Session 1 - Whimsy
General Summary
As the party trudges toward the Croaker Caves, Whimsy’s hand slips into the pouch on his belt. He grasps the pearl in his palm and brings it up to his lips, blowing his breath on it before letting it slip back into the pouch. And then, silently, he prays:
Dear Gaez,
This is Whimsy. How are you? I am fine.
Thank you for putting me and Sweet together with Emmalyn and Fern and Wispy and Cedric and Farelee. I already love them all so much, and I know that will only get stronger the longer we’re buds. You’re really smart for picking such great people, ferda.
Today we made landfall at Nami village, like you wanted. Unfortunately, Kooky was waiting for us on the docks. Hey, how come you always send him? He’s really mean. Send the nicer monks, OK?.
Anyway, he took us to a funeral, and it was super duper sad. A kitsune named Honjou had recently passed away following a short illness. After the service, we met a half-orc-half-elf named Elro, the leader of a group known as the Glassblades. They’re like ranger-cops who protect the village and maybe solve crimes? Elro took us to an inn called the Jolly Dwarf, only the dwarf at the bar was not jolly at all, on account of Honjou’s funeral.
Elro told us that Honjou was an adventurer who had returned to the village two months ago after trekking somewhere out in the Cold Wastes. Everything seemed fine until about a week ago, when Honjou developed icy veins on his body. The cold sickness crept through him and froze him all up into a statue of ice. Elro thought it might be an isolated case, but then a woman named Tulgi started showing the same symptoms!
I thought we should bring Tulgi some soup, because when I got sick, Mama or Granny would feed me soup, and it would make me feel all warm and loved, and I would get better really quickly, ferda. But my best buds wanted to search Honjou’s cabin first, and I want to be wherever they are, so we went there.
Honjou’s place was really messy and things were all knocked over. Sweet found some dwarven footprints leading outside. Fern found a receipt from Pelc’s Curiosities, a local antique shop. Emmalyn found a map showing some ruins west of town. We figured out that Honjou had discovered some old artifacts in the ruins, brought them back to town, and then sold them to Pelc for a bunch of gold. My pals are so smart!!
Sweet and I were able to track the footprints back to Tulgi’s cabin. We knocked on the door. She was very gruff, but also very sick. I was able to talk our way inside. The whole place smelled like illness, and her legs were already mostly frozen. She had a fire burning in the fireplace and a brazier full of coals also heating up the room. I was roasting, but she was shivering. I felt really bad for Tulgi. It was obvious she was a tough, tough lady, but you can’t really fight sickness. Not sickness like this, anyway. She already had some soup bubbling on the fire, so I brought her a bowl. I had to hold it for her because she was shivering too hard to hold it.
Oh, also, Tulgi had two wolves under her bed. They’re called Jira and Iro. Jira is very sweet, but Iro takes after his master. We talked to Tulgi for a time, giving her sips of soup and assuring her that we had on interest in turning her in to the authorities. It turns out Tulgi is from a town called Ichi and works for a crime family called the Yamaguchis. She and her sister Hulil were sent to Nami to watch out for people bringing in just the kind of artifacts that Honjou brought. These old things can sometimes be really powerful and worth a whole lot of money. But Tulig got to be real good friends with Honjou, and she really cared for him. So when he brought back the antiques, she waited until he had sold them to Pelc, and then she and Hulil broke into Pelc’s shop and stole them.
Tulgi told us we could find Hulil in the Croaker Caves, just south of the village. That’s where she and the gang hide out while they wait for precious artifacts to come through town. I guess, then, they steal them and smuggle them up to Ichi and the Yamaguchis? That part was less important to me; I was more concerned about Tulgi. She’s rough around the edges, but I think she could be a really good person if she decided to change her ways. Maybe if she had a chance she could get out from under the crime family and devote her life to helping people.
When we left Tulgi’s cabin, I genuinely thought she would die within a few hours. I even offered to sit with her and wait for it to happen. But my friends knew better! They said we probably have three days to save her! I’m even more motivated to end this illness now, because I think Tulgi deserves another shot at life.
Hey, Gaez, I promised her I would pray for her. So if you can spare a thought for a gruff little dwarf who loves wolves and just doesn’t want to die shivering, please, send a little comfort to Tulgi. If you need to borrow some of my warmth, you can have it. I’ll shiver a little for her if you’ll let me, OK? Let her rest comfortably until we can solve this riddle.
So, when my friends said we could still save Tulgi, I couldn’t help myself, I ran straight for Pelc’s Curiosities! We’d decided to go there next to see whether or not Pelc had gotten sick, too. I mean, Emmalyn mentioned that the items may be cursed, and I thought that maybe the curse could follow anyone who steals the items. If Pelc hadn’t been sick, that may have made some sense. If Pelc turned out to be just as sick as Tulgi, then maybe stealing wasn’t the issue.
The door to Pelc’s was cracked open, and that’s a bad sign in a place where it’s cold, so I busted right in. Emmalyn was right on my heels. The inside of the store was just as wrecked as Honjou’s cabin. We got real still for a moment, looking around. Emmalyn let me know that she heard breathing from people trying to hide. We passed the message to Fern and Sweet, too. Sweet set a trap outside the door, and Fern circled the building in case anyone tried to escape through a window. Then Emmalyn turned into her cute little fox form and snuck between some shelves to see what she could spy.
That’s when the fighting started, but it didn’t last long. There were only three little dwarves, and they didn’t hit very hard. We hit way harder. Oh, and Iro ate one of them. I told him to stop, but I’m not his master, so he didn’t listen to me. Sweet found Pelc’s body in the back bedroom; she had succumbed to the same freezing sickness as Honjou. That means she got sick about the same time as him, so it must be directly related to one of these items. There’s a dagger, a scroll case, a jade statuette, a quiver full of arrows, a silver ring, and two blue glass vials. One of these things has to be making people sick. We have the dagger with us, so I really hope it’s not that.
We notified Elro and he came to Pelc’s to collect the surviving bandits. One of them gave us the secret ways to get through the Croaker Caves without getting eaten by frogs (the trick is to feed them bats!). So now we’re headed there to find Hulil and see if she still has the items, and if there’s any way to tell which item is making everyone sick.
Wish us luck! I love you! Have a good day!
Report Date
12 Nov 2022
Primary Location
Related Characters
Rewards Granted
+1 DaggerRemove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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