The party escapes the Kobold Cave, and returns to the village of Hillthorpe. Having rescued Kan, the party is acquired by Kan's mother Valna, the mayor, to escort her to the West Haven for the equinox meeting of the Council.
After some discussion, Salris realizes he doesn't need the arcane focus embedded in his Pact Weapon; its Improved Pact Weapon makes it a focus already. So he gives it to Vurguron, who embeds it into his sword. It's not useful for anyone else in the party.
Now we need to escape the cave. Unexplored exits are:
off the path from room 2 to 9
off of room 15
off of the path from 4 to 9
off the path from 1 to 1
off the path from 1 to 1
off the path from 1 to 1
We start the session in room 2, having completed a short rest, and head for the path between 2 and 9. We make the left turn onto the path, and the path opens into a room. (Room #3) It's a cellar, full of drying herbs and stuff. Jerry and Bugfood investigate the herbs, realize they're good as a binding agent for healing potions. Bugfood carries 20 potions' worth of herbs.
There are two exits from the room; one to the left and right. The wind comes from the left; we go that way and it hooks up to one of the paths off the 1-1 loop. The left-hand path takes us to the 4-9 path.
Vurguron tells us that he heard the Kobolds talking about "The Egg" . We tell him that he should've mentioned that earlier.
We talk with Kan for a bit; he's scared of the Kobolds and lizard people. Vurguron is a fool.
We go to room 9, take the path towards the mines. Bugfood cats Form of Giant Weasel and runs down the path, and he discovers Room 14, with a couple of Kobolds. They flee; he runs back, and tells us about the room. Vurguron wants to run ahead and tell them that we killed their leader.
The party goes to the mushroom-filled room; we hear flickering flames from the left, and head down that path, and come to the throne room
The Throne Room
Flickering firelight shows a dais made of rock and wood and chunks of metal.
Bugfood invites Grat to take a seat on the iron throne. He gestures down a hallway, and Ryltar sees a faceted metallic glinting. We go down the hallway, led by Bugfood.
The glint comes from a 4-foot-wide, 6-foot-tall red metallic egg, sitting on top of a pile of copper, silver, and gold. It's probably a dragon egg. It's common knowledge that chromatic dragons are 99% evil. We discuss ways to kill it. Tula shoves the egg; she wobbles it a little. We decide that the better thing would be to scoop the coins out from under it. Jerry collects the gold coins as we scrape coins out from under the egg; we collect 560gp.
Under the gold, we find a golden bowl, containing something moving. It's a fishbowl, and the thing inside it is a frog-lizard, standing on its hind legs. Bugfood recognizes it's a fey creature, kin to water. He discourages the part of the party that wants to kill it immediately. The creature sees us, and starts mouthing words. We finish clearing off the fishbowl, for another 24gp. It's like a cross between a grey frog and a salamander. The top is sealed by a piece of leather; Bugfood releases the seal. The thing pops its head out of the bowl and gapes for a bit; it talks. Bugfood understands its Sylvan sppech.
"Thanks, thanks!" it says. "Can you help me?"
"Sure, what's your name?"
"Water!" it says. Bugfood pours a waterskin on the creature. "Thank you!"
"You wouldn't happen to know anything about this egg, would you?"
"I just happened to be here when they brought it here."
Through questioning, we learned that the egg was brought here four months ago. The creature was traded for, kidnapped and enslaved and trapped in this fishbowl.
Ryltar looks at the egg; it's intact and healthy. There's some scuff marks and scrapes, and there's a hairline fracture starting at the top running halfway to the bottom. The fracture runs between the scales of the egg.
The water figure rolls out of the bowl, and flops like a land-dwelling jellyfish.
Salris continues gathering gold, total 2019 gp
Ryltar casts Ray of Frost on the egg. Vurguron breaks open the egg, and there's a nearly-formed dragon. Its amniotic sac is mostly depleted. Tula decapitates the dragon, and puts it in the Bag of Holding.
Grat runs into the room, pointing angrily at the throne room. Bugfood translates, "Our friend informs me that guests are coming." He Form of Giant Weasels and rushes into the throne room. There's three caster Kobolds, and they see Bugfood.
Bugfood runs into the room, turns to the door, and rabidly screeches at the door containing the party. The mages look around, and cheer a little. Vurguron whispers a translation: "Yeah, yeah! Brent's dead! Brent's dead!"
Vurguron calls out to the sorcerers, "Gentlemen!" The sorcerers take a hostile stance, turning towards our tunnel. "Gentlemen! Why are you cheering?"
"Brent's dead. Brent's an outsider."
"Ah, yes, I completely understand. Brent was not a kobold. How long was Brent here?"
"Eleven days!"
"And the little salamander guy, how long has he been there?"
Vurguron was in the middle of the party in the tunnel; we push him to the front of the party, into the room with the kobolds.
"Brent brought him. Brent killed the previous leader."
"And you're happy that he's dead?"
"Brent forced us out of nature. We sought little things. Brent wanted more. Thought higher. Talking spoon."
(Salris whispers to the spoon: "Do you know these guys?")
Bugfood tries to weasel out of the room, but the exits are blocked by walls of Kobolds. One tries to leash him; he wrestles free and runs back to the door that Vurguron is emerging from.
Vurguron is carrying Brent's sword. They see this, and mention it. He holds it out. "This was Brent's sword? I killed Brent."
"You killed Brent." They look at him with a lot of skepticism. "Show us." He pulls out the spike shield that Brent had carried. "Do you work for him?"
Salris whispers, "We killed him good, we did," and Vurguron translates. "Sometimes people hire us to kill people."
The Kobolds say, "Lead us to his body." They part, and we cautiously walk through the sea of Kobolds on the way to Room 2. Vurguron leads the procession to the room.
The sorcerers fireball Brent's body, burning him to a crisp. And then they say, "Leave." They lead us to the cave-in by room number one, and clear the cave-in. They escort us to the guardroom, labeled "bedroom" on our map.
Bugfood is still uneasily in the form of a giant weasel, and he drops it in front of the Kobolds. But Grat is stuck on his belly. He decides that Grat needs to get back to the Fey Wild somehow.
Tula and Bugfood hear humanoid voices coming from outside the cave. Tula and Jerry and Salris step out of the cave, and the members of Hillthorpe who had been searching the woods call out in joy that we've found him.
We are met by Valna, the mayor, who picks up Kan in a crushing hug. "Thank you, thank you, what happened?"
The villagers take us to where their carts are parked, where we had killed three Kobolds outside the cave, two days ago, and we ride back to Hillthorpe.
Back in Hillthorpe
We return to the meadhall, and Valna throws a modest celebration for us. Kan is feted by the town; and he weakly smiles through all of it.
Ryltar asks Valna if the Kobolds had ever bothered them before; Valna says that they weren't aware of Kobolds in the region. We tell Valna the whole story. She asks why Kan was kidnapped; Jerry speculates that Brent would have kidnapped him for ransom. Bugfood speculates that Kan was necessary for the Egg. "The egg?" asks Valna.
"They had a dragon egg," says Ryltar.
"A dragon egg!?" says half the adults in the room in shock and alarm.
"Had," emphasizes Ryltar, and Tula pulls out the dragon head.
Salris, who has been our accountant, splits up the gold for the party; notes on that are at the end of the thing.
As the party winds down, we stay the night in the Wayward Inn, on Valna's dime.
As we walk over to the inn, Valna pulls Jerry aside.
She asks, "You did all this, with just the six of you?"
Jerry explains that she is a soldier, "with decades of experience. Salris is a pirate with decades of experience. Tula is a soldier with decades of experience." (Not really decades.) "Vurguron the Dragonborn is admittedly a kid. Ryltar is probably a couple centuries old. We're not … normal. We're conveniently timed."
Valna asks where Jerry is going next. Jerry replies, "The West Haven, to check in on my daughter."
"With the solstice coming up, I travel to the West Haven for the Council meetings."
"Well, I suspect most of us are going to go to West Haven, for our various businesses. But you're welcome to travel with us."
"Normally, I would ask the more militarily-minded of the townsfolk to travel with me as guards. I don't ask more of you than you have already given, but can I ask you to have these families who normally travel with me to spend the holiday with their families?"
"Like I said, you're welcome to travel with."
"Thank you," says Valna, and turns away with Kan to go to bed.
"Remember to bring your shield, Kan!" calls Jerry as they walk away.
Jerry catches up with the rest of the Party, who has proceeded with little incident. (Bugfood and Salris and Ryltar got into a dispute about stuff.)
The next day.
There's a carriage parked out front of the inn when we wake up; horses are being tacked up and harnessed. The townsfolk are trickling into the great hall for breakfast. Breakfast is porridge, without musical accompaniment. Valna is seen holding on to Kan.
Tula buys three javelins from the village blacksmith.
Salris sells his spare hand crossbow to another person.
Jerry tries to sell her two spare sets of leather armor to the tanner, but
Bugfood talks to a tanner and gets his armor upgraded from leather armor to amethyst-bedazzled armor, effectively studded leather armor.
We find Thariel, who was on the town noticeboard. Vurguron had seen him earlier. The things on the message board:
Thariel is looking for his lost cow.
Vargas is looking for a leatherworking apprentice.
Farngrim still looking for someone to repair his plates.
Dara is looking for grey-cap mushrooms.
Salris sells the nine pounds of grey-cap mushrooms he has gathered to Dara. "My friend Ryltar here is very well-versed in the picking of mushrooms," he says as Ryltar walks into the store. Dara doesn't have the money to pay for the mushrooms, but can brew them into three 2d4+2 healing potions.
When the potions are done, Valna calls the town to order. "At noon today, I'll be leaving to West Haven." Several of the farmhands begin to stand up. "I won't need guards this trip, but thank you for volunteering. Our new friends will be traveling with me, as guards."
Ryltar asks Jerry if Kan is traveling with us; Jerry says that Kan is traveling with Valna, who's traveling with us. Ryltar says that we should train Kan in fighting; Jerry agrees. Jerry wanders off to make sure that Kan packs his armor and shield.
Salris talks with Jerry about giving Kan a dagger; they decide that it would be better for Salris to sleight-of-hand it into Kan's pack.
We set out. The travel party is:
Bugfood on a horse, who uses Speak with Animals to explain to the horse what is going to happen.
Vurguron on a horse
Ryltar on a horse, though he lacks proficiency in it
A carriage drawn by two horses, driven by Tula or Jerry, with the other riding shotgun.
Valna, Kan, and Salris within the carriage
On the road to West Haven
The first day
We start at ten in the morning, because everyone is ready then. Vurguron and Bugfood on horse ride in front of the carriage, and Ryltar takes the rear. We pass noon, and the road winds through the forest.
We come to a clearing, where there's a carriage stopped. Bugfood hears in his mind, Stop, don't move, look up, and he stops his horse by asking it politely. He waves the rest of the party to halt, and looks up. Ryltar prepares a Ray of Frost. Bugfood sees a shadow pass across the land; above us there is a blur of motion. Salris hops out of the carriage.
Round 1, in which the Chimera makes itself known and destroys the other carriage. It shrugs off most attacks.
Jerry casts Hunter's Mark on the moving thing, which is 60 feet up and 20 feet off to the right. It has wings and a head and at least three heads.
Vurguron sees the flying beast. He looks at the abandoned carriage, which is slightly clawed. He shoots it with his crossbow.
The Chimera flies down and lands on the carriage. It attacks the carriage, ripping it apart. The carriage is no longer intact.
Salris ducks behind our carriage, runs off the side a bit, and then Eldritch Blasts the Chimera for 1 damage.
Ryltar rides his horse forwards a bit, and then casts Fairy Fire on the Chimera. The Chimera dispels the Fairy Fire. He curses his luck.
Tula jumps off the carriage, runs up, and yeets a javelin at the Chimera.
Bugfood casts Frostbite on the Chimera, for 2 cold damage and disadvantage on its next attack roll.
The Chimera attacks Vurguron, and Tula damages it.
Jerry throws a dart at the Chimera, but only hits the cart.
Vurguron shoots the Chimera with his crossbow.
The Chimera flies closer to the Party's carriage. Its dragon head fire-breaths Vurguron and his horse; his horse evaporates and he takes 13 fire damage. Then it claws and bites at him, and flops into the air.
Salris Hexblade Curses it.
Jerry feels a commotion within the carriage, as if Valna is putting herself in a defensible position.
Ryltar casts Snilloc's Snowball Swarm on the Chimera, for 6 cold. He moves off to the side.
Tula runs over to under the Chimera, jumps up, and attacks the Chimera in midair for a heckton of pain in between the goat and lion heads.
Bugfood casts Fairy Fire on the Chimera, and it turns bright purple to match his amethyst-bedazzled armor. All have advantage on attacks against it. He then rides his horse away from the combat.
A new challenger appears! The Chimera is damaged.
A squat, portly man appears out of the ether, ten feet behind Tula. He casts Healing Word on Vurguron. Then he runs behind the cart.
Jerry throws a explosive flask at the chimera, dealing 9 cold damage and 2 damage from Hunter's Mark on the Chimera. Vurguron takes 4 cold damage, Tula takes 9. Then she backs the carriage away from the Chimera.
Vurguron attacks the Chimera multiple times with his sword. Blood pours from the goat's mouth.
The Chimera tries to attack Vurguron, but he casts Shield and is protected from all three heads' attacks.
Salris jumps up to attack the Chimera, but instead falls prone. From lying flat on the ground he casts Eldritch Blast on it, and then stands up.
Ryltar casts Ray of Frost on the Chimera for 3 damage.
Tula jumps up to attack the Chimera, but misses. She throws a javelin and hits for 8 damage.
Bugfood casts Frostbite for 3 cold damage and disadvantage. And then he grants a Balm of the Summer Court to Vurguron for a total of 2 bonus HP.
The chimera moves unwisely, and is killed.
The portly man moves out from behind the carriage, and casts Healing Word on Vurguron for 6 hp. And then he viciously mocks the chimera, squeaking out "Fuck you!"
Jerry whips a dart into the goat's eye for 11 damage.
Vurguron stabs the Chimera, bringing it to within a hair of dying.
The Chimera's fire breath misses Vurguron. Its bite doesn't pierce his armor. Its horns miss. Its claws miss him. And then it tries to fly away.
Vurguron's attack of opportunity cuts it in half.
Tula's attack of opportunity slices off the dragon's head.
Salris's attack of opportunity cuts off the lion's head.
Bugfood asks if anyone would have a container, to collect the Chimera's magical essences. The portly man says that he might have a vial, and starts rummaging through his destroyed carriage. The party heals up.
Ryltar asks the man where he's heading; he says West Haven. "I tried to warn you," he says. He's old, overweight, portly, with red hair and beard and suspenders. His carriage has torn reigns, but no sign of a draft-beast. He says he's a merchant, by the name of Sir Bertram Bell. He's an enchanter. Salris offers him a ride on our wagon, since we're headed in that direction.
But we're now down a horse, meaning that we can't take him with us unless we find a spare mount for someone, because we only had one spare seat in the carriage to begin with. Bugfood says he has a plan to solve the seating issue, by seducing an elk for someone to ride. Salris says that Vurguron can ride in the carriage with Kan, Valna, and Sir Bertram, and Salris and Ryltar can pair up on the stoutest horse.
Sir Bertram has found some stuff in his carriage, which he stuffs into his own bag of holding.
Salris butchers the burnt horse for 5 pounds of meat, which is good for 5 people's dinner.
Jerry asks Valna if she's up for having Sir Bertram ride with us; she asks what happened. Jerry replies, "There was a Chimera attack; it's dead now." "Thank you?" She's quite surprised by the response. Perhaps Valna is still adjusting to the idea of traveling with people who have fighting experience.
Bugfood takes Form of Horse, and saunters on down the road with Salris on his back.
Two hours later, Bugfood's shape fades. We rearrange the horses.
We travel until nightfall. The forest is light; we set up camp a little ways off the road. Sir Bertram casts Alarm around the campsite; Ryltar asks for an explanation.
Bugfood uses some of his herbs to make a health potion.
The night's watches:
As the equinox grows close, Salris feels the chill of the night flow into a dull warmth. A soothing fog rises from the ground, filling the low hollows. The clear night sky and full moon illuminate the mists.
Bugfood sees more of same. He gazes up through the trees, individually looking at each constellation.
Jerry and Ryltar share the third watch. Nothing out of the ordinary is spotted.
Ryltar and Vurguron share the fourth watch; Vurguron is really bad at watching. Bertram sleeps soundly and his snores drown out Vurguron's hearing. Ryltar sees nothing.
The sun rises; Ryltar is taken aback by the sun's rising light.
The second day
Bugfood drops into a trance and looks for a deer or elk or other four-legged riding beast. He is pointed four miles back the way we came. He takes Form of Panther with its 50 feet of move speed, and dashes off. He sneaks up on the elk, and finds five. He ducks behind a tree to remove his animal shape, and then he casts Animal Friendship as a second-level spell to collect two elk. The two elks are befriended. He casts Speak with Animals and explains who he is and what he's doing, and points them off to the party. Then he takes Form of Panther and brings them back to the party.
Bugfood rides one elk, Ryltar rides the other. Ryltar takes a while to inspect the elk; he's never ever seen anything like it before and knows absolutely nothing about it. They only have riding spiders in the Underdark.
Ryltar and Salris flirt about how they're both from hives of scum and villainy.
We go up the trail.
With light conversation we travel the entire day.
Jerry tells about how she's going to see her daughter. Her wife is back in Lanthet, near the North Haven.
Salris wonders if there'll be jobs there.
Bugfood says he's on a mission, but he'll explain it the next night.
Tula seeks to forge the path.
We're in plains now, so we set up camp near a tree near the road. Bugfood explains to the elk that Jerry will tie them to the tree; Jerry fails utterly. Bugfood eventually ties them to the tree, so that we'll have them in the morning.
We learn a little bit about Ryltar's backstory: he basically left because the food and stuff were atrocious. Salris tells him about fish, and how good they are.
Bugfood's motivation
Bugfood points to one of the constellations, and says, "there's something wrong with the stars. That star turned red." And as best as we can tell, he's correct. Jerry studied the stars once upon a time, and confirms that Bugfood is pointing to the constellation Abraxes. It's a rarer constellation, not useful for navigation. Bugfood explains that the thing that happened was bad and is a problem, but he doesn't know why.
"How dead are we on a scale of one to ten?" asks Salris.
"Probably a nine. I used to understand, but I don't anymore," says Bugfood. Form of Squirrel and he runs away. Salris tries to pick him up with Mage Hand, and drags him back. Form of Tiefling and the Mage Hand can no longer carry him. "Well, it's bad. It's why I'm no longer south. I came here now because it's bad."
Ryltar says, "So you're looking for people to assist you?"
"Uh, three silver," says Bugfood.
"Done!" And Bugfood gives Salris his remaining three metal coins.
"It'd be a real benefit to you and all of us if you helped us," he ventures.
Ryltar says, "We could visit a university when we get to West Haven. They would at least be aware of the constellation, and could tell us about why it might have changed color. But what else do you know about it?"
Bugfood can't remember much. He retires to fortify a second healing potion.
Valna and Bertram retire for the night. Our watches:
Salris watches light clouds roll in. He spends most of his night summoning and dismissing his pact weapon; an emotion of disappointment gradually fills him. "Reminds me of Dad," he thinks.
Bugfood watches the clouds continue to roll in.
Ryltar and Jerry's watch is darkened by overcast skies.
Vurguron and Ryltar's last watch of the night is peaceful with cool breezes.
The third day
Bugfood recasts Animal Friendship on the elks.
The road continues through rolling plains; the weather turns towards drizzle and chill rains. It's a dreary, cold day.
Jerry comes down with a sniffle, taking one point of exhaustion. She does doesn't complain about it.
Ryltar also acts like he's freezing cold, asks if anyone has a spare cloak. Bugfood offers to warm him up; Ryltar's hand is freezing cold. Then Ryltar cracks a smile and says he was just joking.
We come upon a hill, which is about a day's travel away from the city. We set up for the night under a tree, and try to tie the elk up for the night again. But the elk are far from home, and tetchy, and hard to tie up. They flee from handling, but stay close by hand.
Salris takes the first watch. Nothing happens.
Ryltar takes the second watch. It's still overcast.
Ryltar takes the third watch. The weather remains grey and dreary.
Bugfood keeps an eye on the elks during his watch, and sees nothing out of the ordinary.
We wake up in the morning, and the elks are gone.
It is Suon, the third day of the fifth week of the month of Tarsakh in the year 997 P.D.
Next steps
The total take from this session's raiding of the Kobold cave:
481 gold apiece
19 silver apiece
9 amethyst shards (worth 90 gold) (given to Bugfood)