Heavy is the Head

 

Lord Urdurel’s Bounty

Lord Urdurel (High King in all but title) was not only expecting you but had planned for it. He had sent out, well in advance of your arrival, for specific items as a potential reward or bribes for Liga Bur and Rifkin. He’d even had the time to commission a powerful new shield for Fortu AND had it styled and painted to match his octopus themed armour!

Banaal’s gift though was more personal. As the very young son of the Dwarven priest couple, sent to oversee the construction of Cottis over sixty years ago. Childhood friend to his baby daughter and her brave childhood protector. When Banaal learned of her murder, fifty years too late, he still shared in Lord Urdurel’s ongoing grief.

Current character wealth (including recently received ‘wanted’ rewards, gifted personal magical items and equipment and minus the gold paid to the leader of the Rogues guild for information about the Assassin, probably in the employ of the Witch Megarna; Finnegan).

Banaal: 

Gold: 975gp

10 gems (worth 100gp each) 

4 gems (worth 50gp each)

Cloak of Etherealness

Fortu: 

Gold: 1306gp

6 gems (worth 25gp each)

Shield Large/Heavy +3

Heavy Warhorse: Night Fever!

Liga Bur: 

Gold: 130gp (Still owes Rifkin 350gp)

Rabbit skin boots of Striding and Springing 

Rifkin: 

Gold: 691gp

7 gems (worth 25gp each)

Brooch of Shielding

In addition you are all now being paid a whopping 10gp a day while in Lord Urdurel’s employ.

Liga Bur can elect to repay some of his debt to Rifkin if he should choose to do so.

The Horses behind the Cart

Clip-clopping along the wide track behind Cookie’s bulky wagon, the two surviving horses, that the Party were loaned by Sir Briefadel half a year ago, whinny quietly to each-other.

Robin, leans in toward his stablemate.

“I don’t like being tied to the back of this cart but it’s still a lot better than being ridden. My back still aches from when I’ve been forced to carry that music-man; Rifkin around all day.”

Maurice rolls his brown eyes.

“Your back aches? My rider’s twice the size of yours and wrapped in metal! He must think I’m some sort of war horse!”

Robin has the grace to drop his gaze.

“It could be worse I suppose. We could have been forced to haul this huge wagon, like those too big, cart-horse idiots; Burt and Ernie.”

Maurice snickers.

“That’s true but I really wish Fortu would work on his rising trot. He bounces around on top of my back like an armoured sack of potatoes!”

Robin flicks his head to draw Maurice’s attention to the eleven tethered men trudging behind them and their, still saddled but seemingly content, riding horses.

“Perhaps, now that they’ve acquired all these extra horses, we might get a job-share situation going on to spread the load… And by load, I mean; Fortu.”

Maurice & Robin

Light Riding horses

Large but (unsurprisingly, considering they saw their stablemate (Barry) eaten by a Displacer-beast) skittish.

Str: 15

Int: 2

Wis: 12

Dex: 12

Con: 16

Cha: 6

HPs: 27

AC: 13

Move: 60’

Alignment: True Neutral 

Initiative: +1

Attack: Hoof: -2 Damage: 1d4+1 (full attack x2 hooves)

Reach: 5’

Feats: Endurance / Run

Skills: Listen: +4 / Spot: +4

Special: Scent / Low-light vision 

Saves: F: +6 / R: +4 / W: +2

Tricks: Stay / Heel / Come

Not so Tough Cookie

As Banaal gently pulls Cookie to her unsteady feet, she looks at him in wide-eyed shock.

“I should be dead! I felt that Psycho Halfling slice my forearms as I tried to defend myself, and then shove his dagger through the back of my bare neck as I hopped off my wagon, trying to get away! I felt my life-blood gush out!”

Retaining a reassuring hold on Cookie’s rein roughened hands, Banaal watches as the young wagoneer tentatively touches her healed neck and looks upon the blood splatter on the woodwork where she fell. Her blood. He watches as she slowly registers what must’ve just happened.

“You saved me. I saw my life flash before my eyes, but you… You must have pulled me back from the very brink!”

Hugging her Dwarven benefactor in raw and honest gratitude, the seemingly tough Cookie crumbles into his strong arms and sobs onto his broad shoulders. She’s actually a few inches taller than him but barely half his weight.

“Thank you Banaal. Thank you and all your Dwarven gods. Thank you for saving my life. I won’t ever forget it.”

Finally disentangling herself from her stocky saviour, Cookie  heaves herself back up, past her own blood stained footplate and onto the wagon’s bench-seat. Banaal though, can’t help himself from overhearing her, as she mutters angrily to herself.

“That’s it! No more of this thankless wagooneer shit! Time to start that little food shack you’ve been saving up for and dreaming about these last few years!” 

Wanted: Preferably Dead

While scraping up the separate pieces of the Halfling bandit; Marvin’s sloppy corpse into a large bucket, Chape tries to hold his, still only half digested, breakfast down. 

“Why are we doing this again?”

Ringo shrugs.

“There was a fair sized ‘Dead or Alive’ reward offered for the Halfling nutter and a lesser one for each of his dirty bandits but the city will only pay out on the presentation of irrefutable evidence.

Chape shrugs.

“Do the adventurers even care? They seem pretty indifferent to pursuing wealth and, as soldiers in Lord Urdurel’s army, were not even allowed to stake a claim in it.”

The third Brother; Locket wanders over.

“Don’t worry about mopping up all the squidgy bits that leaked out, the Halfling’s head and our word will, almost certainly, be evidence enough.”

The Dirty Dozen’t

Landing, a little clumsily, beside Cookie’s wagon in his intimidating eagle form, Liga Bur morphs back to his natural and more comfortable Halfling shape. He’d spent a year under Brother Thornberg’s patient guidance, learning to transform into a variety of animals but he realises, even now, that he’ll probably never become fully comfortable with the dramatic shift of his physical capabilities or senses.

After briefly talking with Fortu, he watches the soldiers; Ringo and Chape attempt to scoop up the shredded remains of the Halfling bandit leader; Marvin. He can’t remotely justify it but Liga Bur feels an odd pang of kinship. This middle-aged, grey-haired Halfling, whoever he was, had hated Lord Urdurel with a passion and, from what Fortu had heard, blamed him entirely for the destruction of his borderlands village.

Who was this angry man and why did he run with a dozen Human bandits? Why had he rejected… or perhaps been rejected by his… their own people?

Picking up the steel pole that Fortu had pulled out of the wagon wheel spokes, Liga Bur turns it around in his stubby but strong fingers. It’s more than just a crude rod of metal, it has a hook like shape on one end and a stirrup shaped triangle at the other. Considering the reasoning of its construction, Liga Bur mentally puts himself in the position Marvin would have found himself in.

He must have been hiding in a concealed ditch between the ruts in the cambered road when Cookie’s wagon had slowed for Banaal to examine the felled tree, then using the hooked end of the steel pole, caught the underside of the wagon and then used the stirrup end to brace his foot to help him clamber up as he was dragged along. Then the sneaky stowaway must have just waited until they’d reached the prearranged ambush point before thrusting the main shaft of the pole through the spokes of the front, right wagon wheel.

Whoever this Marvin was, he’d obviously been clever, tough and charismatic enough to command his twelve Human underlings, but his anger (and recklessness) was patently symptomatic of a dark past. 

As for his, so called; ‘Dirty Dozen’, they mostly went down without much of a fight. Liga Bur himself, while in eagle form, had ensnared over half the horses (and therefore the men riding them) with his ‘enchanted grass’, leaving the remaining five bandits to ride on towards the wagon. 

Once there, despite their original number advantage, they were easily overpowered by the armoured Dwarf; Banaal and his own massive (and also) armoured hound; Mir Hundur.

Even now, despite spending every single day with him, since he was a pup, plus the mystical Druidic bond they now share, Liga Bur was still surprised how his faithful hound; Mir Hundur was able to slaughter a large horse in just two big bites!

Finally, Fortu’s performative skewering of their Halfling leader crushed any residual bravado they had left and all eleven of the surviving bandits surrendered instantly.

The Party gain two (Halfling sized/non-glowing) +2 daggers.

Beauty and the Beast

“This isn’t what we agreed upon. You’re pushing him too fast and far too hard.”

The speaker is an impossibly tall and heroic looking woman. Her perfect skin is tanned and her toned muscles are prominent, yet somehow don’t detract from her pleasingly feminine form.

Opposite from her, in more ways than one, the barbaric Erythnul grins infuriatingly, his mouth ever moving and changing, yet he says nothing.

The blue-eyed, golden haired woman shifts slightly in her stance, a large shield strapped to her left arm and a huge bastard-sword held relaxed in her right hand.

“Your gnarled thumb is pressing down too heavily on the scales.”

Her densely muscled opponent finally deigns to speak. His growly voice sounds like he’s simultaneously gargling with blood and broken glass.

“Do you still not understand who I am? I am the god of slaughter. The god of monsters and savages! Why would you imagine I’d allow myself to be shackled by the constraints of your ‘honour and justice’?”

The divine; Mayaheine Attempts, heroically, to remain calm.

“That’s the entire point. This poor, tortured man is at a crossroads. A crossroads that will shape his world for centuries to come! He can lose himself to the chaos and evil that are in his blood or he can choose to rise above his terrible past. He could be so much more than the product of the ‘life or death’  gladiator pit.”

Erythnul’s expression changes, along with the all the other features on his face.

“I took on your challenge, already assured of victory. His tainted blood doomed him from the start. You thought his Father’s bloodline could save him? You’re just an idealistic fool. Even if he’d received the love of his parents, his inherent nature would have led him down the same dark path.”

Sunshine engulfing her and illuminating her burnished armour, the younger goddess sets her beautiful mouth in a tight line.

“You’re wrong. There is a tipping-point coming, where he’ll learn the truth and when that moment comes, I’ll still be there to steer him toward the light!”

The golden goddess; Mayaheine pauses for a moment, before adding.

“And keep your filthy claws off the dog. Touch her again and our pact is over.”