Last time, our heroes were trapped in a horrible dungeon: the science labs of a Dwarven college! They escaped and went straight to the dean, reporting the crimes inflected on them, but also admitting to damaging lots of university property and releasing a prisoner. Is honesty the best policy, or should they have kept running when they escaped the dungeon?
Dean Stanton leaps into action, giving his sub-ordinate, Over-Dean Sessions, a list of tasks (Dwarves aspire to depth, not height, so Dean outranks Over-Dean):
Get Chief Laertes of Campus Security to track down the suspects who assaulted our heroes
Send janitors to fix the damaged doors and restore the freezer that our heroes de-activated.
Get a list of everything stored in the science lab building. Our heroes reported a Dwarf prisoner, which doesn’t sound right.
Our heroes wait in the Dean’s antechamber. Gleador finds some university letterhead and writes a letter of recommendation for Angus, the page at the public library. Chief Laertes arrives. He’s a serious looking Dwarf with his hair, beard, and mustache in neat braids. He’s wearing a large ceremonial helmet as a symbol of authority. It can still stop a sword, but if it’s stopping swords often, the wearer is doing something wrong. Laertes takes a statement from Lucia & Gleador. They don’t remember the names of their assailants, but have good descriptions and know that they share a class with Flint. Flint isn’t with them. He fled, probably leaving town. Laertes sends deputies to get the class roster so they can identify and arrest the two suspects. He tells our heroes not to leave town, since they are part of an ongoing investigation. He asks if they have a place to stay in town. Gleador asks if Laertes can host them. Laertes says that would be either the barracks or jail. Oh, never mind, says Gleador.
A janitor runs in out of breath, reporting that there are people in the freezer room! Two janitors had cleared the door to the freezer room, dissolving the anti-tamper glue with a chemical they keep for just that purpose. They went inside to re-activate the freezing units, but there were people lurking inside to grab them! The janitors ran out of the room and pushed a chest in front of the door to keep the grabby strangers at bay! Gleador’s player has an epiphany: there were coffins in that frozen room! The corpses have thawed out! Gleador and the janitor head back to the freezer room. Lucia takes Sessions to get another freezing unit.
Sessions leads Lucia to an outbuilding where various supplies are stored. On the way, Lucia spots a campus security guard and tells him to get some backup and head to the freezer room. Sessions is an authority figure the guard recognizes, so he agrees and runs off to gather his comrades.
The freezer room in the science building of Fortinbras School of Mines, with an anti-zombie barricade.
Gleador and the janitor run down to the science building. It has wide halls lined with cabinets and chests. The second janitor has a large chest in front of a broken door. The top half of the door is pushed outward, and the janitor is swatting at the opening with his broom. As Gleador approaches, he sees an arm reaching out of the opening: it’s clothed in a fancy shirt and jacket, and the hand bears ornate rings, but the skin is grey and pulled tight over the bones. Peeking into the dark room through the damaged door, Gleador sees three figures. He finds an evening class in the same building and triesto recruit some students to help him build more barricades. Most students react to the news of dangerous intruders with fear, but a few punk Dwarves welcome the chance to smash up university property and get in fights. While everyone else flees the building, Gleador and his four punks construct a killbox right outside the door of the freezer room. The walls lean in, so they are hard to climb from the inside and easy to collapse from the outside. “You’ll remember this night for the rest of you lives!” says Gleador, although he’s not sure how long that will be.
Simmons and Lucia reach the supply shed and locate a freezing machine that will blow super-chilled air, and the volatile canisters of fuel the machine requires. Lucia decides to transport the canisters on a cart, to avoid the risk of dropping and breaching them. She reaches the killbox outside the freezer room around the time that the zombies break the freezer room door. There are two men in tuxedos and one woman in a nice dress, the sort of clothes people are buried in. Yeah, these are definitely the bodies in the coffins. Lucia scans for evil: 2 of the punk students, and the female zombie are evil.One of the punks says that a zombie looks like Armstrong, the famous artist, but another says that he’s been dead for 20 years. Gleador orders the punks to build another layer of defenses, so there are two walls on each side of the zombies.
Lucia asks Sessions why the college is storing zombies. A clerk arrives with the manifest for the freezer room. She would have brought the manifest earlier, but went to the Dean’s Office first, and had to be redirected here. Sessions scans the manifest and says that the zombies are listed as “tissue samples” for Professor Jenkins’ long-term research on terminal diseases. Sessions is upset by this falsification of records and threatens strong corrective measures:perhaps loss of funding, or delay of tenure! Sessions sends the clerk to summon Professor Jenkins immediately.
There are five tissue samples on the manifest, but only three zombies milling about in the kill box. Gleador remembers moving from room to room through the vents. Maybe the zombies have done the same. He takes a Janitor (Wally) and heads for the smelter room on the lower floor. He wants the punks to come along too, but they are bored. They’re not actually fighting zombies or collapsing the killbox. They wander off. Gleador and Wally have to go outside and circle around the building to reach the smelter room, since the kill box blocks the hallway. The door to the smelter room hangs open, since everyone fled the room during the last session. Wally closes and locks the doors, and they return to the killbox.
Meanwhile, Lucia and Sessions set up the freezer machine in between the inner and outer walls of the killbox and start blowing freezing air on the inner wall and the zombies. Lucia bemoans the slow response time of the campus security. Gleador & the janitor return and report that the smelter is secure. They wonder what to do next. The furniture in the inner wall of the killbox starts creaking and cracking as the freezer machine freezes it. The zombies are moving more slowly. Armstrong is scratching designs in the frost with his finger. Gleador says that if the furniture collapses on people who have terminal diseases and have been dead for 20 years, it’s no big deal. Definitely not murder.
Jenkins arrives about the same time as four campus security deputies. Jenkins arrives and Lucia grills him. Why are there zombies? Jenkins is horrified that they have been thawed. These people volunteered to be frozen until their diseases were cured. Decades of work are at risk! Lucia asks if he’s cured any diseases in the last 20 years. Well, there’s a vaccine for one. Our heroes look closer at the zombies and see sores, and other marks of infectious disease on them. Jenkins assures them that the diseases are not airborne, but they should avoid contact with the zombies. Just then, a freezing cabinet freezes enough to shatter the glass doors on the front, throwing glass shards at the zombies. The inner wall of the killbox is threatening to collapse. Lucia tries to loop a rope around the top cabinet to secure it, but it breaks and the whole wall collapses. The female zombie (identified as “Hawkins” by Jenkins) is buried by the debris, but the other two zombies are now free to enter the outer killbox, where our heroes are standing!
Lucia falls back past the outer wall. Gleador sees his exit route, but realizes that the zombies can now access and perhaps disable the freezing machine. He tries to re-direct them by telling Armstrong that there’s good art back in the freezer room. Armstrong seems to recognize his name and heads straight for Gleador. Gleador slips out.
Campus security detects danger to college personnel and property and move in to subdue the zombies. First they have to dis-assemble the outer wall of the killbox. Lucia tells them to stand down, that they could be infected by the zombies, but they don’t recognize her authority. Gleador tries again to distract Zombie Armstrong by getting paper and charcoal from his adventuring pack and throwing it towards the freezer room. Armstrong doesn’t notice. Reassuring himself again that these zombies are already dead, so it’s definitely not murder, Gleador prevents the imminent fight between campus security and zombies infected with incurable diseases by collapsing the killbox on the zombies! The collapsing wall of re-purposed furniture also smashes the freezing machine and its volatile fuel canisters. Super-cooled gas blasts outward. Gleador chooses to push the deputies out of the way instead of saving himself, and takes some cold damage. The two remaining zombies are under a pile of smashed furniture, which is covered by a thick layer of solid frost.
Two zombies are still unaccounted for. Lucia rises to her full 5’0″, eight inches taller then Jenkins, grabs him by the shoulders, and orders him to go into the freezer room and see where they are. Terrified, Jenkins flees. Gleador runs him down and grabs him. The deputies object to these outsiders threatening college personnel and order Gleador to unhand Jenkins. Gleador reminds them that he just saved them, and suggests that they escort him into the room. They agree and the five of them climb over the remains of the killbox and enter the freezer room.
Our heroes watch the door and listen. After a short pause, there’s a commotion and the four deputies run out in a panic. They report that they went to close the coffins and a zombie reached out of a coffin to grab at them. They beat it with their somnaboffers, to no effect! Our heroes are unfamiliar with somnaboffers. The deputies are holding them. They look like clubs wrapped in foam. There’s a mist coming out of the foam. Deputies use them because they put people to sleep instead of injuring them, but they don’t work on zombies! Where’s Jenkins? The deputies do a headcount and come up one short. Oh no! Our heroes hear a machine turn on inside the freezer room. Did Jenkins do that? They rush inside. There are three open, empty coffins, one closed coffin, and one open coffin with arms flailing over the rim. Apparently this zombie doesn’t have the strength to get out of the coffin. Gleador reaches out with his club and flips the lid closed. That’s all the zombies secured. Jenkins is hiding behind one of the freezer machines installed in the room. He planned to wait for the zombie to be frozen, then escape. Our heroes turn on the other freezer machine. The situation is secure. Gleador and Lucia leave the deputies to clean up and head back towards their hostel to rest for the night.
On the way back, they are stopped by one of the college-age Dwarves who shares their ten-person room in the hostel. Her name is Dolly. She has two long braids in her blonde hair, and another long braid in her beard. She doesn’t attend the Fortinbras School of Mines. She knew a guy and already has a job at a mine. She spent a day at the Fairmeadow Fair, and is visiting a friend in Templeton before continuing back to her mine in the east. She reports that people were looking for our heroes at the hostel. One guy looked like he’d been in an accident and was really tall, like Lucia’s height. He was asking for people of our heroes’ description. The other person was a suit, probably with the city. He went straight to the hotel staff and asked for Gleador and Lucia by name. Dolly thinks that the hostel is being watched. Our heroes thank her for the warning and decide to sleep outside of town. They pick a spot near the road to Fairmeadow, since they have some familiarity with that terrain. They find a hollow in the hills and Lucia casts Sanctuary around the campsite.
Last time, our heroes traveled to Templeton, site of the Fortinbras School of Mines, hoping to learn about the strange living statue that gave them so much trouble back in Fairmeadow. They met Flint, a friend of a friend who might be mixed up in some shady dealings, and he offered to show them around campus the next day. Maybe he can get them into the school library.
A map of the city of Templeton, built into a cinder cone volcano.
After leaving Flint, Gleador and Lucia decide to watch the sunset. Templeton is built into a cinder cone volcano, so they head up the spiral streets to the crater rim. The rim is lined with tall towers, most of them private buildings. The tower that powers the school’s sundial does have an public observation deck.The deck is a crescent surrounding the central tower. The huge crystal at the tip of the tower focuses a powerful beam of sunlight down onto the sundial at the base of the volcano. The gap in the crescent prevents anyone from accidentally walking into that beam. The deck is surrounded by high walls of strong glass, with decorative metal filigree to make it visible. Many people are up there to watch the sunset, sitting on benches or standing against the glass. Shortly before the sunlight fades from the crystal at the tower’s tip, an attendant comes out and slides open panels in the posts supporting the glass wall. Inside are continual flames, magic light sources.
Gleador and Lucia head back to the hostel they are staying at. Supper is included in the price of the room. The other lodgers in the 10-person room have a few friends over for a lively gathering, but quickly make excuses to take the guests elsewhere. Lucia look like an authority figure and they don’t want to cross her.
The next morning, they have some time before they meet Flint in the afternoon, so they look for a public library. Much of the volcano’s caldera is public buildings, surrounding city hall at the very center. There is a public library: four stories of floor-to-ceiling windows following the slant of the caldera. Inside there are many patrons, and pages wearing neat vests. Gleador looks for the most enthusiastic page. That’s Angus, a young dwarf who loves books and hopes to get into the Fortinbras School of Mines when he’s old enough. Gleador asks to see Angus’s favorite section, a section that most people might skip over. Hidden gems, if you will. Angus takes him to the literal hidden gem section: a half-shelf about precious minerals behind three big stacks of books about geology and mining.
Gleador asks if Angus knows what “OOLITE” is. Angus recommends asking the reference librarian. Angus guides Gleador and Lucia up to the top of the four-storey building. The reference section not only contains stacks with weighty tomes and ledger, but cabinet with wide, low drawers for oversize parchments and maps. The reference librarian sits at a large circular desk with aisles arranged radially around it. The whole floor points to this elf woman. Her red hair is pulled back in a large bun wrapped in braids. If she let her hair down, it would be extremely long. She’s been growing it out for decades. Hearing Gleador’s request, she takes a slip of paper, writes “OOLITE” on it in impeccable Dwarven letters, then burns the slip in the flame of a large blue candle on the desk in front of her. (There are several such candles arranged on the desk, each a different color.) The flame separates from the candle, takes a vaguely humanoid shape, and flies out into the stacks. “Please wait for the indexing sprite to return,” says the librarian. Lucia is curious about the different candles. The librarian explains that all the candles contain indexing sprites, and the different colors of candles help her keep track of different queries running at the same time. Another sprite returns to the desk. The librarian excuses herself and fetches two waiting patrons to follow that sprite to their books.
The sprite for Gleador’s query returns, but the librarian is still assisting other patrons. Gleador asks the sprite if other people have been asking about OOLITE. The sprite gesticulates, but does not speak. Lucia realizes that it communicates through writing, so she swipes a slip of paper from the librarian’s desk, writes her question down, and burns it on the blue candle. The sprite zooms away, and Gleador follows it. The sprite leads him to an old book and surrounds it with cool, non-destructive flames. Gleador brings it back to Lucia and they open it on a table. It’s a ledger, but it’s written in Dwarven, which neither of them can read. Gleador wants to know what book the sprite found for the librarian’s original query, so he writes “OOLITE” on a third slip of paper and burns it. He can copy the letters for this particular word, even though he can’t read the language. The sprite leads him to another ledger, this one written in Elven. It records some deliveries of metal from the OOLITE company to an Elven furniture and woodworking company. The metal was used for fasteners and fittings. It’s an old ledger. Deliveries from OOLITE stop about 120 years ago.
Gleador heads downstairs to find Angus again. Dwarven is Angus’ native language, so surely he can translate the Dwarven ledger. Angus says that translation will take him away from his page duties for quite some time, so Gleador will have to make it worth his while. Gleador says he knows a guy at the college, and can put in a good word for Angus’s eventual application. Angus wants to meet this contact now, before he translates the ledger. Gleador balks because his contact is Flint, a second-year student with no impact on admission, so he returns upstairs with the ledger untranslated. They try to return the books where they found them, but the shelves magically repel the books. They return to the reference desk, which has a big shelf labelled “Return books here” and talk to the librarian, who has finished with the other patrons.
“We tried to reshelve these books…,” they begin.
“Did you see the shelf labelled ‘Return books here’?”, says the reference librarian, clearly annoyed.
Undeterred, they ask about the Dwarven ledger. Of course the reference librarian can read it. It contains shipping manifests for the Balfour Trading Company from 160-140 years ago, and often mentions shipments of metals from OOLITE. The Balfour company survives to this day. There’s a warehouse here in Templeton, near the highway. The party places the two ledgers on the “Return books here” shelf, and the books magically float back to their proper place. They are impressed by the system the reference librarian has going. With obvious pride, the reference librarian says she’s had a long time to perfect and improve it. Before they leave, Lucia says a quick prayer to ask what here is evil. Some books and all of the indexing sprites are evil, but not the librarian or Angus. Interesting.
Now it’s time to head back to the college and meet Flint for a tour. He arranged to meet them at his lab in one of the more industrial college buildings. They could arrive early if they hustle, but they arrive on time and find Flint waiting at the outside door of the building. The doors and hallways of this buildings are bigger than usual to allow equipment to be moved in and out. The roof is about 2 feet above ground level, with the rest of the building built into the ground. There are skylights on the roof. Instead of a storm door. there’s a wide ramp going down to a pair of vertical doors that open inward. Although the halls are wide, they are lined with lockers and cabinets full of tools, specimens, and so on. Flint leads them to the door of his metallurgy lab. He unlocks the door with a big old-fashioned metal key, holds the door open and says, “After you!” Lucia and Gleador know a trap when they see one. They make eye contact. Gleador steps in and Lucia does not. Flint waits a moment, then shrugs and steps in. Lucia steps in after him. There’s a cabinet in the center of the room, work benches at either end, and a dumbwaiter in the far wall.
Upper storey of science building: lab, cold storage, and connecting vents.
It was still a trap! The door slams behind them and they hear something heavy dragging outside, probably one of those cabinets blocking the door. Flint panics and runs back to the door. It opens outwards, so the cabinet prevents it from opening, even though it’s unlocked! Flint kicks the door several times. The door fractures, and sticky expanding gel starts oozing and growing from the cracks. Flint recoils, avoiding the glue goo. One of the shady dwarves from yesterday appears at the skylight, opens it, and throws in a canister which starts spewing a thick, dark gas. The party tells Flint that he’s stuck with them, and he must help them or die! This has obviously escalated past what he signed up for, and he’s panicked. The gas is spreading. The dumbwaiter is only big enough for one person at a time, so they reject that method of escape. The movement of the gas reveals an air vent that they didn’t notice before. “Into the vents!” orders Lucia. She pries the grate off the vent and she and Flint go in. Gleador grabs tongs from the workbench and tries to throw the gas canister into the glue goo to seal it shut. He fumbles and bounces the canister off a wall and back into himself. He receives a minor burn from the hot canister and a lungful of gas, which reduces his constitution. He flees into the vent.
In the vent, they are temporarily safe from the gas. They demand that Flint explain what he’s gotten them into. He reveals that the two dwarves that were lurking about yesterday are paying his tuition in exchange for a special alloy. It’s brittle, an unpleasant color, and has the exact same density as gold. He doesn’t ask what they use it for. He doesn’t want to now. He didn’t want to get involved, lest something like this happen. There’s a T intersection several yards away. Flint’s in front, so the party crowds him forward to look. He’s pushed to the right, and yelps because he’s now next to a significant drop-off into a smelting room. There’s a fall, sharp implements, and fire. That might be worse than the gas. There’s also a shaft that leads down to a lower storey.
They decide to go left. The grate to the left is covered in frost. Lucia has metal gauntlets, so she can touch the grate without freezing her flesh to it. It’s cold storage. Shelves and crates fill the room. The floor is covered with ice, but Lucia slides out confidently, grabbing a crate to make a turn and end up at the door. The crate she grabbed was a coffin! Unimpressed, Lucia examines the door. It has the same lock as Flint’s room, so it probably has the same gel inside. There’s a small magical heat source right under the lock keeping it thawed. The lock is wet with melted frost, and the frost refreezes in icicles underneath it. Flint faceplants on the ice. Gleador digs some lockpicks out of his adventuring gear and sets to work on the lock. He’s making progress and here’s a sharp ‘click’ but then glue goo comes pouring out of the keyhole onto his tools and hands! He quickly yanks his hands away from the lock and apart, shaking the glue goo off. His hands are free, but encrusted with dried goo, impairing fine manipulation. There are two machines keeping the room cold by constantly emitting cold air. Each has four canisters attached, supplying it. Lucia considers ripping one of the machines out, but the canisters aren’t that secure, so she stops to avoid dropping and breaking them. They turn the machines off. Now they won’t freeze to death if they stay here. Maybe someone will notice the machines aren’t working and will come check on them. Flint reads the warning labels (it’s all written in Dwarven) and says that if the canisters break, they’ll flash freeze whatever is nearby. They consider re-directing cold air to the door to freeze and shatter it, but can’t find a suitable tube. Throwing a canister at the door might work, but Gleador has had awful luck today and doesn’t want to risk it. They look to the skylights to consider how they might reach and open them. They see that same dwarf looking down at them! “There they are,” yells the dwarf. “Rott, no! I’m in here,” yells Flint. Rott opens the skylight and grabs another gas canister from his satchel. Lucia lassos him, but only gets his arm. They struggle and she only manages to pull the canister he was holding right to her! She quickly holds her breath and retreats to the vent. Flint runs for the vent right through the cloud of gas and collapses at Lucia’s feet. She says, “We have to go down!” and pushes him down the shaft to the lower level. He’s unconscious, so he goes over the edge with no resistance and is injured on landing. Gleador holds his breath and dives into the vent.
On the lower floor, vents lead left and right. To the right is the smelter, but now they are at ground level, so they can enter it safely. The furnace is in the middle of one wall. There are no skylights. The chimney is open to the outside, but there’s an 800-degree furnace under it, so climbing it is extremely dangerous. There’s a waterwheel on the far wall. It powers some mechanical equipment that feeds ore into the furnace, pours molten ore into forms, then places the cooled ingots into a hopper. The pipes that carry water into and out of the room are a foot across: too small to fit through. This room has the same locked door as the other rooms.
Gleador goes back into the vent and checks the room to the left. He emerges under a table with chairs. The far side of the room has metal floor, walls, and ceiling, as opposed to the stone of the other rooms, and the near side of this room. There’s a heavier, scarier, more secure door on this room. There’s also a person sitting on the plain metal side of the room. A bald male Dwarf. “Hello, friend,” says the Dwarf, “I didn’t expect to see anyone come in that way.” Gleador calls Lucia over, and she drags in the unconscious Flint. The bald dwarf is quite surprised by this motley crew’s unusual entrance. Gleador gives Flint an anti-toxin to counter the effects of the gas, and Flint wakes up. Lucia heals him. They greet the strange dwarf, who is a full five feet tall, as tall as Lucia, and totally bald. His name is Andro. As Gleador steps forward, Andro holds out a hand to stop him. “Watch out for the wall of force. Here, where the floor turns from stone to metal. If you try to cross this line, magical electricity will stop you.” They ask Andro how he came to be in this situation. He doesn’t remember how long he’s been imprisoned, but he indicates his bald head and says it can’t have been too long. There’s no bed, chair, dishes, or anything on his side of the cell. He says that sometimes people come in, sit at the table, and take notes, but not very often. The party is unlikely to be discovered and released any time soon. There’s a control panel on the wall by the door. Flint says the writing indicates it controls the Wall of Force, but it’s magical as well as mechanical. He tries to work the controls, but when he reaches out to demonstrate that the wall of force is gone, it zaps him! Lucia exhorts him to try again, promising that if he gets them out, she’ll keep him safe from his former associates, but he’s had enough and hides under the table.
Lucia: It’s a good thing he didn’t stick with law enforcement!
Lucia tries the control panel and realizes that the crystal in the center is a status indicator. Moving these controls changes the color, and this color must mean the wall is down. She’s right! Andro is free! Well, Andro is as trapped as the rest of them. Gleador asks if he’s good with locks, and Andro says he can give it a try. Gleador leads him away from the high-security door in the cell, through the vent, to the door in the smelter.
Andro approaches the door of the smelter, which is next to the water wheel. He says, “I’m really sorry, friends,” and dives into the drain pipe. His head fits, but his torso won’t. His shoulders bend back at impossible angles. His whole body starts stretching, lengthening, disappearing down the drain. Gleador grabs at his legs, which are now soft and floppy. Gleador’s fingers dig long grooves in Andro’s flesh as they struggle to find purchase. Gleador’s hands to find something solid, which he pulls out of Andro’s leg as Andro finally disappears down the drain. It’s a small wooden box with a sliding lid. Gleador hands it to Lucia, turns into an electric eel, and pursues Andro down the drain. He’s able to catch up easily, but does not electrocute him, instead following him until the drain exits the building into a culvert leading to a stream. Andro drags himself to shore and starts reforming into proper dwarven shape. It’s not perfect. One of his shoulders is higher than the other, and one side of his face sags. He looks like he’s survived some industrial accident, which isn’t too rare here in a town of miners and engineers. He might be remarkable, but his strange non-humanoid status is no longer evident. Gleador transforms back into an Elf while Andro is pulling himself together. Andro is surprised that Gleador was able to escape and follow him so easily. They are both full of surprises. Gleador says that Andro had better return and break the others out, or Gleador will make a scene and turn him in to the authorities. Andro doesn’t want to go back to the cell, so he agrees. “Do we head back up the drain?”
No, Gleador leads Andro into the science building like normal people, and they find the smelter door. It’s locked. Andro reads the sign. “No admittance from 9:00 to 6:00 during automatic smelting. See Mr. Haverly in Room 213 if you have any questions.” Gleador yells through the door to Lucia. Gleador asks Andro to pick the lock, but Andro reveals he only said he was good at that so he could get close to a door and escape. They are so close, but they can’t figure out what to do. Lucia opens Andro’s box and finds 200 gold pieces and a magical amulet. That reminds Gleador about the strange coin they found on the living statue. He shows Andro the large rectangular coin and asks if he recognizes it. Andro thinks this is a very odd thing to be asking right now, but instantly recognizes the coin as being from Saarland. Gleador has never heard of Saarland, which Andro thinks is odd, since it’s such an important city. (Gleador isn’t ignorant. Saarland is not an important city that anyone talks about. Why does Andro think it’s well-known?) Gleador talks through the current situation, trying to think of what to do next. He says that Andro could just leave, and Andro thinks that’s a great idea and starts walking off. Gleador says, “We have your stuff!” but Andro would rather have his freedom. He turns back, points at his eyes, points at Gleador, then continues walking away. Gleador lets him go.
Gleador heads up to find Mr. Haverly’s room and get the key to the smelter. Mr. Haverly’s office is in a row of faculty offices on an upper floor. The door is locked and there’s a sign that Gleador can’t read that says “Back in 15 minutes”. Gleador wants to wait around, but a school official thinks he’s a loitering student and starts scolding him. “Show me your student ID, young man! I’ll write you up.” Gleador tells him to look him up in the directory and leaves. In an nearby hallway, he waits until no one is in sight, then turns into a newt and crawls out the window. He crawls along the outside of the building to Mr. Haverly’s office. The window is open! He goes inside and finds the key: an old-fashioned metal key like the one Flint used. It’s as long as his newt form and much too heavy to carry. Footsteps and the sound of conversation approach the door. Gleador crawls back out the window and watches. Mr. Haverly enters, accompanied by a student. He’s an older dwarf, with a neat white beard and small round glasses. Gleador can’t understand Dwarven either,but he figures out that they are discussing classwork. Unsure what else to do, Gleador waits for an opening.
Back in the smelter, Lucia grills Flint about the his involvement with the shady dwarves. There are two of them. The one who threw the gas canisters from the roof is named Rott. He’s got a buzz cut and a similarly short beard. He’s demonstrative and impulsive. The other one, who probably trapped them in the first room, is a female Dwarf with long straight shiny black hair and beard. She looks like a shampoo ad. Her clothes are not flashy, but have high-quality fabrics and are tailored for her. Flint has provided them with about 20kg of alloy so far. The alloy is brittle, ugly, and the same density as gold. He made a delivery last week, and another is due in five days. The materials for the alloy are not expensive, but the procedure is precise, which is why they need Flint’s expertise. Since the materials are cheap, no one has noticed that Flint’s been stealing from the school’s supply. Lucia wonders why Flint’s buyers don’t just provide the materials, if they aren’t expensive.
Everyone has been waiting around for some time. It’s time for Mr. Haverly to collect the day’s ingots. Flint and Lucia notice the automated machinery stop. In the office, Mr. Haverly wraps up his conversation with the student, takes his key, and heads out. Gleador follows along on the wall as a newt. Mr. Haverly goes downstairs and meets two TAs with handcarts who will carry the heavy ingots. Gleador considers startling Mr. Haverly by flicking him with his long newty tongue, but that will cause Gleador to turn back into a Elf, and he wants to stay hidden. Lucia and Flint hear people approach the door and hide in the vent. Mr. Haverly opens the door and all three enter the smelting room to begin loading ingots. Gleador stays out in the hall and transforms back into an Elf. Lucia waits for a chance to dash out unobserved, but makes a noise. Mr. Haverly looks into the vent and sees someone in full armor, crouched and ready to pounce! He screams, and he and his TAs run for the door. Gleador blocks their path out and spins a tall tale about a security audit. They don’t buy it. One of the TAs rushes him with his handcart. Gleador falls into it and is carried down the hall. Mr. Haverly and the other TA run the other direction. Lucia tries to drag Flint out, but he starts to flee as soon as they exit the room. Gleador extricates himself from the handcart but does not prevent the TA from fleeing. They are all free! Lucia thinks Flint will be tracked down and killed by his former co-workers, but if he’s determined to run away from her, she’ll leave him to his fate.
Gleador and Lucia huddle. Should they report this to the authorities? They are sure they are innocent victims in all this, and want to be more honest than they were in Fairmeadow, so they head upstairs to the faculty area. Gleador sasses the official that he clashed with earlier, which gets him an express trip to the dean’s office, just as he planned. The Dean interrupts the official’s rants about disrespectful youngsters. “Simmons, did you notice notice the fully-armored Paladin accompanying him? What’s your story, young lady?” The party starts by saying that they came from Fairmeadow to visit a friend, which is pretty boring. Then they get to the part about “trapped in a room with poison gas” and the Dean says, “You should have led with that!” They give the Dean Rott’s name and a good description of the other dwarf and what class she’s in, so the school definitely has enough information to find her. They also say that the freezer room is defrosting, several doors are jammed with glue goo, and that they released a prisoner. The Dean looks very concerned. He sends some people to check the damage to the rooms they describe and asks the party to wait until they report back. “Like, here on campus?” “In my office, please.” Gleador makes sure there’s a window as an escape route, and they sit down to wait.
GM notes:This was the first time I locked the party in a dungeon. I imagined multiple scenarios in which they effortlessly avoided or escaped the dungeon, leaving me with a whole evening and nothing prepared. Instead, they enjoyed exploring the facility and puzzling over its strange contents. You’ll notice the maps above don’t fill the whole page. There were a few rooms they did not find or explore. Andro is actually a character I’ve blogged about before. I don’t have a game to play him in, so I put him in this game as an optional NPC.
These poor adventurers just wanted someone to get them into the college library, and now they are involved in more plots and trouble than they know!
The Fairmeadow Fair ended last session, with Gleador the secret shapeshifter dodging all the consequences of his weekend of deception. He and Lucia the Paladin had to decide where to go next. There were several events that warranted further investigation.
A statue with Dwarven markings came to life and smashed up the fair. Who built it? What is it for?
The statue was carrying strange gold coins, unlike the local currency. Where do they come from?
A Dwarf named Opal and two accomplices attacked our heroes, were driven off, and fled town in an unusual self-propelled cart.
Gleador and Lucia had one of the strange coins, so Pepe, the town sheriff, tracked them down to get it back before they left town. They convinced him that they would continue investigating the statue, so they should hold on to the coin. Pepe revealed that the statue was brought to auction by Hama, a halfling woman who often acts as an agent for rich clients who want to auction items without personally making the trip. Hama said that she was selling the statue on behalf of the Miller family, one of the great families in Sugar’s Crossing, a town a few days to the west. She had no idea that the statue could move.
A regional map showing the towns of Fairmeadow, Sugar’s Crossing, and Templeton.
Our heroes decide to head for Templeton, a Dwarven city to the west with a famous college. This means not going to Sugar’s Crossing to question the owner of the statue, and not pursuing Opal’s gang south towards the port. Alas, those were the two towns contained the bulk of my preparation. To re-assure Pepe that they were not just running off with his evidence, they told him where they were going. Pepe knows a guy in Templeton. Flint is now a second year metallurgy student, but he took a gap year of sorts in Fairmeadow and volunteered as a deputy. Law enforcement was too intense for him. He’s happier in a classroom. Gleador and Lucia promise to look him up, and leave word with Flint if their travels take them further from Templeton.
Gleador and Lucia set out on the three-day journey to Templeton. There’s a lot of traffic leaving Fairmeadow today, but they got an early start, since they don’t have to pack up booths or wrangle families. When they are out of sight of other travelers, Gleador shifts into a falcon and scouts ahead. There’s not much to report. Near evening, he sees a clearing on one side of the road. There’s room for at least a dozen carts around a big stone fire pit. There’s a stack of charred logs in the pit, and a magical, ever-burning flame in off to the side. An inscription in many languages reads, “As we all share the everlasting warmth of fellowship, so will this fire always keep travelers warm.” It’s a lovely rest stop, with no traps or shady people around.
A rest stop on the road from Fairmeadow to Templeton, protected by a magical campfire.
Gleador reports this to Lucia, and they stop there for the night. As evening falls, several parties on horse-drawn carts, or on foot with handcarts also arrive and set up camp. One group produces logs from their cart, adds them to the pile of firewood, and makes a trail of kindling from the magical flame to the central firepit. A jolly blaze lights and warms the whole campsite. Some starts playing a pipe, and a few people clap and dance along. Gleador looks for the most interesting person to talk to. That’s Selene, a clean-shaven Dwarf woman. She goes to shake her hand, and she extends a metal prosthesis. With certain movements of her shoulder and upper arm, she adjusts counterweights and rods in the mechanical arm to open its fingers and shake Gleador’s hand. Gleador is very impressed! She’s a graduate student at the College of Mines in Templeton. Gleador inquires about the moving statue. She’s unaware of technology that advanced. The mechanical devices she knows are moved by counterweights (like her arm) or pressurized gas. Gleador mentions the name “OOLITE” that was written on the statue, and she thinks the school library would have information about it. She doesn’t know Flint, but it’s a big school, so that’s not strange. Lucia doesn’t participate in the evening activities. She’s communing with her god and gaining a level.
In the morning, Lucia tries to cast Detect Alignment, but instead of a shockwave of holy energy, she produces a physical shockwave, making a loud bang and flapping all the tents and shelters. Lucia and Gleador hastily grab their packs and flee the rest stop in embarrassment. The next two days are uneventful. The terrain becomes hillier and rockier, so the fields of grain and vegetables give way to land for livestock. They find an old barn, abandoned when a newer one was built at the other end of a field, and stay there for the night. Nothing comes ot disturb them but some rabbits and birds, also seeking shelter for the night.
A map of the city of Templeton, built into a cinder cone volcano.
On the evening of the third day they reach Templeton, the city built into a cinder cone volcano. It rises out of the plain alone, visible for miles! Streets spiral up the cone in both directions, since radial streets would be too steep. The side of town closest to the main road is trade and tourism. The Fortinbras College of Mines has an entire sector of the volcano on the northwest. The rim of the caldera is covered with high towers, and inside the caldera are museums and civic buildings surrounding city hall at the very center. Most of the buildings are built for Dwarves, but there are some taller buildings, especially in the tourist section.
Gleador and Lucia check into a tall youth hostel near the college. Their room has five bunk beds and a washroom with a toilet and shower. There’s running water in Templeton. Lucia is obviously a Paladin, and the other youths in the room tease her for looking like a strict authority figure. She heads to take a shower and surprises a Dwarf woman coming out of the washroom in a towel.
The next morning they wake up before the other 7 people in the room. Not a hard task to wake up before college students. There’s cheap but decent food served cafeteria style at the hostel. They head to the campus to look for Flint and the library. The library is not open to the public, only people associated with the school. They ask around and learn that Flint is currently in a lab. The college extends onto the flat ground surrounding the valcano and Flint’s lab is in a building on this flat ground. The building rises only a couple feet, has skylights and vents for a roof, and storm doors for entrances. As our heroes open one of the doors, they hear a voice assure another voice that the delivery of the alloy will be on schedule. There’s a sudden pause, then the voices start talking about experimental procedures and titration. Di that seem shady? Did the people at the door notice? Hopefully not. Gleador and Lucia act like they don’t notice and ask for Flint. He’s the voice promising delivery on schedule. They pass on Pepe’s greetings and ask to meet him after his lab. He’s happy to hear from Pepe and agrees to meet them. Lucia says a quick prayer for guidance and sees that the two dwarfs standing near Flint are evil, but Flint himself is not.
There’s a long, low arc of stone that acts as a sundial, receiving a beam of light from a tower at the rim of the volcano. There are signs warning not to put any item, especially face or eyes, in the beam of light. Near the sundial are some benches and tables with games. The game is somewhat like Stratego, where two players try to defeat each other without knowing the strength of the other’s pieces. The pieces are identical painted metal cubes, each of a different material and density. Denser pieces beat lighter pieces. Quickly judging the density of an item by holding it is a valuable skill for a miner or crafter. At the appointed time (easily seen from the nearby sundial) the two evil dwarves sit a few benches away and start playing. Flint arrives soon after. Gleador plays to lose (easy when he’s never played and Flint is an expert) and engages in small talk, trying to sneakily get Flint to reveal information. The evil dwarves keep playing games. They’re sticking around to overhear. Flint agrees to give our heroes a tour of the campus tomorrow. Maybe he can sneak them into the library. He leaves and the evil dwarves are still playing. Lucia and Gleador leave and ponder their next move.
GM note:I had to scramble because I assumed that the party would go to a different town. On the one hand, I really like the things I improvised: Selene’s mechanical arm, the rest stop, the city built into a volcano, the sundial. On the other hand, when wrapping up one location and moving to another, I should make the party decide where to go at the end of a session, not the beginning, so I can focus my efforts entirely on what they will see. The drama between the three great mills in Sugar’s Crossing was wasted effort, and I kept describing the Dwarven college like a 20th century American university, because that’s what I could think of on the spot.
Also, this is the second time they haven’t gone in the direction of that one NPC that I’m really proud of.
When we last left our heroes, their past was catching up to them. Hobert, owner of the Brace of Pigs tavern, is famous for a special wine whose remarkable taste is due to special herbs he steals from Samantha & Ferdinand. Gleador & Lucia had pressured Hobert into being nice to Samantha & Ferdinand by threatening to reveal his thievery. Now he’s using the bottling ceremony for his wine to stir up a mob against all four of them!
The bottling ceremony, showing the crowd rushing from the stage to surround the Brace of Pigs Inn.
Gleador asks a crow to poop on Hobert, since it’s impossible to take someone seriously who is covered in bird poop. The bird declines. Plan B is Lucia commanding Hobert to tell the truth! He lets slip that the special taste of the wine is due to special herbs from Samantha’s swamp. Lucia says that anyone could buy the herbs from Samantha and they could all make great wine. Instead of a ceremony for how great Hobert is, there could be a whole wine tasting competition! Some bystanders are so inspired by Lucia’s words that they run off towards the swamp to get the herbs immediately! This is bad because Samantha has set deadly magical traps around the swamp to keep Hobert out.
Gleador follows the runners out into the grain fields between Fairmeadow and the swamp. When he’s out of sight, he transforms into a panther (the legendary Black Beast that put the town in a panic a few days ago). Lucia had arranged a signal with Samantha ahead of time. She speaks a magic word to the giant millipede that Samantha gave her and it glows a little. The message has been delivered. Samantha and Ferdinand will arrive soon. Gleador plans to follow the runners to the border of the swamp, then appear and frighten them away.
Samantha and Ferdinand arrive at the bottling ceremony. The crowd pushes them up on stage next to Hobert. Hobert accuses them of injuring him, which is almost true. Last night, he snooped on Samantha, who activated a magical escape spell that dragged her out of the room and dragged Hobert’s face into the door he was peeking through. Gleador can see this through the eyes of the crow from earlier, so he decides to chase the runners back now instead of waiting for them to reach the swamp. A panther suddenly leaps out of the tall grass and chases them back towards town. They run back into the crowd, screaming about the Black Beast. The crowd starts grabbing torches and other improvised weapons. Gleador scrabbles up the back of The Brace of Pigs to make a grand appearance. He emerges over the peak of the roof with a terrifying roar, then pees on the inn to show his displeasure. Like a cat, he scratches afterward, sending roof tiles falling and splintering. Then he disappears to the back side of the roof, turns into a falcon, and flies away!
It’s basically a riot now! People have lit torches and grabbed shovels, brooms, stout bits of wood, and surge towards The Brace of Pigs to attack the Black Beast. The stage that Samantha and Ferdinand are on shudders as the crowd surges against it and rips out some crossbeams to use as improvised weapons. Lucia blows her town watch whistle and hears a whistle reply from the direction of town hall. Pepe’s on the way. Hobert runs to the door to keep the mob from entering and probably destroying his inn. There’s not even roof access from inside the inn. But there is around the far side! Construction equipment used to clean up after Samantha’s violent escape spell is still there: ladders, axes, large saws. Lucia runs around and convinces them that the Black Beast has fled back into the fields. The mob turns from the inn and sets out into the fields. It’s after harvest, so burning the fields (while still terribly dangerous) is less bad then burning a building in town.
High over the fields, Gleador has another plan. He spies the carcass of a deer and lands by it. He changes back into a panther and claws the surrounding grass and earth, as if there was a great battle. He roars like he is in mortal pain, which alerts the mob to his position. A hunter in the mob says, “Careful, boys! That’s the sound of a beast in fear of its life! Very dangerous!” Gleador attempts to turn into a gorilla, but fails, so he’s an Elf when the mob bursts into the clearing. He breathlessly describes a great battle between the Black Beast and an invisible creature that throttled it and carried it away. They believe him! Several people break off to escort the poor, shaken Elf back to town, while the rest spread out to search for, probably, the benevolent invisible gorilla.
Lucia meets up with Gleador coming back from the field and Pepe running in the from town hall. Pepe hears that the Black Beast has appeared again. Ferdinand is right there, and dozens of witnesses confirm that it wasn’t him. Pepe runs off to take charge of the mob and assign proper search patterns instead of whatever disorganized thing they were doing.
Gleador’s helpers wonder if they can get him some comfort food from the inn, but Hobert isn’t letting anyone in! A Dwarf woman named Marley offers to take Gleador back to her home and bake him some muffins. Lucia is welcome too. They accept and head to her house. As they leave, they make eye contact with Samantha and Ferdinand, still on the stage, and give them farewell salutes. Samantha gives a knowing, respectful nod. Ferdinand waves enthusiastically. Marley’s home, like most Dwarf homes, is set into the ground. The “negative porch” has steps going down about three feet to the front door. Her home is mostly underground, but windows around the top of the five-foot tall rooms are above ground level. Lucia is only five feet tall, so she mostly fits, but Gleador has to bend down quite a bit. They have a pleasant chat and some tasty muffins. After a while, a family of Gnomes arrive. Marley is hosting them for the fair, so Gleador and Lucia have to leave.
A map of the town of Fairmeadow, including the healer’s temple, and Marley’s house.
Lucia pulled a muscle fighting the statue last night, and doesn’t want to spend the three days of rest it would take to heal naturally. She remembers that a deputy who was hurt worse was back on duty the next day. They track Lucy down and she points them to Mother Tiffany, the cleric at the local temple. Lucy didn’t have to pay for the healing spell because the town guard has good health care. The temple is on the southern edge of town and has a small field behind it, where people plant symbolic offerings of crops for the gods to bless. Mother Tiffany eats the crops that grow in that field. Lucia tries to get free healing, since she was injured while acting as a deputy. Mother Tiffany tactfully declines and charges Lucia 10 gold, which she gladly pays. They return to their hosts, the Glazers.
GM notes: I can’t believe Gleador got away with everything! He hid his shapeshifting on a whim and started two urban legends (the Black Beast and the invisible benevolent gorilla) and set Ferdinand up to be framed as the Black Beast. I was sure he’d have to deal with consequences for this, but he schemed his way out of everything.
Gleador appeared as the Black Beast in front of a crowd while Ferdinand was there, clearly proving Ferdinand’s innocence.
Gleador says the Black Beast is dead. There’s evidence of a struggle, and many people heard a panther cry out in pain.
Gleador says the invisible benevolent gorilla killed the beast. I thought I had him here, since Pepe would notice that there were no tracks leading away from the scene of the fight. But Pepe has chased the gorilla before, and its tracks disappeared then as well, so this actually corroborates Gleador’s story!
So the Fairmeadow Fair is over, and when they leave, Lucia will be remembered as a hero who fought many battles to protect the town, and Gleador will be remembered as that guy who was with Lucia, had no special skills, and almost died a few times.
When we last left our heroes, they had to fight a statue that just wouldn’t stay still like a good statue should. Now, on the last day of the fair, they try to attend and enjoy it like normal people.
Lucia the Paladin and Gleador the Druid (who is concealing his shape-shifting powers) wander the marketplace at the fair. They see Lisa, one of the deputies injured in last night’s battle against the metal statue. They are surprised that she’s back on the job, or even on her feet. She was healed at the temple. Lucia’s not the only spellcaster in town. She does pull her armor and tabard aside to reveal a gnarly scar. Lisa hopes for an uneventful day and bottling ceremony to end the fair. Oh yeah, Hobert bottles his stolen wine at the end of the fair every year.
Lucia and Gleador head to town hall to check in with Pepe, the sheriff. They go to the evidence room and check on the statue. Since it grabs metal, they no longer have padlocks and chains on it. The cell is bound shut with coils of stout rope. Each limb of the statue is bound with ropes to heavy pallets of bricks. Pepe takes at least a minute unwinding the rope that keeps the cell shut. Lucia warns Pepe about the switch that turns the statue on and off. He gets close to look at the switch and notices some writing stamped on the arm. It’s Dwarven. Lucia recognizes the runes, but doesn’t read the language. There are some numbers and a word in all caps, which is probably a proper name. our heroes want to find out more about the strange coins. Pepe pushes them out of the room, retrieves a coin from his secure storage, and gives them one coin. He writes a receipt for it. He trusts them because they’ve fought for the town several town, but he also files the proper paperwork.
Our heroes wonder where to go next. Who can translate the Dwarven runes? Who would know about the strange coin? Samantha might know some things. They also need to clear Ferdinand’s name. They head to the Brace of Pigs. There’s a commotion outside. Workers are going around the side with big saws, axes, and so on. Hobert is directing them and holding a steak over a black eye. He complains that the Black Beast has injured him and destroyed his inn. They look go around the side of the inn and see the wooden boards on the second floor bent out, turning into branches, and forming a tunnel that goes into the ground. “Is that Samantha’s room?” They go inside and upstairs. It was Samantha’s room. The back wall curves out and forms a funnel. The bed has been pushed to the back wall, and the covers are sucked partially down the funnel.Some workmen are in the room, preparing to chop up the unnatural wood structures.
Lucia and Gleador figure that this is Samantha’s escape plan, and tracking them down means going down the tunnel themselves. They ask the workers not to chop up the tunnel before they can head down. The workers in the room call down to the workers on the ground outside. Lucia lights and torch and slides down. It’s mostly dark in the tunnel, but spaces between branches cause lines and cracks of birght light to flash past Lucia as she slides down, past the workers on the ground, until the branches taper off and she’s in a dirt tunnel several feet underground. Gleador slides down and joins her. They instruct the workers on the ground not to chop up the tunnel until they return. They walk along underground for a while until the tunnel curves up and they emerge in the grain fields outside of town. The Brace of Pigs is still visible far behind them. There are tracks leading from the tunnel to the east, so they follow them. Another set of tracks crosses the first set, and they follow that to another set. After a few minutes, they realize that there are many sets of tracks looping around each other, intentionally confusing pursuers. Another trick from Samantha, no doubt. The tunnel headed in the general direction of the swamp where Ferdinand and Samantha live, so Lucia and Gleador head there.
A regional map showing the towns of Fairmeadow, Sugar’s Crossing, and Templeton.
Clearly, Samantha is using magic to avoid pursuit, and the swamp is her home turf, so Lucia and Gleador don’t just barge in, lest they trigger some awful trap. They pause at the border of the swamp and call out, identifying themselves and asking politely for an audience. The call startles a small flock of birds, who fly around in a swarm, except for one bird that breaks away from the flock and flies in a straight line deeper into the swamp. They wait for a few minutes, then call out again. They wait again, and when they are wondering if they should call out again or just go home, Samantha arrives. There’s a moss-covered log nearby, and the moss is tossed aside like a blanket. Samantha is lying there where the log should be. When she stands up, she reveals a hole in the ground, leading who knows where.
Lucia: “She’s terrifying!”
Gleador: “Samantha,what do you want right now?”
A very thoughtful question. Samantha wants revenge on Hobert, but she needs to keep herself and Ferdinand safe. Her potion and alchemy business might suffer if she’s defamed in town, but her customers are already the type to sneak out of town and visit a witch in the swamp, so they aren’t the type to scare easily. She’ll probably be fine. Samantha has ramped up security in the swamp. Anyone who comes in and tries to steal herbs will spring a nasty magical trap. Lucia mentions that Hobert could turn Samantha’s escape tunnel into an attraction and charge extra. Samantha wonders, “Is there anything capitalism can’t ruin?” Gleador says he has a way to clear Ferdinand’s name and get comeuppance for Hobert. Samantha’s interested. Gleador asks if she can make a drink that’s better than Hobert’s wine. She can make a potion called Polypurpose Panacea, which cures hangovers, gives the drinker a nice buzz, etc. but it’s very expensive to produce. That won’t work.
Samantha recalls Gleador transforming when the two fought several days ago. “Are you the Black Beast? This is partially your fault!” Gleador counters, “You’re not the only one with secrets! What about Dandelion’s sudden voice problems?” Samantha heard about that. Sounds like a Frogmouth potion, which wears off with no lasting effects after a week. She maintains plausible deniability, never confirming or denying that she was involved. Gleador says that they’ll work on clearing Ferdinand’s name, and that Samantha and Ferdinand should stay close to town and rush in when the time is right. Samantha scoops up a foot-long millipede from the swamp, talks to it a little, then offers it to Lucia. Saying a password to this bug will alert Samantha. Lucia accepts, and the millipede crawls up her arm and hides under her cloak.
Lucia and Gleador walk back to town. The swamp is several hours’ walk away from Fairmeadow. When they get back to the Brace of Pigs, they see the workers did not wait for them and are demolishing the escape tunnel. They go inside to talk to Hobert, and drop several threats on him.
You better clear Samantha’s and Ferdinand’s names!
We know your famous tradition is based on being a thief & a liar.
If you try to steal more herbs for next year’s wine, you won’t make it back..
You have one year to straighten out or your tradition is toast.
You could have made the escape tunnel an attraction and gotten more money.
Hobert whimpers as the two armed adventurers get in his face and threaten him. He promises to be good and will they please leave? Before they go, they quiz him about the strange coin. Nearby city-states issue their own coins, but they coordinate to make their currencies inter-operable. Gold coins should be round, but this one is rectangular, and it’s too big.
Lucia and Gleador leave the inn. Gleador wants to find and mark a falcon, so he can see through its eyes and watch the fair. There aren’t many falcons around, so he settles for a crow instead of waiting. He bribes it with a gold piece, because crows like shiny things. Lucia and Gleador enjoy the fair until the end of the day. They plan to leave town after the festival, so they buy some supplies for the road ahead. Gleador checks in with the crow and sees a crowd gathering at the Brace of Pigs for the wine bottling ceremony. He and Lucia go there in the flesh. Hobert is giving a speech about the wine and the fair and how it’s great, but he transitions into complaining about threats to the tradition and the town. He’s stirring up the crowd into a mob!
When we last left our heroes, they defeated a statue that came alive during the auction and started smashing up the place.
At sunset, Lucia the Paladin and Gleador the Druid go to town hall. The sheriff, Pepe, has deputized able-bodied individuals to patrol the town this evening, to defend against the Black Beast, which attacked a woman last night and (confusingly) fought a living statue earlier today. The Black Beast is actually Gleador, who can transform into various animals, but he’s keeping that a secret. The deputies will patrol major roads and the perimeter in pairs, with a whistle to alert the others in case of trouble. Lucia and Gleador choose the southern road.
Since Pepe also enforced a curfew, the streets are mostly empty already. Lucia and Gleador walk up and down the southern road for a while before spotting someone. His name is Willie, and he was kicked out of Macker’s Tavern when it closed because of the curfew. He’s drunk, and he’s sure his buddies have gone to the Brace of Pigs to continue drinking without him. Lucia and Gleador agree to escort him there.
When they arrive they find Hobert, owner of the Brace of Pigs, talking to two deputies. He claims that Ferdinand (from Session 1) is the Black Beast, since he can transform into a black bull. The bar is closed, so Willie has to go home. Gleador tries to convince the two deputies to take him home, but they won’t leave their posts, so he goes off alone. Lucia and Gleador do convince the deputies to let them go in and check on Ferdinand. They know Ferdinand, so it won’t be as scary as some strangers barging in and accusing him of being the Black Beast. Keeping the situation calm is in everyone’s best interests.
Hobert points our heroes to Samantha and Ferdinand’s room. (Remember, Hobert was pressured into acting nice and giving them a room lest they reveal him as a thief back in Session 1) They knock on the door and Samantha hurries them in. Lucia and Gleador explain the accusation against Ferdinand. Samantha is suspicious, eyes darting about looking for answers and a way out. Being accepted at all in town is very new, and apparently fleeting. She’s ready to flee back to the swamp right now. Ferdinand is a bit slow. “I guess I’m kind of a beast, sometimes.” Gleador encourages Ferdinand to join the watch to prove his trust-worthiness. Samantha doesn’t like that idea. Lucia convinces her not to bolt immediately, to wait overnight and let them talk to Pepe and figure something out. Samantha agrees, but will make preparations in case things go badly.
Lucia and Gleador plan to stay by the Brace of Pigs until their shift is over at midnight. They convince the other two deputies to trade places and go to the southern road. Eventually, they hear a whistle from the north, near town hall. Probably the end of shift. But it’s only 11:15PM! There’s trouble!
The town hall of Fairmeadow.
They run to town hall and are the first of the patrolling deputies on the scene. The statue is moving again! It’s walking out of town hall with three deputies hanging off of it. One is sitting on its shoulders, futilely bashing it around the head. Two others have a rope around it but are being dragged along by its tremendous strength. Lucia yells, “Turn it off!” but the deputies don’t know about the switch. Gleador vaults up the stairs and past the melee to get some metal equipment from the armory to distract the statue. (The armory does contain metal breastplates, maces, and swords, but the three deputies are wearing that equipment right now, and the statue is not attempting to collect it.) Other deputies are rushing in along the main roads, but they are a ways off.
Lucia runs to assist the two deputies struggling with the rope and manages to tangle the statue enough to get to the switch. It’s on the right setting, not the center setting like before. She turns it left, to the center setting. The statue stops walking south, grabs the deputy on its shoulders, and tries to jam her and her metal armor into the hopper on its back. She doesn’t fit! Her shoulders are bashed repeatedly on the edges of the hopper. Gleador returns from the armory, leaving a trail of armor and weapons back to the holding cell. Lucia tries to turn the switch again, but the statue drops the deputy and grabs her. Gleador takes a breastplate in one hand and a shield in the other and crashes them together like cymbals on the statue’s head. The statue releases Lucia and grabs for Gleador’s metal goodies. Lucia scoops up the equipment Gleador dropped behind him and throws it past the statue, down the stairs. The statue snatches a mace out of the air and deposits it in its hopper. It turns and starts collecting the other metal objects. One of the other deputies has tied one end of the rope to the railing on the stairs. Lucia grabs the other end of the rope and pulls it taut as the statue passes, tripping it. It falls onto the third deputy! Ignoring the injured deputy’s cries, Lucia goes straight for the switch, turning the statue off. Gleador tries to pry the heavy statue off the deputy, but can’t get the right leverage with his shillelagh. Lucia throws her shoulder into the statue and rolls it off the poor deputy, but she’s over-exerted herself.
The other deputies and Pepe arrive soon after. Pepe and three other deputies take the two wounded deputies to a healer. They carry them on stretchers: a sheet of canvas stretched between two long wooden poles. Pepe, a Halfling, holds the poles over his shoulders, while the human deputy on the other end has his arms down by his sides.
Lucia and Gleador clean up, replacing the equipment in the armory and dragging the statue back into the cell. The metal cell door was bashed open, but the pieces weren’t collected. Gleador has a cool idea for how to chain up the statue, but he can’t make it work. They empty the statue’s hopper and find a number of strange gold coins in addition to the metal objects they saw the statue grab.\
Strange gold coins
Pepe returns. They show him the 14 large rectangular coins. He doesn’t recognize them, but has a secure place to keep them: more secure than the evidence room, right next to the cell, which is not that secure, based on tonight’s events! He’s upset. The Fairmeadow Fair is so important to the town, and it’s his job to keep everyone safe and the town running smoothly. But there have been all these attacks. The townsfolk are scared. Now his deputies are injured. He wasn’t able to keep them safe. Lucia and Gleador decide this is not a good time to mention Ferdinand, so they leave Pepe and go home to the Glazers’ house.
They both have enough experience to reach level 4! Lucia boosts her healing ability and Gleador is able to mark an animal and see through its eyes. Lucia tries to heal Gleador from his injuries earlier in the day but only transfers the injuries to herself. Before they go to sleep, Gleador suggests letting Ferdinand drive the Black Beast away in a public staged fight. Lucia thinks it’s too risky.
GM notes: I didn’t make it clear that the third position on the statue’s switch made the statue do something other than collect metal. it was hard to tell what the statue was trying to do, since people were all over it trying to prevent it from doing things the whole time our heroes could see it. I almost forgot about the coins in all the excitement. We were about to end the session, and I had to go back and say, “Actually, when you were cleaning up at town hall, you definitely noticed these very obvious and important things!”
When we last left our heroes, Lucia had just rid herself of a self-inflicted flea infestation with some flammable anti-flea oil. She’s not on fire or covered in fleas, but she is covered in oil. She goes to the bath-house while Gleador goes back to the Glazers’ house to rest and level up. The bath-house is attached to Macker’s Tavern, the other inn in town. The bath-house is decorated in green & blue tile. Lucia washes up, then lingers for a relaxing bubble bath and massage.
Gleador goes back to his room and meditates, connecting with nature and its wisdom. He has a vision of the pony that rode away on the cart. It’s talking! It says, “Gleador. Gleador! Time to wake up.” It’s actually Lucia, who has returned from the bath-house and is rousing him.
They head back to the fair. Along the way they overhear someone say that Dandelion went on-stage to perform and croaked! They’re not sure if that means he died, or if he made frog noises. As they approach the market they hear a disturbance at the auction!
The auction stage at the Fairmeadow Fair
A metal statue, which was lined up on the platform along the other rare and valuable items, has come alive and is wrecking the place! It’s grabbing some of the auction items and throwing others aside. Our heroes see Pepe’s pole moving through the crowd towards the commotion, but there’s no time to wait for him! The statue throws a large wooden carving into the crowd! Gleador turns into a gorilla and catches the statue, placing it gently down next to shocked onlookers. They were too busy looking at the statue to notice him transform, right? Lucia commands the statue to stop, but it ignores her. She can intimidate people with her Paladin authority, but this is no person.
When Pepe arrives, he sees a gorilla, which is both a beast and black. Surely it must be the Black Beast! Will he engage it, or the living statue? Gleador rushes to grab the statue & show Pepe that he’s a friendly gorilla. He pulls it down and notices that the robot has only collected metal objects in its backpack. Lucia rushes up to tie the statue down, but it throws her through a table of valuable items. The statue gets back up and Pepe rushes Gleador. Gleador leaps up onto the platform, getting between Lucia and the statue and putting the statue between himself and Pepe. Undeterred, Pepe pole-vaults up onto the platform to threaten Gleador. Lucia convinces Pepe to focus on the statue.
The hidden switch on the living statue.
Gleador notices a three-position switch on the statue’s back and tries to turn it, but the statue spins 180 at the waist, grabs hum, and throws him into Pepe, toppling and injuring both of them. Lucia lunges with her sword, but it scrapes harmlessly off the solid metal statue. The statue tries to pull the sword from her grip and collect it like the other metal objects. Lucia also notices the switch. Gleador rushes the statue again, but it throws him into Lucia. She loses her grip on her sword as they both stumble back. That tug-of-war gave Gleador an idea. He takes Lucia’s shield and entices the statue into grabbing it. With its arms occupied wrestling for the shield, Lucia has an opportunity to turn the statue’s switch. Left or right? Left! The statue freezes and topples to the ground.
With the statue incapacitated, Pepe the sherriff turns his attention on the Black Beast. Gleador flees out of town into the surrounding fields. Although his halfling legs can’t run as fast as his quarry, Pepe can easily follow the trail of a gorilla crashing through fields of grain. Gleador runs until he has enough of a lead to break line of sight, then switches to a rabbit and makes a right-angle turn, aiming to come back into town from a different angle. He dashes across one of the main roads into town and a passing hunter looses an arrow after him. Gleador is a lot tougher than a normal rabbit and just keeps going, much to the hunter’s surprise.
While Gleador and Pepe are gone, deputies arrive and attempt to tie up the statue. All its joints are locked, so they can’t bring its wrists together to bind it in the usual way. They do their best and drag it towards town hall, which is also the headquarters of the town watch. People at the auction are upset by the destruction of most of the valuables, but Lucia ignores them and exhorts the deputies to place the statue in a cell, not in the evidence room. Maybe it will come to life again. Better to treat it like a person.
Gleador re-emerges as an Elf and reunites with Lucia. They go to the bard stage to check on Dandelion and find that when he started his performance, the tried to sing but could only croak like a frog. He’s not dead, but he’s humiliated and unable to perform. The back up bard is and Elf named Bill Shook. He uses Elven metaphors and references that don’t translate into Common well, so Gleador thinks he’s hilarious, but Lucia and most of the spectators are unimpressed.
There’s plenty of talk about the living statue that ruined the auction, and the gorilla that suddenly appeared and seemed to fight it. Was it a person who turned into a gorilla? To protect Gleador’s secret, Lucia starts a rumor about a an invisible, benevolent gorilla, who appears when people are in danger. Her fantastic story gains her more listeners than poor Bill Shook.
Our heroes are out late at night, helping Daniel, an enthusiastic villager, search for a strange beast that appeared during a fight between Lucia, our Paladin, and a ruffian named Opal. Daniel doesn’t know that the beast is right beside him, because Gleador, our Druid, is keeping his shape-shifting a secret. It’s complicated. Read the previous session for all the details.
Daniel is wearing a robe and slippers, with a poker in one hand and a torch in the other. He peers down alleyways, prods piles of trash with his poker, and tells the sleepy villagers that he awakens that there’s a strange beast on the loose! After about 15 minutes, Lucia and Gleador convince him that the beast is long gone, so they leave him and return to the Glazers’ house, where they are staying for the duration of the festival. Once they are alone in their room, Lucia holds Gleador’s injured hand aloft, says a prayer, and the pain of his dagger wound is replaced by a feeling of peace. They rest for the night.
Lucia has enough experience to level up, and she becomes a Cleric of the goddess of the Sapphire Islands. She can now cast low-level Cleric spells.
The Glazers prepare a lovely holiday breakfast. All the dishes, glasses, and mugs are beautiful multi-colored glass, because the Glazers are glass-blowers. They tell their guests about the day’s activities: the market is open, with goods from all over the region; there’s a stage for bards & other performers; in the afternoon, there’s an auction for especially valuable items. Our heroes accompany the Glazers to the market, where the Glazers have a stand to sell their glassware. Our heroes act like they are going to wander the market for a bit. They buy some fair food: fried dough & corn on the cob with mayo. Lucia starts to feed her share to the stray dogs, but bystanders scold her.
A map of the town of Fairmeadow, including the bathhouse and the Poirot home.
Our heroes duck out to find the pickpocket’s house. (Last night, they had some dogs follow the pickpocket’s scent, and got directions to it.) They recognize the house by the token over the door, even though the dogs described it in shades of grey and our heroes can see color. It’s a nice, upper class house: no shop attached, a yard with stalls for horses in the back. Rich people live here. The streets are bustling with fair-goers so they are able to circle the house a few times without drawing attention. Gleador wants to infiltrate the house and turns into a tropical hornet when he thinks no-one is looking. A kid notices and tugs on his mom’s sleeve.
Child: “Mommy, mommy! That man just disappeared!”
The mom looks where the child is pointing and only sees Lucia.
Mom: “That’s not a man. She just wearing armor.”
The mom thinks this might be a teachable moment, so she comes over so the kid can ask about Lucia’s armor. Lucia would like to be left alone, so in addition to explaining the parts of her armor, she talks about dangerous quests and violent battles. The mother looks uncomfortable. Maybe the child shouldn’t be hearing this.
Gleador flies into the open kitchen window. A servant comes in through the door to the dining room carrying three plates full of food. He grumbles that the guests left suddenly and no one told him until he had already made extra breakfast. Gleador wants to get into the dining room, but the door is shut. A young man in expensive clothing pops his head in the door to complain about something trivial: his pancake ripped or something. Gleador buzzes past him to get into the dining room. The young man squeals and flails ineffectually as Gleador passes. Gleador sees a table set for five. There’s an old woman at the head of the table, the young man yelling for help and looking something to swat him, and the three absent guests. Gleador leaves the dining room by another way and finds a way out of the house. The young man gets braver once the scary insect is gone and starts bragging to his mother about how he drove the awful creature away.
Gleador flies back to Lucia, who is still telling scary stories to the curious child. Gleador flies behind the mother & child to transform back unnoticed, but they turn to leave just as he does so! Lucia claims that Gleador can turn invisible. The mother hurries her child away from these strange, dangerous adventurers.
Our heroes watch her go and see a pole with a little flag on it coming through the crowd towards them. As it approaches, they see the halfing that is carrying the pole. He uses the flag so people know that he’s there. He’s the Sheriff of this town, named Pepe. He heard that Lucia drove off the strange beast last night. Because of the attack, Pepe’s instituted a curfew tonight, and he’s collecting able-bodied deputies to search for the creature. Pepe’s working hard to ensure the safety of everyone at the fair! Since Lucia has fought the beast already, and her friend can apparently turn invisible, he asks them both to meet him at town hall at sundown and join the deputies. They agree.
Lucia wants more information about the house. For all she knows, this rich old lady is the ringleader of a band of thieves! She waits for the servant to leave the house, looking for a chance to talk with him. About an hour later, he leaves through the back door with a basket under his arm, heading for the market. Lucia follows and tries to bump into him. She underestimates her strength and sends the servant stumbling and knocks his basket to the ground. He recovers and notices his coin purse is gone! Oh, it fell under the basket. Everything is fine. Gleador approaches, complains about Lucia’s clumsiness, and offers to share some pipe-leaf with the servant. He happily agrees.
His name is William and he serves Lady Poirot and her son Master Thierry. Three guests (matching the descriptions of the pickpocket and the two ruffians) came in yesterday on a metal cart pulled by a pony. They kept to themselves. He brought in their things and served them some food, then they went out. When he got up today and made breakfast, the guests had already left, and no one told him. Very frustrating! Our heroes commiserate with William and send him on his way.
Our heroes wonder how to gather more information. They could have the stray dogs follow the scent on Opal’s cloak, or investigate the strange cart. They return to the Poirot house. There’s a shed divided into three stalls in the back yard. There’s a horse in one stall. The guests’ pony and the cart were probably stored in the other stalls. Lucia promises to cure the dogs’ fleas if they sniff out Opal’s scent. The scent leads to the stalls, but the horse won’t let the dogs approach. Gleador goes to speak to the horse and asks about the pony. The horse says that the pony and three humanoids got into the cart and the cart left. The pony was inside the cart, not pulling it! Weirdest thing! Some of the humanoids may have been dwarves or juvenile humans. The horse has trouble telling the difference. Gleador thanks the horse for its help and gives it the corn on the cob with mayo they bought earlier. Cart tracks indicate that the self-propelled cart left town going south.
Lucia lays hands on the dogs to cure their fleas as promised, but transfers the fleas to herself instead! How embarrassing and annoying. How can she get rid of them? The bath house won’t admit someone with fleas, and the river is miles away. Samantha the witch knows potions and remedies. Maybe she can help. They return to The Brace of Pigs where they last saw her. Lucia has to wait outside while Gleador goes in to inquire. Samantha’s probably in the market, but so is everyone else. They don’t find her, but they do find a shop selling anti-flea oil. The shop-keeper wants 3 bundles of Gleador’s pipe-leaf for the flea oil, but Gleador talks him down to two bundles, and they share some now.
They go into the shop-keepers tent. Lucia removes her armor and covers herself in the flea oil. The shop-keeper gives Gleador the pipe and tries to light it for him. The flint sends sparks toward Lucia, who is covered in flammable oil! She dodges, but drops the vial of oil, which catches fire . . . on the grass . . . inside the cloth tent . . . in the middle of the crowded market! Lucia backs away from the flames and tosses a canteen to Gleador. Gleador tries to remember if it’s OK to pour water on an oil fire. It seems good to him, but he’s wrong! He pours the water on the water and it splatters out further, setting one side of the tent on fire and sending flames towards a cabinet full of other potions! Lucia tosses Gleador a container of milk. Maybe that will work. Gleador realizes that milk is mostly water and will have the same effect, so he doesn’t pour it out. The shop-keeper drags his cabinet out of the tent and flees, yelling about the fire. Now that they are alone, Gleador is free to transform into an earth elemental and smother the fire, but he fails and belly-flops onto the fire as a normal, flammable Elf! He already stopped and dropped, so he rolls to put the fire out. He’s not on fire anymore, and neither is the grass. The tent still burning. Lucia throws over a rug, which Gleador uses to smother most of the fire. The remaining fire on the tent is just burning fabric, not oil, so Gleador douses it with the milk. The market is saved! Our heroes breathe a sigh of relief before the bucket brigade arrives and soaks them & everything in the tent!
Lucia goes to the bath house to wash off the flea oil. It did work. She’s cured of fleas. Gleador goes back to the Glazers’ house to rest and level up.
My players enjoyed the first session so much they asked me to come back and continue the adventure. Since Fairmeadow Fair is usually a one-shot, we didn’t talk about character backgrounds, and I didn’t build the world much past the town and the surrounding fields. We spent the first part of the session brainstorming about those things.
Gleador is from the Sapphire Islands and was exiled for showing Lucia a secret ritual. This means that the Sapphire Islands have an organization of Druids that have secret rituals and can exile people. The Sapphire Islands are in the south and are more tropical than the plains and forests surrounding Fairmeadow. Lucia & Gleador are heading north through this region to reach the Great Forest, home of the Elves, where Gleador hopes he can somehow redeem himself. The central plains are a loose group of city-states with nominal allegiance to a central government that isn’t relevant to most people daily lives. Each city-state sends a representative to high council, which elects a leader. The current leader of the council is a queen. We will fill in the details of Gleador’s exile, the ritual, and what he must do to be restored at a later time, as they become relevant.
Lucia attended a Paladin Academy, so there must be a number of Paladins out there, enough to sustain a school. Gleador owes Lucia some sort of debt.
Gleador: Why would I owe you a debt?
Lucia: Because I’m so cool.
When we last left our heroes, they just returned to The Brace Of Pigs tavern with the special festival wine, and everyone in the crowded tavern is celebrating. Every room in The Brace of Pigs was reserved long before the festival, but a couple is willing find other accommodations and let Gleador and Lucia have their room as a gift for saving the day. Fairmeadow has a tradition of hospitality, where people open their homes to travelers, especially during the fair when the two inns can’t contain all the visitors. Guests are given a sturdy token, big enough to fit in own hand, with a unique shape, pattern, or image on it. This token matches a placard set over the door of the house, so they can recognize the place they are staying. Bill Glazer offers his token to our heroes. He’s a glassblower & lives with his parents, Fred & Eliza. Their token is beautiful multi-colored glass in a metal frame. Our heroes choose to stay with the Glazers and let the other couple keep their room.
The tavern is bustling, because it’s the supper rush the night before the festival begins. Gleador looks around to see what’s happening. Ferdinand is excited to be accepted instead of an outcast. He’s had a few drinks and is arm-wrestling all comers. He’s pretty strong in elf form, so he’s winning for now, but he’s not so good at self-control and may “hulk out” if he faces stiff competition. There’s a table in the back where a bard (a regional celebrity) is holding forth, telling stories to the delight of his entourage and fans. Bards are entertaining and also bring stories from far-off places. There’s also a kid wandering from table to table, apparently not with anyone. As he passes our heroes’ table, Gleador notices that his coin purse is missing!
Gleador alerts Lucia to the theft. Lucia keeps her purse inside her armor, so she’s fine. She grabs for the kid but only gets his cloak, which drops to the floor with a heavy jingle of many coin purses. Gleador leaps over the table, tackles the kid, and knocks the barstool out from under a large man at the bar. Lucia takes the cloak to Hobert the barkeep and asks him to return the purses, since he knows everyone. Gleador is trying to keep a hold of the kid and calm the drunk man he knocked over, but it’s not going well. Lucia comes over and tries to take the kid from Gleador. As they scramble and claw at each other, the kid’s hand lands on the hilt of Lucia’s sword! She can secure the kid or her sword, not both. She has a plan, so she secures her sword and lets the kid escape. He runs out the door past Gleador, who has managed to knock the drunk man over a second time. Gleador plays the bar-fight trump card and yells, “A round for everyone, barkeep!” The drunk man is won over by Gleador’s generosity.
People come up to order drinks are are surprised to receive their coin purses as well! Lucia retrieves thief’s cloak from Hobert and gives it to Gleador so he can tell the local dogs to track the thief by scent. The two dogs (Ralphie and Jollifer) agree, but demand Lucia’s drink. She get a drink just like everyone else, but her vow of temperance means she’s not allowed to drink it. She complies, but doesn’t like the reminder of the fun she’s not allowed to have.
A lackey from the Bard’s table gets a whole tray of drinks for the Bard and his entourage. The Bard orders a fancy, expensive drink, and when it arrives, he salutes Gleador with it (like Leo in Great Gatsby). Gleador comes over and introduces himself. The Bard’s name is Dandelion, and he brags about himself. Gleador motions for Lucia to come over and use her Charisma on him. Lucia’s not sure what he’s implying. Paladins from Lucia’s academy are not barrred from romance, but she herself is single. Instead of flirting she is a charming conversationalist and impresses Dandelion with her wide travels. Of course he turns the conversation back to himself and his travels.
Samantha (the witch whose herbs were stolen to make Hobert’s wine) sees Lucia chatting with Dandelion and pulls her aside. Samantha warns her to avoid Dandelion, as one of Samantha’s recent customers had some nasty things to say about him. (Samantha sells potions, herbs, and components useful for magic and alchemy, so Hobert’s theft was especially unnecessary.) Lucia wants more details, but Samantha hesitates, because her customers trust her to keep their secrets. She draws a magical seal on her palm, thumb & index finger. If Lucia will shake her hand and accept a spell of secrecy, she will tell her what she knows. Lucia doesn’t know the consequences for breaking this unfamiliar spell, so she declines, saying she’ll respect Samantha’s professional courtesy.
Bill Glazer has definitely had enough, so Gleador and Lucia leave the Brace of Pigs to walk home with him. It’s nighttime now. The dogs return with a report on the thief’s trail. Gleador steps away so he can talk to the dogs without letting Bill know his secret. The dogs give directions to the house the thief entered, and describe the black, grey, and light grey symbol over the door. Gleador asks them to stake out the house overnight, but the dogs decline. Too much work. Not enough food.
A map of the town of Fairmeadow, showing our heroes’ home for the weekend, and the site of the confrontation.
Lucia and Bill continue to walk along, but two hooded figures emerge from the shadows ahead and block their path. “You’ve cost us a lot of money! We want it back!” says the shorter figure. Lucia says she doesn’t have the money, and that Bill is not involved. The ruffians have a specific grudge against our heroes and aren’t ruthless leave-no-witnesses mercenaries, so they give Bill a shove and tell him to get lost. Lucia draws her sword and shouts “Let me pass” in her most commanding Paladin voice. One ruffian is shaken by her command and freezes, but the other (a Dwarven woman) leaps at Lucia with a club. She tries to knock Lucia’s sword aside and tackle her, but Lucia stands firm and the sword blade jams into the gnarled club, locking the weapons together. Lucia tries to disarm the ruffian but ends up flinging both their weapons away. Gleador hears the commotion and turns into a panther. The second ruffian, already shaken, hears a rumbling growl and sees green retinas flash in the darkness. She yells, “I’m sorry, Opal!” and flees. Opal, the Dwarven woman engaged with Lucia, attempts to throw her cloak over Lucia’s face to get an opening for escape. Lucia catches the whirling cape and moves with it. The combatants switch places and the cloak flutters to the ground beside them. Lucia is now between Opal and her fleeing comrade, but Opal is closer to the weapons on the ground. As the two wonder how to react to this new situation, Gleador pounces from the shadows, knocking Opal flat!
It’s surprisingly difficult to knock a Dwarf over, but panthers are very strong. Gleador is on top of her, big paws on her chest, claws extended just enough to touch her leather tunic. Opal has never seen a panther before, so she does not recognize the invitation to surrender. She panics, screams, and draws the dagger at her belt. Gleador moves one paw back to swat the dagger out of her hand before it finds his belly. The dagger goes flying, but both of their arms are now bleeding. The commotion has rousee people in the surrounding houses. Candles are lit and heads pop out of upper windows. Lucia retrieves her sword and points it at Gleador, “Back! Back, foul beast!” she says. Gleador understands her implication and vanishes into the shadows. The general populace doesn’t need to know that the Paladin is friends with monsters. Two neighbors come out of their homes. Lucia “helps” Opal up and keeps a tight grip on her arm. One neighbor wants to pursue the beast with his improvised weapon. Another is ready to care for any injuries. Lucia tells the neighbors that she should take Opal home and make sure she’s alright. Opal does not want to be alone in Lucia’s power, but can’t openly resist lest it be revealed that she attacked Lucia. Gleador returns as an Elf, yelling about a strange beast that ran past him. His arm is still bleeding where Opal’s dagger caught him, so he keeps that arm under his cloak. Everyone is talking over each other about what to do and our heroes end up on the wrong side of the consensus. The armed neighbor is hustling Lucia and Gleador off to chase the dangerous beast, while the kindly neighbor is taking Opal inside to tend bandage her claw wound. Insisting would be suspicious, but our heroes are clever and subtle. Gleador says, “Get your cloak, Lucia, and let’s go” Lucia picks up Opal’s cloak, so they now have her scent. They follow the armed neighbor on his futile search for the strange beast.
We ran out of time and had to stop there. As a GM, I am very proud of my players for creating and managing such complex social situations. The last scene, with everyone hiding their intentions and relationships and choosing words that meant different things to different people, was so tense and so fun! I’d be proud of that if I wrote it in a story, and they improvised it. I am eager to see what they come up with in our next session.
Fairmeadow Fair is a scenario that I use to introduce people to tabletop role-playing games. My goal is to provide a wide range of activities so players can engage with the things that interest them: parties, conspiracies, thefts, fights. I don’t want people’s first introduction to role-playing games to be a fight to the death against implacable foes. I’ve run this scenario for several groups, but this group asked me to return and make the one-shot into a campaign.
Our heroes are Lucia, a risk-averse female human Paladin, and Gleador, an impulsive & creative male elf Druid. They are headed to the town of Fairmeadow for the famous Fairmeadow Fair, which attracts people from all across the region. There will be good food, entertainment, new people, and plenty of excitement. I show them a sketch of the city, with major landmarks like the main roads, fairgrounds, town halls, and both inns. Gleador wants to check the perimeter, so they go clockwise, right past the Brace of Pigs inn.
A map of the city of Fairmeadow
There’s a commotion at the Brace of Pigs and an Elf wearing a big backpack bursts out of the back door and runs out into the fields, away from town. Jimmy, son of the innkeeper, gives chase with a broom, yelling, “Stop, thief!” Our heroes try to stop the Elf with the backpack, but he turns into a bull and plows past them! Gleador is a thing-talker, so he can shape-shift into things of the earth as well as animals. He attempts to turn into wheat and entangle the bull, but he fails and ends up buried to the neck in dirt. Lucia grabs a rope from her adventuring gear & attempts to lasso the bull, but is tangled in the rope and falls over. Jimmy & his father Hobert catch up & extricate our heroes.
Lucia feels she must redeem herself from this embarrassing failure by capturing the bull. Hobert explains that the man pushed his way into the inn’s storeroom and stole his special wine. The inn has a tavern in the front, a kitchen & storeroom in the back (that’s where the bull-elf exited) and rooms for rent upstairs. Each year at the start of the Fairmeadow Fair, the Brace of Pigs Inn serves this special wine, and at the end of the fair, they bottle the next year’s batch. It’s a point of pride for the inn and a tradition for the fair, so Hobert is very upset!
Gleador excuses himself (he doesn’t want everyone to know he’s a shape-shifting Druid) and turns into a crow. He mobilizes the crows in town to fly out over the fields and look for the bull elf. They can cover a lot of area, but will take a few hours to search.
Lucia swears herself to a quest: she will recover recover the wine! Her god grants her immunity to piercing weapons and senses that pierce lies but in return, she must demonstrate temperance. Even if the wine is recovered before the fair is over, she cannot eat any fair food or drink any alcohol (including the wine she’s trying to recover!) Since the bull-elf knew exactly where to get the wine, Lucia suspects an accomplice, so she starts questioning people in the tavern. It’s crowded, since even people who aren’t staying here have come for lunch. She overhears a woman excuse herself & leave the tavern & knows that her excuse was a lie: she wanted to avoid Lucia & her questions. Lucia follows her.
The woman heads to the busy marketplace, but is unable to lose Lucia in the crowd. Lucia asks her if she knows the thief. The woman denies it, but Lucia knows she’s lying, so she grabs the woman. The woman makes a scene, yelling at Lucia & slapping her across the face. Lucia is forced to back off by angry onlookers, but later corners the woman in a more private place. Gleador has turned into a dog & recruited other stray dogs in town by promising that Lucia will give them all her fair food this weekend. The dogs form a perimeter around the strange woman, but she turns invisible and runs off!
GM: Wait, you still have that boon that pierces illusions, so you can still see her.
Lucia: Yup. I act surprised, then follow her.
The crows report that the bull is in a swamp some miles to the east, and that’s where the strange (and apparently magical) woman is heading. At the edge of the swamp, the stray dogs balk. The swamp seems unnatural and they are scared of it. Gleador sends them back to town to guard the inn and report any strange scents. He attaches a note to one of the dogs explaining that he and Lucia are on the trail of the thieves and to please give these dogs some scraps.
This delay has let the woman get far ahead, so Lucia has to follow her tracks through the swamp instead of just watching her walk across the fields. Lucia’s not very good at that & blunders into some quicksand. Gleador turns into a tree with an overhanging branch so Lucia can pull herself out. As they are struggling to get free, the woman appears, having heard the commotion.
Gleador: I continue accessing the situation as a tree.
The woman fires a lightning bolt at Lucia, which misses, but hits Gleador, setting his branches on fire. Lucia grabs a burning branch and wields it against the woman, who meets her with a dagger.
Gleador: I think I attack her at this point.
Gleador turns into quicksand to overwhelm the mysterious spellcaster. The flaming tree bends and pours over her, the flames going out as the branches turn into sand. The sand engulfs her, knocking her over, and reforming into Gleador’s Elf form pinning her in a submission hold. She knows she’s beaten, so she stops resisting physically, but yells and curses the town and our heroes. “It’s not enough that you pillage my crops and claim them as your own, but now you invade my home and attack me!” Our heroes thought that she and the bull elf were the ones doing the pillaging, so they ask for clarification. It turns out that the secret ingredient in Hobert’s special wine is a rare herb that Samantha (that’s the witch’s name) grows here in the swamp. Hobert has been sneaking in and tearing out the herb, and Samantha stole his wine back as revenge.
Lucia is moved by their plight. Lucia & Gleador bring the wine, Samantha, and Ferdinand (that’s the bull elf) back to the inn. They return the wine to Hobert in the tavern, in front of all his customers, and give Samantha and Ferdinand credit for the wine’s unique taste. The customers cheer Samantha and Ferdinand because they love the wine. Hobert can’t say anything against Samantha & Ferdinand lest his wrongdoing be revealed. But he’s got his wine back and the yearly tradition can proceed, so he’s happy too. Everyone’s happy, except Lucia, who was rewarded with a bottle of excellent wine which she isn’t allowed to drink.
