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!!

Saga of Hester the Jester ~Zombies' round here....

Catch up on part one here, and part two here!

Lucien pulls the carriage up to a dark mansion after a day of travel and Lucien gets down off the carriage. A human walks out of the house to greet us and he's wearing keeper of the dead robes. The robes are immediately recognizable since Lucien is a Keeper. He directs us down to the barn, which Lucien and  Toughas go about unhook Pickles from his harness. The guys talk about the human and can't make sense of him, something seems off. The place was or is owned by Bert and Greta who are hillmen. Hester had told Lucien and Toughas about the place, and some of the normal burial rites of hillmen.

Hester doesn't recognize the human and the guys caution her to stay hidden in the carriage for the night. Lucien puts an alarm spell on the carriage and feels that magic has been cast in this barn recently. After inspection of the barn, Lucien sees that blood has been shed - hillman blood. While he's casting spells, the human comes walking down. Toughas hears the footsteps and intercepts the human so he doesn't see what Lucien is doing.

Lucien and Toughas start heading up the hill toward the house, in the rain and lighting two guys intended to jump us. They’re spotted and they both end up attempting to run. The guys catch them both and tie them up, then take them to the barn. Toughas goes up to the house to check on it to see if it’s safe or if there are more ambushers. He finds the hillmen couple tied up. The poor couple are very startled by the appearance of such a gruff looking trogger. Toughas attempts to stoop and make himself small and friendly looking, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. Bert faints. Toughas gives the man a heal potion and leaves so the couple can get their bearings. ….He walks back down to the barn and starts talking with Lucien about what on earth they’ll do with these two humans.

The woman rides a horse to town to get the constable. Bert comes down to the barn to thank us and offer food. Hester is still tucked away in the carriage hiding. After Bert leaves she grumbles about not getting food and “proper treatment” but Toughas reminds her about all the food she has in the carriage.

Bert goes up to the house to get the food and comes back down around the same time as the constable and Greta come riding up. Toughas and Lucien tell the story of how they're here with the dead to be buried. The constable finds this odd, a human and a trogger, but their stories line up and he believes them. He leaves with the humans in an open air cage intended for hillmen. The humans have been stripped down to their underwear and are stooping in the small cage. The sight is quite pathetic.

(Later they are murdered by someone "on the inside" in the jail…but our adventurers don't know that.)

The home is intended for hillmen and Toughas has to stoop everywhere he goes. He’s quite umcofortable, and even the beds are far too small for his larger than average frame. He chooses to sleep in the carriage "so he can stretch out" but really to make sure Hester is safe. 

Morning comes and everyone has breakfast and discusses burial plans for "our friend" (the pillows), then drive the carriage into the cemetery. There are helper zombies that are controlled by the thoughts of the individual who holds the zombie talisman. Bert had passed this talisman on to Lucien on their way in with instructions about how to use it. They get to the assigned grave and four zombies with collars are already digging the grave. One tries to come toward us. Lucien thinks them all back to work. He finds this magic quite enticing and smart.

Another zombie comes shambling towards the trio and once it’s a little closer they can see that it's collar has popped off and is just hanging open, draped across its shoulder. Lucien tells the four zombies under his control to hold the wayward zombie and Toughas carefully snaps the collar back into place. He almost got bit, what was he thinking getting that close to a zombie’s mouth!? The collar appears old and worn and will likely pop off again. So Lucien directs the zombie to lie down in the grave and the four others bury it with the coffin full of pillows.

Once done they start to look around. They’re up on top of the hill and can see down to the richer part of the graveyard. They can see the mausoleum in the center and there are two human soldiers in front and a tent off to the side.

Hester shows the guys the map of the tomb. She talks about the how she was brought here by Lady Densmeal’s men before and how the security system was triggered so she could get out. So they're going to have to reset the security system, as well as get the wand from Grandpa's crypt.

Here they sit, on the hill overlooking the bad guys in front of the crypt. Many ideas were discussed to try and come up with a plan of action. Lucien eventually comes up with an idea to send zombies under his control to distract the men. The plan is for seven zombies to go mess with the guys. There are four guys total; two came out of the tent and two were already on watch.

Two of the zombies had been sent to molest the men. That’s right, Lucien sent zombies to attempt to touch the men’s balls. What is wrong with Lucien?! This, of course, freaks the men out. They scramble away from the zombies and in the melee one zombie gets his collar knocked off, and starts to attack the men in earnest.

This zombie succeeds at biting some of the men and they turn into zombies themselves, so there are now feral zombies all chasing the one remaining man who has climbed up a statue, screaming. They're pawing at him and groaning for brains and balls. It's a successful enough distraction that the “heroes” can sneak down to the mausoleum and Hester gets in with the key. Not a single sword had to be swung. The zombies did all the work.

To be continued....

Saga of Hester the Jester ~A hillman, a human and a trogger walk into a bar...

Our heroes pull into Ket on the seventh day. The place is swarming with people and buildings much like old London. Toughas hasn’t seen such a large city, and it’s been quite a while since Lucien has laid eyes on any place like this. Hester however seems unimpressed.

On the dock is a line of men – and at the head of the line, is the guy we let go of back in the hotel! He is shouting and carrying on about how they will not be able to escape Denmeal’s reach and they must turn themselves in immediately. Master Jim starts to pull away from the dock as fast as he can. The men from the dock pile into a war ship behind us. The Painstakingly is not moving fast enough and Densmeal’s men will catch up to the heroes quickly. Hester pays the men in rubies for the cost of the contents of the hold. Jim dumps the contents of the hold and we quickly sail off, losing those that chased us. In our hurry we get a bit lost. The captain takes out the star charts once the sun sets and they start talking about what to do next. No one really seems to know, so they decide to sleep on it and wake to the smell of bacon in the morning.

It’s decided that they’ll ride the boat until they get just south of Din and then go about their way. It’s about a two week journey that’s mostly uneventful. The trio then finds themselves on a long boat just south of Din, they have left the Painstakingly. Once they get to land, Hester rolls around on the sand. As they start to walk toward town they get intercepted by four gnarly people who want to get squirrelly with us or get paid off. Toughas intimidates them by bellowing out an orcish roar and they run away. The group walks on for a few hours and comes across a small bar right on the beach. They enjoy some ale, chowder, and then head to a general store for some maps and other items.

After the General store, they find a hotel and rent the penthouse for the night. Lucien and Hester go to the bank to take care of some business. Lucien notices that they are being watched. They quickly get out of the bank and lose the woman who was watching them. They return to the hotel to a paranoid Toughas. Lucien disguises himself with magic to go and buy a cart and murgo. He finds a decent second hand cart and a good murgo. The cart and murgo will be ready the next morning. Hester and Toughas go down to the bar and enjoy a few drinks and some entertainment. 

The next morning they wake, get disguised and go to pick up the cart and murgo. However no one knows how to drive a wagon. Go figure. So they now need to hire a driver as well. They hire on Tom the elf for a few days to teach Lucien how to drive the carriage and they are off and headed out of town! After a few days travel Tom leaves and hitchhikes back to Din.

Lucien drives along the ocean road and they come to a roadhouse. They go to get a room and some food. Toughas drop their bags in the room and head to the bar. The bar has a rowdiness to it, and when they all take their seats, a nobleman is wandering about asking each table something. He then comes by and shows them a picture of the guy who attempted to steal Hester's bag, and yelled at them from the dock. He asks them if they have seen that guy? They all say they haven't seen him and go back to the room. Having been on the road for so long they sleep for too long…but get downstairs for elevensies at the restaurant. On their way down, they see the city guards angrily interacting with the Noble. There is a big brawl and the Noble fires off a powerbolt at one of the armored men, and then pulls out his sword. The Noble kills some of the soldiers, wounded the rest and rode off to the south. They check out of the hotel, go out to the attached barn to retrieve Pickles the murgo and the carriage. The stable hands have been up all night tending to Pickles. That seems odd, but maybe these lads are just extra focused. The group thinks nothing of it and head back off to the north.

The trip takes them a few weeks, but it's mostly a quiet trip. Toughas had bought some cards and travel games at the General store in Din, so they pass the time in the carriage playing, and Hester teaching Toughas remedial Hillman speech. As luck would have it, the carriage is a sleeper and rather nice on the inside, even if it is rough around the edges on the outside.

They roll up on Moundsville and it is a hillman village. It is quaint and all the buildings are low and look warm. There is a light snow across the mounds. Hester leads Lucien up to Uncle Andar's house and it’s a mansion. It looks creepy from the road and the gate is locked. She gets a boost over the wall by Toughas, and runs up to the house then runs back with a key. She unlocks the gate and leads us to the barn. It lights up by itself and Hester asks the room to tend to our carriage, murgo and take our items to our room. Invisible butlers start moving along, gathering their things and doing as Hester asked and we go up to the house. The group is greeted by an elf and they are quite confused. Asking for clarification - apparently, he was adopted by Hester’s grandfather, and is not a blood relative to Hester. Hester catches him up to speed, telling him everything about their travels, their danger, the wand and all else. He agrees that they must go get the wand and that Densmeal's people are watching and will be after the wand and us. In an effort to be helpful, he offers his mage skills. He thinks about what he could do and what he could send with us and decides to take Lucien into the  lab and make helpful oils. Meanwhile Hester and Toughas go to the kitchen and raid the grub box and larder.

The mages make five vials of "kapow" oil. (Otherwise known as oil of impact which work effectively like the spell “charging”) While they are working Tough is asking Hester about the crypt they're walking into. Apparently, there is a zombie security system set up. The Lady Densmeal tricked Hester into bringing her men to the crypt a few months ago and they tripped the security system once inside and Hester ran away. So the zombies are definitely up and around. Hester and Toughas end up calling it a night and head to bed.

As Andars and Lucien finish up, a mechanical crow flies in and lands on Andars shoulder. Andars bends his head and listens. The crow tells him about some humans who were looking through family records down in the city and house ownership files. It will be soon that they will be up to the house asking questions. Andars thanks the crow, sets him on a perch and shakes his head. Lucien and Andars then both head to bed. They all sleep until Hester wakes Toughas up for elevensies. She’s shaking her head and can’t believe he missed first breakfast. Toughas has the butler “hands” wash his clothes and the butler hands try to take the clothes he's wearing right off his back. He’ll never figure out how these spells work. Lucien finally wakes up just after elevensies is over and tells everyone about what they made in the lab.

The crow returns again and tells Andars that the Densmeal's men will be on their way soon. Andars packs up and goes to the cellar where there is a portal door. He goes through it to a beach. What magic…..The three get ready for their day trip to the cemetery. Lucien goes down to the barn and sees the carriage is pristine and fixed to original specs. The murgo (Pickles) is well fed and shined up on all his scales. Lucien asks that the carriage be dusted up just a bit and the invisible butlers get to it. There is a house near the cemetery that is reserved for people who are bringing dead to the cemetery. Lucien has the butlers build a coffin at the house, fill it with pillows wrapped in a sheet and then they put it on top of the carriage. The group hopes that will fool the people of the house and they won't want to look inside the coffin.  

To be continued....

Saga of Hester the Jester ~The Jester in distress

Lucien and Toughas, long time friends; meet at a bar. They leave the bar to go for a walk. They see the rubble of what used to be the keep. It did not fare well against the giants six months ago.

As we exit the bar - a Hillman girl in a jester outfit ran by, chased by three thug looking beings in Lady Densmeal's suits give chase. Our heroes give chase and wind up in an ally. Words are exchanged…our heroes try to talk the thugs out of fighting but they’re hearing nothing of it. Toughas sweeps the leg of the commander who falls flat on his face. Then, in a surprise attack,…Lucien knocks one of the bad guys out cold! He then turns toward the other fellow and sends energy of pain. It’s a doosey of a spell. Nasty stuff that. The guy falls to the ground screaming. Toughas and the commander exchange blows, Lucien and the pain inflicted fellow mix it up.

The commander crumples to the ground from Toughas's fists. The person attacking Lucien is far tougher than anticipated and lands blows. Toughas lunges forward to save his friend and ends the foe. They search and then run now that the fight is over.

They walk to the inn and get a room. Toughas feels like they are being followed. They check in and go upstairs to the room.

Lucien is stabbed badly enough that they need to bandage him up. So they run him to the temple of the healing hand. The temple staff put him in a coma. Toughas knows that heal spells are black market goods but clearly our duo need some! He thinks “what would Lucien do…” and decided to go down to the pool hall to try and find heal spells off the black market. He talks with a guy who can get what we need. They talk, and strike up a deal. Toughas is to come back the next day to buy the heal spells and they agree on a price. He then goes back to the temple to get Lucien. The duo heads back to the inn. Hester the Jester has a set that night in the lobby of the inn. The guys are surprised to see her, but after her set they make

way to her and asked her to come up to their room to discuss things. She spills her life story in the great animated detail, which was definitely not what they were looking for. Hester asked to sleep in the room with the guys but needs her bag from across the hall. She’s too nervous to go get it herself, so Toughas goes to get the bag and there is a man, holding the bag in the middle of the room. Toughas grabs him and gets the bag away from him but spares his life.

Back in the room, Hester tells us about how the Densmeal's want her family's wand which is buried with her grandpa in the family tomb which is in Moundsville. It’s clear that Hester will have to retrieve the wand to keep it safe from Densemal, who will clearly stop at nothing to get her hands on it.

They all decide it would be safer to go to the tent village where Lucien and Toughas live and spend the night there. Toughas attempts to take first watch but everyone falls asleep. They wake at 9am to the sound of arguing. Lady Densmeal's men are attempting to search tents but get kicked out of tent city. Disguises are applied to Toughas and Hester by Lucien and they start to break camp.

Everyone walks back to the pool hall and Toughas meets with the mob. Money and heal potions are exchanged. Toughas ended up buying an entire case! Which is just unheard of. Hester and Lucien chat about money for the mercenary work they are about to embark on. They do not get too far into the discussion before Toughas gets back.

The trio walks out of town, talking about money and what path we should take. They decide on the beach path and 250 sovereign now, and at least 250 sovereign later.

After a few days travel, the trio come across a frogmen village. The frogmen are very kind and want to trade for anything. They have silks, rubies and many wares for trade. The three are treated like guests and friends. The frogmen point to a ship that has run aground in the shallows at sea. That cargo ship is where the frogmen got many of the things they are trying to trade for. They are very interested in heal potions. Curiously. Two days later by foot, we come to Tiny Town.

Tiny Town is run primarily by elves, but troggers, humans and elves all work alongside one another. Lucien goes to the Blue Order library (since he’s a member) while Hester and Toughas go off to find the ship master and secure seats on a boat to South Grast.

Lucien asks about the staff of Clouds and the person he asks just so happens to know of it. The staff was stolen from the Druids of the Garden and is the property of the Gardener of the Grove. It has the ability to control the weather, and likely much more. It’s a very powerful staff indeed!

Hester and Toughas come across Master Jim. Master Jim says he can get them to the port of Alexis in Ket. That is not quite as far as they wish to go, but it will have to do. The ship sails in the morning. They will ride on a cargo ship called the Painstakingly. They are given a suite in the hold, and it is a shrimp boat. It should take us ten days to get to Ket. Lucien tells everyone what he learned at the library. The story doesn’t make Hester’s grandpa sound that great. She appears quite upset and affronted that her grandpa is being painted as a thief, but the evidence is all there. The plan is to get the staff and return it to the Gardener of the Grove.