Our entire happy crew shows up, with the obvious exception of Tim, who finds the weekly commute from Ireland a bit much. We include Chris (Gruul), Chuck (Galen), Paul (Marik) and Bruce.
The session starts on the 107th day of the 3085th Stay. The characters have been staying in the city of Shochunstal for the last thirty days, pursuing their various socially-acceptable hobbies and searching for buyers for the vast collection of weapons and whatnot they have acquired over their travels.
The characters' current inventory is dominated by iron weapons taken from the chamber of the Maker-Thing in Parcyclus' castle, salted with a few magical items taken from various of their defeated foes and leftovers from Arnoux Urag's equipment.
| Item | Basic Price | Actual Item Condition | Modified Price | Number Available | Extended Price |
| Broadsword | 500 | unhafted | 400 | 50 | 20,000 |
| Axe | 50 | unhafted | 40 | 50 | 2000 |
| Hatchet | 40 | unhafted | 32 | 50 | 1600 |
| Saber | 700 | +1 Puissance | 5210 | 2 | 10,420 |
| Spear | 40 | unhafted | 32 | 100 | 3200 |
| Leather Armor | 350 | +1 Fortify, +1 Deflect, Lighten | 600 | 1 | 600 |
| Dinner Plate | 4 | 1 lb each, made of iron | 4 | 50 | 200 |
| Shortsword | 400 | +1 Accuracy, +1 Puissance | 9420 | 1 | 9420 |
| Iron Plates | 1 | 400 lb of Ghulkraw Armor | 1 | 400 | 400 |
| Other Gear | 400 | Fire-damaged oorthoi equipment | 1 | 400 | 400 |
| Total | 48,240 |
The values above should be considered as the "theoretical" retail value of the characters' loot. The characters fully expect that the price they get will be modified by two factors. First, the ongoing warfare in the Forward Gallery has created an insatiable demand for weapons and a consequent rise in prices. Second, the characters' desire to sell all of it at once restricts their buyers to merchants and wholesalers, which will tend to push the price down.
The characters have been able to locate three potential buyers in Shochunstal: Dencho, a local Faian merchant with an air of prosperity and the backing of several local landholders; Taufrey Hrut, a Faian merchant from out-of-town with a slightly threadbare look to him; and Arzul Longfinger, a paurkend trader from Doorway City. They decide to talk to Dencho first.
Dencho asks the characters to meet him at his townhouse. He is quite confident in his attitude (verging upon arrogance), and offers them a 10% premium over the base price. When the characters make it clear that they are going to talk to other merchants, he suggests that he is well connected in the city, and urges them to, "Do what's right for Shochunstal!" Marik realizes the subtle threat in his words: he wants them to know that he represents the people who run the city, and he can make lots of trouble for the characters if they don't deal with him.
Taufrey Hrut meets the characters at Marik's rented rooms. As this is the first time the other characters have seen Marik's home away from home, they spend some time commenting on his extravagant living style. Marik grins sheepishly and admits that he has no idea how much the rooms cost: people just come by ever so often and ask him for money, and he gives it to them. Hrut is just as impressed as the other characters were, and compliments Marik on his décor, noting that not many folks would have thought to put a purple tapestry with orange ruffles on a green wall. Hrut starts off by offering the characters a look at his credentials, including several letters of recommendation from prominent personages. He has one from a merchant in Nircharstal, one from a Doorway City trader, and a third from an aristocrat in Lin Vu Quo. The aristocrat in particular is quite specific in his recommendations, claiming that he has sold grapes from his vineyards to Hrut on several occasions, and has found him to be a reliable and honest businessman. The aristocrat even admits that he was willing to extend credit to Hrut, and was repaid promptly. Galen has heard of the aristocrat and is able to verify that the man owns a vineyard near Lin Vu Quo. Marik looks over the letters, hoping to be able to spot one of them out as a forgery, but is disappointed to find that they are very authentic-looking.
Taufrey Hrut's offer is slightly better than Dencho's: he offers a 20% premium over the basic price, but says that he won't be able to pay the full amount for fifteen days. He explains that his backers are out of town. He has already requested the money from them, and is confident that it will arrive in time. Gruul is concerned to hear this, and tells him that the trader Dencho has already threatened the characters, and may take steps to have Hrut arrested and date-raped in the jail shower before fifteen days have passed. He asks if Hrut thinks he can survive that long. Hrut assures Gruul, "I have my own friends."
Arzul Longfinger proves to be an older paurkend with a rasping, sandpapery voice. He bears a formal letter of recommendation from the Thousand-Flag Juf Ergu, a letter that instantly causes the characters to raise their eyebrows. Gruul recollects that Thousand-Flag Juf Ergu is the high-profile commander of the Seven Stones Brigade, and that a member of his staff was originally responsible for sending the Zatulph sorcerer Igway Rufo after the characters.
Sadly, Longfinger is only able to offer 5% less than the basic price. Knowing that his bid is low, he attempts to appeal to the characters' sense of patriotism, urging them to accept his bid and help him fight for "truth, justice and the Prince Gufteng's way." The characters speculate that his whole offer sounds very shady, especially when Longfinger suggests that he can pay the characters that evening and have all the goods out of the city by morning, especially if they are willing to accept payment in kind: he claims to have a wide inventory of potions. They turn him down flat
Faced with rejection, Longfinger launches into the rather spooky theme that Prince Gufteng is Gruul's elder brother. Gruul is not swayed. He asks Longfinger if he ever knew Igway Rufo. Longfinger admits that he did, but quickly points out that he never thought much of the fellow. He felt that Rufo had too many questionable associates (including oorthoi and undeads), and that Rufo really didn't love Gufteng like he should have. Marik thinks Longfinger telling the truth.
Before he leaves, Longfinger tells the characters that he is staying at Carufo's Rooming House. He assures the characters that they can get in touch with him there at any hour of the day or night.
The characters debate upon which offer to choose. Arzul Longfinger's offer has two advantages despite it's paltry size: he can pay the money right away, and offers a chance to get close to Thousand-Flag Juf Ergu and (more important) whichever of his staff who Igway Rufo. They might also be able to wheedle some legal permits or concessions within Prince Gufteng's territories from the fellow. Galen is immediately biased against accepting Dencho's offer: Dencho is the Steadsman's thug, and the Steadsman is a jerk. Gruul points out that if the group takes Hrut's offer it might be possible for them to actually have a chance at killing Dencho.
The characters finally decide that they should take Taufrey Hrut's offer, then protect themselves by forting up in Marik's rooms for the next fifteen days. Especially given the level of service Marik has arranged, having their food delivered will be no problem, and Marik is more than able to use magic to detect any poisoning attempts.
With the decision to sell their goods to Taufrey Hrut final, Gruul goes to tell Dencho the news personally. Dencho proves to be surprisingly understanding. He warns Gruul to be careful about dealing with Hrut, claiming that the man has a terrible odor to him. Apparently, Hrut has a history of dealing with questionable people.
Taufrey Hrut is quite happy to hear that he's won the deal. He offers to bring by the money for the magical items among the collection in an hour, with the rest of the deal to proceed as arranged earlier. Galen decides to ask him explicitly if he is working for either the rushufarr or the thrux. Hrut says "No", but Galen has the impression that the fellow paused for an awfully long time before answering.
Nobody bothers to tell Arzul Longfinger that they're not going to do business with him. They figure that he can guess that for himself.
The characters debate the virtues of following Taufrey Hrut to see who he's really working for, and maybe killing him if it looks like he's working for the thrux. They reason that if they timed the attack right they could collect the money, and still keep all the stuff to sell to someone else (perhaps Dencho?)
An hour after the final arrangements are struck, Taufrey Hrut shows up at the characters' door accompanied by two Faian bruisers and a pouch containing twenty-four White clavars (a total value of 24,576 Red clavars). The characters have the magical objects displayed on a table. While Hrut uses a bit of special ink to check them, Marik uses his Yaggo Theology to check the clavars. Everyone is satisfied, and one of Hrut's bruisers collects all of the gear while the characters count their money. Even so, the characters remain suspicious. Marik is especially edgy, as he thinks he recognizes one of Hrut's bruisers, but can't remember the context.
The characters discuss how to split the money up. They decide to give Antok of the Storm Tribe a full share, even if his player decided to flee to Ireland without so much as a by-your-leave.
Now that the characters actually have large quantities of money in-hand they become quite paranoid. Galen determines that for five energy he can place a Watchdog spell over Marik's rooms. He makes a practice of keeping the spell active all the time (it's duration is 10 hours, so this isn't that difficult).
His spells in place, Galen heads out to he city to learn what he can about Taufrey Hrut. He lays out 300 clavars to get a +2 bonus to Streetwise, talking to anyone who seems to know something. He finds that Hrut has been through Shochunstal a few times, but has never seemed to buy that much stuff for someone who claims to be a merchant. He has bought grain, cooking oil and cheap wine, but nothing that would make particularly good trade goods, and never in the quantities that a trader would usually want. During one of his visits he talked to a guy in strange clothing who went out of town and jumped to the south. Another time he arrived in town and talked to another foreigner. Both of them left in different directions later on. He usually arrives on the Tul Pan, a boat that makes a regular run between Lin Vu Quo and Shochunstal (Galen thinks that Hrut is expecting his money to arrive with this boat).
Galen returns to Marik's rooms and tells the other characters what he has learned. He mentions that he has never heard of a mysterious race of jumping men. For that matter, he hasn't heard of a well-advertised race of jumping men either.
After a couple of increasingly-edgy days go by the characters' growing paranoia is punctuated by the arrival of a note from Taufrey Hrut. He claims that someone rifled through his room the day before. He reassures the characters (who are doubtless concerned that he might have lost some precious heirloom to careless local thieves) that nothing important was taken, but he suspects that Dencho is planning something.
Gruul responds to this information by selling the characters' wagon and two oxen for 900 clavars. He tells the other characters that he ate them, then gives each of them 300 clavars. Galen asks if he saved the hearts for Antok.
Shortly afterwards, Galen's source comes by with some exciting news. He asks Galen for 100 clavars, then says that he saw the jumping man twice today. The fellow arrived in the morning, arcing down from the sky into a clearing some distance outside the city walls with a tremendous bang. Galen's snitch followed him into the city and saw him talking to Taufrey Hrut. Unfortunately, the snitch lost sight of him after that. He only managed to spot him again late in the day as he headed back towards the clearing to jump back into the sky, heading towards the south.
The snitch offers to show the characters the place where the jumping man's footprints are. Gruul suddenly decides that the guy is lying and rushes forward to brutalize him, doing a total of 6 points of damage over the course of a several-minute orgy of screaming, beating and thrashing. The fellow is clearly totally intimidated by Gruul, but miraculously sticks to his story. Gruul is eventually convinced that the guy is telling the truth. Galen suggests that Gruul should offer the snitch an extra cash incentive as an apology while Marik heals his wounds.
The characters have some trouble persuading their onetime information source to take them to the jumping man's landing site, managing to get him to come along only after Marik uses Forgetfulness to blank out his memory of Gruul's outburst. At the clearing, the jumping man's landing and takeoff sites are easy to recognize: each of them features a deeply dug-in pair of footprints. Marik is surprised to recognize the boot prints: some of Pargat Arrow-Eater's men wore similar boots during the sack of Dith Lun. This is enough to spark his memory further: he realizes that the bruiser who seemed so familiar to him was one of Pargat's men during the raid.
At this point, Gruul starts to verge into paranoia again. He realizes that Galen's informant had to somehow get past the boarding house's night watchman to get to Marik's room. He decides that the informant must die, right now! He has his axe out and almost at the fellow's throat before he remembers (with the other characters' frantic help) that several folks saw the characters leave Marik's room with the guy. They manage to calm him down to the point where he feels that the group's security interests are suitably maintained by simply keeping the guy as a hostage. He ties the informant up and announces his intention to keep him captive "for the duration."
Reasoning that they really want to talk to (or possibly slaughter) the jumping man, the characters decide to set up a campsite near the clearing and wait for his return. They reason that the jumping man might be bringing Taufrey Hrut his money, and will probably be back in a few days. Gruul tells the other characters to go back into town and pick up their possessions and enough provisions to last for a few days. Marik and Galen are a touch worried about leaving Gruul alone with the informant, but agree to go after Gruul promises not to kill the fellow while they're gone. They collect their stuff (Marik uses the Gyre to Levitate all of the iron goods out), buy food, and then return. They breathe a sigh of relief when they see that Gruul's prisoner is still alive and terrified.
Galen uses his Survival skills to create a small deer blind within sight of the clearing and the group sets up to wait. Five days later, the jumping man returns. Galen is on duty, and swiftly alerts the other characters.
The characters follow the jumping man as he heads towards Shochunstal, taking great care to remain silent and out of sight. Gruul realizes that the jumping man is steadily gaining on them, as he doesn't appear to be worried about making noise. He hisses at Marik, "Take him down! Now! Use your Glue!" Marik asks, "Why?" Gruul adopts a desperately pained expression and whispers back, "This is a really f**king bad time to be asking these questions! Couldn't you have objected to the plan five days ago, back when we weren't covered with fleas and bugs?" Marik defends himself, "I'm not covered with fleas and bugs."
By the time the characters have finished arguing, the jumping man has reached the city gates. A vein on Gruul's forehead throbs in frustration. The characters notice that the guards at the gate are as lackadaisical as always. Interestingly, a youth approaches the jumping man and shows him a piece of paper. The jumping man shakes his head and continues on his way.
Some debate among the characters follows, ending when they decide to head into the city to talk to him, despite Gruul's complaints that this gives the guy a chance to lie (as compared to torture, the ultimate fountain of truth). When the youth at the gate sees the characters approaching, he drops the paper and runs. Marik picks it up and notes that it has a line drawing of Gruul's captive and a description that end, "Last seen with..." Gruul looks sheepish. He tells the others, "Uh oh. I'm going to get my armor."
As Galen and Marik head towards Taufrey Hrut's inn, they debate how to deal with the captive, preferably without simply killing him. Marik suggests, "I know! I'll cast Madness on him until he falls into catatonia, and then I'll just maintain the spell for the rest of my life." Galen asks, "How long does the spell last?" Marik chirps back, "A minute. I'll have to learn to take very short cat naps, of course."
Back at the camp, Gruul straps on his armor and weapons, then threatens the prisoner some more, shaking him and screaming at the top of his lungs, "If I let you go, do you promise to never, ever, ever tell anyone anything about the last five days? Do you swear on your mother's grave?" The youth manages to dribble out, "My mother's still alive. Can I swear on my grandmother's grave instead?" Gruul reluctantly agrees that this seems reasonable. The fellow immediately swears, and Gruul lets him go. He runs into the woods. Gruul heads back to town.
By this time, Galen and Marik have concluded that their only hope is that the captive develops an incredibly strong case of the Stockholm syndrome.
The jumping man enters the hotel where Taufrey Hrut is staying. Galen and Marik think about how best to eavesdrop upon him. They suddenly realize that most of their plans are complicated by their appearance. For example, Marik notices that there are other paurkend on the street, but none of them are hunchbacked. Or dwarfish. Or dressed like pimps. Meanwhile, Galen notes that while there are lots of Faian humans on the street, none of them are in full armor. Carrying weapons. "Wait! Except for that one... oh, it's just a walking stick..." The two of them discuss several doomed plans for getting close to the building as the locals stare at them and whisper things like, "Don't go near those two. People who do seem to disappear."
Marik finally decides to "sneak" into the building. Galen helps him out by stomping in right behind him. The barkeep is clearly concerned by their sudden appearance. He manages to stammer out, "C-can I help you, gentlemen?" The two locals sitting in the corner of the room become suddenly agitated. One of them commences writing out his last will & testament on a bar napkin.
Marik decides that bad vibes are for weaklings and starts asking the bartender rapid-fire questions: "Did a Faian just come through here?" "Yes" "which room is Taufrey Hrut in?" "He's on... the second floor." "Which room?" "T-the one on the end of the corridor." "Thank you." Marik turns and walks out of the building, much to the inkeep's relief.
Marik looks over the building, identifies the proper room, and then uses Levitation and a certain amount of discretion to hover up close enough to hear the conversation inside. He hears Taufrey Hrut and the jumping man quite clearly. The jumping man has obviously brought a lot of white clavars for Hrut, and the first thing he does is produce them so Hrut can check them over. While Hrut fingers the money, the two of them talk about the conclusion of the deal with the characters, and of another deal both of them have an interest in. The jumping man explains that he arrived earlier than he had expected because his schedule was freed up ever since, "That idiot flat-nose got himself killed."
At this point Gruul walks into the inn. The barkeep hands him a free beer. Gruul eyes it, then demands, "Give me another beer. I want to see you pour it." The barkeep complies, his hands shaking. Gruul slurps down half of the mug, then demands, "Why are you giving out free beer?" The barkeep stammers, "Don't want any trouble here. Wouldn't you like to talk to your friend over there?" Gruul grunts and walks over to Galen, who is drinking his own free beer at a corner table.
Gruul tells Galen, "I can't believe it: he tried to poison me!" Galen, who had watched Gruul's encounter with the barkeep with poorly-disguised glee, comments, "And you let him live?" A harsh, barbaric light flickers in Gruul's eyes. He growls out, "You're right! Raaarrgh!" Galen quickly pulls him back into his chair, urging, "Hey, calm down, big guy!" Gruul allows as to how he is baffled by the behavior of the townsfolk.
Marik comes in and tells the others what he has learned. By far the most important words to leave his mouth are, "The money's here, let's ask Hrut if we can do the deal early so we can leave this place." He also mentions that Hrut and the jumping man are involved in some other project, project that involves a boat. Marik sits down to enjoy his own free beer.
To complete the assembly, the jumping man comes down the stairs and gets his own beer from the nearly-paralyzed barkeep. He barely pays attention to the characters, sitting himself down at a table across the room. No sooner has he sat down than Gruul approaches him. Gruul puts his hand on his axe and asks, "Do you know Igway Rufo?" The jumping man responds with a thick accent, "Yaa..."
Gruul ends up having a conversation with the jumping man, who introduces himself as Jelfinn the Jumper. When Galen and Marik notice that nobody is drawing weapons, they head over to join in. It turns out that Jelfinn comes from Bao Lat, one of the cities to the south. He tells the characters that the current state of the Garden is disgraceful: there is no strong leadership, the Faians are disorganized and leaderless, and anarchy abounds. He points to the miserable condition of Nircharoon by example. Galen (always a booster of the Greater Faian Nation concept) finds himself nodding. Jelfinn continues on to say that he works for some people who plan to change all that, who have great plans to unify the Garden. Even now, they are gathering their strength, and they can always use the services and loyalty of strong warriors such as the characters. He spends a lot of time complimenting the characters upon their obvious prowess, as evidenced by their defeat of Igway Rufo, who might have been a knothead but who was a potent sorcerer nonetheless. It is quite obvious that he knows who Pargat Arrow-Eater is, and even more obvious that he regards Pargat as a great war hero.
Jelfinn urges the characters to travel south to Bao Lat and talk to his masters. He gives them a large bronze coin stamped with a face and circled by stylized writing so they can demonstrate their good intentions. He finishes out his talk with a grand vision of his masters' armies sweeping north from Bao Lat and unifying the Garden.
At this point, Galen rather innocently asks, "But wouldn't you have to head south first, to get rid of the thrux?" Jelfinn sputters and stares, completely speechless. Hoping to avoid any further embarrassment, Marik whispers into Galen's ear, "You idiot! He's working for the thrux!" Jelfinn finally manages to croak out a rather weak-sounding, "Auha... Well, I must be going now! I hope to see you all soon in Bao Lat!" He leaves, half of his beer still in the mug.
A few hours later, the characters approach Taufrey Hrut and ask if he can conclude their deal a bit early. He doesn't seem all that surprised to see them, and is quite happy to pay them 32 White and 2 Blue clavars. His bruisers cart off the rest of the characters' goods.
The session ends with the characters preparing to get out of Shochunstal with all good haste. It is the 114th day of the 3085th Stay. Each character gains three experience points.