Previously...
After a few more deaths, the discovery of Kuto’s Well, and two very unpleasant encounters with a man named Norris the Gray, the party finally managed to clear the Slums. Better yet, Aldren and Merrick reached level 3, Lucian reached level 2 and learned Magic Missile, and the four of them finally started sharing their ridiculous piles of money.
The City Council also had another job waiting for them. Somewhere in Podal Plaza, Phlan’s enemies were preparing to auction off a mysterious weapon of great power.
The party’s job was simple: sneak in, find out what the weapon was, and report back.
Yup. Simple.
With the party now a bit stronger and better equipped—especially now that Lucian could fire magical missiles instead of throwing tiny darts at people—they decided to head back into the areas west of Kuto’s Well.
Once they arrived, however, they noticed that the plaza ahead was absolutely crowded with monsters.
“Well,” Lucian said, looking out over the goblins, hobgoblins, ogres, and assorted other unpleasant creatures filling the streets, “I suppose that solves the question of what this particular area is called, doesn’t it?”
Merrick scratched his head. “I don’t get it. Just a few hours ago this place was as empty as Mara’s side of the bed. Now look at it!”
Mara pretended not to notice. Or she didn’t care. Either way, she didn’t respond.
“So,” Aldren asked, “any ideas on how we approach this?”
Well, as it so happened, the game gave me three very specific choices and, therefore, another wonderful opportunity to let a 1d4 determine just what the fuck was going to happen.
A roll of 1 meant the party would disguise themselves as monsters. This was Aldren’s idea and nobody else was particularly excited about it. Plus, nobody could even begin to fathom how that would work. A 2 meant the party would just roll the fuck in with little regard for stealth, common sense, or continued existence. Or, as it was better known, Mara’s Plan A.
A roll of 3 or 4 meant the party would try to sneak in and remain unseen. Both Lucian and Merrick were considerably more interested in this approach, as it meant less chance of being stabbed in the neck.
I rolled a 4. We were sneaking in.
“Alright, everyone keep quiet. Let’s get as close as we can and see just what the fuck is going on,” Merrick whispered, crouching down a little lower as the party started forward.
Mara looked at him. “I can still see you, you know.”
“Fuck off.”
The party crept forward and, somehow, it worked. They slipped past a group of hobgoblins, then a group of goblins, followed by not one but two groups of ogres without being noticed.
Finally, they reached the center of the plaza where an auctioneer stood before the crowd doing what auctioneers generally do. Auctioning.
“Creatures of all ages!” he shouted. “Welcome to this auction for an item both magical and powerful!”
Lucian studied the object from a distance. “That’s either a wand or a magical staff.”
Merrick leaned toward him. “Worth anything?”
Lucian glanced at him.
“What? I’m just curious.”
Then the game gave me another choice. Nobody was ready to leave after sneaking this far into the plaza, so that option was immediately off the table.
A roll of 1 meant moving closer, which Merrick loved. A 2 meant listening to comments from the crowd, which Lucian preferred. And a 3 or 4 meant standing exactly where we were and listening, which Aldren and, surprisingly enough, Mara preferred.
I rolled a 4. So we stood and listened. The bidding quickly escalated until a man in plain clothes standing beside a rather large ogre offered 5,000 gold pieces.
Five thousand. We did not have five thousand gold pieces. Not. Even. Fucking. Close.
With no way to compete with that kind of money—and no real desire to start a fight in the middle of a plaza filled with hundreds of monsters—the party had little choice but to see how things played out.
No surprise, the man beside the ogre won. He collected his prize and disappeared into the crowd. Soon afterward, the auction ended and the monsters slowly began clearing out of the plaza.
“Well, that was fucking stupid,” Merrick said.
“We did exactly what we were asked to do,” Aldren replied. “The town clerk did not tell us to intervene. We were supposed to watch the auction and report back.”
“Lame.”
“For once, I agree with Aldren,” Mara said. “If we had tried anything, they would have killed us and had their sick ways with our corpses.”
For just a second, Aldren thought he saw Mara grin. He shuddered.
“So what!” Merrick shouted. “We can’t die, remember!”
Lucian’s expression changed. “That might not always be the case. We still have no idea what we’re dealing with or what kind of magic is involved.”
Merrick didn’t have much of an answer for that one.
Aldren unfolded the map. “Look, let’s get the rest of this area mapped and then head back to town to claim our reward. Sound good?”
Thankfully, everyone agreed. The party continued exploring Podal Plaza until they eventually discovered a door with a sign hanging above it:
THE PITT
“Well,” Merrick said, staring at the sign. “That looks inviting. Anybody for a drink?”
Naturally, they went inside. The Pitt was packed. Monsters, mercenaries, and assorted other questionable-looking characters filled the room while copious amounts of alcohol flowed across the tables.
The party made it approximately five steps before running smack dab into a very drunken buccaneer. He stumbled backward, stared at them, and immediately became pissed.
“One of you will pay for this insult. Who will it be?”
Yup. Of course that happened.
Mara and Merrick wanted nothing more than to kill the asshat right then and there, while Aldren preferred the slightly more chivalrous approach of challenging him to a one-on-one duel. Lucian didn’t seem to give a shit either way. He was too busy eyeing up one of the barely dressed bartenders.
Fucking Lucian. Anyways, this called for a roll!
Since Lucian didn’t care, Aldren really only had one chance to get what he wanted. A 1 meant we challenged the dude to a duel. A 2, 3, or 4 meant a full-out attack.
I rolled a 2. The party attacked.
This was a very unwise decision. Attacking a drunken buccaneer in the middle of a tavern packed with monsters thoroughly provoked nearly everyone in the bar. Within seconds, every creature in The Pitt wanted us dead.
And, as it would happen, they succeeded. In making the party dead. All four of them.
Moments later...
the drunken buccaneer stumbled backward and glared at the party.
“One of you will pay for this insult. Who will it be?”
Merrick slowly leaned toward Aldren and nudged him. “Pssst. Aldren.”
Aldren glanced over.
“Maybe we try it your way.”
Aldren stepped forward and placed a hand on his broadsword. “Stand aside, friends! I’ll take care of this!”
“Aldren, don’t you think Lucian should—” Mara started.
Too late.
Aldren charged directly at the very angry and mostly shirtless buccaneer. Fortunately for Aldren, things went considerably better this time. After a brief but surprisingly brutal fight, he landed the killing blow and sent the buccaneer crashing to the floor.
Aldren stood over the corpse, completely out of breath, the most ludicrous grin plastered across his face.
“I did it!”
Mara glanced down at the body. “You know, Lucian could have probably just cast Sleep on that asshole and then stabbed him to death. But I guess that would have been too easy, or something.”
She yawned.
“But... I did it?” Aldren repeated.
“Meh. No one cares,” Merrick said as he began searching the corpse.
Aldren lost his smile.
The rest of the tavern seemed to share Merrick’s opinion. Within moments, everyone had gone back to drinking as if some asshole hadn’t just been killed in the middle of the room.
Aldren did score a long sword and a suit of chain mail off the buccaneer’s body, so at least his heroic victory wasn’t completely pointless. Then came another decision.
A roll of 1 meant mixing with the monsters. Lucian thought this might make for some sort of wonderful social experiment or some shit. A 2 meant taking our leave, which Aldren was very much in favor of now that he had fought a shirtless pirate and received absolutely no praise for it. A 3 or 4 meant drinking heavily.
Mara and Merrick liked that one. Nobody wanted to attack the full bar. Everyone had already seen what happens when you do something dumb like that. Anyways, I rolled a 3. Drink heavily it was!
And just like that, everybody drank. And drank. And drank some more. Clothes came off. Songs were sung. It was glorious!
Some time later, Aldren slowly opened his eyes and discovered he was lying face-down in the alley behind The Pitt in a rather questionable puddle. Lucian was slumped against a wall holding his head, Mara was sprawled across the ground beside him, and Merrick was frantically digging through his pockets.
“My head hurts,” Aldren groaned.
Lucian rubbed his temples. “That would be the alcohol.”
“No shit,” Mara muttered without opening her eyes.
Merrick checked another pouch. Then another.
“Um.”
Nobody responded.
He checked them all again. “We’ve been robbed.”
That got everyone’s attention. Every coin they had been carrying was gone. All of it.
Mara slowly sat up. “I’m going to kill someone.”
“Who?” Aldren asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
Lucian sighed. “Perhaps we should return to New Phlan before we make this situation any worse.”
Merrick stared into his empty money pouch. “I need a drink.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What?”
Unfortunately, with no money and it being the middle of the fucking night, the party had no way to pay for a hostel. Their only real option was to head back into the cleared Slums and camp until morning.
Nothing says successful adventuring like getting blackout drunk in a monster bar, waking up penniless in an alley, and then sleeping in the filth and ruins because you can no longer afford a room.
The next morning, they returned to New Phlan and reported everything they had witnessed at the auction. For their efforts, the party earned around 300 experience points and split 250 gold and 200 platinum.
Well, at least they could rent a room again.
As they were leaving City Hall, the council clerk—whose fucking name I still don’t know—explained that Junior Councilman Cadorna had a special commission for them. Yippee.
“When old Phlan was overrun, a family treasure was hidden in the western building of the textile complex,” Cadorna explained. “The man we sent to retrieve it never returned. The complex lies south of Podal Plaza. Bring the treasure to me and you will be rewarded.”
The party agreed, mostly because the Council had been consistently paying pretty damn well.
Before heading out again, they stopped at the arms shop and discovered that some of the equipment taken from the buccaneer’s corpse at The Pitt was magical. Score.
Aldren sold all of it and split the money with everyone. Spirits immediately improved. The party also stopped at the training hall, where Mara finally advanced to level 3.
Afterward, with Cadorna’s new commission waiting for them south of Podal Plaza, the party did just what came naturally to them. They went somewhere else.
Technically, the Slums had already been cleared. I mean, the City Council said so. My map, however, still had blank squares on it. And I just couldn’t have that.
So back into the Slums they went. Dance, my little puppets, dance!
One of the first stops was that goddamn orc house we’d discovered earlier. This time the party went inside with one goal in mind: violence.
Well, Lucian had the skills to back such a goal up, since he could now cast two Sleep spells instead of one per battle. Thanks, Lucian.
Within moments, most of the room was unconscious and Aldren, Mara, and Merrick quickly decapitated, bludgeoned, and otherwise decimated whatever remained awake. More than 600 experience points. Not bad.
Mara also found a flail among the loot and examined it for a few moments.
“Hmmm.”
Merrick looked over. “What?”
“There’s something different about this.”
“Magical?”
“Maybe.”
She tucked it away.
“Say, where exactly did you put that? You don’t even have a backpack,” Merrick said with great interest.
Mara smiled. Merrick stopped asking questions. While resting after the battle, Mara discovered something considerably more important. Now that she had reached level 3, she could finally memorize spells from her second clerical circle.
Hello, Hold Person. Goodbye, free will! The party continued mapping until they reached a house in the upper northwestern section of the Slums. Merrick stopped suddenly and stared down at my map.
“Hmmm.”
Aldren turned around. “What is it?”
“It looks like there should be something where this wall is.”
Mara looked at the completely solid wall in front of him. “There is something there.”
Merrick frowned.
“A wall,” she added.
“Shut up and watch.”
Merrick stepped forward and walked straight through the fucking thing. Everyone stared. A moment later, Merrick’s head popped back through the wall.
“Found something.”
Lucian stepped closer and examined the stone. “An illusion. The wall merely appears to exist. What we are seeing is most likely some form of magical projection designed to—”
Mara walked straight through it.
“Magic wall. Got it.”
Behind the illusion was a nice cache of money, gems, and jewelry, along with a whopping 1,760 experience points for the party. Merrick looked very pleased with himself.
Great. Now he had even more reason to rub himself against every fucking wall in Phlan. The party pushed onward until they came across a group of goblins arguing over a pile of gold.
“Thieves!” one shouted.
Merrick looked offended. “Hey! ...I mean, you’re not wrong! But... hey!”
They attacked. Lucian cast Sleep. Twice. That pretty much settled the matter.
Within minutes, the goblins were dead, giving the party another 387 experience points and a small pile of treasure. Lucian noticed a ring sitting among the coins and picked it up, slowly turning it between his fingers.
“Interesting. We should get this identified as soon as we can.”
Merrick leaned over. “Why? What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how the fuck do you know it’s interesting?”
Lucian slipped it into his pack and continued walking.
Merrick eventually pulled out the map. “You know where we haven’t gone back yet?”
Everyone knew, of course. The old hemp market. More importantly, the orc guards who had repeatedly handed the party their collective asses the last time they were there.
Mara grinned. “Let’s do it.”
So the party marched directly back to the hemp market and attacked those fuckers head-on. This time, they were made dead. D. E. A. D.
No party wipe. No waking up moments before the battle. No arrow through Aldren’s brain stem. Just a bunch of dead orcs. Fuck yeah. America.
With the guards finally out of the way, the party investigated the small house they had been protecting and stumbled directly into a meeting of monster leaders. They annihilated every fucking one of them.
At this point, I wasn’t entirely sure what had happened to my party. A few days ago they were getting murdered by six giant problems and haggling themselves into an early grave at Ohlo’s house.
Now they were just cutting through monsters like it was no big thing.
That seemed like a perfectly good reason to gather everything they could carry and head back to New Phlan before the universe noticed.
At the training hall, Lucian finally accumulated enough experience to advance to level 3. That meant second-level Magic-User spells, and there was one in particular I had my eye on. Knock.
There were still several locked doors in the western ruins that Merrick couldn’t pick and Aldren couldn’t bash open. We had marked every single one of those fuckers on the map, and now Lucian could do something about them.
Merrick approved.
“So you can open any locked door now?”
“Within certain magical limitations, yes.”
Merrick smiled. “Lucy, you just became my favorite person.”
“Do not call me Lucy.”
Mara had accumulated enough experience to advance all the way to level 4. So did Merrick and Aldren. Finally, it was time to identify some of the magical items we had collected.
The mysterious ring Lucian found among the goblin treasure turned out to be a Ring of Protection +1. After a little discussion, the party decided to give it to Mara. Making the cleric responsible for keeping everyone alive slightly less squishy seemed like a reasonable investment.
Mara’s flail also turned out to be magical. A Flail +1. She smiled. That was probably bad news for everybody else in Phlan.
The Party So Far
For once, things were going pretty fucking well. Everyone had gained a few levels, we had some shiny new magical shit, and nobody had died in at least several minutes.
Aldren Kestyr — Level 4 Fighter
Mara Threl — Level 4 Cleric
and giving her the ability to magically paralyze people seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea."
>
Lucian Eldwych — Level 3 Magic-User
Merrick Sorne — Level 4 Thief
The party had a shit ton of gold, some shiny new magical equipment, a new commission from Cadorna, and only a handful of unexplored spaces left on the map.
For the first time in a while, they were riding pretty high.
Merrick unfolded the map. “So, we finish exploring the rest of the Slums?”
Aldren nodded. “Then Cadorna’s textile complex.”
Mara looked at the others. “And Norris?”
Nobody said anything for a moment. Lucian slowly closed his spellbook. Merrick grinned. Aldren sighed. Yeah. Norris the fucking Gray. We hadn’t forgotten about him. And sooner or later, we were going back.
Next Time On...
Junior Councilman Cadorna has a missing family treasure somewhere in the old textile complex, several stubborn locked doors are finally within reach, and there are still a few empty fucking squares on my map that need to be filled.
Oh, and Norris the Gray is still sitting beneath Kuto’s Well.
Fuck Norris.