Dec 26, 2023
Floon Isn't the Only Sick One

Table of Contents

Introduction (Uktar 3rd)

• After finishing their intense exchange with the mind flayer, its intellect devourer companion, and the half-orc, the party is able to short-rest. Floon has been recovered and is unconscious in the care of Renaer. 

  • Rito collected a variety of scrolls from the loot

• Schpee, Kaboo, and Rito rest in one room. Renaer, Floon, Bingus, and Shardyn are in the other. 

• Renaer eyes Bingus' dagger and looks at it weirdly. 

  • Renaer 🦊: "Did you know that there was a campion inside your dagger?" 

  • Bingus 👁️‍🗨️: "Not to that extent." 

  • Renaer 🦊: "Do you know anything about your past?" 

  • Renaer recalls that Bingus is the janitor at the Yawning Portal, and has been a resident for a long while. He wants to know if Bingus remembers anything beyond his stay there. 

  • Bingus states that he's had no reason until the encounter. Renaer says there may be connections he has around Waterdeep who would be able to help.

    • [Quest: Dagger Origins]

The Locals Are... Stinky

• At the conclusion of the short reprieve, both rooms the party is separated into hear a chittering sound outside, the sound of shuffling fabric and gear in close proximity.

• A crack in between the two rooms allow Renaer to speak with the other half of the party so that he can ask what the plan of action should be.

  • Shardyn and Bingus are opting to simply sneak outside to either evade or avoid the perpetrator completely.

  • Kaboo tells Renaer that she is staying in the other room with Rito and Schpee, and that if is fine to come out, just knock twice. Or make noise for help, either way.

• Bingus and Shardyn , Renaer, and Floon sneak out into the hallway and see a humanoid, rat-like figure shuffling through the robes of the half-orc the party defeated.

• Bingus conks the rat man on the back of the head, requesting the rest of the party to hold him down. The rat man kicks and struggles while they restrain him. Although he did debate on tying him up with rope, it was a bit much. Renaer and Shardyn manage to hold the rat man down.

• Alarmed and sporadic, the rat man answers that he has only been looking for treasure and has no hostile intent. He’s been searching for something useful, shiny, or valuable. The sewers are his home and he is trying to make do.

• Shardyn asks if he has found anything valuable. (He did not).

• The amount of squeaking, struggling, and distress draw Kaboo, Schpee, and Rito out of the other room to join the rest of the party.

• Now that he is in full sight, the party is able to get a better view of their now hostage. A smelly, unbathed, and scraggly wererat. Their clothes are dark and unassuming, and their posture carries a slight hunch. In comparison to the party he is rather small with a height that is similar to, but ever so slightly taller than Rito.

• Bingus wants to escort the rat out of the Xanathar base and get information out of him. 

• The wererat says his name is “Roscoe” and that the sewers are his home. He is unable to wander the streets of Waterdeep because of his appearance and forages mostly for scrap to survive in the sewers.

• Kaboo offers to give him a shower to at least deter his smell. Though Roscoe thinks that it would prove ineffective.

• Roscoe asks why they were down here, he says he will give them a free exit if they stop restraining him. Bingus is dead-set on keeping the wererat captive until further notice so that they may be able to get more information out of him.

• Kaboo is rather vocal about no matter how ugly, off-putting, stomach-churning, nauseating, or sickening a creature is, he still deserves equal treatment.

  • There are some blank stares and side eyes.

• Roscoe has a large bump on his head from Bingus' hit, and Kaboo casts cure wounds to heal it. He's let go so that he may straighten himself out and get up.

• Roscoe explains that he came from an alternative entrance to the Xanathar hideout. While it is usually patrolled, tonight it has been left totally unguarded which gave him the opportunity to enter. In fact, Roscoe believes that the party may be the reason for the guard's absence.

• The party claims innocence.

• Shardyn sees a thin crack that someone could slip into, on the side of the wall.

• Roscoe tells them that is where the "quick and easy" exit is.

• Shardyn asks and makes sure that Roscoe is the one to go first.

• Roscoe enters into the darkness and asks them to follow. Bingus enters into a room full of booze and a staircase. Roscoe instructs them to go up the stairs and that directly up ahead will be a general store. Once inside, he recommends that they try to exit without question. 

• The party goes to loot the alcohol cellar. More like just Shardyn goes to loot the cellar.

• Shardyn flips over their stool, wraps the cloak of billowing around it, and creates a makeshift basket where they add 11 bottles of wine.

Dark Shop

• The party ascends from the cellar into the storage room described by Rosco. They have spent hours and hours in the sewers and the Xanathar base, and emerging from the hatch they find a shop swathed in the dark of night. 

• Shardyn casually night-shops and picks up bread, ham, chicken, and jam. And cheese. These items are all continuously being added to their makeshift stool basket, along with their 11 wine bottles from the cellar.

• Schpee places a clown nose on a random display statue to give it a more exciting look.

• They go to exit, and the other door. The doorknob jiggles. Someone on the other side is trying to get in.

• Without further notice, somebody either said to hide, or made the move to hide. Either way the awkward quietness, darkness, and ominous quality of the entity on the other side of the door has everyone on edge. Too tired for more combat or to even explain themselves, as well as having a need to get Floon back to safety, they all exercise caution (or panic) and make their moves.

• The party hides.

  • Kaboo stands up super straight and tall and hides behind her lamp. 

  • Rito poses as a kenku cuckoo clock.

  • Bingus hides right behind the door, in a crevice that would only darken further once the door is opened. 

  • Shardyn poses with her basket of goods and pretends to be a display stand. 

  • Schpee lays on the floor and pretends to be a bear rug.

  • Floon and Renaer go under a table, dragging down the tablecloth. Renaer is not too thrilled with their current decision to hide but peer pressure is a bitch.

• The door does open after but stays still for several moments. When it does slowly creep open, a little shadow appears, very small. About the size of Rito.

• What is presumed to be a halfling enters the store, mumbling, tired, and sighing about how long of a day it has been. The last thing he wants is to have lost their glasses.

• Down by Schpee, pretending to be a bear rug, is the glint of the halfling's supposed lost glasses. Kaboo forgets all pretense of hiding and wants to help a person in need. She grabs the glasses. She offers them to the halfling.

• The halfling finds the inner shop covered in even more shadow as the over 6ft fey stands before him. “Is someone in here?”

• Bingus shuts the door.

• The light from the Main Street vanishes and the room becomes much darker, causing the halfling to trip and faceplant onto bear rug Schpee.

• Shardyn opens one of the wine bottles and slowly drips it onto his face.

• Bingus scrapes his dagger along the floor and creates a ragged screeching sound.

• Schpee tries to catch him and misses.

• The halfling starts running around blindly in the darkness.

• Shardyn times it so that the moment he is in front of the stairs, she's able to push him down into the cellar below. 

• Due to the halfling's old age, this fall has him in a near-death state.

Poor Grandpa

• Kaboo is out of healing spells for this. She is also too in appalled to even have words as this happens.

• Shardyn says “My bad guys”. They use healing word on the halfling. 

  • Shardyn 🎵: “Saba yada, sorry I pushed you down the stairs.”

• The halfling comes to and sees the dark moving silhouettes of the company with him. He speaks up, believing Shardyn to be someone else. Shardyn goes along with it.

  • Grandpa Halfling: “Granddaughter, I think I fell down the stairs...”

  • Shardyn 🎵: “Oh no, grandpa you fell down!”

  • Grandpa Halfling: "It must be my headache and the night terrors I've been having..."

  • Shardyn 🎵: “Ohhh nooo that’s awfulll!”

• Schpee picks him up and they go upstairs. Due to his disorientation, the halfling does not comprehend that he is both being carried, and talking to his 'granddaughter' following a distance behind them. Schpee gently puts him down and tucks him in and thankfully the old man has stabilized and is no longer within lethal range. 

• Kaboo puts his glasses neatly on his nightstand.

• Throughout various means, Shardyn gets guilt-tripped into setting a healing potion down on his stand.

• Shardyn🎵: “I was saving that."

• Bingus 👁️‍🗨️: “You killed him!”

• Shardyn🎵: “I’m a hoarder.”

• Kaboo ✨: “What does that have to do with killing an old man?”

• Shardyn, Bingus, Kaboo, and Schpee leave the 

• Renaer and Floon are sitting outside and just let the party know they will be heading to The Yawning Portal without further notice. Floon needs immediate attention and he can't risk staying out any longer, feeling they will travel faster as a pair without them.

• They disappear down the end of the street.

• The remaining party is adjusting their belongings and counting heads to make sure they are ready to continue.

• A young halfling girl with an employee tag is walking down the street towards the shop they were at with a small care basket. 

• Schpee wanders around in the meantime and sees that the name of the shop they were just in is "Spice Street Grocery".

  • Shardyn🎵: “How much for one of the oranges in that basket there?"

  • Young Halfling: “Oh no. These oranges are not for sale, they're for my grandpa's birthday!"”

  • Shardyn🎵: “...”

  • Kaboo ✨: “Look, here's a gift for him. Take this- he should wear it. It might just keep him safer in his future endeavors. He will need it. He needs it.”

    • Rito gives the employee his extra full set of leather armor.

  • Young Halfling: "Oh, uh... Thank you... Okay bye."

• The party follows after Renaer and Floon and go to the Yawning Portal.

• Volo 🖋️: “Thank you, I really didn’t think you’d be able to do this!”

• Kaboo ✨: "Haha... What?"

• Bingus asks about the reward. Shardyn asks about the reward. Schpee asks about the reward.

• Volo 🖋️: “About your reward. I don’t have the 100 gold.”

• Kaboo offers to take them in installments.

• Bingus requests to take them in installments with added interest.

• Shardyn threatens him.

• Schpee has been cleaning the blood off her greataxe and staring at him without blinking.

• Volo offers them a real estate opportunity of somewhat equal quality, a stay at Troll Skull Manor, where he will give them the gold when possible. 

• Volo shows the party the first page of Volo’s New Guide to Monsters, where it reads “dedicated to Shardyn T’Deth, Savior of Floon Blaagmar”, as per their prior agreement.

• Shardyn asks him to change it to ‘Savior of Waterdeep’.

• Volo hesitates but accepts. 

• Shardyn then asks him to change the name to ‘Velvet Steelrod’. 

• Volo slowly realizes the pen name and the longer he thinks about it, the more he slowly turns red. He agrees and requests to meet Velvet Steelrod, and to tell them that he is a big fan.

• Shardyn claims that Velvet Steelrod is a close friend of theirs and that they will see what they can do while putting in a word for him.

• Volo closes his book and lets them know he will arrange a meeting with them at 8am in Castle Waterdeep. That morning he will help to transfer the property name to the original members of the party.

Session Summary

+1 [Quest: Dagger Origins]

+1 [Quest: Stinky Rat Man]