IRON DM 2022 Round 1, Match 3
Imprisoned Hope
Transparent Mask
Alchemist's Machine
Smoking Alembic
Mountain of Debris
Profitable Blackmail
Scree-crawlin’ (with apologies to Tom Petty)
A D&D sidequest for characters level 5-6.
The town of Rock Bottom, beneath the fabled basalt cliffs known as the Wall, has a small magic shop, from which adventurers may purchase consumable items. When the players arrive, they find the shop ransacked, with a
smoking alembic still under heat, the potion being brewed reduced to a residue now filling the room with a nauseating cloud. Even if they do not need supplies, smoke is visible and is pouring out the shop’s window. Gauvine Gramercy, the gnome artificer who runs the shop, is missing, and the flask’s burning residue suggests her disappearance took place in the past few hours.
Robbing the emptied store, if such were the players’ intent, nets only a few healing potions and the attention of the local constabulary. That is because Gauvine uses an interplanar secret chest to store the wares she sells. This was news to her abductors, too, a band of bugbears who did not know that the tiny chest in the child’s dollhouse, next to the empty crib in the back room, is the material counterpart of the ethereal treasure chest. Nearby, a chain connected to the wall, the shackle of which has been snapped off.
Rescuing Gauvine is possible, though villagers will discourage such recklessness. Indeed, it is suspicious how firmly they are dissuaded from attempting rescue. Gauvine is held by the bugbear band, at the top of a hill of scree that has accumulated from repeated rockslides off the cliffs. It is not so much of a hideout as simply a place hard to access: climbing the
mountain of debris is difficult terrain, and offers nowhere to hide; any move upwards risks rocks falling on those below.
Finding the culprits is not the main challenge. The abductors have even left a trail to follow, pieces torn from the
alchemist’s machine: coiled springs, counterweighted plates, trap doors from a device meant to ensure fairness of transactions (the object purchased and the payment price, each in a separate container, locked and requiring both parties to press buttons on opposite sides to signify agreement and conclude a contract). Unable to open both sides at the same time, the bugbears have taken it apart in hopes of finding a reward inside, and this has left a trail out of town that is easily followed.
The bugbears have always been a nuisance, and while they keep the road free from other bandits, when they do descend from their hole in the Wall, Rock Bottom is effectively cut off. Even without the abduction of Gauvine, their elimination ought to have been a priority.
At the same time, direct assault is not easy: thrown rocks and javelins, with the advantage of the high ground and the difficult approach, reinforce the bugbear position. If players make it to the top, the shallow cave reveals what appears to be an abomination: oversize legs, arms and bulky torso, ten feet tall. This is their leader, whom they call the Gut. In fact it is a hill giant, wearing a
transparent mask: an invisible bag with two eyeholes cut out, worn as a hood. This creates the appearance of the Gut’s headless form.
Resolution does not require combat: the bugbears had hoped to extort magic from Gauvine. She has been selling to them as well as the village, and they know that her position in the village would be threatened if that were revealed. They were attempting to blackmail her, asking for the contents of her shop or all would be revealed. Because they did not know about the chest, they were frustrated and took her as a hasty alternative. The bugbears simply want to make
blackmail profitable.
Gauvine is herself compromised, and can be ransomed if the Gut is offered something to make the whole misadventure worth his while. The villagers have tolerated the bugbear presence, because they know that with a threat just outside their walls, Rock Bottom has a strong economy providing for travellers safety and shelter, and they can justify inflated prices. This is profiteering, and can explain their indifference to losing a cornerstone of their town’s economy.
Also in the cave is the creature which had been shackled in the magic shop: a sprite named Hope, who is now being kept in a cage in the cave. The
imprisoned Hope has been held by Gauvine, and if freed can be persuaded to accompany the party as a sidekick.