"Poisons, eh? I could stand to learn a little about that. Make my crossbow all the more deadly, I should think!" says Imperius, when he learns of the mission from Brenzil.
Without an invitation, he barges in. "Yes, I think I shall accept your mission, in return for you teaching me the intricacies of poisons. Why should those oversized pinks kins have any advantages over the Lords of the Darkmoon Vale? They shall rue the day they DARED take on Imperius Aurum Rex, Scion of Dragons!"
"We will take revenge against these squirrel kidnappers and teach them NEVER to mess with us again!"
Kadosh merely frowns as he realizes his peaceful little mission -- which surely wouldn't have been a problem for him to do quietly -- just got a little more complicated. On the other hand, if there are in fact complications, at least there's someone to draw attention.
"Which first, my liege?" he hisses?
You head lout to Hag's Hollow, excited to help concoct a horrible deadly poison! Also, all the Truly True Truescales know that Hag's hollow is a really creepy place, and you want to go there during the sunlight hours. It's said Ulizmila the hag was a great-granddaughter of Old Knobby Legs; however Kobolds of ole knew her as a harsh but wise sage willing to share her wisdom for morbid prices.
After a long hike, the sounds of the forest become distant. The trees part, opening into a small and almost perfectly circular glade. The nearest stands of pine, fir, and darkwood twist away from the clearing, as if bent by some impossibly strong wind or perhaps in an attempt to turn away from the clearing. At the glade’s center squats an ugly cottage, little more than a pile of twigs, shoots, and ivy stacked upon mud walls. From the thatched roof dangle bundles of gnarled roots, old animal bones, and knucklebone bangles, all clattering together like gruesome wind chimes. A dozen small thatched fetishes—each shaped like a tiny person, imp, or rearing serpent—stand propped in the yard, keeping guard before a rickety plank door.
There is a patch of pale, rainbow-colored mushrooms growing under the eave of the hut, near the old well.
Imperius looks to the mushrooms, and immediately realizes these must be the ones. "Kadosh, fetch those for me, my good dragon!"
He stands there looking impressive, as always, and then ponders if he actually does know these are the ones.
You will need to get closer to make a check. So you do.
These are indeed Magic Mushrooms. Eating them in their raw state will make you calm and see the world in a new way, however they can also make you nauseous.
More importantly, there are not enough of the mushrooms for the poison. It looks like someone has recently harvested them!
The hag house is eerily quiet.
Kadosh looks back, the intent in his eyes clear: Stay! Wait! Don't make any noise or be a nuisance! Nonetheless, he's certain the message won't be received -- or heeded.
Still, he needs these mushrooms. He creeps closer toward the hut to try to see what's inside.
hold up, did someone harvest these before we got here...? Zyphlryx's head snaps up as he peers about, looking for sneaky hiding pinkskins who are the obvious reason for this development.
Broomzad will sneak closer and peek inside the hut.
Who's been harvesting these mushrooms?
The windows have curtains tightly drawn.
"I am sure that Broomzad and Kadosh will be able to recover the mushrooms which were so rudely stolen from us! I shall wait here for you to do so!"
Good! Wait ... what do you know about this hut?
Kadosh casts a gimlet eye on Imperius and then the hut. Pulling out his fangwire, just in case always be ready! constant vigilance!, he plans to enter. He debates knocking, in case the witch is there, but figures he can talk his way out of it if that happens.
Inside it's dank and reeking. Haphazardly hung shelves line the walls, covered in all manner of clay jugs, clouded bottles, strangely cut rocks, rotted bunches of herbs, and a museum of other crude curios.
A rusted iron cauldron, with a hinged lid built to resemble a frog’s jaws, occupies the center of a magic circle, its ash-covered surface shaped with a relief of capering fiends and leering devils.
A high-back chair stands against the far walls across the door, made of wicker, the gigantic curved tusks of some monstrous beast, and thousands of humanoid teeth. In the chair sits what looks like a corpse wrapped in filthy burial linens, its form padded with pungent herbs and sprouting patches of thick white mold. Its head is shrunken and looks a lot like Imperius's great-great-uncle Dilgax III, who went missing when Imperius himself was just a youth. That was so long ago for a kobold… almost 7 years!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Imperius runs up to the corpse, and reaches for the head. "Alas, poor Dilgax, I knew him well, when I was a kid..."
Before Imperius can reach the shrunken head the cauldron clatters about excitedly. The lid opens like a mouth.
"HUNGRY! HUNGRY!"
Zyphlryx has just begun probing the small table and chairs near the door when the clattering cauldron makes its appetite known. What the f—
The cauldron dances closer. KOBOLDS YUMMY!
Maybe you can feed it. Or smash its stupid lid in.
"Ack! Don't let it eat the mushrooms!"
It clatters forward.
Kobolds! YumMYa!
You better feed it something —fast!
Imperius pulls a couple of days worth of rations out his pack, and throws them into the mouth of the cauldron.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Kadosh looks toward Imperius, thinking two problems could be solved with one kobold.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
YUM!
The cauldron gobbles up the food and clatters about happily. It glows warmly and dances around as it turns the food inside to ash. The shrunken head on the throne tumbles to the ground and screams. "Imperius! Pick me up at once, you blasted fool!" The tiny, shrunken old head coughs up a puff of dust.
"You never were very bright, Imperius. We thought you'd be dead within a year of hatching. I see nothing has changed. Now that you fed it, the blasted cauldron will follow you lot around until you run out of food. Then it'll cook you alive! Should have thrown yourself into it and saved everyone the trouble if you ask me. But no one listens to Dilgax III. Never did. Hrrrmph. More fool them."
The pot dances around. The lid clatters. YUM YUM YUM!
You might try to identify the shrunken head.
Soulspeaker
Rare, Illusion, Invested, Magical
Price 25 gp
Usage worn
This grotesque, amulet-like shrunken head is said to hold a shard of its owner's psyche. The head is often that of a humanoid, but any creature capable of speaking in life can provide the grisly component needed for this magic item's creation. The head can contain a short message whispered to it and can then be commanded to repeat the message later. While a soulspeaker carries a message, the eyes of the shrunken head open, and they close as soon as its message is delivered.
Activate [2-actions] command; Effect You cast message, but instead of your message being transferred directly to a target's ears, the message is stored in the soulspeaker. The soulspeaker's eyes open, and the next time it's activated, the soulspeaker repeats the message you spoke to it with a rasping whisper before its eyes close again, the message expended.
The now headless "corpse" wrapped in filthy burial linens proves to be rags stuffed with desiccated herbs.
Searching the rest of the hut yields only black mold, shattered jars, empty chests, and dust. The cauldron clatter around hoping you'll feed it more. "YUM! HUNGRY!"
"I told you!" rasps Dilgax III.
Broomzad recoils when the head begins talking rolls off!
"Ack! Feed it the head!" He says to Imperius, who seems to know this dead body.
Pepin studies the cauldron, thinking of the most filling meal he could possibly give it, while throwing it some scraps of dried meat to keep it busy.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Not that smart? Not that smart?" he bellows as he picks up the shrunken head. "Why, I'll tell you Auntie always said I was the brightest of the royal siblings. And not just a-cause of my breathtaking golden scales!
"Best of the generation. Destined for great things. Auntie was always the best."
He looks around. "So, where are the rest of the shrooms, uncle?"
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Imperius proves exactly how smart he is by identifying the shrunken head as a rare kind of talking mandrake root from the planet Aucturn. It loves to impersonate old relatives in order to annoy people. Never plant one in your garden, as it will multiply as fast as a pestilence and fill your home with all the grating, passive-aggressive chatter of disappointed family members at the dinner table.
The mandrake root/head of Dilgax III shrieks. "You were the brightest of the lot, Imperius, which is like calling a bullfrog a genius just because he's surrounded by slugs! I should be king! No one listens! Why would I know about 'Shrooms' are you on the drugs now too?"
The cauldron gobbles up Pepin's food. The chef believes the cauldron was the witch's pet, now abandoned. It would prefer freshly-killed meat of any kind, especially kobold. Perhaps with cooking herbs that suppress hunger you could even hold its appetite in check or train it.
YUM!
Zyphlryx has contrary knowledge to Imperius's.
He believes the head is a Soulspeaker:
Soulspeaker
Rare, Illusion, Invested, Magical
Price 25 gp
Usage worn
This grotesque, amulet-like shrunken head is said to hold a shard of its owner's psyche. The head is often that of a humanoid, but any creature capable of speaking in life can provide the grisly component needed for this magic item's creation. The head can contain a short message whispered to it and can then be commanded to repeat the message later. While a soulspeaker carries a message, the eyes of the shrunken head open, and they close as soon as its message is delivered.
Activate [2-actions] command; Effect You cast message, but instead of your message being transferred directly to a target's ears, the message is stored in the soulspeaker. The soulspeaker's eyes open, and the next time it's activated, the soulspeaker repeats the message you spoke to it with a rasping whisper before its eyes close again, the message expended.
Unfortunately, the Soulspeaker/mandrake-root/Dilgax III has been stuck inside sitting on a stuffed body and has not seen who pilfered the garden as the windows in the hut are boarded shut. He lets everyone know how boring it was and how disappointed he is to be asked such a foolish question.
Maybe you will need to go try to track the person down in the forest.
"Not at the moment. Can't be having fun when you are out saving the tribe! Unlike you, just sitting in her babbling all the time, wanting to be planted and fill up a garden. Silly root. You can't be my great-great uncle, or you would know that the Truly True Dragon were a smart powerful force to be reckoned with, would he, fellas?"
He tries to rally the kobolds around him as he picks up the mandrake root, looking for a nice jar to put him in. "I suspect Auntie would be amused by you, anyway."
"What happened to the witch?" Kadosh wonders. "She lived here for many years, but it looks like she's been gone for some time..."
He examines the body to see if it might be the witch's (which would just leave the question of where's the witch's head and what took it, which would be an odd switch, and quite likely something worse).
"If the mushrooms aren't in here, they must be out there..."
He trudges back outside to see if he can find any more clues, ignoring the cauldron (which he's sure will attract attention ... but also maybe a new witch?) and Imperius and his uncle's head.
Whatever happened to the witch is a mysetery. Who knows when she'll return.
Outside Kadosh looks around, and finds obvious tracks leading away into the forest!
Kadosh reenters the cabin.
"I could use help looking outside," he says. "Do you want to look over there, Imperius, while I try over here?"
He points the other kobold directly toward the tracks, hoping they'll be as obvious as a cockatrice turning him to stone, so he can claim the credit of finding them. "No, try five more steps to your left. Look down there. There must be tracks somewhere around if the witch didn't steal the mushrooms! Keep looking..."
Broomzad also runs outside to help look for tracks!
"Just get me away from that crazy cauldron!"
The cauldron follows you into the darkening forest, crunching through the underbrush. You follow fresh and easily distinguishable tracks of a single bipedal humanoid.
Up ahead in a clearing, you see a bindle bag laying open; several magic mushrooms tumbled out of it. A bugbear with shoulder-length hair held back with a tie-dyed bandanna lays on the ground, looking up at the moon rising through the tree branches. The wind rustles leaves and he mutters himself. "Duuude. Whoah."
He doesn't seem to notice you at the moment as if he's dazed or something.
"Yum Yum?" says the cauldron.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Imperius clearly finds the tracks that were most definitely not pointed out to him by Kadosh. ”Here! This way!”
Upon stumbling cleverly finding he bugbear, he stands up to his full 3’7” and says, ”My friend, you don’t want to be eating those. They are quite toxic. Here, let us take those off of your hands, while our medic checks you out..”
"Tell him we will trade him this friend," whispers to Imperius, gesturing toward the cauldron. "All he has to do is feed it once."
Zyphlryx agrees. In fact, we'll give him some food to feed it.
Normally I'd bushwack ya on sight but the four-dimensional world is at peace. Ya my kobold friends, these musks are likely to make you joobly. So best leave 'em to the big brother bugbear, ya know?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You are one hoopy frood, man. We just need a few of these 'shrooms and we'll stop harshing your mellow. Peace.
Nature gives plenty, brother. The bugbear smmiles weirdly and walks away. Whether he intended to leave the bindle bag of shrooms behind or not is immaterial, you grab it and make off — mission accomplished!
You head to the Squirrel Hunting Grounds, and try to follow up on the clues…
”What just happened there?” asks Imperius. He checks the bag for foods other than the shrooms, tossing any leavings and other goblin food into the cauldron.
”It seems useful, for sure. I wonder if I might be able to train it?”
He then applies his vast intelligence to tracking
”Kadosh. Your tribe needs you to find the squirrels. Please perform your tracking admirably. ”
YUM YUM! KOBOLD NEXT?
It looks like a small-sized creature with a tail was ambushed here, beat up (from the bloody branches), and dragged off alive.
You can follow the trail easily… the sound of lumber saws and flumes grows louder and louder. Ahead the forest comes to an end — tree stumps and scorched dead earth everywhere. It begins to drizzle.
Several hundred yards ahead is a ruined monastery. It sits squat at the foot of Droskar’s Crag, surrounded by stands of ancient, gnarled trees. Made of simple stone blocks worn smooth with the passage of time, the stout building appears to be slowly falling apart. Sections of the slanted shale roof have collapsed, and portions of the outer wall have crumbled. Weeds and wild thorny plants run rampant across the field leading up to the place, leaving only the slightest indication of a path that ends at a 10-foot-tall wooden palisade made from cut trunks.
There's quite the racket coming from inside the yard. You cannot see inside, but this must be where the pinkskins use their terrible saws. Four dour guards are hunched over, dicing at the gate. You can see an archer sheltering under an overhang, at the top of the palisade.
With at least 200 feet without cover, it may be impossible to approach unnoticed.
Kadosh glances at the camp and gestures in its direction to Imperius. "As you command, so I deliver," he intones. Still, he glance can't help reaching up toward the height of Droskar's Crag. He wonders what might be up there, near the summit of that pallid peak. Dwarven ruins, certainly, but what else? Ancient treasures that may have survived a volcanic explosion? Horrid haunts? Deadly duergar? Perhaps a trio of invisible ifrits? One can never be too sure, which is why Kadosh at least knows he must be constantly vigilant.
He glances back at Imperius and his companions. Someone has to be. Finally he turns his attention to the camp.
"We should wait until dark again," he says. "They stole our goldfish, and now our squirrels. This time we should be less subtle with our message."
”I fear you are correct. But with the cover of night, we could give those dogs some poisoned meat, to take them out. Not unlike what we did last time. Then we just need to deal with their guard animals!”
Imperius giggles a little at his play on words.
It looks like there are potentially dozens upon dozens of Pinkskins in the fort. You would need to get over the walls, locate the kitchens, and then poison their food. Doable, but far more complicated than attacking the small camp last time.
A frontal assault even under cover of night may also be dangerous, but at least you have the advantage of knowing the terrain and tunnels and dark vision to escape if need be.
You wait till night, which isn;t too long off.
"We got this! We just need to follow our plan." Broomzad says like he heard the plan.
He tries to stealth his way across the open ground to the pallisade.
Yunguns think they can take on the world. Stupid if you ask me. Never learn. No one listens to me, Dilgax III. Why when I was your age we knew well enough to keep away from Pinkkin Palisades…
While the rest of you hesitate and listen to the shrunken head yammer on, Broomzad darts among the tree stumps, hoping for cover. You can only follow behind…
Unfortunately, the torches on top provide some decent light. A Pinkskin catches sight of Broomzad!
The guards at the gate stop dicing grab their weapons. The archer takes aim… cruel and awful kicking people while they're down just like Kadosh thought.
The cruel Pinkskin grins as she downs Broomzad with an arrow in the chest. Seeing no others, she laughs. Target practice!
Bah.
And just like that, you see Broomzad, Truly Truescale Kobold, die.
Dilgax III scoffs loudly but for now the rest of you are somehow Undetected.
The guards glance around. Are there more? There's some commotion inside, it seems like the whole place is waking up…
YUM YUM? says the cauldron.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Broomzad
➤ Archer
➤ Kadosh
➤ Zyphlryx
➤ Imperius
Guard 2
Pepin le Beouf
Tough Pinkskin 8
Guard 1