So. Two weeks ago we
were in the empty gnome town after laying waste to the Orcs and snake people
who had taken over. Unfortunately, since
we had killed them all, there wasn’t any leads on what to do next. So we stuck around, and after some time, a
Green Dragon showed up.
As stupid headstrong adventurers itching for a TPK, the
party followed Dragon Man’s lead and waltzed up to this Green Dragon, and
started talking trash about the all his useless minions that they just killed
and how they, the party, would obviously make better servants. The Green Dragon, amazingly, agreed with
this, and pressed the party into service for him, because, sure, why not. Ulfgar views this as a chance to serve as
double agents, which will give them a much better chance of stopping whatever
this Green Dragon is up to (who is named Krollnish the Vile, by the way). Nory is probably chafing at pretending to
serve anyone other than Cthulu. Who knows
what Dragon Man is thinking (I’d rather serve a Black Dragon?). Who cares what the Bard is thinking. Hannah probably just thinks the dragon is
cute.
So, The Green Dragon told them to head to the city of (I
think) Illmatter, which is 100 miles north along the main river. There is a sacred temple there guarded by
another good dragon, just like the copper one who guarded the gnome village
(who had been named Reveran Rayanne, since I never mentioned that before). Krollnish wanted us to travel there and work
to undermine this good dragon, and set the grounds for his destruction. Through the destruction of good dragons,
Krollnish aims to lay the grounds for the return of his evil snake god. That’s cool with us, we said, and the dragon
flew off.
After dallying a lot more than necessary, we set off for the
refugee city on the riverside. On the
way, we came back upon Randy’s hut, and discovered that Randy was, indeed,
working the snakepeople and orcs, probably as a reanimated corpse or something. They pretended (vainly) to fight each other,
but we dismissed this by pointing out we worked for Krollnish too, now. But they didn’t believe us. We got indignant, naturally, and Ulfgar
killed them all with a fireball.
This is that last time Ulfgar is going to do anything useful
for a while, so let me take a moment to savor it. Oh yeah.
Ulfgar killed all the baddies with one spell. Nobody else got to kill anybody. Power gamer heaven. Hmm-mmm.
The party continued on to River City, not expecting trouble,
and met up with the fussy gnome we had dealt with earlier and gave him his
stuff and sold him some other stuff, and we were now properly loaded. Huzzah!
Then we went to the inn and dealt with tricking the dim bartender to
giving us other people’s rooms while using fake aliases.
For Ulfgar, this turned out to be a bad idea, as the
bartender knew that someone was looking for him.
Heading into the room that had not actually been reserved
for him, Ulfgar found a note on the table.
He went over and opened it, because who’s ever been afraid of a
note?
‘The Greenwoods send their regards,’ it read.
And then, in true Red Wedding style, Ulfgar looked down at
the two blades sticking through his chest.
That was the last thing he remembered before awaking. He was amazed to find that he was, indeed,
still alive. He was even more amazed to
discover that he still had all his possessions.
Well, except one thing. He was
missing his tongue. For Ulfgar, that was
probably the most amazing thing of all.
There was another noted left upon the table. It pointed out, in so many words, that the
whole tongue thing was to stop him from making any more deals.
(This meant a couple of things, which Ulfgar didn’t exactly
process at the time on account for being too upset about his tongue
missing. First, it meant that the deal
with the Orebreakers and the Sultan of Ispep had gone through. There was no way for the Greenwoods to learn
about the deal unless it had been publicly announced and their own arrangements
with Ispep terminated. This of course,
meant that the Orebreakers had gone through with a deal with unscrupulous
dwarves and drow. Drow. Which implied,
perhaps, either the Orebreaker clan was in even more dire straits than Ulfgar
himself had known, and had gotten desperate, that they in fact lacked the
scruples that they had professed to him in his youth, or both. He hopes that there is some facts unknown to
him that will absolve him of these worries—Maybe these Drow aren’t actually all
that bad!—but he doubts it. As the later
weeks spent upon the ship pass, these worries shall grow ever more prominent in
his mind. Also, he is completely
confused by why the Greenwoods deigned to leave him alive, when they could have
simply had him killed. No one knew who
he was around there. Were they afraid
that the Orebreakers might learn of a murder, and respond more negatively? Maybe they wanted to send a message to the
Orebreakers? Surely, the Orebreakers
would not treat this defilement as acceptable, would they? Perhaps, it was bartered for by the
Orebreakers? Did his people condone his
defilement? Could, perhaps, it not have
been the Greenwoods themselves who sent the assassin? After all, who signs off on their
assassination attempt? Could it have
been his own people, trying to start a war with the Greenwoods by creating
probable cause? Who could Ulfgar trust,
now?)
When Ulfgar was able to meet up with the party and explain
what had happened to him (mostly through pointing, some grunting), the party
asked around and learned that the quickest way to regenerate Ulfgar’s tongue
was to travel to Illmatter and entreat the very metallic dragon that they had
been tasked with to destroy! Serendipity!
The party made preparations and headed out, traveling
upriver in a longship piloted by the usual pair of tricksy figures. Along the way, they ran afoul of several
glowing orbs of light. Now, as Ulfgar
was missing a tongue, the spells he could use consisted of: True Strike,
Counterspell. That’s it. Therefore, Ulfgar was well on useless, but he
did manage to stab of the glowy things and cast a counterspell to stop it from
turning somewhat invisible. But, The
Bard had the Lantern of Revealing at this point, which made all of them easy to
hit, and the party made short work of them.
As the party was thus engaged in fighting river spirits, the
boat got trapped upon a sandbank, and the boat was soon set upon by an
ogre. But, Dragon Man and Hannah rushed
into melee against the thing, and Hannah preceded to unleash the full power and
her fully armed and operational Level 6 abilities. And soon, the Ogre was no more.
The party kicked ass, without really even needing
Ulfgar. Ulfgar felt well on
useless. Aww.
The party got the boat off the Sandbar, and continued on
their way.
At that point, the session ended. But, I want to take a moment to say that this
may well have been the last session that we will get to play with John for some
time, which likely means that Nory will soon be leaving us as well, as John is
moving away, having landed his dream job.
These write-ups didn’t really manage to convey it, but John was easily the
funniest roleplayer in the sessions,
really committing to playing Nory as a batshit insane little Cthulu acolyte
that he was, and mining that concept for all the humor it was worth, power
gaming needs be damned. He will be
missed.
Congratulations on your new job, John. This summer and fall have been the most we’ve
ever got to play Dungeons and Dragons together, and I have really enjoyed it,
and will treasure the experience. I hope
this isn’t that last we see of Nory, and I hope we get to play DnD again
together sometime. May Fharlanghn smile
upon your travels (I believe you are in transit as I write this!), and may you always
have a friend in Cthulu.
