Scenario 1.3: Trouble in Sandpoint

Valeros and Lem marched cautiously into the Catacombs of Wrath hoping to clear out the enemies there and find the villain. Valeros encountered a thief who stole his crowbar, but the thief met an ignominious end at the point of his blade. (What is it about crowbars that makes them so enticing as treasure?) Harsk, who was exploring the Shrine to Lamashtu, heard the commotion and came down. A goblin came out of a closet and threw a rock at Harsk, which hit him in the arm, Lem started singing:

It’s a goblin, it’s a goblin, better shoot it in the head!

It’s a goblin, it’s a goblin, all the goblins should be dead!

Harsk ran back to Valeros, who put himself in the way, giving Harsk a chance to line up a shot and kill the goblin. But no sooner could they get their bearings than they heard a rumbling in the distance. A hill giant approached! It would take all of their strengths to defeat this monster. Harsk felt magical energy flowing into him, as though h would become quicker. Lem sank his song again, but this time he gave different advice:

It’s a giant, it’s a giant, give him the run around!

They can’t see what’s at their feet, till they’re put on the ground!

With his newfound speed, Harsk ran around the giant, as the giant looked at the ground, trying to locate Harsk. Shalelu Andosana showed up and used the opportunity to fire a few arrows into the giant, while Valeros slashed at its ankles. This distracted the giant enough that Harsk was able to shoot a crossbow bolt straight into the hill giant’s eye. He thought he had killed the hill giant, until he realized this was a hill giant, not a Cyclops, so it had two eyes. He shot the hill giant in the other eye and the hill giant soon stumbled around blind as the party made their escape and left the giant to die.

The group made their way into the Hill Giant’s former lair, and looked around for treasure. Lem sang a song of treasure hunting, which led Harsk to a Crown of Charisma. Lem then decided he wanted to get away from the monsters and join Ezren at the Old Light. But what does he run into but another monster! A ghost menaced him and tried to take his wand of force missiles, but he cleverly hid them and ran away singing a song as he went. He joined up with Ezren, and together they went down into the Old Light. They found their way into an old scroll-room (why they kept finding things here they didn’t know; the place was just an arrow’s flight outside of town, and one would think that with all the adventurers, the place would have been stripped bare long ago) where they found a scroll of Mending, which Ezren was able to use to cast a spell on a broken door latch to fix it, enabling them to proceed further.

They soon encountered an undead shadow! Ezren cast a force missile spell, which struck only a glancing blow, not enough to defeat it. He ran out of the room back to Lem, and Lem sang a song telling the shadow to come and get him, where he led the shadow around in circles. Soon a crossbow bolt came out of the sky and felled the beast. Ezren looked at the bolt and recognized it as one of Harsk’s. Where it came from, he didn’t know, but it sure was nice to have so many good friends at your back.

Harsk and Valeros continued exploring the catacombs. Valeros encountered a bugbear, but it was easily defeated. Then Harsk stepped on a pressure plate and triggered a trap! A series of blades sprung out of the walls, and Harsk desperately tried to evade them. It was only by the skin of his teeth that he got out alive, and two of the party’s blessings were spent. It made sense that that section of the catacombs was trapped, because it was the main boss lair – two hideous sinspawn of wrath approached! The first one was only a little bit wrathful, while the second one was slightly more wrathful. Nevertheless, with cover from Valeros, Harsk had no problem defeating the enemies. They searched the room and found a map of the dungeon, which they used to finish their exploration. They barred any open doors to make sure the villain could not escape to the dungeon (it is a well known fact that villains are much less adept at getting through doors than adventurers are – in fact there are legends of some lands where the monsters are so dumb that they don’t even know how to open an ordinary unlocked door) and continued their quest.

Lem was tired of his constant brushes with death and decided to investigate another location – the village house. He cast a quick healing spell on Ezren (might as well use it before it gets knocked out of his head by a monster’s club) , stopped by at Sandpoint Cathedral to get blessed by Father Zantus, and made his way to the village house to chat up the crowd. He chatted up a soldier, who said good things about him to a cleric, who cast a blessing on Lem, which gave him the strength to search around inside a nearby sewer grate – where yet another Wrathful Sinspawn approached! H started singing as he ran – his usual tactic:

I better get up top, where my friends can see me,

Because if my friends help, I could win this, believe me!

He went up top of a building, the Sinspawn chased him, and he called for his friends. Seemingly no sooner did he call then he saw Harsk, jumping up to the top of a building several buildings away. A small crowd gathered to watch the fight. An arrow flew across and hit the Sinspawn in the chest. Then another one. And then another one. With the Sinspawn reeling, Lem took out his Wand of Force Missiles and blasted it at close range, killing it. Harsk was all out of ammunition at this point – hopefully he would be able to get more soon.

Lem went back into the village house, where the occupants were cheered up by Lem’s recent victory. It was always fun to watch Lem battle it out against a monster – unlike fighters who basically use the same weapons every time, Lem was a measly Halfling who did not use swords and seemed too small to take anything on but somehow he always pulled some trick out of his sleeve to gain victory, or at least get away unscathed. Soon he sang of his victory:

The evil spawn is dead, but the villain’s still at large:

If you don’t keep your wits about, into your house he’ll barge.

There’s lots of places in this town that the villain could hide out:

So each one must do their part for to flush him out.

I see you’ve a big longbow there; it looks magic to me:

So pick it up and stand up top; perhaps bad guys you’ll see.

Use that amulet of fortitude to endure the watch all night:

Cast an arcane armor spell for protection that’s light.

What’s with your pet giant hermit crab? Don’t keep him in his tank:

Use him to cover all exits and then the gods you’ll thank.

You have your skills – I do see you are a tourist guide:

So you must know this town well, and where the bad guys hide.

Let’s work together to defeat the villain – that’s the goal we seek –

And then life will return to normal, at least until next week.

Lem finished up the song with a blessing of luck on the inhabitants, and they soon organized a watch to hopefully detect any villain activity. Two locations down, four to go.

>>> 

Ezren continued his trek through the ruins, and found a small box containing what appeared to be junk. But he looked more closely and realized that it wasn’t junk at all – there were tools in there! He sorted through the tool and assembled a tool kit – actually it looked like there were pretty good tools in there. It was a good thing he found them because pretty soon the ceiling collapsed! Fortunately he was able to use the tools to pick a lock, in order to get outside the building.

Harsk and Valeros made their way over to the junk beach, hoping to find some clues there. Valeros opened what looked like a treasure chest, but really it was filled with rats! Valeros slashed and slashed and slashed at the rats until there wasn’t any more, but he got lots of rat gunk on his sword so he couldn’t use it very well until he cleaned it off. Unfortunately, hiding under one of the overturned boats was Erylium himself!

Erylium started casting his spells at the party. Harsk picked up his crossbow, but soon realized he was out of ammunition! Valeros didn’t have a usable sword either so they had no choice but to run.  A sinspawn came up and took a swipe at Valeros, but Valeros’ armor blocked the brunt of the blow. They ran away, and in the distance they could see Erylium also running, probably finding another hiding spot.

Lem heard what happened and went to Mayor Deverin’s house to ask her aid. “I am sorry to ask of this, but I may need your aid. We have seen the villain, and he escaped. He has surely accelerated his plans now that he knows we are looking for him.” Deverin knew just about everything that was going on in her town, so she could possibly help. Lem took her to the Shrine to Lamashtu – perhaps the villain had escaped there.

“I can tell you that the villain has not escaped here – I would know if she had.” Deverin said. If Deverin really knew so much, why did she wait until now to help them, Lem didn’t know. But whatever. Deverin walked around the shrine, talking to those there. “There are monsters in here, but nothing that you cannot defeat. Fortunately, the worst is not here.”

“And what would be your advice?” Lem asked.

“Spread your party out to cover all the bases. You should probably keep someone here, that you can capture the villain if he attempts to escape here. But only one who is blessed by the gods or knowledgeable in their ways will be able to beat back evil from here.” Deverin gave Lem some advice about the layout of the shrine, where monsters could come in and out, and so on. “I hope you will be successful in your quest. I have seen what you have accomplished over the past few weeks. The town is counting on you.”

====

Ezren continued exploring the Old Light. Things had taken a turn for the worse. Erylium was probably about halfway done with her evil plan, and there were still parts of the town that the party hadn’t even gotten to yet. He frantically rushed through the ruins, hoping to find something. He was chased by a ghost. He turned around and cast an acid spell. The ghost went away. He was chased by a plague zombie. He didn’t have any spells left. He broke his quarterstaff on the zombie’s head. The zombie kept moving. One of Harsk’s bolts killed the zombie. He cast a spell of detect magic. He sensed another monster ahead. He didn’t have a spell or a quarterstaff. He ducked inside a cove to recover. He looked out again. There was the monster. He remembered his spell now. But it was his only spell.

>>> 

Valeros went to the glassworks, hoping to find clues there. A sage he was traveling with pointed out a group of workers trying out a new fire spell to work the glass better – they had apparently found a way to adapt it into a spell that could make a weapon flaming in combat. But that wasn’t useful at the moment. He looked around. He saw Lem screaming in pain, lying on the ground. He gave him a healing potion. Lem got better, a little bit better at least. He heard Lem’s song once again. He felt invigorated. He kept going. He saw a goblin. He killed the goblin. He realized he had dropped his longbow somewhere. He didn’t care. He didn’t need it right now.

>>> 

Harsk joined Valeros at the glassworks. A piercing noise – likely from a siren of some sort – made him weak. But he still pressed on. He couldn’t stop now. A burglar tried to grab the crossbow right out of his hand, but somehow, even in all the noise and commotion, he saw it and fought him off. He saw Lem, looking like he was needing help. He gave Lem some of his strength. He sensed Ezren, needing help over by the Old Light. He fired a crossbow bolt in that direction, trusting the blessings of the gods to guide it. He turned up. He saw a wrathful sinspawn. He killed the sinspawn. He climbed up to the roof. He saw nothing was there.

>>> 

Lem cautiously entered the shrine. He saw a pendant that appeared to be blessed by the gods, but when he touched it – he felt a wave of evil psychic energy rush through him! He withstood the assault, but his memory was temporarily wiped of spells. He then was soon chased by a specter, who chased him out into the streets. Lem went to the glassworks too. He wasn’t sure if this was a good idea – after all the mayor advised the group to spread out. But his friends were in trouble. He could heal them. He could give them songs to help them out. He rushed there and assessed the situation. He thought about using his healing on others, but instead decided to use them on himself. He was in bad shape. He couldn’t help anyone if he was dead. One of the artisans saw he was in need, and offered an amulet. It didn’t look like much. But he could tell it had protective magic. But he couldn’t stop now. They had to find the villain. That was the only way. The acolyte who had made the magic item offered to join them too. But she wasn’t as fit as the others – she couldn’t cover ground fast enough. They had to make do with what they had. Another artisan was working on a magic crossbow. The party thought about bargaining for it, but decided against it. They couldn’t afford any delays. They pressed on. Lem heard the siren again. The siren’s sound rattled his brain. This could be it. This could be the end of the line. He collapsed on the ground. He felt all the functions of his mind shutting down. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Harsk. Harsk channeled his energy into him. It wasn’t enough. He was slipping into unconsciousness. Lem wouldn’t make it. Lem heard something, like a rock drop, and rattle on the ground. The siren stopped. He would make it. He looked up. He saw that Harsk had the situation under control. The situation here, at least. He rushed back to the shrine. He knew there was no villain there. But he needed to be there, because the villain could come there. He searched the shrine. He felt the evil psychic energy come back, He pressed on. He felt a little bit better now. Helping his friends before made him feel better. There it was. Koruvus. The mayor had told him about this. He took out his sling. He swung it around. He felt arcane magic. He felt faster. He released the stone. The stone hit Koruvus. Koruvus died. He saw the altar in the middle. Now was his chance. He felt confused. He felt the gods away from him. He must use his own knowledge. He called out for help.  He heard Harsk’s voice. At least he thought it was Harsk’s. It told him what to do. He did it. He felt the villain was not here. The shrine was pure. For now.

===

The party met back up outside to plan strategy. They were all exhausted – a few unlucky encounters with a monster could spell doom. They didn’t have much time – the bad guy was almost done with his plan. The key here was not to make any foolish mistakes. They had made mistakes in the past – forgetting to try to recharge their spells, and such. But they had to take advantage of anything that would help them explore more quickly, and keep their wits about them if they wanted to survive. For instance, Ezren quickly realized that it didn’t make sense for him to continue exploring the Old Light. He would have to defeat the zombie to explore further, but that would use up his last spell, and he would not have any left in case he encountered the villain later in his track. Instead, he went to the junk beach – he had heard rumors of traps there, but at least he had a set of trusty thieves’ tools. He explored the junk beach, and came across some weapons – which he quickly judged were just dead weight at this point – and a pit trap, which he saw just in time and disabled with his thieves’ tools.

Valeros went to the Old Light, cleared out the zombie, and stayed on guard there in case the villain went there. The rest of the party joined Ezren at the junk beach, where they helped them explore. They explored for a couple hours, but with no sign of the villain. They had by now thought it was unlikely that the enemy was at the Old Light, and in fact the villain had tricked them by pretending to run away, then returning to the junk beach. Lem, however, approached another overturned vessel, where he came in there, and he saw a ghostly spirit sitting at a ratty table, with several candles there. The candles were burning, but did not appear to be consumed. 

It was not uncommon, for some reason, to find still-burning candles inside ruins that were supposedly abandoned for centuries. What was the deal with that, anyway? Maybe after they finished this adventure, they could try to figure that out. A true ever-burning source of light and heat would be very useful. There were even ancient legends of some mysterious device, sort of like a steam engine but far more elaborate, that supposedly used the heat from a heat source to manipulate large chunks of lodestone in such a way that it would produce a new form of energy – something about like the power of lightning but you can use it the way you want, or something like that, kind of like magic. Maybe with that and one of these ever-burning candles you could create infinite magical power and control the world. But probably it was just a legend – the ancients made up all sorts of legends. And even if the legends were true, it wouldn’t help them deal with the immediate threat.

The spirit spoke to Lem. “I see you are in your hour of great need,” it said. “Thus I offer you this aid. One of these candles has holy power, such that it can keep the forces of evil at bay. But you have but one choice. You must determine which one has this power.” The spirit blew out the candles. “Choose one to light.”

Lem looked at the candles carefully. He knew that this was divine power, not arcane, since it targeted evil specifically. Thus he carefully examined the candles for any divine symbols. But the sides of all the candles had wax dripped down them, obscuring any symbols. Lem looked closer, but still saw nothing – there were minute scratches in the candle wax, but not in any identifiable pattern – probably these were just scratches. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the mystical energy – maybe that could tell him something. But the candles were not lit, so they produced no such energy.

Lem called outside to his party for aid. Harsk and Valeros were close by, but they were a ranger and fighter, and had no knowledge of magic. Lem knew that Ezren would be able to help – he carried around several codexes with lots of magical knowledge, and had also been talking before with Aldern Foxglove, who was one of Sandpoint’s leading experts on the finer things in life and adventure. But where was he? He must have been out exploring on the other side of the beach somewhere. But the spirit would not allow him to leave and come back. “You must do this on your own. You have but one minute.”

Lem closed his eyes again. What could he do? He had to use his own power. His pulled out a pendant from his pack – one blessed by the gods, and beseeched the gods for aid. He arranged the candles in a semicircle in front of him. The candle, being a conduit for the gods’ magic itself, would reflect divine energy. All he needed was to bathe the area in a small amount of such energy, and listen for the reflection. He directed the energy from the pendant toward the line of candles, and felt a faint reflection, and moved his hand toward it, though he was unsure if it was correct.

The spirit gave Lem a small burning ember. He had but one chance. Lem touched the ember to the candle he had identified, and it came to life. He felt energy flow away from it. One burst of energy. Then another. He felt that evil had been kept at bay, at least for the moment. He had made the right choice. He took the candle and put it in his pack, carefully protected – though its power had been spent for the moment, he could perhaps use it again in a later adventure.

But it was not over yet. The candle had kept evil at bay, although not for long. Valeros finished exploring the Old Light, and found no sign of Erylium. Erylium had to be in one of the last two corners that they hadn’t looked. Ezren could sense that Erylium’s evil sorcerous spell was in the final stages of casting. It would be done before Valeros could get back, so they would have to do this without Valeros’ help. Harsk had by now gathered his weapons again, checked to ensure they were fully loaded, and found a nearby vantage point from which he could provide ranged assistance. Lem and Ezren then went inward, to explore the last corners. Lem went into one and heard the sound of glass cracking, and a hissing sound. He froze, sure that this would be the villain. But it wasn’t; it was a mere Potion of Ruggedness that he had knocked off its precarious perch and spilled in the sand. Ezren was the party’s final hope. He approached Erylium, who was with his final wrathful sinspawn. Lem rushed to his aid, and took out the sinspawn with several blasts from his Wand of Force Missile, followed by a pair of bolts from Harsk’s crossbow. Now it was Ezren vs. Erylium – the final battle. Ezren used the most powerful spell he had learned – the Scorching Ray. Harsk fired bolt after bolt in Erylium’s direction. Lem pitched in with a song to summon the gods for aid:

We’re on our last legs; if you don’t help us, then,

The bad guy will win and we’ll have to do this all again!

With the full force of the party directed at the villain, Erylium had no chance. He was smited, burned to a crisp, and shot full of holes, all at once. Erylium would not menace Sandpoint again.

But there was no time for celebration. The battles had taken their toll. The party felt weak. Though they had felt okay at the time, their battle wounds were catching up to them.  They needed to get to a healer, and soon. They returned to the cathedral, where Father Zantus was waiting for them. He stabilized them, and had the cleric heal them up.

Scenario 1.2: Local Heroes

Several days later, the party had met back in the tavern to plan their next move. Although they had defeated the initial goblin attack and had received their just rewards, they had acquired little useful treasure, so they did not know whether they would be able to handle the situation ahead. Thus, they decided to take advantage of the lull in the action, exploring the town and gathering knowledge, allies, and equipment for the battle ahead. Yet they did not have much time – the forces of evil would soon march on them. At this point, Lem was thinking that maybe when he was singing about his bravery in defeating the goblin dog, he should have omitted the part about how he threw his ally under the bus in the first encounter…

Harsk felt a tug on his pouch, and quickly turned back around to see who it was. It was a pickpocket, who was just about to make off with some of his gold! He wrestled the pickpocket to the ground to stop him, and had gotten angry and was ready to kill him, when Lem began to sing:

You’ve got the prize, you’ve got the prize! He can help us too!

‘Cause the dungeons got plenty of traps – he can keep us out of deep doo-doo!

So they agreed that they wouldn’t press charges if the burglar agreed to join their band. Startled, Harsk looked around the tavern, to see if any other danger was afoot. He didn’t see any, but did find a friendly cleric in the corner of the tavern who was selling healing scrolls. He took a few coins and purchased one. He also looked around and saw a weapons merchant who was selling some longbows. Yeah, merchants of adventuring supplies were coming out of the woodwork now that the town was shifting from a precarious peace footing to more of a war-against-the-monsters footing. Harsk called Valeros over, and they checked out the equipment. Harsk tried the longbow, and he just wasn’t strong enough to get the most use out of it – he preferred to stick to the crossbow. Valeros was stronger, and could pull the bow back all the way, but he would rather stick with his melee training.

“I’m heading off to the general store to see what’s there,” Valeros told the rest of his party.

When he got there, the shopkeeper told him about the store’s latest promotion. “To celebrate the defeat of the goblins, we’re offering random prizes! Spin the Wheel of Luck and watch where it lands. Whichever item it lands on, you will have the opportunity to compete in a challenge to win that prize!”

“Can’t I just, you know, buy stuff?” Valeros asked.

“What do you think we are, just a simple store? No, of course not! Try your hand at the Wheel of Luck!” Valeros spun the Wheel of Luck and it landed on a healing potion. The shopkeep brought out several vials of weird colored liquid.

“Alchemy challenge! If you can figure out which of these vials to mix to make a healing potion, you get to keep the healing potion!”

Valeros had only taken one introductory class in alchemy back at adventuring school before deciding that fighting was more his style. But at least healing potions are one of the first things you learn about, and he remembered just enough to make the healing potion, although it was really more luck than anything else.

“Do you want to try your luck again?” asked the shopkeeper. “Just give me a blessing for another try! Or you may have an ally you don’t really need…”

Valeros tried his luck again, giving up a blessing. The Wheel of Luck went round and round and stopped on … a fancy elven breastplate!

“Test of endurance! Do fifty push-ups in under a minute while wearing this breastplate, and you get to keep it!”

Valeros was able to do it, although he was pretty tired afterwards. He drank the healing potion he had just won (he didn’t think he would really need the potion, since after all, the party had Lem and his healing spells) and continued looking around the shop.

Meanwhile, Lem and Ezren went over to the Sandpoint Academy, to study up on their spells. Lem saw a student sitting on a bench studying from a scroll.

“I can’t believe Professor Balthazar makes us study yet another one of these stupid spells,” he said to his friend sitting next to him. “Lightning Touch is just a Force Missile that you have to get up close to the guy to use. Acid Arrow is just a Force Missile that sprays green stuff so it looks cool. When are we going to learn something that’s actually useful?”

Lem approached them. “I can teach you a trick!” he said. “I can show you how to magically transform one spell into another spell! If you give me that scroll, I’ll show you!”

He gave him the scroll, and Lem pretended to cast a spell on it by singing a song, but really it was just a distraction as he swapped the scroll for a copy of his notes on a cure spell. He gave the notes back and walked away. “Did he just swindle us?” he heard the student say. “Oh, well I never cared about the stupid spell anyway.” Lem idly sat down on a bench and released his pet crow, who came back clutching a scroll of Arcane Armor – where it found it, he didn’t know.

Lem and Ezren then decided they might as well sit in on a class, to try to see what they could learn. The lecturer introduced himself as Professor Alkareth and announced that today’s lesson would be in the use of magic to help one avoid traps. He asked from a volunteer from the audience, but nobody else seemed to want to do it. “Hey, you there! I haven’t seen you before. You can come on up,” he told Lem.

Lem came up to the front of the class, but as he was stepping up, he got his foot caught in something stick. His sling, which was dangling from his pack, also got caught, and he was able to pull it out, but the sling got ripped in the process.

“See, that’s what happens if you don’t remember to cast your Find Traps spell first,” said Professor Alkareth. “Now, if you cast the spell, watch!” Alkareth cast a spell, and a large yellow arrow appeared floating in the room and pointed straight to where the trap was. “See, now you know where the trap is!” Alkareth also demonstrated the use of the spell in other forms, to help open locked doors and chests and avoid ambushes. By the end of the lecture, Lem was exhausted, although Ezren had taken detailed notes so they could know how to cast the spell later.

Lem and Ezren joined some of the more dedicated students later that night, where they studied some other spells, such as a Sleep spell. They were also trying out a new spell that one of the other students had come up with, that he said would detect evil. It didn’t seem to be working right, though – there were no apparent sources of evil in sight, yet the spell was returning evil-detection readings that were off the charts. But pretty soon, they heard noises outside, and peeked out the window to see what was going on. It turned out that the spell was right after all. Skeleton attack!

>>> 

Lem used his acid arrow spell to kill a few skeletons, while Ezren stepped in and fried a few more with his bolts of lightning. But the Academy wasn’t the only place that the skeletons were attacking – they were attacking all over town. Fortunately that wasn’t much of a problem for our other brave heroes – Valeros slashed one to death (that is, death again) with a dogslicer, while Harsk got rid of another one with an arrow straight to the eye socket. With the skeleton threat defeated, they decided it was probably time to cut their study session short and go to sleep. Unfortunately for them, a standard bearer that they were traveling with decided he was bored letting the spellcasters have all the fun, and wandered out on his own. Fortunately, all he did was bring back a stone. Even more fortunately, Ezren recognized it as a blast stone, probably left over from one of the introductory alchemy classes. He didn’t really need it right now, so he let the standard bearer carry it.

The next morning, Harsk traveled into the words, looking for allies there. After all, woods-dwellers often know things that city-dwellers don’t. But the first thing he realized that he didn’t know before was that the skeletons that had just attacked weren’t done attacking. A skeleton had snuck up behind Harsk and stabbed him in the back – he was able to run away, but not without sustaining some injuries. Lem, unfortunately, had no weapons, but Ezren buffed him up with a strength spell, so he did enough damage punching the skeleton for a bolt from Harsk to finish him off. (Somehow, Harsk had, after running away from the other skeleton, realized Lem was in trouble, and had rushed back to help. Either that or he somehow fired a bolt all the way from the woods back to the academy.) Ezren easily blasted another skeleton with a scorching ray, with Lem cheering him on all the way. Harsk sat down in a clearing to use the cure scroll he bought from the cleric earlier.

Valeros was almost ready to try his hand at the Wheel of Luck again, when in walks the one and only elven ranger, Shalelu Andosana! Valeros serenaded her with a charming performance from a troubadour that was accompanying him as well as a dashing display of swordplay. After just a few minutes, Shalelu was convinced that Valeros would be an excellent companion. Shalelu gave Valeros a mace as a gift. Valeros politely accepted, even though he didn’t really need the mace. They weren’t sure now whether to shop around some more, or go out looking for others.

>>> 

Lem felt quite strange this evening. He had stayed up almost all of last night helping Ezren with his studies, fighting the skeletons, and singing songs of cheerfulness. It was as though he had depleted all his stamina, and were he to face a challenge requiring additional effort, he would be unable to put it forth. He had not the strength to use a weapon or cast a spell. Yet at the same time, he felt invincible – that no matter what he faced, nothing could harm him. As though all of the mental and physical energies available to be taken by the enemy had already been taken by his own effort. So he went on his merry way into the woods, being unafraid of any monsters. He passed right by a strange stick in the ground, which was too bad because the stick was actually a magical shielding wand. Ezren, meanwhile, stayed at the Academy to finish looking around. He had learned much, but still would prefer to find an ally - an actual person, who possessed the Academy’s knowledge. He heard a voice in the distance – a song. Perhaps this was someone calling for an ally. But as he approached, he felt uneasy. He called upon the gods for help. He had no blessings himself, so he called for energy from the rest of his party. Soon his mind cleared and he saw the song for what it was – a deadly siren song. He wisely turned away before he could be seduced further.

Harsk had continued in the woods and had found what he was looking for – an ally! This ally was eager to join, and said he was a ranger who knew much of the woods. But while they were resting, the ally turned out to be a traitor – he tried to stab Harsk in the back with a dagger and take his stuff. Fortunately, Harsk’s leather armor bore the brunt of the blow – he turned around, locked in a struggle with the traitor, as the traitor’s blade lashed at his armor. Harsk was able to soon chase off the traitor, although his armor was so slashed up it was now useless. He took it off, to at least lighten his load.

Valeros had heard the commotion in the woods, and went to the woods to investigate. On the way, he found a short sword sticking out of a dead body – probably a murder from some tie past. The body looked decayed, so it wasn’t recent – no point worrying about it now, just take the sword and go. As he further investigated, he joined up with the rest of the group, and found that Cyrdak Drokkus, the owner of the local Sandpoint Theater, was in the woods hoping to get the adventurers’ stories to show as his newest theatrical production! All of the adventurers were excited to regale him with all their stories. Valeros did a demonstration of his fighting prowess, Harsk showed him how he could put a bolt through an animal’s eye at a hundred paces (it took some assistance from the gods, but it was worth it), and Lem sang his usual songs about their heroic deeds. They explored the woods together for a few hours, then agreed they were done there.

Lem went back to the general store and started his singing routine again, hoping to lure the locals who could give him some advice. While he was on the way there a yeth hound jumped out of the sewers and scared him, causing him to drop some of his belongings, but he was able to run away and make it into the general store, gasping for breath. He met an acolyte who told him what was going on at the shop and gave him coupons for future deals – including one for a free potion of healing!

Things seemed to move smoothly on from there. Ezren finished his exploration of the academy, getting some friendly advice from a guard and a troubadour on the way out. Harsk made his way to the waterfront, wary of monsters, but met a friendly guide who told him everything he needed to know. During the conversation, a bandit tried to sneak up behind the guide, but Harsk fired a bolt over the guide’s shoulder and killed the bandit. Valeros and Lem went back to the tavern and finished picking up the rumors there. Ezren went to the general store and scored a couple of nice Wands of Force Missile. Then they all went over to the Sandpoint Cathedral, and though there were a few tough scrapes – a goblin warchanter snuck up on Harsk and confused him long enough to beat him up a bit – but overall everything went well, except that because they went home a little earlier than they needed to (nine blessings left on the clock) they left a valuable Holy Candle sitting on the shelf in the general store.

They returned to the center of town to sell off their excess equipment and reassess their plans. It seemed that they had gotten kind of ally-happy here: they had accumulated an entourage of way too many allies – at least three sages, three troubadours, three standard-bearers, and an assortment of guardsmen and burglars (why would a guardsman be traveling with a burglar anyway?) This was way too many people to go on an adventure – the enemy would see them coming miles away. So they had to slim down their party a bit to a more manageable number. They returned to the tavern to discuss who they wanted to keep in their party, and who could be left behind.

But soon there was a surprise. In walked Mayor Kendra Deverin herself, accompanied by Father Zantus and the noble Aldern Foxglove! “I have heard much of your exploits,” the mayor said. “I have received word that the goblins may be planning another attack. From what I have heard, you are our best hope of stopping the attack. I will be willing to provide whatever aid you need. I have already talked to some of the nobles and clerics in the city, and Aldern Foxglove and Father Zantus have offered to help.”

It’s always good to have friends in high places, Valeros thought. “Mayor, one way you can help is you can do something about the whole random equipment trend going around in the shops.”

“Random equipment?”

“Yeah, all these shops, they’ve stopped actually selling anything, and now they’ve become like festival attractions. A couple days ago I just went into the general store to buy a couple magic weapons, but rather than just sell them to me, they made me spin this Wheel of Chance or something. They didn’t even let me choose which items I wanted.”

“Oh, that?” Mayor Deverin said. “That was actually my idea in the first place. After all, a lot of the town’s adventurers were getting bored with the whole grind of kill the monster, get the gold, go back in town, buy better stuff, repeat. I thought it would be a good idea to mix things up a bit. Also, sometimes the adventurers would go kill monsters that weren’t a threat, just so they could get the gold. I mean, if there’s an orc camp outside of town that just wants to live in peace, and we go in and slaughter them and take their stuff, is it any wonder that the monsters fight back? Everyone talks about how it would be great if people didn’t have to fight all the time and could sometimes negotiate instead, but if all the monetary incentives point toward fighting, it’s hard to keep that up.”

“So what does the random equipment thing have to do with it?”

“It’s a brilliant idea. We tax all the gold income coming in from the adventurers, and use it to subsidize the shops to give out the random prizes. It helps tourism a lot, because everyone loves to come here in the hopes of winning some free stuff. And if you’ve noticed, the challenges always have to do with what the item is about – fighting skill for a sword, endurance for a piece of armor – so people have a better chance of getting the items they need, and can’t just abuse the system to accumulate items they can’t use. And since people don’t need to accumulate gold from the monsters, they only have an incentive to kill the monsters they actually need to kill. It works really well. Even the Cathedral is in on the act.”

Valeros wasn’t sure he liked this system over the old system of paying for items with gold, but at least now that he understood what the point was. And they had gotten a reasonable haul from these last few days – Lem in particular was really looking forward to trying out his new pair of Wands of Force Missile, and they had gotten a couple of healing potions which might be useful – that maybe it wasn’t too bad. Maybe it was even nice, that the random equipment trend helped them break out of their narrow sub-specialties. Harsk’s experience with the Scorching Ray spell had already gotten him interested in dabbling a bit in magic.

Now was the time to put their newfound knowledge to the test, for the evil sorcerer Elyrium was planning another attack…