Post by Coaster on Dec 21, 2023 1:11:29 GMT -5
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Squirrelly Session 27 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - October 7 2023
Last time things went... sort of well? We convinced the guards to unionize, we besmirched a beboulder, Fakedromeda tried to attack us, and Luna and Nadyn are snuffing out fires. Clara noticed an undead presence coming from downstairs, and Tsuki is rummaging through books and stashing whatever he sees. Unfortunately, since we're on limited time before the guards arrive, we can't completely snuff it out, just greatly reduce it. Tsuki suggests locking the door before the guards arrive, while Nadyn suggests going and finding that other undead presence. We do have a giant open window if we need an escape route. Tsuki pokes his head out and sees that we're on the second storey of the building; this is a fairly large estate, with some nice gardens, and a duck swimming peacefully in a little pond. President made the mistake of mentioning a small animal, so now we have to go pet it. Clara wants to pet the duck because she needs to calm herself after detecting so much undead in one place. We could outright steal the duck from the pond if we decide to go that way. Luna agrees that the right course of action would be to stop the fires and then pet the duck. We hear noise outside and someone knocking at the door.
Guard: "M'lady, are you there?"
Tsuki: "I've got this handled."
Tsuki (mimicking Fakedromeda): "Go outside, I can fend for myself."
He has to roll Persuasion. He still has Bardic Inspiration from that last combat, but doesn't need it anyways since he got a 21.
Guard (standing there): "A-are you sure?"
Tsuki: "Yes."
Guard: "I smell burning."
Tsuki: "Yes."
Guard (being a good guard): "Oookay."
Tsuki bought us like 30 seconds before a smarter guard comes along.
Tsuki (even louder): "I can fend for myself."
After 30 seconds we can hear another gaurd.
Guard 2: "It smells like something's burning, what are you doing standing there?"
Other guard: "She said she can fend for herself..."
Guard 2 tries to bust down the door, but we have a few seconds to prepare. Tsuki prepares an eldritch blast. Nadyn says we shouldn't blast the guards we're trying to unionize. With the extra time Tsuki bought us, we manage to snuff the fire out and hop out the window just in time for the guards to kick down the door. We roll d6 and take that much damage from the fall, congratulations! (2 for Nadyn, 4 for Clara, 5 for Tsuki and Luna. Alas they were initially excited to get a high roll until they found that out.) Thankfully Luna had some temporary hit points still. Tsuki splats on the ground and there's a little hole in the dirt from his beak, even though in his mind he was trying to do a super cool superhero landing, not a faceplant. But he uses False Life afterward, at least.
Nadyn immediately goes for the duck swimming in the pond. The fire's thankfully already put out, so Clara doesn't need to worry about filling up a bucket. It's duck time. We go to the pond and see this duck chilling out. To the people who understand animals: it doesn't say much, but they get the impression it's used to people. Clara does, however, hear the sounds of the plants being uppity and snooty, like "ugh, what is this bronze crown? is that a crown? disgusting." Tsuki can't hear the plants but decides to pluck one. By coincidence, a beautiful rose is one of the snooty plants. Good job, plant. Clara hears a tiny scream from the rose and sees Tsuki pick up the plant; she's torn about whether to do something... although there's not exactly much she can do now.
Luna slowly approaches the duck.
Luna: "Hello, little friend!"
Duck: "Hi. Do you have any bread?"
Luna: "I do not have bread, but I do have some nice birdseed instead."
She tosses a handful over. The duck scoops it up with its beak.
Duck: "Mm. Thanks."
It kinda swims closer to Luna. She gives Stellara a couple seeds too, then goes closer to the duck and asks if she can give it headpats. While Stellara is gorging on the seeds like "YES. SEEEDS" the duck bows its head a bit for pats. Luna gives the duck a headpat. The duck likes the headpat, and even though she's done headpatting it, the duck has really enjoyed it and is still bowing its head. Clara wants to pet the duck, but is worried about her undead sense. With a 60ft range, she can feel it still tingly at the very edge of the range. She ignores the snooty plants since she has no time for this, but she tries to say hi to the duck.
Duck: "Hello. Are you also here to preen me?"
Clara: "Yes? Sure."
Duck: "Preen me."
While petting the duck, Clara still feels the ew-undead prickle. She feels undead people.
At this time, in the distance, the same guard Draco fooled is exclaiming, "Oh my god, Lady Andromeda is dead!! I can't believe they killed her!!"
The guard that was really into the union is like, "Huh. I don't think this is what forming a union was. Or is it? Do we seize the estate now?"
Luna (internally): "Yes."
Guard 1: "No you moron, you idiot, who's gonna pay us if Andromeda's dead?"
Tsuki, if he could see them, would also be whispering "yes" in the back of their heads, but alas he cannot. We consider using the duck as an alibi, but alas the duck is a duck, and also didn't see anything, and is just worried about getting preened and eating seeds. It's honestly having the time of its life. Nadyn would also like to pet the duck to assuage her concerns and troubles. The duck is still accepting pets, and as she pets the duck, she feels a wave of serenity come over her, like "wow this duck is so soft despite it not having hair, just feathers". Still very soft. Soft feathers. Duck is enjoying its pets for a long time, and then randomly stops wanting to be pet and lunges at Nadyn. We dodge it easily without having to roll, since it's just a "stop petting me I'm done, god, you should have known better" that Nadyn can't even understand. Clara wonders if we're sure this is a duck and not a cat. Alas, this is how all animals act. Then after a few seconds it bows its head like "pet me again!"
While she remembers, Nadyn gives the ice wand thingy we found in the desk to Luna. Tsuki checks the house to see what happens, since something evil is underground and there are some very confused guards. He's keeping an eye out. There's a nice hedge all around the house, and also a few guards outside--not that heavily guarded, just a patrol. He hears someone sound an alarm of some sort, just bells ringing. Tsuki suggests we either make a run for it and try to get a short rest somewhere, or dive back into the house to fight this thing. Clara's okay with letting people rest before we look for undead, but alas we probably don't have a safe place to rest nearby. Tsuki's fine health-wise, mostly--just really low on spell slots, because warlock--but is worried the guards might hunt us down if we try to head back to town. There are several guards in the house, and Luna's not sure about the prospect of having to beat them up. Clara considers talking to them to let them know something's under the house. Nadyn decides to go and do just that, adding that there was an evil fake Andromeda that attacked us. President reminds us we can do multiple options if plans fail. Nadyn goes to the patrolling guard and asks if everyone's okay and explains the situation with a total roll of 22.
Guard: "Do you expect me to believe that?"
He looks at us, then toward the other guards.
Guard: "I'll have it investigated..."
We seem like nice people, and this guard is young, and his hat is a bit too big over his forehead almost covering his eyes.
Guard: "Well, okay, I will investigate. But if you stay in this town, or when they come, we will have to arrest you." He kinda stammers and adds, "Um, I..." He doesn't quite know what to do. "Just lay low somewhere, I'll try to talk to my boss about it."
We could lay low and let him talk to his boss, or get arrested and let him talk to his boss with us around, or knock him out and take his change and run away. Luna vetoes the last option and Tsuki seems disappointed. Clara suggests we don't press the issue for now, just go recuperate somewhere for a bit. Nadyn reminds us that we took all the books, so we can let the evil undead thing fester for a bit if needed. Clara suggests we can come back later and try to convince the guards they need an expert in dealing with the undead. Tsuki suggests burning the house down. The guard tells us to break his spear so it looks convincing that we fought him off, or something, because he'll need an excuse. If we want to lay low, he can't just be like "I let them go". We suggest he could just say he didn't see us, since pretend beating-him-up works poorly for everyone. So we agree on that plan. Nadyn thanks him.
Guard: "No problem, now go very quickly, leave!"
Clara thanks him too.
Guard: "No problem. Please be telling the truth."
Nadyn: "I'm better at persuasion than deception."
Tsuki notices that he, on the other hand, is very good at deception. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and conveniently the one that lies is also the one that wants to burn things all the time.
But yes, we could go underground for a bit in this town. Utel is one of the towns of all time, after all, but reasonably large. We don't know thieves' cant, and since it's more a secret code than a language, Luna can't comprehend it with a spell. We could just spend some time out in the forest. After all, the only person who would hear the plants singing is Clara; the rest of us are fine.
Clara: "Greeeat. Absolutely great."
Tsuki: "Hey, the cursed things are attracted to you."
Clara: "It's not my fault!"
President: "Don't you love being the Meep, Clara? Isn't it the best thing ever?"
Clara: "Yes, it's the best. I can hear all the plants sing and complain about the people who are around."
Luna: "But it means you can talk to animals, and that's a positive! If you didn't have it, then you wouldn't be able to learn that."
Clara: "Yeah, that's a positive."
Tsuki: "A rat once insulted you."
Clara: "...Yeah, that's another downside. A rat called me dirty."
Tsuki: "Well, let's sing Welcome to the Forest and then run."
We run into the forest. They're pretty nice around here. Bear-dogs don't live here (yet). As we go, Tsuki reminds us to tread lightly and tries to erase physical evidence of our passing. Luna, having lived in a forest, also knows how to get around, just not in complete wilderness, and tries using druidcraft to make the grass we step on spring back up. whispering to the spirits of nature like "hey please don't let this grass look like it was stepped on". And Tsuki rolls a 16 helping cover the tracks further. We find a nice clearing in the woods, relax for an hour, and discuss amongst ourselves what to do. We could theoretically start a fire, but it might not be a good idea, and it's not that cold out or anything. We sit on a nice log, and as we sit on the log, a little squirrel dashes out.
Squirrel: "Hey, what are you little mother-beeps doing here? Get your own log! God. Now where's that acorn?"
Tsuki: "Who wants lunch?"
Clara gets up and moves away from the log.
Squirrel: "Hmph. No manners these days. You stupid humans are always like this." It also looks to the rest of us. "And you guys are just weird animal humans, don't think you're off the hook!"
Tsuki just hears a sassy squirrel chirping at us.
Clara: "You don't want to hear what it just said."
Luna: "It's upset because we're sitting on its log."
Squirrel: "Yes, it's the law of dibs. Do you not know this law?"
Clara: "I am very familiar with the concept of 'dibs', which is why I am moving away from the log."
Tsuki just lays on the log.
Squirrel: "Is he a friend of yours?"
Clara: "Yes, he's a friend of mine."
Squirrel slowly approaches Tsuki, trying to be sneaky, in the way that squirrels do. It tries to get all the way to Tsuki's feet. Tsuki does not wear shoes. The squirrel chomps down real hard on one of Tsuki's bird toes.
Tsuki: "This means war."
He tries to stab it with a dagger. Luna tries to stop him. Nadyn uses prestidigitation to try and generate the smell of an acorn somewhere in the distance. Luna holds back Tsuki with the dagger.
Tsuki: "LET ME AT IT LET ME AT IT."
Squirrel leaves, thinking, "Yay I found my acorn!"
Tsuki throws the dagger, but it misses as the squirrel runs off to find its acorn. Clara's staring at everyone wondering if she should do something. Now that we have missed the squirrel, Tsuki picks up his dagger and sits back down on the log like "this is my log now". The sun is in the sky. It's a short rest. Clara's sword is disappointed.
Sword: "If only you would have embraced my power, I would have let you slaughter every one of these guards without breaking a sweat."
Tsuki (whispering): "The squirrel?"
Sword: "Ah. I am not very disappointed in the fact that you did not go for the squirrel, though. I prefer larger prey. There's more blood."
Clara: "It's fine, you'll find some eventually, but the squirrel was not worth it."
Sword: "Yes. Pathetic creature."
Clara's a bit scared that she and the sword are starting to see eye-to-eye a bit, that they actually agreed on something. She feels the need to clarify that she meant monsters she has to kill, not the guards. But otherwise she's on the same wavelength as the sword and that concerns her. Meanwhile we see the wonderful chorus of trees, and by "wonderful chorus" President means "headache-inducing songs". Some NCT K-pop Baggy Jeans or something. Kat understands there's a mood where she might want to listen to something like this, but she gets the issue. President's family only knows about K-pop from this band. Draco wants to annoy a friend with this later.
Stellara's just being peaceful and says, "Hah, nature is relaxing." She flies up to a tree to have some alone time to herself and fly around a bit. Nadyn, being a triton, knows that forests exist and don't have seaweed. President rolls ominously, but nothing happens. We relax for an hour. Surprisingly, Stellara is kind of late, but she does return.
Stellara: "Hm. You know, I saw a little human encampment over there." She stretches her wing in the direction of where she's talking about.
Luna: "Oh, interesting. That's good to know then." She relays this info to the group.
Tsuki: "Better than sitting around here."
After being mentally refreshed, we go to the "human encampment"--Tsuki eldritch blasts the log on the way out, petty as he is, but the log must go; he manages to hit this time, and the log catches fire. Luna is not fine with that. She casts druidcraft to snuff it out. Now the log is very fragile, but still intact. Tsuki decides not to finish the job, to Luna's relief. He just really weakened the structural integrity of the log. It's gonna be a death trap for that squirrel, now. That's why Tsuki's fine with it. Clara can't believe this. Neither can Luna. Tsuki's just the pettiest bird in existence. Luna walks over and kicks the log so that it breaks. Nadyn wonders if the squirrel will come back just in time to see Luna destroying its home. Clara wonders if we're going to see Tsuki fight a squirrel again. The squirrel does in fact come back with a little acorn in its mouth, happy and looking forward to time with The Log, but it comes back and sees Luna stomping on the log. It looks up at Luna with a sense of betrayal on its face.
Squirrel: "You destroyed my log! I knew it! I knew you guys were no good!"
It raises its chin at us and climbs up a tree, where it's supposed to be. So maybe this was a good thing in the end.
Luna turns around and gives Tsuki the strongest look of disapproval. Clara facepalms.
Tsuki: "He had it coming."
Nadyn and Luna try carving up some of the log pieces into sawdust with their daggers so that the squirrel has a kind of soft bed. Clara joins in. While these tree-huggers are making a bed for this disgusting squirrel, Tsuki keeps an eye on it the whole time, so that it knows we can finish it off at any moment. Stellara looks at Tsuki and glares at him from a tree branch.
If he could hear her, she'd say something like, "Hmph, flightless." Oh no, Stellara's racist!
Tsuki: "My people are cursed ;A;"
Stellara: "It's not racist if it's true! Your people are cursed for a reason!"
Maybe they were cursed for being too cool, honestly.
Clara: "The curse of being cool. It's a burden."
Luna (to Stellara): "Hey, it's not very nice to look down on him just because he can't fly. It's not his fault. If you're going to look down on him, do it because he's mean to the squirrel."
Tsuki: "Exactly."
Stellara: "Hm. Okay. I agree Luna, you have wisdom. Sorry about that." She gets back into position and glares at Tsuki, "Hm. Small-minded creature."
We finish making this bed for the squirrel and put it in the appropriate place in the tree.
Squirrel: "Hey this home is my dibs too! Don't destroy this!"
Tsuki: "Tempting."
Luna: "Don't worry, we just made you this little bed to make up for what happened to your log."
Squirrel: "Thank you. ... DIBS ON THIS TREE!" It runs up the tree with the bed.
The saga of the squirrel has ended(?).
Stellara: "The human encampment is over here!"
She leads us to an empty clearing. Well, not really a clearing, more "if a clearing was two trees in diameter".
Nadyn: "I guess they moved."
With perception rolls, Nadyn and Tsuki can tell what's going on: Nadyn had the highest roll and has the privilege of being meta-told: as she walks, she feels something under her feet that doesn't feel like mud. She kneels down to investigate the area, and when she rolls her thumbs on it, she feels something lift with it, and she discovers a little hatch, which she opens up.
Nadyn: "Down the hatch?"
Tsuki false lifes first, and we all go down the hatch. The first thing we realize is it's very dark other than a source of light out in the distance, not really moving. Luna casts Produce Flame for a light. It's a branching structure, with a main area and a few offshoots. The light is coming from one of the branches. The main area is reinforced with wood and stone and such; not a bunker outright, but also not a complete dirt tunnel. It almost feels like a mine. Alas we don't have any pickaxes and need to go punch a tree. Wait, we did punch a tree! And forgot to harvest wood from it! We're suckers. Tsuki made charcoal at least. Did he really? Close enough. Nadyn suggests slowly and carefully taking a look at the branch with the light. We hear two voices talking, one masculine and one feminine.
Fem: "Alright guys. In order to really purify it, we have to crystallize it."
Masc: "Crystallization, how do we do that again?"
Fem: "darn it, Barney, isn't recrystallization the first thing you learn in chemistry?"
Barney: "Right, right, you dissolve it and turn it back into crystals, Yeah. But we can sell illegal drugs that're just a bit dirty, right?"
We don't see anything but we somehow hear a death glare.
How does Clara feel about this seemingly unethical person who doesn't seem to have a problem with selling impure drugs to people? Is that a good deed? No, it isn't, but... they're too busy arguing to see us for now, but would see us eventually. She tells everyone that she can't stand for these people selling questionable drugs and doing questionable business practices; she knows all about questionable business practices and that it's not a good deed. But she doesn't suddenly want to blow our cover in case they have something worse than drugs there. She's trying to be cautious but absolutely wants to bust them right now. Nadyn tries to sneak up to prestidigitate snuff out the torch, but with a 13 and them rolling a 20, they spot us.
Barney: "Oi, what are you doing?"
Nadyn: "Yo, there's a bunch of guards roaming around the forest, y'all might want to get out of here."
Fem: "Barney, what did you do? Did you forget to shut the hatch?"
Barney: "I made sure, nobody was there with me... oh my god."
Fem: "Well, get as much finished product as you can. Time is money."
And they start collecting this stuff, these vials of liquid, in some really big handbags.
Clara wants to try and stop them. She grabs a rock and tries to throw it to hit the vials. She rolls a 1. Instead of hitting the vials, she hits one of them on the head, which is worse. And because it was a heavy rock, they go down immediately. She's torn because she didn't want to hit them.
Sword: "Ah yes, they're weak, finish them off!"
Tsuki figures they should have just thrown him. Clara hit Barney, by the way. He's just knocked unconscious.
While he's unconscious, Clara asks, "What are you doing?" as a rhetorical question. The lady looks at her, Clara's all noble crest and such.
Fem: "Is that--are you a guard??"
Clara: "No, no, I'm not a guard--"
Fem (looking at Nadyn): "You know, you are the worst good samaritan, I hope you know this. I have honestly never seen a good samaritan be as useless as you. I hope you know that."
Nadyn: "Do I take damage from that vicious mockery?"
We're just encountering the rudest people today.
Fem: "Fine, fine, alright, how many of these do you want to let us off the hook?"
Luna: "What even are they?"
Fem: "It's like..." She tries to explain. "You take a small sip of these, and it's great, they work almost instantly. You see things in the air, and like you get a really nice trip out of them.
Clara: "I'll pass."
Tsuki will take some.
Clara: "WHY"
Nadyn: "Well, he's already been to hell..."
Tsuki: "They could come in handy."
Clara: "As evidence?"
Tsuki: "No, we lace someone's stuff with them."
Fem: "Alright, this is one of the best vials I have."
She kneels down and slaps Barney awake.
Fem: "Hey Barney, wake up!"
Barney: "Huh? What? What happened?"
Nadyn: "This isn't the best supported tunnel. You got hit by a rock."
Barney: "I got hit by a rock? Ow! That really hurt! Maybe we should find a new drug tunnel.."
Fem: "Yeah, we'd be able to afford one if you were better at synthesizing them..."
Barney: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! ...Who are these guys?"
Fem: "Ugh. Guards."
Barney (looking at us): "Wait a minute, these aren't guards! You guys are criminals!"
Tsuki: "Business partners."
Luna: "That's quite the 180."
Barney: "No, no, I heard you guys killed the duchess."
Tsuki: "She tried to kill us first."
Fem: "...What? Wait, how did you kill the duchess? And you're extorting me, you were lying about being guards, give that vial back!"
Clara: "We never said we were guards."
Fem: "Then why didn't you say anything?"
Tsuki: "Free drugs."
Clara (holding up her hands): "I'm not armed. Or I'm not holding an arm at least."
Fem: "Well, if you want us to be back to square one, you'll need to pay us back for what you took."
Luna: "Just pay them for the drugs..."
Tsuki: "Isn't it a good deed to stop them?"
Clara: "Is that what we're doing?"
Luna: "I don't know anymore..."
Tsuki: "As long as you know a way back into that mansion."
Fem: "Back into that mansion? Hmm... Well there are a few corrupt guards out there. We could give you a list of their names. They love this stuff. Look at it. It's great, it's not as expensive, and it's 10% purer than any of our competitors."
Barney's nodding the whole time.
Tsuki: "I guess that'll do. There's some undead abomination under the mansion we have to kill."
As we say that, Fem thinks we're kinda crazy.
Fem: "Riiiight, an undead abomination. I recommend you don't take these drugs, I think they'd be bad for you."
Tsuki: "And there's an evil squirrel outside, and my friend has a cursed sword that likes blood!"
Clara: "Not an evil squirrel, just rude."
Fem: "Riiight, right, so you can talk to squirrels, and you think there is an undead thing in the estate, and you think a sword is evil... Okaaay. Barney, I don't think these people are criminals, I think they might be mentally insane."
Tsuki: "Hey, just because I have many voices in my head, that doesn't make me insane."
Fem pats Tsuki on the shoulder.
Fem: "I'm so sorry, my child. If I had known that I was talking to someone with a mental disability, I would have tried to be a bit kinder to you."
Clara just facepalms.
Tsuki: "Sooo we'll just take that list."
Fem: "Oh, of course. The gods know you need all the help you can get."
She gives Tsuki another vial with pink liquid. These guys are honestly pretty ethical as far as drug dealers go.
Fem: "Here you go, have this little pink thing. If you ever feel like the voices in your head are getting a bit too loud, just drink this and it'll knock you out for a few hours. Just make sure you're in a little tent, maybe away from anything that could try to eat you, and you'll sleep for a few hours.
Tsuki: "Sleepy Joe would love this."
Nadyn: "I was just thinking that."
Fem gives Luna a serious look and pats her on the shoulder.
Fem: "Look out for your friend there, okay? Poor guy."
Luna: "Uh, will do."
Fem: "Oh, yes. And there are other people who work here. This is kind of a shared rental space. So if you see someone else, they're not with us, okay?"
Barney nods. "Yup, Janny and Barney, best drugs in town."
Janny: "Yes, godspeed miss--what is your name?"
Luna: "Oh. Luna. My name is Luna."
Janny: "You're such a kind person for looking out for the intellectually disabled. I--" She sniffles. "You make me feel proud."
She gives Luna a pat on the shoulder and leaves with Barney.
Barney: "Aw man, but they hit me in the head with a rock!"
Janny: "Shush, the merchandise is still good, Barney. Just think of the profit!"
Luna cannot believe that acting crazy actually worked.
Tsuki: "Who's acting?"
Luna: "I can't believe making your craziness apparent actually worked."
Tsuki: "Best part is I actually spoke the truth."
Clara's facepalming again.
Tsuki: "Hey, I didn't mention the Lady of the Lake, or public urinating demons, or anything."
Clara: "I think we've mentioned enough. We're good."
Tsuki: "Hey, we got a sleeping potion out of it!"
President: "And a list of all the corrupt guards."
Clara: "That's amazing."
Tsuki: "I'd make a great rogue."
Speaking of which, this room is still lit, so we search. There are vials of stuff we don't know what they do Draco. Tsuki always likes random mystery vials. One might contain hydrochloric acid, but hey. Luna checks for clean equipment. There's gloves and masks and stuff--a set that was in progress, and some new gloves just hanging. They're blue, and leathery, and designed to keep things away from your hands. Luna takes them. Not very insulating, but good for preventing chemicals from burning your skin. Tsuki pockets three completely unlabeled mystery vials. Clear liquids. Don't get them mixed up with the drug vial. The sleeping drug is pink, the hallucinogenic one was snatched off him. Nadyn suggests putting them in pocket hammerspace so they don't get jostled around in his bag. Alas, D&D Beyond doesn't support that level of detail. Also in the room, there are textbooks for chemistry, psychology, and medicine gathering dust. We get the impression they haven't been touched in a few years, but there are quite a lot. They're also old editions. Luna rummages around for the newest editions she can find. The best she finds is very highly advanced and specific topics.
Nadyn: "I'm sure a library somewhere wants these back."
President: "Potentially."
Nadyn: "Right, these are ethical drug dealers, they wouldn't steal library books."
President: "Just bribe guards and sell illegal drugs, but that's it."
Luna thinks about whether any of the textbooks would be useful. Lots of the chemistry books are specifically geared toward what's known about organic chemistry, methods of creating drugs, lab methods, etc. People are trying new stuff every day. One book is a very basic "how to do chemistry" textbook. There's also a book about what we'd call schizophrenia, but that term doesn't exist in this universe. Luna takes the schizophrenia book and one or two of the chemistry books that aren't strictly about making drugs. Now she has these books. So, we've looted the place, the dealers cleared out, and Clara wishes she could have arrested them but whatever. They're dealing drugs now. Maybe Clara can tell kids not to do drugs, when she passes by a kid. Tsuki did say it was a good idea to arrest them, but nooo.
Sword: "You saw this list of corrupt guards. The law is worthless. The only way you can control these people is through violence."
Nadyn: "Or through hippy psychedelic stuff, apparently."
The sword is being bloodthirsty as usual. Equipped with this list of corrupt guards, we know their names and where their patrols are. We'd have to go into town to look for them, and to go into town we'd have to pass off as not weird.
Tsuki: "We're doomed."
As long as Clara doesn't say anything about being able to talk to animals, she assumes she could pass for not weird. As we mull this over, someone else comes into the tunnels, and goes to one of the other branches. They completely walk past us after looking at us for a few seconds.
Tsuki: "We'd better get out of here."
Nadyn: "But what if these people have better drugs."
Tsuki: "They probably do, but we should probably make a run for it."
We peek our heads out the hatch again. It looks all clear. No angry squirrels either. (He's probably still looking for his acorn.)
We need to either look normal, or send someone in our stead who looks normal, or just go into town and hope nobody notices a talking bird, a triton, a catgirl, and a weird armored human with a really bad crown. Potentially, a corrupt guard could let us come into the estate, is the idea behind going into town. But if we have other ideas, we could just do them.
The alarm is probably gone by now, but potentially what's happening is that we're on some sort of list, because people think we killed the duchess. There's still a heavy guard presence around the place, and the one we talked to is probably still with them. Luna suggests we could find a corrupt guard, bribe them to be on our side and to get the one guard who'd vouch for us, and maybe bring him away from the estate. Janny and Barney were mostly interested in the guards at choke points that would let them move around unimpeded. Nadyn has a disguise kit and could try to disguise someone other than Tsuki. Clara would probably be the easiest to disguise as "a different human" if she wants to play Mission Impossible. She's down for it. She can find an easily corruptible guard and bribe him into meeting the guard that would vouch for us.
Clara: "...Does it have to be a bribe?"
Nadyn: "Luna, do you want to play Mission Impossible?"
Clara: "Maybe someone could be a distraction?"
President: "Ah, yes, a perfect job for Tsuki."
(President also assures us that it wouldn't be a half-hour-realtime solo expedition or anything like that.)
Nadyn: "Okay, makeover time! This tail, uh. You'll pretend to have a really bad back, okay"
Tsuki: "DBZ Super Saiyan style. It's a belt."
Nadyn: "--and I have a beggar outfit, a maid outfit, or a performance dress, which do you prefer? The performance dress is a bit flashy so maybe not that."
Luna: "I'll be a beggar, I guess. I don't really want to walk around town in a maid dress."
Nadyn: "It's not like a Maid Outfit TM, just a typical home servant kind of clothing."
Luna: "I have traveler's clothes."
President: "It would make you look like a traveler. Different from how you normally look. I assumed you had a witch outfit going on."
Luna: "Yeah, I do. But I guess I can just dress as a traveler, that fits better than a beggar or a maid."
Stellara: "Don't worry, I'll look out for any suspicious guards! And I will do a dive-bomb on whoever will harass you!"
Luna: "Aww, thank you for that!"
Thank you Stellara. So Luna gets Mission Impossible Ready. Her cover name is Stellara.
Stellara: "Hmph, then my cover name is Luna!"
Not sure why Stellara needs a cover name, but sure, she has one. She's acting like a regular corvid, keeping an eye on Luna as she goes to one of the locations. It's a seedy inn--not too bad, just has a lot of bar fights that break out there. She walks past it while the sun is a bit low in the sky, and she sees a guard standing bored on his halberd.
Guard: "Ugh, I wish I were not here."
According to The List, his name is Rachel (pronounced Raw Shell). Luna has the psychedelics to bribe him with. (Tsuki didn't taste test them or he would have found out pretty quickly, but yeah, one of the vials was a psychedelic.)
Actually, Tsuki didn't investigate them AT ALL before putting them away. Seriously. He is the most unhelpful bird.
Tsuki: "Hey, Luna can have a random vial, we don't know what it is."
President: "Luna, would you feel comfortable in your conscience if you gave a random vial to someone?"
Luna: "Probably not, no."
President: "So we can just go with old reliable Money."
Clara: "Ah yes, good old fashioned bribery."
Luna: "At least I'm not committing two crimes at once."
Luna walks up to the guard.
Luna: "Hey, you work for the manor, don't you?"
Guard: "Ehh, I sometimes have... some commitments there. How can I help you?"
Luna: "I need to get in touch with a friend who works there and I was wondering if you'd be able to help me."
Guard: "Hm, of course." (President forgot to give us Our Friend's name, but it's Kanan, pronounced Cay Nun.) "Ah, yes, Kanan. I might know him from somewhere. My memory's a little bit foggy though..."
Luna (internally) "Oh my god." She pulls out a gold piece and says, "Does this help jog your memory?"
Guard: "Hmm..." He blows on the gold piece, looks at it, and says, "Ah, yes, you know, the man on here sort of reminds me of him. I think I know who you're talking about now. Any message you wanted to send?"
Luna asks if Kanan can meet us at some place in the woods. The guard Rachel looks at the gold piece, flips it in his hand, and says, "Well, thank you ma'am, I hope you have a wonderful day."
Luna: "You as well; thank you for your assistance."
He nods, and as she goes away, she sees Stellara flying around as someone says, "Hey wait a second, why did that bird just attack me?"
Luna: "Oh no."
Stellara's flying overhead like nothing happened.
Rachel (looking up at Stellara): "Hm... Not my problem."
Luna: "Oh my gosh."
She has successfully Missioned Impossibled her way into the thing, and Kanan will meet us in the woods! Nice. Good job Luna. She returns to the party. Nadyn was singing very quietly while Luna was gone. Tsuki was watching the trees. Clara hears the Baggy Jeans song while she's sitting and trying to shut it out from her head. She understands she can't draw much attention to herself right now, so she's kind of letting us handle things while she is tortured by the sounds of the forest. Finally, Luna arrives in her traveler's clothes, and we at first forgot it was Luna and worry that we've been caught.
Tsuki: "INTRUDER!"
Luna yells over and waves, "No, it's just me!"
President, in disembodied narrative voice, says your outfit is really good.
Stellara: "I agree; you look just like everyone else!"
Luna calls out with her name as well, for good measure, "It's me, Luna!" while waving.
Tsuki: "The intruder thinks it's Luna!"
Stellara stares at him and drops a pine cone on his head, then flies by Clara.
Stellara: "Hey Clara. Clara."
Clara: "Yes?"
Stellara: "It's me, Stella, look. That person over there is Luna. She's not an intruder."
Clara: "Oh. Right, right."
Clara's just distracted by all the baggy baggy jeans, being slowly driven insane.
Sword: "All these trees are singing... ughhhh. I hate them."
Luna: "Wait, can the sword hear the trees as well?"
President: "It's linked to Clara, so it can hear what she hears."
Nadyn: "Oh, no wonder it's evil."
President: "Maybe it's just misunderstood."
Yeah, Clara hates the tree songs too, but she knows cutting them down won't solve the problem because she'll just hear other plants afterward. Sword concurs.
Sword: "Stragglers. Other plants. They don't even stop to mourn the death of a pillar of their community."
The sword is probably going insane too, albeit in other ways. Luna informs everyone where we will meet Kanan, here in the forest, hopefully reasonably soon, and that everything went well, thankfully.
Nadyn: "Okay, but did you get us more of that peanut butter milkshake?"
Luna: "Alas, I did not."
Clara: "What? I want one!"
Hopefully next session we'll do something more heroic than terrorizing squirrels, stealing drugs, and bribing guards!
Last time things went... sort of well? We convinced the guards to unionize, we besmirched a beboulder, Fakedromeda tried to attack us, and Luna and Nadyn are snuffing out fires. Clara noticed an undead presence coming from downstairs, and Tsuki is rummaging through books and stashing whatever he sees. Unfortunately, since we're on limited time before the guards arrive, we can't completely snuff it out, just greatly reduce it. Tsuki suggests locking the door before the guards arrive, while Nadyn suggests going and finding that other undead presence. We do have a giant open window if we need an escape route. Tsuki pokes his head out and sees that we're on the second storey of the building; this is a fairly large estate, with some nice gardens, and a duck swimming peacefully in a little pond. President made the mistake of mentioning a small animal, so now we have to go pet it. Clara wants to pet the duck because she needs to calm herself after detecting so much undead in one place. We could outright steal the duck from the pond if we decide to go that way. Luna agrees that the right course of action would be to stop the fires and then pet the duck. We hear noise outside and someone knocking at the door.
Guard: "M'lady, are you there?"
Tsuki: "I've got this handled."
Tsuki (mimicking Fakedromeda): "Go outside, I can fend for myself."
He has to roll Persuasion. He still has Bardic Inspiration from that last combat, but doesn't need it anyways since he got a 21.
Guard (standing there): "A-are you sure?"
Tsuki: "Yes."
Guard: "I smell burning."
Tsuki: "Yes."
Guard (being a good guard): "Oookay."
Tsuki bought us like 30 seconds before a smarter guard comes along.
Tsuki (even louder): "I can fend for myself."
After 30 seconds we can hear another gaurd.
Guard 2: "It smells like something's burning, what are you doing standing there?"
Other guard: "She said she can fend for herself..."
Guard 2 tries to bust down the door, but we have a few seconds to prepare. Tsuki prepares an eldritch blast. Nadyn says we shouldn't blast the guards we're trying to unionize. With the extra time Tsuki bought us, we manage to snuff the fire out and hop out the window just in time for the guards to kick down the door. We roll d6 and take that much damage from the fall, congratulations! (2 for Nadyn, 4 for Clara, 5 for Tsuki and Luna. Alas they were initially excited to get a high roll until they found that out.) Thankfully Luna had some temporary hit points still. Tsuki splats on the ground and there's a little hole in the dirt from his beak, even though in his mind he was trying to do a super cool superhero landing, not a faceplant. But he uses False Life afterward, at least.
Nadyn immediately goes for the duck swimming in the pond. The fire's thankfully already put out, so Clara doesn't need to worry about filling up a bucket. It's duck time. We go to the pond and see this duck chilling out. To the people who understand animals: it doesn't say much, but they get the impression it's used to people. Clara does, however, hear the sounds of the plants being uppity and snooty, like "ugh, what is this bronze crown? is that a crown? disgusting." Tsuki can't hear the plants but decides to pluck one. By coincidence, a beautiful rose is one of the snooty plants. Good job, plant. Clara hears a tiny scream from the rose and sees Tsuki pick up the plant; she's torn about whether to do something... although there's not exactly much she can do now.
Luna slowly approaches the duck.
Luna: "Hello, little friend!"
Duck: "Hi. Do you have any bread?"
Luna: "I do not have bread, but I do have some nice birdseed instead."
She tosses a handful over. The duck scoops it up with its beak.
Duck: "Mm. Thanks."
It kinda swims closer to Luna. She gives Stellara a couple seeds too, then goes closer to the duck and asks if she can give it headpats. While Stellara is gorging on the seeds like "YES. SEEEDS" the duck bows its head a bit for pats. Luna gives the duck a headpat. The duck likes the headpat, and even though she's done headpatting it, the duck has really enjoyed it and is still bowing its head. Clara wants to pet the duck, but is worried about her undead sense. With a 60ft range, she can feel it still tingly at the very edge of the range. She ignores the snooty plants since she has no time for this, but she tries to say hi to the duck.
Duck: "Hello. Are you also here to preen me?"
Clara: "Yes? Sure."
Duck: "Preen me."
While petting the duck, Clara still feels the ew-undead prickle. She feels undead people.
At this time, in the distance, the same guard Draco fooled is exclaiming, "Oh my god, Lady Andromeda is dead!! I can't believe they killed her!!"
The guard that was really into the union is like, "Huh. I don't think this is what forming a union was. Or is it? Do we seize the estate now?"
Luna (internally): "Yes."
Guard 1: "No you moron, you idiot, who's gonna pay us if Andromeda's dead?"
Tsuki, if he could see them, would also be whispering "yes" in the back of their heads, but alas he cannot. We consider using the duck as an alibi, but alas the duck is a duck, and also didn't see anything, and is just worried about getting preened and eating seeds. It's honestly having the time of its life. Nadyn would also like to pet the duck to assuage her concerns and troubles. The duck is still accepting pets, and as she pets the duck, she feels a wave of serenity come over her, like "wow this duck is so soft despite it not having hair, just feathers". Still very soft. Soft feathers. Duck is enjoying its pets for a long time, and then randomly stops wanting to be pet and lunges at Nadyn. We dodge it easily without having to roll, since it's just a "stop petting me I'm done, god, you should have known better" that Nadyn can't even understand. Clara wonders if we're sure this is a duck and not a cat. Alas, this is how all animals act. Then after a few seconds it bows its head like "pet me again!"
While she remembers, Nadyn gives the ice wand thingy we found in the desk to Luna. Tsuki checks the house to see what happens, since something evil is underground and there are some very confused guards. He's keeping an eye out. There's a nice hedge all around the house, and also a few guards outside--not that heavily guarded, just a patrol. He hears someone sound an alarm of some sort, just bells ringing. Tsuki suggests we either make a run for it and try to get a short rest somewhere, or dive back into the house to fight this thing. Clara's okay with letting people rest before we look for undead, but alas we probably don't have a safe place to rest nearby. Tsuki's fine health-wise, mostly--just really low on spell slots, because warlock--but is worried the guards might hunt us down if we try to head back to town. There are several guards in the house, and Luna's not sure about the prospect of having to beat them up. Clara considers talking to them to let them know something's under the house. Nadyn decides to go and do just that, adding that there was an evil fake Andromeda that attacked us. President reminds us we can do multiple options if plans fail. Nadyn goes to the patrolling guard and asks if everyone's okay and explains the situation with a total roll of 22.
Guard: "Do you expect me to believe that?"
He looks at us, then toward the other guards.
Guard: "I'll have it investigated..."
We seem like nice people, and this guard is young, and his hat is a bit too big over his forehead almost covering his eyes.
Guard: "Well, okay, I will investigate. But if you stay in this town, or when they come, we will have to arrest you." He kinda stammers and adds, "Um, I..." He doesn't quite know what to do. "Just lay low somewhere, I'll try to talk to my boss about it."
We could lay low and let him talk to his boss, or get arrested and let him talk to his boss with us around, or knock him out and take his change and run away. Luna vetoes the last option and Tsuki seems disappointed. Clara suggests we don't press the issue for now, just go recuperate somewhere for a bit. Nadyn reminds us that we took all the books, so we can let the evil undead thing fester for a bit if needed. Clara suggests we can come back later and try to convince the guards they need an expert in dealing with the undead. Tsuki suggests burning the house down. The guard tells us to break his spear so it looks convincing that we fought him off, or something, because he'll need an excuse. If we want to lay low, he can't just be like "I let them go". We suggest he could just say he didn't see us, since pretend beating-him-up works poorly for everyone. So we agree on that plan. Nadyn thanks him.
Guard: "No problem, now go very quickly, leave!"
Clara thanks him too.
Guard: "No problem. Please be telling the truth."
Nadyn: "I'm better at persuasion than deception."
Tsuki notices that he, on the other hand, is very good at deception. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and conveniently the one that lies is also the one that wants to burn things all the time.
But yes, we could go underground for a bit in this town. Utel is one of the towns of all time, after all, but reasonably large. We don't know thieves' cant, and since it's more a secret code than a language, Luna can't comprehend it with a spell. We could just spend some time out in the forest. After all, the only person who would hear the plants singing is Clara; the rest of us are fine.
Clara: "Greeeat. Absolutely great."
Tsuki: "Hey, the cursed things are attracted to you."
Clara: "It's not my fault!"
President: "Don't you love being the Meep, Clara? Isn't it the best thing ever?"
Clara: "Yes, it's the best. I can hear all the plants sing and complain about the people who are around."
Luna: "But it means you can talk to animals, and that's a positive! If you didn't have it, then you wouldn't be able to learn that."
Clara: "Yeah, that's a positive."
Tsuki: "A rat once insulted you."
Clara: "...Yeah, that's another downside. A rat called me dirty."
Tsuki: "Well, let's sing Welcome to the Forest and then run."
We run into the forest. They're pretty nice around here. Bear-dogs don't live here (yet). As we go, Tsuki reminds us to tread lightly and tries to erase physical evidence of our passing. Luna, having lived in a forest, also knows how to get around, just not in complete wilderness, and tries using druidcraft to make the grass we step on spring back up. whispering to the spirits of nature like "hey please don't let this grass look like it was stepped on". And Tsuki rolls a 16 helping cover the tracks further. We find a nice clearing in the woods, relax for an hour, and discuss amongst ourselves what to do. We could theoretically start a fire, but it might not be a good idea, and it's not that cold out or anything. We sit on a nice log, and as we sit on the log, a little squirrel dashes out.
Squirrel: "Hey, what are you little mother-beeps doing here? Get your own log! God. Now where's that acorn?"
Tsuki: "Who wants lunch?"
Clara gets up and moves away from the log.
Squirrel: "Hmph. No manners these days. You stupid humans are always like this." It also looks to the rest of us. "And you guys are just weird animal humans, don't think you're off the hook!"
Tsuki just hears a sassy squirrel chirping at us.
Clara: "You don't want to hear what it just said."
Luna: "It's upset because we're sitting on its log."
Squirrel: "Yes, it's the law of dibs. Do you not know this law?"
Clara: "I am very familiar with the concept of 'dibs', which is why I am moving away from the log."
Tsuki just lays on the log.
Squirrel: "Is he a friend of yours?"
Clara: "Yes, he's a friend of mine."
Squirrel slowly approaches Tsuki, trying to be sneaky, in the way that squirrels do. It tries to get all the way to Tsuki's feet. Tsuki does not wear shoes. The squirrel chomps down real hard on one of Tsuki's bird toes.
Tsuki: "This means war."
He tries to stab it with a dagger. Luna tries to stop him. Nadyn uses prestidigitation to try and generate the smell of an acorn somewhere in the distance. Luna holds back Tsuki with the dagger.
Tsuki: "LET ME AT IT LET ME AT IT."
Squirrel leaves, thinking, "Yay I found my acorn!"
Tsuki throws the dagger, but it misses as the squirrel runs off to find its acorn. Clara's staring at everyone wondering if she should do something. Now that we have missed the squirrel, Tsuki picks up his dagger and sits back down on the log like "this is my log now". The sun is in the sky. It's a short rest. Clara's sword is disappointed.
Sword: "If only you would have embraced my power, I would have let you slaughter every one of these guards without breaking a sweat."
Tsuki (whispering): "The squirrel?"
Sword: "Ah. I am not very disappointed in the fact that you did not go for the squirrel, though. I prefer larger prey. There's more blood."
Clara: "It's fine, you'll find some eventually, but the squirrel was not worth it."
Sword: "Yes. Pathetic creature."
Clara's a bit scared that she and the sword are starting to see eye-to-eye a bit, that they actually agreed on something. She feels the need to clarify that she meant monsters she has to kill, not the guards. But otherwise she's on the same wavelength as the sword and that concerns her. Meanwhile we see the wonderful chorus of trees, and by "wonderful chorus" President means "headache-inducing songs". Some NCT K-pop Baggy Jeans or something. Kat understands there's a mood where she might want to listen to something like this, but she gets the issue. President's family only knows about K-pop from this band. Draco wants to annoy a friend with this later.
Stellara's just being peaceful and says, "Hah, nature is relaxing." She flies up to a tree to have some alone time to herself and fly around a bit. Nadyn, being a triton, knows that forests exist and don't have seaweed. President rolls ominously, but nothing happens. We relax for an hour. Surprisingly, Stellara is kind of late, but she does return.
Stellara: "Hm. You know, I saw a little human encampment over there." She stretches her wing in the direction of where she's talking about.
Luna: "Oh, interesting. That's good to know then." She relays this info to the group.
Tsuki: "Better than sitting around here."
After being mentally refreshed, we go to the "human encampment"--Tsuki eldritch blasts the log on the way out, petty as he is, but the log must go; he manages to hit this time, and the log catches fire. Luna is not fine with that. She casts druidcraft to snuff it out. Now the log is very fragile, but still intact. Tsuki decides not to finish the job, to Luna's relief. He just really weakened the structural integrity of the log. It's gonna be a death trap for that squirrel, now. That's why Tsuki's fine with it. Clara can't believe this. Neither can Luna. Tsuki's just the pettiest bird in existence. Luna walks over and kicks the log so that it breaks. Nadyn wonders if the squirrel will come back just in time to see Luna destroying its home. Clara wonders if we're going to see Tsuki fight a squirrel again. The squirrel does in fact come back with a little acorn in its mouth, happy and looking forward to time with The Log, but it comes back and sees Luna stomping on the log. It looks up at Luna with a sense of betrayal on its face.
Squirrel: "You destroyed my log! I knew it! I knew you guys were no good!"
It raises its chin at us and climbs up a tree, where it's supposed to be. So maybe this was a good thing in the end.
Luna turns around and gives Tsuki the strongest look of disapproval. Clara facepalms.
Tsuki: "He had it coming."
Nadyn and Luna try carving up some of the log pieces into sawdust with their daggers so that the squirrel has a kind of soft bed. Clara joins in. While these tree-huggers are making a bed for this disgusting squirrel, Tsuki keeps an eye on it the whole time, so that it knows we can finish it off at any moment. Stellara looks at Tsuki and glares at him from a tree branch.
If he could hear her, she'd say something like, "Hmph, flightless." Oh no, Stellara's racist!
Tsuki: "My people are cursed ;A;"
Stellara: "It's not racist if it's true! Your people are cursed for a reason!"
Maybe they were cursed for being too cool, honestly.
Clara: "The curse of being cool. It's a burden."
Luna (to Stellara): "Hey, it's not very nice to look down on him just because he can't fly. It's not his fault. If you're going to look down on him, do it because he's mean to the squirrel."
Tsuki: "Exactly."
Stellara: "Hm. Okay. I agree Luna, you have wisdom. Sorry about that." She gets back into position and glares at Tsuki, "Hm. Small-minded creature."
We finish making this bed for the squirrel and put it in the appropriate place in the tree.
Squirrel: "Hey this home is my dibs too! Don't destroy this!"
Tsuki: "Tempting."
Luna: "Don't worry, we just made you this little bed to make up for what happened to your log."
Squirrel: "Thank you. ... DIBS ON THIS TREE!" It runs up the tree with the bed.
The saga of the squirrel has ended(?).
Stellara: "The human encampment is over here!"
She leads us to an empty clearing. Well, not really a clearing, more "if a clearing was two trees in diameter".
Nadyn: "I guess they moved."
With perception rolls, Nadyn and Tsuki can tell what's going on: Nadyn had the highest roll and has the privilege of being meta-told: as she walks, she feels something under her feet that doesn't feel like mud. She kneels down to investigate the area, and when she rolls her thumbs on it, she feels something lift with it, and she discovers a little hatch, which she opens up.
Nadyn: "Down the hatch?"
Tsuki false lifes first, and we all go down the hatch. The first thing we realize is it's very dark other than a source of light out in the distance, not really moving. Luna casts Produce Flame for a light. It's a branching structure, with a main area and a few offshoots. The light is coming from one of the branches. The main area is reinforced with wood and stone and such; not a bunker outright, but also not a complete dirt tunnel. It almost feels like a mine. Alas we don't have any pickaxes and need to go punch a tree. Wait, we did punch a tree! And forgot to harvest wood from it! We're suckers. Tsuki made charcoal at least. Did he really? Close enough. Nadyn suggests slowly and carefully taking a look at the branch with the light. We hear two voices talking, one masculine and one feminine.
Fem: "Alright guys. In order to really purify it, we have to crystallize it."
Masc: "Crystallization, how do we do that again?"
Fem: "darn it, Barney, isn't recrystallization the first thing you learn in chemistry?"
Barney: "Right, right, you dissolve it and turn it back into crystals, Yeah. But we can sell illegal drugs that're just a bit dirty, right?"
We don't see anything but we somehow hear a death glare.
How does Clara feel about this seemingly unethical person who doesn't seem to have a problem with selling impure drugs to people? Is that a good deed? No, it isn't, but... they're too busy arguing to see us for now, but would see us eventually. She tells everyone that she can't stand for these people selling questionable drugs and doing questionable business practices; she knows all about questionable business practices and that it's not a good deed. But she doesn't suddenly want to blow our cover in case they have something worse than drugs there. She's trying to be cautious but absolutely wants to bust them right now. Nadyn tries to sneak up to prestidigitate snuff out the torch, but with a 13 and them rolling a 20, they spot us.
Barney: "Oi, what are you doing?"
Nadyn: "Yo, there's a bunch of guards roaming around the forest, y'all might want to get out of here."
Fem: "Barney, what did you do? Did you forget to shut the hatch?"
Barney: "I made sure, nobody was there with me... oh my god."
Fem: "Well, get as much finished product as you can. Time is money."
And they start collecting this stuff, these vials of liquid, in some really big handbags.
Clara wants to try and stop them. She grabs a rock and tries to throw it to hit the vials. She rolls a 1. Instead of hitting the vials, she hits one of them on the head, which is worse. And because it was a heavy rock, they go down immediately. She's torn because she didn't want to hit them.
Sword: "Ah yes, they're weak, finish them off!"
Tsuki figures they should have just thrown him. Clara hit Barney, by the way. He's just knocked unconscious.
While he's unconscious, Clara asks, "What are you doing?" as a rhetorical question. The lady looks at her, Clara's all noble crest and such.
Fem: "Is that--are you a guard??"
Clara: "No, no, I'm not a guard--"
Fem (looking at Nadyn): "You know, you are the worst good samaritan, I hope you know this. I have honestly never seen a good samaritan be as useless as you. I hope you know that."
Nadyn: "Do I take damage from that vicious mockery?"
We're just encountering the rudest people today.
Fem: "Fine, fine, alright, how many of these do you want to let us off the hook?"
Luna: "What even are they?"
Fem: "It's like..." She tries to explain. "You take a small sip of these, and it's great, they work almost instantly. You see things in the air, and like you get a really nice trip out of them.
Clara: "I'll pass."
Tsuki will take some.
Clara: "WHY"
Nadyn: "Well, he's already been to hell..."
Tsuki: "They could come in handy."
Clara: "As evidence?"
Tsuki: "No, we lace someone's stuff with them."
Fem: "Alright, this is one of the best vials I have."
She kneels down and slaps Barney awake.
Fem: "Hey Barney, wake up!"
Barney: "Huh? What? What happened?"
Nadyn: "This isn't the best supported tunnel. You got hit by a rock."
Barney: "I got hit by a rock? Ow! That really hurt! Maybe we should find a new drug tunnel.."
Fem: "Yeah, we'd be able to afford one if you were better at synthesizing them..."
Barney: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! ...Who are these guys?"
Fem: "Ugh. Guards."
Barney (looking at us): "Wait a minute, these aren't guards! You guys are criminals!"
Tsuki: "Business partners."
Luna: "That's quite the 180."
Barney: "No, no, I heard you guys killed the duchess."
Tsuki: "She tried to kill us first."
Fem: "...What? Wait, how did you kill the duchess? And you're extorting me, you were lying about being guards, give that vial back!"
Clara: "We never said we were guards."
Fem: "Then why didn't you say anything?"
Tsuki: "Free drugs."
Clara (holding up her hands): "I'm not armed. Or I'm not holding an arm at least."
Fem: "Well, if you want us to be back to square one, you'll need to pay us back for what you took."
Luna: "Just pay them for the drugs..."
Tsuki: "Isn't it a good deed to stop them?"
Clara: "Is that what we're doing?"
Luna: "I don't know anymore..."
Tsuki: "As long as you know a way back into that mansion."
Fem: "Back into that mansion? Hmm... Well there are a few corrupt guards out there. We could give you a list of their names. They love this stuff. Look at it. It's great, it's not as expensive, and it's 10% purer than any of our competitors."
Barney's nodding the whole time.
Tsuki: "I guess that'll do. There's some undead abomination under the mansion we have to kill."
As we say that, Fem thinks we're kinda crazy.
Fem: "Riiiight, an undead abomination. I recommend you don't take these drugs, I think they'd be bad for you."
Tsuki: "And there's an evil squirrel outside, and my friend has a cursed sword that likes blood!"
Clara: "Not an evil squirrel, just rude."
Fem: "Riiight, right, so you can talk to squirrels, and you think there is an undead thing in the estate, and you think a sword is evil... Okaaay. Barney, I don't think these people are criminals, I think they might be mentally insane."
Tsuki: "Hey, just because I have many voices in my head, that doesn't make me insane."
Fem pats Tsuki on the shoulder.
Fem: "I'm so sorry, my child. If I had known that I was talking to someone with a mental disability, I would have tried to be a bit kinder to you."
Clara just facepalms.
Tsuki: "Sooo we'll just take that list."
Fem: "Oh, of course. The gods know you need all the help you can get."
She gives Tsuki another vial with pink liquid. These guys are honestly pretty ethical as far as drug dealers go.
Fem: "Here you go, have this little pink thing. If you ever feel like the voices in your head are getting a bit too loud, just drink this and it'll knock you out for a few hours. Just make sure you're in a little tent, maybe away from anything that could try to eat you, and you'll sleep for a few hours.
Tsuki: "Sleepy Joe would love this."
Nadyn: "I was just thinking that."
Fem gives Luna a serious look and pats her on the shoulder.
Fem: "Look out for your friend there, okay? Poor guy."
Luna: "Uh, will do."
Fem: "Oh, yes. And there are other people who work here. This is kind of a shared rental space. So if you see someone else, they're not with us, okay?"
Barney nods. "Yup, Janny and Barney, best drugs in town."
Janny: "Yes, godspeed miss--what is your name?"
Luna: "Oh. Luna. My name is Luna."
Janny: "You're such a kind person for looking out for the intellectually disabled. I--" She sniffles. "You make me feel proud."
She gives Luna a pat on the shoulder and leaves with Barney.
Barney: "Aw man, but they hit me in the head with a rock!"
Janny: "Shush, the merchandise is still good, Barney. Just think of the profit!"
Luna cannot believe that acting crazy actually worked.
Tsuki: "Who's acting?"
Luna: "I can't believe making your craziness apparent actually worked."
Tsuki: "Best part is I actually spoke the truth."
Clara's facepalming again.
Tsuki: "Hey, I didn't mention the Lady of the Lake, or public urinating demons, or anything."
Clara: "I think we've mentioned enough. We're good."
Tsuki: "Hey, we got a sleeping potion out of it!"
President: "And a list of all the corrupt guards."
Clara: "That's amazing."
Tsuki: "I'd make a great rogue."
Speaking of which, this room is still lit, so we search. There are vials of stuff we don't know what they do Draco. Tsuki always likes random mystery vials. One might contain hydrochloric acid, but hey. Luna checks for clean equipment. There's gloves and masks and stuff--a set that was in progress, and some new gloves just hanging. They're blue, and leathery, and designed to keep things away from your hands. Luna takes them. Not very insulating, but good for preventing chemicals from burning your skin. Tsuki pockets three completely unlabeled mystery vials. Clear liquids. Don't get them mixed up with the drug vial. The sleeping drug is pink, the hallucinogenic one was snatched off him. Nadyn suggests putting them in pocket hammerspace so they don't get jostled around in his bag. Alas, D&D Beyond doesn't support that level of detail. Also in the room, there are textbooks for chemistry, psychology, and medicine gathering dust. We get the impression they haven't been touched in a few years, but there are quite a lot. They're also old editions. Luna rummages around for the newest editions she can find. The best she finds is very highly advanced and specific topics.
Nadyn: "I'm sure a library somewhere wants these back."
President: "Potentially."
Nadyn: "Right, these are ethical drug dealers, they wouldn't steal library books."
President: "Just bribe guards and sell illegal drugs, but that's it."
Luna thinks about whether any of the textbooks would be useful. Lots of the chemistry books are specifically geared toward what's known about organic chemistry, methods of creating drugs, lab methods, etc. People are trying new stuff every day. One book is a very basic "how to do chemistry" textbook. There's also a book about what we'd call schizophrenia, but that term doesn't exist in this universe. Luna takes the schizophrenia book and one or two of the chemistry books that aren't strictly about making drugs. Now she has these books. So, we've looted the place, the dealers cleared out, and Clara wishes she could have arrested them but whatever. They're dealing drugs now. Maybe Clara can tell kids not to do drugs, when she passes by a kid. Tsuki did say it was a good idea to arrest them, but nooo.
Sword: "You saw this list of corrupt guards. The law is worthless. The only way you can control these people is through violence."
Nadyn: "Or through hippy psychedelic stuff, apparently."
The sword is being bloodthirsty as usual. Equipped with this list of corrupt guards, we know their names and where their patrols are. We'd have to go into town to look for them, and to go into town we'd have to pass off as not weird.
Tsuki: "We're doomed."
As long as Clara doesn't say anything about being able to talk to animals, she assumes she could pass for not weird. As we mull this over, someone else comes into the tunnels, and goes to one of the other branches. They completely walk past us after looking at us for a few seconds.
Tsuki: "We'd better get out of here."
Nadyn: "But what if these people have better drugs."
Tsuki: "They probably do, but we should probably make a run for it."
We peek our heads out the hatch again. It looks all clear. No angry squirrels either. (He's probably still looking for his acorn.)
We need to either look normal, or send someone in our stead who looks normal, or just go into town and hope nobody notices a talking bird, a triton, a catgirl, and a weird armored human with a really bad crown. Potentially, a corrupt guard could let us come into the estate, is the idea behind going into town. But if we have other ideas, we could just do them.
The alarm is probably gone by now, but potentially what's happening is that we're on some sort of list, because people think we killed the duchess. There's still a heavy guard presence around the place, and the one we talked to is probably still with them. Luna suggests we could find a corrupt guard, bribe them to be on our side and to get the one guard who'd vouch for us, and maybe bring him away from the estate. Janny and Barney were mostly interested in the guards at choke points that would let them move around unimpeded. Nadyn has a disguise kit and could try to disguise someone other than Tsuki. Clara would probably be the easiest to disguise as "a different human" if she wants to play Mission Impossible. She's down for it. She can find an easily corruptible guard and bribe him into meeting the guard that would vouch for us.
Clara: "...Does it have to be a bribe?"
Nadyn: "Luna, do you want to play Mission Impossible?"
Clara: "Maybe someone could be a distraction?"
President: "Ah, yes, a perfect job for Tsuki."
(President also assures us that it wouldn't be a half-hour-realtime solo expedition or anything like that.)
Nadyn: "Okay, makeover time! This tail, uh. You'll pretend to have a really bad back, okay"
Tsuki: "DBZ Super Saiyan style. It's a belt."
Nadyn: "--and I have a beggar outfit, a maid outfit, or a performance dress, which do you prefer? The performance dress is a bit flashy so maybe not that."
Luna: "I'll be a beggar, I guess. I don't really want to walk around town in a maid dress."
Nadyn: "It's not like a Maid Outfit TM, just a typical home servant kind of clothing."
Luna: "I have traveler's clothes."
President: "It would make you look like a traveler. Different from how you normally look. I assumed you had a witch outfit going on."
Luna: "Yeah, I do. But I guess I can just dress as a traveler, that fits better than a beggar or a maid."
Stellara: "Don't worry, I'll look out for any suspicious guards! And I will do a dive-bomb on whoever will harass you!"
Luna: "Aww, thank you for that!"
Thank you Stellara. So Luna gets Mission Impossible Ready. Her cover name is Stellara.
Stellara: "Hmph, then my cover name is Luna!"
Not sure why Stellara needs a cover name, but sure, she has one. She's acting like a regular corvid, keeping an eye on Luna as she goes to one of the locations. It's a seedy inn--not too bad, just has a lot of bar fights that break out there. She walks past it while the sun is a bit low in the sky, and she sees a guard standing bored on his halberd.
Guard: "Ugh, I wish I were not here."
According to The List, his name is Rachel (pronounced Raw Shell). Luna has the psychedelics to bribe him with. (Tsuki didn't taste test them or he would have found out pretty quickly, but yeah, one of the vials was a psychedelic.)
Actually, Tsuki didn't investigate them AT ALL before putting them away. Seriously. He is the most unhelpful bird.
Tsuki: "Hey, Luna can have a random vial, we don't know what it is."
President: "Luna, would you feel comfortable in your conscience if you gave a random vial to someone?"
Luna: "Probably not, no."
President: "So we can just go with old reliable Money."
Clara: "Ah yes, good old fashioned bribery."
Luna: "At least I'm not committing two crimes at once."
Luna walks up to the guard.
Luna: "Hey, you work for the manor, don't you?"
Guard: "Ehh, I sometimes have... some commitments there. How can I help you?"
Luna: "I need to get in touch with a friend who works there and I was wondering if you'd be able to help me."
Guard: "Hm, of course." (President forgot to give us Our Friend's name, but it's Kanan, pronounced Cay Nun.) "Ah, yes, Kanan. I might know him from somewhere. My memory's a little bit foggy though..."
Luna (internally) "Oh my god." She pulls out a gold piece and says, "Does this help jog your memory?"
Guard: "Hmm..." He blows on the gold piece, looks at it, and says, "Ah, yes, you know, the man on here sort of reminds me of him. I think I know who you're talking about now. Any message you wanted to send?"
Luna asks if Kanan can meet us at some place in the woods. The guard Rachel looks at the gold piece, flips it in his hand, and says, "Well, thank you ma'am, I hope you have a wonderful day."
Luna: "You as well; thank you for your assistance."
He nods, and as she goes away, she sees Stellara flying around as someone says, "Hey wait a second, why did that bird just attack me?"
Luna: "Oh no."
Stellara's flying overhead like nothing happened.
Rachel (looking up at Stellara): "Hm... Not my problem."
Luna: "Oh my gosh."
She has successfully Missioned Impossibled her way into the thing, and Kanan will meet us in the woods! Nice. Good job Luna. She returns to the party. Nadyn was singing very quietly while Luna was gone. Tsuki was watching the trees. Clara hears the Baggy Jeans song while she's sitting and trying to shut it out from her head. She understands she can't draw much attention to herself right now, so she's kind of letting us handle things while she is tortured by the sounds of the forest. Finally, Luna arrives in her traveler's clothes, and we at first forgot it was Luna and worry that we've been caught.
Tsuki: "INTRUDER!"
Luna yells over and waves, "No, it's just me!"
President, in disembodied narrative voice, says your outfit is really good.
Stellara: "I agree; you look just like everyone else!"
Luna calls out with her name as well, for good measure, "It's me, Luna!" while waving.
Tsuki: "The intruder thinks it's Luna!"
Stellara stares at him and drops a pine cone on his head, then flies by Clara.
Stellara: "Hey Clara. Clara."
Clara: "Yes?"
Stellara: "It's me, Stella, look. That person over there is Luna. She's not an intruder."
Clara: "Oh. Right, right."
Clara's just distracted by all the baggy baggy jeans, being slowly driven insane.
Sword: "All these trees are singing... ughhhh. I hate them."
Luna: "Wait, can the sword hear the trees as well?"
President: "It's linked to Clara, so it can hear what she hears."
Nadyn: "Oh, no wonder it's evil."
President: "Maybe it's just misunderstood."
Yeah, Clara hates the tree songs too, but she knows cutting them down won't solve the problem because she'll just hear other plants afterward. Sword concurs.
Sword: "Stragglers. Other plants. They don't even stop to mourn the death of a pillar of their community."
The sword is probably going insane too, albeit in other ways. Luna informs everyone where we will meet Kanan, here in the forest, hopefully reasonably soon, and that everything went well, thankfully.
Nadyn: "Okay, but did you get us more of that peanut butter milkshake?"
Luna: "Alas, I did not."
Clara: "What? I want one!"
Hopefully next session we'll do something more heroic than terrorizing squirrels, stealing drugs, and bribing guards!