Bounty Hunters - Session 9

Exile Begins... Now!

• The group sets off toward Moyria's Crossing
• On the way out, they are accosted by a man selling suspicious vegetables. He calls himself Radish Gast.
  • He insists that they buy a pumpkin pie for five gold. His hints are obvious enough that they go for it.
  • In icing (icing?? on pumpkin pie???) is a picture of Magius Lake, and a goose. They get the hint and decide a route around Magius Lake would be a nice for the view.
• There they run into a man who calls himself Crandall. He introduces himself as affiliated with their "mutual friends" and himself, and, he stresses, only those two (the party understands this as intimating that he is not there on Lady Meade's behalf
  • He asks the group two favors:
    1. Go through the swamp rather than around, and make contact with its inhabitants. He will give them a passphrase and a token they can use to get through to the lizardfolk who control the swamp as their domain, and obtain an audience with the creepy mummy thing they revere. He says that it is in the interest of the Geese, at this point, to cultivate allies beyond their immediate environs, and the Bounty Hunting Exiles here make for an opportunity that he does not want to pass up.
    2. He also says he has recovered an item that he wishes to entrust to the party's care. Several people would vie for its possession and the consequences of that are politically complicated, and the groups he has contact with don't wish the resulting conflict upon themselves. He thinks that this group would be in a better position to discover where it could best be put to use for the general good ("Banishment puts you beyond the reach of anyone here"). He lists some of the competing interests, and gives some names:
       1. It has extreme cultural significance to Dwarves, and marks its wearer as a Dwarf, legally and socially. As such, it would be seen as a grievous insult if it were worn by anyone other than its original recipient. They would very much like to have it back.
       2. He has surviving family, Half-elf twins named Lea and Levan. They went somewhere North in search of their mother ("many decades ago, after their last aunt died") and will be tough to track down.
       3. He also has another branch of the family that settled near Vargain that might be easier to find.
       4. Being a powerful magical item, it would also be very valuable in any number of hands.
    • He gives them a passphrase to remember, and a token. The token is a humanoid toe bone in a lacquer ringbox. The party is confused.
    • He also gives them the object: A large, ornate and entirely unsubtle belt made of finely worked leather, mithril and steel. It has Dwarven lettering on it that the party cannot read. (Mechanically, this is a belt of dwarvenkind
• Conversation over, the group departs, and soon enters a swamp.
• They are surprised by a troll and his pet giant frogs (the Frog King)!
  • The fight involves the members being grappled by frog tongues while the troll rushes up to claw them to death, which is exactly as terrifying as it sounds. Shield plays a major factor, and a casting of sleep is clutch for bringing the King down.
  • At the very end, Therunin manages to get swallowed. She escapes by slicing a hole and misty stepping out, just before Anto leaps in and kills the frog in an attempt to save her.
  • She has felt for a while that, since everyone else is taking (or has had) cool trade names, she should take one herself. After this fight, she decides on Midran (Gnomish for "wholesome food").

• Party takes a short rest. At the end they are surrounded by lizardfolk, who have subtly appeared from the surrounding vegetation and are regarding the group impassively.
  • Whip tries to say the passphrase, and butchers it. Joana does a better job. The lizardfolk communicate among themselves, then all start walking in the same direction. The group guesses that following them is the right thing to do, but really have no idea.
• They are "led" in this way to a large, pre-Alexandrian temple in the swamp. It is surrounded by lizardfolk, doing lizardfolk things.
  • As far as they can tell, nobody even reacts to their presence, going about their business as if random humans walking around were as normal as clouds in the sky.
  • Sentries block the temple entrance, wordlessly.
  • Midran casts a comprehend languages ritual, but is flummoxed when she realizes she doesn't have any way to ask what she wants in order to understand a reply.
  • Joana tries asking to see their "lord" (in Ubrekti). The lizardfolk stares for a long while, makes an incomprehensible gesture to their fellow sentry, then relaxes their guard

• Their entry is no longer blocked, and they pass through.
  • They note a great, glass hemisphere covered a very large, very dead willow tree.
  • Taking the left corridor, they also pass signs of particular industry: Industrial-sized brewing apparatus, and a well-stocked alchemical lab. All the bits of brass and steel are clearly very old, but meticulously maintained, and the non-metal parts are superbly crafted and fitted.
  • Continuing, they approach a large room. It is completely empty, save for two lizardfolk dressed in artful feather-and-cord robes, both flanking the mummified corpse of another lizardfolk, nailed to the wall. They attend the mummy dutifully.
  • Crossing the room, they are met halfway by one of the attendants. Conversation ensues:

GM: The lizard creature speaks to you in a slow, stilted way. It clearly has trouble making syllables and is not very well practiced.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: You come from the village?

Joana: We're passing through on our way from the city.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: The human village that is our neighbor

Joana: Yes, we're from the village.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: You have brought us this?

Mummy-Thing Attendant pulls out the lacquer box from the wicker cloak.

Joana: Yes.

(Bern the Bastard notices: This thing looks like a dried up old corpse but... its eye sockets are not empty. They're dark and black, but they reflect light in a way that suggests there is still moisture there, it's not an empty cavity like it appears.)

Mummy-Thing Attendant turns around and walks back to the other attendant. He hands over the box and returns to the middle of the room. The other attendant leans in close to the corpse and starts whispering where you presume some sort of ear would be. After long moments, it leans in and puts where you assume an ear might be up to the corpses mouth.

Nothing apparent happens, but the second attendant stays in that position for long moments. Abruptly, he withdraws and brings the toe relic to what remains of the corpses' nostrils.

The attendant leans back in a second time, and after another long moment withdraws. The two attendants switch places.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: He is thankful for your gift.

Whip: He? Wait, the corpse is talking to us?

Mummy-Thing Attendant: He leads our people. Of course he must speak.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: He says the smell makes him "nostalgic." I do not understand what that means.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: He wishes to ask of you a favor. He says he understands the way of your people and will offer a boon in return.

(Elian notes to himself: These guys are obviously druidic when it come to religion and shit)

(Madrin remembers: Lizardfolk are actually an OG good guy race, at least technically. They didn't take part in Alexandrian drama, but they were active in the original war against bad dark stuff)

Joana: We would be happy to assist you in return for your hospitality.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: He says he would again like to taste his glory days once more, but is presently in no condition to do so.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: His soul is strong but his blood is weak.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: We have only venerated the tortoise dragons for a century. Before that, we worshiped an older totem.

Madrin: A totem?

Mummy-Thing Attendant: It still lives, in the southern reaches of the Swamp, outside of our new domains. Before our migration, those were our ancestral lands.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: The three great dragons protect us and give us dominion over the swamp, but the old totem still holds some of our ancient powers.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: We still have the secrets of our old ways. The hot blood of the hydra has many powers and uses.

Madrin: I don't imagine it will be happy to share it's blood.

Bern the Bastard: passes a note to Joana: "Please ask how much blood? I am too sarcastic and am afraid to speak."

Joana: How much blood would you find sufficient?

Mummy-Thing Attendant: We still respect the old ways. We do not wish to destroy our connection with the past. Do not destroy the beast.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: If you were to bring us one of its heads, that would be sufficient for his needs.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: If you can bring a second or subsequent heads, we have many uses for the hot blood of the hydra

Joana looks at her companions

Mummy-Thing Attendant: Do not kill the totem, however, under any circumstances. We would consider this grievous blasphemy.

Whip: I hope it's not too far away, but honestly I've read about these things and am simultaneously scared and excited

Bern the Bastard: new note: How many days south

Mummy-Thing Attendant: I expect this might take as --

Mummy-Thing Attendant: wait, what?

Mummy-Thing Attendant walks back to the corpse.

He one more time puts his "ear" to the creatures mummified mouth. After several moments, the other lizard folk walks back to you.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: He says he smells the curse upon you.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: It is more powerful than our magic, so we cannot offer to break it. However, he believes he can distill the hydra's blood into a potion to at least SUPPRESS it for a time.

Madrin: He can smell magic?

Madrin: How is that possible

Mummy-Thing Attendant stares at you in what you take to be a shrug.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: If you speak to him, perhaps he can tell you more. He is not a druid, his art is unique

Mummy-Thing Attendant: I do not understand it

Madrin: May I?

Mummy-Thing Attendant: One head and we can hold in abeyance his torpor and grant boons.

Mummy-Thing Attendant: An additional head maybe distilled into potions which can suppress for a time your curse.

Side Note

• It is now canon that "give me the Gokar's Notes version" is a standard idiom in Wydmoor for asking for a summary of a complicated subject.

Awards

• Bought a pie: 50 xp to all
• Crandall's Errand: 100 xp to all
• The Frog King: 400 xp to all
• Meeting the Lizard Mummy Lord: 100 xp to all