Session Date: 3/11/2024
We return to The Growing Boy inn. On the way we discuss the bloodstone issue and Mary recommends we seek out a jewelry or alchemy shop, but she’s not sure where to start with that. Faylen recommends we return to the inn and speak to the barkeep as they may have an idea of where such shops are, and could possibly broker a deal with our money and their custom of favors. We return and have some food and some chat with the innkeeper.
This is innkeeper Barman Gonkick.
Tabby asks where to get bloodstone down here, and Barman explains that it’s mostly plants down here. He elaborates to say you won’t find a bloodstone in the Verdant Core down here, but there is a group of dwarves he’s not necessarily allowed to speak to. A mining group that is scouting nearby, and they may have something. He’s not sure, though.
Barman definitely invites us to a game of cards and everyone but Mary does sit down and play. Faylen manages to cheat at a hand and he gets a pendant of the occult, and then we continue. There’s a purple, unblinking eye that leaves a humming inside of Faylen’s mind. He puts the necklace on and the humming stops. We finish the round of cards and Barman has to return to work and bids us adieu for now. Everyone but Faylen (who is busy playing with his new toy) are aware that this is the place that everyone has to go to if they’re not a native to here. We do not see Sage Izoraxx here, which is definitely curious.
We all opt to go for the bloodstone. Bosch is searching for the criminal underworld in the Verdant Core and he finds that Barman is the vast majority of it. There is some level of criminal underworld but it’s plant-specific crime. Faylen tries to ask around but finds a group of people who were talking about magic and were wrong, so he takes the time to correct and teach them. Tabby finds a group that has an idea of where they are but the group of dwarves are jerks: they chased them off with weapons.
Faylen learns that everyone keeps talking about “The Company” as if that is something he should know. There are several dwarven mining conglomerates in the Hollow World. They have money, they have lawyers, they can muscle in and do whatever they want. They don’t mesh with the plantkin very well so they respect them and leave them alone. The group here is a scouting party of 3-4 maybe. They may be able to help us with acquiring stones, or the stones might actually be there where they’re scouting. This is likely our best bet.
We figure out that this is the Breakwater Company that’s down here. We decide to steal the stone from them rather than parlay and we retire to our rooms for the evening and rest.
The next morning Axamonar is in the common room arm wrestling a couple of guys and is excited to see us. He will be back as soon as he can and he will meet us at the Murky Dragonfruit and then he will take the Seal and we will discuss what happens next. We bid him goodbye and then head down the tunnel where we know the Breakwater Company representatives are.
There are some small automatons doing some small busywork type things around here as we head down and we hear a voice echoing about how the workers need to hurry it up because he wants to get back and get his bonus. Bosch somehow manages to talk his way into pretending to work for this person, and he uses the name Trisha Truehold to pretend he was sent over. Sylvia Strongaxe is the boss for this site and she’s overseeing the other two working. The crew here has found bloodstone and Talitha notices a burrow of stones, but she does not recognize which is which. She just knows where it is, but it’s in the tent of the workers. The automatons are building infrastructure in the tunnel - if a larger team arrived they could just start mining.
Mary explains what Talitha saw and describes the stones that were seen. Faylen can name them all and comments that it’s a little strange that all these types of stones are right next to each other, but they’re all useful. The bloodstone is definitely magical, but the others are useful in weapons as a magical warfare. This company is not a weapons company, just a mining company, but there is definitely a market for it.
We manage to get together a small swarm of velociraptors and send them down the tunnel to create some mischief. Bosch busts into the tent and finds a bloodstone the size of his fist. We all regroup and on the way back the Verdant Core we talk about what we could ask as our favor for retrieving the bloodstone. We opt to ask her for any information regarding Clapperclaw’s plans in this coup and to have her not get involved in this fight.
We make it back to her cell and Bosch speaks for us and explains we do not care for nor do we trust Clapperclaw. She agrees that we should not, and then Bosch explains that we would prefer that she would leave this conflict alone as we do not wish to fight her should we end up in conflict. She explains that she does not enjoy working for Clapperclaw and the Walkers do not care for her magic specialty. She seems interested in clearing out and she admits she could “use a holiday”. She agrees and we hand over the stone and she gives us 5 minutes to leave so that we will not be implicated in her escape. We clear out.
Montego meets up with us and we confirm that Tasha is definitely casting her teleport spell and he manages to piece together that possibly she has defected. We convince him to consider running and leaving to stay protected from Garm, and as we are all readying to head out, the entire earth shakes and a crack forms in the ceiling.