I’ve always suspected that I would hate having a room-mate and I was correct, as I usually am. I was startled awake as surely as if I had been doused with a pail of cool water by an assault from whatever vile concoction Alice was brewing up. I think it may have been pepper soup with pepper and pepper and more pepper. If this is what she eats I don’t see how she can have any taste left at all. Not to mention my dress was alive with cat fur, I think at some point in the night the furry beast climbed up it and curled up in the bosom.
Leaving abruptly, I made my way to the market square and purchased a common, yet fetching, red riding cloak for my journey into the woods. Next I found a woodsy-looking fellow loitering outside a tavern and convinced him to show me the way to the alchemist’s retreat with little more than a wink and a smile. Something tells me this fellow hasn’t had much in the way of female attention in his countrified life.
Everything was going well until a massive wolf leapt out of the undergrowth and ripped into the poor fellow like Margavine Josephine Janna ripping into an herb-roasted goat rump at a Saint Sluicing Day feast. When the wolf turned to me and spoke I knew that it was no wolf but rather a worg. It declared its intention to eat me up in three bites, which I took as a compliment about my slender figure. I was able to talk him out of it by offering to bring him more tasty morsels to eat at a later date. A talking wolf is obviously do pretty well by wolf standards but he didn’t seem that bright by human reckoning – probably about as witty as the mayor of Graltontown.
I pushed my luck a little by asking him to show me the rest of the way to the alchemist’s refuge but I was able to convince him of that as well. Although I did have to wait while he dined on the woodsman. I looked away from the grisly scene of course but the snapping and gulping was quite displeasurable to hear. Before we started off I helped myself to the woodsman’s possessions – a wooden flute, some carving tools, and a surprisingly large stash of coins.
A worg of his word, I made it to the alchemist’s odd structure late in the day. It seemed to be half falling down shack and half madman’s ironworks abutting a much scorched and abused looking tree. His name was Eedraxis and he looked like an alchemist from a stage-play come to life – gaunt and wild-eyed with wispy white hair, wearing little more than a greasy apron and striped trousers.
A disagreeable fellow to the core, I was nevertheless able to purchase some candlerods, dreamer’s star tea, and a poison ring. I tried to talk him down on the price with (sincere) promises of future business and by reasonably pointing out that he couldn’t have a lot of business given his locale but my arguments fall on deaf ears. Perhaps literally, this fellow appears to have been in a couple explosions unless I miss my mark.
It took quite a bit of coaxing to let me stay the night in his bizarre hovel but there was no way I was going to try and make it back to Graltontown with night coming on. I was given a strange waxy feeling blanket and a spot to sleep in the loft while Eedraxis tinkered and slurked with his odd smelling mixtures all throughout the night.
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Funds: 24 Gold , 29 Silver, 11 Copper
XP: 800
Inventory: Peasant outfit (with hidden pockets) , Signet Ring , Stiletto , Cheap necklace, Map case, quill pen, mysterious letter, red riding cloak, wooden flute, artisan’s tools (woodcarving), candlerod (5) , dreamer’s star tea, poison ring.
Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, nameless mumblemouth watchman, White-Muzzle the worg
Behind the curtain: The random encounter I rolled was with a worg warrior 2. I’ve never had an issue with experience being awarded for “defeating” encounters without combat but I’m realizing now that it doesn’t necessarily make sense. The CR of a creature is based on its combat ability so it doesn’t seem quite right to give the same XP for tricking an opponent that’s easily tricked. But I suppose the GM has the final control on that anyway. I may need to figure out something there since the only real way Ela has to earn XP is with social interaction.
The Errant Endeavors of Ela the Expert 