After a quiet night on the water Devi, Flow, Ra’Cheep woke up. Each having a different dream. Each had an encounter with Daisy, the soul they had met the earlier day. They discussed the dreams and discovered that there might be a new God in HurnFell!
Pibble woke up with terrifying news that the elves intended to come and collect them. So Pibble got sober as quickly as possible. The rest of the day was spent creating an icebreaking device on the front of the ship.
A dog was discovered on the shore of the river. Ra’Cheep was able to fly over and explain to the dog that we would help her. After flying the poor dirty starved dog back to the boat everyone realized that this was Josie! The dog that went missing form Daisy’s farm, and a good friend to Flossie the goat. Devi and Flow were relieved to have been able to find the poor creature.
Later that night Ra’Cheep attempted to help Darla by polymorphing her into a tiny gnomish child, just to see if it might relieve her of her symptoms for an hour… Unfortunately the spell was deflected by the wild-magic and affected Pibble instead. Pibble was not pleased to become a 2.2ft tall Gnomish girl. Ra’Cheep sheepishly walked away and found another use of Polymorph. He found Xyphos on watch and offered to use his spell to give her back all of her fingers, both of her arms and her tongue for an hour… what she did with that hour was entirely up to her. Xyphos blushed thinking of her mate Gurda onboard the boat and agreed to try the spell. It worked exactly as expected.
Early the next day a small boat was headed toward the paddleboat. The smaller boat was filled with hungry people including several children. The heroes talked with the group and told them they could settle in the abandoned farm just down-river. The hungry group told our heroes that the town of Wolfbridge had been partly destroyed and that a gang known as the “Cleavers” were now in control.
When the paddleboat approached the town of Wolfbridge there were two adults managing a group of children that were scavenging on the mud-flats on the side of the river. Clearly the river was much lower than normal. A massive amount of mud and debris had blocked the river and only a little bit of water still flowed past the blockage. One whole side of the canyon and all of the town on it and in it had fallen into the river. A large stone bridge that used to span the river had also collapsed.
Ra’Cheep traded some food to the children in exchange for a few interesting magic items while the others talked with a tabaxi named Theadora. Theadora confirmed that the Cleavers were in charge of the town and were making life very difficult for anyone not in their gang. It seems most of the town guards had joined the gang and the people were fairly helpless. The leader of the Cleaver Gang was known as “The Eel”. A mysterious figure who always seemed to know everything.
The party headed into town and spent a few minutes trading in a pawn shop for some powerful items. But the pawn shop owner sent the corrupt guard after the party immediately after they left, most likely because he had heard that Ra’Cheep had some magical healing abilities.
Just as the fight with the guards came to an end several townspeople came to the hero’s aid and helped hide the evidence that anything had happened. These townsfolk told the group that what little resistance that remained were led by the market association. The heroes asked a few questions and determined that they should visit the Golden Fish brewery, then the school-house, then finally try to free anyone trapped/enslaved in the mines.
At the brewery they met a halfling man who did not trust them at all and closed the door on them.
At the school-house Flow went in alone to meet Jeremy and give him a letter from his grandmother Daisy. Jeramey was hosting the children with missing parents in his school. It seemed that they were being well cared for.
Last stop! The mines. Inside they found 4 slaves and a few guards who were making them work all night. Daffodil, the daughter of Daisy and mother of Jeramey was one of them. The heroes fought the guards and were attacked by a very powerful minotaur warrior with a flaming axe! After a hard won victory, they found huge heavy crates covered in gnomish writing down there. The heroes wondered what their next step should be… but that will be decided in the next chapter.
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