Hello Everyone!
How are you doing?
Last time, we just finished a pretty gruesome fight. Our heroes, Mary, Aurum and Bruno, were chilling out in a tavern with their new acquaintances from Zerakas tol when an armored underground creature (a Bulette) and a several duergar attacked the place. The heroes managed to defeat them but Mary was a bit shaken up by the ferocity of the battle.
There were no casualties other than the one half-elf at the beginning of the incident. The town's guards came and helped clean up and bring order to the tavern. They thanked the five who’d taken care of the attackers and secured the hole in the ground.
Rupert, the halfling bartender that Mary had a run in with during the fight, came out from behind the counter and started arguing with the captain of the guards. Mary heard him say something about the Bulette's meat belonging to him and "nobody dare touch his property or else".
Bruno, however, was eyeing the creature's plated skin.
"This could make a nice suit of armour," he said and went to talk to the halfling.
Aurum had disappeared in the commotion after the fight. Mary remembered seeing him talk to a few of the distressed bystanders and, with equal parts worry and curiosity tried out Messaging him in random directions, until she got an annoyed "Please don't do that, I'm in the middle of something fun!"
She blushed and sat on one of the cleared out tables.
"No, I don't need the skin, nobody will pay to eat that!" Rupert was just saying in the distance. "You can have it for, let’s see…" he eyed Bruno with the obvious intent of naming a price but seemed to reconsider when he saw him glower. “You can just have it, what do I care!”
The nail prodded Mary through her component pouch. She took it out and stared at it. She didn't want to think about the big stain of blood where the duergar had met their end. She could still see the face of that last one, whose death she felt responsible for.
She took a book out of her bag to distract herself.
Sylvannas' diary revealed his research notes on the sentience of plants and a little bit about his personal life. Ever since the beginning, he was keen on the idea of a hidden laboratory because he was afraid of his rivals finding out all his secrets. His wife Damaya didn't want to join him away from Myth Adofhaer but his mind was made up. He found support in the face of someone (there was a missing page here and Mary couldn't find out the name). With the money ’she’ gave him he bought a huge amounts of the blue crystal Lumeer from the dwarves, and with it he lit up his secret cave. This was 13 years ago.
There were pages and pages of research notes but the final ones, just after he was beginning to sound excited about the end results, were torn off. All Mary could find was the dried blood marking his death by the thorns of the living tree.
She closed the diary with a sigh.
The guards were now helping Bruno disassemble the Bulette. There was something caught up in its claw. Bruno reached out and pulled a small casing containing a silver bell with a wooden handle. Its metal part was as big as a fist, engraved with roses on one side and thorns on the other. Bruno rang it but no sound came out.
“It’s magical” Mary said using her Eldritch Sight. The bell was shining in red. “We should find out what it does.”
Bruno rolled his eyes. He said he was going out to find a component for the Identify spell and asked the others to continue their work on the Bulette.
“Can you check the contents of its stomach while you’re at it?” Mary inquired. She’d read that those kind of creatures had the habit of devouring their food whole, along with all kinds of non-digestable items. If there was a chance of discovering anything interesting inside, they had to take it.
She sat back at her table. Her eyes darted towards the drying dark-red spot on the ground and she dug through her bag again. This time it was her Patron’s book she pulled out. She ran her hand over the sprouts on the cover, then the words on the first page. Did she ‘meet’ his ‘expectations’ in this evening’s fight? She opened the book on its last page and, for her surprise, she found some writing she hadn’t seen before. Did she not think to flip through to the end of the book last time she had it in her hands?
the inscription said.
She took a quill and, just underneath that, wrote
The words faded and disappeared from the paper.
“Miss?” a guard called for her. “We found something.”
Inside the Bulette’s stomach (Rupert yelled for them to get OUT with that stench but nobody heeded his words) there was a golden brooch with a sapphire the size of a hazelnut incrusted in it. It wasn’t magical but it was beautiful and, since nobody else seemed to want it, Mary cleaned it up and pinned it on her chest.
When Bruno came back with the pearl for Identify he eyed the sapphire with suspicion.
“You know,” he said, “that’s a really nice brooch and all, but I wonder how plausible it is for someone to recognize it. Who knows who wore it before you and what kind of a reputation they had.”
“If anybody recognizes it, I’ll give it back,” Mary shrugged. “It’s not like we stole it, right?”
Aurum came back not long after (very happy and relaxed after his ‘something fun’) and, since he was the best with any musical instruments, they decided that the bell should go to him. He could use it best.
The rest of the night went in Bruno putting together his new armour, Mary writing down their recent adventures and them finally sleeping on the tavern’s second floor.
Then they were ready for the coming day and the rest of their journey to Belfast.
We did a looting, people, and we have a magical item in play! Things are getting serious! :)
I hope we get to see the bell in action soon! I’m sure Aurum is not going to forget he has it!
Right?
Anyway!
Hope you like reading!
See you next time!
Take care and be well!