Saran lets fly another volley of magic missiles (dmg 11).

Guards 4 and 3 ride up on their horses and hack at the drake, finally hitting their stride; both scoring hits, leaving the guard drake unconscious and bleeding.

Sevinnuhb leaps off the cart, realizing mid-air that he no longer has wings, and dives into a tumbling roll. He manages to roll to his feet and continue, somewhat gracefully, forward. When he reaches the unconscious guard and pulls out a tiny vial and administers it to the guard, who wakes (with 1 hitpoint).

"What was that thing?!" one of the guards says.

Saran rolled a 10 nature check to know what that thing was.  If he knows what it was he answers the guard.  If he doesn't he says, "I don't know, a shame..."

Also, Saran checks the medical state of the kobold (16).

I think I would like to keep it simple, that 'monsters' die at 0hp, unless you melee them and decide to knock them out. So, it is dead, and I did not roll. Besides, it was knocked out from bludgeoning damage before being shot, so, it would have probably been dead anyway...

In reply to GM (msg # 367):

Did someone shoot the kobold? I was thinking if the kobold was only KO'd we could maybe get some information from it in 1d4 hours. I see it was shot by accident

Saran inspects the hole they came out of.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:01, Tue 29 May 2018.

Yeah, it was a critical miss from a guard. I may do away with adverse effects of critical misses. Still deciding. It is a medium sized tunnel (you would have to crawl on your hands and knees. It goes parallel to the road in the direction you are heading for about 10 feet, then turns off to the right.

What does Saran get to know about Kobolds?  Rolled a 15 nature check, or a 17 history check.

Hm.. You know that kobolds have collective societies and that they burrow. Their god Kurtulmak was trapped in a maze by the Gnomish god Garl Glittergold, so they have a particular hatred for gnomes. They also revere dragons and sometimes a community of kobolds will worship a dragon they serve.

You also find a plain gold ring on the kobold, probably worth 5 or so gold.

While inspecting the scene, you hear your sprite friend suddenly yell,

Lampwick! I just remembered. That's my name; Lampwick.

Saran takes the ring and flips it to the guard who was injured.

To Lampwick with slight bow: "Glad to see that things are coming back to you Master Lampwick! 
To everyone/no one in particular: "I don't suppose there is any sense digging up more trouble by seeing what is down this hole."

The injured guard nods to you appreciatively then inspects the ring with a dopey smile.

Lampwick cracks a smile and looks a bit more chipper than usual. He goes over to the drake and removes a couple arrows.

You hear a general murmur expressing that nobody wants to go in the tunnel. It is small enough than you would need to crawl. Lampwick sees you looking in and says, "I can check it out!" and with a faint pop, disapears from sight. After a second of no knowing if he went in the tunnel you hear him from the location where he turned invisible, "Do you want me to?"

Be careful Master Lampwick, I wouldn't spend more than 10 minutes, just to assess if there is anything else down there we'd need to be concerned with.  Can you see in the dark?  We should have some kind of signal should you run into trouble.

You realize that by the time you are done talking that he is no longer there. You wait a few minutes and the merchant says that he needs to keep going and commands the caravan to continue.

Another minute passes and you see Lampwick walking above ground in front of you and to the right about 50' away. He explains that the tunnel eventually opened up exiting the ground where the terrain dipped down.

"Well done Lampwick, thank you. I suppose we can't do much else but keep a wary eye out"

Assuming that the caravan will move on now, Saran helps put things back together so they can get moving.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 17:35, Wed 18 July 2018.

Ok, you catch up to the merchants and make it to town. It is a large, rough city. It is evening.

Saran finds a decent looking inn to stay the night.

OK, you find a middling inn. The common room has a wooden floor that is generally clean of debris. It is well lit. There is a half-elf woman sitting on the end of the bar, crossed legs resting on one of the stools. She is strumming a lute while humming and making other soft vocalizations.

The other patrons seem to be a mix of travels, traveling merchants, and regulars.

Saran gets a meal for himself and Lampwick/Sevinnuhb.  He sits near the half-elf playing the lute and eats.  Then he introduces himself to one of the regulars and asks if there are any temples nearby.

Would you like to do a skill challenge to find the place? You can use familiar, etc. As long as it terminates with a roll. if you use a daily resource (like a spell) roll with advantage (as long as it makes sense). Use three different types of rolls.

Also, roll your portents.

If you do not want to do a skill challenge. Roll d100 three times.

I forgot that Luskan is Saran’s home town. That kinda changes things.  I have done some reading on Luskan, so I’m going to incorporate some of it.

After a minute or two Saran recognizes the half-elf as a friend of a friend.  They talk and catch up after she finishes singing.  She asks why Saran isn’t staying with his family, to which he replies that he doesn’t want to be a bother, but will visit his mother while he is in town.  He tells her briefly of his adventures, and asks about zombies, but she hasn’t heard or seen anything of zombies, other than vague rumors.  She says that there is not much news about town other than the typical jockeying for power among the Ships, and rumors of intrigues around the Arcane Brotherhood.  Ship Suljack is rumored to have pirated something of some importance and High Captain Dagmaer has been openly critcal of Captains Barri and Beniago.  Saran is saddened to learn that his old master Imiydor hasn’t been seen for weeks and there are some speculative rumors of him having somehow gotten crossways with the Arcane Brotherhood.  He was sometimes critical of them.  No news of Saran’s mother, which is probably a good thing, she has managed to stay unnoticed by the Ships who still occasionally give her a bother about Saran’s father.

Saran dreams that night of puzzle pieces falling from the sky and the wind blowing them to fit into place.  Portent rolls for the day: 17, 8

In the morning Saran makes his way to the institute where alumni status gives him access to the library.  He’s been through the volumes pretty thoroughly, and doesn’t have much hope of finding anything about a temple of Boccob nearby, but is surprised. (1st roll Investigation 23 vs DC 15).  He finds an old nursery story about Boccob winning a bet against a fox.  For losing the bet the fox was said to have been made to build Boccob an elaborate den, with many chambers and tunnels.  Any but the most clever would soon find themselves lost if they dared enter.  There were a couple very old references to this den being in Neverwinter Wood between Luskan and Blackford Crossing.  One of the references claimed that the den was so vast that it connected to a hidden chamber created by ancient dwarves and then later used by the orcs that once inhabited the old city Illusk.  This hidden chamber’s entrance was supposed to be on the cliff face on the southern side of the River Mirar.  Although many people had heard of this chamber, no one knew where it really was, and most considered its existence an old fable rather than a reality.  If it did exist the Arcane Brotherhood probably would have uncovered it by now. Saran thinks it better to try southwest of Blackford Crossing, as searching the cliff face seems too conspicuous, treacherous, and unlikely to yield anything.  It would be a long shot, but just for kicks it might be interesting to look from the north side if he can get across one of the bridges.  Ship Rethnor has taken to tolling Dalath’s span, which is a headache the entire city complains about.

After a quick bite for lunch Saran and Lampwick set out from the South Gate a travel southeast.  The hunting grounds indicated by the cleric of Boccob are 5 or 6 miles from town at the edge of Neverwinter Wood.  Saran figures they will be there in a few hours.  Saran has heard of fox hunts in this area and while they are walking he tries to remember what he knows about foxes (nature check DC 15 vs 15).  While some foxes are solitary, many stay in family groups and sometimes employ pack tactics if threatened.  Foxes are omnivorous, dig dens and are notoriously hard to track.  Saran isn’t sure if any of this information is useful.  The walk to the edge of the wood is uneventful.  Now Saran feels silly, and looking for signs of foxes doesn’t seem like a good means of finding anything related to Boccob.  (Failed survival check DC 15 vs 2 (natural 1)).

Encounter d100 roll: 100 (following a natural 1, an extreme day…)

ooc: How was that other than taking way too long?  I like these skill challenges.  I think I have a system that will make them go faster in the future.

Perfect.

Will post an encounter soon.

Though it is cooler here in the more northern region of the sword coast, the early summer heat still reaches you in the forest, if only while in the sun. In the shade it is cool.

While taking a break from searching, you hear a squeak, squeak. You send Spot to take a look (Lampwick also goes invisible and presumably goes in the direction of the squeak). You see a teenaged dwarves boy turning a tap in a tree, extracting sap from a maple.

Saran calls to the boy
Hail dwarf friend! What are you about there? Perhaps we can be of assistance to one another.

The young dwarf immediately starts running down hill into the valley. Sap is still running into a bucket whose wire handle hangs from small hook above the tap.