Springvale Tales

Thiori’s Player decides on the iron horseshoes, but only three of them, and picks the spells Spider Climb, Compel Duel, and Hypnotic Pattern.

He also has a chanfron (the piece of horse armor that covers their face don’t ask me how much research I did on horse armor (barding) that is never going to get actually named in this quest) with a spike made from his old sword that can cast Thaumaturgy from the horn. Once.

Bagelby chooses iron horseshoes (all four) and picks the spells Invisibility, Remove Curse, Phantasmal Realm, and his custom spell Bagelby’s Familiar Steed.

Bagelby’s familiar is, as you may recall, Pedro. Pedro is a Hercules Beetle. I….may need to rebalance my boss and miniboss.

Sir Carl chooses steel horseshoes but no spells, as the only spell he really had to begin with was Eldritch Blast (due to his single level in Warlock).

So instead of spells, we’re going to roll on the wild magic table every time he makes an attack on an opponent to add some pizzazz and keep him on par with the other two.

DM: “You create the rave for Thiori’s Rave Horse.”

Questions Bagelby’s Player asked me that I was not prepared for:

Where does all the wastewater in the town go?

Is the town walled on the side of the death canyon behind it?

What are the buildings made of?

How many civilians are in the Secret Evil Winery underground?

What’s the alcohol content of the magic sparkling wine?

Bagelby’s Player, about the town buildings: “That does sound flammable.”

Bagelby hops up onto one of the massive tree roots to look around the meadow and see what NPCs are nearby for the party to interrogate talk to, and he sees a depressed coyote, one horse chewing on a stick, a prairie dog, and another horse being bothered by said prairie dog.

DM: “You have participated in capitalism but not with your own wallets.”

Bagelby decides to talk to the coyote first and trots right over, with Sir Carl and Thiori following at a slower pace.

The coyote isn’t very keen on talking until Bagelby makes him laugh, though.

Coyote: “Fastest way down into the canyon? Jump.” Bagelby, completely serious: “Okay!”

A bit more open to conversation now, the coyote tells the party that all the animals they see around them in the meadow are the survivors of eight months of strange disappearances and calculated attacks from Cerro Vatun.

Lyle T. Slim has some way of turning people into animals (with a strong preference for horses) when they criticize him, break his rules, learn too much, or when he’s straight up paid to make them disappear.

Most victims aren’t able to get away or don’t get away for long before they’re hunted down by Lyle T. Slim’s posse of thugs and dragged away to the canyon that yawns behind the town.

Until Reignbreaker and Whirly came along, most of those who did get away weren’t able to survive in the harsh landscape and became food for the scavengers.

Bagelby: “Well, I don’t want to be a horse forever.” Coyote: “And I don’t want to be a coyote forever, but here we are. This so wasn’t worth the apple…”

The party asks more questions about the security of the magic spring and what the layout inside looked like, but the coyote couldn’t answer those because he’d never been down that far. Instead, he pointed the party towards the horse swinging around a stick in her mouth.

Coyote: “That’s Winona there. She used to work in the winery, I hear. There’s a couple more staff members around but Winona’s the nicest of ‘em, so I’d start with her.”

Thiori finally walked up to joined the others and scared the stuffing out of the coyote.

Coyote, jumping back from the 10 legged mutant horse: “HOLY SHit man that’s not a normal amount of limbs!” Thiori: “Yeah I get that a lot.”

The coyote skittered off into the grass as the party left, and Sir Carl decided to lead the talking with the next NPC - a horse named Winona who is swinging a large stick Lady Pinto Bean-style and beating the grass like a dirty rug when the party walks up. 

Winona immediately changes her tone from Angry Scorned Woman to Proper Young Lady when she sees who’s talking to her, and Sir Carl is taken aback.

DM: “Sir Carl, your horsesona faceclaim is a very pretty horse.” Sir Carl’s Player: “....OH NO SHE’S FLIRTING?!?!”

Winona Waters used to be a member of the winery staff at Cerro Vatun, painting the labels for the in-house wine bottles and sealing the corks with wax when the bottles were sent up from the spring below.

She was turned into a horse by Lyle T. Slim (though like the coyote, she has no clear memory of how) after she was caught sneaking down to the bottling level of the winery via a service staircase to meet up with a ‘friend’ who invited her down for a good time.

She got caught trying to take the elevator back up to the surface, and now she and her ‘friend’ are both horses.

Winona: “I…suppose we weren’t as discreet as we thought we were.”

ngl I didn’t plan those details and they just sort of came out as I was riffing. I’m the ace of the friend group so I don’t normally put those details into my scripts and I’m glad that nobody tripped over that low bar

As the party left Winona to go talk to Sterling and Copeland, Thiori tried to listen in and see if he could hear anything Winona had to say behind their backs.

Among the sounds of stick striking earth and tearing grass, he made out a handful of words and a phrase or two, including “stupid sexy Copeland!”.

DM: “She’s still into him even after getting Horsed and she’s mad about it.”

WinonaXCopeland forever.

Sir Carl’s Player, about Winona and Sterling getting themselves Horsed bc they were too horny to follow company policy: “This is why you use protection!”

NPCs met:

Snicker, coyote (though nobody asked him his name), former resort housekeeping staff

Winona Waters, appaloosa mare, formerly in-house wine production, resort level

Sterling Colorado, burnt buckskin stallion, formerly spring security

Copeland Colorado, buckskin stallion, formerly in-house wine production, spring level

Plans suggested:

Sabotage the piping system to lure Lyle out of town 

Ride the service elevator down from the town to the spring (as horses)

Balance on Thiori as his Spider Climbs down the canyon wall in plain sight

Jump off the edge of the canyon and hope the Plot Armor saves them when they land

Get their hands (hooves??) on a bottle or two of magic wine and tamper with the town’s surface water

Nobody asked how Sterling got Horsed so I guess we’ll leave that one a mystery for now.

Thiori’s Player: “...oh my god. WE could be the ones poisoning the watering hole!”

Winona directs the party to talk to two other horses - brothers - Sterling and Copeland Colorado.

Copeland is the ‘friend’ she got caught having a rendezvous with (who worked down at the magical spring bottling the wine that she was sealing with wax) and Sterling was working as a guard on that same level.

Both would have more knowledge than her on the actual inner workings of the spring, as she had only been down there once.

When the party walks up to the brothers, they are staring at the lush, tufted grass among the tree roots and arguing over who was going to taste it first. Neither brother wants to be the sacrifice.

Sir Carl: /steps forward and eats the grass as they’re arguing/ Sterling: Copeland: Sir Carl: Copeland: “...how does it taste?” Sir Carl, swallowing his mouthful: “Like grass.”

The Feywild grass tastes sweet and vaguely like cinnamon, for the record. I don’t know what grass tastes like normally. I am allergic to almost all things flora.

In an effort to put Sterling off his guard and get him to talk, Sir Carl started grazing next to Copeland.

It didn’t make Sterling talk, but it DID make him jealous, and he finally caved to grazing like the horse he now is.

Bagelby is now satisfied that the fastest way to get down into the canyon is to jump, and starts trotting off toward the ring of trees that surrounds the meadow.

Thiori and Sir Carl (and Chess I forgot he was there again) don’t follow, as they know Bagelby is doing a Shenanigan, but Copeland doesn’t know that, and gets genuinely more concerned until he finally caves and runs after Bagelby.

Bagelby actually WAS very serious, but Copeland convinces him to at least wait until the horseshoes being made for them by the farriers are ready before doing anything rash.

He further promises that he’ll talk to his brother and find them another way to get down into the spring safely (he isn’t convinced they’re going to have any kind of real success but hey it’s not his place to stop them) by the time the horseshoes are done.

Since there are a LOT of horseshoes to be forged, fitted, and put on, that gives him a decent amount of time.

Bagelby is satisfied with this answer and rejoins the others, and the party walks back around the tree to the forge to wait for their new items to be ready.

We wrapped there bc things were getting a little late, but we should be back next week - and possibly with another player! They’re not new but they haven’t been here for a bit due to health issues.

Each party member is awoken by a servant of the house calling them down to an early dinner (to their shock), and are told to come down dressed to depart. 

Dinner is served at a long wooden table (really two pushed together end to end) and is a lot of 'cowboy' food like beans, potatoes, and meat but plated like it's a five star restaurant (only with normal portions). 

Servants are standing around the room carrying decanters of a magical sparkling wine that's made on-site using the same spring water as the resort's services. 

Filtered first, of course. 

It’s sparkling, changes color ever so slightly with each new glass poured, and tastes like a different fruit with each color change!

During the meal, Sir Carl (at least I think it was Sir Carl) asks about the other founder of the town, and Lyle T. Slim admits that "Lordy" doesn't usually greet the resort's guests in person. 

During the series of events that led to the founding of Cerro Vatun, Lordy was gravely injured - the spring waters saved their life but injury still left them with a gruesome scar, and they retreated from the public eye in shame. 

Dinner wraps up quickly after this lore drop and Lyle T. Slim herds the party out the main doors, where Frank and a handful of nervous stableboys are already waiting with their horses (already brushed and geared up for adventure). 

The party saddles up and follows Frank back through town and out a service entrance built in the town's outer wall, and begin following him out into the desert down a rougher 'road'. 

Frank awkwardly apologizes for drawing his gun on them the night before, but no-one passes the insight check by enough to tell if he's only apologizing because his boss is making him or because he actually feels bad. 

The ride into the desert takes the party to the foot of a cluster of buttes split up by an ancient canyon, where Frank tells the party of an old Belvenian legend that claims the whole area was once underwater, and that the canyon was carved by a fierce underwater current before the World Beast kicked the planet, forming the Skyreach Mountain range and tilting the continent to drain all the water into what is now the modern ocean. 

He also leaves them there after pointing inside and claiming that the last known camp for the prior party lay just around the first bend in the rock. 

As Frank rode off into the growing dark, the party ventured into the canyon on foot, leading their horses until they found the alleged campsite. 

It's.... eerily well preserved. Bedrolls are already laid out, a cooking fire is set up but not burned, and tents are arranged but no personal items are inside. It almost looks as if the prior party set up their camp and then just...disappeared. 

BUT the party is feeling oddly tired and heavy, and those bedrolls look really soft, so they just tie up their horses and lay down to sleep, with the last thing they hear before closing their eyes being the nervous blowing of their horses. 

I expositioned my way through that last bit bc I needed a Story Point to move along, sorry guys! 

Some time later, the party is awoken by strange voices yelling at them to 'get up gET UP THEY'RE COMING!'. 

Sir Carl is the first to actually wake up to the sight of a...miniature pony yanking on his hair?? 

The pony then yells at him in his squire's voice (yes, Chess is here - I forgot that too until writing these notes) and this breaks him for a few minutes. 

Thiori is the next to wake up when something bites his rear bc he was ignoring the voices. He goes to leap up and smack the biter but immediately trips, because he now has ten horse legs and can't coordinate them all. 

His player couldn't decide between a 'horse sized lobster' or a normal horsesona, so we compromised and gave him a lobster's amount of horse legs. 

Once Thiori is done flailing around like a lunatic, he learns that the creature that bit him is his own horse, Erlenmeyer...who again yells at him to "Get up we have to run!". 

The party has somehow been turned into horses, and thus, they can speak to horses now. I forgot to develop horse personalities so now they're just boiled down to Erlenmeyer being an anxious "I'll-do-it-but-I'll-scream-the-whole-time" wreck, [noble horse] being a fiery "I'm-picking-EVERY-battle" mare, and [bagel horse] being the chill-and-always-hungry stoner type. 

Chess does not have a horse as he is small enough to ride double with Sir Carl with no issue. 

Somehow only some of their gear has been transformed with them, so they're already wearing saddleblankets, Thiori still has his 'manga wings', Sir Carl's remaining rings have been magically turned into horse-sized bangles, and Bagelby still has his slime pocket. 

I literally just don't trust some of the bad guys with the Fabled Pocket of Slime and it isn't like Bagelby actually USES a lot of the stuff he shoves in there it'll be fine right? Right. 

Now that the party is awake, they can hear the distant sounds of hoofbeats and yelling, and their horses again urge them to run because now they're being hunted. 

Bagelby, Sir Carl, and Chess take off with their horses, but Thiori stays a few seconds longer to try and arm himself with his back-up sword since he no longer has the thumbs to properly wield his glaive. 

He rolled too low and bit down too hard and cracked the handle right off the tang. Now he's fleeing full speed through a canyon with a pointy metal stick in his mouth. This could be Very Bad. 

Thiori trips several times over rocks, uneven ground, half-buried iron tracks and even fallen wooden support beams. Somehow, nobody gets hurt. 

At one point, the fleeing herd ends up at a split in the canyon. As everyone mills about in a panic, [noble horse] seems to whisper something in Chess's ear before raising her voice and telling the party to go on without them (her plan is to distract their pursuers by letting them get within sight and then leading them down a different path). 

The party has no time to argue, for as soon as Chess bolts off down the lefthand path, Sir Carl bolts after him, and that forces Bagelby and Thiori to follow. 

Their horses take the right-hand path, and won't be seen again this session. 

The path the party takes is tight and winding, and Thiori really has to squeeze through in some spots; unfortunately for the party, it appears to end at a sheer cliff wall. 

Chess is pacing around, frantically scanning the walls for something he just can't find in the deep shadows ahead of them, and one of their pursuers suddenly appears in the path behind them. 

It's Frank, wielding a pistol and riding a horse that says "ow" every time they get poked with Frank's spurs. 

Frank aims his pistol at the party and tells them not to move in a dramatic, intimidating cliffhanger moment. 

...or it would have been, had Bagelby not rolled high enough to silently cast Mage Hand and flip the safety back on Frank's gun. 

Listen LISTEN it's funny and we play this game to have fun we'll have plenty more opportunities for tense roleplay later I promise 

Frank sees Bagelby moving a hoof and goes to shoot, but nothing happens. He's still looking at his pistol in confusion when an Eldritch Blast sails over the party's heads and knocks Frank right off his horse. 

The horse flees back into the canyon in terror, possibly trampling Frank's unconscious body, and the party turns around just in time for the rising sun to push back the shadows and reveal the NPC that saved their hides standing on a hidden ledge on teh wall above them. 

New NPC: Reignbreaker the Lost One Warlock. He is an Awakened Shire horse with black hair, four white socks, and what appears to be a deal with the air itself to always be softly blowing his long mane and forelock out of his eyes for the most cinematic effect. 

In a way, he's a brother to PC Ena and NPC Michael. The Taker of the Lost doesn't only take in lost people, you know. 

Reignbreaker shows the party a hidden pathway of ledges and flat rocks that lead up from the canyon floor to the mine entrance he came out of and tells them to follow him inside before any more thugs come looking for Frank (whom they left lying unconscious on the groud). 

Thiori, being the largest, had to go at the back of the line. 

The party is wary about following a stranger into a dark tunnel, even if he did just save their lives, but they do so anyway bc they don't have much choice. 

A short ways into the tunnel, a new voice hails them and a lantern magically lights up to reveal another new character waiting for them. 

New NPC: Whirly the Paladin of Nimbus. She is an Awakened Pomeranian who is almost entirely cream but for white socks and a blaze across her nose. 

She is technically a 'sibling’' to Reignbreaker, Ena, and Michael but does not draw her magical power from the Taker of the Lost. 

Nobody asked who Nimbus was and I'm sad now. 

Whirly talks in a Valley Girl accent (bc I tried very hard to not swing into New Jersey again and got stuck in a different snowbank) and fills the party in on the actual situation happening in Cerro Vatun as Reignbreaker leads them through the mines, following lanterns she's lighting up/putting out with her magical fan (which is stored in her Fluff of Holding). 

And no she is not underfoot (underhoof??) she is riding on Reingbreaker's back so she won't be stepped on. 

The Actual Situation: The founder that the local animals all liked for their respect of the wildlife and environment about the same time the other founder (Lyle T. Slim) started expanding the town at a rapid pace. 

Local animals were killed, displaced, or rounded up and put to work in the mines/winery below the town until they became too injured to work or died from exhaustion, and were tossed out into the nearby canyon for teh scavengers. 

Those who avoided capture the first time took out their anger on the rich guests coming to visit the resort town, which only gave Lyle T. Slim a cover story of 

rogue animals' and justified his hiring of mercenaries and thugs to 'protect' Cerro Vatun. 

When the supply of local wildlife workers ran low, Lyle T. Slim turned to transforming insubordinate mercenaries, staff members who made mistakes, nobles he was paid handsomely to 'disappear', and even adventurers who came sniffing around too close to the town. 

Some of the lucky ones (like the party) were able to escape after their transformation, but a lot of folks were not, and ended up in captivity. 

Reignbreaker and Whirly found the rag-tag 'herd' the survivors had formed during their own travels and resolved to help them; they'd been hoping to reach the player party before the transformation happened, but that just isn't how things worked out. 

Lore Dump Complete. Returning to notes... 

The tunnel floor took a sudden and steep (but short) turn downward, which Reignbreaker took in stride. He has spikes on his horseshoese tho so he's cheating. 

Sir Carl and Chess both rolled mid-range and ended up sliding down the slope but remaining on their feet (with Chess between Sir Carl's legs the whole way. 

Bagelby rolled high and walked down the hill as if gravity was his own personal plaything (as expected). 

Thiori rolled low, tripped, fell down the slope in a heap and STILL somehow didn't break anything. 

Only a few strides from the slope, the tunnel opened up to fresh air again, and on the other side of the threshold was not baked rocks and dry soil but lush green grass and towering trees in Feywild Technicolor. 

This area is an offshoot of the Taker's Grove: A wide, circular meadow surrounded by a band of thick trees, with one massive sprawling oak tree growing at the center (think, like, if the Seven Sisters Oak had a baby with a Redwood). 

The meadow is filled with animals of all kinds who all stop and stare as Reignbreaker leads the party towards the giant tree. Most of them are too scared or wary to approach, but for one little coyote pup who Thiori finds pulling on his tail. 

The pup's mother rushes out to collect her kid, apologizes profusely, and flees back into the crowd before Thiori can so much as open his mouth. 

He's also still carrying the sword in his teeth so...yeah that might be buffing some intimidation stat. 

Whirly finally hops off of Reignbreaker's back as they reach the roots of the tree and tells the party she'll check in with them "once they've seen the farriers" before bounding away with a gravity defying stride. 

The Farriers: Draft & Dressage. Warforged in the form of a draft horse (Dressage) and a Thoroughbread (Draft). It's unclear if they've always had these forms or if they were similarly transformed by Lyle T. Slim. Nobody really asks them. 

Reignbreaker leaves the party to 'get outfitted' and moves on to other tasks, and Draft gets straight to business offering the party their choice of horseshoes to replace the weapons they no longer have the thumbs to hold. 

Their choices are: Iron horseshoes, Steel horseshoes, or a single pair of crystalline horseshoes. 

Draft explains that these 'Quenyarite' horseshoes give a strong boost to spells, but with the drawback of giving a level of exhaustion if used for a spell level higher than 5. 

Nobody chose the Quenyarite horseshoes. :c Boo. 

Dressage looked at Thiori's ten legs and told him to pick front, middle, or back. 

Dressage: "I'm not shooing all of that." 

Thiori: "Understandable." 

Thiori then offered Dressage his salvaged sword as material to make another pair or two of horseshoes in an effort to be 'fully dressed'. 

Dressage accepted, and then swallowed his sword whole bc her hearth is in her chest, which started to glow red hot between the seams as it melted Thiori's sacrificed blade. 

We left off with the party deciding which spells they were going to have infused into the horseshoes by Draft (one spell per shoe OR one pair per spell for a +1d4 of damage, cantrips excluded). 

The party woke up early the next morning and met up with Asahi’s business wagon outside the palace to get out ahead of the early morning city crowds.

Ena cracked a joke at Captain Astaroth that actually made him smile a bit (to his horror).

Asahi has about four of her employees with her (all named from the spreadsheet, but nobody asked about them and I’m sad :c) to help set up shop once they reach their new location in Belven, and the party’s following the wagon on their own horses.

Moss Cat is nowhere to be seen, but Ena isn’t concerned and just says “they’re around…somewhere”.

The group makes good time and reaches the Kendara-Tavar border before midnight. They camp on the Kendara side of the border to get a long rest and have no trouble crossing in the morning.

They reach the Tavar-Belven border by noon the next day, and get their first taste of Belven’s ‘hospitality’: The guards on the Belven side of the crossing find a reason to be suspicious of every party member, from Thiori’s ‘creepy crab hands’ to Ena’s antlers to Sir Carl’s growing beard making him look like a vagrant.

The Tavarian guards find it funny to tease the Belvenians knowing they can’t do shit unless there’s actual harm done, and that distracts the guards enough to let most of the party get through the crossing.

With the wagon cleared and all but one party member through the crossing, Thiori (who has displayed notorious and suspiciously nervous behavior at literally every border crossing he’s gone through, regardless of risk) is still held up: The Belvenian guards “don’t like the look of him”, and his twitchiness isn’t helping his case.

Moss Cat reappears to ooze down from the top of the border gates and practically engulf one guard like a slime. While that guard is screaming and his buddy is freaking out, Thiori jumps on his horse and books it after the party.

They are now wanted again (or at least Thiori is) for illegal entry into the country.

Moss Cat catches up to the party and jumps up on the wagon to ride with Ena as the landscape turns more dry and rocky.

I have a TON of screencaps, backgrounds, and concept art from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and I’m just sending those in the group chat to describe the landscape.

The party travels until the sun starts to set, but before they can start thinking about setting up camp, they approach a fork in the road and encounter two figures on horseback.

Both figures are very distinctly cowboys, and when Asahi stops the wagon, wary of an ambush, one of the figures moves to draw a weapon. The other stops him, dismounts, and walks towards the party with a limp and a hand raised in greeting.

His name is Lyle T. Slim, and he and his compatriot (Frank, who remains on his horse) are looking for aid to bring to their isolated town of Cerro Vatun.

Yes I named it after the ghost town in California shush I like watching ghost videos okay?

Asahi can’t delay the opening of her shop and won’t risk the lives of her employees (and also her player and Ena’s player are stepping out of the campaign for a time to focus on IRL things and this is a predetermined event), but she encourages the rest of the party to take up the quest.

Lyle T. Slim offers to pay handsomely for the help when the players hesitate, and that seals the deal.

Asahi, Ena, and the employees continue down the road with the wagon, intent on getting another hour or so of travel in before stopping, and the party peels off down the side road with Lyle T. Slim and Frank and ride toward Cerro Vatun.

Along the way, only Thiori rolls high enough to take notice of the thin stone pillars that mark the road in pairs every few miles. He further notices that their horses have been cantering for a good while without getting tired, and asks Lyle T. Slim about them.

These pillars are ‘horse refreshers’, so to speak; they’re carved with a minor spell to restore stamina that’s been tailored specifically for equines. 

Lyle T. Slim paid to have them carved and strategically placed so that supply trains and guests on their way to Cerro Vatun could travel faster through the dangerous landscape without increasing the risk to their horses.

The party reaches Cerro Vatun by the time the sun has finished setting and learns that it isn’t just a normal Wild West town - it’s an adobe-style resort, complete with landscaped greenery and water flowing through manmade streams, fountains, and rooftop channels (like Gerudo Town in Tears of the Kingdom!).

They are let into the town by more cowboys all armed with pistols and a few rifles, and Lyle T. Slim explains to the party that they are private security hired by his co-founder and business partner, Lordy.

The town is…oddly empty, and when the party points this out, Lyle T. Slim sadly tells them that business has been slim (hah) lately due to the very problem they need the party’s help with.

The wildlife of the area has always been dangerous, but in the last few months, it’s become actively hostile. They aren’t sure if there’s a druid involved or not, but their paying customers have had their wagons attacked, and the town’s supply trains have been raided and destroyed by a roving herd of horses that the private security just can’t catch.

At least one other party has been hired before this one to try and deal with the problem, but they mysteriously lost contact with those adventurers a few days ago.

Lyle T. Slim has the party ride through town to the steps of the visitor’s center/founder’s residence, and then has his right-hand man Frank take their horses to the attached stables for the night while the party gets dinner and a rest.

All three party members are observant enough to notice that the stable boys assisting Frank all seem very frightened of something, but they aren’t observant enough to notice the servants that try to rouse them for dinner after they went to their provided rooms to drop off their bags and just immediately fell asleep.

Bethany's Inn & Tavern was abuzz with activity; patrons and staff alike were milling in and out of the building, putting the final touches on their own offerings to the goddess and talking in hushed tones. The inn's delivery wagon sat on the road outside, already hitched up and ready to take a load of worshipers to the shrine that stood just outside of town. Most of them had been there for hours already, either too excited or too nervous to risk being late, and the staff had been using the kitchen to finish their own offerings since mid-morning.

Michael had hung back until his coworkers had finished before starting on his own work. He wasn't too worried about missing the wagon - he planned to plead his case at a different shrine, anyway - but waiting for the kitchen to clear out to start mixing and measuring had scraped at his nerves like a knife on stone. He was still doing slightly better than the prior year, if he were to be honest. He hadn't gotten distracted and burned anything to ashes yet, at least.

"Knock knock." One of the tavern staff members - a soft-spoken tiefling with spiral horns - poked her head through the open kitchen door. "The wagon will be leaving in two minutes....are you sure you don't want a ride?" She asked hesitantly. "There's still an open seat between Garth and I."

"I'm sure, really." Michael offered her a smile. "My bread still needs more time in the oven, anyway, and I won't hold everyone else up for my poor planning." He waved a hand towards the door. "Tell Miss Bethany she can go on ahead without me." The tiefling left again, and Michael went back to staring impatiently at the oven. He wasn't going to let the bread burn this year.

"I’m not tracking his every move. " Kemat finally looked up to glare at his sister over the golden rims of his spectacles. Maji plucked them off of his face with two fingers and held them up to her own as she mimicked her brother’s serious frown.

"Sure looks that way to me, your majesty~" The lenses reflected light in a way that made her already stunning eyes appear comically large. "What's with the magnifiers, anyway? Finally embracing your inner old man?" She teased, unable to keep her own smile from cracking through when Kemat sat up with a small growl and snatched his spectacles back.

"The customs agents at the port entry point seem to be having a competition for ’smallest handwriting possible’." He set the lenses aside in a small box lined with blue velvet and closed the lid. "I’d rather not strain my eyes into actually needing prescribed assistance until I'm at least 1,200, thank you."

"You're welcome-" Maji picked up a few more of the photographs from the desk with a flourish to examine them. "Did you go this far with all of my prior suitors?"

"Skaaa, no." Kemat almost laughed. "I didn’t need nearly this much effort to expose those rats. A bottle of mother's favorite vintage and a few hours’ patience is all it took to learn their dark secrets." He held up his right hand and began counting with his fingers. "The Duke of Saoren, history of abuse of staff. The Earl of Reliqueth, taking bribes from his city’s local thieves guild while simultaneously blaming seasonal farmhands for the widespread thefts. The Princess of lskaal, rampant rumor-spreading to break up marriages within her own court because no-one could be married before she was.

"Thaaat bitch. . . " Maji snorted a laugh. "I still can't believe she actually thought dad would believe that mom was cheating on him with the Belven ambassador, of all people!"

"The Archmage of Chadswell Arcane University, complicit in multiple counts of unethical arcane research." Kemat continued without missing a beat. "The ambassador of the Corriente Empire, attempting to smuggle slaves in his ship back to Minos Aaran. Councilmx Halivat, culinary crimes against all things bread." The crown prince pointed at his sister accusingly. "I'm still convinced you entertained that one just to piss me off!"

''Hehehe, yeah. I did~" Maji admitted with a sparkling grin. “Buuuuut, is the question really 'do I have terrible taste in suitors'? Or is the question 'am I just letting them make fools of themselves in your presence so that you," She sat on the edge of the desk and leaned over it, forcing Kemat to once more stop reading. "The dashing crown prince, can shine the light of justice upon them', hmm?"

'’Terrible taste." Kemat said without hesitation . "Maybe both. I'm not sure with you, sometimes." Maji made a sound rather unbecoming of a princess and leaned back upright.

"Spoilsport..." She grumbled, crossing her arms across her chest . "Fine, then. What dirty secrets have you dug up about our little spark's first suitor?"

"Nothing." The crown prince tossed one hand up for emphasis . "I've barely found any information about him, let alone anything bad . His accent is Headuinian, so he has to be either an immigrant or from the Ghost Sea coast, but all I've managed to find after months of writing letters and ’snooping'," Maji tried hard not to laugh as the crown prince raised his hands to gesture for air quotations . Really, she did. "Is a handful of customs records between Kendara and Tavar dated for over a year and a half ago and a list of alleged eyewitness accounts that can’t be definitively corroborated."

"What’s wrong with the eyewitness accounts?" Maji curiously picked up a few of the parchment sheets from the desk to read them for herself. The frustration had been audible in Kemat 's voice, and she was eager to know why. "A human with luminescent eyes feels like it'd be a pretty identifiable trait to remember."

"The eyes aren't the problem." Kemat sighed and let his shoulders droop. "While the physical descriptions are incredibly similar, the eyewitnesses collectively describe a personality that is arrogant, cynical, and petty; someone who would not go out of their way to help someone in need without compensation.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. "But in my own observations of Michael, I have seen him lie to Bethany Herself and take the blame to cover for a coworker who dropped a box of glassware and broke half the contents, go out of his way to be polite to townsfolk who - not a week prior - were drunkenly slandering his name at the tavern while he served the bar right behind them, and for Skaadi 's sake, I have seen him sneaking sugar cubes to Onward whenever Vashael's group is staying at Bethany's Inn, even though he is visibly and demonstrably afraid of horses!”

"Hmm...almost the complete opposite of what the eyewitnesses describe." Maji hummed as her eyes skimmed over the ink before her as she thought, flipping through the pages when she reached the end. The classified incident that had brought this strange man back from the ashy wasteland on their border with Salance wasn’t much of a secret around the palace. After all, it was incredibly rare for the Queen herself to don her old armor and sneak away to the Deadlands as if she were reliving her empire-busting glory days.

It was less known that those involved had remained so for up to a year afterwards, however. Queen Almaea had been forced to return to her more public appearances after only a week, and Astaroth had preceded her in returning to his guardsman (out of necessity or to distract himself? Maji would never gossip to his face), but Bethany and Velenna both had - and still were - involved with the object of this mysterious case. Velenna had all but adopted the man, for Skaadi's sake! Surely it shouldn't be so hard to learn about him...

Unless...her dear, genius, tunnel-visioned elder brother had forgotten one very crucial step in his research.

"Have you tried talking to Captain Astaroth?" The princess wondered out loud, casting her brother a sidelong glance under the wave of her draping hair. '’Or Bethany? Or even mother? I know neither of them would want to betray Astaroth's trust, but surely mother would understand when you explain to her why you're asking."

"I...wanted to do all the research I could before I started asking questions to those closest to him." Kemat leaned back in his chair and crossed his own arms, choosing a random spot on the distant wall to look at to avoid his sister's incredulous stare. "If he was up to no good, I didn't want to tip him off too early that I was looking into him."

"But you’ve got four people in his inner circle right here on the palace grounds this week." Maji pointed out. "Astaroth isn't leaving for Port Saltmuth until after the new moon, Velenna is visiting mom right now, and Bethany is due to come up from Springvale tomorrow evening with that shipment of Strongjaw Ale dad requested on her last visit." She made an amused scoffing sound that was eerily reminiscent of their mother's and rolled up the parchment sheets in her hands. "You could - and this is crazy, here - just ask them!”

“...." Kemat took a deep breath in through his nose and held it for a moment before exhaling. "I could." He admitted begrudgingly.

"You should." Maji smacked him lightly between his horns with the parchment .

"Shut up." Kemat snapped his teeth at the papers, missing terribly. Maji smacked him again with a grin and then dropped the papers, letting them unfurl and flutter back down to the desk.

"If you need me to point out the obvious again, I'll be out in the east garden with the ladies.” The princess laughed as she walked back to the front of the room and hung onto the doorknob with both hands. "And if you just want some tea, you’re always welcome to join us~"

"Actual tea or just gossip?" Kemat only just resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his sister. He couldn’t shoudn't resort to such pettiness - he wasn't a hatchling anymore. Maji gave him a grin like a shark and slowly began to shut the door.

"Mmmaybe both." She waved at her brother with her fingertips before pulling the door shut and leaving Kemat alone in his office. The crown prince looked down at the sprawling mess of notes, photographs and scrolls covering his desk and sat back in his chair with a frustrated growl.

Ena and Asahi wake up early the next morning to find the Braincell Gang already wide awake because they never actually got to sleep after having their all-night Ouija board chat with the ghost of King Vekrom.

Ena: “Are you guys messing with demonic forces beyond your comprehension again?” Thiori: “No, just the Nyquill man.” Ena: “Did the Nyquill man say anything important this time?” Sir Carl: “Actually yes.” Ena, surprised: “Oh, shit.”

Oh yeah Bagelby has a keyhole-sized piece of space-time now that he just stuffed into his Slime Pocket. Maritza was NOT happy to now have to share her living space with this.

Bagelby: “Guys I’m hearing a ringing in my ear that says ‘We need to get this story train back on track’ so I think we should get going.” Thiori: “What the fuck is a train??” Ena, grinning: “It’s something you ru-” Bagelby, quickly: “Don’t worry about it!”

The party made it safely to the border of the Deadlands and Kendara after half a day of messy, ashy hiking, and were quickly ushered through by the Queen’s Guard and a worried Whitescale Jr.

Whitescale Jr. apologized for not being able to come find them the night before, but the ash storm had been powerful enough that even the arcane sensors in his/his father’s suits couldn’t navigate through it reliably (Sir Carl, in a similar suit, can confirm).

During the seven hour wagon ride back to the Palace City bc Velenna wants her boy back pronto and the queen is a momma’s girl, Asahi explained to the party that she had hired enough employees in the past two years for her business to open a second store…which is going to necessitate her retiring from the adventuring life. For now, at least.

Ena’s magical wood-bound pet cat made of moss is now a fully 3D Creature of moss, roughly the size of a small horse, that likes to hide in rafters and ooze down like a slime to engulf unsuspecting and unprepared guardsmen trainees.

The Palace City gate guards are about to all collectively develop an allergy to moss just so they can patrol in peace.

Once back at the palace, the party gets shown to their usual rooms while Vashael and Maji retreat to their own with Michael. The players get the rest of the night for downtime, but most of them choose to just sleep until the next day and rest up.

The next morning, Bagelby gets up, has breakfast, and then goes looking specifically for Velenna when the party splits up for their One Full Day of free time before we start the next storyline.

After searching around for a bit, he finds her in Vashael’s room, sitting by the bedside of her son. Michael is now on day three of his recovery, and while he’s technically awake, he’s still very disoriented, so he needs supervision.

Vashael and Maji are getting swarmed by their parents’ personal doctors to try and figure out how/why they got forced out of their dragon forms, and they’re not allowed out of the healing wing until their mother is satisfied. 

Bagelby has a lot of magic-related questions he wants to ask, so he gave the keyhole-sized piece of Space-Time he stole from the Deadlands keep dungeon to Velenna as a gift. Because giving gifts is just the polite thing to do before you squeeze someone for their magical knowledge.

Looking through one side of the piece of Space-Time only shows you a deep darkness (The Void Between, specifically, but we’ll get to that later), but looking through the other side shows you a view of the keep’s dungeon as if you were actually peering through a keyhole in a door.

Specifically, the view of the keep’s dungeon is the dungeon Michael ‘respawns’ in after he dies, meaning that Velenna can now take a quick look through the keyhole and see if her son has died (again) or not. This actually hits one of her unmentioned insecurities right on the head so I’m not even going to make his player roll for the upcoming questions whatever lore he asks for he is getting posthaste!

Bagelby’s player has a LOT of questions to ask, so Velenna pulled a tea set (complete with tea-filled kettle) out of the sleeve of her robe so they could drink while they talked. Bagelby still wants to learn that spell from her. I still have not started on the mechanics.

The first question Bagelby asks is about mana fatigue, which was the brief reason Vashael gave for why Michael didn’t wake up after they found him in the keep, despite being otherwise healthy and uninjured.

Mana fatigue, in this campaign, is a magical companion to levels of exhaustion. This setting is already so saturated in magic due to Lore Reasons that every playable creature (and then some) is capable of doing at least basic magic, 

Mana fatigue (or “mana debt” - I’ve used both when describing this before but they’re both parts of the same thing) works the same as levels of exhaustion do for physical actions bc I’m already creating a lot of lore and I don’t make money off of this so I just yoinked it and slapped some paint on top but for spellcasters. It allows them to take extra spell slots in an emergency for climactic Story Moments or just Cool Power Moves while still having players follow the general guidelines of their chosen classes (very useful for warlocks~).

Levels of Mana Fatigue:

Lvl 1 - Disability on INT, WIS, and CHA checks and loss of related proficiency bonuses.

Lvl 2 - Casting time doubled.

Lvl 3 - Disadvantage on magic attack rolls and saving throws.

Levels of Mana Debt:

Lvl 4 - Hit point maximum reduced by a quarter.

Lvl 5 - Speed halved.

You can, in fact, take levels of exhaustion and levels of mana fatigue at the same time, but you can’t start recovering from the levels of mana fatigue until you’ve recovered from the levels of exhaustion. It sucks. Just ask Michael.

In Michael’s case, the curse treats his mana reserves as a backup battery; reforming a body in the shape it was given by the Mother (Skaadi) and reattaching the soul takes a lot of energy, so it consumes every bit of energy it can from the body (and the body’s immediate vicinity) to reform it again, which gives Michael five levels of exhaustion AND mana fatigue from the get-go.

The eight hours of a long rest needed to recover one level of exhaustion is doubled, for Michael, since he really isn’t capable of eating or drinking much (if at all) for the first day or two of his recovery (so 16hrs + 5 levels of exhaustion = 80hrs of rest which is about three days yeah? Yeah). The curse then continues to eat up any mana Michael’s body would have been naturally recovering from resting until at least three levels of exhaustion are cleared.

Half of that doesn’t apply to my players bc they aren’t cursed but Bagelby started with Michael-centric questions so I got to infodump.

Bagelby then asked what ‘magical corruption’ was. He’d heard it mentioned earlier in the campaign (as Lex had it entwined with part of her backstory before becoming the Pirate Queen and parting ways with the group after the Pirate Island Arc) and he’d heard it mentioned again while talking with the ghost of King Vekrom (which he didn’t actually tell Velenna about at any point in this conversation…interesting).

‘Magical corruption’ is an innate risk of using magic on Vesnali. All magic in this setting comes from the World Beast’s essence seeping up from its prison in the core of the planet and being filtered by said planet (Skaadi’s final creation before her eternal slumber), and while it’s possible for magic users to pull more magic up from within the planet to power their spells and rituals, it’s ill-advised because pulling up too much at once doesn’t filter it properly.

Less-filtered essence of the World Beast is inherently corruptive to mortal beings, and can outright kill most spellcasters. Those who aren’t killed (usually more powerful creatures such as dragons, archfey, and etc.) are irrevocably changed, and begin to lose their rational thoughts, morals, inhibitions, and sense of empathy in exchange for increased selfishness, greed, cruelty, and lust for power.

Bagelby started discreetly glancing down at his own hands as Velenna explained that the larger a magical feat someone is trying to accomplish the higher the risk of corruption to themselves…and those close to them.

He is now worried that he’s not only magically irradiated himself but all of his friends with his god-level magical theft of concepts. : D

Don’t worry Bagel you’re still the DM’s favorite PC you’ve got some plot armor left.

I can’t decide if Velenna is fascinated with Bagelby and his magical potential like a marine biologist with a newly discovered deep sea fish or like a fanfic writer getting fresh new content with their favorite blorbo but she is Fascinated nonetheless.

This whole conversation is happening over tea in Vashael’s room, still, and Michael chimed in at least once (as an arm sticking out from under the blankets and not much else) on how much mana fatigue sucked.

Once his questions were satisfied, Bagelby thanked Velenna and left, half in shock.

Twenty minutes later, Sir Carl stopped by, also looking to ask Velenna some questions.

Sir Carl’s questions were more history-focused, so Velenna could easily confirm historical events (mostly related to the era at the end of Vekrom’s rule, which - again - Sir Carl never name-dropped…interesting).

Velenna very casually added that he could also ask his warlock Patron for more information, and Sir Carl choked on his tea.

Sir Carl: “I’m sorry, my what?” Velenna: “Your patron, the lovely librarian. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to find you written sources from the time period.” Sir Carl: Velenna: Velenna: “Skaadi’s beard, you hadn’t figured that out yet, had you?”

Sir Carl dropped his cup in shock, and Velenna lost yet another ancient teacup to this party. Maybe now she’ll finally learn to stop letting them touch the good stuff. XD