Saving Face

Year, Season, Month, Days: 5990 F.Y. Frinle, Ospal 4-19

Molly opened and sorted through the lockboxes the party collected when saving the children. She chose to save everything of value and placed a box of non-traumatic children’s artwork in a box. She then placed it on the side of the road with a label to go to the town. This was the cheapest secure method known to Molly. She decorated the inside of the wagon with the remaining art. Additionally, Molly found a monocle and was able to repurpose the lens to repair the spyglass, which she gifted to Felicity.

The party decided to regroup at Corkis rather than Elysntire. They wanted to message Cosovo and collect supplies for dealing with vampires. Felicity tried out her spyglass and scorched her eyeball, to Ruth’s dismay. Ruth showed Felicity how to use the spyglass correctly. In doing so, she found a face with an unnatural smile in the distance. The party debated shooting, leaving, or inspecting it and settled on investigating the face from a safe distance. After realizing this was once a human or elf, Tektun identified the face as having strong necromancy upon it.

Felicity decided they should not investigate further, but the face asked them to wait. She examined the face and found it was only a face nailed to a hoop with fishhooks holding the smile wide, the eyes open, and the eyes in place. The face stated its name was Han, and they were placed here due to stealing eggs from The Sneak, which appeared serpentine in form. The party removed 8 fishhooks holding necromantic power from the face, allowing it to relax and blink.

Our protagonists decided to take Han with them and continued on to Corkis. On the way, Felicity burned her eyeball looking at the sun again, and Ruth took the spyglass away to protect Felicity’s vision. The party had Han keep watch during the night and made him a hat to protect him from the rain.

The party spent the night at Ruth’s home and spent the next day preparing. Felicity did significant work researching the types of vampires and Marasennah‘s reign, including her violent overthrow of the vampire royal line.

Meanwhile, Ruth is adored by her town, and Molly went shopping for vampire-hunting and avoidance supplies. The party reconvened and received word from Cosovo to meet in Verenba for further instructions. The party departed the next morning, giving Han a view of his former location, which he just loved to bits.

Passing through the forest, the quintet encountered the Grave of the Greedy swamp and the same half-sunken wagon where Felicity, Tektun, and Molly were ambushed. The party chose to move past and not engage. Further down the road, they encountered a log across the swamp, obviously a trap. The party announced, loudly, that they knew this was a trap and should not be engaged. While moving the log, Ruth and Tektun slipped into the swamp, Molly barely kept from sliding in, and Felicity single-handedly moved the log while noticing the group of bandits hidden in one clump behind the only nearby tree.

Felicity advanced and convinced the highwaymen to head home as there were dangerous Sneaks around. They attempted to travel with the party, but Felicity refused and stated for 8 gold her crew would clear the way for them. They agreed and traveled beyond the party at a reasonable distance.

The party reached the Glass Desert as night fell and decided to continue forward to avoid the heat of the day. Sometime later, the party lost sight of the bandits and heard telltale signs of Death Dogs. The party spent a few minutes debating if they should help the bandits, but the moral center of the party, Molly, decided against it and kept the wagon moving.

The party took turns keeping watch, which was uneventful until Molly wished upon a bat to find a golem on which to graft Han’s face. The bat replied he was weird and asked Molly if she wanted to be a vampire. After stating she had considered it, the bat transformed into a vampire in front of the cart. The party was awoken and had a conversation with Weiss about vampires and vampirism. They also gave him the bottle of preserved blood which he happily drank. Ruth was concerned about the hygiene of drinking mysterious blood. Weiss then set off to visit his friend to the south, Patrice, but not before warning the party of a pack of Death Dogs was in their path.

Waiting for the pack to pass, the party then advanced to the next dune where they could rest under an overhang of sandstone. Han woke the party when he was getting burnt by the sun, but they moved him and went back to sleep until sunset.

While Molly and Felicity argued about packing jerky, Ruth noticed a cart moving down the road several dunes over and notified the party. After realizing it was a cheese cart, Felicity and Ruth argued with Molly to stop the cart until she finally relented. Ruth wanted to buy one wheel of exotic owlbear cheese. Felicity attempted to pressure Martin, the cheesemonger, to give them the cart with all the cheese, and then argued intensely about the price when he refused. Martin didn’t back down but did come to a good deal, eventually revealing he was a powerful caster. He taught the party the magic rune for ice before departing.

The party continued through the day upon seeing Verenba in the distance and Han awoke from his day-long sleep. They reached Verenba and managed to sell the cheese in a group effort off the main road. Tektun managed to draw a picture of a winged bear soaring over Corkis, bringing Ruth to tears, which the party made into labels for the remaining wheels of cheese.