Saga of Hester the Jester ~New wheels

The trio arrive in the town and it's elvin. They're stopped right away by two knights, but the knights look the trio over and wave Toughas on. In the town kids are frolicking, bars are hopping, glow globes are lit and are quite ornate. It’s a lovely little town. Toughas finds a stable and the elves there take charge of the two horses and see to it that they are taken back to their rightful owner. The man of the stable takes one look at the large horse that Pickles is disguised as and insists that he can’t take such a large horse. Toughas (disguised as a tall elf) drives around back, Lucien turns him back into

Pickles and Toughas goes around front with Pickles and pretends that this was all elfy fun and what a silly prank that was!! The man believes it, and thinks it’s a fantastic prank and is quite hilarious, and a great joke. Boys comes around and unhook Pickles and start to tend to the carriage and Pickles.

Toughas talks to the stable master about trading in the wagon for a new one. His cousin Jess restores old wagons like ours and would likely be interested in our carriage. They'll meet up with him tomorrow at 7am.

They all make their way to the inn and check in. Hester checks in under an artificial name. Toughas is still looking like an elf, and Lucien has his robes drawn up around his face. They go up to their room and after Toughas's spell wears off, he heads down for a bath at the bath house. The elves seem very concerned and weirded out by the trogger, and as Toughas tries to walk up the stairs to get back to the room he's stopped by one of the inn staff who insists on following Toughas up to Lucien's room to verify that Toughas belongs there. Lucien tells a lie about Toughas being "the Master's" number one servant. The man believes the lie and escorts himself out quickly.

Lucien sees an elf hovering and flying outside our window, staring at Toughas. Lucien shews him away and draw all the curtains to the room. A young man knocks on the door with a cart and bubbly. Hester was hiding in the cart, and enters our room. They all share some bubbly and then head to bed early.

Around 6am everyone wakes up, gets their stuff together and head down to the restaurant for first breakfast. They all discuss the plan first since Toughas looks different than the first time they were at the barn.

Lucien and Toughas go walking down to meet the stable master. Toughas is dressed as a servant in a cloak and linen clothes. No armor. The men are already up and playing cards. They buy the story about being the tall elf's servants. They are not impressed by enchanted Mr. Pickles and want him out of the stable by the end of the day. The men hook up a different animal to the carriage and head off.

They leave the town and head down a country road. Eventually they pull up to a farm about an hour later. There are a number of wagons and carriages in the yard, and they're all human designed. There's even a chariot! Everyone hops down, Toughas is handed the reigns to the beast and is told to "handle the beast, servant."

Toughas comes back to rejoin the group and the man they’re here to see is named Jess.

He is completely failing to not show his excitement over the carriage. He's looking it over, inside and out. Lucien and Jess are talking shop, going about their bartering. Jess takes Lucien into the barn and shows him a prairie schooner (think, American west Oregon trail…). It's BASIC. Lucien asks about anything else, hoping he can get a wagon that is a bit better than that. Apparently Jess's cousin Ezra has been wanting some horses of Jess's and is hoping Ezra would trade a carriage for the horses, and Jess can get the carriage from Lucien. Toughas has to sweeten the pot with a large ruby from the frog men from way way back. He’s been carrying it for months. That does the trick. This new carriage is a sturdy cold storage van. They do all the paperwork, transfer all the gear from one carriage to the other. It takes quite a while to dot the i's and cross the ts.

After all the paperwork they finally make it back to the stable to pick up Mr. Pickles and have him attached to the new carriage. Then they go to the Inn to pick up Hester. There were some Domini knights sniffing around for Hester, but the stable hand told them to f' off.

Saga of Hester the Jester ~The Shapeshifting Trogger

About two weeks and five days down the road from Aleria they're back in human lands. Lucien, Toughas and Hester are coming through a prairie between forests. They enter the forest and see a freshly downed tree blocking the road. There is a man who is failing to be stealthy and they spot him. Lucien and Toughas switch places so Toughas is driving the carriage right up to the "trap" but they know they're there. Four people come around behind our carriage, with one of them being a wizard. One shouts for Toughas to stop and turn himself in.

Toughas steps down off the carriage as if he's surrendering, and then turns and barrels into the girl who's behind the carriage. He hits her with all his weight and knocks her clean out to the ground.

Lucien creates a great arcane shield. The bad guy from the front fires a bolt from his crossbow at Lucien. Toughas takes down one guy who attacks him as a counter attack, and another guy during his own turn. Hester even jumps against the guy, pushes someone in the back of the head and he goes down as well! Knocked out! The guy with the crossbow gives chase to Lucien and ends up shooting an arrow into his own friend who's on the ground.... oops. Their mage fails to rend the veil...and Toughas sticks him through with the rapier and kills him.

The big bad guy who was left turns and runs away.

After the fight is over Toughas moves the log out of the way, Lucien immolates the bodies, casts some spells and heals up. Then they're back on the road to Domni. Lucien has read enough of the spell books and practiced enough to have learned "scry lock" and "resist pain" spells.

They pull off to the side of the road for Lucien to cast scry lock on the carriage. It appears to be locked for five years, making it so that no one can magically spy on the carriage or any of its contents. Hester and Toughas go to the stream and go fishing. Toughas catches five fish and Hester starts frying them up on the spot. They mix them in with fresh onions. Lucien scrubs down Pickles and they have a nice rest.

They believe, from looking at the map that they can make it to the river, and the ferry by night fall. As they travel on, they're encountered by two knights on horseback. One says "this madness ends now! You will relent Lady Densmeal's property!!

Nope.

The group scoff at the idea and the melee will soon begin. Toughas, who had been driving the wagon hops down to the ground and gets ready as the knights charge toward us. Hester is able to move first, and with quick thinking she uses her voice of the herald (a spell that makes the voice boom, loud enough to be heard for miles) to spook one of the horses. She screams "boogity boo!!!!" and the knights have to spend their time reigning in their horses. One is thrown from his horse, but he doesn't fall to the ground. He attempts to swing at Hester and fails...throwing his sword. He pulls out a short sword from his belt.

Toughas runs at the man who's fallen from his horse and goes to stab him. He fails, hitting the shield but the shield looks a mess. Lucien sends magical pain at the other guy who crumples to the ground screaming in pain until he faints and is quiet now. Toughas stabs at the other fellow dead. Lucien goes after the runaway carriage and Pickles. The fight is over and Hester goes to find the runaway horses and grabs them. While all this is happening the man who Hester knocked out wakes up and starts shouting.

They get some information out of him, strip him of his armor and weapons. He was commissioned by his Lieutenant, not by Densmeal herself. He had a drawing of us, and our carriage, pulled by Pickles. He knew that we had a staff that he was supposed to get from us, and that it would be wrapped in silk rope.

Lucien finds a stick about the same size as the wand and he and Hester get into the carriage, Toughas ties the horses to the back of the carriage and gets into the driver seat. They drive past an insectoid mound, not wishing to stop there. The large bugs give them all the heeby jeebies. They pull off the road to have Lucien disguise Toughas magically. Lucien turns him into an albino hornless trogger, and both Hester and Lucien find this utterly hilarious.

They get back on the road and drive on. For the next three hours Toughas looks weird and different. They drive past six different wagons of people on the road, who now have seen this odder version of the trio. Or, Toughas at least. Lucien and Hester and hidden inside the carriage. They see a sign for Stanley's Landing and will be there in two more hours. The spell has worn off Toughas, so they pull over and have it reapplied. Lucien changes Pickles into a very large horse, and turns Toughas into a really tall elf with zits in place of the horns and protrusions.

Saga of Hester the Jester ~The Mage's Work is Never Done

There is an restaurant attached to the hotel, and after they checked in, the trio go for some food.  Lucien pays an extra sov for the boy who is tending the stable. Something feels like it's going on in this town ...they can't put finger on it, but something just feels odd. Everything closes at 5:00 so that all the elves can have happy hour according to the waitress. All inns, bars and restaurants are owned

by humans, dwarves and hillmen so that all elves can have fun and bedlam. They finish eating and Toughas eats them nearly out of rolls. (they said it was free)

 The owner of the inn has adopted an elf child and so they moved to the elvin town so that their elf daughter can be around other elves.

The deputy comes in for a cup of coffee, spots us and comes up to us asking our names. Toughas freaks him out by his size and demeanor...Lucien lies and says his name is "Larry", Toughas gives his proper name but through a thicker trogger accent and Hester gives her full name in high hillmen. He leaves us and leaves the cafe.

Everyone needs a bath and is filthy from the road. Apparently Toughas is filthiest and everyone would like him to go first. So he does. Next is Hester and after that is Lucien. They have a laundry here as well, and everyone has sent their clothes for washing.

After the baths, the place starts to fill up with elves. A fashion for the men is to wear a large acorn high on top on their heads with large bows tied under their chin. The ladies wear large leaves, tied with grasses.

They get some sleep and then head down for breakfast. After breakfast they want to go down to the arcane store. They're told they can find taxis by saying the term "Hackney Hackney come to me" three times, anywhere on the street. An apparition appears of an elvin man who takes the route plans. He then appears shortly in a cart pulled by two horses. All three pile in and drive down to the mage school. (There is no store, just the school.) He drops them off at the bookstore and leaves. All three enter, and the elf at the desk doesn't want to help Lucien because no one  has a visitor's pass. They send the three away to administration to get visitors passes. Toughas and Hester can't have passes, but Lucien gets one. Hester and Toughas can be on the quad only.

Toughas sits on a park bench and Hester starts juggling pine cones and telling jokes. She's doing ok but not super impressive to the elves.

Lucien goes in to get a spell book of scry lock, and then starts looking around at other books to see what there is. He also finds a book for "resist pain". Lucien pays, walks out and finds Toughas and Hester where he left them, at the fountain on the park bench.

Toughas calls Hackney taxi and a different driver than before appears, she's scared and nervous to see a trogger. She takes the directions and comes up to them about 10mins later. Toughas pays and they all get in the cab, headed back to the Green Griffin. They have lunch, then redo the gear and get ready to head back out to the road. They go out to the barn, call for the boy who's in charge. Lucien asks him to get Pickles hooked up to the carriage so they can head back out. As Toughas is getting things put back into the carriage, it feels like someone has searched our wagon. Toughas speaks with Lucien quietly and shares his feelings. Lucien questions the boy and he says that he heard something in the barn last night, and Pickles seemed upset but none of the horses did. Lucien casts detect magic on all our items to see if there's anything to be seen. There is a sigil carved into the side of our carriage that wasn't there before, and it's magically glowing. Lucien tries to read it to decipher it and finds it's a "Make it easy to scry on you" spell.

Lucien breaks the spell on the carriage, they get Pickles hooked up and get back on the road. It's going to take them about a month total to get to Domni.

Lucien spends some time learning the magic spells from the books. 

Saga of Hester the Jester ~Spies, Spies, Everywhere Spies!

Part one can be found here, part two here, part three here, part four here!

They all stretch and check out the camp area. There are signs for all kinds of amenities, and one of the signs points toward "Druids Grove". They decide they want to go there. SO they all follow the signs and it ends at a river. There’s a bell, so Lucien rings it and they hear "sending the boat". A boat floats up to the edge and ropes off to the dock. Everyone gets in the boat and it floats toward an island in the middle of the river. They're greeted by Ty the druid of the grove. They can't quite tell if Ty is male or female....elf or human. Which is odd and unsettling.

There are standing stones and trees all around the circle of stones. Hester asks Ty about the Gardener of the Grove and Ty says that the Gardener of the Grove is the head of their order. Lucien opens the packaging around the staff and shows it to Ty. Ty's never heard of the wand of the cloud and doesn’t recognize it when Lucien shows it to them. They’re trying to get it back to the Gardener of the Grove but Ty won't tell us where the Gardner is because well...that would be like telling us where the King is. They inspect the staff (having never heard of it, and not recognizing it) and feel it's power.

From North Grast to the Hellers

Ty has the trio set up camp outside their cabin, so they all go back to the previous cabin and get all their stuff to set up camp on the island. Ty will contact his supervisor in the stone circle this evening. Lucien does some preparatory magic, and everyone walks the land and generally chill out. Hester goes to the gym and relaxes in the sauna. They won't be billed for their stay anymore since they are now on Ty’s island and Ty’s guest. The staff of the resort take care of Pickles and the carriage.
Around 1:00am Ty finishes their conversation with their supervisor in the circle of stones. They come out and tells us that just south of Long lake there is a volcano called Grandston volcano, in the Hellers. In the caldera of the volcano is a lake, on the island in the lake is where the Gardener of the Grove can be found. That is where they'll go to bring back the wand.

They sit and have stew with Ty and then go to bed. Toughas wakes up around 9:00am and wakes his compatriots. They all pack up, have breakfast and hit the road. As they're packing up the carriage the master of the inn comes up and tells Hester that a human was here looking for her. There is a policy that they don't tell anyone about the guests, so they didn't tell him that the trio was there, but wanted us to know that he'd been asked about us.

The Hellers is a LONG way from here, but Hester offers to stay with us and complete the task. We take off and head for the city of Domni.

They're on the road to Domni and not much is happening (down time…) until….

Suddenly, Pickles comes to a dead halt. The carriage gets ambushed by three highway men. The trio doesn't see the mage in the bushes...until he casts powerbolt. They refuse to give them money and start the melee! Toughas charges the little hillman and kills him with one shot of his rapier. Lucien goes to powerbolt the mage and there's a bounce battle on! Both mages send glorious powerbolt down range at each other. The third man runs away at full tilt as his mage friend mana corrupts, melting and turning to goo and dies. They get back into the carriage and flee quickly.

They're going along, driving, moving past road houses, and sleeping in camp grounds and just relax on the road. As they drive on there is an apparition of Lady Densmeal suddenly in the carriage!! She pleasantly starts talking to each of the trio, asking how much it will cost for them to call off this task and hand over the wand. Lucien casts a dispel magic and the apparition is gone.

"You'll pay for this!!!" she says as the apparition breaks up and is gone.

They drive on for more three days and come to a fork in the road. The path to the right says "This way to Aleria"

After a short discussion they turn off and head to Aleria. It’s a little out of the way but it’s an elf town and sounds nice. They pass a giant house with a giant child playing in the front yard. They move past quickly as possible.

They get into Aleria and it's a modest size town. The city is elvin and they draw the attention of children. The children start asking questions of Lucien and Lucien asks for directions to the hotel. He gets it, and find his way to the Green Griffin Inn. It looks to be built by humans rather than elves. A human boy, about 14 appears, quite scared of Toughas, but seems to think that Hester is adorable. Everyone walks into the building and it's a nice inn. The lady in the office seems fearful of Toughas and charges him double, but the trio get their rooms.

To be continued…….

The Saga of Hester the Jester ~A Staff Found, the Journey Begins

They key is Hester’s own palm, via magic. She locks the door behind us and it's pitch black. No one seems to have any lanterns or torches. Hester suggests that Lucien cast a "detect magic" so that all our magic items glow. Toughas's sword glows especially, since it's rune stone and has been rubbed with the "kapow oil". Suddenly we hear something in the dim....and three zombies are coming at us. They're human skeletons.

One goes to attack Toughas so he parries, attacks, parries again. Toughas counter attacks. His rapier is not the best weapon for attacking bony zombies.....and he’s not getting the damage needed per hit. Another zombie goes to attack Lucien and he dodges out. They go back and forth like this. Lucien smacks them hard with his staff. Behind the zombies comes walking...some kind of mage. He casts a spell at Toughas. It was a Powerbolt...and that hurt. Next round this guy tries to Powerbolt again and Toughas goes to parry that blast! He succeeds! Wow! Two zombies are dead (again...) and the party battles. Hester....encourages them. At one point she does try to attack a zombie but ends up hitting herself in the face. (one point botch) Hash and slash! Hash and slash! Zombie lord goes down. We get through about 20 zombies and finally they're done.

We move through the tomb and find the reset the switch which resets all the zombies and put them back in their crypts.

Hester goes to grandpa's tomb and takes the wand of the clouds. There is also a spell wand that the zombie lord had, and we grab that as well. Lucien sits down with the zombie lord’s wand which has arcane writing on it. He tries to determine what the writing is. The wand is an elder wood wand that gives +1 for veil rend. It also has the spell "Power bolt" written on it. Lucien learns the spell from the wand and now knows how to cast power bolt!

The staff of the clouds is a highly enchanted weapon. In the hands of a hillman it's a staff, in the hands of a human or trogger it's a large wand. Lucien puts summon object on the staff of the clouds. He hands Toughas his old staff to strap to Toughas's backpack.

The trio open the door out of the mausoleum. They attempt to do so sneakily and steathfully. The light outside is so bright that it's blinding compared to the very dim crypt. Hester closes the door again and suggests that they all wait until night. All the heroes settle down and Lucien takes time to meditate on the staff of the clouds. No one in the party has the moxy/ability to wield this staff. It would mana corrupt anyone that would touch it for long. So Lucien wraps it in silk which protects anyone from getting mana burned, and puts it in Toughas's pack.

Hester opens the door just a crack and we all peak out. We see two tents and some guards outside the mausoleum. We talk strategy and decide that Lucien and Toughas should suck down invisibility potions, while Hester stays in the mausoleum with the backpack which includes the wand of the clouds.

Toughas stabs the bad guy wizard in the back. We've seen him before, he's the dandy from a few towns before. Lucien calls zombies as a distraction and then sends a Powerbolt through his new Powerbolt wand at a little hillman that is hidden and up on another mausoleum. Toughas and Lucien are both now visible because their violence made them visible, and the crew can roll initiative. The hillman dies from the impact of the Powerbolt. Toughas stabs the dandy again and he's down and dead. The woman who the dandy was talking to turns and runs, but the zombies under the control of Lucien grab her and the man who was sleeping in the tent comes out, and surrenders.

We bind up the two and leave them in the cemetery. We talk about running back to the huge city Namdak. We leave and go back to the carriage...and Pickles the murgo isn't there anymore. He's walked away and we find him about 10 mins away. He had gotten out of his binds and rubbed himself raw from it. We wrestle his mouth open, get a heal potion down him and then wrestle him back into place with the carriage. Hester and Toughas climb into the carriage and they're off. They're spotted, but don't notice.

Lucien pull the carriage into the keeper's home to give back the zombie talisman. When they come into the house there are four drunk deputies in the kitchen. Lucien tells them how he and Toughas spotted Densmeal's men in the cemetery. The drunk deputies don't want to do anything so send them down to the Sherriff in town because he's not drunk and can deal with this situation better than they can. The sheriff believes Hester's story (they chose for the hillman to talk to the other hillman, assuming that may go best) and then steers the conversation toward Hester's act. He's a huge fan. They finally extract themselves from conversation and head back out.

They look for a campsite so they can sleep and get some rest. They chose not to go to the hotel for fear of other Densmeal’s men. There is a camp outside of the other end of town. Hester pays and gets a cabin. The space is small, but quaint. It’s built for hillmen, so Toughas is uncomfortable, but everyone is tired enough that they manage. Once there they can see the wand of the clouds in its full glory. After looking it over Lucien re-wraps the staff with some of Hester's silk and gives Toughas his rope back. They fall asleep until about 1:00pm.

To be continued....... 

Toughas Nails character history

Toughas was raised in a fiefdom in north wild lands. (in the future, the place known as the Empire) He apprenticed under Dar’Nor, learning chainmaille. He wasn’t exactly clumsy but nor was he particularly good. Dar’Nor was passionate and accurate and highly skilled in his

craft and encouraged Toughas with a heavy hand. Still though, Toughas longed for adventure and to see the world. Anytime adventurers would come through town he would badger them, following them around town asking questions. He was quite fascinated by the stories of elves, humans and dwarves.

An adventurer trogger named Monar decided to take up retirement in the fife when Toughas was a young teen. He wielded a sword that Toughas had never seen before. The rapier. Toughas begged Monar to please teach him how to fight with the rapier. Reluctantly Monar agreed and trained Toughas in the evenings after his shift in the armory. He practiced hard, and found he was quite good with the light weapon. After training Monar would tell stories about his adventures.

Toughas found magic most interesting but perplexing and confusing. He had the most basic of understanding of magic but anything beyond simple breakers just made no sense. His sessions with Monar evolved into a mentorship and branched out into other skills beyond rapier. Fist fighting, sneaking, agility and trap setting/disarming were especially interesting and exciting.

One day Toughas went to visit Monar. Monar brought Toughas in for tea and spoke about a rapier that had been hidden. Monar wanted to send Toughas on his first adventure to recover this rapier and bring it back home. Toughas could barely contain his enthusiasm as he embarked westward to find the rapier. He had the gear that Monar lent him. He found the cemetery that the rapier was supposedly in. He got cocky because of how easy the location was to find, and almost lost his life to some plants that sprung to life. After a few days of searching, and looking more closely he finally found it! He was so elated! He hurried back to Monar to show him his success!

He enjoyed himself so much on his adventure that he knew he needed to find a group, or at least an adventuring partner like Monar had talked about so many times. He put in his resignation with Dar’Nor (not that it was exactly accepted….) and he set off south. Monar let him keep some of the gear, and the rest he cobbled together from the local store.

Adventure!!