This was a rather productive session for the player characters. They got a lot done…while Markus was off with Aspen the dryad. The amount of frolicking and f*ckery was significantly less. Not down to zero (Markus did return later on in the session) but down nonetheless. Various items were exchanged for items that the party was looking for, friends were made, cookies gathered, and eggs fertilized. There was a bit of a dark turn for the town of Ragged Hollow as well. Details below the break.
Everyone was in attendance. There will, obviously, be spoilers for Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow from The Merry Mushmen along with our mangling of this very fine adventure. My GM comments, as always, are in italics.
84th of Summer
- The party (sans Markus still) takes their leave of Beatrix with cookies in hand. On the way out, the free the goblin stuck in the thorny hedges. It trades a wooden ring for a pear that Dieter picked on the Sunny Island before making its way back towards the Goblin Market.
- The group makes their way back to town.
- They speak with Omar. He shares that the Temple bell only tolled 32 times this morning. Also, the nightmares have been getting worse and folks are starting to see things while awake…disturbing things. He himself saw a basket just appear in the street, tip over, and eyes rolled out of it only to pop into nothingness a moment later.
- The group starts back towards the Goblin Market, giving wide berth to some sort of clear ooze jelly with a large snake skeleton in it that was on their path.
- At the market, they give Master Neven a dozen cookies. He takes a couple for himself and then trades the rest to Angel for the tobacco that the party wanted and then giving that to the group. (Angel is then seen trading cookies with other goblins for who knows what.)
- The trio spend an uneventful night in the woods.
85th of Summer
- The group travels to Doya’s pond and trade her the tobacco for the knife, Biggus Stickus. Doya also shares that she’d be happy to trade other items if the group would be willing to periodically bring her more tobacco.
- The group travels back to Ragged Hollow and visit Radomir. (I hope everyone is wearing good footwear with all this back and forth.)
- On the way, they spot the snake skeleton in the path without the ooze/jelly. It is taken.
- He tells the group that the bell only rang 28 times this morning.
- They talk to him about Olias’ hut and specifically the room behind the locked door. The group asks how they might be able to put the spirits of the taxidermied people to rest. Radomir isn’t sure that they are ready for something like that quite yet.
- The old wizard tells them to keep Biggus Stickus. He also goes and rummages about in another room of his home and brings magical, silvered daggers for both Liesl and Marlena…just in case they encounter something that needs magic or silver to harm.
- The group elects to patrol Ragged Hollow for a bit that night.
- Marlena spots a large, black hound go around a corner and the group hears a woman’s scream.
- It came from the residence of Heidi and Jurgen. Heidi claims to have seen a vision of their daughter, Amelia, dead and looking as though her body had been ravaged by an animal. (Amelia is one of the townsfolk trapped in the Temple.) Heidi is inconsolable and so a sedative is obtained from Omar and administered to her.
86th of Summer
- The bell tolls 24 times.
- Visiting Omar in the morning, he shares that quite a few townsfolk have been having visions or nightmares about their loved ones trapped in the Temple. The common thread…the loved ones are dead. Many folks are talking about leaving town for good.
- The group heads back to the Goblin Market.
- On the way back, they find some blood on the path. Following it, they find the body of the goblin that they had freed from Beatrix’s hedges. He had multiple punctures wounds…stingbats! Fortunately, none were in the immediate area and the group continues on.
- When it opens (at dusk), the group starts to speak to Neven about another exchange of cookies when he notes that Aspen is approaching.
- Markus, clearly drained and dazed, is trailing behind her and is unceremoniously left behind as Aspen turns and disappears back into the trees.
- Neven provides Markus the potion to increase his intelligence as previously agreed.
- In exchange for the new cookies, Neven also provides a bit of a pick me up that restores the energy of Markus.
- The group quickly heads to Sunny Island.
- Nazata is not happy to see them even when she is informed that Markus is ready to fertilize her eggs. (They are a couple of days late from the deadline she had previously provided.)
- Markus successfully uses the ring Radomir provided to turn into a catfish. One of the others pours the potion of growth from Doya into his mouth and he becomes a giant catfish.
- Nazata and Markfish swim off to do their thing
- When Markfish does not return, Nazata swims off and claims that she sent him back to Old Man Windler’s spirit to do with as he sees fit.
- Not sure what to do, the group makes camp for the night without Markus yet again.
- During the night, the trio is woken up by shouts of excitement. Investigating, they find a goblin fisher who has, from his exclamation, caught the biggest catfish that he has ever caught.
- Figuring that this might be Markus as normal sized catfish, the group offers the wooden ring for the fish. Eventually, the goblin accepts the snake skeleton in exchange.
- Markfish is returned to the river in a relatively calm spot.
- Figuring that this might be Markus as normal sized catfish, the group offers the wooden ring for the fish. Eventually, the goblin accepts the snake skeleton in exchange.
87th of Summer
- In the morning, for better or worse, Markfish is once again Markus. (The potion of growth wore off rather quickly. The ring not so quickly.)
- The group heads back to town.
- They run into Severin and her pals on the path.
- Severin and friends are heading off to talk to the “witch” (aka Beatrix) and convince her to join their gang. Severin attempts to convince the party to come with them, but the group refuses of course. This leads to some insults being tossed the party’s way, including comments about Dieter’s dad being a toad and how his mom had sex with Markus.
- Markus does his usual attempt to weasel out of any responsibility for his actions, but Dieter is not at all pleased.
- Severin and friends are heading off to talk to the “witch” (aka Beatrix) and convince her to join their gang. Severin attempts to convince the party to come with them, but the group refuses of course. This leads to some insults being tossed the party’s way, including comments about Dieter’s dad being a toad and how his mom had sex with Markus.
- Reaching town, it is clear that things are no longer thriving. Livestock and crops look barely tended to. The streets are largely empty.
- Speaking with Omar, the quartet learns that the bell had tolled 22 times this morning. Townsfolk are having worse nightmares and visions and few venture out from home.
- Perhaps most interesting, the dome over the temple has begun to shrink. Very, very little, but some. After his original measurements when it first appeared, Omar had not taken any additional ones until the 85th. On that day, it was smaller by some eight inches. On the 86th, it had shrunk another four inches. The last measurement this morning showed that it had shrunk by another two inches. The steeple is now visible outside the dome.
And on that dark note, we ended the session.
A lot was accomplished while Markus was off pursuing his botanical dalliance. I’m wondering if the rest of the party might try to stash him off somewhere so they can get more stuff down. On the other hand, after learning that Markus slept with his mother, Dieter has had a rather vicious glint in his eyes. I guess we’ll find out later.
