From The Wilds!

Welcome home, such as it is. And it is all but abandoned. This squalid hamlet, these corrupted lands, they are yours now, and you are bound to them. Meaning that it is your problem now, Heir. According to the tax laws, the dead owe nothing. I suspect that Big Undead had the vizier in their pocket, but it works out for me at this point.

Right now, the sun has almost completely set, and lo and behold! You see Bob next to a new carriage, with five coffins carefully arranged on the back. Obviously he has been his usual useful self since leaving you to die in the woods.

Thankfully, he is coming over to explain himself. That's good. He's hard to abuse when he is out of arm's reach.

Just a little...bit...closer...
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:14, Sat 20 Mar 2021.

Bob, for his part, sounds relieved that all of you are alive. "One thousand pardons, masters."

He kneels to Dia. "I truly thought you had perished. That is normally what happens when the cart is blown to splinters by cannonfire. I resolved to get coffins for you, and bury you all, lest you become more ghosts haunting the Old Road."

His shadowed face is further concealed by his black bandanna across his face. "But, I will leave the coffins here, and get the townfolk back. Also, there is a second delivery of heroes coming in. I've heard they are your seconds? A nezumi, a draconian troll, and... a mummy? I assume yours, Sir Muertos. A Miss Satterwhite was slated, but I was told there were complications with Sir Goldbright?"

He glanced to Jarnbrautlest's comatose cargo. "Ah. Yes. You'll have to clear a room for him in the Ruins on the Hilltop. I'll leave the coffins behind for you. In an emergency, they are surprisingly comfortable beds, and unless ghouls are involved, most of the undead will leave you alone. Go to the Ruins on the hilltop, and clear yourself out a place to sleep for the night. Take a moment to catch your breath here, but do not tarry. The dead are quick here."

After a second, he added. "That means they are undead. Sorry, masters. Do you need a service of me, or may I get your companions here? They should arrive in the morning if I leave within the hour. That strange wildfire will distract most of the terrors of the woods, I suspect, and expedite my journey."

Robin is looking rather impressed at the coffin ment for her, "Wow, I should be more upset with this, but you even got my horn shape right. Kinda too impressed to be mad."

After marviling about the accurate coffin shape, she leans next to Jarn and quietly ask.
"Speaking o' wild fires...How much do I owe ye? presuming you were serious before."

Jarn responds to Robin

"50 gold."

Jarn walks up to Bob, looking down at him menacingly.

"I have only one thing to ask!"

Jarn wips out the note.

"How the hell did you write this so fast!"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:00, Tue 16 Mar 2021.

Dia will ask Bob after Jarnbrautarlest's question

"wait. Cannonfire? I didn't hear anything like that before we crashed... I suppose that it doesn't matter. Yes. Bang Ironson has been my partner for adventuring for a while.

I do need to resupply. Fickle fortune destroyed all of my things before I got here. Do you have an Idea where I can pick up components for my spells?"

Olivia paused over the coffin that was meant for her.  Too plain, were her thoughts, I want something more like a gothic mausoleum or an elaborate tomb.  She looked at Derrick's coffin, then looked at him slouched stupidly nearby.

"Which undead will leave us alone?  Which undead will not?  And why?" Olivia looks from Bob to Dia.  Olivia was holding onto Dickens and rubbing the back of his head.  Her odd companions, Derrick excluded, but he was odd in his own way, meant that she had not left the library in a long while.  And Bob's strange roll call for a second batch of would be guests only meant she'd arrived with the more normal of the two groups.  "Also, how long do we have in this... place?"  She didn't know quite where this place was and seeing as they didn't have a proper booksellers that she could see, it wasn't worth it.

"Let's sort these questions out. For you, Sir Jarnbrautarlest, I have those prewritten. I learned to be prepared on the road. For you, Master Dia, the master was into some... interesting hobbies before he departed this world. Hobbies that strongly resemble your spellcasting. And for you, Miss Satterwhite, the undead are not very bright. Generally. They'll assume you are one of them, just taking a rest. The ones that do not feed on corpses will leave you alone. I've been here for a while." Bob gave a high pitched giggle. "Just taking care of the estate as well as I can.

"I'll let the town know that someone actually came here, and when the sun rises, if you still live, I'll bring the rest in, and this place can truly live again. You'll have a tavern again." He glanced up. "This goes without saying, but I'll say it. Anything in the old manor ruins is yours, if you can keep it. There are terrifying creatures there, though. Most of the denizens are undead, and some of the local kobold tribes have been seen picking through the ruins for salvage. The Hoodlums also have a base somewhere deep inside. They are considerably more dangerous than most of the rest."

"Thankfully, one only needs to clear the surface of the ruins. A few rooms in the building itself. You don't need to go deeper. And don't go deeper. Find the Occallium. It is unmistakable, and you will not confuse it for anything else. If you find it, the Heir can do all kinds of miracles with it, and you will sleep safely. And if I get back, I will sleep safely for the first time in... uhhhh."

He whispered to Dia. "How long have I been here?"

Bob is, of course, his usual useful self, but he has been an adequate placeholder for the actual Heir, and no one can take that away from him. The Occallium! I can't tell you more about it, though, unless you already know.

I'm not in the business of education. I speak with peers, not fools. Bob is the absolute best. We've known each other for a looooooooong time now, haven't we, Bob?

"... Apparently a very long time Bob. But that is ok.

That means our next stop is the top parts of the Manor ruins. And I need to mess with this Occallium."



OOC:
14:01, Today: Dia de Muertos rolled 20 using 1d20+1.  Knowledge Religion. What Hoodlums is Bob talking about .

... Damn. So close.

Well, based on your knowledge check rolls, Dia knows that the Hoodlums are a religious cult dedicated to Kali, a greater dog capable of creation and destruction, capable of giving life, taking it away, and playing dead for a treat. The Hoodlums have an uncanny reputation for misusing collars in a homicidal way, and making some gold coins off their victims after they do so.

As for Dia's untrained check on the Occallium, he realizes he doesn't know what that is, only that it is something he knows nothing about. It would be Arcane or Arcana you need to know something about that.

Olivia knows this as a minimum - it is some kind of scrying device, one of legendary power. Without a roll, that is all that is known by her.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:28, Fri 19 Mar 2021.

Oh, right. What does the town itself look like? Perhaps that could set the mood. Perhaps you can make your own game and show me how the most basic concepts of GMing work, things only a fool would forget, of which I am not.

Ahem.

When you entered this town, you crossed over a shallow, stone bridge and a sign on your left promised directions; long worn smooth by time and rendered illegible by the elements. A creek, barely a rivulet by this point, emerges from the ground on the right, a natural spring and the life from which the town flows. The trees surrounding the town seem to claw at the air, stripped of their leaves here by some strange force.

Bob's stagecoach is to the left, once one crosses, at the foot of a steep cliff that rises three stories, and the skyline surrounding you indicates four other tall buildings in decrepit condition, and one squat building built almost like a fortress. The original functions of the buildings would be difficult to discern, and would require someone verse in architecture and the layouts of towns to understand them.

Just beyond the town, one can make out the ruins of a once glorious manor. My old home.

Only a statue in the middle of the town's circle, with a tree grown around it, remains, and even it has had the top half destroyed... wait, they wrecked my statue? My stony visage was destroyed! Do you know how much I had to spend to have that thing commissioned? Art doesn't grow on trees, or at least it isn't supposed to! It wasn't enough to storm my manor, they had to break my statue, too?!

Ahem... the setting sun casts long shadows, as Bob awaits a declaration of what you will do with your newfound enlightenment.