Lark's Landing, Episode: 16

Colonial Caerdia: Lark's Landing is a story being told through a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign I'm running at a local hobby shop called the Devil's Bench. If you aren't familiar with this ongoing story, you can follow this link to Once Upon a Tabletop on YouTube to hear the start of it or read the brief summary I wrote when I switched from video to blog.


32nd - 34th of Waning Spring, 0AL


Having just killed a giant boar and s strange, tentacled black cat, Shend (with some assistance) skins the creatures. Believing it to be something special and magical, the adventurers wrap up the cat-pelt with great care, thinking of taking it the wizard, Feryon. Stor, remembering that the wizard said something about blood from magical creatures being good for writing magical scrolls, gets an empty wine bottle from Gilligan and fills it.

They take a short break to take care of the wounds received in the battle. During this, Shend tries to replicate the strange rawhide vial his potion from Naldor came in - Akta has been asking about vials for some reason and he wants to help. Stor sees what he's doing and also tries. They manage to get the shape right, but they don't seem like they'll hold liquid. Even after drying out, they believe that filling them with liquid would just cause them to soak it up and become soft again. That's when Stor realises that the insides of the vials they have are coated with wax.

After their rest, the adventurers  begin the trek home, hauling the giant boar with them. They know they won't get home today, but they should be able to make it by tomorrow.

As evening draws closer, Shend, who's leading them, pushes aside some brush and sees a giant spider wrapping something in webs. He turns to the others and suggests going around, but accidentally catches the spider's attention in the process. Hoping to end the battle quickly, Shend shoots the spider using the magical arrowhead Akta had won at the Spring Festival. This is the first time he's used the arrow, and he's delighted by the blast of fire it releases upon hitting his enemy - although it's a bit concerning when the arrowshaft is burned to cinders.

The spider is soon finished off by the others, but no sooner does it collapse than six more drop out of the trees. In the ensuing battle, many of them are injured by the spiders and their insidious poison, though everyone manages to stay out of the webs. Balasar goes down, paralysed but kept alive by the poison. Seeing their fallen friend, the others fight all the fiercer, bringing down the last of the spiders.

Akta rushes to Balasar's, examining him. Unfortunately, in her hurry, she manages to forget everything she knows about dragonborn anatomy - and most of what she knows about medicine, too. She pronounces him dead, to the dismay of the rest of her companions - especially Balasar, who is able to hear every word but has no way to communicate. Stor and Gilligan also check, but, in light of Akta's pronouncement, they find nothing to refute her.

Akta proceeds to perform a powerful eulogy, so moving that it brings some of the others to tears - including Balasar, though no one notices. Shend and Stor then spend some time retrieving the magical arrowhead and attempting to harvest some poison from the spiders. Gilligan gathers some spiderwebs on sticks.

After about half-an-hour, they head off, with Kordak carrying Balasar back to the settlement so they can bury him by his shine. When, after another half hour, the poison wears off, Balasar scares everyone half to death by shouting that he isn't dead. Night falls and they make camp for the night, chuckling over the mishap.

They arrive back at the settlement around midday. Kordak suggests a beach barbecue with the giant boar and goes off to arrange it. Shend stops by Gorbosh's forge with his arrowhead and asks about a metal arrowshaft for the arrow. The half-orc says that he'll give it some thought and, once the metal is flowing from the mine, he'll give it a try. Shend then goes to help Kordak with getting the giant boar cooked.

Akta goes out to the mine by the Singing Stone to ask Deltria about if the settlement needs more people with medicinal skills. The dwarf says such skills are always needed, and the best person to talk to about it is Triena. Akta thanks her and goes to join Kordak on the beach.

Stor takes the bottle of blood from the cat-like creature to Feryon, who recognises the creature from its description as a displacer beast. He accepts the blood and agrees to make a replacement identify scroll for Gilligan in exchange. Stor then visits the gnome Natat down by the farms where he asks her about the blue grass sample he'd given her. She tells him that they were able to make flour and bread out of it and wishes they had more - so Stor hands over a bundle of the grass he'd collected on his previous trip to the area. He then joins the others on the beach.

Balasar stops by his shrine, praying to Epesta. He speaks of his uncertainty, both of who he is, what he's doing, and if his goddess is with him. He asks for some kind of sign. He waits for over ten minutes before a beam of sunlight pierces the jungle's canopy and shines directly on his shrine. He takes that as his sign and also goes to the beach.

While the food is preparing, Siha shyly approaches Kordak. The young half-orc woman tells him that she heard about the caravan his family was in from Gorbosh and had brought some items that had been scavenged from it that she and her mother hadn't been able to sell. Kordak immediately recognises his uncle Kendrik's secret brewing journal, though it has some kind of acid damage around the edges. He gratefully takes it, and flips through - finding, alongside brewing recopies, various short notes in the margins about his own childhood; some kind, others not so much. In the back, he finds a brief, point-form account of his aunt, uncle, and mother's journey on the caravan - which comes to an end suggesting that the caravan was attacked just a couple short days from the next village.

Gilligan goes to Feryon's tower not long after Stor. He brings with him the hide from the displacer beast. He asks the wizard about enchanting it and crafting it into a magical item. The wizard says he doesn't know exactly how to enchant it, but he'll do some research. He believes it will take a great deal of time and magical material. Gilligan, who has been gathering such materials, starts to suggest plans for gathering such materials, but Feryon says that a great wizard like himself has others to get such materials for him. He tells Gilligan about a small herb farm, but warns him that the owners are crazy and he shouldn't spend much time around them.

Gilligan then takes the displacer beast hide to the tanner for advice, but the tanner has never worked with magical materials before. He does say the hide, as long as its clean, should keep for a while.

The mystic then heads off to find the herb farm. It takes him some time, but he finds it behind some trees being tended by a small creature of indeterminate gender. He inquires about acquiring magical materials, learning that Feryon already has all of what is currently available. He suggests a trade system, involving trading a pound of food for a pound of magical materials, at which the small creature baulks - saying that a pound of food is worth about one leaf. When Gilligan protests, trying to say that's ridiculous, the small creature tells him to leave. When he refuses - still trying to negotiate a deal, the creature calls a almost indistinguishable companion named Fonofo who chases him off with a very large axe.

Gilligan goes to join the barbecue on the beach - which has most of the settlement coming and going - where his companions are all expressing what they want to happen to them when they die. Distacted, Gilligan offhandedly answers before looking to see if Feryon is around. Not seeing him, he grabs some food and takes it to the wizard's tower.

Though he'd been to the barbecue earlier, the wizard is happy to accept more food and answer Gilligan's questions. He assures Gilligan that the crazy herb farmer is correct about the value of the magical components. Gilligan expresses that he's worried about the farmers being dangerous, and Feryon immediately guessed that he tried to haggle with them. He warns him that they don't like haggling, but says they probably won't even remember him the next time he goes back. Gilligan asks what Feryon traded for the magical components, and gets an answer of "baubles and odds and ends" before getting distracted by a comment Feryon made about his tower. It makes Gilligan remember to ask about the fact that the tower has no stairs. Feryon invited him in to demonstrate, and starts pulling a pull-cord. As he does so, the room fades from view while the next one fades into view. Gilligan is very impressed, and happy to have that mystery solved.

He heads back to the beach, planning how to deal with the irritating herb farmers. He goes to speak with Akta, who has gone off alone to sit at the edge of the ocean. He asks her if she'd be willing to prank the farm to make it seem haunted. Akta agrees to help in exchange for his blood - she needs human blood for the list of items her patron wants, and she's feeling a bit hurried because the dwarf blood - which Shend surely would have given her without question - was already scratched off the list; retrieved by someone else. Gilligan dislikes the idea and negotiates that, since she's only his plan C, he will give her his blood if and when he needs her services.

At this point, Akta suggests that she could always take his blood by force. Gilligan responds with a threat to tell the settlement that Akta was the one who summoned the imps - pointing out that, even though it isn't true, the people will believe it because she's a tiefling. This sparks an argument that draws the rest of the group over. They break it up and listen to both sides - both of whom lie a bit to cover themselves, but when it comes out that Akta wanted Gilligan's blood it sets off some alarm - particularly from Stor, who points out that blood can be used to control people its drawn from.

They begin to question Akta about why she wants the blood, saying they want to help her but they need to know why she needs the blood, but she's unwilling to talk about it. This re-sparks an argument about trust within the group. Shend calms it down by proposing a trust exercise - suggesting that they all share some dark secret from their past that they haven't shared with the group yet. He starts off by revealing that his mother dies giving birth to him, so he grew up with only one parent. Since everyone already knows that Balasar doesn't remember his past, they skip by him. Kordak reveals that he got the half-circle scar on his eye during a fight in a bar that went a bit too far, landing him in jail - and it cost his family a lot to get him out. Gilligan tells the story of his childhood with his gifted best friend, solving murder mysteries to put ghosts to their rest. It's pointed out to him that this doesn't seem like a dark secret, so he pulls a bundle out of his pack and reveals that it's his best friend's skull.

Stor reveals that his adoptive mother was an assassin - a blade for hire. This last story brings it around to Akta, who still isn't ready to talk about the blood - but, to show willing, she tells them that her horn was broken by a half-orc when she was a kid. It's not the answer the others were looking for, but they accept it.

Having talked into the night, they head home to sleep. The next day, Gilligan talks to Natat about the herb farmers. She says Nofono and Fonofo are strange, but harmless as long as they aren't aggravated. So Gilligan goes to speak with them again - he isn't recognised and, this time, he's careful to leave before causing a fuss, though he's still not happy with what he's hearing.

Akta spends the day preparing some of the sparse land outside their house for an herb garden of her own while, inside, Stor and Kordak distil their batch of mead into a barrel to age. Shend and Balasar stop by the tanner for the tiger pelts they'd left there, then spend most of the day trying to find a leather-worker. Eventually they do, and Shend trades some tiger teeth to get one of the pelts made into a belt-and-sash type garment for Kordak.

And that brings the day, and the game session to an end. Find out what happens next week in Episode 17.