Episode 26

Business About Town

Morning in Longmorn

The session begins with the B-Team enjoying a well-earned breakfast at The Rusty Cog after their triumphant return to Longmorn. Marjorie, the halfling druid and baker, joins the group, offering her famous magical muffins, which quickly become the topic of much conversation. Some party members revel in their delicious properties, while others remain deeply suspicious of magically enhanced baked goods.

Aubrey, in particular, reacts with suspicion and unease. She recounts a traumatic experience in which she was tricked into consuming addictive and sinister pies during her past travels. These pies, raved about by the locals, turned out to have been made from children, ground up in a cursed windmill operated by a coven of horrifying half-dead nuns. The revelation that she had unknowingly partaken in these cannibalistic pastries left her deeply scarred, and she remains wary of anything that receives too much praise for its flavor. Though Marjorie reassures her that no children were harmed in the making of her muffins, Aubrey’s paranoia lingers, setting the tone for future interactions regarding magically-infused foods.

During breakfast, a young messenger delivers a note from Phidias, summoning the party to the Elder Council Chamber at four bells. A debate ensues about the council’s intentions regarding the Tower of Melignus, with concerns that Longmorn's leadership might try to claim it. The party discusses various legal and political strategies to assert ownership over the tower, with some members suggesting a diplomatic approach while others advocate for a more aggressive stance.

Chaos in the Courtyard: The Goat Incident

Dirk Goodhair, in an attempt to care for the baby bear he rescued from the Tower of Melignus, decides to milk the goat so he can feed it fresh milk.

• Professor Peppercorn, deeply possessive of the goat, takes immediate offense at Dirk’s actions and retaliates in the most raccoon way possible—biting Dirk on the ass.
• Dirk, yelping in pain and fury, turns and grapples Peppercorn to stop further bites.
• Nedra (played by Karissa), seeing the chaos unfold, decides to whip the air dramatically with her "Whip of Nay-Nay" to startle everyone into stopping. Instead, her critical hit lands directly on the goat, dealing one fatal blow.
• The goat immediately collapses, bleeding out. A stunned silence fills the courtyard, followed by a wave of panic.
• Peppercorn lets out a scream so horrifying that it shakes the very fabric of reality, louder than anything the party has heard, more blood-curdling than vampire lords, haunted windmills, or eldritch horrors.
• Voscheck, acting quickly, rushes in and uses a healing potion to revive the goat before it succumbs to death, preventing further tragedy.

With the goat now miraculously alive, the fight ends. Peppercorn collapses, sobbing into Marianne’s fur, while Dirk nurses his bite wound and side-eyes the raccoon bard.

A Trip to the Gnome Depot

The adventurers visit Gnome Depot, a general store run by the enthusiastic and eccentric Gimble Crackknuckle.

The Gnome Depot stands out like a sore, over-engineered thumb among the more traditional storefronts on Artisan’s Row. It looks like a hodgepodge of additions, repairs, and “improvements” slapped together over the years—because it is.

• The roof is a mix of copper panels, slate shingles, and bits of repurposed ship hull, seemingly held together by wishful thinking and a dozen experimental adhesives.
• The front sign is a massive wooden cog, painted bright yellow, with the words "The Gnome Depot" carved into it. Beneath it, a smaller sign reads:
  "If I don’t got it, I’ll find it. If I can’t find it, I’ll make it!" in wobbly, hand-painted lettering.
• The door is reinforced with brass and covered in knobs, levers, and arcane doodads, none of which seem to do anything important—except for a big red lever labeled “ABSOLUTELY DO NOT PULL”.
• A tinny mechanical bell jingles erratically when customers enter, powered by some overcomplicated gear system that occasionally malfunctions and sounds like a dying goose instead.

The shop is cluttered with fascinating and often bizarre magical items, including:

• The Mimic Mask – A mask that mimics the last person spoken to.
• The Humming Coin – A gold piece that emits a constant hum.
• The Scroll of Mildly Helpful Advice – A scroll that offers cryptic but occasionally useful wisdom.
• Gimble’s Instant Hidey Hole – A cube that creates a temporary storage pocket in solid surfaces.
• The Boomerang Spoon – A utensil that always returns when thrown (with dangerous implications for soup-related mishaps).
• Suspicious Squeaking Pouch – A pouch that randomly emits squeaky noises when opened.

After much haggling and testing of strange magical wares, the party secures several new trinkets before continuing with their business around town. The party is also able to befriend Gimble to the point where he invitest them to Druyehr's poker game that happens once a week on Saturday nights.

Visit to Leah and Evgen’s Ranger Station

Dirk and Marjorie head to Leah and Evgen’s Ranger Station. Nestled at the southern edge of Longmorn and half way up the Upper Midway, Leah and Evgen’s Ranger Station is a sturdy, well-worn cabin that serves as both a tannery and a hunting supply shop. The air is thick with the scents of leather, wood smoke, fresh earth, and... when standing down wind, a whiff of urine. Rows of furs and treated hides hang from wooden beams, while bows, traps, and survival gear line the walls. Beyond the main shop, a fenced-in area serves as a temporary home for recovering wildlife, and it is here that Leah does much of her work rehabilitating wounded or orphaned animals. A carved wooden hawk totem stands near the entrance, a silent guardian of the rangers’ home. Leah's companion Coromyr circles overhead, searching for a mouse, vole, or some similar delicacy to be off it's guard.

Here, Dirk sets up a personal quest involving the baby bear, arranging for Leah to take care of the cub until it is strong enough to be returned to its mother. This marks a meaningful moment for Dirk as he commits to the bear’s future.

Leah informs Dirk that the mother bear had three cubs, but she has recently only been seen with two. The missing cub, now in Dirk’s care, was likely taken from her due to malign experimentation in the Tower of Malignus. She warns Dirk that while the mother would likely recognize her own offspring, bears do not maintain strong familial bonds beyond their immediate cubs. However, Leah shares an intriguing revelation—the mother bear has a sister who has never borne cubs. If Dirk wishes to gain a bear companion for himself, earning the favor of this aunt bear could be his opportunity.

With this in mind, Dirk resolves to return when he is ready, promising to seek out the mother and her sister in the swamplands when the time is right.

While at the station, Dirk also purchases a +1 longbow after borrowing gold from Marjorie. The real-life consequence of this loan? Bob (Dirk’s player) must babysit Sarah’s dog for a week.

Important Interactions at Merra’s Shop (Arcane Asylum)

Meanwhile, another group visits Merra's Shop, The Arcane Asylum, which stands like a defiant anomaly in Longmorn. An old, thin, tripple decker building squeezed tight between similar structrues on Artisans Row, its paint and shutters three shades darker than surrounding structures, brimming with strange, shifting sigils carved into its wood and stone facade. The door handle, made from the gnarled root of some long-dead tree, pulses faintly at a touch. Inside, the atmosphere is dimly lit by hanging lanterns filled with swirling, ever-changing light. The scent of dried herbs and old parchment fills the air. The walls are cluttered with shelves housing jars of unidentifiable substances, dried specimens, and relics of forgotten arcane experiments. Somewhere in the back, a faint chime rings every few minutes, though no one can ever seem to catch what causes it.

Several crucial developments unfold:

• HJ experiences a metaphysical interaction with Merra, who attempts to "read" him. She places her hands on his temples, and he is suddenly plunged into a trance-like state, his perception shifting to a strange, weightless void. Dissonant whispers swirl around him, filling his mind with cryptic messages. At the threshold of his subconscious, Merra warns that she cannot go further with him and that his journey for understanding must be taken alone. HJ chooses to step back for now, promising to return when he is ready.
• Aubrey crafts an elixir, specifically an Elixir of Bloodlust. With Merra overseeing her work, she carefully slices and grinds the rare ingredients, distilling them with precision. The potion is a deep crimson that boils almost instantly when exposed to air, pulsing with latent energy. The elixir grants its drinker a surge of power—when a foe is slain, the user immediately gains five temporary hit points and an extra action. Merra warns Aubrey never to sample her own product and smirks, telling her that the only true test is whether the potion works without killing its drinker. Throughout the process, Merra provides cryptic commentary, remarking that alchemy is as much about will as it is about ingredients—a sentiment that lingers with Aubrey long after the brewing is done. Having found success, she proceedes (after a little wheeling and dealing of alchemical components by Peppercorn and HJ) to also produce an Elixir of Arcane Cultivation, able to grant a caster an additional level 1 spell slot.
• Voscheck, as an act of good faith, gifts Merra one of the notebooks recovered from the Tower of Melignus, detailing research on Ringspore. Merra examines the notes with great interest, commenting that such knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands but invaluable to the right mind. In exchange for this rare tome, she compensates Voscheck with the Ferryman’s Coins, enchanted tokens that prevent the dead from being raised as undead when placed over a corpse’s eyes.
• The group haggles and trades alchemical items, securing new potions and materials for future use.
• Peppercorn undergoes a regression hypnosis, slipping into the Astral Sea and encountering his true self. He perceives his soul in the ethereal form of a racoon with a silver thread connecting him to his body, kept from drifting too far by Merra’s guiding presence. Within this liminal space, Peppercorn sees himself—not as a cursed being, but as he truly is. When asked what he sees, his only answer is: "A raccoon." Merra confirms that he was never cursed—he is simply who he was meant to be, causing an existential revelation (and a moment of relief) for the little fuzzy bard.

Magical Items Available at Merra’s Shop: The party browse and examine many interesting items avaialbe for sale or trade while Aubrey works at the alchemists bench. Among the macabre wares the discover several potions, elixirs and a handful of poisons ranging from dangerous to guaranteed fatal. Peculiar items also line the shelves and display cases of Merras shop, with names like "Hangman's Noose", "The Bonebreaker Mace", "Ferryman's Coins", and "Necroscopic Lenses".

Final Thoughts

The party's return to Longmorn has transitioned from celebration to political intrigue. With a council meeting on the horizon and the fate of the Tower of Melignus in question, alliances must be secured, and strategies finalized. However, for all their grand plans, one thing is clear—this group cannot survive a single morning without absolute chaos.

And of course, Marianne the Goat lives to see another day.