it, having eaten two of the eggs. There’s one left, and CornCob grabs it.

We continue on down the road. As we continue, the road veers closer to the river. We see a swimming hole and a dock. We see a number of young people swimming, and what looks like some kind of altercation between a couple of halflings on the dock.

As we get closer, we pass a tinker heading the opposite direction from us. Abran tries selling him the tiny tools he found in the weird cave, but couldn’t come to a deal. CornCob asks about the swimmers, and the tinker tells us there’s a hot spring over there. CornCob buys some stuff to waterproof his boots. The tinker tells us there are goblins up ahead, but doesn’t think they’ll bother us.

We head on to the dock. Apparently, a girl was diving for crawfish, but has been under the water too long. They think ‘Old One Eye’, a large catfish, might have got her. Gooseneck jumps into the water, and Pujol and Abran get in a boat to follow after.

Underwater, Gooseneck sees a large…something…swimming around. He bites it. CornCob goes into the water after him. 

The giant catfish surfaces, and we all shoot at it. Gooseneck Rages and hits it with lightning. Fathom flies out over the water to get a better angle on it.

Old One Eye swallows CornCob whole and dives. Pujol tries to cast a spell to talk to the fish – he sticks his head under the water and makes ‘alluring catfish sounds’ to call it back. Amazingly, this works. Gooseneck swims after the fish and attacks it.

That takes care of the fish. CornCob finds the woman in the catfish, grabs her hand, and drags her out. They go back to the dock, while the younger halfling jumps in the boat to go after the fish carcass.

The woman offers to make us some crawfish as a show of appreciation for rescuing her. CornCob says catfish is better eating, and next thing you know, we’re having a cook-off. Turns out she is part water Genosi, which makes her part water elemental. Sort of.

She tells us she has a half sister who runs a ship that might take us on as crew. The ship participates in trade and exploration. She gives us a letter of introduction and tells us to find Melloris and the Silver Swan.