A quick stop at Trader's Rest and a longer stop with Long John

General Summary

Trader’s Rest is a small town on a convergence of roads. It’s a stone’s throw from the forest, but that’s where the roads meet, so that’s where the town is. The palisade around the town is passable enough, and the guards quite pointedly remind us to be “good” while in town. It’s like we don’t have trustworthy faces. We settle into town, or rather into the town square with our impressive wagon and settle down to wait for Anaia Lorem. “Well, I’m off to the church,” Cap’n said. “I need to hold vigil to recharge me shield.” “You should go too,” Romanoff urged Lili. “You can get better. It will stop you trying to drink water that has gone bad.” “I have an important mission for you,” Lili answered. “You need to go find Lorem for me.” “I’ll find him in two shakes of a rabbit’s tail.” Romanoff disappeared and came back squeaking excitedly. “He’s here! He brought 4 wagons, and he just went to the place with much bad water wearing a silly hat with a feather.” “Excellent work Romanoff!” Lili turned to Milli and I, “I have a plan.”

LILI’S PLAN

Lili’s plan was to have us seduce the guards and Lorem, who looked to want to impress the ladies. Unfortunately, I don’t know how it went because I drank my first cup and fell asleep. I’m ashamed. I’ve never held my drink so poorly before. I was told they have 4 wagons. The smallest wagon has the heaviest load, and has a special guard, a big huge guy who always stays with the wagon. Instead I woke up to the mayor coming over to our wagon to “welcome” us to town. “It’s very nice to have you here and all that. I just want to give you a word of warning. There’s rumors of a large shipment of gold coming through town and I want to make sure nothing will take place in town.” We all heard that emphasis. “There’s word of Long John being in the area, and people are nervous.” He nodded towards the woods. “Wood walkers like to find things that fall off of wagons in the area, and we wouldn’t want anything to fall off a wagon while in town, now would we.” “No sir,” Lili reassured him. “That would be horrible. I’m quite sure nothing will happen in town.” The mayor gave a knowing nod and walked off his message delivered. “Long John is that fae we met on our way back to the Good Granny,” I whispered furiously. “I bet if we bring a couple of barrels of ale, he’ll help us out.” “Mornin’ girls,” Cap walked up, “How was your night?” “Cap’n,” I said throwing an arm around his shoulder. “How do you feel about getting a couple barrels of ale?” “I do like me some ale, but is it a little early?” “Not at all, we’ll explain on the way.”

LONG JOHN AND HIS WOOD WALKERS ENJOY A GOOD DANCE

We set off with our wagon, two kegs of ale, and 10 cups. Lili made some excuse about spring break, and giggled. The tavern owner was more than happy to give him the ale. Then we headed into the forest and made a point to happily drink while having one of us pop out acting drunk and yell at the town and “Lousy men who kiss a girl and don’t keep promises.” After a bit, we notice there’s a few more of us drinking from our barrel, and eventually there are a lot more people there than the 10 cups we brought, not to mention they’re all about waist high. I glanced over and Cap has fallen asleep next to a cup that seems to be mysteriously refilling itself. “You kept your promise!” cried Long John. “It’s been quite awhile since we had such good ale.” “How would you like the opportunity to get more ale?” Lili asked. “You have the yellow circles that get the ale? Give them to us!” “We do not, but we do can get you some ale if you will help us.” Lili held her cup up. “We need some things to fall off a wagon, and for someone to…” Lili’s voice trailed off for a moment, “join us unwillingly. I’ve heard you are good at that sort of thing.” She smiled at Long John. “Yes, yes I am!” Long John struck a pose on the log next to him. “I have great plans. I always get what I want, like beer! Or ale! You will get us much ale, and we will help you with this plan.” “How about we get you,” Lili’s fingers swirled her cup in front of Long John, “five barrels of ale to help us with this small problem.” “Five is too little,” Long John said, “It will take many men, and many men means I need more ale. 15 barrels.” “That is too much, how will we get them to you? You can see our wagon is small. 7 barrels.” “You can make multiple trips, 13.” “Would you take advantage of us girls? I can’t believe you would gouge us, 8 barrels.” “Ten, no less, we go at great risk.” “Ten, we will hold it until the job is done, and will bring the ale to the forest,” Lili held out her hand, and Long John put his smaller hand in hers and they shook. “How will you trap him?” “I have a great plan. It always works. I cut down a tree, and when the wagon comes I stand on it, and say, ‘Stand and deliver!’ Then they give me the stuff I want, and it is good.” “Yes, but what if they turn around and try to drive the other way?” “Oh, that is good point. I will get a second tree, and drop it behind them. Then my men will come out from hiding and surround them.” “Agreed, we will gather the required ale, and you prepare the trap.”

I SUMMON THE FOREST

Over the next couple of days, we ventured out to all of the local farms and buy 9 barrels of ale, 2 barrels of mead, and 1 small keg of rum. One of the farmers agreed to let us store the ale at his barn until we were ready for it. We got news the merchant had finally set out, and we prepared our trap about a day’s journey from the town, no need to deliberately anger the town more than we needed to. Long John and his men all headed out invisibly carrying branches. It looked nothing so much like a bunch of very small trees walking out to the road. Of course, Long John was not invisible. He was carried out by two particularly burly fey on a log pointing imperiously toward the road. Just as Long John had promised, he dropped his log in front of the wagon and impressively said, “Stand and deliver!” That is when it all went sideways. The giant guard charged into the fey, and cut them down left and right. “By the Creator’s fist,” I swore running out and calling flames to me. I ran and threw a gout of flame at the guard. He threw a blast of something back at me, and Lili hammered him with shots of magic. Milli shot arrow after arrow at him, as our shots hit him, he grew taller, narrower, and more snake-like. I don’t know what he was, but he could throw out damage as good as he took it. At one point he did something and I saw him healing as I took damage. “Enough,” he cried out and stomped the ground, and I fell to the ground asleep, as did Milli. Lili stayed up and as he hit her, she threw a response back at him, finally downing the creature. Cap got in and cut the creature’s head off, and the creature finished changing into a snke. Thankfully, the fey were able to take care of the rest of the guards, and in the process took down our actual target. Lili doctored us up, the best she could, and we loaded up the bodies of the merchant and the now headless snake into the wagon. We drove the wagons towards the forest, unfortunately the small heavy wagon broke its wheel, so we had to quickly go through the materials. “Milli,” Cap said, “can you check these boxes out?” Slowly Milli went over the boxes, and found a small key hole with no scratch marks. I looked over the merchant’s body and found a small key ring. “Keep looking,” I said, “There might be another key hole.” After searching for just a moment longer, Milli found a second keyhole, and we turned the key and slowly opened the lid. The lid was unnaturally heavy, and as it opened we saw two bottles with small hammers next to them. “If we’d unlocked the obvious key hole we would have exploded those vials,” Lili said pointing at the vials. “There’s official imperial letters in here,” I said looking over the mail on the top. “I think we just found the imperial gold.” I looked at my friends, “We cannot go back to town now. There’s no way they’ll let this pass.” “The place of Sticky Sticks is sending people out,” Long John announced. “You need to give us the ale now, and we need to leave.” “Gotcha,” I said. “What do we want to do?” “Pour it all in the bag,” Cap said. “Are you sure? That feels wrong,” Milli replied. “Let’s take most of it, spread some it around on the ground, so the guards or whoever comes spends time searching for any gold that’s left on the ground before they come after us,” I suggested. “Wait!” Lili whispered urgently. “Yes, let’s leave some coins on the ground, but I can use a spell to trigger the trap, causing the wagons to explode. Then they’ll think we were killed in the blast.” “That’s our plan!” I said, “Thor, you and Cap go get the ale for Long John, and we’ll start putting all of these coins in the bag.” And that is what we did. Long John got his ale. I’m fairly sure that was quite an impressive party in the woods that night with lots of dancing. We got the spices we needed for Madame Anise, as well as the head of the merchant who’d angered her. His head is in the middle of a barrel we loaded onto our orginal pathetic wagon. We left all of the more impressive wagons behind, no need to make ourselves a target for a trap like we just set. Cap now has a fancy new trident from the snake man we killed, and our group has an impressive amount of money filling our entire bag. This is going to be an interesting trip back.

Vanilla turkey is the best

We traveled a bit further away from the mess of our battle after storing all of the treasure in our bag. I had a terrible night with dreams of someone trying to take all that money we found and trying to figure out the right way to spend the money. For some reason, I feel like we should spend at least part of it on feeding the poor. Also, I’m pretty sure we’ll need more money to be able to do that well. We traveled for the rest of the day, and the next day Milli starts being all weird about the bag. She keeps offering to carry it for me, and when I don’t let her carry it, she insists on touching it. It’s like she’s four, and is trying to pick a fight. It took quite awhile, but we eventually made it to Madam Anise’s place, and Cap attempted to drag the barrel of spices in, but her blind guards threw them out. It was… different. Lili suggested I should wait outside just in case someone tries to take the bag. This seemed like a great idea, but then Milli decided to wait outside with me, because she’s worried I’ll lose it or let someone take the bag. As if I would let anyone take the bag. THREE QUESTIONS Lili is able to give Madam Anise the spices and the head. “You may ask the loa three questions,” Madam Anise said, “Now that we’re friends, and friends share information.” Side point, this is all the information I got from Lili afterward, because I was obviously outside. “How can we cure what is affecting Addie and Milli?” “In Dragon’s hoard, a dream resides, As time and distance removed, the heart is freed, Passed on through charity and faith The Specie is cleaned” “Just to be clear,” Lili asked, “We will need to give some away, and then spend some time on consecrated ground?” “That is what that means,” Madam Anise answered with exaggerated patience. “Do you have other questions for the loa?” “How is the Horned Watcher planning to get back at me?” Madam Anise leaned back in her chair, “You ask dangerous questions, but I will consult the loa.” Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she starts to shake. The building around her shakes and Madam Anise’s eyes popped back into focus. “In pain and sorrow, in failure and despair,” Madam Anise started to say, then her voice changed tone into a lower, harsher voice. “I think you won’t need that warning. We’ll just take care of you now.” Her two bodyguards in the room step forward and start attacking Lili. Meanwhile, outside the guards step closer to each other and bar the door. We hear the sound of Lili crying out in pain, and things breaking inside Madam Anise’s store. “You will be letting me through now,” Cap growled. They continued to stare ahead blindly their white eyes staring past us. Cap sang a short phrase and they stumbled winced in pain, and I saw the wounds appear across their bodies. “The Katcha will be done with you,” a voice boomed from inside. A flurry of blows were exchanged. I threw spells, Cap tried time after time to get in to help Lili, but the guards blocked him until I finally knocked one down. Milli shot arrows into the guard on the right, but they did not do the damage I was used to. Finally, Milli got a lucky shot in and the last guard fell to the ground with a dark flash emanating from his body. Lili rolled Madam Anise’s body over and mumbled something and she came around. As Madam Anise rose, she went over to her dead guard and started drawing symbols around his body with chalk. As I watched a dark mist came out of the body and I watched as she guided the mist into the body. She repeated this with each of her down guards before handing Lili the vials. “You acted well,” she said. “In the spirit of friendship, when you open this vial the spirit will come forth and it will obey you one time.” She paused her hand over Lili’s open palm. “Remember, they are not your friends. If they can harm you, they will, but they will obey you. Once.” “I will guard these carefully,” Lili said, carefully slipping the vials into her belt pouch. Lili turned to me, “I need 1000 gold to set up a ritual.” “That’s a lot of money Lili,” I answered. “I know we just earned a bunch of gold, but that seems a bit excessive. Besides, I was thinking we would use the money to feed the poor. Or, we could use some to get some spices and then sell those spices to get more money and then we can feed a giant banquet for the poor.” Lili looked over at Cap’n, “No, she’s right Addie.” Cap agreed. “We need that money to get the supplies for a big feast. It’s just we need lots of spices to make the best feast you’ve ever had.” “A thousand gold is a lot of money. It needs to be a very good feast, we should have turkey.” I answered, then I remembered a meal my Mom used to make, “Oh and pumpkin pie! We should make turkey and pumpkin pie.” “Yes, we’ll get all the spices for that. I know the best recipe for,” Lili’s voice trailed off as she tried to think of the name, “vanilla. We need vanilla for the turkey!” “I’ve never heard of vanilla turkey.” “Yes, vanilla turkey.” So I gave Lili the money for vanilla turkey, which I thought sounded terrible, but I’ll trust her, she hasn’t steered me wrong yet. Milli would not stop touching the bag. It’s like she was obsessed with it. Finally, Cap’n reappeared with his arms full of spices, oils, and other things for our feast. He insisted it had to be down by the sea, because the sea air would make it better. I really did not understand that, but I followed them down with Milli touching the bag the whole way. It really was ridiculous.

VANILLA TURKEY IS DELICIOUS

I take back every word I didn’t say about how awful the idea of vanilla turkey sounded. Lili made the most amazing vanilla turkey, and you have to try it sometime. It was amazing. Oh, and while Lili was preparing the turkey she did some kind of spell and finally Milli stopped trying to touch the bag, also I figured out the world won’t end if we don’t spend the money exactly the perfect way. After about a day Cap finished his project with the chanting and we spread out all of the gold we found amongst the money from the Empire. Lili said we needed to do that to make sure it was properly consecrated. I’ve never particularly worried about my gold being properly consecrated, but I must say after she did that I felt so much better, and was ready to head off to find Antwerp. Thankfully Madam Anise knew quite a lot about that, and gave us a general location, which Cap’n understood, and told us the pirate currently in charge is some guy named Bloodmoon, and he likes oranges. I’m thinking a short shopping trip to pick up some oranges will be in order before we head off to Antwerp.

Report Date

23 Dec 2021