Purple Puffs, Sailor Dives, and Feathers

Had that dream again, the one with a paladin glowing with holy light, descending slowly in fantastic splendor into a pit of darkness. I am unable to look away, unable to break sight of that gorgeous, sparkling mass of plated confidence—by the gods, they are magnificent! Attracted and repulsed, I’m locked, unable to look away from the excessive enchantments and all the arrogant poses. As the figure descends, darkness encroaches the light— flashes turn to flickers turn to darkness. My trance is only broken when the darkness overcomes the light— I become aware of a voice in my head repeating over and over “the walls have eyes—but who’s watching?” I startle awake, words echoing “walls have eyes… who’s watching?”

I’ve been spending time by the pit in the Yawning Portal. It's eerily similar— especially when paladins are allowed to queue for descent. A fortnight ago I went to the Yawning Portal, hoping to see a paladin or two descend in glory, but Durnan still refuses to let anyone descend—says “Pit’s closed.” He muttered some nonsense about ongoing law suits and getting pressure from the City Watch. Suppose I should thank him, Durnan’s boringness led to a pretty interesting evening-- but more, venturing out, I realized the riddle in my dream is all around me in this city.

After hearing the pit was closed, AGAIN, I grabbed a bottle of table wine from the re-inflated waitress, she looked surprisingly alive, plump even— modern resurrection spells really are a thing of genius. I sat next to Kvothe at the bar, who didn’t notice. He had a dozen mugs lined up taking breaks in drinking long enough to proposition strangers, offering up something about his mule. To be honest, I have no idea what the actual offer is— I don’t think he does either.

Feeling bored, I looked around the bar for anything with a pulse of action. I spotted Johanna not by her height but by the crowd around her—I made my way toward her just in time to hear the punchline of the time she ‘tried to turn into a honey badger’. I won’t spoil it for you— but it’s pretty funny. She introduced me to Maya, a spell-slinging adventurer— we compared fire bolts, it got heated (drum hit). I looked around for the naked dwarf who has my stash, I thought long and hard… do I want it back? But yes, yes I do. Across the room I spotted Bones— the bounty hunter that killed a guy for holding a rake. I was hesitant to make eye contact with him, because he’s a stone-cold-murderer, but our eyes made contact and it was too late. To be fair, he looked a little less murderer and a little more adventurer. Bones and Kvothe joined us at the table as Johanna finished telling about the time she ‘tried to turn into a giraffe’. These stories do not get old.

We made our way to the back door and then quickly decided the front door was more appropriate. We met on the street and agreed to head to the Skewered Dragon in the Docks District to see if we could learn about what happened to Floon Blagmaar.

On the way to the Skewered Dragon, we passed by a store that sent chills through my bones. it was a purple store with eyes. “The walls have eyes” echoed in my head. I was hypnotized. I had to go in. Kvothe and Maya joined me as we checked out the store. I was looking for anything that could give light to the question: “who’s watching?” I couldn’t let them know what I was looking for, so I looked for everything. The store was full of purple haze, it was calming and relaxing.

Kvothe did some haggling and landed a pair of silver plated daggers at a really good price with a pipe full of purple kush. Xoblob brought out some ’special’ scrolls. I paid to have them identified and bought a Spell Scroll of Aid and Spell Scroll of Beast Sense. The little gnome man freaked me out, he had eyes painted on his face— nine of them— and an attraction to purple that I’ve only seen from princes. Xoblob brought me an empty purple vial full of purple scent—I bought it. The purple haze clouded my judgement— I remember thinking the empty vial was everything, EVERYTHING.

Through the purple-thin walls we could hear Bones whisper to Johanna “We can take him”. Kvothe, Maya and I knew we needed to depart immediately for the safety of Xoblob. We asked him if he had any intel on Floon and he gave us a tip that cost us a future piece of purple treasure. To be honest, it wasn’t that great a tip and won’t get that great a purple treasure.

From Xoblob’s we headed to the Skewered Dragon. The place felt like home to Kvothe who went directly to the bar and drowned himself in honey mead. We found the anchor in the ceiling an interesting curiosity— we asked about it, but I don’t believe a bit of the lore. Johanna joined a group of sailors who laughed at her jokes and told us to check out the Zhentarim Illicit Goods Distribution Center to find out about who abducted Floon.

Kvothe downed a dozen honey meads and we headed to the warehouse. As we approached, Kvothe was full of liquid courage and had a ridiculous idea that we would barter his mule for entry to warehouse. The purple kush was in full effect and Maya and I were all in to push the narrative, we entered through the back gate. Still stoned, I picked a lock that wasn’t locked. On entry to the courtyard, Kvothe again offered the services of his mule to anyone in earshot. We heard some scuffling inside, I looked inside a window but couldn’t see anything moving. Still stoned, I perceived the window to be locked. I used my tinker tools and opened the window— thinking back now, I wonder if there ‘was’ a window. I climbed through the window and noticed the ground covered in bodies. These bodies were Zhentarim thugs and they were very dead. Kvothe came in, then Maya, then Johanna—who didn’t fit through the window, so Maya unlocked the door, and then Bones. We looked around, found a door to a pantry that smelled of fish and vinegar. A fancy man was being held in the room— it took Bones only a second or two to put us into legal jeopardy and battle. He pickpocketed the fancy man causing 4 bird men to appear— were they fighting to protect the fancy man or to kill the adventurers with Bones? With the appearance of these bird men, the haze lifted.

Johanna intended to turn into a bear or accidentally turned into a bear. Point is, she turned into a bear. Kvothe opened chests and found honey, a strange choice for combat. He threw a bottle of honey at Johanna and drenched her bear form in sweet sticky goo— it was funny to watch, but probably not funny for the bear. Sensing he was in trouble, Kvothe cast inspiration on the bear— it worked, she wasn’t mad and found a way to use the honey to her advantage. From there I used my poison blade on the spell caster bird dude— taking him out before he was able to resurrect or raise dead. I gave my token wink and relieved him of his staff before he hit the ground. Bones killed a birdman with his hammer and then robbed the fancy man, lifting platinum and gold, purple scarves and his purple underpants. Maya cast magic missiles and damaged the third bird man. Johanna finished him with a swipe, then rolled on him to get the honey off. The honey didn’t come off and she ended up with a dead bird man stuck to her fur.

Kvothe and I made our way upstairs after an arrow from the fourth birdman narrowly missed me. Kvothe used charm and it worked! He tried talking to him, but it was best to just let him parrot what he heard. He told us that there was a fancy man in a room and to find him we had to follow yellow signs in the sewer. From this, we inferred Floon was in a room in the sewer and to rescue him, we need to find an entrance to the sewers and the yellow signs. We looked around the warehouse for additional clues. We found some chicken scratch maps—useless; a couple candles, some ink, quills, and paper—if only we needed to craft a stamped letter to someone.

Our investigations came to an abrupt end as the City Watch flooded the warehouse. Fortunately for us, they were more interested in the dead bodies and less interested in us. We were advised to leave post haste and thankfully the fancy guy didn’t snitch on Bones for robbing him. We left the warehouse, to the streets of the Dock District. It is there where we are, awaiting our next adventure.