We head back into town, to the tavern. Suddenly the place goes ghost quiet as a confident and gorgeous Tiefling with polished black horns and a long tail walks in. A natural 20 roll later, I realize she is trying to get the men’s attention, but her wiles have no effect on me. Everyone stops and stares. Apparently, her name is Celeste, and her local reputation precedes her as someone everyone knows and respects, with lots of connections but no affiliations. The dwarf Traydek buys her a drink, LOL! He starts with a “Howyoudoin”, so classic!! What a rube! She has pointed teeth, which he proceeds to say “I call that a goalpost…”. Somehow, it works! She is actually drinking with him, HAHAHAHA. Jesus, even Iffy slides in, asking if she is an adventurer. Actually, there are like 5 dudes all trying for her attention, and she only has eyes for the dwarf! She looks over at Iffy and asks, “I don’t know, are you looking for an adventure?” So smooth… The dwarf seems rather taken aback that Celeste is no longer looking at her, and that she may be taking over the conversation. This is getting good. She seems to be giving them both attention at this point.
Some woman with scale mail approaches me, with a hammer at her side. She appears to be paying attention to me for some reason, and walks up to me, still standing. “You should watch out for your friends over there.” I get Iffy and Traydek away from the weirdo, and thank the lady. Iffy takes to reason, but I have to “coax” Traydek by pushing him. HARD. We wrassle, and he seems to forget about the broad. Boom. Hero. This guy. I approach Traydek later, and tell him that he was likely in some sort of danger, and we make up — dawgs again.
(1 beer in) Fayla overhears that there are tryouts for a new crew that is being made — and she knows that people on crews make the real money. This might be very lucrative if we can make this happen. Hmmm, I see Fayla walk off in private with some bloke… wonder what that’s about. I do trust her, but I’ll have to keep my eyes open. Turns out, we may be helping the town kill some orcs and ogres, and there may be some sort of reward. They need heroes, which means they need me.
Anyway, the dude she was talking to rolls up; he seems familiar for some reason… not sure, but he was crew member on Destiny THAT’S IT. I think he is like a second or third tier member. Anyway, he is pretty decked out. “Thanks Fayla, glad we talked. She tells me you may be interested in some work,” then sits down. “You were talking with Sherise on the Destiny, who gave the bounty on Markesha. My name is Vodein. Fayla tells me you’re looking for some work. Is that true?” The party nods in agreement. “I understand you got your stuff back and collected that bounty we had put out on Lowen, plus the extra bounty for taking care of Calek’s group.” We recall that they had given us the names of Calek, Tootsi and Mav. So far, we have eliminated Calek and Tootsi, and came back with the old man who we had saved. I show him the ears I cut off of the pirates. He hands something to Iffy… it is a pouch. HER coin pouch. Oh boy. She then proceeds to fall on her face and go to sleep. I grab her coin purse from the table. “Well then. You’ve done well, so you’re free to do more work if needed.” The party indicates their readiness to do the work. “Good. There is a party outside of town led by an Orc named Mars. They’ve been going around beating and robbing people, and they need to be stopped. He has several half orcs and a half-ogre with him. Mars got in good with one of the temples, so folks have looked the other way, but now folks are sort of out of it.” I show him the ears, and he mentions he’ll take care of the bounty by the time we’re back.
The loot from that bounty: we have 450gp in the small chest. We split it evenly between us 6. We notice a fight getting a bit crazier, with steel drawn. A big one and a little one… somebody breaks it up with a spell and says “That’s enough, take it outside or the Revenant.” The big one says, “The fuckin’ Urchin doesn’t back down!” and proceeds to have the fight going again! They go outside, and I collect the teeth from the bar floor.
(2 beers in) We roll through town, looking for the orcs. In the distance, we see what looks like an Orc and his goons. Time trash these punks! They appear to be boarding some crashed ship… there is a “R” on the ship painted, and this could be trouble… definitely a bad part of town. The orcs and the crowd and the two idiot fighters all board and it sounds like it might be a party. They throw their daggers into the deck, then proceed to grab them and fight to the death. The big buy wins, then picks up the little one and throws him off the deck, screaming “THA FUCKIN URCHIN!!”
We follow the Orcs… 3 half orcs, the orc and a half-ogre. They break off from the main crowd, splitting off into town. They seem to be rolling up on a merchant stall where we ran into the spice merchant, in the established farmers market district. This is probably going to get bloody… for THEM. BOOM.
The fight is pretty nice—I quickly rushed in and saved the merchant, then heroically turned her invisible, risking my life to protect her. She runs off safely, and we aren’t able to locate her after. Ararmour’s dog is pretty epic actually. Good stuff.
I find <redacted> on the leader, and cut off his ear, including the ears of all of them. We decide to take a short rest, but before we can, 4 burly humans walk out of an alley. Fayla seems to somewhat recognize him… they are sizing us up, and think they can take us out. We instantly kill the morons, finding <redacted>. After taking our short rest, Fayla and I decide to go and try to find Vodein. She seems to not be too happy that I’m going with her… I’ll have to remember that.
(3 beers in) Eventually, Vodein walks into the tavern ship “Ship Wrecked”, where we usually stay. He gives us 4 gemstones, after telling us that we work pretty quickly. “They’re unloading a shipment today if you’re interested in more work.” Before we decide what to do, we take a long rest in the inn overnight. We leave, and find 2 or 3 shipments (3 wagon loads) loading up at the front gates, which we are going to escort to some location inland. The two we are protecting is heading east to a moutain trading post. Iffy and Aramour decide not to join us. The rest of us decide to HERO UP and help the wagon get to the destination. “‘Tis a 3-day journey if you’re here to escort us. That gon’ be a problum?” We indicate it won’t.
Side note — we invent something called a “Rusty Coward”, which AJ gets from some half-orc goon in an alley. Sounds hot.
As we continue on the road, we discover that the driver Naven is part of a bandit plan to attack the caravan tonight. We try to investigate and get him to crack, or give us more information. I endlessly torment him with my ability to speak directly into his mind, and I try to get him to go insane. Along with my tactics, Fayla interrogates him and he eventually gives up his information. I decide to continue to enter his mind for the rest of the journey.