The Quick and the Dead
General Summary
Grolm 9, 578
about 7:00 p.m.
Back when this whole mess started, the SNAFU Posse -- which weren't calling itself that at the time! -- had three big goals ahead of them:
- Rescue Ruggiero Bicchieri, father of Dacio Bicchieri and caravanmaster of the beleaguered Bicchieri Caravan
- In fact: rescue as much of the Bicchieri Caravan as can still be rescued.
- Investigate the unnatural source of the inland weeks-long hurricane. See that it won't start back up.
Well ... you had accomplished that first goal!
Until One Dangerous Stranger instructed his Will-Bound servant to bring all the people in Purgatory Gulch to his cavate in Oatman Canyon for their protection.
The party needs a full night of rest. They need to get outside of a couple of good meals. They need to sharpen their weapons and ready their wits, because they are gearing up for a confrontation against an educated, driven, inventive opponent in the form of Master Farvald Kerner.
The SNAFU Posse has no divine support. Their druid is compromised. One of their rangers is haunted by a banshee. The other ranger has stood in the presence of Master Kerner, been judged by him and found unconcerning. The monk is a scholar in a region of few scrolls; the Stormborn is a cursebearer under a sky creeping with demonic ash.
Think quick!
or …
... you're dead!
Rewards Granted
Summary:
- Mostly this chapter was a transitional "Encounter", getting the SNAFU Posse from "the grasslands of the region" into the death valley of the real Oatman Canyon and then to the door of Oatman Cavate. One route was long, slow, and mostly strewn with potential clues; the other was short and extremely hazardous.
- The trio from the south -- Chef, Jesse Devonshire, and Miro Teague -- each earn 800 XP for climbing Cliff Daisy Waterfall, then getting themselves the long hard slow dry route north across the middle of the dead place.
- The trio from the east -- Bruthazmus, Lee Chung, and Zhang Sephia -- each earn 2730 XP for taking out the majority of the Dawn Army at a cost which almost included Sephia's life and did include all of Lee Chung's available healing supplies.
Remember, we have worked out that your Animal Companions determine their levels off of their Chosen Person, so going forward we will not include them in XP calculations.
General note: By this point in the campaign, everyone is probably past the necessary experience point accumulation that qualifies you for 7th level. Please remember that you can't Ding! and do the actual leveling up until you have time to train. Right now, it looks like you won't have a chance for that until after the end of this adventure. Record the XP, but don't level yet!
Character(s) interacted with
- Chica Alston
- assorted Blood-sucking Cabbage fields, burned to death
- a battle line of Lord Jack-o-Lanterns, come to find out what's going on with all this sudden plant death