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Bastard Son of the great-grandchild of the sister's gibbon's friend of the nephew of the Campaign that Would Not Die, now in 3.75e
Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster
Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster
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Bastard Son of the great-grandchild of the sister's gibbon's friend of the nephew of the Campaign that Would Not Die, now in 3.75e Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster |
As they headed out from Anderson's Armaments, the party considered their next move. They were already interested by this little town, and fancied staying for a bit. They also wanted to convert their loot from the Citadel into better wargear, and the fact that Utkinton had - was ruled by - a mageguild likely meant it was a good place to try and get that done.
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Borax visited the marketplace, and found it easy enough to hire a stall for a few days. Setting up his glasscrafting gear, he set to, with some dark glasses for Neithar his first project. The first pair were too good; completely black, preventing the ersatz blind man from seeing after all. The second try were better, with Neithar's black-in-black eyes behind the glasses resembling properly black glasses extremely well.
Taking their available funds, they headed up to the Mageguild - inevitably, a tower. Next to the magnificent entrance for guilders was a smaller outbuilding marked "Commissions". They wandered in, to be greeted in a friendly fashion by the young wizard behind the desk. Their wish list rapidly stacked up to a price they couldn't meet - though reasonably priced - and they considered what else they could sell to improve the deal. A couple of minor items were accepted, the Survival knife was declined as too specialized, and then Borax shrugged and dug out Azun-Gund, the Nightcaller whistle. The wizard's eyes widened as he looked at it, and after he had cast a few spells over it he held it up in a shaking hand. "Do you know what this is?" he asked. "I know what it does," said Borax, "any graveyards around?" The wizard waved that away. "It's nephclium," he said in a hushed voice. "History only records four pieces of this - ever - and two of them belong to the Hand of Kord." "So you'll buy it?" asked Ruby. The man shook his head, in bewilderment not refusal; "I can't say. It would be way over our acquisitions budget! I'll get you an appointment with a senior wizard. Would you - please! - wait in our refectory while I find one?"
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Beer, snacks and pipeweed - which Ruby tried for the first time with the usual results - were provided, and the pair relaxed in chairs for a while, before another wizard approached their table and pulled out a chair. Introducing himself as Astowyr, he asked to see the whistle, and was clearly very impressed. "I would dearly like to study this - to try and make it, only Durggedin the Black has ever been recorded as doing so - but frankly I don't think we can afford to buy it," he finished regretfully. "It's worth thirty thousand, you see." The pair blinked, exchanged glances, and broached the idea of splitting the payment between cash and enchantment services. Astowyr brightened, and after some haggling, a deal was made for some money combined with enchantments and a replacement for Borax' Entangle wand, now very low on charges. The making of this was going to take a month, so the pair decided to settle in to the town for the duration. Adventuring with most of their best gear on workbenches in the Mageguild was going to be a bad idea, after all!
Another visit to Anderson's produced the short sword, crossbow and heavy bow they needed for the wizards to enchant. The bow was like a battering ram, and she felt Anderson was surprised she could draw it and quite pleased to get rid of it. Borax considered the repeating crossbow, but it needed training to use and he left this idea for a later date.
Borax continued his glasscrafting, discovering that there was no specialist in town though some of the smiths occasionally turned out a few amateur bottles. Word spread, and his business did well. He became friendly with other stall-holders, trading glassware for fresh produce and beer.
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Ruby needed rather more in the way of facilities for her smithcraft, and sought out one of the town's four blacksmiths. Her heart sank a bit at the rather ratty forge in the Trade district, but she knocked and introduced herself to the young woman who opened the door. Rowla clearly was the smith from her shoulders and hands, but the forge had seen far better days. Ruby noted that her tools were all sized for someone with longer arms. "Dad left you the business?" she guessed accurately.
Helping Rowla out and improving the place to the point where she could make what she wanted were going to go together, so Ruby dug into her remaining funds and kitted the forge out with better tools, metal bar stock, proper fuel for the furnace and so on. Before long, the two were working together, with the younger woman learning new skills from the half-hob. Ruby was no mastersmith, but clearly Rowla'd not listened to Daddy much before it was too late. A week's work produced a new hammer for the owner, and started Rowla on the road to being a half-decent blacksmith.
One of the market traders was one Falum, who dealt in herbs, spices and fungi. Borax handed him the various luminous fungi he had collected from the depths under the Citadel, and Falum was deeply interested - and very surprised to be simply given something that interesting. He tried to reciprocate with some herbs from his stall, but Borax wasn't interested. He was mildly disappointed when Borax told him he couldn't supply more, though the dwarf told him where they'd come from. He promised to let him know if anything interesting came from them.
Hunting around for work, they discovered that the garrison of Aeglor's Fist was recruiting for warriors and scouts to take on auxiliary jobs, as they were understrength or busy patrolling the border or something like that. It seemed interesting enough to follow up.
Borax made up a note and pinned it up outside one of the taverns, "Pillaging, Killing and Kidnapping by Arrangement, Contact Borax and Ruby". This brought a response in a couple of days, but it was three of the Unit, headed by a Corporal Kenny. "Please, take the sign down," he requested. "We have enough turbulence here with the stupid Guild squabble; they'll only try and hire you to kill each other." Borax agreed, though he didn't rush. Sure enough, next day, two men called at their inn, both in very smart shoes...
They explained that they wanted Bangan, the Guildmaster of the Taverners, kidnapped as soon as possible, and were prepared to offer three thousand, half in advance. This turned out to be letters of guild credit - perfectly negotiable, but Borax insisted on actual cash. A contract was produced and signed ("John Cobbler" and "Dave Cobbler"). An hour later a young apprentice arrived with a leather satchel containing the advance, and the pair managed to trick the name of "John" out of him; Athaira, one of the town's cobblers, as well as the detail that the last delivery he'd been given had been someone's head.
"We're going to take this to the watch, aren't we?" said Ruby. "Of course," said Borax, "We don't want to get involved in this crap. But when we're ready to leave, so it can calm down while we're away." He screwed up his advert and threw it in a nearby midden.
Just after lunchtime, Ruby and Rowla looked up at a heavy knocking on the forge door. Without invitation, a weaselly human accompanied by three men who might as well have had "THUG" stamped on their foreheads pushed into the hot room. "Rowla?" he said, glancing at Ruby but focussing on that worthy. "My name's Wim," he continued, "frankly I can't remember these gents' names. You borrowed some money from Adabl last year, and it's way overdue. Time to pay up. Five gold." Rowla shrank into herself in dread.
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Ruby laid down her hammer and stood up slowly. "You come here and threaten this woman in her own forge, before even checking if she could pay. Did your employer send notice when the debt came due?" She looked at Rowla. "How much did you borrow?" "Two", said Rowla in a very quiet voice. "Times were hard last winter. I was going to pay when business picked up, but ... " she shrugged helplessly. Ruby put two gold marks on the table in front of her, and three on the table behind her. "You can have what you're owed," she said in a level voice, "but you will have to come through me."
Wim blustered as he picked up the two marks, but his men clearly didn't fancy fighting the tall, muscular half-hob. "I'll report you to the money-lenders' guild," he warned. Ruby smiled slightly. "I'll report you to the money-lenders' guild," she responded, "except that this town doesn't have one, does it?" Her smile vanished. "Get out," she snarled, "and if you come back, I'll kill you all." The thugs scrambled away and were gone.
Leaving a shaken but grateful Rowla to her work, Ruby headed for the slums where Adabl's premises were, collecting Borax on the way as this was likely to be fun. The pair found the tiny cubby that was Adabl's office, and introduced themselves to the massive half-orc on the door. Ruby went in, but Borax stayed outside talking to Lug. "How much do you earn?" he asked. "Not much, is it? Not worth dying for, not enough for medical bills or washing out bloodstains. Here's a gold mark, why don't you gonv off home?" Lug, it turned out, while thick as a very thick thing, was loyal to his hire, and declined, "I've got to look after der master," he said apologetically.
Inside, Ruby was confronting Adabul, a sweaty, unshaven, overweight and middle-aged human. She snarled at him for sending thugs round first after the debt, and letting it accumulate without warning the borrower. Adabul, who had to look the account up, shrugged expressively and commented that none of that was illegal. Ruby loomed at him,and he shouted to Lug, telling him to fetch the watch. Lug headed off, and Ruby settled to wait.
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Before long three watchmen arrived, led by one Corporal Durra, who very carefully listened to Adabl and Ruby explain what was going on. At one point, when Ruby mentioned five marks, the moneylender exploded, "Five? I didn't send them for five! It's four." "Hmm," said Ruby, "Extortion, too. Is that illegal, corporal?" Durra nodded slowly. "Nothing to do with me," said Adabl. Durra nodded to one of his men. "Go find this Wim," he said, and released the others back onto patrol.
Half an hour later the guard was back with Wim, who was dressed for a long journey. "Found 'im at the south gate, sir, setting out for pastures new," he said with a grin. "Right," said Durra. "So you've been extorting extra from his customers. Empty your pockets." Reluctantly, Wim produced a fair amount of money in various forms. Durra extracted two marks, and handed them to Adabl. "Right. I see you have a nice neat ledger there," he said to Adabl. "I'll take that," he added it to the pile of coins, "and these, and run through and check with the customers what they paid him," he nodded at Wim. "They'll be refunded the difference from this. You can apply for any remainder once we've finished."
Wim goggled. "But ... that's all my money," he protested. "What am I going to eat?" Ruby grinned nastily. "You could always borrow some from him," she said, angling a head at Adabl. Borax tapped Lug on the shoulder. "Wim may be your next job," he commented. "Good! I never liked the gonver," said Lug firmly, proving himself not entirely stupid.
"Evening, all," said Durra, saluting with a faint smile and leaving.
During the month, Neithar had been playing and singing in taverns, his eerie songs and tales becoming quite popular - though if the punters had known whence they came it would have been different! Calvis was rather disgusted to find there was no Thieves' Guild and little overt crime in Utkinton, though with a militia four times normal size this was not a surprise. Calcryx had been growing rather stout from lying on "his" hoard and eating and doing little else, as well as growing rather rapidly. It wasn't going to be long before he was going to be too big for even Ruby's shoulder. Meepo had been practicing his magic and acquiring better clothing, as well as drinking rot-gut cider at every opportunity.
The wares produced by the mageguild were duly produced. Meepo got to show off in front of a real wizardy wizard as he Identified them all to confirm they were right, and Borax handed over the whistle. "You've dodged an arrow there," commented Astowyr, "your people," he had correctly identified Borax' origins though he seemed not to judge by them, "would give anything to get this and more to learn how to make the stuff."
Stopping at the Unit, they asked to see Cpl Kenny, and handed over all the evidence that the cobblers were prepared to stoop to kidnapping. While Kenny did hint at the fact that this would not have happened without Borax' advert, he took it all and promised to investigate. He suggested that some of the cash might form some sort of reward, but didn't make any promises.
That evening, the party headed west for Aglor's Fist.
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Session Date: 4th May 2026 |
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