Episode S1-00: How I Met My Companions

               Nikos Mars, Helwyn Strahl and Tazae meet in a remote village middle of the continent. The patrons of the bar realize that Tazae is a tiefling and begin to harass her. Nikos and Helwyn stand up for her and the three become quick friends. After talking they all realize that they are bound for Ljustad.

               The three travel together for several weeks until they reach the town of Portsmoth. They are just outside the town when a terrible storm comes in, forcing them to rush to the safety of the tavern. As they near the town they quickly realize the place is overrun by fish monsters. The three race into battle in an attempt to repel the monsters.

               In the thick of battle, a battered ship enters the port and becomes another target for the monsters. An equally rough looking man jumps from the ship, sword in hand and joins the fray. Together, the four warriors successfully defeat the sea monsters and restore peace to the town. The group is rewarded with lodging, food and beer.

               The three talk with the new stranger and learn that Cyrus Grant is from the continent of Renown and is headed for Ljustad as well. Tazae’s hood falls during the evening’s merriment and Grant attacks on sight. Nikos uses his magic to freeze Grant in place and prevents any harm from coming to Tazae.

               Grant, being frantic at the sight of Tazae, explains that demons just like her have taken over his home land and seek to eradicate humans once and for all. He was sailing to Ljustad in hopes of getting an army sent to his land to reclaim it from the darkness.

               Helwyn and Tazae explain that tieflings are commonplace in this land and that Tazae is nothing like the demons that terrorize his home. Reluctantly, Grant agrees to truce and travels with the group to the city of light, Ljustad.

Episode S1-01: The City of Light

               The group enters the gates of Ljustad, the capital city, where peace and light reign supreme. The god of darkness, Razdoth, had been banished by the former king of Ljustad, Veronus a thousand years ago. Since then, Veronus has passed his power down to his seventh son (also named Veronus) and peace has persisted ever since. A sprawling metropolis of varying shops and citizens of all races.

               At the gate a trader by the name of Carl Vickers begins talking with the group and recommends the Tide and Turtle if they’re looking for a place to stay. They travel to the Tide and Turtle and attempt to get a meal and drinks.

               Upon arrival to the Tide and Turtle, Helwyn approaches the bar and orders her drink. A large man (Biff McLargeHuge) pushes Helwyn out the way in order to get to their table. Nikos tries to throw Biff’s gnome (Fizzy McWhizbang), but Fizzy has some kind of magic that allows him to avoid Nikos’ grasp.

               Shortly after getting our drinks and meal, the group sits out on the patio. They see a well-dressed man walk up to Biff’s table, but the conversation quickly leads to shouting. Banksy gets up and tries to leave, but Grant asks him what’s up with Biff. Banksy explains that Biff and company was supposed to guard Annica Helmskog for her birthday, but has since reneged on their deal. The group comes to an agreement to be Annica’s bodyguards for the party.

               Before leaving the bar, Nikos convinces the hot elf hostess to let him poison Biff’s drinks. The hostess takes a bit of gold from Nikos and gives him her address for “later tonight”. Pleased with himself, Nikos poisons the drinks and takes his leave.

               The group travels to the beach after drink to get dinner. Nikos buys some fireworks off of a goblin. After beach time festivities, the group heads back to the Tide and Turtle, except Nikos. Nikos travels to the hostess’ apartment and they fuck. Little does the group know that the hostess is now pregnant.

               In the middle of the night, the wizard decides to come back to the Tide and Turtle, only to find two goblins breaking into the Drake Bank. Nikos manages to kill the two goblins, only to be apprehended by the guard. After some quick talk, an envoy of the Drake Bank says to come to the Drake manor in the morning for a reward.

               The group goes to the Drake manor in the morning and Nikos receives his reward. They leave for the Helmskog manor and are given a not so quick tour by Banksy. After a quick discussion the group splits up and guard each room.

               Before they can split up, Lord Helmskog tells the group that the emperor has granted them an audience. Nikos asks Veronus is he knows anything about his belt buckle. The belt buckle is a symbol of the Betrayer, an ally of Razdoth (the sealed god of darkness).

               Grant asks him to send an army to Renown, as it is nearly dominated by darkness. After some back and forth, Veronus explains that Razdoth once ruled over this country, but Veronus was able to seal him away. During this battle the continent was split in two, and Renown was created. After a desperate plea, Veronus agrees to send help to Renown, in the near future.

               Grant guards the kitchen, Helwyn the patio, Nikos the library and Tazae acts as fake Annica and stays in her bedroom. The evening begins and Lady Drake gets drunk with Grant in the kitchen. Nikos runs into a woman, who is clearly trying to avoid somebody, and acts as her boyfriend. Helwyn runs into a severely drunk man, who is looking for the woman. The two groups eventually meet up and the woman gets mad at Helwyn and pours a drink on her head.

               Meanwhile in Annica’s room, servants try to give Annica a new set of strings for her harp (she is supposed to play a piece of music during her party). Tazae convinces her otherwise. Tazae escorts her down to the ballroom and watches her from the patio. The rest of the group moves into the ballroom as the music begins.

               As the music begins to play, a wave of fatigue consumes the room. None are able to fight it and begin to enter a dazed state. The sensation is short lived as an explosion rocks the stage that Annica is on. The band members grab Annica and Banksy, pulling both of the away.

               Once they regain their composure, Helwyn and Nikos go after Banksy while Grant and Tazae go after Annica. Helwyn and Nikos are successful and save Banksy before they can get away.

Grant and Tazae are not so lucky. Grant’s sword shatters during the battle (1 in 8000 chance) and the band members manage to reach the cliffside. Grant manages to punch one of the kidnappers off the cliff, killing him instantly. The remaining three take Annica and jump off the cliff and into the water. A row boat is waiting nearby.

Tazae jumps into the water in an effort to save Annica. She successfully takes down one of the kidnappers, but the rowboat quickly leaves, with Annica in tow. Grant does his best to maintain pace with the boat as his armor is too heavy to risk the water.

Episode S1-02: Minecart of Deception

The heroes regroup on the beach and continue following the rowboat as best as possible. Eventually, they come to the harbor and begin to look for a boat to “borrow”. After a very brief search they come across a rowboat that they believe to be empty. Grant jumps in, only to realize that it’s still occupied by an elfin woman. She introduces herself as “The Silencer” and demands we get off her boat.

After a quick explanation and an even quicker deal, the group boards the rowboat and begins their pursuit once more. After some time, they group follows the kidnappers into an underwater cavern, just outside the city.

The group sneaks along a dimly lit tunnel and follow it for quite a while, moving slowly in order to avoid detection. After what seems like an eternity, the group comes to an enormous ritual chamber, where Annica is bound and being sacrificed.

The battle is hard fought. The kidnappers are slain quickly dealt with, but the priestess summons demons to aid her in battle. The priestess and the demon are no match for the heroes and are quickly dispatched.

We rescue Annica from the altar. She is unconscious, so Grant carries her. Nikos and Helwyn searches the bodies of the fallen kidnappers and the priestess. They find moon-shaped markings with stars on each of the bodies. The Silencer quietly searches the altar and steals the six gemstones.

The boat is not big enough to carry all of them, so the group takes the only other tunnel out of the altar. At the end of the other tunnel is what appears to be a normal minecart. A long waste of time later, they take a magical minecart on a wonderful journey to an abandoned house in Tavendale, part of the Helmskog’s territory.

The house looks like it has been ransacked and been vacant for some time. Among the scattered clutter is a piece of paper addressed to Marcus Senac, who works for lord Helmskog. The group begins to look for Marcus, hoping he can get us back to Ljustad. A fruitless search leaves the group tired and hungry. They find the local tavern and sleep for the night.

They rent carriages to take them back to the safety of Ljustad. As the carriages pull away from Tavendale, The Silencer notices a suspicious cloaked individual leaving the tavern. Despite her desire to run after the individual, she resists temptation and the group makes their way back to the Ljustad.

The ride home is uneventful. Annica is safely returned to her home and group is rewarded for their bravery. When pressed for what happened, the group explains of how Annica’s captors were all marked with the same tattoo, as well as the sacrificial weapon. Grant turns over the dagger and Lord Helmskog tells them to return in the morning to discuss next steps.

They return to the Tide and Turtle for a well deserved rest.

Episode S1-03: The Silencer

After a long night’s rest, the group has breakfast at the Tide and Turtle. Grant brings up the fact that The Silencer is still tagging along for some off reason. She tells us her story about how her parents were murdered in front of her and she's looking for any clues as to who may have done it. Her father was a pureblood elf and her mother a human. The other elves disapproved of their relationship and marked them as outcasts.

When pressed for her real name, she is hesitant, but reveals her first name: Arastina.

Deciding to spend some of their reward, the group goes clothes shopping. During our shopping adventures The Silencer decides to trade those gemstones for some gold. She haggles with a dwarf, unsuccessfully vying for more. Helwyn steps in and declares” "The only thing harder to take away from a dwarf than alcohol is his money". Realizing the gnome raised by dwarfs was right, The Silencer sells the gemstones for a hefty sum.

While we’re in the area, we decide to register The Silencer with the city. On our way there a tiefling shows up asking her “where’s the goods” are. Slightly panicked, she tells the tiefling that the stuff is still on her boat… in the cavern. The tiefling says to meet at the Tide and Turtle tomorrow morning with the stuff, or else.

Before leaving, the tiefling spots Tazae and they have a conversation in a language that none of the group understand. The general gist is that the tieflings have a meeting in Ljustad each Monday(?) at the local library. Tazae does not inform the group of their conversation, despite Grant’s interesting

The Silencer suggests meeting at the gates of Ljustad, which everybody scolds her for. The group leaves and registers her with the city. Grant tries to prove a point with the guards and asks them how many people are stationed her in the morning. In response he gets very weird looks and thrown out of the building. Nikos scolds him once they’re out of earshot.

Grant and Helwyn goes back to the Tide and Turtle, leaving the rest of them to retrieve The Silencer’s boat. The three of them rent a boat at the docks and set sail. After much searching, they realize the tide has come in and retrieving “the goods” will be incredibly dangerous.

The Silencer jumps into the lake and swims into the cavern, popping her head up where the ceiling is highest for breaths of air. After nearly drowning, she reaches the boat and retrieves a very waterlogged teddy bear. She swims back to the boat and the remaining three turn in for the night.

The next morning, while the group is eating breakfast, a very rich looking young man marches into the Tide and Turtle. The man jumps up onto the table, much to the bartender’s annoyance. When told to get off the table, the man throws a bag of gold at the bartender and proclaims ‘this is my table now’.

This man brings news of mysterious lights on a nearby island and offers a reward to anybody that can find the source of the disturbance. The man seems a bit unhinged, so the group remains silent and doesn’t take him up on his offer. This infuriates the man and he carries the table out of the Tide and Turtle, throwing it in the ocean.

Before venturing off to find Helmskog, The Silencer goes upstairs and meets her contact. She hands over the teddy bear to the tiefling, only to have the tiefling to cut the bear open. Out pours three bags of a very wet drugs. The tiefling is rather annoyed at the ruined product and says “the boss” will not be using her services in the future.

We then meet with Banksy to discuss our next mission for the Helmskog’s. We are to investigate three of his towns that have all reported some kind of issue. He asks that we start looking for Marcus in Tavendale, then travel to either Songwood or Tallwood. We accept the work and begin to prepare for our departure.

               The group buys a donkey (named Eeyore) and set off for Tavendale. The day grows late and we all camp for the night. We set a watch and it isn’t long before a group of men approach the camp. The group wakes up and quickly realizes that these people are not friendly.

               A fight breaks out and the group deals with this group of people. All of them are easily dispatched, but Grant chooses to knock out their leader rather than kill him. At this point we believe these people are part of the cultist.

The group interrogates the stranger and finds out he’s from the town of Tosstin. Fire elementals, controlled by orcs, attacked his town, effectively destroying it. His group were the only known survivors. They attacked the heroes in order to steal food and supplies. Understanding his plight, we decide to forgive his transgressions and take him to Tavendale so he can find suitable work as a blacksmith’s apprentice.

Episode S1-04: Chaos Is About To Ensue

We arrive at Tavendale and head for the local blacksmith. We explain to the blacksmith that his town was destroyed and he’s in desperate need of housing. The blacksmith agrees to make him an apprentice and asks us what his name is. The group is a bit stunned, as we’ve never asked him his name. Nikos thinks quick on his feet and renames this name “Justin Credible”.

We had into a nearby “magic shop” run by a very odd lady named Maltida. We’re about to leave when the mysterious man that The Silencer spotted during our last visit, walks down the stairs. He is Matilda’s husband, Zanrose.

Tazae, Grant and The Silencer follow Zanrose down the street where he is about to set off for work as logger. Thinking that they need a distraction to keep him from leaving, The Silencer tries to stab Grant. The stab, luckily, misses, but Grant really does cause a scene. The plan works, kind of, and Zanrose threatens to call the cops. Luckily Tazae is able to convince him this is nothing more than a lover’s quarrel.

Having failed miserably, the group, and a really pissed off Grant, head to the hunting guild for more information. The other members of the guild are quick to trust, but we do learn that he's in the forest for several days. The Silencer asks that they give Marcus a message that she's in town because she wants "some". The instructions say to meet her in room "4D".

We head to a sanctuary where Helwyn talks to a bear in a very inappropriate manner. According to the bear Marcus smells funny, like he's rotten. We all pet the bear and gain its blessing. It quickly turns to dusk and we depart from the bear’s grotto.

As we’re leaving, we see Zanrose heading to the backdoor at the inn. The Silencer attempts to charm him, but it fails, causing him to flee inside the inn. We chase him inside where the Silencer and Nikos cosplays as a maid and butler. Using the disguises, they knock on every door in the inn.

From behind the last door, we hear a couple having sex. Knowing Zanrose has to be in there, Helwyn slides a small mirror under the door and sees Zanrose climbing out the window. Grant kicks in the door causing the woman to scream loud enough for the whole tavern to hear. Zanrose is already on the ground and sprinting down the street. At this point, Biff and company all come out of the nearby rooms, spotting each of the non-disguised heroes.

Grant runs down the stairs into the main part of the tavern and bolts out the front door. Tazae was waiting downstairs and joins the pursuit. Nikos jumps out the window and gives chase. Helwyn and The Silencer come down shortly after, causing all the tavern patrons to notice. When asked what happened up there, Helwyn says that the woman upstairs was raped. This stirs the tavern into a frenzy, causing an angry mob to form and chase Zanrose, Grant and Tazae.

Zanrose stops on a bridge overlooking a river. Despite Tazae’s best efforts, Zanrose thinks the angry mob is coming for him and jumps off the bridge. That leaves the group to deal with an approaching leaving mob, complete with fire and pitchforks.

Episode S1-05: An Expensive Lesson

Zanrose has jumped off the bridge and we’re able to convince the mob that the rapist was Zanrose. The group heads back to the inn in an effort to clear things up. Grant decides it’s a better idea to stays outside in the stables and The Silencer decides to accompany him. Grant gives his money to Tazae to pay for the door.

Biff is inside the inn, blaming Grant for the door and claiming Grant is the rapist. Tazae goes upstairs to console the woman while Nikos and Helwyn stay at the bar. Tazae patches up the woman from the few nicks and cuts that she got from the shattering door. Though the woman appears to be a bit out of it, Tazae’s kind words help bring her back from the grasp of shock. By the end of her treatment, Tazae manages to get the woman to say that Grant never did anything to her.

Biff finishes venting and heads outside. He spots Grant, screaming he found the rapist. The Silencer manages to convince him that she saw him, not Grant.

Meanwhile downstairs, the inn keeper is asking who broke the door and for some weird reason neither Helwyn or Nikos want to explain what happened. This infuriates the inn keep and raises the already high tensions. Helwyn then attempts to explain in the most Helwyn-ny way possible and only angers the inn keeper even further.

After having enough, the inn keeper calls the constable Quincy to settle matters. Grant and The Silencer enter the bar when they see the constable coming. When the constable begins his questions, it quickly becomes evident none of his companions made things any better. Having no other option, Grant begins to detail everything since they arrived at Tavendale.

Honesty was not the best policy as Quincy arrests Helwyn, The Silencer and Grant. They get outside and the constable demands a bribe or they go to jail. Grant pays fifty gold to keep the three of them out of jail. Quincy takes his ill-gotten gains and returns to his house. Once Quincy is safely out of earshot, Grant begins to lecture The Silencer and Helwyn, effectively telling them never to use the word ‘rape’ and no more stabbing attempts, ever.

The five of them head to the other inn in town to get dinner. Nikos then starts to hear his belt buckle talking to him. The belt buckle demands that he kills the bard for playing a song about the Magnus (The Betrayer), but Niko refuses. Instead, he is able to convince the bard to stop singing about Magnus for the rest of the night as it is upsetting some of the other patrons. This pacifies his belt buckle enough

The next morning, they get a letter from Marcus, to The Silencer, detailing where his cabin is. The group heads out to the mountains and find an open field. Grant remembers the villagers mentioning the saber-toothed tiger problem and approaches cautiously.

The saber-toothed tiger sneak attacks the group, Helwyn in particular. Helwyn gets knocked out by the sneak attack and is one step closer to death. Tazae gives her "medicine", before anybody can notice and the gnome rejoins the land of the living. The tiger doesn’t prove to be much of a challenge and the group deals it a lethal blow before it can do any more harm.

We keep progressing deep into the forest and hear a waterfall. As we approach it our sense of hearing goes haywire and we all become deaf. A series of bright orbs appear and we follow them, fighting through the pain each time we hit an invisible barrier.

Grant and Nikos hit another barrier at the same time. Grant is suddenly able to see/hear bits of Nikos’ conversations and experiences. He relives the conversation of the belt buckle talking to Nikos, telling him to stab Grant as payment for information. Another memory of the night before when the belt buckle ordered the murder of the bard.

Frustration peaks and Grant slashes at one of the orbs. Angry chittering in various languages is heard by the entire group. Having no other options, we push past the magical barriers and make it to a small island. Here the magical barriers fade and we the orbs of light are fairies.

The Silencer is the only one that can talk to them…

Episode S1-06: Not So Friendly Fire

The group talks with the fairies they explain that Steve (the magical unicorn) put up the magical barriers to keep out the undead. The forest is going through an unusual shift and the darkness appears to be increasing.

After the formalities are out of the way, the pixies offer to supply the heroes with drinks. A night long party ensues. Nikos, Grant and Helwyn all drink pixie juice and go on one hell of a trip, they believe they are growing antlers, but in reality, it is just a hallucination.

The group awakes the next morning to find almost no trace that the pixies ever existed. Hungover, they set out and take another path. We find a man at a campfire, just outside a log cabin. He is cooking breakfast as we approach.

It turns out that this man is Marcus Senac, the hunter that we’ve been looking for. We try to talk to him about what happened at his house, but he seems distant and outright refuses to believe what we are telling him. He offers us food and drinks, which everybody accepts.

The food that he gave us was laced with poison and everybody but Helwyn falls unconscious. Helwyn instantly turns into a bear and attacks Marcus. It is several turns of Helwyn and Marcus swapping blows. Just when it looks like Helwyn has the upper hand, the other hunters appear in the tree tops, raining down arrows upon the group.

Helwyn reverts back to gnome form and several others are rocked awake. It then turns into a spell slinging competition from all the caster heroes while Grant takes on the weakened Marcus. Grant is able to successfully knock out Marcus and turns his sights on the archers. He begins throwing axes at the archers in the treetops as the tide of battle begins to turn.

Sensing they are about to lose the battle, the archers instead turn their attention to Marcus and shoot several arrows through his body. The group is momentarily stunned as they realize Marcus was just murdered by his allies.

Three out of the four archers are killed and the last one is knocked out. The hope was to interrogate the last one so that we could learn more about the cultists. Unfortunately, the cultist falls out of the tree, dying almost instantly. Despite Nikos’ and Tazae’s best efforts, the cultist is unable to be saved.

With the battle over, we decide to look in Marcus’ cabin before departing. We find several items of use and several valuable gems. The most useful item we find is a letter addressed to Marcus from “M.”, with instructions to keep poisoning the forest and keep the darkness growing until the full moon.

Being exhausted and bloodied, the group settles down in Marcus’ cabin for the night.

Episode S1-07: We are the Axe-holes

We wake up the next morning healed and refreshed. Not wasting time, we head back into Tavendale. Grant drops off Marcus’ weapons to Justin in order to give him some extra gold in his pocket. We hear Biff say they are heading to Songwood and, not wanting to be accused of rape in a new city, Grant convinces the group to head to Tallwood.

On the way to Tallwood, come across a traveling merchant. We exchange the pelt from the cougar and some other odds and ends. Nikos casually asks if there was anything weird going on in Tallwood. The merchant tells us they were searching for a boy named Quinton, but other than that, nothing of note.

After letting the merchant go, we hear an eerie church bell on the path to the left. We go to investigate the source of the bell. We come across a farm. As we approach all the workers in the field turn to us in unison (super creepy), the bell rings again and all the children of the corn all turn and march into the barn.

The owner of the farm, Yorick, approaches us and asks us what are you doing here. We tell him about the missing boy Quinton. Through a weird series dialog, we determine that Yorick is lying by omission and won’t let us anywhere near that barn. Things get very close to an all-out brawl. When we tell him that we’re leaving, he makes an offer to let us to take what we want from the field.

As we're leaving, we notice a scarecrow has physically moved and is watching us. Tazae goes up to it, picking up veggies and talking to it, with no response. The Silencer goes up and tries to touch it, but freezes before she's able to touch it. Yorick comes out and tells us not to touch. We all inquire about what the hell is going on. We get no reasonable answers, but Helwyn wants to buy a scarecrow from him (for some reason?). Before we depart, he allows us to take as much food as we can carry, free of charge.

We leave and go enter Tallwood and immediately head for the nearest tavern. Helwyn, Tazae and Nikos have the vegetables from Yorick’s farm while The Silencer and Grant order from the Tavern. The hostess is questioned about the farm, but we learn nothing of substance. On the bright side, we do learn about an axe throwing contest that is going on tonight.

We enter the contest as the “Axe Holes”. It’s a best of five rounds. The Silencer goes first and puts up a hell of a fight, but narrowly loses to her opponent. Helwyn is next and looks like a early favorite, but after turning into a bear for a brief moment of showmanship, she falls behind quickly.

Grant is next and wins his round in a non-flashy way, driving his opponent to turn into an angry drunk. Nikos does try to cheat his way to victory using true strike and moderate sexual harassment, but his opponent, Alre Iantris, is far more skilled and is able to win handily. Tazae is last and does well, but her opponent (Alre Iantris’ sister) falls off the stage and she jumps off the stage to patch her up before anybody notices.

As the contest wraps up, we notice smoke coming from the other side of town. Without giving it a second thought, we all run towards the fire.

Episode S1-08: Kobold Cavern

               The group runs through the town and see that part of the residential district is set ablaze. Kobolds are in the burning houses, dragging unconscious people out and loading them into carts that pulled by oxen. The kobolds in the houses are easily dealt with, but some are already in carts and pulling away.

During the exchange Grant summons crystals out of thin air and launches them at the would-be kidnappers. Much to his delight and surprise, he’s regained some of his magic.

               Grant rushes into a nearby house to search for survivors. He finds two and pulls them outside and to safety. The rest of the group decides to charge the kobolds in the carts. Helwyn, Tazae and The Silencer go after cart #1 while Nikos and, eventually, Grant chase after cart #2.

               Tazae and The Silencer quickly dispatch the guards around their cart and, unbeknownst to the driver, jump into the cart. Helwyn stealthily follows the cart as a bear. Nikos and Grant jump into the cart and dispatch the remaining kobolds. Nikos drives the cart while Grant hides in the back.

               The kobold leads them to a cave not far from town. Tazae and The Silencer enter the cave and Helwyn, still in bear form, stops near the care entrance. Nikos and Grant, not having any other options, head into the cave, led by a bear.

               Tazae and The Silencer pretend to be unconscious and are unloaded from the cart. Nikos, Grant, and, a now gnome form Helwyn, begin their descent into the cavern. The light notifies the kobolds of our approach. Thinking fast, we devise a plan that goes horribly wrong. Through a series of horrible rolls Nikos critically fails while trying to run our cart over as many kobolds in the cave as possible.

               Nikos is thrown close to The Silencer and Tazae. Helwyn tumbles to the far side of the cave while Grant is surrounded by a half dozen kobolds and an orc. The battle is very much stacked against our heroes, as they are outnumbered three to one and exhausted from the battle in the Tallwood. Most of the enemies focus on Grant and he is able to avoid most of their attacks.

               Helwyn is able to heat metal the armor the armor on one of the orcs and burn him alive. A few goblins attempt to remove his armor and also burn to death. Nikos and the silencer face down a few goblins and an orc shaman. Tazae is able to cast magic from the floor and avoid detection for most of the battle.

               Just when it feels like the tide of battle might be turning the orc shaman casts a spell on Grant causing him to take attacks from all the enemies around him. He barely clings to life and is magically forced down the cavern’s tunnel.

               The people of Tallwood are beginning to stir and grab whatever weapons they can and start attacking the remaining kobolds and orcs. Some are successful, while some fall in battle, but it does buy the group the time they need to finish the fight.

Grant is locked in battle with the last orc, when both of them drop their weapons. Barely clinging to life, Grant braces for the ended when the Silencer burns the last orc to death. The Silencer looks at Grant and exclaims ‘You have magic!’.

Episode S1-09: Forgotten Memories

               Battered and bloodied, the group beings to sift through the cavern in the hopes of finding anything of value or importance. Among the items we find a letter to “B”. The letter describes how the cultists have found the underground castle but they need sacrifices to the blood god in order to raise it. It dictates instructions to kidnap as many people from Tallwood and provide them as a sacrifice to raise the castle. The letter ends by saying the seventh son will cease to be.

               We give the people of Tavendale instructions to get into as the carts and be taken home. The group carries the dead and loads them into carts. As they’re about to leave, another cart being driven by two more kobolds appear. The first one is quickly dispatched and Grant subdues the last one.

               The villagers want us to kill it, but we decide to question the kobold for basic information. The things we learn are somewhat surprising. The orcs came into the kobold camps and demanded the kobolds works for them. They resisted and the orcs slaughtered the unwilling as a lesson to the others. Feeling pity for the kobold we decide to adopt him and name him Trebek (once again we renamed a soul because we were too lazy to ask his name).

               One of the saving graces for our efforts is that we find Quinton among the group. He knows nothing though as the orcs and kobolds weren’t speaking in common. The caravan is able to leave the cavern without issue.

As we’re traveling through the forest, Grant sees a second moon shining light down. Nikos and Grant go to investigate and see a ghost army marching. Grant attempts to interact with it, but his hand just passes through the ghostly figures. It seemed to be a memory playing on repeat. Not having any idea what this is Grant and Nikos return to the group.

They are able to return to town and get patched up. The town guards are hesitant to let Trebek enter, but we lie and tell them that he is a victim just like the people of Tallwood. We shamble back to the tavern and sleep off our wounds.

The next morning, we are told to come to the mayor’s office. The mayor asks to come visit him at his house. He thanks us for saving his town and rewards us. We question him about the note in the cave and the ghost army that we just saw. He doesn’t have any idea who “B” is and points us to the town historian for more information on the ghost army.

The mayor points us to the town historian, who is Alre Iantris of the axe throwing guys from the day before. He knows very little except that the castle would be used to resurrect Razdoth in some way. This confirms what the letter to “B” was legitimate and puts pressure on the group to return to Ljustad as soon as possible.

Helwyn then asks Alre if he knows anything about the village that she was born in. Alre says that he knows that her village was attacked by elementals years ago and as far as he knows, there were no survivors. Helwyn tries to hold herself together, with mild success.

Nikos then asks us all to leave and begins to question him about his belt buckle, in an attempt to learn more about it. Most of the information are already things that he knew and learns very little of substance.

We see Yorick when we leave’s Alre’s office. He is handing out flowers to everybody in town. He sees us and says he’s trying to raise everybody’s spirits, and offering those that have lost their spouses to live on his farm.

Before we leave him, he says that Helwyn’s scarecrow is done. He hands her a miniature scarecrow. When it makes contact with her skin, she feels as if she’s being hugged by her parents. A feeling of warmth and happiness begins to spread through her body.

When Yorick is safely out of earshot, Grant asks to see the scarecrow. When he touches the scarecrow, he feels like he’s being embraced by his former fiancé. He hides that he felt anything and casts Identify on it. Yorick has a special kind of custom magic that can imbue an emotion into certain objects.

Frustrated and divided by whether or not Yorick is potentially evil. With the exception of Helwyn, the group believes him to be highly suspicious. Helwyn is ready to fight anybody who disagrees with her while the rest decide whether he’s a villain of epic proportions or a benevolent god walking among mortals.

The five head back to the tavern for a bite to eat. A boy comes up to them as they’re about to eat. He hands out flowers of varying colors to Helwyn, The Silencer and Grant. Each of them have differing reactions, with Helwyn eternally gratitude, Grant’s controlled sadness and The Silencer‘s outright indifference.

Nikos leaves after dinner to return to boy back to his mother’s house. After dropping him off he goes to see Alre Iantris’ sister, hoping to get lucky. The night doesn’t go as planned, despite his best efforts. The foot massage just wasn’t enough for the night to go his way. Nikos returns to the tavern and joins the rest of his party.

We leave for Songwood the next morning. 

Episode S1-10: Not the Spiders!

We arrive in Songwood and are greeted by two guards. They explain that the teleportation pads in the town have suddenly stopped working and many people are trapped in various parts of the city.

Upon leaving the guards, the silent one suddenly runs off, clutching his mouth. A mysterious illness has also befallen the town. We enter the tavern and find that the food isn’t edible and many suspect the water is contaminated. Tazae goes to inspect the well and a huge spider jumps out and attempts to injure Tazae. The tiefling manages to dodge the attack and combat ensues.

Spiders are slain as fast as they come out of the well, until at last the Queen bursts forth. During this battle Helwyn transforms into a bear and sends the bar into further chaos. Tazae spends her time trying to calm the residents of the tavern, even recruiting some to battle the spiders. The Silencer lights the tavern on fire at one point, by accident. Grant is poisoned several times and gets knocked out.

After the battle Helwyn purifies the towns food, with the help of the others. Afterwards the heroes sleep for the night.

The next morning, they descend into the well and comes across several traps, including several statues with various gems in their eyes. Grant is forced to enter the river to determine how one of these traps work. The statues are part of a depression trap. The statues shoot off elemental beams consisting of Light, Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth, Water, Dark. The Silencer uses Mage Hand to set off each trap before our heroes touch the pad. When the “dark” pressure plate is trigger, the entire cavern goes black. The group decides to push ahead, and find that it was the right decision.

Upon clearing all the traps, we come to a facility of sorts. It is futuristic and has automatic doors. Several tests are done and it appears to be a security system. After several tests we walk inside and find that it only reacts to organic material.

 Doors at both ends of the hallways seal shut, the ceiling opens and molten iron drops into the room. Only through the high alcoves were we able to avoid death. The floor opens and drains the molten lava.

               The group quickly enter the next room before the security system can activate again.

Episode S1-11: Our Short Attention Span

Inside the room we find a large turbine at the base of a waterfall.

We enter the next room and debate for 45 minutes to climb up the wall. Helwyn turns into a spider and climbs the wall and lowers a rope for us to climb up. We see several barrels of poison leaking into the river and turn them all off. The turbine begins to emit a new noise and, in our fear, turn one poison barrel back on. The new noise stops.

Grant takes two samples of the poison, which they find to be “Unholy water”.

Grants notes that it doesn’t make any sense that this room doesn’t have any other exits in it and the only way out is through the death room. Upon checking, The Silencer finds a hidden door and they all enter, single file.

Grant leads, but a torch is not lit in fear of alerting anything that may be in the tunnel. The Silencer decides to use Fire Bolt every few feet, which begins a series of wild magic events. The first of which is the Silencer sprouts a beard of feathers.

Several minutes later she summons “Flumphs” who are terrified of us and begin to run away. Nikos, the Silencer and Tazae murder the Flumphs, while Grant and Helwyn refuse to raise a sword. Grant notes his displeasure about killing something that was running away from us and had not harmed us.

Towards the end of the tunnel another wild magic surge occurs and seven magic missiles hit the closest person the Silencer is looking at. Grant takes several magic missiles to the back and is thoroughly annoyed.

We reach the end of the tunnel, which appears to be a dead end. The Silencer realizes the wall has illusion magic on it, and we can pass through without issue. To illustrate this point, she sticks her head through the illusion. Grant plucks a feather from her beard and tickles her nose with it, causing he to sneeze and her beard to fly off in a shower of feathers.

A cavern is on the other side of the illusion, with a path to the left or the right. Before we pick a path, Grant drinks a vial of holy water, curing him of his illness. We head down the left path and find ourselves surrounded by three earth elementals.

A short battle ensues where the mages deal full damage and Grant is reduced to stabbing a brick wall. Trebek steals an oil canister from The Silencer and throws it on an elemental, with the fire crazed mage setting it ablaze immediately. Trebek is then knocked out and Nikos rushes to his aid. Shortly after Trebek is saved and the elementals are defeated.

We continue down the other path, noting the illusioned door where the feathers stayed. The other path leads to the outside world. A small gazebo sits near the edge of the lake. A weird dome of magical energy surrounds the area, presumably what kept the people of Songwood from finding this place.

We head over to the gazebo to find a marble pillar with a purple stone sitting in the middle. After much fucking around, Grant touches the purple orb and feels like he’s about to be teleported, but then suddenly stops. Grant uses identify and learns that the power source is back in the mountain.

It was then we realized we fucked up. The last barrel of unholy water is still dripping into the river and preventing the turbine from powering up the teleporter all the way. We head back and turn off the faucet of the last barrel. At that point we lower the barrels to the ground floor and Grant carries the barrels to the security hallway and throws them inside. The security system is tripped and the barrels evaporate into a cloud of death.

We leave and return to the teleporter. Grant, being annoyed touches the teleporter and appears in a small room. He looks around for a moment before the rest of the crew materialize above him and crush him. They exit through the door in the room and find themselves in a forest. The room that the other teleporter was in, was inside a tree. The tree itself looks normal from the outside and has some sort of illusionary magic on them.

With evening setting in, Grant marks the tree with dozen of crystals and they begin to make their way back to town, with Grant marking the path with crystals. They return to the tavern and pass out.

Episode S1-12: Trebek the Rouge

We wake up and go see engineer friend. He doesn’t want to come with us to the mayor, since he is not prepared. The Silencer charms him into coming with us, but he need an hour. We go shopping.

Grant buys Trebek an adventures pack. Nikos buys Trebek a set of leather armor and a rapier. The Silencer buys an outfit that provides no additional armor, but shows off her tits.

As we leave, Trebek pulls out a set of daggers from his pockets. He had stolen the daggers from the smithy shop. Nikos commends him for pulling off the steal, but says to check in with him before he steals anything else.

We go to see the mayor (Byrd) and his office décor is all… birds. Grant is creeped out. Through a series of unfortunate events, we see determine that Biff and company claimed our reward. In trying to explain what the real threat was, Nikos implies that he could kill the mayor.

Chaos ensues.

The mayor says she can’t pay us, but she can see about finding something as a reward. She says to come back in an hour.

Realizing the charm spell is about to wear off, we leave the mayor’s office and go to the tavern. We buy the engineer (dwarf) the top shelf ale and end the spell. He is mad and happy, but not going to make a fuss about it. We leave the bar and attempt to return to the office, Trebek pulls out a bottle of the top shelf ale. Grant is mad, Nikos back peddles and tells Trebek what he did was wrong.

We return to the mayor’s office and are given several items:

·        Cape of Chlorophyll – regain health while in sunlight

·        Axe of Armistice - +1 Axe, but you have to roll a charisma of 10 or more each day, otherwise you have to try to end a fight without violence

·        Dragon Peppers (5x) – Eat 1/3 of a pepper to do an additional 1D6 damage as a bonus action for 24 hours.

·        Mysterious Book – Contains magic, but an asshole cat sits on the book and doesn’t let you read it.

·        Bag of Holding

Grant gets the bag of holding and axe, Helwyn takes the cape, The Silencer takes the book and Nikos takes the peppers.

We then spend the next hour trying to read the spell book that The Silencer took. An asshole cat keeps appearing on the book and there is no way to actually read the book. We give up and leave Songwood.

We travel for several days and on the eve of the “Lost Day” (Razdoth’s Birthday) we set up camp on the top of a hill. We are about a day’s travel from LJustad. Before falling asleep, the fire suddenly stops giving off heat. Grant feels a weird arcane force on the hillside. Nikos says he wants to survey the area and Grant says that he’ll accompany him. Once they are safely out of earshot, Grant reveals that he knows about the belt buckle and tells Nikos to see if the demon knows anything about it.

Nikos consults with his belt buckle and says that this is due to the “The Holidays”. When asked what’s coming, she merely says to greet it with “Fire and Song”. Grant and Nikos reconvene on the hill with their friends and warn them of the impending battle.

Episode S1-13: Addy Sheylan

We fight off a ghost and several skeletons. Tazae manages to use “Turn Undead” and scare away all the still standing skeletons. The Ghost then “summons” a new skeleton behemoth and Grant does battle with it while the rest fight the ghost.

After the encounter the group hurries to Ljustad on “The Lost Days” and see people hurrying out of the city. Nobody is willing to speak to them as they enter. The people fear that Razdoth will hear them and bad things will occur as a result. The party fights the flow of people to get to the Helmskog manor.

It isn’t long before the group sees smoke billowing in the distance. As they continue to approach a woman comes into view. She is running towards them as winged demons (imps) race after her. The party races to her aid while she takes shelter in a nearby alley way. Grant and Helwyn (bear form) rush forward to take the demons head on. The Silencer, Nikos and Trebek strike from afar.

Tazae is with the woman in the alleyway, checking for wound and tries to pry information out of her about what has happened. The woman’s words are scrambled and her thoughts scattered. Tazae isn’t able to glean much information out of her at all.

Meanwhile, the imps turn invisible and sneak past Grant and Helwyn and get dangerously close to the stranger. At this point the woman uses the spell shield, which Grant notices, but makes no comment on. Luckily the group is able to deal with the imps before any damage done. Trebek pulls off some stunning acrobatics and slays one by jumping off a building.

The group attempts to get more information out of the woman after the battle concludes, but she is still in a daze and most of the words out of her mouth are meaningless gibberish. They proceed towards the Helmskog manor with the woman in tow.

Alas, nothing is ever a simple task. On the way to the manor, a fire is raging in the housing quarters. Due to the Lost Day, there are few people willing to help put out the blaze. Tazae, Nikos and The Silencer help create a bucket brigade and attempt to put out the fire. Helwyn turns into a bear and is able to deduce that people are still in some of the houses. Grant rushes into the burning building and pulls out a son and father out just as the building collapses behind him.

The tops of the nearby manors begin to glow with a brilliant golden hue and Vernonus’ voice radiates from them. His message is to stay calm and the darkness has been expelled from Ljustad. Another voice suddenly over takes the emperor and says ‘Darkness is coming and you cannot stop it.’ The towers lose their glow and an eerie silence fills Ljustad.

They talk about what just happened as they continue to make their way to the Helmskog manor. Every possible explanation is based off of nothing more than a guess at this point. They meet Banksy at the gates and he brings them inside to a private sitting room. Instead of meeting with Lord Helmskog himself, a young lady enters the room. She says that she is grateful for all we have done but still requires specific details from us.

When pressed about who she is and how she knows what we’ve been up to, she finally introduces herself as Linnea Helmskog. Her job is to keep tabs of everything that goes on within her father’s territory.

She begins to divulge some information. During her explanation, she tells us that Zanrose was found in a nearby river, extremely battered but alive. They brought him back to Ljustad and gave him a job at the docks. He has no idea who was chasing him or why for that matter, but he now suffers from extreme paranoid.

During this discussion the door opens and Banksy, along with another guard set their sights on the woman from earlier in the day. The guard mutters ‘that’s the one’ and escort the woman out of the room.

We don’t stop him, but we do ask Linnea what happened earlier in the day. She explains that there was an attempted sacrifice at the paladin academy. Dark magic summoned the imps we fought, but the worst was avoided since that woman, Addy Sheylan, managed to escape.

Once the heroes get through their story of the last month, Linnea offers them a place to sleep for the night. The heroes are each led to a different room and begin to take a well-deserved rest. The quiet doesn’t last long as an earthquake rocks all of them from their sleep. The group scrambles for their equipment and run outside to figure out what’s going on.

Episode S1-14: Battle of the Bay

We hurry outside to see krakens in the harbor doing battle with the boats that were caught off guard. The Gunner says that we need to deal with that and Lady Drake appears suddenly to recommend that we borrow a boat from the Hamndon’s.

Veronus’ voice begins to echo throughout the town, urging the people to rise up against this darkness. This is quickly drowned out by another voice that says “Darkness will reign”.

The group begins to leave and the mysterious girl tags along. As we are leaving, she walks off the cliff’s ledge and disappears.

We arrive at the Hamndon’s manor and through an exchange manage to convince him to lend us a boat, with him as the kraken. After sailing into battle with a huge kraken, it becomes obvious that the cannons aren’t affective against it. A group of dragons appear and aid us in battle.

Tentacles begin to wrap around the boat and we do battle against them. They defeat the kraken before the boat manages to sink and we being to sail back to the shore. Trebek jumped into the water to fight the kraken and emerges with one of its eyeballs.

The group begins to talk to the new girl. We find out she is a half elf whose mother lived in the same village as The Silencer. Addy was sent to the paladin’s academy, but was tricked into being a sacrifice for the summoning ritual that would have released more demons into Ljustad.

We arrive back to shore and begin to make our way back to our Helmskog manor. The Helmskog offer us a room for the night, but Tazae quietly slips off. Tazae then goes and has a meeting with the other Tieflings in Ljustad. The rest of the group does not know what was said or done at this time. Tazae eventually returns and the group gets a good night’s rest.

Episode S1-15: Items, Islands and Pirates… Oh Shit

We arrive back at the Helmskog manor for a well-deserved rest. In the morning we are presented with several different magical items to choose from. One item is a vase that contains infinite water with varying intensities. The Silencer gets to test this on an unsuspecting Grant, and effectively waterboards him.

After selecting the vase from among other items, we travel to the Hamndon manor after hearing they have a task for us. We are recounted with the story of how fire elementals ravaged their islands, after we neglected the quest earlier in our journey. We are given three islands to pick from to start our investigation. We pick Fara, where the water can slow the aging processing.

Another man from the Mellenfaire house is there saying that Liara Mellenfaire has gone missing. We debate about which quest to go on. Grant, Nikos and Addy want to rescue the missing Mellenfaire, while Helwyn, The Silencer and Tazae want to stop the chaos being caused by the elementals. After a long discussion we decide to go to the islands.

Before boarding the boat, we run into Lady Drake. Nikos asks if she knows anybody that would like the kraken’s eye that Trebek found. She barters with Nikos and turns over 400 gold in exchange for the eye. She then eats the eye in front of them all… She might be a dragon.

We board a small transport vessel that was supplied by the Hamndon’s and set sail the next morning. After a long boat ride (with Helwyn no longer brave and drunk in the captain’s cabin), we spot another ship that belongs to pirates. We are stopped by the pirate vessel and are boarded in an effort to prove that we have nothing.

A young and beautiful young woman (Elseya Mellenfaire – Anvi Hamndon) boards the boat and finds only Helwyn. She says we’re telling the truth, but still wants something of value. Grant convinces her to take the useless cat book. The pirate then demands a sea shanty from Nikos, and he obliges.

As they sail away the Elseya says to say hello to her dad, lord Hamndon and her sister Liara Mellenfaire. Nikos yells back that her sister is missing. The pirates come back and the captain says that they need to find her and entrusts the task to Grant and Nikos.

They arrive at Farro and begin asking around for somebody in charge. The group is pointed to further inland to the hot springs. They travel up to the springs and a living quarter where the workers reside. They find the leader of the group, Jishia, who gives them three people to interrogate about the orcs and elementals.

Episode S1-16: Honey I Shrunk The Silencer

We being talking to Cameron, a member of the hunting team, and his companions. After a back and forth that went nowhere, we get mooned by one of his companions and learn basically nothing of value. We determine that he probably doesn’t know anything and let

We go to look for Zero next. He is at the research camp a little bit away from the base. A worker at the camp, Dogi, acts tour guide and takes us there for 10 gold. Upon arriving at the camp, the foreman, George, denies us access to Zero. Growing irritated, The Silencer uses charm, which fails miserably. The guards are called and we are escorted back to the camp.

Zero and the other researches return for dinner and we begin asking the eccentric Zero if he’s seen anything. We discover that he is testing the spring water’s effect on willing participants. Addy grows concerned about this and the group decides to talk to the test subjects.

Zero finds out the The Silencer is an elf with magic and asks her to become a test subject. She agrees with a price tag of 50 gold. Grant, seeing Zero becoming a bit fanatic, decides to accompany The Silencer.

The others talk to the test subjects and find nothing out of the ordinary, but do see some of the effects of the spring water. It seems to reverse some people physically, others internally.

Meanwhile the The Silencer and Grant accompany Zero to the hot spring. Grant marks his way using crystals and Zero notices, asking if he wants to become a test subject as well. Grant says ‘we’ll see how it goes’ and they continue to the spring.

Zero has The Silencer strip down and get into the hot spring. Grant peeks. She then starts using her magic until wild magic activates. At first, she becomes terrified of Grant for much longer than previously experienced. Zero then asks for one more wild magic surge.

This is where things go horribly wrong. The wild magic activates and she shrinks by what should be five inches, but is instead five feet. She shrinks down to eight inches and beings to drown. Grant runs over and fishes her out of the water, wrapping her in her shirt. Grant collects her stuff and returns to the group.

The group is shocked to find that the Silencer has shrunk. In a rage she begins casting magic, hoping to reverse the effects. Instead of reversing the effects, she summons a unicorn. The unicorn warns us of animal sacrifices on the island. The unicorn teleports us just outside the location of the ritual. As the unicorn begins to instruct us on the battle plan, it disappears, as the spell has worn off.

The group sees Cameron and five orcs all summoning a water elemental. The group sneaks up on the unsuspecting group and does battle. Trebek runs ahead and incapacitates Cameron, with a banana. During the battle Nikos asks his belt buckle for help and suddenly spawns 3 shadow clones.

In the end, the heroes are victorious and revive Cameron, who is no longer being mind controlled. They begin to chat and find out that he was mind controlled over 4 years ago and has no idea or memory of what has transpired since then.

Episode S1-17: Everybody Hates Yorge

After the battle the group rests for the night to recover their strength. In the morning the group sets out to find where the Orcs had come from. The trail proved to be too thick so the adventurer’s went back to the camp to speak with Yorge and Zero to see if anything could be done with The Silencer.

               When they returned to the camp, they find that Zero has been fired and George is in the research camp. The group goes to talk to George, who really, really doesn’t give a shit about them. He has no solution to the shrinking and refuses to give The Silencer her 50 gold.

               After a lot of back and forth, and not really getting anywhere, Trebek attempts to pickpocket the foreman and fails miserably. The guards escort the group out of the camp and Grant and Nikos begin to plot revenge against Yorge. The group travels to the port and writes a strongly worded letter to Ulyssey’s asking for permission to punch him in the face.

               The group leaves with Cameron to find the source of the Orcs. They sail around the island and find the Orc ship. Two kobolds and an Orc are there. The group takes the row boat and sneaks up on the boat occupants, killing them in the process.

               The group loots the boat and tries to figure out if there are any more. Grant races Trebek up the face of the hillside and wins. They spot a point that would be good for the Orcs to travel. Trebek makes a bet with Grant that he can make it down the hill first. Using his whip, Trebek lassos the mast of the ship and descends gracefully, beating Grant within seconds.

               The group travels to the camp, to find out that they’ve defeated all the orcs and wasted a shit ton of time. The group then sails back to Ljustad and speaks with Lord Hamndon to claim their reward. He is unmoved by The Silencer’s plight and just gives the heroes the reward he promised.

               We learn that Liara Mellenfaire has been rescued and she’s buried in her books once more. Nikos sends out a letter to her pirate sister counterpart that she has been found safe and sound. Lord Hamndon suggests that we take The Silencer to Liara to see if she may have a solution to her problem.

               During dinner Ulyssey tells them that the earthquakes have been happening ever since they left and it has become commonplace. It has been determined that the source of the energy is going towards Bonderas territory. While Lord Hamndon does not have the authority to send them there, it may be in everybody’s best interest.

Episode S1-18: Late Night Book Club

The group stops by several shops to get some gear upgrades and sell their spoils from Fara. Nikos and Grant both get some improved armor before making their way to the library. The group is hoping to track down Liara Mellenfaire in an effort to restore The Silencer to her normal size.   

The heroes enter the library and decide to split up, each taking a different floor. The Silencer and Grant take floor one, Nikos and Helwyn take floor two and Tazae goes to the sixth floor. Grant and the Silencer find nothing of note.

Nikos and Helwyn find Fizzy McSpellBang reading at one of the tables. Helwyn wants to try and get him kicked out, so she turns into a mouse and scuttles up in front of him, in the hopes of scaring him into causing enough noise to draw the ire of the library staff. Nikos watches from afar, ready to intervene if necessary.

Her plan fails miserably. Fizzy reaches out and zaps her with a bolt of magical lightning, causing her to revert into her gnome form. The staff see the commotion and tell Fizzy to stop bringing his dates to the library. Helwyn tries to tell the librarian that she is not his girlfriend, but the staff don’t believe it. Nikos watches on with mild amusement as the situation unfolds.

For some strange reason a normal conversation takes places between Fizzy and Helwyn. Helwyn explains The Silencer’s predicaments and Fizzy says he can put her back to normal, for the small price of 800 gold. Helwyn says that she’ll keep the offer in mind if Liara can’t do anything for her.

Tazae reaches the top floor and finds it guarded by a single knight. A table sits nearby the door with two men watching the door intently. After speaking with the guard, Tazae learns that Liara is inside the “Forbidden Section” and does not wish to be disturbed. After speaking with the guard some more, he gets the impression Tazae might be somebody that could help Liara and decides to leave for a small amount of time.

Tazae enters and speaks with Liara who is having a bout of depression. She says that she does not wish the to the head of the Mellenfaire house and it’s even worse since her sister has left her. Tazae manages to talk her out of it and begins to tell her of her about The Silencer’s predicament. Liara agrees to help, if she can see The Silencer first.

The group reconvenes in Liara’s office, near the Forbidden Section of the library. Liara is amazed by what has happened and says ‘why would you want to be big again?’. The Silencer manages to convince her to give her the ability to go between tiny and big form. It will take Liara longer to figure out how to do it, but she assures the group it can be done. In the meantime, she says she will make The Silencer a pair of mechanical wings to allow her to traverse on her own.

In exchange for her services, we are her personal adventurers and can no longer work for the Hamndons anymore. Our first assignment is to sneak her by the men outside, who work for Randal Hamndon.

Nikos goes to look for a book in the library and says he will come back as a distraction while The Silencer turns Liara invisible. The group, minus Nikos, leaves with a minor exchange of words with the men at the table. Grant basically tells them that Nikos and Liara are “having some fun” and its not the groups problem who it angers. Nikos leaves the office an hour later and the men confront him. Nikos charms them into believing that they were part of a book club and they were going over the latest novel.

Episode S1-19: Tazae The Water Goddess

The group continues the escorting Liara back to her manor. On the way back we run into Lady Drake who inquires about our “Little Problem” and sees that The Silencer is still tiny. She reiterates that her offer still stands. As she is leaving, Lady Drake comments that The Silencer and Grant “make a cute couple”. The Silencer squeeks her discontent, while Grant tries to explain that it was probably Liara and Nikos she was referring to.

They return Liara back to the manor successfully. She says she’ll build the fairy wings tonight and we can pick them up in the morning. The group heads to the Tide and Turtle and sleeps for the night. They return in the morning and receive the purple fairy wings that allow the Silencer to move independently of Grant. The wings do have a chance to fail if she flies too high.

Before they leave Liara has an assignment for them. Travel into Bonderas’ territory and find out what’s going on with the earthquakes. We are supposed to tell her and only her about what they discover. The group accepts and begins to head out and prepare for the journey ahead.

As they leave the Mellenfaire manor, Lady Drake is waiting outside. She asks them to have the exact same quest, find out what’s going on with the earthquakes, but tell only her what she finds. Banksy finds us after we conclude with Lady Drake, saying Lord Helmskog wants us to come to the manor, he has a quest for us. It is the exact same quest.

The group realizes it needs to make a decision about who to rely the information to, but decides that can wait. They travel to the market and buy horses for the journey. As they are leaving, they run into Biff McLargehuge and his group of mercenaries. Some introductions are made, but Biff tries to rile up Grant. Grant doesn’t take the bait and walks off.

The group leaves on their journey into Bonderas territory. They rest one night and Helwyn and Trebek spot a group of people leaving the nearby town in the middle of the night. Helwyn approaches them to make sure everything is ok, but they gallop away, seemingly unsettled by her presence.

The group enters the town of (INSERT HERE) the next morning to find out the deputy mayor stole the town funds and has run off. The town is in a state of disarray due to a poor harvesting season and what crops they were able to gather had mysteriously turned rotten. Having suspicions but nowhere to start, the group donates what gold that it can to help the town.

Before they leave, the group learns that the town is experiencing a drought, so Tazae uses the endless water pitcher to fill as many barrels as possible. This causes a crowd to gather and many people think that Tazae is the god of water and their savior.

Another several days of travel leads them to Summerton. They enter the local inn and are met with an icy reception. People in this town do not like outsiders. As they eat their meal, Helwyn notices that one of the patrons has a crescent moon shaped tattoo on the front of his chest. When the stranger notices Helwyn’s gaze, he tells her to mind her own business.

The group finishes eating and goes upstairs to their rooms and discuss what they find. After hearing Helwyn’s story they decide to look around the room. On each door and weird symbols that none of them recognize.

               Nikos and Grant head down to the bar to talk up the barkeep and to see if they can find out any information on the cultist and what those symbols mean. The barkeep tells them that the cultist is a Transplant from (INSERT OTHER TOWN) and has been here for several months. He works on the (insert farm name). Nikos then comments on the door symbols and find out the barkeep is illiterate so he made his own language.

               Nikos talks about the whiskey they make and find out the main creator is sitting in the inn. Nikos talks to him about the famers, but learns nothing new. Grant and Nikos return to the rest of the group and share their findings. They determine this single cultist isn’t a threat and decides to leave in the morning.

               In the middle of the night the group is awakened to the sounds of screaming, minus Grant who is passed out drunk. They see a monster roaming the streets destroying the town. Nikos slaps Grant awake and they run outside to confront the monster.

Episode S1-20: I Will Avenge Lucy

               The group rushes out to fight the monster, but Addy is mysteriously missing. The monster proves to be a difficult foe to hit, with most physical attacks outright missing. Trebek throws an oil vial down the creature’s throat and The Silencer follows up by flying inside and igniting it with burning hands. Nikos lands several physical attacks that don’t seem to damage it nearly as well as they should, but magic appears to have full effect.

               As the monster grew weak, Trebek climbed Nikos and jumped into the creature’s mouth, stabbing him as he did so. The monster shuddered before erupting in a shower of stones. Everybody is injured in the blast and Trebek suffers near fatal damage. Once the dust settled, the group was able to determine that the monster was actually an earth elemental.

               After the battle has been settled, Grant points out that the farmer cultist (Redeye Doyil)must be behind this. The group travels to the farm and The Silencer flies around to each window. She sees that the house is an absolute wreck inside and the two brothers sleeping soundly, but the cultist is missing. They spot a barn on the property and investigate. The barn doesn’t contain any animals, nor does it appear that it has been properly cleaned in months. Some of the manure does appear to be relatively fresh, implying that the animals have recently gone missing. The group determines that the animals must have been used in the ritual to summon the earth elemental.

               The fact that the animals have been mistreated causes Helwyn to go into a rage. She wants to kill the farmers sleeping in the house to avenge the animals. Grant manages to keep her from storming off, by saying they will bring the farmers to her if they are indeed guilty.

               Having no other options Grant and Tazae go to the back window to keep them from escaping while Nikos and The Silencer head to the front door. After a comical battle with the door, Nikos, Trebek and The Silencer enter the house but don’t find the farmers. The farmers do not appear to be in the room, so Nikos goes to the living room and lights a fire in the fireplace. He then begins singing for some weird reason.

               The Silencer and Trebek finally manage to find the farmers, under the bed. Nikos, still singing, waltzes back into the bedroom and puts a sword to one of the farmers throats. After a back and forth the farmers are severely disoriented and unsure of where their employee is. Nikos mentions that the barn is empty, which causes the men to say that makes no sense as they had just cleaned it. Nikos says that they should go to the barn to prove it. When they leave the bedroom, they see a ransacked house, which further confuses the farmers.

               It is then that The Silencer realizes what’s going on and asks the farmers what day they think it is. It turns out the farmers have also been under some sort of mind control and have no memory of the last four and a half months.

Upon getting to the barn the farmers realize all their animals are gone, including their beloved mule Lucy. The farmer breaks down and begins to cry, Helwyn tells them that she will avenge the death of Lucy. When asked where the cultist may have summoned the earth elemental, the farmers tell them that there is a quarry that is largely isolated.

The group heads over to the quarry and finds slaughtered animals and the altar upon which the earth elemental was summoned. Finding nothing but the tracks left by the earth elemental, the group heads back towards town in search of the cultist.

Episode S1-21: A Bard’s Prophecy 

Special Note: See “Kainulainen’s Playlist” for all of Kainulainen’s songs

               The footsteps are hard to distinguish as we enter into town. Having little to go on, the group enters the tavern and hopes the bartender may have seen Redeye Doyle. The tavern has been converted into a make-shift hospital to treat the wounded. People are rushing between the wounded, attempting to save as many as possible. Tazae goes and attempts to treat the wounded.

               Up on the stage is a bard reciting several different songs. The songs seem to be about the end of days and it is understandably making most of the tavern’s occupants very upset. After some talk about using the water vase on him, Nikos goes up onto stage and effectively starts having a song battle with him.

               Niko’s song focuses around Tazae and her healing prowess. The crowd is swayed by Niko’s performance, despite the bard’s continuous singing. Grant notices that the singing is almost automatic and some magic is afoot with the bard. He calmly goes up to him, casting Identify. The only magic that the bard is using, is to project his voice. Grant gives the bard a warning that the occupants of the tavern are ready to beat his ass.

               The bard gives Grant one last verse (about a drunk man) and steps down from the stage, stealing a bottle of wine and taking residence at a nearby table. Grant begins to ask the barkeep if he’s seen Redeye Doyle, but the barkeep was asleep when all the chaos broke out. The last time he saw Doyle was at the stables.

               Hearing this, Helwyn rushes out to the stables to find a battered Eeyore. The donkey has several abrasions to his face but is other unhurt. A scrap of cloth is in his mouth, presumably part of Redeye Doyle’s coat. After applying some basic first aid to Eeyore, Helwyn returns to the bar in a rage, wanting to track down and murder the cultist.

               Meanwhile, inside the tavern, Tazae has done what she can without access to her magic, stabilizing some of the wounded and making others comfortable until their end. Nikos has been singing, trying to calm everybody inside with mild success. The bard gets back up on the table and begins another song battle, which the bard wins.

               In an effort to stop the annoyance, Grant asks the bard ‘what happened to the drunken man?’. This makes the bard stop his singing and actually engage in conversation.

After a lot of back and forth, the bard tells us that his songs are all original and based off of things that he’s seen. The moon guides him to where he needs to be and what he should sing about. With the current state of the world, Kainulainen warns us that history is repeating itself and we ‘cannot stop it, leave while you can’. He warns that the next full moon will be a time of great turmoil.

Since Kainulainen knows so much about history, Nikos asks him if he knows anything about the belt buckle. He says that the belt buckle is a sign of Magnus Marcera, the Betrayer. This confuses Nikos as this name is not anywhere in his family’s history. When pressed how Kainulainen knows so much about the belt buckle, the bard reveals that there was a book that was unearthed in Summer’s End, a town not far from here, during a recent earthquake. Kainulainen was able to read a few pages before he had to flee from unknown foes.

When asked if he’s seen Redeye Doyle, Kainulainen does say he saw him heading east, towards Summer’s End. (Note: the message was much more cryptic than that, but for the sake of my notes, I’m dumbing it down.) The group says their farewells to Kainulainen and turns in for the night.

[AT THIS POINT NIKOS GOES FOR A WALK AND HAS A CONVERSATION WITH HIS BELT BUCKLE, UNBEKNOWNST TO ANYBODY ELSE. SOME PERTIENT INFORMATION IS DISCLOSED BUT ONLY NIKOS KNOWS WHAT WAS SAID.]

We leave the tavern in the afternoon. Nikos looks disheveled and appears to have a sporadic sleep. We pass by a farm on our way to the forked path. As we pass the barn, Helwyn hears animals in distress. In true Helwyn fashion, she immediately diverts her path and rushes to the barn.

The barn door is barred from the inside and the animals grow more frantic. Trebek pulls out his grappling hook and latches onto the windowsill on the upper floor. Helwyn climbs up first with the flying Silencer at her side. As the two enter the barn, they spot a young lady muttering to herself. A crossbow has been set up and pointed right at her, with a pulley system for easy firing.

The young lady fires the crossbow before any of us can do anything. The arrow pierces right through her heart. Despite all of Nikos’ and Tazae’s skills, they are unable to save the woman.

Helwyn immediately goes to tend to the nearest cow. It doesn’t look like it’s been milked in a few weeks so she tries to do that. Nikos tends to the other cow in the pen. Blood comes out of both of the cows when milked. The bull starts ramming the door in its pen. Helwyn then takes the bull out of his pen and out into the field. Despite her best intentions, the bull is not calmed and tries to gore her.

               Grant rushes to her side and manages to grab the bull by the horns and wrangle him. Helwyn then uses her magic to speak with the bull. All of the animals are extremely sick, with some kind of parasites living under their skin. Helwyn and Tazae manage to create a medicine that puts all the animals into a deep sleep.

               The Silencer and Tazae have turned their attention to the you woman while the others deal with the animals. The Silencer find the word “SINNER” carved into her right shoulder. Tazae inspects the crossbow, but doesn’t find anything of note. Nikos puts the crossbow into the bag of holding and the group head to farm house.

               Grant searches the kitchen and finds a deceased older gentleman. The Silencer finds a rusty dagger that we assume was used to harm the young lady. Nikos searches the living room and finds an older woman hanging from the rafters. Helwyn searches the three rooms and finds a younger man that has been gored by the bull.

               The group tries to figure out what happened here, but isn’t really able to come up with a reasonable guess. Grant then comes up with the idea to search the girl’s room for a diary. We’re able to find the diary and begin to learn what happened here.

               The young lady’s family had passed away a few months ago. This family had taken her in since she was in love with their son. Life was good for some time. Three weeks prior a stranger came to their house in the middle of the night, asking for a room for the night. The family was unsettled by the man’s “mean face” and turned him away. As he left, he claims to have cursed the land.

               The family thought nothing of this stranger encounter, until a few weeks later. As the young lady was milking the cows, blood came out instead of milk. Startled, she screamed which in turn startled the bull that Jeremiah (the son) was handling. The bull jumped and gored Jeremiah, killing him almost instantly. The father blamed her for their son’s death and began abusing her on a daily basis. The mother was heartbroken and hung herself out of grief. We don’t know what how the father died, but we assumed it was due to drinking tainted milk.

We bring the bodies out to the pasture and put the sleeping animals out of their misery. We then burn the bodies for good measure.

               Not having anything else to do, the group ventures towards the split in the road. Helwyn changes into a weasel and determines that the scent is not going towards summer’s end, but the opposite way entirely.

               The group makes camp away from the road and begins to talk about our options. A lone rider on horse back approaches and warns them that Summer’s End is currently controlled by cultists. He is on his way to Ljustad and had to take the long way around Summerton to not draw the cultist’s attention.

               After a long discussion we determine it’s best to avoid Summer’s End for the time being.

Episode S1-22: The Cult of Personality

 Special Note: See “Solomon Black’s Playlist” for all songs

Special Note: See “Magnus’ Love Letter” for the love letter excerpt

               We take shifts keeping guard that night. A lone figure is seen riding down the path we came from during the Silencer’s shift. Since the figure is too far away, The Silencer wakes Helwyn a bit early and lets her know to keep watch.

               The figure comes into view and it appears to be none other than Kainulainen. It appears that he is in a hurry and headed for Summer’s End. Helwyn stops him and warns him of the cultists in Summer’s End. Kainulainen isn’t worried, in fact he accepts that Summer’s End may be dangerous. The moon guides him to where history needs to be recorded, it is his duty to uphold.

               Helwyn acknowledges that he’s an adult and can make his own decisions, to which he’s confused but glad. Kainulainen presses Helwyn as to why they aren’t heading to Summer’s End since we were supposedly hired to stop the cultists. Helwyn then beings to recall her anger due to Eeyore’s injuries and goes on a small rant about getting revenge on Redeye Doyle.

  Kainulainen counters with a question about whether logic or anger is driving her decision. Helwyn thinks on her answer and Kainulainen sets off to Summer’s End.

Helwyn wakes Tazae for her shift and goes to sleep. In the early morning hours, another figure is spotted traveling down the road. We wait until they are close enough to see and realize it’s the dark knight from Biff’s group. She begins to travel towards Summer’s End when we stop her.

We warn her of the cultists, but she explains that’s exactly why she’s going that way. The six of us group up and travel towards Summer’s End. Along the way we chat about Biff and company. Their group was also hired to investigate the source of the earthquakes, but Eliza (the dark knight) thought that this was more important. She left the group and decided to put a stop to whatever is going on in Summer’s End.

We head north to Summer’s End where we see tons of people milling about in a rather happy manner. The townsfolks are all dressed in black and appear to be in a cheery, but they are all slightly… off. Nobody seems to mind our presence as we enter town, so we head to the bar in the hopes of finding Kainulainen.

Kainulainen is inside the tavern, singing his songs of doom and the darkness that has yet to come. The patrons inside the tavern are absolutely loving his performance. We take a seat and order drinks. The bartender returns with various dark, yet dazzling, drinks that make The Silencer and Grant very cautious about consuming them.

We sit and wait for Kainulainen to finish his performance. He comes over and tells us what he has learned. The whole town worships Razdoth and the coming darkness. Their leader, Solomon Black, is set to be married soon. His first wife has gone missing, so his new bride to be is his ex-fiancé’s sister. Solomon Black is set to give a speech at the church tonight.

Kainulainen tells us of his plan to attend the speech tonight, but if things go wrong, we’re to meet him inside the forest to the north. We agree with his plan. Kainulainen gets a room in the tavern for some rest while we set forth to get a lay of the town.

We speak with a woman in the market and get a general sense of where things are. As the conversation ends, we ask her where we can get “more appropriate” attire for tonight’s event. The woman points us in the direct of the local seamstress and we pick out new outfits.

During this time, Eliza buys two silver rings and hands one to Grant. She then tells him that he’s going to pretend being her husband while they’re in Summer’s End. Not wanting to be bent into a pretzel, Grant doesn’t argue and puts on the ring.

               Dressed to impress, the group begins to scope out Summer’s End. Solomon’s Black manor is currently under construction. Dozens of workers are in the front yard, working away. A tiefling foreman is verbally and physically abusing the workers. Realizing that they won’t be able to break into his house, the group moves further into town.

               The group comes to the tomb that was uncovered in the recent earthquake. A half dozen elite guards are standing watch and the group knows better than to try their luck. The group heads back towards the market and spot a park. They sit and try to come up with a plan when Grant spots a rundown house on the other side of the street. It is being guarded by two elite guards.

               We quickly devise a plan and send in the invisible, stealthy mouse that is Helwyn. She manages to sneak inside and search most of the rooms in the house. The rooms contain nothing of note, so she focuses her search on the basement. The basement leads to a large iron door and a sense of hopelessness and despair can be felt emanating from within. Knowing that her spell is running out, she makes her escape and regroups with the others.

               Nikos decides to investigate the tombs by himself. At first the guards are hesitant to let him enter, but when Nikos replies that he’s from Molotov, the guards let him in without question. They mistake him as a member of Darkstones. The guards mention that they were under the impression that the Darkstones wouldn’t be arriving for two weeks. Nikos replies that he was an envoy sent to make sure the town was in proper order for their arrival.

               Nikos is led down a tunnel and takes note of several artifact of general bad juju. One of which is a staff which has been partially revealed and is sticking out of one of the walls. At the end of the tunnel are two paintings, one of Magnus Marcera and Ilya Sera. The guard and Nikos converse about the paintings for a time.

               Nikos leaves the tomb and reunites with the rest of the group. Nikos informs them of what he noticed in the tomb and how bad the situation is if Solomon Black gets his hands on these relics.

               With dusk beginning to settle in, the group heads to the church in hopes of learning more about Solomon Black’s plan. The group disperses throughout the church on the chance a fight breaks out. Nikos Tazae and Kainulainen take seats in the back while Grant, The Silencer and Helwyn sit in the front. Grant uses Message to communicate with Nikos, but one of the guards appears to notice, so Grant doesn’t push his luck.

               Solomon Black comes in through the back door and Nikos immediately notices that he has a look that strongly resembles Magnus Marcera. Solomon Black then goes on to explain that Razdoth is the reason that Summer’s End is thriving. He condemns Ljustad’s inaction when it came to helping the surrounding farming towns and demands to make him pay.

               He goes on to explain what happened to his previous bride. The earthquake revealed the tomb to the north of town. Solomon and his fiancé went to investigate. The monsters that were sealed in the tomb attacked his fiancé and she “withered” before his eyes. Seeing that his wife was not accepted by the monsters, and Razdoth by extension, he locked her away to rot.

               Finding himself suddenly without a bride, Solomon claimed the hand of his fiancé’s sister. He has sent his new bride to be into the forest to the north. Her mission is to destroy all of the Shimmer berries in the forest. These are used to make potions for the paladins in Ljustad.

               When she is done destroying all the berries she will go deeper into the forest and find the mandrake root and use it to brew a tea. She will drink the tea as they are being married in the morning. The tea will kill her, but Solomon will use magic to bring her back as the “Queen of the Dead”. Using his wife’s new power, they plan to raise an army to march on Ljustad.

               He then goes on to read a love letter from Magnus to Ilya. He draws parallels between himself and Magnus. Nikos’ belt buckle (I shall henceforth call her Ilya) does not like this and bounces between fury, annoyance and mild sadness as she recalls her time with Magnus.

               The ceremony ends and the group reconvenes in the park. They realize they must go into the forest and stop Solomon’s bride before it’s too late.

Episode S1-23: Displacing a Prophecy

               As we enter the forest, Helwyn spots a crow. It begins to caw at her in a mocking manner. Not wanting to take that kind of sass she caws back at it. Everybody in Summer’s End thinks we’re weird now.

               We journey into a forest and notice that the single crow has turn into several dozen. Helwyn tries talking to them. They say that the moon has sent them to watch over us. When asked if they know where Solomon’s bride is, the group flies off to the west.

               They follow the crow’s lead and come to a clearing that is illuminated by the moon. Grant and Eliza enter the clearing first, knowing that something is very off about the area. From out of nowhere a barbed tentacle strikes the side of Grant’s face.

               Before them sits a Displacer Beast, ready for a fight. The group launches into battle, dealing fairly well against it’s strength. The Displacer Beast runs off the moment it realizes it can’t win the fight. Trebek dashes after it without anybody else to help him. Grant manages to close the gap between him and Trebek, but the Kobold is still fairly far away from him.

               Having taken the bait, the trap is sprung. Three more Displacer Beasts jump out from behind the trees. One lashes out at Eliza, but she manages to grab ahold of it’s tenacles and effectively render its attack futile. Her attacker begins to scamper back into the forest and Eliza follows, claiming ‘this on is mine’.

               The resulting battle is hard fought, with multiple people being knocked out in the process. Eventually the last displacer beast is defeated and their eyeballs are promptly removed for Lady Drake. Tazae patches up the group and they begin to search for Solomon’s bride once more.

The crows are still hanging overhead and Helwyn asks them if they know where the Shimmer Berries and Solomon’s bride are. The crows get very upset the moment Helwyn mentions Shimmer Berries and effectively boo her. Despite her best efforts, the crows are no longer being helpful.

               They continue west and find an area full of berries and vines. Some of the vines still shimmer with supernatural power, while many now look dead and withering. In this area sits a lone woman. She holds a dagger that emanates dark magic, and a puddle of darkness sits underneath her.

               Not wanting to have an all-out fight, the group sends Tazae and Nikos to try and reason with her. The woman is anything but cooperative, convinced she is doing the right thing and she must succeed according to the prophecy.

               The woman lashes out at them as she learns that “her pets” have been slain. Nikos is able to overpower her and she drops the dagger in the process. The rest of the group comes over, while Helwyn attempts to save as many vines as she can.

               The group goes back and forth, trying to determine if she’s being forced against her will to do all these things. They determine that she is brainwashed by Solomon Black, believing every word he has ever spoken.

               During this time, Nikos and The Silencer notice that Trebek has picked up the dark dagger. Trebek begins to wander towards the vines, apparently wanting to cut them down. Nikos manages to convince him to drop the dagger, but he almost immediately goes back for it.

               Grant takes over holding the girl and Nikos manages to get the dagger away from him. Grant kicks it away, only to have Trebek go for it once more. Grant takes the woman in one hand, and grabs Trebek by the collar of his shirt. He casts Identify to find out that Trebek is cursed, compelled to cut down the vines.

               The Silencer uses Mage Hand to pick up the dagger and throw it in the bag of holding. The curse on both the girl and Trebek vanishes, though the girl is still very much brainwashed. The group takes a moment and tries to determine what to do next.

Episode S1-24: Curses! Foiled Again!

               The conversation with Selene continues to go poorly so the group turns their attention to the mandrake. Magic doesn’t seem to harm it, so Grant attempts to cut it apart. This causes the mandrake to split into two, and irritates everybody. Helwyn gets the idea to feed it normal shimmer berries, and both mandrakes wither and die.

               The group turns their attention back to Selene. Convinced she won’t cooperate, The Silencer casts charm, which fails miserably. Selene is now even more irate, and we’re back to square one. Through a lot of back and forth Tazae manages to convince her that Solomon is a dick and should not be trusted.

               Selene agrees to flee with them, but only if they can save her sister. Marion is being trapped in that shack at the outskirts of town. Before they leave, Helwyn cuts down about a quarter of the remaining shimmer berries in the hopes they can replanted somewhere else.

The group proceeds to the park on the edge of town. Helwyn suggests grabbing the horses before causing a scene. As they reach the stables, Grant realizes they should inform Kainulainen that they’re leaving town. Grant enters the bar and sees only one very drunk barkeep inside. The barkeep quickly informs them that everybody else is at the wedding. Realizing it would be foolish to warn Kainulainen, Grant meets the rest of the group at the stables.

They retrieve the horses from the stables and a young stable boy begins to question them. Helwyn gives him a reasonable explanation and Grant tosses the boy a few gold as a thank you. The horses are taken back to the park and the group begins to plan their attack.

Trebek has wandered off into the tavern after hearing that only a drunk barkeep is present. Trebek manages to crack a safe and steal several bottles of valuable liquor, one of which has a price tag of 2,000 gold.

One guard stands outside the door. Grant asks if Trebek can knock him out the same way he did Cameron on Fara. Trebek performs his banana ninjitsu and the guard is quickly taken down. Grant dumps his body in nearby bushes to prevent anybody from actually seeing him.

The door is locked tight and Trebek tries to pick the lock, but fails. He breaks his lockpicks in the door. Tazae sneakily fixes the lockpick by casting mending and Trebek is able to open the door. In all the excitement, nobody realizes (or questions) that the lockpick is fixed.

Helwyn pops her head inside and sees two guards at the bottom of the staircase. Nikos and Grant quickly pick up the unconscious guard while Tazae readies the infinite water vase. Helwyn kicks open the door and Grant and Nikos throw the guard at his two allies. Tazae then begins to waterboard the two of them and a small fight breaks out.

The guards are quickly overpowered and The Silencer manages to briefly summon a Modron through her wild magic. The guards have the key to open the door and The Silencer has the Modron open the door.

Inside the room is pitch black. Grant takes a lantern and heads inside. He finds a cursed and withered Marion. Her body is far too skinny and weak, making it difficult to even speak. Her eyes are pools of darkness. Grant hesitates briefly, but manages to determine that she is of her own mind still. Grant cuts her free and Nikos carries her outside to the waiting horses. The group rides as fast as they can away from Summer’s End.

After traveling for several hours, the group encounters a camp of priests. Helwyn begins to talk with the priests and discovers that they are priests of Grimnir and they believe in using necromancy for good. This begins a very long philosophical debate about necromancy and, for a moment, it looks like Helwyn may attack the priests.

Eventually Helwyn and Aliestar agree to disagree. Aliestar explains that they are traveling north to Wintermere, the kingdom of elves. They have been hired to resurrect the skeletons of executed criminals that still owe a debt to society. Everybody in the group agrees this can only end poorly, but they let it go as they’re hoping the priests can cure Marion.

After a bit more chatter the priests asks why Nikos, and Marion, are hanging so far back. Grant tells them that she is sick and cursed. One of the priests, Aliestar, offers to remove the curse for a sizable donation to the Church of Grimnir.

Grant offers to pay and has Nikos bring over Marion. The priests are stunned when they lay eyes on her. They claim that this is a curse from Razdoth himself and they are not able to remove such a powerful curse.

Aliestar asks to speak to Grant in privately. The two venture away from the rest of the party and Aliestar warns that she does not have much time left. When the curse reanimates her, she will come back as a creature of darkness, attacking and cursing anybody unfortunate enough to cross her path. Aliestar explains that while he can’t remove the curse entirely, he can prevent Marion from being resurrected. Grant presses for ways to save Marion and Aliestar does give him several reasonable offers.

Grant agrees and pays Aliestar the money. He asks that he not speak a word to Selene though, as to not upset the sister more than she already is. Aliestar agrees and instructs Grant to send Selene away as he has to get Marion’s permission before performing the ritual.

Selene is sent away and Aliestar speaks with Marion, instructing her that by performing this ritual and preventing her from being resurrected, she will go Grimnir’s realm when she dies. She will not see Selene in the afterlife. Marion agrees and the ritual is performed.

Aliestar and his group are also traveling towards Turning Point and offer to accompany them on the ride there. Happy for some company, they agree. The entire group settles down for some long overdue rest.

               The entire party heads out the next morning, refreshed and determined to get to Turning Point. The travel is largely uneventful, leading to a prospering town that doesn’t appear to have the same issues as the other farming villages in this part of the country.

               The group decides to get to a local tavern, The Hive(?), and plot their next course of action. They enter the tavern and it is all bee themed, including the barkeep, who is dressed like a bee herself. Helwyn is overjoyed and casts Speak with Animal in an attempt to talk to the barkeep. Helwyn begins to shake her butt (that’s how bees talk I guess) and to Grant’s utter bewilderment, the barkeep begins doing the same in return.

               The party gets rooms for the night and sends Selene and Marion upstairs while they discuss next steps. The party talks about options for Marion briefly and comes up with a list. After some back and forth they realize they need to ask Marion what she wants, and not make choices for her.

As they begin to go upstairs, a group of valkary looking women come into the bar, declaring that they have returned and buy a round of drinks for everybody. Helwyn notices Pegasus in the nearby stables and is overcome with excitement.

They go upstairs and present Marion with all the options. In the end, Marion and Selene agree to go with Eliza to her church (which we still don’t know) and take their chances.

The rest of the group begins to head downstairs when Eliza pulls Grant aside, claiming that since they’re married, they should go have some fun. Grant admits he likes her, but claims he’s still a little too broken to be in a relationship just yet. Eliza understands and says she’ll wait, for a bit.

Helwyn overhears that the Valkyries are heading back to Ljustad shortly and asks them if they’re willing to deliver the Shimmer berry vines back to some of the high houses. The Valkyrie is shocked to see the shimmer berries and says they should go somewhere private to talk.

Episode S1-25: The Vomit of a Pervert

The members of the Winged Company take them to a private room within the tavern. The Silencer immediately notices that the room has some sort of enchantment placed over it, to which one of the Valkyries mentions that the room is soundproof and nobody will be able to overhear them. The leader of the group introduces herself as Adra Vyrin.

Helwyn then asks Adra if she’s able to help transporting the shimmer berries. Adra wants to know who we are and why we have shimmer berries. Helwyn then launches into a rant which makes Adra regret her question.

Adra asks who we would want to deliver the berries to, this spurs a lengthy discussion amongst the group. In the end we determine that the Temple of Veronus in Ljustad may be possibly have cultists among their ranks and divide the shimmer berries across several people to be on the safe side. We give the Temple of Veronus three, Lady Drake three and Liara Mellenfaire one.

Next come the negotiations. Adra’s sister, Kella, steps forward and says they can transport them for 30 gold a vine. Nikos manages to convince them to do it for 100 gold and we give them two locations which could contain possible treasure. Nikos tells them about the tower Biff and Company investigated near Songwood. He instructs them that Mayor Byrd gave them their reward for slaying the Mindflayer and would be able to better pinpoint the exact location.

Somehow during the negotiations Nikos manages to convince the Winged Company to have Grant ride a Pegasus. Grant is hesitant at first, but ultimate goes along with Nikos. The Valkyrie takes grant for a ride and he sees Summer’s End in the distance and several groups of torches in the distance. Solomon Black is looking for his runaway bride.

After all is said and done, the gold is exchanged and the group turns in for the night. The following morning, they head out from Turning Point and say their farewells to Marion, Selene and Eliza. Grant notices that Tazae and Eliza both have similar twitches, followed by a handshake. This leads Grant to believe that Tazae and Eliza both share the same mysterious deity.

The group continues to the source of the earthquakes. They find a descent into a ravine and follow a series of tunnels. Through their journey they find various signs on the cavern walls, implying that this was once a city before the Great Sundering occurred.

The tunnel expands into a large cavern and Helwyn decides to turn into a spider and go investigate. Nikos attempts to channel “Two Minds” with Helwyn, but his mind cannot comprehend the spider’s vision. He promptly vomits and the group waits for Helwyn to return.

Helwyn spies a, mostly intact, church with an adjacent graveyard. Several shambling figures are seen in the area. She comes back and mimes that there are things in the graveyard which may prove to be a problem.

They journey into the cavern but are almost instantly spotted by zombies that inhabit the graveyard. A fight break outs and each time a person is struck, they become weaker (they lose hp and max hp as well). The fight ends and the group attempts to patch themselves back together and loot the zombies for anything useful.

Episode S1-26: A Dark Knight Rises

Tazae spots a man hiding in behind one of the church peaks. The man’s name is Bellmere and he was part of another group of adventurers sent to investigate the source of the earthquakes. The zombies murdered the rest of his group and he hid in an act of self-preservation. Having no other options, he joins the party as they journey deeper into the underground city.

The group travels deeper into catacombs and come across another large cavern filled with skeletons. Ilya Sera begins to recant her story to Nikos about how this was a battlefield where the armies of Veronus fought against Razdoth. She explained that she was a healer that poisoned the food and water of the army, killing them all without anybody being any wiser. The only sole survivor was Logan Lightstrike, a paladin that was able to heal himself of the poison. Ilya explained how she stabbed him while he was weakened and confused.

Nikos recounts the events as a “visions”.  He doesn’t explain how these visions came to him, for fear of the group realizing that it’s Ilya’s spirit inside the belt buckle. The team doesn’t question Nikos and continues to make their way through the battlefield.

A crow descends as they near the middle of the battlefield. It settles on the skeleton that is adorned in well crafted armor. The raven begins to speak to Grant, explaining that he is the spirit of Logan Lightstrike, the general of Veronus’ army. Logan asks Grant if he is ready to take up the mantle of the next defender of light. Grant says he will take up that mantle, but Logan wants to battle to prove his worth. The battle concludes with neither side falling, but Logan is satisfied by Grant’s abilities and gives him the Sun Blade.

The group continues the journey across the battlefield and comes across a small dwelling. Tazae finds a medallion with a symbol that only she is familiar with. Tazae does not share her knowledge with the rest of the group, saying she doesn’t know what it is either.

The crows are waiting outside the dwelling and asks if the group needs any assistance in getting to the source of the earthquakes. The group accepts their help and are flown through the rest of the cavern. As they near an underground church / castle, The Silencer senses a protective barrier of magic, but isn’t able to warn the others in time. The crows collide with the barrier and are instantly disintegrated. The group collides with the ground and take a fair bit of damage.

The group hears voices coming from within the church and cautiously approach. Bellmere is able to get to one of the windows and peak inside. He sees several cultists, one the group realizes is Redeye Doyle. The cultists are performing some kind of ritual and the group fears that they may be trying to resurrect Razdoth.

They determine that the best course of action is a frontal assault through the front doors. They don’t want to risk the cultists completing the ritual. Grant tries to open the door carefully, but the cultists realize their presence almost instantly.

Realizing they’ve been detected, Grant informs Helwyn that Redeye Doyle is inside. The gnome transforms into a bear and charges inside the church. And the battle begins.

The group is able to kill a few of the cultists, but the ritual is ultimately completed. Magnus Marcera rises from the center of the cultists, revived as a member of the undead. Being undead infuriates Ilya and she lends Nikos all her power, restoring all his spent spell slots.

The battle continues as the rest of the cultists are ultimately defeated, with Helwyn dealing the final strike against Redeye Doyle. During this time The Silencer activates her hourglass, and in doing so activates the reincarnation spell as part of her wild magic.

It is now the group against Magnus.

Magnus casts a spell against Grant and banishes him to another dimension. Grant doesn’t realize what has happened and wanders aimlessly this new territory. The rest of the group battles Magnus and Tazae casts a spell that breaks Magnus’ concentration, causing Grant to reappear.

The battle wages on and it appears like Magnus is slowly gaining the upper hand. Bellmere is killed by Magnus during this time. The Silencer attempts to cast magic once again, but triggers her wild magic again. The wild magic casts fireball on top of herself, combined with her firebolt and destroying the hourglass in the process. This releases a tremendous amount of magic, resulting in an explosion.

The group is thrown through the windows and walls of the church as the explosion occurs. The church collapses and Magnus is trapped inside. Trebek and Tazae are on the brink of death, but Helwyn is able to revive them. Nikos tries to see is Magnus is alive by shouting ridiculous statements, some of which irritates Grant enough to taking a swing at Nikos and his clones.

The team regroups and determines that The Silencer’s magic went crazy and she self-destructed. They can only spare a moment to grieve before they realize Magnus is still very much alive. With none of them being in any shape to take on a weakened Magnus, they group finds a boat that the cultists used and uses it to leave the area.