After the last meeting and the tribulations from it, this meeting (besides not a full compliment at the table) was full of character development as well as LARPing around the table. Everyone had their moment to shine and we heard many dissimilar viewpoints to digest.
Write up follows:
The party argued about the problems that Veldryn and Deja’s recent spat had brought to light – what is the ultimate goal, can people be trusted, and what is the end position that one can believe from the others. And it was not pretty.
Deja had Val, Magnus, the young Tyrian smuggler Darveig, and even Ned on her side, while Veldryn had only Talion on hers – but it was a strong position as she was ostensibly the oldest person in the group and the Ranger was the leader. The feeling was that Veldryn needed to back the hell off and remember that there were others in the party.
Since it was already so late in the afternoon, we decided to spend one more night at the mansion instead of taking the jolly boat back to Saltmarsh in the twilight. So everyone except the ranger and the elf made their way, dragging the unconscious Sanbalet, back to the smuggler sleeping chamber in the basement.
As for the last two – their decision to remain behind was not as altruistic as they originally suggested as Veldryn was anxious to remove one of the smuggler’s heads and bring it back eventually to Saltmarsh to acquire one of the many ingredients she had sussed out of the documents and paperwork – Brain Juice. What was it? Was it actually the juice of a brain? No one knows, but how often do you have humans, dead human, just sitting around to harvest.
So between the two of them, they hacked and hacked at the head with Talion’s sword until eventually they had cut enough of the way through to twist and rip the rest of the head off. It was dumped in the large sack, stowed on Talion’s back, and then the two of them casually made their way back to the party promising to say nothing of this most gruesome recent activity.
Meanwhile back at the house, Ned had stoked the fire and swung the cauldron with the stew back over the flames. Sanbalet was dumped on a bed and Darveig was helping to lay out dishes and place settings for the party. This then led to the questioning as to what was going on and what Veldryn was up to. Could she be trusted? She is an elf and they don’t think like normal people, so what is her end goal?
And she has a hold on Talion. Are they sleeping together? No one knew for sure, but the paladin was convinced of it. Either way, Talion needed to be spoken to and questioned what was going on. This then led to the Ned suggesting to the party still here that tonight at watch, we post 2 at a time – and we don’t let Talion and Veldryn share watch and we don’t let Deja and Veldryn share watch.
Eventually the other two returned and we all ate, relaxed, and then discussion turned all over the place. The Saltmarsh smugglers, what was the next plan, taking the jolly boat back in the morning, what was going on in the cave, Sanbalet facing trial, and Deja and Veldryn’s argument.
As the words grew heated and the arguments flowed, Valerie wanted little to do with it so the half-orc druid made her way back to the caves and wandered around until she couldn’t hear anything from inside. As for those inside, it was Magnus and Talion back and forth with one another as the paladin expressed his lack of trust in the ranger and his attitude and decisions lately – offering that if this continued, he would enact the adventuring charter clause that allowed the group to vote on a new leader.
Ned meanwhile had convinced Veldryn that she needed to do more to connect with the group as her actions as of late have been divisive and fostering anxiety amongst everyone. She admitted that she would try harder, actually crying at one point. With things calmer, Ned offered to go and find Valerie and bring her back.
He discovered her – standing by the headless corpse of one of the smugglers. Ned grew upset, saying that it was Johnson and he HAD a head during the fight! Valerie suggested that Veldryn and / or Talion removed the head – but why? What the hell was going on?
She returned with Ned and more conversation flowed about the missing smugglers head – no one admitting to it and the matter leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Watches were divided up and the party got some poor sleep. The next morning we all wandered into the cave after breaking our fast and praying and proceeded to load up the jolly boats.
At this point Veldryn wanted to bring back a dead gnoll. Why? She wanted it – for research maybe. 350 lbs of dead gnoll in a jolly boat already laden with the smuggled goods and the party and Ned, Darveig, and Sanbalet – not a good idea at all. More arguing followed, the group going back to dead Johnson and his missing head and Talion swearing when questioned point blank if he had anything to do with and he said no. Amidst all this Valerie withdrew the Bifrost Crystal, sunk her will into it, and asked Frey aloud if the two friends had removed the dead guy’s head. Frey answered yes and that blew Talion and Veldryn’s trust and honesty out of the water.
Valerie wanted to walk back and not take the boat, the druid confident she could make her way to Saltmarsh easily. Talion had to back pedal to Magnus his last statements and there was a serious back and forth play between the two of them that was not going to end well with the paladin just accepting things as they were anymore.
We had to get back to Saltmarsh. We had to bring Sanbalet. Ned was going to have his crimes commuted with his testimony and his aid to the party. We had to talk to the council and Sir Archibald Reguirin about what we’ve learned. There had to be another half of the smuggling operation – where was the larger boat that either brought or took the smuggled goods?
We left the gnoll, Veldryn ran after Valerie to walk back with her friend and try to mend fences, and the rest of us boarded up on the boat, the single sail was raised, and Ned was taking the rest of the party northward along the coast across the Mastelic Ocean and back to Saltmarsh.
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