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Jeff: And the hilarity ensues as our actions once again probably speed up the end of the world while trying to work for an immediate short-term good.
Shana: Isn't that being just a little... dark? And jumping to the end?
Jeff: Fine, you tell it.
Shana: Thank you. The trip back was uneventful enough, just an itchy Dirk and maybe one hour extra spent gathering for the Apothecary, who was quite glad for the amount. While Maercis, Biff, and Sparrowhawk took their time to find a proper instrument for Maercis, the Apothecary offered Dirk a potion to bathe with that would end his problem as well as offering us a small repayment in useful potions... to be claimed after finding out what our next goal was. Everyone seemed to find success with their goals.
Jeff: As long as you don't count Dirk probably being embarrassed about walking out of a bathhouse butt-naked before putting his clothes back on.
Jeff barks out a laugh as Shana blushes and goes wide eyed from the thought of such reckless audacity.
Shana: I... I did not know that. I'm very glad I didn't accompany him into the building.
Jeff: Aren't we all? Hehe.
Shana: Um. So, the Duke. Glad to see us, success is always good news, and Maercis was even coy enough to earn us a bonus.
Jeff: I wonder what that clown wants with all his money. We've had almost nothing to spend it on yet but expensive rooms and bath time.
Shana: Now you're the one jumping ahead. With the business of the Ruins out of the way, the Duke wanted us to meet the "First Warden", Cenric, who wanted us to assist him with keeping peace in the outlying villages. In one specific case, investigating the odd overnight deaths of the sheep in Staneax. As far as he knew it was all happening overnight and mysteriously enough that he could not afford to stay and watch. And of course, no troops could be sent properly to take care of the problem.
Jeff: Foreshadowing: Because some troops and a cleric would have to be sent to the ruins anyway despite our success, you can probably guess there are going to be follow-up troops sent to Staneax just to ensure we didn't plant a time bomb.
Shana: "Time bomb"? Sounds dangerous. Probably not as bad as what we did find after a small ordeal of asking around. The town's lord was as jittery as could be, the wife was both busy and out of ideas for the problem--only sure it was not wolves--and the man we were referred to could barely be understood. Greig seemed to be from a region with folklore that talked about a, undead seeming centaur called a Nuckelavee. Effectively a living being of filth and famine. It only took one good look at it to tell it was what we were after.
Jeff: This was after picking up a strong tea to improve watchfulness before leaving The Ward, cutting through the farmland to shorten the trip, then meeting the lord and wife, until getting a farmer to translate for us enough to catch onto Greig's words, investigating the dead ram's body, and following tracks into the woods and along the river.
Shana: Yes, sorry!
Jeff: The full description of it could be a centaur without skin, hanging open mouth and burning red eye, claws all the better for ripping sheep's throats with, and yellow veins that seemed to house black blood. Apparently it also never took baths and couldn't play chess worth a flip. Greig's words.
Shana mouths the words "worth a flip" confusedly and shakes her head.
Shana: It was aggressive enough, but numbers caught up to it, as well as it being daring enough to strike someone other than who had called its attention.
Jeff: I guess that goes along with being bad at Chess. Too stupid to realize it's being distracted.
Shana: Even after seemingly killing it, it constantly moved and tried to get up. We managed to keep it down for the most part by striking blows against it every so often, but it was still managing to stand up after a single broken leg. I won't deny I felt no remorse in shattering all four, but the body still would not rest. Deciding to trust the description from Greig, we pulled the thing into the river to... well, take a bath.
Jeff: It was one of the shortest lived baths anything had ever taken, I think. In the end even its bones faded to basically nothing.
Shana: It was only after doing this we started to get worried that its taint--it was a creature of pure filth, after all--would harm the environment due to adding rot to the water. I couldn't see any, but the possibility was there... and to be explored after getting the thing's stench off our bodies. Greig was happy to be told he's right, the lord ended up winning a bet between him and his wife, and we at least got to use the well to wash away the most of the grime.
Jeff: Whoever thought someone would actually cannonball into a well just to clean off kind of deserves to feel silly, by the way.
Shana: It did cross my mind... The day was only barely ending at the time, so it gave the party time to prepare to rest, off as it may sound. Once again, we disagreed on lodgings. I opted to sleep outside in a comfortable patch of nature (after another successful berry picking) while a single room in the inn cost ten gold. Knocked down to eight in the end, but still a lot, and still another chance for Dave gave us another example of how well he can get into mishaps. I do pity the Halfling he pounced on while trying to claim the bed for himself.
Jeff: At least they eventually settled on something. Sparrowhawk claimed the bed while everyone else got bedrolls on the floor, and no guards were called. Six inch pixie on a six foot bed. Pure win.
Shana starts to giggle and ends up laughing quite loudly.
Jeff: Unfortunately, not the funny note it all ended on. Biff seems to be sick, and for some reason is the only one feeling it. I can guess why at this point, but there's still the whole working it out in-game thing to deal with. Next time, Gadget. Next time...
Cliff notes: Lots of rewards for a successful first mission, Dirk is free of lice. Greig, First Warden, keeps a watch on the villages at the border, and needed our help to stop Sheep killing in Staneax. Threat got killed in a day, though potentially contaminating the waterworks (it was dissolved into a stream that flows into lake Ettinsboll, will travel up the Grenebroc river and into the Warmea) and assuredly contaminating Biff. The creature, it was discovered, falls under the same folklore origin as whatever creatures were inhabiting the ruins we first encountered.
In our defense we didn't know its origin as a creature of living filth until after we all got coated in its grime. None of our (admittedly few) checks on it seemed to describe such details. So, whoops. x.x
+70 gold to everyone (distributed from the reward chest)
+50 gold to Shana
+1 sapphire to Maercis
+1 pot (or vials, likely, for ease of carrying) of very strong tea that increases Perception, as long as you take tiny sips instead of chug it down (enough for five people to use over a ten hour period)
+1 disease for Biff
+650 exp (Level up!)
1450/2250 to level 3
__________________   Goten is dead!
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