Toilday, 5 Sarenith

Yes!  We sold some of the things we found and I now have enough to restock a little … and also buy that haversack.  Now I need not be penalized for being a bit less bulky than the tall ones.  A few extra sling stones need not have me bent over with back pain any longer.

We had barely returned from our shopping trip when we heard Kynae screaming down near the river.  We quickly rushed to his side and he seemed unharmed … whoa, uninjured perhaps.  He was, however, covered in what seemed to be bile or vomit.  Yet he was peering angrily up into the trees and seemed otherwise unharmed.

Following his gaze, we quickly spotted a fairly ugly looking man even smaller than me, looking down from the tree with a somewhat smug and satisfied look on his face.  He identified himself as Retch.   Since Shura and I were the closest we called up to the creature in a not unfriendly manner, “Hey! Wait up!”

We tried to get him to come down, but it wasn’t until we mentioned drinks that his eyes widened, his ears pricked up, and he came down.  While Shura went to the nearby pub, I tried talking more with him — and got vomited upon for my trouble.  This was apparently uproariously funny to him, but trying to keep things light I slapped him on the back and chuckled halfheartedly.

Sasha used prestidigitation to clean me, but shortly, I started feeling itchy for my troubles.  I ended up retiring quickly to go rinse off in the river.  Merely touching him seemed to also carry a penalty, and my humor was fading fast.

Meanwhile, the bottle of cheap wine didn’t last long, and for that matter didn’t stay inside him long either.  I think it might have been Yanor that suggested hard liquor (I was still scrubbing bugs or fleas or something off me own in the water.  But that sure did the trick.  Oh yeah, he drank it all down, but this time at least he passed out.  We examined his belongings and found

[1105] one of 3 talismans he had – this for the beneficial winds.  If he ever fell, this would automatically cast feather fall
[1106] second talisman – freedom – if he is made motionless, this gives him freedom of movement for 3 rounds
[1107] warrior’s courage – if he feels frightened or panicked, he is shaken instead

[1108] belt pouch, containing
[1109] MW thieves tools
[1110] sack of rocks

There was a discussion, but we decided in the end that Retch had not been so egregious that we should take his things.  But we did clean up Retch (prestidigitation; nobody dared touch him again) and turn him over to the town guard.  They were surprised, pleased, and unhappy all at the same time.  “He’s been annoying quite a few folks, how, uh, lucky of you to catch him.  I, uh, guess that makes him our responsibility now.  Yeah.”

Droste and Vlad made a trip back to the ferry but learned little new.  Some chap came thru looking for the “pool of seeing your future.”

Droste and myself went back to Peacock House, mostly to annoy them but ostensibly to ask for progress on the origins of the strange corpse we’d given them.  As expected, they had nothing, but it was more fun for me than getting retched on.  Sure, okay, low bar to clear but I’m not lying.

That seemed enough adventure for one day.

Wealday, 6 Sarenith

Shura felt a compelling need to try to redeem Retch, I guess, so she and Sasha gave it a go.  He was unrepentant and tried to vomit on them both.  Bad move, but they were apparently accepting of his decision.

It was 9am when we reached the ferry.  Today was the day we hoped to find and search the Stone House that the map told us wasn’t far from the goblin’s lair we’d cleaned out.  We got to the gobln place and scouted from there.

Didn’t take long to find a small stone house with 3 humans sitting around an apparent campfire.  There were 4 wagons surrounding the area, and the three did not appear to be alert, as though on guard duty.  Consequently, after watching for a few minutes, we thought that simply asking to see the house might be sufficient.

It was not; they took offense. Treju, Dimitirin, and Sandorio all died surprisingly quickly.

As we were finishing that off, an old woman emerged from the house.  She had a strange, shimmering cloud or field about her that strongly suggested not an ordinary old woman.  But we continued playing nice, ignoring the bloodshed on the grass in front of us, and to our surprise she invited us in.

Shimsa came away with the odd and unsubstantiated feeling that it was smaller on the inside than one might think.  Based on that and, I guess, gut instinct, she attacked the old woman.  Who, as it turns out, was much less of a pushover.  She cast a color spray on Sasha and Shura, and with a sigh, the rest of us joined in. I mean, really, is it too much to ask that we wait for them to attack us first?  Rather puts on the right side of the law, I should think.

While they beat up on an old woman, I started searching for a secret door … and found one!  Droste gave it the once over for traps and then it opened right up.

A stairway led down into the darkness … but then again there was a convenient lantern right here at the top of the stairs.

Well, before heading down, we did quickly search the bodies and the area.  We found

[1329] wand of CLW [29]
[1330] chain mail
[1331] MW cold iron dagger
[1332] amulet of natural armor +1
[1333] spell components
60 platinum plus 6 gold

We also found

[1334] silver candlestick
[1335] 3 books: Varisian Fables, Plants, and Erotica

[1542] 3 short swords
[1543] 3 daggers

I took custody of the short swords and daggers and amulet.  First two went into the haversack and the amulet went around my neck.  Might as well stay a melee kind of guy for now …

Then, inspecting the wagons, we found a lot of loot.  These guys must have been taking in a fair amount of tribute at their roadside robbery stand!

[1316] 900gp of misc stuff
[1317] carved wooden box with 24 pearls
[1318] gold statue
[1320] vial of magic weapon
[1321] scroll of comprehend languages
[1322] wand of glitterdust [9]  <– I grabbed this one too

Finally ready to go down the stairs.  At the bottom there was a boarded up door along with a

[1323] silver feeding bowl  <— I picked this up
[1324] lantern

We continued thru a couple of rooms and down a couple more staircases, before we came across a few coins and a deck of cards – non magical.  While we puzzled over that we heard voices, so we put everything back and arranged ourselves in the chamber above.  Trudging up from the stairs below came six guards … and it took only a few seconds for us to gain six more short swords [1328] and six more daggers [1344].

Going down the stairs we found more guards, but the hard way this time (they nearly surprised us.)  But five more short swords [1545] and five more daggers [1546].

We keep running into more guards and while it hasn’t troubled us too badly, I’m slowly using up my spells.  Might be more morningstar in it for me if this continues.