Episode 11: 4 Months Later

General Summary

Four months have passed and the Returners have been granted personal quarters in the cramped Tangled Hollow. They've each been given a cube-shaped space to customize as they see fit.

• Veoric expands his cube’s interior with extradimensional space, builds a smithy and arcane study, and acquires magical equipment: ball bearings, a blank book, a staff for his arcane focus, caltrops, and a charm of identify. He continues studying his new dhampiric nature, frequents the Neck-romancey blood bar, and brings Nadia to live and work in his cube.

• Gudar has become famous as “Gundar the Death Dancer.” Songs are sung, and dwarves across the Tortoise send marriage proposals. He builds an herbal garden and a library, but his joy is interrupted, his library is broken into and books on mycelial undead are stolen. Spore residue is found. Later, it’s discovered that Mycete of the Grave Order had one of the missing books on her.

• Laszlo has legally changed his name to Jackie Daytona, set up a workshop and garden, and taken in four Ixalan refugees.

• Taela continues to explore and hunt throughout the Tortoise's back alleys, mushroom farms, and hexworm mines. She tracks down rare mushrooms for her food garden and sanctuary, and she adds a storeroom-turned-trophy room to her cube. She also begins an apprenticeship under Stew, the awakened moth at Stew’s Brews, learning the art of potion brewing and psychic beer crafting. Stew offers her spores from a varietal of hexocybin mushrooms for 250 gp.

• The group collectively names their territory the Hallway of the Bayani-Sun after Veoric's patrons from the Bayani-Sun Casino.

• The Grave Order has taken quarters nearby and is accelerating bond collection—more than a few disappearances are linked to their agents.

Maharlitech Conference

A Maharlitech Conference is scheduled at the end of the month, drawing wizards and artificers from the Zone, the Sovranty, and the Moons. Sending stones are set up with Tugbug and Stew, and a portal is established between Stew’s Brews and The Surging Cloaca, a bar in the Cloaca Scute.

Mycete of the Grave Order arrives to claim SumDwarf the Smith on a 400 bilog bond related to an arranged marriage. Veoric pays it off, helping SumDwarf remain with the Returners.

Taela receives three Entulesse women seeking safe passage to the Feywild so they can avoid pregnancy in the Tortoise.

Bartender at the Surging Cloaca Report

sigh. Alright, I'll tell you again even though my over-this-shit level is at eleven.

I knew things were gonna be busy on account of that Maharlitech festival today, so I had the bar fully stocked. The regulars came in, well, regularly and filled their mugs. Round midday meal, the Maharlitech crowd crashed in. Mostly gnomes, but a few others and a gang of goblins. Several of 'em, including the gobs, ordered psychic beers and got up to the usual shenanigans: changing colors, floating limbs, rainbows everywhere, ya know.

Well, then the grags showed up with that look like they’re hungry for others' misery. Made a big harumph about the state of a dwarven drinking establishment, but lost the crowd immediately as rainbows kept tumbling out of their mouths. They tried to rile up the regulars, but they just wanted to drink in peace. So, they complained to me that I should evict the goblins out into the squeeze space. I told 'em you pay me to toss around cocktails, not paying customers.

Then they insulted me about whether my mixing was up to snuff. Had me make a Baba's Beard Water which had me juggling half the bottles on the shelf. Heard the grags muttering while I was doing it, but that's what they do. When I finished the drink, they said it was the worst they ever had, still tried to take it with them, without paying. I fixed that, and they went to a corner for more mumbling.

Short time after, the goblins' psychic beer stopped working before all other folk. They said something about being thirsty and were real excited for another round, except the funny colored one, just drinking a juice blend and fiddling with some ident-a-hedron extender. That's when the crazy starts to happen. After they drain their drinks, the gobs start acting crazy, talking funny, making random things float—more than normal psychic beer floating—and one starts tossing other folks' bottles which started exploding.

That cleared out most everyone but the regulars and the grags.

The grags quickly bemoaned the horrid nature of goblins and had me put out a request to the BBB guild since this is Tangled Hollow, and two of the Grave Order showed up pretty quick—the mushroom devil and that gray knight. Recognized them from the many times they've snatched up a bond mid-drink at the bar. They worked things out so the grags would back them so they could get things over quick.

'Bout that time, the Returners walked through the door. Recognized them on account of one of our regulars, a smith named Sumdworf works for 'em, helped him out with his marriage bond too. The Grave Order wanted to split the bounty on the goblins, but Taela, that Entulesse lush—wait did you know she was a Returner and not just one of them Entulesse refugees?

Anyway, she sniffed out the psychic beer had been skunked somehow. So, they declared that the goblins were going to be taken in alive to find out who was spiking the spirits.

Well, that mushroom lady just wanted to kill the gobs, so she went to it—missed one that had called atop the brew keg and was messing with the levers. She completely missed though, seemed to be distracted by Gundar the Dancing Death, who leapt on her. You'd think he was doing something dirty, the sounds she was making, but he was definitely wearing her out.

That funny goblin made some noise too and did something magical, I think—had the Grave Order reeling. Jackie Daytona was there, did I tell you that? I even heard him play the saxophone, it was moving. They had some vampire too, maybe one of them Ixallans? He bounced some magic around, took out all the grags but the ringleader—impressive.

The gray knight summoned a few skeletons—one shot at Gundar, but he sent the bolt into the last grag. It was Taela who finished off the Grave Order with her bow and her cat. Kept them alive though, mentioned something about not killing co-workers.

They were able to do all that without hurting any of the crazy gobs. Bar is still a mess though.

Oh, I forgot that Gundar's library got broken into and robbed of weird undead mushroom books, but Mycete, the weird Grave Order mushroom lady, had the book on her person.