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.