Like a horde of ravening marmots, the players descend upon Bruce's (Longfellow Yost) house. Chris (Tonk Sangaree) leads the way, howling like a tattooed savage. Chuck (Marcus Sangaree) follows along, howling as well but in more of the intellectual tradition of the rabid Libertarian. Then Tim (Anpago Yost) hurls himself in through the window, screaming something about the aliens leaving the Moon and George Orr needing to dream them peaceful. Paul and Billy (Andrinor) walk in a couple of minutes later, curious as to why everyone is hiding under the table. Only Georgina (Gero) elects to avoid the chaos and the shouting.
Gero remains behind in the village of Redcliff. She says she's suffering the aftereffects of wyvern poisoning.
Longfellow spots some griffins sunning themselves on the rocks some distance away. There are at least four of the creatures. He whispers to the others, "Hey! What's not a wyvern but still has a thirty-foot wingspan? I see a griffin over there" Anpago looks over, sees the griffins, then responds, "So it's your counting skills that suffered after that last knock on the head? One-two-three-lotsandlots?"
Marcus comments, "Well, I think they'll see at least two of us." Tonk replies, "Is that why you shine my armor every morning? And hang liver snacks off my epaulettes?" He goes on to ask the others, "You think the townsfolk know about this? You obviously got through the wyverns, what happened to the wyverns?" Longfellow, "Yeah, but those townsfolk are all insane."
There follows a debate on what to do with the griffins, a debate not helped by Longfellow's considered opinion that griffins are herbivores native to the South American plain. Longfellow curses the luck that brought him to roll a "1". Tonk comments, "At least they're not omnivorous, like God."
Andrinor speculates, "I wonder if I can use Item on a griffin egg. We used to use that spell all the time in the service. We'd change lava flows into handkerchiefs and drop them on people..."
Andrinor and Anpago decide that they're going to fly in to steal eggs from the griffins. Andrinor manages to spot two eggs from 120 feet. He also sees three juveniles and is able to pin down that there are five females and one huge male. The male is at least four times the size of the others, measuring at least fifteen feet from beak to haunch.
One of the juveniles flaps up towards Anpago. Tonk mentions, "After all the others flew off to see the griffins, I started stringing my bow." The juvenile snaps at Anpago, but fails to hit him. Anpago flies back towards the group at top speed. Andrinor, who assures everyone, "Birds can't smell!" stays very quiet and hopes that they don't hear him. He watches as one of the females flies up to collect her young.
Longfellow objects to attacking griffins on the grounds that they're "beasts", which aren't "animals", but which are close. Besides, his Phylactery of Faithfulness says that it's a bad idea. Tonk grouses, "Tell us another way to bypass them!" Longfellow, "I'll create three big beetles with Giant Vermin and we'll use those as a diversion!"
The characters eventually decide that they're going to try and steal eggs anyway. Using the giant beetles as a distraction. Longfellow sighs and hangs his head. Marcus muses, "Gee, I never thought we'd be in a situation where we were going to be voluntarily kidnapping children!" Tonk reminds him, "Remember those gnolls!" Anpago chirps up, "But in that case we killed the parents too!"
Anpago Yost throws Confusion across half of the griffins. He proclaims, "The save DC is 22!" Longfellow mentions, "Those things only have a +4 Will bonus. This is going to be gruesome." Tonk grouses, "Hey, I've only got +3!" Longfellow boasts, "I have +9!" Tonk complains, "But I notice you never used your incredible Will to help me out at all on all those traumatic Halloweens..."
Tonk spurs his shaved riding goat forward and clears a staggering amount of the space between the group and the griffins. Longfellow is amazed, until he remembers that shaved riding goats are able to totally ignore mountain terrain penalties. Longfellow, still hoping to avoid some kind of griffin massacre, orders his three giant beetles to advance noisily through the underbrush and then summons a dire bat to fly off in another direction. Marcus, Anpago and Andrinor advance.
The big male griffin advances on Tonk. Tonk shivers out, "God, I hope that he's friendly." Marcus tells the others, "I should cast Silence on Tonk so we can't hear his screams." One of the females also advances on Tonk. Another goes for the dire bat. The others mill about and snap at each other. Everyone watches as the two griffins tear into Tonk. Vitals spray in all directions. Marcus mourns, "I should have cast Silence. That scream is going to be with me for a while."
Tonk goes on the serious defensive. He nicks the big griffon, then hangs back while Andrinor roars in to cast Stoneskin on his friend Tonk. Until Andrinor realizes that Stoneskin requires 250 gold worth of diamond dust to cast, diamond dust that he doesn't have. He rearranges his plans quickly to include a Lightning Bolt and some Magic Missiles. Anpago decides to copy his cousin and throws an Ice Orb. Actually, he throws a whole collection of them. The big griffin ends up seriously injured and blind.
Marcus lands an arrow in the haunch of the big one. His second shot goes wide. Tonk asks, incredulous, "How could you miss? It's the size of a barn!" Marcus bitterly explains, "But it's a barn that moves!"
Then the big griffin turns and snaps at Andrinor. Anpago figures that it must be homing in on the annoying buzzing noise. Andrinor gasps with pain as the creature claws his arms off.
Tonk, deeply appreciative of the power of defensive fighting, shrugs off the attacks of two females and then cuts one of them viciously. Andrinor backs off rather desperately and volleys Magic Missiles into the big male. The creature looks like it is on the verge of death. Marcus cheerfully announces, "Then I'm going to shoot at another one!" Anpago ignores his cousin and kills the big griffin with Magic Missiles.
Longfellow flies in, a Flame Blade alight, and heals Andrinor.
Unnoticed on stage right, Longfellow's summoned dire bat gets torn apart by three griffins. It lasted a lot longer than anyone except Longfellow had thought. Longfellow points out, "You realize that dire bats have Blindsight? And thirty hit points? I could use them against Anpago and Andrinor!"
The two female griffins move from attacking Tonk, who they've found to be too hard to hit, to attacking Marcus. Marcus whines, "I hate you, Tonk." Then he groans as they cut him open with front and rear claws. Tonk opines, "I'm so glad that our plan wasn't to pick a fight with the fuckin' griffins." He moves up and attacks the wounded female.
Andrinor notices that Marcus and Tonk are hard-pressed by the two female griffins. Or at least he thinks they are. He shoots a Lightning Bolt through the two griffins, and incidentally through Tonk and Marcus. Tonk avoids the spells, but Marcus doesn't. The griffins survive the Lightning Bolt too. Anpago starts throwing around Magic Missiles.
Longfellow heals Marcus, who draws his mighty +1 Rapier and makes a couple of off-balance attacks against the wounded griffin. Oddly enough, this is enough to kill it.
Andrinor flies in, summons three cloud squids from the Elemental Plane of Air, and orders them to carry off the two griffin eggs and the body of one juvenile griffin. Longfellow heals the juvenile griffin, who immediately turns to slaughtering the cloud squid. Anpago quickly uses Hold Monster on the creature to keep it still, then Charm Monster to make it friendly. Longfellow grouses that even though he's supposed to be the druid who is good with animals, it's the wizard who's doing all the animal control stuff. Anpago reminds him, "Mind Control. It's not just for humans, baby." Tonk comments, "Just think of him as like a druid, but without all of the weird moral problems you have. And by 'weird moral problems', I mean any moral problems."
The characters get away clean with their eggs. They hear the sharp crunching sounds of three giant beetles being eaten by hungry griffons in the background.
Andrinor comments, "Maybe the druid knows how long it will take to hatch out these eggs. Longfellow, why are you building a fire?" Longfellow (who looks truly remarkable with a bundle of twigs clutched in his beak and a flint in his claw) replies, "Because that's how you hatch griffin eggs!" Andrinor prods him, "You don't know anything about griffins, do you?" Longfellow, shamefacedly, admits "No..."
Longfellow's Animal Empathy skills seem to work better. After a day of Longfellow trying to make the griffin friendlier, it regards him as well as it regards Anpago. It seems to treat him as if he were a small griffin. The other characters start making plans to tie either a stuffed animal or a cat to Longfellow's butt to make the impression even better.
Two more days of travel follow. The characters leave the mountains and arrive on the road. They see a plume of smoke up ahead. The scout-like characters scout ahead to find a caravan, or what is left of it. Three wagons are on fire, two more are smashed. Everything has been looted. Bodies lie all around, and a few survivors are working to bury them.
The characters ride up. Anpago becomes visible to ask, "What happened to you?" Andrinor Polymorphs himself into human shape to allay their suspicions. Tonk urges him to do this out of sight, so he doesn't just appear out of nothing.
The caravan leader is Vorstan Railler; the characters notice that some of the wagons had Railler and Oersted painted on them. Marcus comments, "They're in competition with the Sangaree family, aren't they? Well, wagons are known to just... burst into flame all of a sudden. It'd be a pity if your dead were to raise up out of the ground and start eating your brains."
Tonk asks Vorstan Railler, "So, what happened?" The caravan leader replies, "We were attacked by goblins! Some of them were riding spiders! We were traveling when suddenly the entire caravan was enveloped in black smoke. Some people just fell over, sick. And then when we rode out, goblin archers and spider riders attacked us. And there was something that looked like a half-goblin, half-spider. It leapt from wagon to wagon, casting spells!"
Marcus asks, "What can we do to help?" Vorstan asks him, "Can you treat poison? One of the caravan owners defended her own wagon, and was badly bitten." Andrinor feeds her a potion of Neutralize Poison, then Longfellow casts Lesser Restoration on her. She ends up with STR 4, but is out of danger: she can move under her own power. That reminds the characters of the time when Tonk had only 4 STR thanks to the shadows. Tonk reflects, "Good times. Good times. Actually, I don't remember any of that at all." Marcus throws another Lesser Restoration on her.
The characters introduce themselves. "Awk! I'm Longfellow! I'm going to change to the shape of a baboon to shake your hand!" The weakened caravaneer is taken aback by this performance. Tonk mumbles something about carny folk. Marcus comments, "Hey, Longfellow! There's something wrong with your ass - it looks really inflamed..."
Tonk asks the caravan master, "Could you watch our untrained pet griffon while we go after the goblins?" Vorstan replies, "Well, the goblins just took all our money." Marcus exclaims, "Then we're definitely going after the goblins." The characters work out a deal: the merchants were carrying goods for Duke Morris' army, so they aren't making much of a margin. But they can afford to give the characters 500 gold.
The group tracks the goblin raiders. They follow them for some time before Longfellow spots a couple of well-hidden goblin sentries up in the trees. They are very well hidden, so he doesn't see them until they're within thirty feet. They see the group. Longfellow casts Faerie Fire on the goblins. They run. Tonk rides one down and kills him. Longfellow casts Charm Person or Animal on the other. Then the interrogation starts:
Longfellow leads Shagtaff off to an old trapper's lean-to, then tells his murderous friends where the other goblins are so they can go and murder them all. Anpago chirps up in delight, "Murderiffic!"
Anpago and Andrinor fly in towards the goblin encampment. They don't see anything. No spiders, no goblins, no encampment. They cast Detect Thoughts and start looking around. They eventually manage to detect a cluster of seventeen intelligences. Ten of them are highly intelligent, one is very high, two are average, and one is low.
The characters develop a plan: the pixies will create illusions of a group of armed wagoneers. The group will follow after the illusion and hope that the goblins spring their ambush on the illusion and not them. Everyone drinks a dose of antitoxin, just in case. Including Watches-Birds and Tonk's riding goat. Tonk becomes beneficiary of a Keen Edge and a Bull's Strength. Watches-Birds gets Bull's Strength from Andrinor. And Marcus covers the group with Silence.
Andrinor's illusion is of a half-dozen guys, including one really large guy.
The illusions get marched down through the teeth of the goblin ambush. They get enveloped in a stinking black cloud. And then they get filled full of arrows from the archers hidden up in the trees. Anpago notices that the archers have both concealment and cover.
Marcus sneaks over behind a tree so he isn't a media target. Tonk looks around nervously for paparazzi, but doesn't see any. And then Anpago casts Confusion at a cluster of spider knights. He watches a spider attack its own rider. He chortles, "I love this spell."
Three spider knights charge the illusions with lances. Andrinor lets them kill the guys they hit, except for the big guy. Tonk countercharges one spider knight with his shaved goat. He rides past the goblin, chopping him badly with his blade along the way.
Andrinor sends out an Iceball and eliminates two spider knights and their mounts. Tonk sniffs deeply and comments, "Ooh.. smells like peanut butter."
Longfellow summons up a dire bat and sends it to attack one of the goblin archers. Then Watches-Birds crashes into a goblin rider and hurts him badly. The goblin knight hurts him back. Marcus sneaks up and shoots the spider knight in the back, taking him out.
Spider knights crowd in on Tonk and Watches-Birds. Tonk takes a spider bite, but avoids the poison. Two spider knights charge, then ride past and wheel to charge again. Tonk steps up, slays the spider knight with his first swing then cuts off the spider's head and three legs with his back-swing. He is covered in spider ichor. He announces, "I made my own gravy!"
Something steps out at and attacks Anpago. It looks like a hideous cross of a goblin and a spider. It has twitching mandibles, segmented limbs, chitin armor, and white robes. And there isn't just one of them, there are four! Anpago moans, "I piss sugar water." Anpago takes a bite and a claw hit, but resists the poison. Anpago casts Haste, takes an attack of opportunity, flies straight up, and throws a Fireball directly underneath him. Harchiman seems completely unharmed, though Anpago almost accidentally takes out two goblin archers in the backblast.
Andrinor reasons that Magic Missile is the best way to whack Mirror Image effects. He sprays two Magic Missile spells. The first clears out the images. The second hits Harchiman, who ends up looking wounded.
Watches-Birds countercharges a spider knight, delivering a substantial hit to the spider. The dire bat kills an archer, then flies to flank Harchiman. Longfellow fires up a Flame Blade. Anpago groans.
Watches-Birds takes two poisoned arrows, and ignores the poison.
Marcus fires off a Hold Person at Harchiman and discovers that he does not actually count as a "humanoid." The spell has no effect.
Tonk and Watches-Birds take more hits from spider knights. The one attacking Watches-Birds cannot charge because it is trapped into melee. Tonk takes a charge, then rides into the knight and slaughters his spider. Tonk elegantly flicks the goo off his blade then turns to the disoriented spider knight.
Harchiman notices that Anpago is actually something like eighty feet up in the air. He points a spidery claw and commands, "Fall!" Tonk gasps in amazement, "That's the most devastating use of a Command spell I've ever seen!" Anpago plows into the ground. He rather weakly moans out, "It's okay everyone! I'm alright!" Anpago looks up and casts a Feeblemind at Harchiman. Harchiman ends up with INT 1. To finish things off, he fires off some Magic Missiles and flies sixty feet into the air.
Andrinor uses a combination of Ice Bolts and Magic Missiles to eliminate three goblin archers.
Longfellow flies in and tries to do a Flame Blade strike on a spider. He misses, thanks to the skills of the spider knight. Then Watches-Birds claws off the spider knight's arm and bites his throat clean out. The bear growls, "Embarrass my pet eagle, will you? Raarrgh!" Off on stage left, the dire bat kills Harchiman.
Marcus calls out, "I'll save you, Watches-Birds! Oh, and you too Longfellow!" He lands two arrows in the spider facing them. Watches-Birds yowls in disappointment.
Tonk and Marcus watch as two spider knights stab their own confused mounts as the creatures stumble around randomly. One actually manages to kill his spider.
Tonk ends an unmounted spider knight in a blinding display of swordsmanship and bloodlust.
Anpago looks around for living targets and sees only Confused archers and riders. He throws Magic Missiles at each of the five available targets. He kills the two archers, leaving the two riders and one spider alive but injured.
Andrinor follows in with two Ice Bolts. That kills the spider knight captain. And the spider. Leaving the one spider knight left, badly injured. Longfellow and his dire bat fly in, and fail to kill it. Marcus nocks an arrow and fires. The spider knight falls.
Marcus moves in and stabilizes the dying spider knight captain, hoping to save him for later.
The spider knight captain shows the characters where all the military supplies are, after Anpago hits him with Suggestion. Andrinor changes his illusion of dead guys into the illusion of a beautiful pool of water with fish. The goblins' gear amounts to:
Plus a lot of mundane equipment. The spider knights aren't carrying masterwork gear, leading Tonk to think that these probably weren't as high-ranking as the spider knights they fought before. Marcus isn't sure about the value of the pearl, but everyone who has ever used an Identify spell comments, "That looks like a standard 100 gold pearl that we use up with every Identify spell."
Anpago performs a mass Identify spree, thanks to the pearl the characters found. The yak folk's staff is a Staff of Charming (39 charges), probably the most common of the staffs. Anpago identifies the yak folk's wand through the expedient of firing it. Turns out it is a Wand of Magic Missile (44 charges, 1st level caster). The magical pearl is a Pearl of Power (2nd level). It allows anyone who must prepare a spell to retrieve an already-cast spell. Longfellow gets this one, because Anpago is getting the Staff of Charming. Longfellow thinks about finding a jeweler and having him turn it into a necklace. Other items (from both the yak folk and the goblins) include:
The two prisoners are given to the caravan with instructions to take them to Duke Morris as prisoners of war.
It takes four more days of travel to get back to Highthrone, where the characters sell almost all of the items above to Grynn's (50% in cash, or 65% in trade). The characters use 100 of the gold pieces to purchase another pearl so Anpago can finish Identifying items.
The magical loot plus the 5000 gold reward from the city of Highthrone gives each character 1680 gold in store credit and 914 gold in cash (NB that Gero is getting a share of this).
Andrinor figures out that griffin eggs are generally worth 3000 to 4000 gold to the Aerie Guard. He drinks one Potion of Charisma and heads off to sell them. He gets 3900 gold for each of them, which divides up to 1300 gold for each character. The untrained juvenile is worth about 7000 gold. Andrinor buys a Bridle of Griffin Training for 2500 gold to help train him. Andrinor has no Handle Animal skill, but Tonk (oddly) has a fairly high Handle Animal skill, and can do the training.
Back at the boarding house, the woman who runs the place says that a young woman with a baby has been coming around looking for Anpago. Tonk looks meaningfully at Anpago. The pixie explains, shamefacedly, "There was a girl in the village back when I was first level..." The characters hunt the girl down. She confirms Anpago's story and explains that she doesn't have the money to support the child. He takes her off for a quick shotgun wedding.
Tonk also ends up helping Longfellow to train Watches-Birds to wear studded leather armor. He spends 75 gold to buy three war dogs. Tonk spends most of his time training animals.
Longfellow buys a +2 Periapt of Wisdom for 4000 gold, then gives the Pearl of Power to Anpago. Anpago agrees to owe him the (approximately) 4000 gold the pearl is worth.
Each character gains 1620 experience points.