Session 30: Patches

The party stood outside of the Kobold’s camp at twilight. The camp was protected by a large barricade “fence” that was made from piles of broken items, such as carts, wagons, crates, old wooden doors and anything else they could find. The group could see that there was at least one wooden building inside the barricades and a tall watchtower standing outside the only visible entrance into the encampment. There two kobolds stood watch with a ballista aimed outside of the structure.   With the party was the kobold, Guc Fuggruc, as well as three bound kobold “disciples” of his. Ilbryen, Levi, and Bolvaic approached the encampment with Guc, while the rest of the party remained behind and hid with the other hostages. Guc signaled for the watchtower not to fire and told them to call Rakdo, the head of the kobold tribe.   Rakdo approached the party with a couple of kobold guards to meet the party at the gate as the party began to negotiate for the release of the Halfling children. The group made the initial offer of exchanging the four kobolds for the four halflings, but Rakdo did not believe that was a fair trade, claiming that one of the halflings can cook, one mended the gate on a cage, another one knew how to tie better knots, and the last one makes noise when it gets dark or the sun comes up (playing on his bugle). Rakdo claims that the kobolds that are being held do not have comparable skills.   Rakdo tries to make counter offers with Ilbryen, requiring the party to pay gold and leave some of their party members behind as slaves to make up for the skills that would be lost. Levi then growls and intimidates Rakdo, showing off the tattoo that he took from the slain kobold. Shaken and cowled, Rakdo tried to stall as he fumbled to try to make a better deal. Illeveare then threw a magic stone at one of the kobolds in the watchtower, who was struck and fell from it dead. Rakdo takes the next offer made by Ilbryen–Rakdo and the kobolds will give up the halfling children to the party, but in exchange, they will live, AND they can come to the League Hall where they will be taught the skills that the halflings possessed so that they can manage their encampment without them.   As Rakdo calls the other kobolds to come and bring the halflings to give over to the party, the group notices that a number of the kobolds seemed to be ill, though Illevaere immediately recognized it as signs of poison. As the halflings were turned over to the party, Illeveare asked if they had poisoned the kobolds with the meal they fed them and the halfling confided that they had collected bog bell, a type of poisonous mushrooms and added it to the stew. The group of halflings had planned on trying to escape later that night while the camp was all ill.   Illeveare and Ilbryen get into a heated discussion on whether or not Ilbryen should heal the kobolds of the poisoning, but Illeveare claims that it is Caena’s will if they will survive the poison or not and it is not their place to interfere, though Ilbryen, as a healer, states that it is their place to heal. Ultimately, the kobolds are not healed and the party leads the halfling scouts back to their scoutmaster, Kip, for an excited reunion–then almost immediately the children start to pester Kip with their deeds, asking him if they can get a badge for their various actions.   Garpher Glenrabbit, with a travel frying pan hanging from his pack, has patches in cooking, fire safety, animal identification, and forestry–however, he tells Kip that he sent out the warning smoke signals and wants his smoke signals patch.   Ospher Whipplehopper has patches in forestry, basket weaving, and hiking, but showed Kip a page of his log book that has a kobold’s handprint on it, which he says was his marking as a witness that he demonstrated knot-knowledge and wants his patch for knot tying. It was Ospher who collected the bog bells for Garpher to add to the stew. As he follows the group, he walks behind Illeveare and starts to call out the names of all of the mushrooms on their cloak and asks them to sign his book for his Plant and Fungus Science Patch.   Linwryn Highhearth carries his bugle with him–he isn’t as versed in survival skills, but he joined the Wolf Pack Whelps more for the community and skill patches. He has patches in animal identification, reptile and amphibian identification, theater, forestry, music studies, bird study and calls, and reading. When he says that he’s read the Horse Babysitter books, Tertius is excited to talk to him, until Linwryn laughs that Tertius’ favorite is Strawberry Sparkleshine, and that his favorite is Twilight Thunder–which Tertius dismisses as an obvious choice, but one without much depth.   Finster Applewater still has an oar with him, stating that he took it with him so that if anyone found their canoes, they wouldn’t be able to use it without an oar. He has patches in rowing, boating, fishing, and forestry. He quickly identifies Levi’s pups as wolves and asks Kip if he can get his animal identification patch for it, but Kip tries to redirect him to focus on surviving and rescuing the others.   The party continues in the swamp, moving away from the kobold encampment, and finding a somewhat dry area at the ruins of an old stone building, and they make camp. Garpher joins Levi in making the campfire and cooking with him, while Linwryn joins Bolvaic and asks him questions about dwarves–why they have beards, if lady dwarves have beards, are they born with beards, and so on. After a brief question and answer period, Linwryn asks Bolvaic if he can sign his book stating that he can earn his demihuman cultural awareness patch.   The party sets watches and Linwryn asks if he can stay up on watch to earn his Sitting Watch Patch, and Bolvaic and Bronwyn agree to let him stay up. There are marsh lights that glow off in the distance–a phenomenon that Ilbryen recognizes as merely marsh gas, though the decaying of bodies can add to the gasses. Linwryn is squirming and excited, but Bolvaic tells him that he keeps missing things in the dark and Bronwyn tells Linwryn that if he can sit watch quietly and then name three things that he has seen, she will sign for his sitting watch badge. Linwryn agrees, but falls asleep twenty minutes into watch and Bronwyn tucks him into his bedroll.   During the second watch Ilbryen and Illeveare discuss their differences in faith and duties to it when sounds of movement are heard further out in the bog and they see walking dead being faintly illuminated by the marsh lights. The walking dead (wights) seem to hear the pair and turn to move toward their camp and a wight and several specters also fly forward to engage. The party awakens to defend their camp. Tiarjead moves toward the halflings and casts fog, enveloping them in a thick fog to keep the children hidden from the attacking undead. Despite this protection, Finster rushes forward with his oar to try to smack the wraith with it–though he misses. Tiarjead rushes up and grabs Finster, pulling him back away from the fray to the safety of the fog. The party defeats the undead creatures and the marsh lights continue to glow. They resume camp and rest until the morning.