Dungeons & Dragons

At the Warren, Rooster announces another Priority One Mission and calls the rooster roster: Thumper, Nanny, Bizzle, Strings, Batty, and of course Beard. Beard, indisposed after getting into the Salvage Bars, will be covered by his identical cousin, Theodore “Stache” Nigel. Transport for the mission to recover an item answering to “Fred”, stolen by Orcs from an anonymous client, will be the Kowalish Apparatus Thingy (KAT), a barrel-shaped, crablike conveyance. With no time for training or orientation, the team pile into the KAT and begin randomly operating the ten control levers to learn their functions with only some damage to the surrounding Warren structure:

1 Extend / retract legs and tail
2 Front shutters toggle
3 Side shutters toggle
4 Extend / retract claws
5 Attack / grapple
6 Forward / reverse
7 Steering left / right
8 Lights
9 ???
10 Rear hatch toggle

Thumper, consulting his faithful companion Monty, takes ahold of levers 6 and 7 and the team steams off to the olde graveyard where the orc thieves reportedly hold Fred.

Nanny peers out the KAT’s open shutters and surveys the graveyard. She reports graves, and central statue of a reaper wraith with glowing blue eyes, and Orcs standing around battleboar-drawn carts encircling a distressed unicorn caught in a magic suppression field. “Help!” it pleas telepathically. Bizzle flashes the lights and yells for the Orcs to cease and desist, but they merely scoff at the approaching KAT and its lever flipping occupants.

Zombies rise from the graves surrounding the rescuers so Batty swings the KAT around in a bootleg turn while Strings deploys the claws to grapple zombie Fourteen. Stache fireballs Twentytwo, Ten, and Nine re-deadening them with fire. Fourteen breaks in half attempting to escape the claws as Nanny swings the KAT around for another grapple while Bizzle backs it toward the imperiled unicorn. Four impacts outside halt the KAT in place.

Thumper looks out the side shutters for the hitch and declares that four transparent ghost worm suckerless octopus squid tentacles have wrapped the KAT. Batty, inspired by some topical poetry from Strings, gets busy stabbing them through the shutters while the zombies ineffectively lurch into the armored exterior.

Once the orc procession withdraws with the unicorn Fred, the tentacles release and the zombies submerge back into the ground. Nanny spins the KAT to pursue Fred. Thumper intuits some significance about the conspicuous statue and turns the KAT back around toward it. But, in a microcosm of society, the myopic lever-pulling monkey-see-monkey-follow reaction of his thick crewmates overwhelms his thoughtfully strategic 19/20 planning and they make for the olde ruins, found on a map in the fantasy glove box, instead. Backward.

At the ruins, the KAT scuttles up silently, courtesy of Batty, on the ten Orcs loitering around outside the ruins. Batty opens with a crossbow bolt into Purple One and he winces in Orcish, but remembers his leadership training and parlays the wince into a proper warcry. Strings hypnotizes Green Two and Green Three which inspires Nanny to higher achievement. Stache advances toward the charging battleboars who begin battering the KAT as steam lines rupture and the armor dents and cracks. Purple One slams his great axe into the rear hatch.

Nanny and Bizzle use the claw to subdivide Green Six while Thumper hits the automated flood lights and makes an assault landing astride Monty out the rear hatch. He lands near a treeline where three concealed Orc-mounted battleboars surround and assail him mercilessly, but he does uncover a previously unobserved tent where he can make out the silhouette of Fred. Batty follows him out and, keen for her own ride, jumps upon the back of Green Four’s battleboar. Perceiving Batty’s immanent predicament, Strings mocks Green Four, so discombobulating him that he fumbles trying to knock Ninja Batty off the battleboar as she shoulder rolls him sailing off, leaving Batty the proud new owner of one low mileage battleboar. Nanny’s boots, made for walking, take her to Purple One; Nanny’s short swords, made for mincing, reduce him to pâté.  Stache and Bizzle KAT claw Green Five in twain.

Thumper has the three ambushers right where they want him so he casts a jump spell and sails off toward the ruin, landing safely in the company of a fresh wave of newly revealed Orcs. Batty commands her battleboar, christened Piggy, and charges Purple Two. Strings hypnotizes the ambushers and their battleboars while Stache, observing Batty’s fun, hops his own battleboar and uses it to kill Green Four.

Orcish commands emanate from the tent and the battleboar orcs all back away from the KAT. A short fellow with a long nose emerges from the tent with Fred.

“Well, well, well. I was hoping they’d send more R&S agents.” Strings recognizes Craig the Insidious, a very powerful half-Halfling-half-Gnome mage exiled from R&S for making knockoff greycoats. Insidious Craig goes on to explain his entire plan of using Fred to lure R&S agents to his burgeoning Orc army for their greycoats. He doesn’t even WANT a unicorn.

Thumper retorts with his own rousing soliloquy explaining in no uncertain terms that these Greycoats would never surrender and Craig would never get their equipment. Never.

Bizzle offers to surrender his coat immediately if Craig will allow him to drive it over the 60 feet or so in the KAT, claw first. Strings interprets this as some kind of ruse and offers a persuasive, yet deceptive, supporting argument for this course of action while he also boards the KAT. Nanny knows good momentum when she sees it and joins them.

Craig, eager for the three greycoats and confident in his very powerful spellcasting, waits while the KAT slowly approaches and Nanny closes the grappling claw on him. He seems unconcerned even when Stache charges him with a battleboar, merely chuckling to himself about all the sorrow and death these adventurers will soon experience at his hand. But then Batty casts silence on him and his smugness withers.

Nanny and Strings hop out of the KAT and Thumper hops at Craig, lance first. He calls for Fred to stay and maybe help, but Fred sends back telepathically, “Later, suckers!” as he vanishes into the woods. Even Orcs know a silence spell when they see a monk cast it so they all hurl javelins at Batty to break her concentration. She dodges some but not all yet manages to hold concentration on the spell as waves of battleboars crash into her and she is surrounded by Orcs.

Thumper charges at Craig and invents jousting, a new sport of knocking Orcs off their battleboars. Stache gives that a try but the attempt goes wrong and he flips off his battleboar and into the cage cart. The unseated Orcs remount and charge Batty over and over but remain unsuccessful at breaking her concentration while Nanny and Bizzle heap double damage on Craig hoping to stop him before he can find the opportunity to make good on his threats. With that in mind, he slips free from the grappling claw and runs into the midst of his hypnotized ambushers as Nanny and Bizzle swing at his retreat.

Stache, from the inert safety of his cage, takes advantage of the pile of Orcs and battleboars around Batty and puts a fireball right on them dropping 6 green Orcs and damaging the battleboars. Batty, her fan club in greasy Orc flames, catches up to Craig and rains a flurry of blows on him, slaying him just as he escapes the zone of silence.

While Thumper continues separating Orc from battleboar, Strings turns his considerable charm on Fred who rebuffs his persuasive advances until Strings begins to cry. So moved is Fred that he gallops into the fray and horn-spikes an Orc right off the battlefield into the woods beyond. Thumper’s lance mops up the last of the resistance and Stache gives the hypnotized ambushers a farewell fireball. Only Purple Two remains and he is ornery to the end. Batty puts a bolt in him after accidentally shooting the steaming KAT. Bizzle misses him with Rocky II. Nanny pulls a dagger from her belt and throws it right into Purple Two’s throat, which as it turns out he needed intact to continue living.

The KAT, crippled by the massive battleboar damage, can travel only half speed. Thumper lashes up the battleboars into a draft team, led by Monty and Fred, to pull the KAT back to the Warren where they get an earful for allowing the damage. But the mission was otherwise a complete success with the bonus achievement of one less Craig the Insidious, and besides the damage is easily compensated by the vast quantities of battlebacon.

 

The FHRTT delivers the recovery team to the garden outside the three story museum. Casing the exterior, there are no windows and but one door as promised by the mission profile, an indictment of the deplorable fire codes in Baldur’s Gate. Nanny keenly perceives the door is already ajar so Bizzle peeks in and gives the all-clear to Strings who slips in to find two slain museum guards, odd since typically a dead guard would take a sick day and have a living guard cover for him. Strings hums a little tune to inspire the team to new heights of achievement as it appears the mission has gone pear-shaped even before their arrival.

This entry lobby features a statue of Oghma, four doors that continue to the interior, and a faint trace of poison gas Nanny senses and Beard disavows. Beard, never at a loss for something inexplicably appropriate to do, casts a detect poison spell. Bizzle checks the bodies for the magical passkeys anticipated for arcane security in the gallery. He locates stones mounted to belt worn leather thongs on each guard and palms one to Strings, but also notices matching ligature bruising as though necklaces were yanked off each.

Beard, breathing through his beard, eases out into the gallery hall where the concentration of poison is a bit higher and determines the substance causes massive damage and obscuration. He can make out another prone body across the hall near a grand staircase up to the second level. Nanny scouts for traps and spots paintings displayed in a gallery on the right so the party moves toward them hoping to find Quicksilver and call it an early night.

Nanny realizes the paintings have all been cut out of their frames and also that two Gnolls have cut out of the darkness with thrumming longbows aimed at Strings who deftly catches one arrow using nothing but his lung. Beard, observing the complete lack of collateral damage vis-a-vis missing paintings, launches his signature fireball at the Gnolls obliterating them to ash in a single conflagration, or at least that’s how he envisions it would happen but instead lets go of the fireball too soon and it fizzles harmlessly. Bizzle dashes up to Two distracting him so Nanny can sneak in an attack while Strings mocks One viciously making him lose confidence and some health. Two makes an impressive move allowing him to miss both Bizzle and Nanny in a single attack and One, undoubtedly trained by the same master, misses Beard twice. Bizzle sinks Destra into Two and sinks Sinistra into the gallery wall where he reluctantly abandons it to flank himself between One and Two. Strings, Beard, and Nanny focus their efforts on Two and he departs the living world mocked, thorn whipped, and poly-sliced. While Bizzle and Nanny tag team One, Beard takes up watch into the gallery hall to ensure the ruckus has not attracted unwanted attention and Strings pulls on Sinistra to free it from the wall. Suddenly pulled free, the unbalanced scimitar swings back and strikes Nanny in a freak accident. One is quickly subdued and knocked unconscious until Nanny can tie him up and begin the helm of telepathy interrogation.

The following is harvested by Nanny from One’s thoughts, despite the Gnoll’s defiant and insulting mouth:
He is working for R&S’s competition, Darkwater Cartage.
His organization is presently looting the second floor.
The stolen paintings are still onsite, collected into backpacks.
The pilfered necklaces, likely the arcane passkeys, are in the possession of Dingo and Mutt.
This particular Gnoll has many pups at home who require sustenance, orthodontics, and tuition, but he would like to go on living anyway if he can manage to avoid professional censure.

One is gagged and shoved into a dark alcove to quietly contemplate his life choices, along with his less fortunate cohort Two likely contemplating his own weakness in the cleansing torture of Yeenoghu.

Just real quickly before leaving, Strings has a look at a large tapestry of a King and Queen left behind by the raiders. He thinks he might be growing fond of the piece, but then changes his mind at the last moment. Beard doesn’t know a lot about enthralling art, but he knows it when he stares at it deliberately, and that is exactly what happens next. Bizzle tries to wrestle him away, but then sees things Beard’s way; this really is a great tapestry. Strings suggests otherwise to impressionable Bizzle and changes his mind. Strings and Nanny exert a significant effort and numerous spells to dissuade Beard from the tapestry by force, by illusion, and by charm and eventually compel him to turn away. The piece seems like an attractive nuisance for public display, but there is no accounting for taste.

Moving back to the main hall immediately adjacent, it becomes apparent that all the display cases have been emptied except one featuring an obviously valuable scepter prominently located in the center of the room next to a dead Gnoll with a high concentration of poison gas. Strings steps up on the platform for a closer look at this cunning trap which he and everyone else in a 20’ radius enjoys: cloud kill. Everyone staggers out of the fog and up the stairs, alive if not well. Especially Bizzle who has prepared his entire existence to endure cloud kill.

Creeping along the left wall of the second level, the team finds nothing but pilfered display cases except one with a golden egg remaining. No takers this time. Bizzle reports hearing elephants eating popcorn at a string orchestra rehearsal up ahead, but Occam’s Dagger reduces his credibility with the others. Transformed into a bat, Beard uses his un-Bizzle senses to hear footsteps from the left, a hall displaying several completely inert predatory animals, and footsteps from the right, a hallway devoid of visible inert threats. Nanny leads the others forward, locating no traps until she reaches the corner of the animal room where she easily identifies an arcana trap across the threshold to the left and two arrows sticking out her backside shot from a trio of Gnolls emerging from darkness to the right.

Beard reverts to Gnome form and sends his signature fireball back at the three perfectly grouped Gnolls, badly injuring them as the adventurers heal up for the new confrontation and take off for the offenders. A second longbow volley catches Bizzle but Nanny returns a short bow arrow sending One to the kennel in the sky and the two remainders divide in opposite directions. Everyone ducks off the main hall until something happens, and that something is two figures, one Human and the other Gnoll, emerge from around the giant drake that forms the centerpiece of the animal display behind them.

“Well! If it isn’t J. J. Guy Mister”, opens Beard, hopefully stunning the new contenders at least as much as his own party who recognize Dingo and Mutt, senior associates of Darkwater Cartage, when they see them. Dingo reckons no profit from losing more Gnoll henchmen and offers to negotiate a peace for whatever it is R&S might be seeking, as long as it doesn’t conflict with DC’s acquisition of 100% of everything. Beard indicates they might be interested in a certain painting called Quicksilver but only because his cousin failed art school and needs some cheering up. Mutt nudges Dingo, indicating the flying-boat-with-circling-dragons masterpiece in his bag. Strings reckons Beard has softened Dingo’s calm enough and asks Dingo what he wants for the Quicksilver. Dingo wants to leave. Nanny’s helm tells her the favorable negotiations are nevertheless inching toward violence so Strings agrees in principle but defers to group consensus. Dingo and Mutt make a good faith offer by placing Quicksilver into the giant drake’s completely inert maw and walking out, pointedly tripping the arcane trap on their way. Strings and Nanny can’t see how this successful parle could possibly go wrong, so Strings makes Beard invisible as he takes eagle form to make a quick retrieval of the painting. While he does so, the Gnoll that Bizzle has cornered grows suddenly agitated so that Nanny has to put him down.

As Beard reaches the animal display at the end of the hall, he can see that the features are coming to life, and the purpose of the arcane trap is revealed. The giant drake tosses the painting off in a random direction, to the edge of the room where Beard will have the most difficulty getting at it, and launches at full chat for Strings who notices the approaching danger and emphatically urges, over his rapidly retreating shoulder, that Bizzle and Nanny should immediately proceed to the emergency exit. As he reaches the nearby staircase, Strings finds the missing last longbow Gnoll from earlier and utters a tersely vicious mockery, killing him with the insult. Nanny falls in behind Strings and they beat feet for the exit with Bizzle holding back only just enough to keep the drake’s undivided attention on him.

Meanwhile, at the other end, most of the animals take no notice of invisible Eagle Beard landing on the rolled Quicksilver, but one keen wolf does detect this presence and pauses to investigate, somehow missing the huge bear lurching toward him attacking everything in his path. Without pausing to mourn the myopic wolf, Eagle Beard snatches up the Quicksilver and retraces his path to the first floor where he encounters an eagle’s greatest enemy: doors.

With proper dramatic timing, the R&S and DC principals all arrive in the entry lobby where Dingo and Mutt rudely attempt to bully the team out of the Quicksilver and must be reminded they are the party who placed the valuable painting irretrievably into the mouth of a giant drake. As it so happens, invisible Gnome Beard is just now invisibly stashing the invisible Quicksilver into his invisible Greycoat before Strings drops the invisibility spell.

About that time, the drake bursts into the room menacingly. Mutt coolly drops it with one hit, zero efforts. “You’re welcome.”

R&S gather themselves outside for the teleport where Bizzle, trying his best to be as cool as Mutt, offers, “Hey. Hey, you guys wanna ride with us?”

“Thanks, kid, we’ll do our own thing.”

“Okay, then, smell ya la–” and Bizzle activates the helm a moment too soon before he can finish executing his pithy cut, making him look like a dork.

PROLOGUE

Quint rolled in, a cheerful smile on his face, his spectacles perched far out on his rather long nose, “Morning folks, we’ve got a rather interesting job three here.  Bizzle, Nanny, Strings, and Beard, please report to my lab, I need to get you outfitted.  Bring your coats.”

“Quint?” queried Nanny, “Must be an undercover job.”

Beard was still yawning from his week-long nap, but his badger seemed antsy.  His trademark forked beard seemed to twitch and wriggle as he sleepily headed for Quint’s lab.

As they filed into his lab, they saw piles of books, and various equipment piled up to, and some of it even resting upon, the ceiling.  Every crack and crevice was filled with innumerable gadgets and magicks, potions and tools, maps and rare fungi.

“What do we get? Some sort of secret swords?  Compact Ballistas? An army of Golems, stashed in a briefcase?” asked Bizzle in an excited but gruff tone.

“Not today,” Quint said chuckling, “No sir, just a minor glamour to help with the splatter-miffin.”

Quint had a small pail with a brush, the sort one uses to clean out a fireplace, or sweep  dirt from surfaces.  “Line up please, coats on, arms wide.”  Nanny stepped up first.

Quint pulled out the brush, and starting from her collar, he began to sweep her entire coat, meticulously brushing every square inch of the surface.  As if he were some sort of painter, he periodically dipped the brush into the pail, although there seemed to be nothing actually visible inside the bucket.  Wherever the brush swept though, the surface of the coat appeared to change.  The coat itself was still obviously visible, but the coat now bore an image instead of the steely grey that trademarked the protective garment.  The image even seemed to move, and when viewed while Nanny stood still, it gave her the appearance of a boat worker, not that of an R&S employee.  It was a form of “urban camouflage”.

One by one Quint applied the glamour to each of the team members.  Bizzle’s coat cast him as a stablehand, Strings looked more noble, and Beard gave off the appearance of a hermit who wore burlap and bushes.

“Huh, never know quite what it will do, but as long as you have plausible deniability that you work for Mr. Ransom and Mr. Salvage, you’re good.”

He handed the folder to Strings, “Scribe, here’s the contract, read it but you cannot take it with you, this one’s a Black 3.”  – Priority 3, but with a clandestine requirement.

 

Inside the mission packet the contract reads:

 

Ransom and Salvage Recovery Contract

 

Location: Neverwinter, BlackgatePrison

Customer: Truoghton Bough, Chief of Redcap Courier Corp, Quastarte

Objectives:

Rescue Wyett Espinalffes, R.C. who has been unlawfully imprisoned

Recover the courier package that the R.C. was delivering

Maintain strict confidentiality regarding the package contents

Minimize harm to bystanders

Background:

R.C. Espinalfes is a member of the Redcap messengers from Quastarte.  Two days ago they were expected to return to Quastarte with an encoded message from one of the Lords of Waterdeep.  When the courier did not arrive at the expected time, a brief investigation was done and it was discovered that Espinalfes had been arrested in Neverwinter.  Lord Protector Neverember’s men arrested the R.C.  for “sedition” but given the lawless nature in Neverwinter, these were clearly false charges.  It is believed that the S.K.Ls, the Sinister Knives of Lockley, or “Skulls”, are interested in the package contents and that this is a thinly veiled rouse to buy them time to decipher the package.  Infiltrate Blackgate prison, and recover Wyett  Espinalfes and the courier bag. Discretion is a must, and why Ransom and Salvage are the contractor of choice.



“Do we get a B.A.D.G.R. for this operation?” asked Bizzle.

“Not today, you young whipper-snapper.  No you’re going to get close to the prison by navigating in through the sewers.  You’ll have to use the A.R.R.M.P.T., the Armored Rapid Response Marine Personnel Transport.”

“The Armpit!” Shouted Beard.

“Those stink,” replied Bizzle.

“Stink or not, Armpits are necessary and perfect for this job.  Go check one out from the dockmaster, she’ll give you a map of the canals to get you to the Neverwinter sewers.  Plus it will cut up the coast to Neverwinter in no time.”

Strings handed the package back to Quint, and the four trusted employees headed for the R&S dock.

 

…..

After a half days ride North in the Armpit, the crew is still slightly shaken from the speedy hull bouncing repeatedly across the rough surf.  Thickly armored and fast, the Armpit has simple controls and the team rotates shifts as “captain”.

Neverwinter comes into view in the distance, and the sewage canal is exactly where Quint indicated on the map.  Slowing the technomantic engine, the Armpit pulls into the canal, barely squeezing into it’s narrow passage.  After another fragrant hour in the Armpit surrounded by sewage, the “old well” is visible above a canal crossing.  Bringing the Armpit to a silent stop, Stings drops anchor, and the four “experts” step from the Armpit onto the narrow stone ledge.  A ladder leads up to the old well opening.

“I’ll say it agin, Armpits stink” quips Bizzle.

“You sure it’s not the sewer?” jokes Nanny.

The party climbs upward.



LOGUE

Beard climbs out of the sewer well into conspicuous daytime Waterdeep and is immediately arrested by a guard on the charge of climbing out of a sewer well. Clearly the town has some very specific penal codes, but Beard, with no proficiency in jurisprudence, transforms into a fly and leaves. The guard assesses his grasp on reality and the adventurers assess the benefits of doing clandestine work at night.

When the guards change at nightfall, Beard observes they switch to a roving patrol of the roads with up to a 20 minute lapse the group could use to cross the road into a dark alley nearby. Nanny gives a masterful demonstration as she leaves the well and appears to be shrubbery in an alley. Beard appears to be a fly on shrubbery in an alley. Strings appears to be nothingness standing next to a fly on shrubbery in an alley. Bizzle trips exiting the well and appears to be making a commotion lying in the middle of the road, “Oof!”. The night patrol hears the ruckus and takes curfew infractions seriously so the Lord Protector’s men begin rousing the nearby residents for the placement of blame while the party moves quietly down the alley toward the prison. An unsympathetic homeowner observes Nanny outside in the alley and calls for the patrol. A brief hide-and-seek ends with Bizzle running between the two guards with his own mouth mithrilly banded to silence their alarms while Strings sleeps them out and Nanny pours out brandy on them to discredit any stories they might recount when they momentarily awake.

Arriving at the prison walls, the group cases the exterior. There is but one obvious entry door, some barred windows along two sides, a watch tower on one corner, and three visible guards patrolling atop the walls. Nanny reads the thoughts of Fly Beard reconnoitering inside the prison and they learn of a yard with requisite gallows, entry room with two guards, break room with two guards, prison cells about half-occupied, kitchen, dining room, and a tightly sealed door clearly designed to keep out fly-form-druids. Nanny, moving around outside the prison to stay in range of Fly Beard’s thoughts, attracts the attention of a guard in the entry room. Strings, in his nobleman’s glamour, intercedes and suggests maybe the guard would prefer to return to the building and have a little break. The guard agrees and departs for a bit of drinky drinky.

Fly Beard returns with a grain of sugar and buzzily suggests the party teleports into the unoccupied kitchen where they will have access to the sealed area without having to raise the two portcullises that isolate the prison into three sections. The teleport helm works perfectly and Bizzle finds himself standing in a sugar bowl. Beard leads them to the dining room directly across the main hallway from the sealed room of interest. Nanny peers across at the door and can see how it is locked, stealths over, picks the lock, and slips unnoticed into a small foyer connecting two private offices. The office in front of her contains the sought messenger bag and a red cap upon the desk. To the right a staircase leads down. To the left she sees the captain of the guard who jumps up and chases her retreating back across the hall.

Back in the dining room, Strings and Bizzle duck and cover beneath the tables. The captain bursts in right behind Nanny at the exact moment Beard transforms from fly to gnome and the socially myopic captain feels compelled to stab Beard without explanation. Bizzle, ready for that inevitability, cuisinarts the captain’s lower extremities until he passes out. Capitalizing on the display, Bizzle steps into the hall and implores the four guardsmen to desist for their own safety. That they suddenly appear placated probably has more to do with Strings’ hypnotic pattern spell than the threats of a three foot stable hand, but Bizzle remembers it his way.

Finding the portcullises up, Beard leaves to check out the prison cells for anyone wearing a red cap. The inquiries go something like this:

“I’m looking for Wyett Espinalfes. Are you Wyett?”

“Yes! Yes! I’m Violet Espinoza!”

“Good, I’m escorting you to your execution.”

“Oh! Nope, that’s not me.”

And so he works his way down the line.

The rest of the party thread their way through the charmed guards to the captain’s office. Strings, the mission scribe, recovers the messenger bag, the cap, and, from the unconscious captain’s desk, a book that matches the encrypted tome on the mission contract. Bizzle binds the office door with mithril binding to hold out the angry guards now aggregating in the hall and hangs back while Nanny and Strings have a look down the stairs. Nanny finds a narrow passage teeing a down short distance with doors to the left and right. To the right are two murdered guards which she steps around to poke her head through the door.

“Whoops, wrong room,” she tells the Elven caster, Kenku, and two Dragonborn staring at her.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Caster inexplicably apologizes to Nanny. Strings calms the emotions of one Dragonborn who carries an unconscious female, but the caster blinds Nanny and Strings. The mystery gang beats the snot out of blind Nanny and pushes her down. Still blind, she regains her verticality and stumbles away while Strings implores the caster to stop trying to kill them if possible. The caster cups his face lovingly in her hand as they all brush past toward the other door, maybe opening and closing it.

Back upstairs, Beard realizes the hallway is filling with uncharmed guards cutting him off from the party while he interrogates the imprisoned population of possible Wyett Espinalfes’s. He casts a high level fog across the prison floor blinding all the guards, transforms to a blind-sighted bat, and flies to the arcane locked door Bizzle guards on the other side. Bat Beard flops against the door and a chiroptophobic guard starts hollering about the bat, none of which makes an impression on Bizzle waiting for Beard’s arrival on the opposite side of the door. Realizing his predicament, Beard transforms back to Gnome-with-opposable-thumbs form and lets himself through the door. Trusting the re-sealed mithril banding to hold out a little longer, Bizzle runs down the stairs to see what Strings’s ruckus is about and Beard follows with acrobatic flair. While Strings and Nanny bump around helplessly, Bizzle locates tortuously pulled fingernails and a log of similar activities, to which Strings is directed, in the torture chamber on the right while Beard ignites the locklessly locked door on the left. Beard dispels Strings and Nanny’s blindness and some effort is made to extinguish the fire surrounding the ruined door, mostly by Nanny using her waterskin and prone body. Through the incinerated door the party finds a section of the subterranean sewer system and two rowboats tied up with a third missing, presumably taken by the opposition party. Beard transforms to reef shark form and pulls the first boat occupied by Nanny and Strings tied to the second boat occupied by Bizzle. The shark train takes off through the sewer in pursuit of what they hope will prove to be Wyett Espinalfes and his four kidnappers.

After some time of shark-assisted rowing the sewer splits in two directions. To the left is the ARRMPT blocking the passage which, it eventually occurs to the party, would make a pretty good vehicle for pursuing the kidnapper’s boat, so they pile in and resume the chase. Shortly later, a passage obscured by vines becomes visible. Knowing that obscured sewer passage are tools of the nefarious, Beard steers into the vines but halts the boat when stone arms reach down and roughly grab Bizzle and Strings. Nanny smashes the arm grappling Bizzle, Bizzle smashes the arm grappling Strings, and Beard accelerates away from the trap toward the light at the end of the passage.

Beard coasts the ARRMPT into a large sewer chamber where the kidnappers have just docked their rowboat and are lugging their hostage across the dock to one of two visible exits. Beard throws a wall of fire cutting off their escape and Caster returns a fireball into the ARRMPT. The unmoving hostage is deposited on the dock as both Dragonborns jump into the 3’ grey water and begin approaching. Finding himself in control of the ARRMPT, Bizzle aims at Dragonborn One and gives her the beans. One gets smashed as ARRMPT crashes over him, but Strings is thrown into the bulkhead as the ARRMPT crashes into the wall beyond the Dragonborn. Beard matches Caster’s fireball and gets a piece of the Kenku who sends an oily crossbow bolt back at Bizzle. Dragonborn One climbs aboard ARRMPT to come at Strings who inspires all his teammates before calmly noshing his Salvage Bar in One’s face. Bizzle swings at One with both scimitars but drops Sinistra overboard and takes a hit from One as he jumps in after it. Caster smugly flies off toward the ceiling out of reach, except for Beard’s personal lightning storm which she finds shocking. As Beard observes, “She’s not grounded.” But Caster retorts with her own hail storm of hail on the ARRMPT. The Kenku moves toward the hostage so Bizzle abandons his search for his dropped scimitar and trades hits until the Kenku falls. Beard and the caster trade great balls of fire and storms until a nasty fireball from Beard immolates her. Dragonborn Two boards ARRMPT but breaks both wildly swung shortswords and Strings ducks his desperate grapple. Nanny drops her own shortsword but draws a dagger to her offhand and stabs Two to his end.

Wyett is revived and hastily removed from this nasty hideout. Per contractual obligation, the courier, bag, and book are returned with arguably minimal bystander harm.



EPILOGUE

…. The trip home …

 

“Quick, get her in the boat before any other skulls come down here” shouts Nanny steering the Armpit to the stone dock.

Bizzle gently lifts the broken form, bloody and bruised, and gingerly lays her in the vessel.  Beard and Strings in tandem being to administer healing potions and magicks to stabilize the woman.  Opening her remaining eye she says “the package?”

Strings shows her the satchel and the book, and the relaxation in her eye is clear.  She drifts back into unconsciousness.

Bizzle takes the helm while Nanny leans over the edge of the boat and grabs an amulet from one of the floating dragonborn “this is how to beat the trap!” she exclaims.

Easing the throttle forward the armpit whips down the sewer back towards the sea.  

…

Five hours later, arriving at the R&S dock, the armpit returns to its slip.  “We need a a medical evac, stat!” shouts Strings.

Two grunts on watch come running with a stretcher.  As Bizzle and Beard lift Wyett up out of the boat, seemingly asleep, he one good arm grabs the bag and pulls it to her chest, “Mission first”, whispers the Redcap, as the grunts lay her on the stretcher.  They lift the Redcap and begin to rush out.  

“Halt!” shouts Bizzle, “We have to escort her, we can’t let he out of our site until she is handed to the client… Mission First!”

Beard, Strings, Nanny and Bizzle clamber out of the armpit and take positions fore and aft of the prone courier. “Proceed”, says Bizzle, “we have your back.”

 

PROLOGUE

“We have a priority one job! Priority one, people!” shouts Rooster as he dashes into the Warren.  A gnome barely three feet high and with a red beard and matching tuft of hair on top, Rooster has been a company man longer than any of the other mission managers.  “Bizzle! Nanny! Beard!  Mumbles! Jingles! Squat! Grab your gear, we’re scrambling now!”.  Rooster grabs his goggled helm from his hutch and continues through the Warren.  
“Sir, Mumbles was eaten by that Owlbear!” chimes a random voice.
“Dag nabbit, you need a scribe!  Strings!  Can you scribe?”
“Yessir!  On it sir!” responds Strings grabbing his gear.
The sun is just beginning to set.
“Jingles and Squat on this mission!?!” quips Bizzle to his equals, “They’re bringing in full shares! We’re in the big leagues now!”
“Don’t pee yourself yet, get your gear and get to the terminal!  Move it!”
Donning your trademark Greycoats, and grabbing your gear you rush out to the terminal where the company vehicles are parked.  You reach the nearest “B.A.D.G.R.” and wait for Rooster to drop the gangway.  With tank treads and blades protruding from every direction, the “B.A.D.G.R.” is the peak of dwarf/gnome war machinery.
Rooster chuckles as he passes you, “Not today, we’re in the P.T.A.T.A.!”
“Hooray, the Potato!” shouts Beard.
“It’s P’tata you ninny!” responds Rooster, the “Personnel Transport And Tactical Air-support”.
“He says Potato, you say P’tata, let’s call the whole thing off and take the B.A.D.G.R!” decries Bizzle.
“Get to the P’tata you whiny sparrows!”
Just then a lithe figure, taller than any gnome or dwarf, strides in.  The trademark Greycoat tailored to their height.  Nothing can be seen of the figure, every patch of skin is covered by goggles, a leather skull cap, gloves and a face mask.  The figure strides silently save for two copper coins being rolled back and forth across the gloved hand, causing the faintest “clink” each time they cross in the middle.  Save a bare metal rod clutched in one hand, “Jingles” has no other discernible weapons.
Trudging behind the tall quiet Jingles is “Squat”, a dwarf nearly as wide as Jingles is tall.  With hands like cudgels, and legs thicker than 100 year old tree stumps, Squat has his trademark war maul, “the Old Lady” slung on his shoulder.
Both of the full share partners stride to the P’tata, the metal cylinder with rounded ends roughly 12 paces in diameter and 40 paces in length.  The gangway drops from the back rounded end revealing a narrow passage inside the vehicle.  The walls are 10′ thick and there are no windows save a small portal at the front just above a high stool surrounded by gears and knobs.   
Rooster pushes his way between Jingles and Squat, strides down the length of the P’tata hold, and jumps up on the pilot stool.
The hold is lined with netting that can be adjusted for seating or simply held onto.  You file in and grab a patch of net while Rooster frantically begins turning a wheel.  The gangway rises and you hear a whirring noise and the clank as the wings unfold.  You’ve seen it many times, the gull wings of the P’tata rising and then beginning to flap madly as the unnatural giant iron potato takes flight.  You settle in, catching a nap before your mission.
….
Several hours later the floor of the P’tata illuminates revealing a moonlit keep nestled in a valley between plateaus.  The building appears decayed on one side with a garden visible on one corner.  “Jingles! Squat!  This is your splatter-miffin!  You’ve got your orders!” and the gangway in back once again opens while the P’tata maintains flight.  “Pickup is a double shake!”
“Do we jump here Rooster!” shouts Bizzle gripping his scimitars.
“No!  You don’t think we’d send half-shares on a priority one?  This is a dual deployment, we have a priority four mission you mutton heads need to salvage; the timing was just convenient to take you all together.”
Jingles strides to the end of the gangway, and turns facing you and then slowly steps off backward, dropping straight down.  Squat strides to the end of the gangway and just leans forward, choosing a head first approach for his dive.  The two full-share R&S employees quickly disappear from sight as the gangway rises and the floor goes dark once more.
Rooster tosses back a mission packet with a large “4” scrawled on the cover.  “Familiarize yourself with the mission; your splatter-miffin is in one shake!”
Inside the mission packet the contract reads:



Ransom and Salvage Recovery Contract

Location: Sighing Valley, highest peak south of Knifepoint Gulley just above the Lost River

Customer: Ardak Mroranon

Priority: 4

Objectives: 

Recover tome “the journal of Eccton Fffyth”

Recover tome “Astral Projection and the Elemental Plane”
Recover brooch, Green Oak leaf with mithral filigree, possibly hung on a chain
Premium paid for any other “personal” items found among the target objectives

Background:
Nine days ago, a cohort of seven hands from Quastarte were conducting studies in the Sighing Valley.  They were attacked by a Manticore when they accidentally stumbled into the beast’s lair.  Four were apparently eaten, but three managed to escape back to their university.  Quastarte finds the missing texts and the brooch to be quite valuable and would like them back.  The survivors provided directions to the lair.  It is presumed that the Manticore ate the scholars, and that any items will have “passed” by now.  Your mission is to get into the lair, find the Manticore dung and search it for the missing articles.  Appropriate protective clothing will be provided.  Be wary of the Manticore, do not be stupid.

 



An hour later you feel the P’tata slowing and the gentle bump as you realize it has landed.  The gangway opens onto a rocky plateau with a cave entrance visible 60 paces away.  
Rooster spins in his stool to address you “Alright Sallies: Waffasmig if necessary,  Schmuuuuu the dung, and Skeedaddle.  I’ll be back in a double shake, go!”
You file toward the back of the P’tata grabbing a set of “dung diggers” hanging in the netting at the back, and then proceed into the night headed for the cave opening.  The P’tata lifts off  as soon as the last of you is out, its awkward flapping stirs up a chaotic pattern of dust as it departs.

”Who remembers anything about Manticores?” whispers Strings as you all reach the opening of the cave….

 



LOGUE

Rooster’s P.T.A.T.A leaves The Specialists at the entrance to an ancient temple for a double shake recovery of the effects of a doomed adventuring party. The half-share team is so confident they waste several valuable minutes just discussing pork.

Work ethic intervenes and Nanny, the trap and lock specialist, disarms a tripwire in such a way no one could even tell it is disabled and gives a gwen tiiku ront (thumbs up). The team moves over the inert wire to the left to work on a closed stone door which seems less travelled than other, more inviting, passages around the entry. The door’s mechanism is elusive but eventually Nanny notices the nearby statue is loose. Beard, in rat form, sniffs around and detects the presence of manure in the building, good news as the contract specifies the sought artifacts are expected in manticore spoor, but it’s best not to dwell on that. Strings rotates the statue and the door slides aside to reveal a pressure plate on the other side. Beyond the door, the adventurers don’t need rat senses to access the stench of death. Nanny, Strings, and Bizzle acrobat around the plate while rat Beard squeaks across the plate, too light to have an effect.

Nanny explores along the left wall and, rounding a corner, discovers a reclining skeleton in the corridor. Bizzle peers over her shoulder and confirms: skeleton. Strings advances closer and glyphs glow on the floor when a strum of power courses audibly through the air animating the skeleton. Strings comments scathingly of the skeleton’s parentage, discombobulating it into missing its attack on Bizzle. Nanny, seizing the confusion, sneak attacks and reduces the skeleton to dust. Beard, as a rat, ducks behind two more skeletons attracted by the tussle, reverts to Gnome form, and magically dispels one skeleton like it never existed. Bizzle gives his scimitar attacks everything he’s got but comes up short and Strings takes out the third skeleton. Skeleton four makes a critical attack on Beard but Nanny pulverizes it in a single move. With showman’s panache, Beard sidles up to skeleton five. Boo Boo the Badger leaps from interdimensional space within his forked beard, clamors up through the inside of the skeleton’s rib cage, and bites him in the neck bones. Bizzle’s dual scimitars slice through above and below Boo Boo who emerges from the crumbling fifth skeleton with a prize bone fragment and leaps back into forked beard space.

Nanny checks the shelves in the end of the next corridor and declares them free of traps. Strings, mission’s scribe of record, registers and recovers the shelved potions into inventory and the team continues down to the opposite end where Nanny locates a pressure plate trap. Confident from her success with the earlier trip wires, Nanny slides a piton under the plate while unknowingly leaning on an irregularly shaped corner, setting off a poisoned dart trap that hits her and Strings. Standard issue curative potions are consumed.

Pushing ahead, Bizzle finds an earthen jar with a lid. Beard experimentally hits it with a dispel which has an injurious effect on the jar’s contents, shaking the lid and emitting smoky puffs of anger. Beard retreats a bit and Bizzle counts down three before using a scimitar to flip the lid away. A ghost pops out and Bizzle swings at it with too much momentum for the semi-corporeal target and slices into poor Nanny. Primordial glyphs flash a warning, probably to not mess with the jar. Strings whispers sweet dissonances at the ghost who careens away, his last hit point dangling, and dies irretrievably in the wall, significantly lowering the resale value of the temple.

Strings is busy recovering an arrow brooch from the pile of bones in the jar when the sound of a 43 pound adventurer falling through a trap door is heard from around the corner where Nanny is scouting the path ahead for traps. Beard starts dropping torches to lend both light and weight to the search. Strings finds the trap and beats on it with his rapier. Suddenly remembering the crowbar he’s sentimentally lugged around since his criminally misspent youth, Bizzle pries up one edge of the trap door. Ten feet down to the subfloor, Nanny beats back swarms of beetles nibbling at her tasty limbs. Strings lowers his rope of climbing and fishes out Nanny. Beard spider-walks around the 4’ menace left by the broken trap, but Bizzle mends the door with a piece of mithril banding so it is safe for the other three to traverse.

Pressing forward with more caution, the team finds and descends stairs toward the promisingly lucrative aroma of manure. Bizzle and Nanny scope the room for traps and also whatever may have come through the recently collapsed wall and bitten that manticore in half with a single bite.  The room shows all the signs of a happy manticore home with nesting materials and dung heaps. Strings, with his S&R issued Dung Diggers®, and Beard, with his rat-form indifference to filth, go to work looking for the contract artifacts in the dung. Bizzle locates the Green Oakleaf brooch on the remaining manticore half and Beard rats a coin purse out of the dung. Strings records and recovers the brooch and the purse contents of some gold and one of Ardak’s metal cards.

Following along the right wall the group bypasses a stone door with a pressure plate until the easy open passages are explored first. Beard recons down a short corridor leading to an amphitheater across which a starter hoard holds up a snoozing young red dragon, no big deal. Beard pulls himself together and retreats to share the good news. Meanwhile Strings has found another stone door down a second corridor. Whatever unpleasantness awaits behind the two closed doors has to be better than a dragon, so those are opened while Strings covers the noise with silence to not awake the dragon.

The first enclosed room is small and empty but the back wall has been cracked enough by the damage caused by the dragon that a person, not a dragon, could squeeze through if the situation ever happens to come up. The second closed door conceals an even smaller room with a treasure chest which, when opened, yields 240 pp of money-smelling money. Purely coincidentally, some creature in another room sneezes just like a dragon would if it was awake.

Strings concocts a cunning plan to access the dragon’s hoard. Beard will carry half the coin concealed in his standard issue bag-of-holding-equipped Greycoat grey coat back to the first enclosed room where the dragon will be attracted to the coin but unable to immediately get to it. Beard, invisible and silenced, should then escape either through the door or through the crack, whichever is less blocked by dragon, while the other three search the unguarded horde for the unaccounted items. Once the items are secured and Beard reunites at eagle speed, Bizzle will helm teleport everyone to safety. Bob is everyone’s uncle.

The first thing that goes wrong is that Bizzle, peeking into the amphitheater, sees the hoard but zero dragons. By that time Beard has already left in the opposite direction, invisible, taped with silencing mithril banding and masked with dung smell. Nanny and Strings stack up with Bizzle and none of them can spy the dragon either, a puzzle solved moments later when unaware Beard triggers the sliding stone door and the dragon, revealed from stealth, fills the small room with fire. Beard’s double fire resistance keeps him alive and he dumps the 120 pp to hopefully distract the dragon. He makes for the crack while in the amphitheater his three cohorts raid the hoard. Nanny finds the last two artifacts and begins monitoring the telepathic ether for Beard’s invisible return. Beard flees down the improvised dragon passage in the direction of the hoard, changing to eagle’s form mid stride. He gets some distance ahead of the dragon and lands on Bizzle’s shoulder. Strings drops the invisibility and Bizzle skims the helm of teleportation quick start guide as the furious dragon storms around into view. Using the Dung Diggers® to anchor the teleport, Bizzle beams the party back to the P’tata, surprising Rooster, but the dragon wasn’t born on a giant turnip truck yesterday and flies from the mountain lair to attack. Rooster regains his composure and deploys the Gatling javelin cannons which narratively discourages the dragon.

 



EPILOGUE

…Pickup …
In an instant, Bizzle, Nanny, Strings and an eagle reappear in the hold of the P’tata.  Jingles and Squat are seated near the front of the hold with three wrapped bodies at their feet.  Each of the corpses has been bound in R&S Standard shrouds, magically conforming to the bodies and suppressing any stench.   Jingles appears to be inspecting a crystal rod attached to a chain, presumably some sort of amulet.    Squat is admiring a clockwork goldfish swimming in a perfect glass sphere, tapping on the glass with his stumpy fingers.
“Where did you?!?  What the!?!” Screams Rooster as he stares out the forward portal at a Red Dragon rising up at his ship over his landing zone.
“Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!” Shout Bizzle, Nanny and Strings.  The eagle shrieks a similar message then shifts back to the gnome known as Beard.
Jingles and Squat look up at the sudden noisy appearance of ‘team 2’, and Rooster spins in the stool repeating himself “Where did you?!?  What the!?!”
“No time! We gotta go! DRAGON”
Something slams the P’Tata as the dragon wings by whipping around for another attack.  The ship slides and even Jingles grabs some net to maintain his position.
Spinning back again and staring out the portal, Rooster begins spinning another set of wheels to the left of the stool, “Oh really darlin’ you want to dance with old Rooster?”
The walls of the P’Tata hold go translucent and reveal three sets of large tubes on each side, 4 paces long, and with belts of steel Javelins feeding down into each tube.  Pulling a handle and letting out a furious growl, Rooster lets fly with the full compliment that puts the “Ta” in P’tata.
Steel Javelins in rapid fire begin flying from the tubes and striking the dragon.  
Diving low to avoid the teeth on this new prey, the dragon heads down into the Sighing Valley and turns right just past Knife Point Gulley.
“Ha ha! Rooster can dance!!! Rooster! Can! Dance!” chuckles the old gnome, while folding in the P’Tata armament.
“Is it dead? Please let it be dead, is it dead?” Babbles Beard.
“Nah! No one’s paying us to kill it, but I don’t think it’ll ever want to eat another Potato!” cheers Rooster as he pulls the P’Tata into a gentle curve and begins the journey back to the Warren.

…Back at the Warren…
“Nice haul, way more than what Quastarte eluded that party was carrying,”  Rooster is thumbing through the loot presented by Strings.  “Read me the Inventory.”
Strings rattles off “The three target items: “the journal of Eccton Fffyth”, and “Astral Projection and the Elemental Plane”, and a green oak leaf pendant with mithral filigree.  Bonus recovery included 154 Platinum Pieces, 92 Gold Pieces, 4 additional tomes including, 4 potions of Necromantic nature, a brass arrow shaped pendant, a small metal business card, a golden shield, a golden helm, a brass horn, an aquamarine, two black pearls, 4 chrysoberyl, and a star ruby.”
“Total value of additional premiums at 10,032 GP”, states Rooster, doing the math in his head as Strings read it off. “Great work! That’s all of it?  Nothing withheld?”
“Nothing withheld” grumbles Bizzle remembering how Strings forced him to turn over their platinum haul.
Nodding his approval Rooster acknowledges your payout, “Everyone gets a 5% cut of the bounty, including first pick from the loot, plus 400 GP each for completing the mission.  Go get some rest, there are always more contracts.”  
The four take their cut, and Beard looking exceptionally tired, call it a night just as the sun starts to rise.