[D&D 5e] The Wild Bunch in Galyria

[Jeremy]

I started playing in this Roll20 game on Discord back in 2021, we're probably coming up on 300 sessions now and while I have notes from the first 30 sessions I started writing up what happened after that. I don't know how I could sell my poor prose when you have some of the incredible word smiths in other threads here but I'll tell you what I do have. I have a game that has held together for 5 years now and is still going with half of us playing our original characters. I have an imaginative game with chaos and planning and fun and magic and personality that I am really overjoyed I have gotten to participate in. I'd like to share it here.

I'm kinda waffling back and forth between posting my notes file or doling out the sessions in the hopes that someone will read and enjoy them enough to comment. I think probably the first 5 or so levels of D&D are something most of us have read or experienced many, many times but maybe that is your favorite part. When the stakes are small and the mistakes plentiful. But now that we're casting 7th level spells and really upping the stakes I think that is particularly rare to get to read or experience so I kinda want to skip to present day.

I don't know, perhaps I'll do both. I have tried keep records of my games before and either the game died or my work ethic did and I stopped. Having 300+ pages of sessions already in the bag makes me want to post again. I hope you find something you enjoy.

 

[Jeremy]

I'll start first where I switch to writing things out as something other than outline bullet points. The party is in the capital of the kingdom of Galyria. In many ways the thread that assembled the party and continues throughout the campaign is stopping the Cult of Zehir which has been behind much of the strife that the party has had to wrestle with. The party in the capital is comprised of:

Veldra: An aasimar soldier haunted by her failings as an officer in the defense of her hometown when the Cult of Zehir attacked in the night and left many dead and many more families broken.

Gribitz: A goblin criminal turned shaman that struggles between helping others and helping himself.

Rhoseth: A dragonborn exile from the southlands both running from his destiny and struggling to control the monster within.

Grath: A human cleric of Ilmater, the newest member, who has seen the good this odd band of misfits has accomplished and suffers through trying to reign them in long enough to keep them out of prisons and out in the world doing good.

The capital city has been freshly infiltrated by the Cult of Zehir and an underground war is happening in the shadows between the Cult and the Silver Daggers; a criminal organization and possibly the true power behind the throne. When the party got too close trying to investigate if the Daggers could be allies against the Cult they were abducted and found themselves vastly out of their depth as they were interrogated by the possibly insane Beholder Clorox. The only way out was to sign a magical contract in a language the party couldn't even understand that almost certainly was not in their favor. This unfortunate scenario is where I'll pick up my retelling.

 

[Jeremy]

9/11/21​

After having signed the contract with Clorox, the guild master of the Silver Dagger, we were ejected magically back to the Fresh Food. Three Cult safe houses are clearly marked, the closest of which being an abandoned mausoleum, but the rest of the contract is written in a foreign language no one can understand. The second site is in the sewer system of the Copper Village, the third is within a cave system beneath the Western Silver. Before anyone can react, Grath leaves the inn. Rho misinterprets this swift action as decisiveness and chases after him, Gribitz in tow.

Grath takes all the responsibility for the situation the party finds itself in and apologizes for screwing up and hugs the others. The group heads to the Temple of Faiths to find someone who can recognize the writing on the contract. A dark elf priest identifies the script as Undercommon but says given the length it will take him a day to translate and write out a full copy.

Grath searches the markets for a potion seller while Gribitz asks Rho for the materials to send a message. He scratches out a message that he naughty word up and has a new eye monster boss and he needs help in Druidic, he ties the message to a raven and asks it to give it to Grandfather in the woods. Grath buys a couple antitoxins and healing potions from the apothecary in the market.

Gribitz wonders if the drow will sell them out when he deciphers what he has and wants to get started. The party heads to the first location that had been marked in the contract. They find the mausoleum all chained and locked up. After talking with some rats and bugs they identify that this is almost certainly the place. Kith and Gribitz pop the lock and Gribitz goes scouting. He finds various Yuan-Ti going about their daily business. After he gets back out the goblin suggests how he would ambush the snake heads if it were his call.

There is some discussion about what to do before the party raids the mausoleum. Rho grabs a couple Yuan-Ti and slams their heads together rendering them both unconscious but soon swarms of poisonous snakes begin filling the halls. Veldra holds one of the hallways while Rho and Grath try to hold another. Gribitz tries frantically to talk his way out of things but understanding the murderous intent of the serpents doesn't help matters any.

The party is eventually successful in defeating the swarms of snakes and Veldra and Gribitz discover a secret chamber with traps and a glowing staff on a sarcophagus. Veldra avoids the traps and gingerly picks up the staff but runes along it burst into flame. The soldier grits her teeth and bears it and soon the pain fades and the runes quiet.

I have neglected to mention that very early in the campaign the party alternatively adopted, kidnapped, or brainwashed a kobold named Kith who has become something of a mascot or ward of the party.

 

[Jeremy]

9/18/21​

Veldra feels tougher and full of energy after her struggle. Rho explores around and finds some writing in elvish. Unsatisfied, he tosses the armory about and finds a clue leading him and Grath to a bookcase in an adjacent room. Grath is dissatisfied with how apparent the clue is. Gribitz asks Veldra if the sarcophagus is hissing, she tosses him the staff (which burns him and he drops it), and opens the sarcophagus revealing a golden bedecked corpse. Gribitz hesitates a moment, then shakes it off remembering how broke he is. He strips the body of its adornments roughly and heads back with Veldra to the others.

The others have found a cache of jewels and riches Grath believes are offerings. Gribitz starts snapping them up after checking to see if they are cursed but he and Grath disagree about what should be done about them. Grath finds that the unopened sarcophagi still have riches within whereas the pile Rho found probably came from the emptied out creches. In the end Gribitz bags enough gems and jewelry to be worth five hundred gold pieces.

Veldra shows Grath the staff but he has no idea of its significance or enchantment. As Rho continues bumbling about in the dark Grath realizes he can share his god’s gift with him and the darkness flees from the dragonborn’s sight.

At the bottom of the stairs are three cultists investigating a runed door, with them is a fully snake-like yuan-ti. Gribitz taunts them and sends the crumbling Ratty against them which distracts them long enough for Rho to come charging into their midst. Grath summons up multiple spectral martyrs of Ilmater to pummel the cultists of Zehir into submission.

After they fall, the runes on the door flare up in reaction to the proximity to Veldra’s staff. A feeling of dread washes over her but swiftly dissipates. Grath pushes forward to open the door and has to push through a wave of nausea to get the gate open, but he perseveres. Beyond is an ornate burial chamber filled with still lit candles despite hundreds of years since it looks like anyone has been in the chamber. Grath enhances his vision and sees a powerful source of magic coming from the elevated sarcophagus bound by heavy chains. The school of magic it is radiating is Conjuration.

Veldra approaches the chained sarcophagus to make out the script engraved on it. The closer she comes, the more the staff strapped to her pack shakes and glows. The engravings read, “Thy who cometh here, remain no longer. Run far away for evil resides within.” Whispers begin calling to Veldra, commanding her to open the sarcophagus. She resists and the party discusses and tries to flee but the doors slam shut and the whispers continue until Veldra’s will crumbles and she starts walking slowly towards the dais, raising the staff. Dark twilight pours from Grath and clears the whispers from Veldra’s mind. Having had enough of this, Rho shatters the sarcophagus and the party moves to destroy whatever evil is trying to escape.

The room fills with black smoke that forms into a shadowy robed figure. The shadow horror begins to thank Rho for freeing it when it is distracted by Gribitz pelting it with little balls of fire. It bites into Rho and sends tendrils of terror at Gribitz’s nature spirits. Rho roars back and explodes into fire, tearing into the shadowy monster even as Veldra leaps up the stairs and jumps past, slashing and splitting into two to harry the dark spirit from all sides.

As it is rapidly failing it calls for aid and dark shadows pour forth from the other crypts in the chamber and the horror itself snaps up Veldra and begins sapping the strength from her body, causing black smoke to pour from her into him. Veldra struggles free as luminous wings burst forth from her and she and her echo fight back with brilliant slashes of their mirrored blades.

Rho falls back to protect Gribitz from the swarming shadows but as he breaks ranks the shadow horror tears open the scales on his back and saps the strength from him as well. Gribitz and his nature guardians are drained of strength by the shadows but the ones that move for Grath and Rho burn up under the assault of Grath’s spirit guardians. Gribitz and his nature spirits stay focused on the unleashed horror, scrambling around the room to harry it, but even as it falls apart, one of the other shadows swells in size and continues to taunt the party. Veldra and Rho burst into action, charging around the room and slashing apart the swarming shadows.

Once the last of the shadows is dispatched, Grath unleashes a massive beam of radiant light that blows apart the shadow horror, the glowing staff on Veldra’s back, and the door all at once. Oddly, as everyone’s vision clears, Grath’s hand is marked with a runic symbol of some kind.

 

[Jeremy]

9/25/21​

As the party emerges into the waning light, Rho asks if he can keep an emerald found among the various jewelry the cultists collected. When asked why he just shrugs and says he likes the color. Gribitz asks Grath if he’s caught the “lepersy” because he keeps looking at his hand. The goblin mentions to Veldra that he KNEW Grath was grave robbing and he knows a guy that’s good with makeup if his ear rots off.

In the morning Grath prays to Ilmater to remove his curse and is greeted again by the Flumph that has been visiting him. Grath mentions that he never caught his name but Flumph never felt the need for one. After breakfast and some discussion the party decides they have the supplies they need and will head to the cave system under the Western Silver. The easiest entry is a blocked off mine barred by wooden planks.

Gribitz grabs a passerby and asks how long the mine has been shut down, and while the man knows it has been two years or so, he doesn’t know why it was closed up. Rho borrows Veldra’s crowbar and with Grath’s magical assistance takes down the boards barring the mine. As the party descends into the darkness Grath shares his gift with the others allowing them to see in the darkness for a great distance. On their way down there are some corpses under collapsed rocks.

The party comes across a large slumbering anaconda of some sort. Gribitz talks to it and tells it completely unconvincing lies about the party but the snake is either too tired or too dumb to care and lets them by. Veldra swaps places with one of her echoes to claim the top of a sharp incline and between her and Rho helps everyone else up.

Up ahead come the sounds of heavy mining and after casting a spell to quiet their approach Gribitz scouts out a number of cultists mining silver. There are 10 or more cultists he spots going about their work and the party discusses their plan trying to sneak up on the guards playing cards. Taking the guards by surprise first is Rho who breathes fire all over them while the Bearoness and Fozzie hold the ramp up from the mine.

Grath fills the area with his ghostly spirits as Rho and Veldra work together to finish off the isolated malisons. The party quickly mops them up and heads into the mine proper to meet the charge of yuan-ti miners. They are met headlong by Grath’s specters that pummel and blunt their attacks. During the fight Owlie spots the corpse of an enormous purple worm with various swords and arrows jutting out of its body. Rho loses himself to the carnage and splatters yuan-ti corpses all around the mine with devastating impacts from his maul.

When one flees in terror, Rho is so lost to his bloodlust he tries to run it down only to find it has vanished beneath the dark waters of the cave. Veldra reaches out to him to try to bring himself back to himself but he seems to be listening to something only he can hear. Rho immerses himself in the waters cleaning and calming himself as Fozzie cannonballs into the lake too.

Grath makes his way down the tunnel finding a yuan-ti that worked herself to exhaustion; he whispers soothing words to her as he caresses her face with necrotic necromancy that causes wounds and boils to appear all over her. As she comes to a start she tries to enchant Grath to let her live but he is utterly unphased and merely cups her chin to look at her as she screams in pain as he pours more necromancy into her until her life snuffs out.

Grath then calmly goes to check on Rho who is seething like a huge crocodile in the water, gathering himself. As they speak Grath offers to try to help Rho with the darkness he has been wrestling with inside himself. Rho accepts tentatively but the meekness is tempered by hesitation. Owlie tells Gribitz of some of what he saw and not really wanting to be around Rho in his current scary state, Gribitz goes off to the huge purple worm corpse to harvest whatever he can from it.

Back at the lake three figures emerge from the shadows, one of which has a large hooded cobra head and it menaces Rho, Grath, and Veldra promising vengeance.


Gribitz tends to summon the same "spirits" for each of his summons and has named them with the totality of his goblin intellect. Rattie the Rat for summon beast, Owlie the Owl for nature's companion, Fozzie and the Bearoness for conjure animals.
Nobody saw Grath go off and execute the survivor in such a creepy way but the way that the priest generally uses ghosts and necromancy to do his fighting is not lost on the party who is still getting to know him.

 

[Jeremy]

10/16/21​

Five days have passed, the party discusses what to do next and while Gribitz is in favor of mucking about since they have so much time left, Rho cautions that it might take multiple days to clear out the sewers and Grath wants to head to city hall to obtain plans or a map of the sewers in the Copper Village district. To avoid the bath Grath threatens Gribitz with, he turns into a flea and hides.

Grath is not easily disuaded, but eventually heads to Keep and finds the records department. He asks for plans for the sewers in the Copper Village and is met with skepticism but answers smoothly that he is clearing out an infestation as part of his work for the Temple of Faiths. This appeases the clerk who after some time emerges with copies of several plans to study. After taking some time to take in the sights, he and Rho return to the mansion to find that Gribitz has been working in the Greenhouse. With a clever ploy he calls upstairs that he’s going to start making lunch and it’d be a shame Gribitz is going to miss it.

It works perfectly as Gribitz comes charging to the kitchen and enjoys a fine lunch, courtesy of Grath, prior to Grath snatching him up and announcing it’s bath time and running upstairs with him. Halfway up the stairs Gribitz finally processes what Grath is doing and turns into an ox, filling the stairway and sitting down stubbornly.

Grath and Rho look at each other but refuse to be stymied and set off for brushes and buckets. The buckets are easy enough to find, but finding some kind of brush proves beyond Rho’s limited capabilities and after nearly half and hour he returns with a broom. Standing there looking at each other blankly as Rho offers the broom, Grath rolls up his sleeves and takes to two-handed scrubbing GribOx with his sudsy buckets. The ox is wedged so tight in the narrow staircase that it cannot move or protest in any way other than dropping cow patties. After nearly 3 hours of scrubbing and mucking out the sloshing wastewater from the staircase, Gribitz form resolves into a pristinely clean goblin snoring peacefully on the stairs as being stuck for so long, he just fell asleep.

Rho and Grath celebrate their victory and eventually relocate to the study to pour over the schematics and designs they had obtained and start marking and taking notes of various entrances and pathways but they are too tired after their endeavors to cross reference with Clorox’s map.

Grath begins working on plans to construct a shrine to Ilmater in the basement. He starts making a list of all the materials he will need. Rho is tending to his maul, the various wrappings up and down the grip are of a multitude of colors. He and Gribitz discuss the meanings of the various colors, dragon ancestors, personalities, and both point out that neither of them much resembles the reputations their kinds are known for and they share a moment. Talks turn to Grath’s construction work when Kith awakens. Gribitz fills them in on Grath’s construction and suggests that maybe Grath would like some nice kobold traps in his new shrine. But when they get to Grath he very clearly articulates that there will be no traps.

While Grath and Rho go to Fantasy Home Depot to buy supplies, Gribitz goes scouting out the sewers as a rat and finds many other rats heading through a series of tunnels. He talks to them and finds they serve a rat king. Gribitz meets with him and the sinister wererat king Skritch who was displaced by the Zehir cults. There is a secret abandoned part of the sewer tunnels that was a treatment plant that collapsed and was the domain of the rats before the Zehir. Skritch warns that there is an enormous boulder trap that Gribitz is interested in and asks about where the trigger for it is so he can use it to smash some snake heads.

The rats warn against the snakes under the cultists control and that some of the cultists take the form of snakes themselves. Gribitz thanks them for the warning and heads back to tell the others.

Grath and Rho are shopping in the market for supplies when Grath overhears people talking about a ferocious beast attacking the cattle outside the city walls. The rumors are that it’s a dragon that comes at night to snatch up the cows. Grath discusses it with Rho but reminds him that they cannot leave the city under their current contract so they head back to the manor with all their building supplies.

When everyone meets back up Gribitz tells the other about the rat king, though they fail to mention the dragon. Together they work on starting construction as Grath is still trying and failing to process that there is a king of rats. After a hard day’s work, washing up, and eating, Grath heads out to look for his flumph friend.

He finds him drifting invisibly through the streets and the two catch up. Grath asks if the invisible outsider would be willing to look into the rumors about the beast attacking the livestock outside the city and bring back any information on what’s going on. He agrees and meanders off to probably do so.

The rest of the party, having prepared as best they are able, is now ready to assault the final stronghold of the hidden cultists of Zehir.

 

[Jeremy]

10/30/21​

The party sets forth for the abandoned treatment plant still discussing which of the prospective entrances to use and opt to drop right in on the plant rather than take the sewer entrance Clorox knew of. It’s late morning by the time the party arrives. Oddly many of the doors on the city streets are adorned with frightening masks that range all the way to monstrous. Grath waves it off as the fall harvest festival as Gribitz finally locates the manhole that they were looking for.

Down below the sound of water comes through the first door of the small room the manhole gives access to. Beyond is a tunnel full of naughty word that leads to some yuan-ti malisons. Gribitz submerges and tries to get closer but they spot his antlers which have caught bits of refuse and fecal matter in them. The others charge in and start laying about but the ruckus alerts other guards who also flood in.

Veldra gets to one near a golden snake idol that tries to turn into a small snake and flee, but Veldra is too fast and bisects it. Oddly, it does not resume it’s form, nor did its clothes meld into it when it transformed. After the guards are taken care of, Kith is fascinated by the golden idol but Grath warns her and examines the idol, declaring it safe. Kith snatches it up and claims it, backing away defensively.

Gribitz finds a small tunnel at the bottom of the naughty word river that leads to a small camber where some men are chained up. He starts trying to set them free. Meanwhile Rho and the others investigate and find an odd mutated malison chained up. Eventually the group reunites, Veldra fears that the last prisoner that was taken has been forcibly mutated into the malison chained in the other room. There is also a shaft that leads up from the prisoners but there is no ladder or stairs to climb it and it ends in a slab that is currently closed.

The creature between coughing up blood and snakes manages to get out the story of a chalice that he was forced to drink between begging for death. Eventually Gribitz ends his suffering and his body discoporates to a nest of many snakes he feeds.

Exploring around, Veldra finds a 12 foot across pile of gold with another statuette on top of it. Kith desperately wants to collect it but Veldra and Grath are suspicious and dissuade her. There’s another laser snake statue that Kith and Rho dodge before Kith disables it. Beyond that is the boulder trap the rat king warned us of.

 

[Jeremy]

11/13/21​

Metaphysical discussions about whether doors are truly locked or not or if the true locks are only in our hearts confuse Rho as Gribitz assures the others that the southern door is not indeed locked. There are whispers from up ahead. Grath rushes down the hallway in time to see cultists chanting around a black pool that an enormous snake-like creature is birthed out of, gasping for air and looking around.

He announces his name and that we will be acceptable sacrifices to Zehir. Grath is the first one in and takes the brunt of both the avatar’s wrath as well as his various priest’s magic. Everyone else piles into very tight quarters wedged between collapsed rubble and the large avatar. As Rho holds the line as best he can a secret door opens and swarms of snakes pour forth onto him.

Rho belches fire all over the snakes consuming nearly all of them in blistering flame. Still more pour out of the secret door however. Veldra holds the rear line, dispatching priests that misty step past Rho until the abomination forces its way through to cleave his monstrous blade into her. Grath begins praying and spiritual champions of Ilmater begin manifesting all around and pummeling snakes and cultists alike.

Rho begins to falter under sheer amount of venom coursing through his veins from multitudes of snakebites from swarms and cultists and more and the avatar snatches him up into the air, taunting him. Rho’s eyes are consumed by black smoke as strength and rage surge through him and he claps his hands together smashing the abominations head between them. The abomination falls bonelessly to the ground releasing the heaving barbarian.

Rho barrels into the room with Veldra charging in behind his wake channeling some of her own healing magic into his wounded form. When the last of the cultists are slain Gribitz uses what remains of his healing magic to help his allies before trying to seal or purify the black pool. Veldra dips an axe in it and Zehir’s poison seeps into her blade. Gribitz incinerates what he can of the poison causing the pool to go up in a plume of toxic flame. Into the empty well Grath manifests pure water and blesses it, forming a font of holy water where the evil portal once was.

There are some chests where the snakes come from filled with severed body parts. Gribitz finds a large diamond ring on one of the fingers and pockets it. In another chest he finds a very old electrum piece in a pouch. In the final chest he finds a bloodied mace made of silver. Finding this odd, he searches further and finds a false bottom to the chest with 20 pieces of gold and a ring hidden in it with a letter. The letter seems very mundane.

The treasure room is looted next but the money is fake and vanishes as the trap slams shut and the room fills with poison. Rho smashes the door open and Grath administers anti-toxin to Kith who got poisoned.

 

[Jeremy]

11/20/21​

Moving further south Grath triggers the boulder trap to smash open the door and any defenders potentially protecting it. Beyond that are some rusted over mechanisms and a very long tunnel and pipe that leads to some more cultists. The cultists hear our approach and two of them are transformed into enormous constrictor snakes that strike out against Grath and Veldra.

The front line engages the snakes while Veldra’s echo and Ratty try to engage the spellcaster in the back. One of the snakes wraps around Veldra and begins crushing her in its coils but she quickly swaps places with her echo, leaving it holding a ghost of a possibility. Ghostly spirits pour out of the air from around Grath and begin battering the enormous constrictors.

Rho savagely crushes one of the snakes with his maul and with Grath disrupting the concentration of the priest, the giant snake is killed and collapses on the stones. It does not revert back to a yuan-ti. Grath and Veldra manage to dispatch the other but more reinforcing yuan-ti and their snake swarms arrive from the southeast.

Veldra does her best to stem the tide but some lucky shots break through her guard even as Rho frantically breathes fire out over the snakes swarming all over him. Gribitz panics and entreats Rho to help Veldra while he tries to befuddle the swarms of snakes. They exclaim joyously how they serve the dark master and Gribitz rolls with it agreeing and claiming to be the dark master. The snakes are not all that bright and seeing the naughty word covered goblin speaking their tongue, agree with him. They happily declare they will murder in his honor and Gribitz agrees again but tells them that first they must dance the evil spirits away as Grath’s spiritual guardians are continuing to pummel them.

Rho charges off in confusion as all the snakes around him begin dancing which oddly has no benefit to stopping the ghostly martyrs of Ilmater from pummeling them to paste until only a single snake manages to escape. Rho flies across one of the causeways and smashes into the purebloods attacking Veldra, rapidly turning the tide.

A rat messenger arrives after inviting the party to a tasteful dinner with the rat king. Gribitz excitedly accepts to Grath’s utter incredulity. The reception is a crazed mess of rats and horrid food that reminds Gribitz of home. Once the rat king resumes his wererat form he rewards us with coin and the promise of information from his spies around the city should we need it.

Gribitz accidentally spills Clorox’s name and nature to the rat king which terrifies him. After that people collect their left overs and begin to make their retreat. Grath tells Gribitz to ditch any left overs he saved from the meal on threat of bath. On the way back home Veldra and Rho dunk themselves in the river to clean the sewage off them.

Veldra hires a cab to take us back home. The poor driver has been robbed so Veldra tells him to keep the change. Gribitz smells so bad the driver balks so he turns into a little pug that Rho picks up and gives scritches to.

 

[Jeremy]

11/27/21​

The party each has vivid dreams and awakens with one day remaining until Clorox will contact them. Grath is troubled by what he remembers of his dream and the possible danger his flumph acquaintance may be in if his dream is prophetic and not simply symptomatic of his worry-wart nature. Even honey covered waffles aren’t enough to shake him out of it. The party heads to the Temple where Grath inquires about sanctifying his shrine and Veldra and Grath ask people about the rumors of dragon attacks.

One of the priests of Bahamut perks up when he is approached but as far as he knows there aren’t any dragons in the area. Maybe it’s a wyvern? Grath hires a cab to take us out to investigate, the driver happens to have a cousin that works one of the ranches that lost cattle and offers to take us to it.

The ranch hand we first encounter is surly and on edge after his recent losses. He reports that the creature was big enough to fly off with his biggest milk cow and flew off to the east but it was too dark to give a better description than just big and winged. He does mention other farms around having lost livestock too.

The party investigates around for clues finding traces of where the attacks took place, indentations of where the cattle were sleeping, blood spatter from where the cattle were attacked, etc. Veldra finds where some of the wounds of the cattle continued to bleed as it was carried off leaving occasional traces to track.

A hawk messenger arrives and perches on Gribitz’s antlers but the message it delivers is in some kind of arcane runes he doesn’t understand. Veldra oddly recognizes it as some kind of teleportation effect. Grath tries reading the runes but accidentally activates them teleporting the party to Clorox’s lair and sending Gribitz into a blind panic.

Clorox begins cackling to the group and Grath addresses him. Clorox offers his reward and it is surprisingly not of the disintegration variety. Grath defers the favor we would request and receives an enchanted emerald sending stone to call in the marker at a later date. Clorox snatches us up into the air telekinetically before magically banishing us from his lair and back into the field. Grath goes through the pouch of payment and counts 750 pieces of gold. Gribitz asks how many of them are marked and Grath finds one magical coin, but it is not the red dot tracker variety. Looking closer he is able to tell it is of the evocation school of magic and as he picks it up to separate it from the others it electrocutes him but he shakes it off and insulates it.

Freed of our contract forbidding us from leaving the city, Gribitz turns into a bloodhound and starts following the blood trail as Grath wrings his hands and worries about his flumph associate. While tracking the stolen cow Grath discusses eliminating Clorox with Veldra who doubts we could do it or that the power vacuum it would create in all the areas the beholder controls would result in a worse power taking control. Grath greatly dislikes this answer but can’t refute it.

The trail leads the party to the edge of a forest, it is significantly harder to find any further droppings of blood that made it through the forest canopy. Sometime into the woods the party comes to a bridge over a river and a knight with multiple arrows sticking out of his helm. The knight has a sinuous black dragon as his heraldry. As Grath approaches, the knight disturbingly moves and gives speech in flowery prose. Grath and Veldra inquire as to his health but he dismisses the probably fatal wounds as insignificant.

The knight announces that he toiled mightily to build the bridge and charges a toll of 3 gold per traveler for passage though he offers a knightly duel as an alternative should that be preferable to Veldra. She has heard of such duels and knightly orders in her previous life. Gribitz is distracted by a smell from a nearby bush and he and Grath find rotting bodies being devoured by the undergrowth.

They appear to be various travelers and knights the creature slew. Gribitz growls at the pile and barks at the knight that Veldra salutes and challenges to a duel. The knight returns her salute, warns her that strict rules apply, and moves to engage her drawing first blood with a very skilled opening series of attacks. Veldra answers back with three times as many telling blows. But the knight ripostes powerfully, throwing Veldra completely off balance. The two clash again, this time Veldra getting the better of the exchange as Gribitz paces, whining piteously.

Gribitz gets closer and closer to interfering in the duel as Veldra is brought to her knees, but she holds up a gauntleted hand and catches her second wind, getting back into the fight. She manages to get one more strike through his guard, tiring and wounding the knight but not stopping him. With a surge of determination Veldra bashes aside a swing and takes one of the knight’s arms off.

The knight does not stop and in the confusion of his continuing assault Veldra is gravely wounded in return. The two knights face each other with heavy breathing and swiftly running blood sapping each of their strength. The knight continues to speak with flowery bravado even as his grip weakens.

Just as Gribitz decides the rules aren’t worth his friend’s life, Veldra slips under a swing of the knight and runs him completely through. He gasps out his respect with bloody coughs and gasps, his one remaining eye going cloudy as it sees something out of this world, saying something unintelligible about where he is going.

Grath spots a hidden cache of wealth and calls Kith over to gleefully loot it. Between stuffing pockets she asks Grath what we are doing out in the woods. When Grath announces we might be tracking a dragon, Kith panics and tries to bail. Gribitz buries the knight and the bodies of his victims, cremating the remains of the knight in his grave before filling the grave in with earth over his charred remains.

When the party resumes its travel, it comes to a clearing with an enormous tree. Gribitz reverently approaches it, it looks like the tree he’s dreamed of. A voice of the Green reaches Gribitz ears. Gribitz snuggles the tree to Grath’s confusion. Gribitz asks if it has seen anything flying by with a cow. The tree remembers a dragon flying by, but it remembers it 70 years ago. The tree talks to Gribitz about sprites and treants in his woods and Gribitz offers to do a favor for the tree. But instead the tree does a favor for him, growing a magical branch out of the ground.

Grath is very concerned at this extended conversation and asks Veldra if this is normal. Gribitz actually starts to hear the branch speak to him and he is super excited, naming it Stick and giving it the chance to talk to its progenitor. Eventually they say their goodbyes and Gribitz returns to Grath and the others who have been searching around for some sense of where the beast they are tracking flew off to. Gribitz talks to a butterfly that thinks it saw something like that and gives us a direction.

Later that day the party starts coming across the devoured remains of bits of cattle. They lead to an enormous cave entrance. Veldra locates and holds up a shed scale of some sort with a brownish color. Gribitz thinks that the scale comes from either a wyvern or a chimera. Grath nods and begins setting up a ritual circle before praying for wisdom and guidance, asking if we will soon fight a chimera. After some consideration Grath believes that the answer is no.

Grath is concerned for his Flumph friend’s wellness as he had sent him off to tail the monster. He searches around and finds his hiding place as he very worriedly explains what he has seen so far. There is some discussion about how to trap or stop the wyvern. Grath suggests taking some time to setup glyphs to weaken the wyvern when it returns. Gribitz wanders over closely to listen at the entrance of the cave. There is a large pile of bones of cattle in the cave but no sign of the wyvern or its breathing or slumber. Gribitz yells into the cave causing forehead slaps from everyone else and a rustling to start in the pile of bones.

A dog-sized wyvern whelp makes its way out of the pile and charges Gribitz who tries to run away.