Session Date: 7/31/2023
K’Whu’s player had to dip due to work reasons so we will pretend K’Whu doesn’t exist.
We are in the back of the wagon. It very comfortably fits 3 but we currently have 8. Clement and Axamonar have already left.
Faylen is currently uncomfortable with the current travel situation, and Pippin is asleep after his day. Tabby is comfortable enough in the moment. Mary is backed up into a corner chatting with Talita and trying not to take up too much space. Mary is talking to Pippin’s familiar, Squire. Bosch climbs up to the top of the cart to hang from it when we complain about the space and he hangs upside down. He calls himself a bat and gets a good laugh out of everyone awake.
Vogue is playing solitaire in the corner.
When Bosch is mentioned as having enough abs, he says there is no such thing and does some crunches. Faylen mentions he’s impressed and has never seen someone do this before and Bosch more or less says that there are some goblins that are boring and won’t do such things. Tabby says he would hardly call Bosch boring and Bosch returns the sentiment.
Vim is interacting with us and asking us questions. I play poker with Vim and it’s not awful but I don’t win against him.
We travel for a while and eventually Vigor calls out saying that there are some folks on the road. He asks if he should try to move past them or if he should stop. We glance out to see who’s in the road and we see two guys standing on the opposite side of the road - one has a dog. They look like bandits - there’s something that looks off about them. Pippin, Bosch, and Tabby, explain to Faylen there’s definitely more than the two. Mary notices that the dog is confused and doesn’t seem to understand what is happening here.
Tabby rolls out of the wagon and between the two in the road who stopped us and says to call out the rest of their guys from the forest as we’re ready to rumble. Combat begins.
Faylen attacks a man and kills him without realizing just how weak the enemies are. He is rattled by this as combat continues while everyone else deals with the bandits with non-lethal damage. Mary stabilizes the bandit that Faylen just about killed on accident. We dispatch of these guys and they all are unconscious with the last guy theatrically fainting. The last enemy is their dog, Mr. Buttons. We manage to convince the dog that we are not actually enemies. The dog manages to cease as Mary talks to him.
When combat is clearly over Faylen goes over to a tree and slides down a tree into a sitting position and he is clearly shell-shocked. Tabby explains that the guy is okay and Mary is tending to him and Faylen struggles, eventually responding about what if he had killed him, what if the guy did die. Tabby says we can sit here all day debating what ifs but the point is that he’s okay right now. Faylen considers it and ultimately just asks for a minute to collect himself and Tabby does back off.
The group is trying to figure out what is going on and the leader of the bandits wakes up rubbing his head, asking what happened. Bosch says he tried to rob us and it didn’t work - the gentleman explains he’s a tailor, he has a family. The guy Faylen almost killed wakes and looks at the tailor and says they can still fight them and steal their gold, with the tailor referring to the gentleman Faylen almost killed as Jason. Jason says Lord Darkrose will help him still, and the tailor - Jason’s brother in law - isn’t normally like this. Bosch hits him with a newspaper and the guy theatrically fends it off.
Jason’s brother in law explains they were at a show in a theatre that was struggling and they all went to the show. He recounts that the main actor wasn’t very good and it was supposed to be a tragedy, but it was so bad everyone was laughing. The actor pulled something out from his bag - a weird stone. Faylen thinks about it and realizes we also have a weird stone. Faylen gets up and joins the group as they talk and Bosch does point out they were a bad group of bandits.
The tailor’s name is Erik. The guy who got tangled up by tanglefoot is the owner of Mr. Buttons, and it’s clear that Mr. Buttons wasn’t under the spell. This is likely more of an occult effect than an arcane effect.
Faylen gets the group together and explains that they were enchanted by a strange rock, and that we have a strange rock, and perhaps the strange rocks are related. He then expounds on his thoughts that if these guys were charmed by a theatre troupe, then we should go investigate and try to find them. In addition, if these guys were charmed by the theatre troupe, then probably everyone who saw the performance is charmed and the town may be fucked.
Tabby returns to Erik and explains we should return to the town to see if everyone else is affected. Bosch points at Vim, Vigor, and Vogue and tells them to perform for the town to undo the mind control from the strange rock performance and maybe that will undo the mind control. The party piles into the cart while Erik and his crew walk outside the cart to the township.