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.
You can find the previous episode here.
35th of Waning Summer - 1st of Waxing Fall, 0AL
Having parted from their friends, Kordak and Akta - whisked away on some mission by the fox-like Negotiator - the rest of the adventurers of the 3rd Watch continue escorting the would-be-adventurers of the 4th Watch home. Upon arriving, Stor and Balasar - the last remaining members of the original team - invite T'Zaric and Balasar to come join them, living in the 3rd Watch headquarters at least for the time being. The group also decides that they need to recruit some new members if they're planning to continue their adventuring.
So, the next day, T'Zaric and Extang put up a magical help-wanted sign while Stor (exhausted from a sleepless night fraught with the childhood memories Akta returned to him) prepares an area for testing their candidates. While they're doing this, Balasar sets out on a mission - he wants to explore his lost memories with Gilligan, but he's also afraid of what he might find. He wants to be certain he knows who he is now so he doesn't lose sight of that. To do this, he wants to reforge his warhammer. He woke up with this weapon, and learned his own name because it was engraved on it, and so by transforming it into something else he believes he can define who he is without worrying about his past. He visits Gorbosh, the blacksmith, who agrees to do the reforging, but Balasar also wants the weapon enchanted, so he tries to find someone to do this for him. Unfortunately, the two people he knows of who might help are too busy to help - but he does learn he could do it himself, in less time than he expected, though he will need a lot of magical materials.
He returns to the others, finding that a large crowd of hopefuls have gathered to join the 3rd Watch. After dismissing the children and the 4th Watch, they work their way through the candidates, testing them, eventually landing on two they like: a human warrior named Fiaeorri who says she was trained to fight all her life, and Doug, a young gnome ranger who has a giant badger companion. The two are disappointed that there isn't an immediate adventure that the group is planning on going on - as they just got back from one and there's a festival coming up in a few days that everyone wants to attend.
Over the few days leading up to the festival, Fiaeorri gets herself hired, working on some scaffold-like thing along the beach that has something to do with the festival. Doug goes out with the foraging parties, searching for some magical herbs. Balasar goes down to the beach and calls down lightning, making a lot of fulgurite, which he spends the days digging up. Extang and T'Zaric try to buy the herb farm from the small Fonofo and Nofofno creatures, but learn they have no interest in selling, T'Zaric also trades his valuable platinum bracelet to Naldor for five healing potions, which he shares with his friends along with an apology for nearly getting them killed in the ruins. Stor gathers Balasar, T'Zaric, and Extang one night, sharing with them his recovered memories - that his adopted parents weren't actually mercenaries, as he had been brought up believing, but an assassin ant torturer for the Somvidian Empire. They had turned against their master after branding Stor, a young goblin slave, and had fled to start a new life - casting a spell to erase Stor's traumatic childhood, and raising him as their own. Stor expresses his despair at having lost his real parents, his adoptive parents (who should have been on the ship), and now so many friends from the 3rd watch were gone. The others sympathise with him.
On the festival day, they go out to join the party. Stor, Balasar, and Extang pay to enter a tent set up by Feryon, who claims there is a mighty, ferocious beast inside. He also warns them, and everyone else who enters, not to scuff the marks in the sand. They go in to find there is, indeed, a large beast inside, covered in spikes and with four arms - two of which end in great pincers. Thay argue a bit with Feryon that he can't be bringing a creature like this into the settlement, but the wizard insists there won't be a problem as long as no one scuffs the marks in the sand.
Doug and Stor proceed to the archery competition, where they win first and second place, earning Doug a pair of bracers that seem to have a magical quality. Everyone participates in an egg-balancing race, which Extang wins some magical boots from. T'Zaric goes gambling, successfully winning some money at cards, while a few of the others have varying success at a shell-game. Most of them try their hand at a dice-based riddle challenge being run by Sira, a half-elven friend of Extang, but no one solves the puzzle. Extang sets up his own little tree stump and makes some money telling fortunes.
The scaffolding Fiaeorri helped build turns out to be a dunk-tank-like setup, featuring most of the council members. A few of them have fun along with other members of the community who are taking the time to express their political opinions. Naldor appears to be a popular target - Balasar manages to dunk him before going off to spend some time alone at his shrine.
Heading into the afternoon, T'Zaric decides to go see Feryon's monster. He is most impressed by it. While he is observing the creature beating against the invisible walls of its prison, Fiaeorri sneaks under the back wall of the tent, and Doug has his badger dig him a path under the tent's side wall so he could get in without paying.
Suddenly, the creature that Feryon called a glabrezu pauses in beating against the barrier. It works its way around to the back to the tent, where it seems to have found a crack in its prison, and begins to tear its way out through it with a triumphant roar.
The three leap into action - T'Zaric casting his spells, Fiaeorri pulling out her two longswords to hack at it, and Doug sends his badger in to attack while shooting arrows at it. The glabrezu doesn't seem to mind much - it pummels the badger with its fists while scooping up Fiaeorri in the crushing grip of one of its claws. It then charges out of its tent, aiming headed for its captor, Feryon; the wizard is already running and screaming, along with many of the nearby festival attendees. Stor, having heard the cry, is rushing in, and Extang - telling fortunes nearby - looks up to see the commotion and casts a spell on Fiaeorri, causing her to double in size and break free of the monster's grip.
Stor knocks the Glabrezu down with his water whip, Fiaeorri hits the prone creature a couple times and steps back, then T'Zaric hits it with a fireball that also manages to set the tent on fire - so he steps out of it. Doug and his badger use their tunnel to escape the tent, and he sends another arrow at the fiend while the badger rushes to catch up.
The glabrezu, irritated by the fireball, turns its attention from Feryon to T'Zaric. It spares a swipe at Fiaeorri before charging at the sorcerer - who deflects one blow with a shield spell, but gets scooped up in one of the claws.
At this point in time, some of the people who were fleeing pause and start to watch. Catching on to this, Extang teleports onto Fiaeorri's shoulder and uses his magic to amplify his voice, giving a ringmaster's speech and playing this battle off as a show. Fiaeorri charges in to fight, but gets knocked unconscious by the glabrezu. Balasar, having heard the roar from his shrine, finally comes within sight of the battle and calls down lightning on the fiend. Stor activates the mysterious coin he received on his birthday, making his spear magical until the next full moon, and charges in - jumping his way up the glabrezu until he can jab his spear in its eye. With an agonised howl, the fiend fades away into smoke.
And that's where this game session ends. Check back next week to find out what happens in Episode 31.
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