Tim (Anpago Yost) announces that today is going to be done "with bacon!" Bruce (Longfellow Yost) spends a lot of time telling the others about how a scanning tunneling microscope works. Chris (Tonk Sangaree) points out that Bruce is getting dangerously close to that terrible, terrible "desperate violence threshold." And then he says, "I like grapes!" Chuck (Marcus Sangaree) becomes frantic and chews his own skin off. Billy (Andrinor) watches this process, then comments, "I bet that'd be so much better with bacon!" Paul just shudders and curses the terrible fate that made him the only normal, stable person in this group.
The characters start the adventure back safe in Highthrone, loaded down with magical loot and eager to cause damage.
There is some debate over the subject of who gets to have Sir Melkin the Retribution Dagger in their pocket, as he already has a reputation for mind-controlling his bearers. Everyone agrees that Tonk Sangaree shouldn't be carrying it: he is well known to be meat for mind control spells. It turns out that Longfellow Yost and Anpago Yost tie for best Will save. Anpago wins the contest in spite of his pixie-like build because he also has hands.
The characters spend some money on magic pearls and Identify the magical objects they pulled off the dead goblin spider knights. They come up with:
Tonk takes the Cure Moderate Wounds potion on the basis that he takes a lot more damage than anyone else. Everything else gets boxed up and sent to Grynn's for 10,000 gold in cash (the staff at Grynn's were willing to provide 13,000 gold in store credit, but the characters had other ideas). The characters invest this money into some See Invisible items, as they've had some recent issues with hostile Invisible magicians.
Anpago Yost spends some time and money learning See Invisible and Permanency. Then he manufactures two See Invisible items, each usable 3 times per day for 30 minutes at a time. Each of these costs him 259 experience points and 3240 gold in expenses. The money comes out of the characters' 10,000 gold budget. Marcus Sangaree gets one of these, and Longfellow Yost gets the other.
Then Anpago takes a moment out to enthusiastically boast about his new spell, Cloudkill. He tells Longfellow, "You realize that this spell creates a cloud thirty feet in diameter and twenty feet high that moves at ten feet per round. Everything the cloud touches that has less than three hit dice just dies, no save! It'll take out grass, bushes, birds, squirrels, everything! I call it the Deforester!" Longfellow grumbles, "I hate you."
Marcus spends some quality time with his half-dragon girlfriend Marrique. He explains to the others that he needs to keep the group's carnie-folk reputation intact. He finds out that she's partial to uncooked eels and enjoys midnight swimming in the cold, clear waters of Pillar Lake. Marcus grimly resolves to develop a taste for these activities as well, though he hopes to convince her that it isn't a sign of disrespect to her if he cooks his eels before slurping them down.
Marcus Sangaree takes an afternoon to cast Speak With Dead to find out if Tonk's dead girlfriend Sister Chiron wants to be called back to life. Turns out she doesn't really want to come back: she's hooked up with her old, dead boyfriend again. Tonk reacts with appropriate solemnity: he heads out to Liera's brothel and has a bit of fun. He emerges several hours later and 100 gold pieces poorer.
Marcus observes Tonk's rumpled appearance and grumbles, "Aw man, now I need to learn Cure Disease."
Anpago observes how much fun Tonk is having and speculates, "Wouldn't it be nice to be normal-sized again, so I could hang out in brothels?" Andrinor points out, "You could just Polymorph yourself into a normal-sized person, and then it wouldn't be a problem." Anpago grouses, "But that wouldn't cost experience points, or use any of my shiny new spells."
The characters find themselves having a lazy afternoon at home. Inevitably they fall to plotting. Specifically, they discuss setting up phony caravans along the road to South Port to attract goblin raiders. The plan starts out simply enough: Andrinor offers up that he can create illusions of wagons and horses to draw the goblins. Then it evolves to using real wagons and horses instead of illusions, as the characters would need a way to carry their own provisions anyway. And then Tonk asks, "Is there any useful way we could make the dire bear look like a horse?" Andrinor replies, "Yep, except that that creature is about four times bigger than a real horse." Longfellow suggests, "Maybe we could make Long-Claws-Tree-Breaker just look like two horses and a wagon..." Tonk gets a strange gleam in his eyes and starts muttering about how the characters must follow this plan. But then he gets distracted and wanders off to make shelves.
An hour or so later, the doorbell rings. Longfellow turns himself into a baboon and answers the door. He finds two priests of Pelor on the doorstep. One is a big bruiser of a guy; the other is smaller and quite handsome. They look rather taken aback to see a baboon opening the door. Longfellow introduces himself, "I am Longfellow, what can I do for you? Aawk! Perhaps you have never seen a baboon that calls out like an eagle?" The priests indicate that they'd like to talk to the characters about something important. Longfellow shows them in to the sitting room, then perches himself upon a table.
The nicer-looking priest starts off by telling Longfellow, "You brought a stranger into our city, a man named Sir Natua."
Longfellow answers, "We did. He needed our help to petition the Council. Is he okay?"
"This man is known to us as a dangerous heretic, and we want your help bringing him to the church's justice!"
Longfellow tilts his furry head to the side and scratches at an invisible parasite, "What kind of heretic?"
The priest growls, "He belongs to one of the most dangerous cults we know of!"
Longfellow hears Anpago's whispered words, "He must be a Unitarian!" He wonders just how many of his Little People relatives have slipped into the room to eavesdrop.
The priest obviously has no idea that his audience is growing. He continues on, "Perhaps his call for ships is just a ruse, to allow his allies to attack the city!"
Longfellow objects, "But you have mountains, and gorges, and rangers to protect you! Out in Southport he has nothing!"
Out in the workshop, Tonk observes to nobody in particular, "I like the way this conversation is going because they're talking to a baboon. And they're still acting like nothing out of the ordinary is happening." Tonk heads up to the sitting room to join in the fun. He reasons that he's finished his shelving, so he may as well talk to some priests. He enters the room and calls out, "Hey, Longfellow! You have some friends here? What do they want?"
Longfellow finally realizes that nobody has been introduced to anyone yet. The two priests oblige, identifying themselves as Brother Trompeur and Brother Leugenarr. Longfellow explains, "They want to arrest that nice Sir Natua for some reason."
Tonk is confused. "I'm sorry, he might kill somebody? He's a heretic?"
Brother Trompeur emphasizes, "He's a cultist of the god of death! Nerull!"
"But he was introduced to us by Robert the Werebear!"
"Well, cultists of Nerull don't just announce themselves!"
Anpago (still invisible) exclaims, "The problem with the cult of Evil is that they are actually Lawful Good, but they could perform evil acts at any time!"
Tonk yells at the air, "shut up, Anpago! You're not helping."
Hurt, Anpago resolves to help by magically detecting alignment on the two priests. He comes up with "Chaotic Evil" for each of them. He whispers to Andrinor, "They're chaotic evil! Pass it on!" Andrinor whispers to Longfellow, "They have cakes and weevils! Pass it on!" And Longfellow hisses at Tonk, "They've slaked some eels! Pass it on!" Tonk just looks confused.
Brother Trompeur, apparently unconcerned that Tonk is yelling at nothing, continues, "We're here to ask you to help us take out this menace. Although the ecclesiastical courts are to be trusted implicitly, the secular courts have a very poor record of rooting out evil. They are not reliable!"
Tonk asks, "How much would this pay?"
Brother Trompeur looks hurt. "We'd hoped you'd just donate your services, but we could provide some compensation."
Tonk emphasizes, "Absolutely. We like the guy, and we're gonna take flack for killing him. We need to be paid for our trouble."
Brother Trompeur offers, "How about 4000 gold?"
Tonk licks his lips with feral hunger and answers, "Sure. When can you have the cash to us?"
"After he's dead. You trust us, right? We're priests!"
Flecks of foam upon his lips, Tonk leaves the room to pick up his big sword that makes him faster. He returns and challenges the Brothers, "You guys are not priests of Pelor! Real priests of Pelor cry when puppies get hurt!"
Anpago takes this moment to manifest. He tells everyone, "By the way, these guys are evil. Serious, dripping evil! I mean, George Bush-style evil! Their auras are just dripping with it!" The two so-called priests start making very strange sounds as the characters move in for the kill.
Brothers Trompeur and Leugenarr reveal that they are actually werewolves, normally a condition not compatible with membership in Pelor's priesthood. Leugenarr draws two shortswords and leaps at Tonk, who responds by chopping at him from left and right. Anpago decides to shut this show down fast. He hits Leugenarr with a Hold Creature. Leugenarr just freezes up. Longfellow thinks about casting a Flame Strike at Trompeur until he realizes that the pillar of flame would be forty feet tall, higher than the characters' house. He changes into a brown bear instead.
Trompeur decides that this is a bad sign. He pulls a wand and fires some Magic Missiles at Longfellow. The characters notice that he has a bargain-basement wand: it seems to shock him as he uses it. On the other hand, it does spray out a very respectable cloud of missiles. Longfellow sucks up the damage as he casts Greater Magic Fang on himself.
Marcus steps up to Trompeur and attacks him. Ineffectively. Trompeur is both inhumanly quick and protected by Mage Armor.
Tonk hits the frozen Leugenarr four times, inflicting a massive salad of damage. Andrinor gasps, "Oh god... what's he doing?" Anpago explains, "Being thorough." The pieces of Leugenarr sag to the ground, dripping red stuff. Andrinor comments, "It's a good thing we put center-sloping floors and drains in all the rooms." Then he turns around and obliterates Trompeur with two waves of Magic Missiles.
Longfellow turns back into an eagle and flies out of a window to look for any additional attackers. Tonk stomps out the front door, looking for the same thing. An old man looking down towards the square comments, "Thar's an eagle and a blood-stained man tromping around at the old Sangaree-Yost place. Looks like they managed to kill their intruders."
Anpago's wife Marie comes back in from the marketplace, looks at the mess, and complains, "I'm not cleaning this up!" Marcus reassures her, "Don't worry, we have professionals for this sort of thing." He notices that the two bodies changed back to human form after death. "Oh great. Now we're going to be up on murder charges."
Andrinor and Anpago take a look at Trompeurr's wand. Their efforts at testing are hampered by the fact that the wand requires a living target. Anpago proposes going skeet-shooting with pigeons. Tonk reasons that the characters need dinner anyway, so he goes off to buy a sheep. Longfellow comments, "Here's a gold. Buy another one for Eats-Trees back there!" With suitable targets procured, Andrinor quickly figures out that the wand is a Wand of Vicious Magic Missiles: it shoots volleys of five missiles, each doing 1d4+2 damage, but the user takes 5 points of damage every time it is activated.
Leugenarr was wearing an Adamantine Breastplate (+2 natural enhancement bonus, worth some 5200 gold) and carrying two masterwork shortswords.
The characters watch as Anpago uses Prestidigitation to clean up the blood and push it all out into the rose garden. Tonk opines, "Them's gonna be some powerful strange roses next season."
The group heads off to talk to Sir Natua to see if he knows anything about homicidal werewolves trying to get him killed. Tonk starts off the conversation in typically subtle fashion, "Sir Natua! We were just offered 4000 gold by two evil werewolves to kill you! What's your counter-offer? No seriously, we refused. Have you had previous issues with werewolf attacks?"
Sir Natua seems a bit taken aback by Tonk's comments. "Err... no, I've never had problems with werewolves before. There are lots of people who want me killed, but they're all goblins. And I am NOT a priest of Nerull."
Andrinor brings up a Permanent Illusion of the two werewolves' faces to see if Sir Natua recognizes either of them. He does not.
It develops that Kira Kapesac is the Highthrone Council member most opposed to the idea of helping Sir Natua. He wants the city to provide skyships and aid to relieve the military pressure on Southport. She objects on the grounds that this would leave Highthrone open to attack. He doesn't think she's evil, but she is charismatic and many other families are following her lead. He indicates that he would be grateful if the characters could ask around and find out why she is so opposed to providing help to his people.
The characters decide that they should also scour the city to find out where the two werewolves came from. To help this process along, Andrinor places an illusion on a coin: one side is Trompeur's face, one is Leugenarr's.
Longfellow and Marcus go to Drunkard's Paradise to look up Darg's old girlfriend Lydia (whom Marcus has never met). Longfellow rides Long-Claws. No sooner have they reached the place than a sinkhole opens up underneath them. Marcus easily leaps free only to see Longfellow and Long-Claws fall into the ground.
Longfellow quickly realizes that an umber hulk has undermined the street enough that it would collapse under the immense weight of Long-Claws. Longfellow comments, "Well, someone's really got our number."
Marcus sees the trouble and fills the umber hulk with arrows.
Then Longfellow takes a look at the umber hulk and gets Confused. Marcus rolls his eyes as Longfellow flaps madly about calling out, "Awk! Awkawkawk!" Marcus groans, "Not again..." Then he gets hit with a splash of gore as Long-Claws claws the umber hulk into goo.
Longfellow comes out of the confusion to grouse, "Aw man! I never even got a chance to cast Animal Growth on Long-Claws!"
Marcus wipes his face and comments, "Like it was needed..."
There are some tunnels leading away from the sinkhole. Longfellow and Marcus follow them and find signs of other umber hulks, and some treasure: 1000 silver pieces. They split it 50-50 and resolve to only mention the umber hulk, and not the money, to the others.
Soon afterwards they find Lydia. She recognizes Trompeur and Leugenarr from the time when she was working with the Black Rain. She says that they were common con artists and burglars, not werewolves. She hasn't seen them around for months. Marcus tells her, "Here, take a thousand silver pieces and see if you can find anything out." She seems disappointed by the small amount of money, but agrees to do what she can.
Andrinor changes into a shape similar to his original human body and goes to talk to the local sorcerous community. Along the way, he sees three-armed men harassing a local. Then he takes another look and determines that the trouble is actually three armed men, all clad in black robes. He rubs his chin and says, "I beeelieve aah weel activate mah boots and con-front these men!" He flutters down to threaten them, only remembering at the last minute to become visible.
The robed goons claim to be the guardians of common sense and moral order in the town. They also don't seem very threatened by a pixie, which proves that they are not scholars even though they wear scholars' robes: everyone knows that pixies are pretty fuckin' dangerous. They say they're hassling the local because he's one of the miserable refugees who are using up all of Highthrone's resources. One of them complains, "Just last week we had a shortage of rocks!"
Andrinor finally recognizes the robed men as members of the Sentinels of Wisdom. He comments, "You guys sound like a really bad club from a Japanese high school." Then he goes the extra mile and tries to diplomatically convince them that their entire way of life is wrong, and that they should be kind to people. This doesn't work. And then the Sentinels start casting spells. Andrinor responds with a burst of Stunning Missiles, a spell he created because he was tired of having no choice but to kill every creature he faced. The lead Sentinel manages to get a spell off, throwing a Cause Fear that doesn't even have a chance of affecting Andrinor.
Andrinor threatens them again. The Sentinels run like crazy people. One of them howls, "We were attacked by a pixie!" A nearby shopkeeper yells, "And you didn't run? What kind of morons are you?"
The refugee is very grateful, "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! I knew leaving milk on my doorstep every night for the faerie folk wouldn't go unnoticed!"
Andrinor finally makes it to the Arcane College to ask about Kira Kapesac and the Society of Moral Rectitude. Professor Vermmond Haggus is convinced that Kapesac is a doppelganger, so Andrinor ignores him. Others tell him that she became representative of the Kapesac family after her husband was killed in an accident. She blames the Dostavar family for the accident, so she generally opposes anything the Dostavars propose. Also, she fears that going to the rescue of Southport could cost the lives of many brave Highthrone skyshipmen.
And it turns out that the Sentinels of Rectitude are just a gang of clueless arcane hoods who like hassling passers-by.
Anpago and Tonk stay with Sir Natua, on the thought that someone might try to send a back-up team to whack him. They find that he has a Council meeting to go to. Tonk volunteers to go along. He and Anpago aren't allowed into the Council chambers, so they sit around outside. Eventually, Natua emerges to say that the meeting hasn't started yet because Councilor Kapesac hasn't shown up yet. She is supposed to be in the building, but now nobody can find her.
Anpago immediately heads to the women's restrooms. He finds nothing.
Tonk wanders into a conference rooms and finds signs that someone engaged in a struggle and covered it up. He tells his escort, "Could you tell the guards that someone has kidnapped the Lady Kapesac?" The palace becomes a hive of activity.
Tonk starts giving orders. A guard sergeant asks, "What kind of authority do you have? Who are you to be telling us what to do? You say that you found that Lady Kapesac was missing, but I think you were the one responsible!"
Tonk notices that someone has started laying out miniatures for a battle, and senses that someone will need to display restraint very, very soon. Anpago flies off to give the thunderstone-signal that something is happening; Andrinor flutters in swiftly. But there is no violence.
Eventually, everyone shows up at the palace. Longfellow changes himself into a bloodhound to look for Kira Kapesac. He finds that she was wearing a very distinctive perfume. After snuffling around for a bit, Longfellow decides that she was packed into a food cart. He follows the cart out through the servants' entrance. He manages to follow the trail as far as the warehouse district, then loses track.
Longfellow turns to the other characters for help. "Woof! Pixies! Fly up and find the cart!"
Andrinor asks, "What does it look like?"
"Woof! Smells like this!"
Andrinor rolls his eyes. "I just summon up some astral bloodhounds with Summon Monster III to find the thing." He comes up with a pack of the things. One of them manages to lead him to a warehouse.
The warehouse is two stories tall, but all the windows are on the second floor and aren't made to open. So the only easy way in is through the big door in the front. The characters' initial plan is to sneak. This plan is quickly derailed by the fact that the big door is closed.
Marcus checks for traps, then Longfellow casts Animal Growth on Long-Claws and sends him to break the door down. The door flies into splinters.
Anpago flies in and sees two dangerous figures: a woman with two scimitars in studded leather armor, and a half-orc with a bastard sword. He recognizes them as the bounty hunters the characters tangled with so long ago: Zylenea and Trunko. He guesses that their companion Gore is probably close by. He casts Confusion, which lowers out Trunko.
Tonk rushes up to Zylenea. She scoffs, "They sent you? What a joke!" He notices that she is Blinking, which makes his dodge-bonus-based defensive strategy rather questionable. She whirls around him, attacking three times with a scimitar from three different directions, then dances away at the end of her action. She inflicts thirty-two points of damage across two hits. Tonk reflects, "It's only pain. It's only pain."
Marcus sneaks into the warehouse with preternatural silence. He rolls a 45. Tonk sneers, "I don't know why you even bother to play this game..."
Tonk takes a sneak-attack arrow from behind. Whoever fired it has a lot of Rogue levels going for him: he inflicts 27 points of damage and only barely misses Tonk's heart. Marcus, always looking for humor in desperate situations, calls out, "My bad!" Tonk grumbles. He knows Marcus didn't fire the arrow and laughing hurts him now.
Longfellow tries to Flame Strike Zylenea, who dances out of the way. Long-Claws rampages in and claws at the confused Trunko. Trunko might be Confused, but he's still able to attack Long-Claws. Oddly, he attacks to subdue and to inflict STR damage. Apparently, even in his confused state he's able to think in terms of bringing them in alive. Why he thinks this is a good thing to try on two thousand pounds of dire bear is probably an effect of the spell. Long-Claws savages Trunko again, then Longfellow brings him down with a Flaming Sphere.
Anpago zaps Zylenea with Hold Person, which works way better than the Flame Strike did. Andrinor muses, "Maybe I should blortch her now!"
Tonk beats him to it: he runs over to Zylenea and puts a blade to her throat. He yells into the darkness, "We're just here for Lady Kapesac! Hand her over or Zylenea dies!" Andrinor quickly throws Stoneskin on Tonk; Tonk thanks him because he's tired of bleeding.
Marcus quickly leaps from one pile of goods to the next, desperately searching for the hidden bounty hunter. He concludes that this is going to be like a submarine battle, with whoever makes the first Spot roll winning.
Trunko is in rather poor shape. Andrinor binds him to keep him still while Longfellow casts Cure Light Wounds to keep him from dying.
Tonk disarms Zylenea and lets Anpago tie her up. He does a miserable job of it, though nobody knows. After all, everyone can see that he used a lot of rope. The characters quickly Detect Magic and strip Zylenea and Trunko of their magical gear. This includes:
They also have some money. The characters dismiss it as not being worth their time.
Anpago throws a Wall of Force across the door to keep Gore from escaping. Nobody knows if this works or not.
Lady Kapesac is tied up in the office. Andrinor uses Detect Evil and Detect Law to verify that she isn't actually Queen Doppelopolous. Along the way, he learns that Trunko is Chaotic Evil and Zylenea is Neutral. The characters untie Lady Kapesac, then head out after a quick break for a lot of magical healing.
Lady Kapesac has no idea why she was abducted. Three Charm spells later, Trunko succumbs. But he still won't answer Anpago's questions about who hired them. Anpago flatters him, "Dude! I'll seriously give you a thousand gold!" but Trunko just answers, "You're a good friend of mine, but I don't believe you." Marcus even tries slipping Anpago a potion of Eagle's Splendor. Trunko still refuses to cooperate: "Look man, I'm a professional bounty hunter. If I tell you my sources and employers I could seriously get killed."
Tonk tries threats. "Okay, what were you supposed to do with Lady Kapesac? Tell me or I'll make you squeal like a pig!"
Trunko scoffs, "C'mon, be serious."
Everyone gives it a shot. Each attempt fails worse than the one before. Anpago gets so desperate he starts offering Trunko pixie sticks and sugar cubes and promising to hide him safely in pixieland. By the time Anpago's Charm spell wears off Trunko thinks Anpago is a fuckin' moron with a skull so small the hamster-wheel doesn't have enough room to turn.
The characters head back to the Palace and turn the bounty hunters over to the guards. Before they do, Marcus slips Zylenea's thief tools back to her. Andrinor comments, "My god. He really has a weird attraction to evil chicks. He can't be that desperate to find a girlfriend."
Tonk pleads with Marcus, "Dude, she tried to kill you!"
Marcus answers, "That's just her way of saying that she cares."
Anpago reflects, "You know, she is only Neutral. I actually sort of approve of this match."
The characters hear that Zylenea escaped later on. Tonk reflects, "At least this way we can call the guards incompetents whenever we walk by the Palace." Trunko gets sent to the mines to work under the whips of the dwarf mine-bosses.
The upshot of all this is that Lady Kapesac does an about-face on her opinions. She no longer follows "Peace in our time!" rhetoric. Instead, she wants the ships out there to kill those bastards because they hate Freedom. The motion to aid Southport passes. Everyone is totally convinced that this was all a plot by Sir Natua, that she's a doppelganger, and that the real Lady Kapesac's body is stuffed into one of the wine barrels in the warehouse. Tonk thinks, "Hmm... that would have been the wine barrel with the hair sticking out of it."
Zylenea and Trunko's gear, appropriately investigated with an Identify spell, turns out to include:
Each character gains 1550 experience points. Marcus and Longfellow get 500 additional points for the umber hulk. Andrinor gets 750 additional for the Sentinels of Wisdom. Anpago notes that his experience gains this game almost exactly matched what he burned making magic items.