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Why Not Invite Everyone to the Party?

Last session, the party returned to the Galloping Coyote for their second meeting with Xavier to discuss the sale and procurement of eggs. While they waited, a precocious young sorcerer named Theodolus interrupted them. In the middle of the crowded tavern, he loudly asked if they help him deal with the Black Hand, a group of slavers that lurked somewhere in the shadowy depths of Griften. They mostly just told him to shove off and find someone else to bother, though Deekin was curious about his magic and Krunch seemed rather taken with him.

Krunch went off to talk with Theodolus alone while the party met with Xavier and learned the location of the red dragon whose eggs he wanted. The dragon makes its home in Tyrandel, an abandoned town. Tyrandel lies four days' journey away at the border of the Forbidden Realm, a country reduced to rubble by a magical cataclysm as mysterious as it is ancient. Krunch and Theodolus then returned and caused a slight commotion, prompting the party to adjourn for discussion. To the surprise of everyone involved, everyone agreed that both the dragon eggs and the slavers were worth pursuing, so they agreed to the deal.

Thanks to Theodolus' announcement in the tavern, the party knew they would have to act quickly to strike against the Black Hand before the slavers found out about their impending gruesome demise. So they set about the time-honored tactic of wandering randomly around town in the hopes of finding some obvious clue to the slavers' location. Though they didn't notice the large sign marked "BLACK HAND SLAVERS HERE", they did find a guy getting mugged in a back alley. The would-be mugger quickly found that plying his trade within sight of adventurers was a poor life choice. Before beating beaten unconscious, he managed to gibber out something vaguely useful under interrogation, which the would-be muggee clarified. Though neither of them knew where the Black Hand would be found, they did know someone who knew things about stuff: Tam, the proprietor of a bar called the Rampaging River. Without any other leads, the party journeyed there.

When they arrived, they found a raging bar fight, which from context they deduced was the normal state of affairs at that time of night. Eager to have any excuse to resort to violence, Krunch, Rucks, and Sir Patty Cakes lept eagerly into the fray. Unsurprisingly, they thoroughly trounced the burly bar battlers - with the exception of Muerdoc, a mysterious man who seemed throughly competent but stayed aloof from the fray.

When the fighting stopped, Tam appeared and introduced himself as an information broker. He would tell the party what they wanted to know about the Black Hand - but only if they offered something of equivalent value. They traded him their knowledge of Zedar and his assassins. This proved a worthy offer, and Tam sent them on their way to the Black Hand's lair, which lay beneath a church belonging to Chavi, the pixie god of creativity. For some reason, they brought Muerdoc with them.

The party arrived at the church and found the priest delivering stories to his flock, but nothing else of interest except a locked back door and a bathroom. Clockwork discovered a secret door hidden in the wall of the bathroom, and then proceeded to explore new turgid depths of scatalogical humor while he repeatedly entered and left the bathroom, trying to open it and convince the party that it was important. Eventually, the priest got quite fed up with that nonsense, and a fight nearly started when the party suspected him of working with the slavers. At the last minute, Clockwork was the voice of reason, trying to convince the party to back down until they knew what was going on. This confused everyone so much that they went along with it. The priest revealed that there were indeed slavers beneath the church, and that he had been unable to stop them - but he gave the party his blessing to do so in his stead. Join us this week as we descend into the hidden tunnels beneath the church to overthrow the deadly and mysterious Black Hand!

Stupid Awards

Krunch Clockwork Sir Patty Cakes Theodolus Rucks Talbot Sia
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