[Completed] The Circus

[Ella]

Session 1

Gandin and Callista were planning on going on a mission together. Having gone on several missions together in the past, they had decided on a designated meeting place in which to wait for the other. Although the faerie had seemed excited to take on the quest they were planning for, she was unusually late. Gandin had waited a full thirty minutes after their set meeting time before storming up to the women's dormitory to either drag her out or see if her roommates might know of her whereabouts. Annia had not seen Callista since the day before, but let Gandin and Kin, who had been in the area when Gandin explained the situation, in to show them Callista was not there.

Kin climbed up to the rafters to see if Callista's hidden sleeping quarters housed the faerie. After getting attacked by two traps, the halfling got close enough to see that it looked like the faerie had left her usual mission gear behind. While Kin was doing this, Gandin stole six pairs of Aria's panties from a pile of dirty laundry on the floor by her bed before Annia could put it all away. When Kin tells of what he found out, Annia recalls that Callista had been very excited about the circus that had been setting up and how she could not wait to see it. The circus had been up and running just outside of the town for two days now.

On their way to the circus, Jin and Zultar join the group. Upon entering the circus after paying a gold coin for the entry fee for all five of them, Jin immediately spots the food court and decides to set up shop to sell some rotten meat he had collected from a previous mission. Using a wand, he cast a spell to make his meat look like the finest mean one could buy. At the same time, he cast another spell making the food other stalls served look mediocre at best. The circus guards get suspicious of this, since they know all the circus stall owners and they know that each and every one of them must pass a test and receive a symbol that proves they are approved by the circus to sell food there. Gandin tries to help Jin by sneaking off to steal papers from another stall, but gets caught. When he and Zultar try to intimidate the guards into letting them go rather than kicking them out of the circus, they run to get the circus' two strongmen, leaving one guard to keep watch on Jin to make sure he does not wrongfully sell. By the time the other two guards return with the strongmen, Gandin and Zultar had rejoined Annia and Kin and started their search for Callista. Jin was kicked out of the circus and told he could only come back after he got approval from their testers to sell. Instead, Jin put on a disguise and came back to rejoin the others.

After many hours of searching and receiving mostly the same responses such as "I haven't seen a girl like that." and "there are a lot of little girls running around seemingly on their own. Its the circus.", Annia finally hears that some circus performers had been seen talking with a strange young girl. Kin goes to try searching some of the tents to see if he can find her, but comes back with nothing. The group goes in search of a circus performer they can ask questions of and come across a boy who is an acrobat in training. The boy is willing to tell Annia and Kin what he knows, but is intimidated by Zultar, so does not share everything. Instead, he takes Annia and Kin to two older boys who he had heard were the ones ordered to capture the strange girl. Zultar follows behind, but Jin and Gandin stay behind to try their luck at the games.

The older boys are cocky and apparently stupid, as it takes little to get them talking about how they were told to capture the girl. They do not know why they were told to do so and can only say that they know she was taken on ahead to the next town, Magnolia. The group forces them into taking the group to where the circus master's wagon should be. They find the second in command instead and force him to tell them all he knows. Which turns out to be less as far as information about the faerie goes, but they do learn that the circus master went ahead to the next town.

Non-Battle Encounters:
3 Guards
2 Strongmen
[Intelligence Gathering] Young Acrobat-In-Training, 2 Teenage Acrobats-In-Training, Second in Command of Circus

EXP:
240exp each
+200 exp each to Kin and Gandin for roleplaying well.
+150 exp to Jin for roleplaying well.

Loot:
Jin (From Playing Circus Games) To be Recalculated.
Gandin (From Playing Circus Games) To be Recalculated.

Spells Used:
Jin's wand x2

[Ella]

Session 2

At some point between sessions, Gandin and Jin rejoined the others and Zultar wandered off. While considering their options for what to do next, Gandin announced that the will kidnap the second in command of the circus and make him take them to where the circus master went. Kin thought it was a stupid idea, not to mention it not being very wise considering the guy was currently in charge of the circus, and so he punched Gandin. The dwarf took that as a challenge and started actually fighting Kin with his Crackle. In the meantime, the second in command of the circus snuck away to retrieve guards to kick the group out. Annia started to try to break up the fight, but Jin blocked her way. Frustrated with Jin, Annia attacked for non-lethal damage, trying to knock him out so she could take care of the other two. Kin tried to continue doing non-lethal punches, attempting to also knock out Gandin, but stopped when he realized Gandin was serious with his Crackle.

The circus guy came back with five guards in tow. After everyone backed down, they were kicked out of the circus and told they were not welcome back no matter what. Furious his fight was interrupted, Gandin stalked off towards Magnolia.

On their way to Magnolia, the group ran into a group of ruffians. One had started to run off ahead, but Gandin shot him immediately with his crossbow. Five others jumped out of the forest in front and being them. After seeing two of his men downed by Annia, Jin, and Kin, the leader who had gone after Gandin called for one of the archers further up ahead to run ahead and tell the others. Having already dealt with the ruffians behind them, Annia ran ahead on her horse to stop the archer from getting away. She intimidated him, making him back down and submit. The leader was brought down, although told to submit or die and choosing to fight, and the other archer tried to make his getaway into the forest. Jin quickly ran to Annia, taking her hostage and having her chase down the other survivor on her horse.

After interrogating the captives, the group learns they're just stupid grunts. Their boss, the leader of a large bandit group in Ternadan that Kin had not yet dispatched, told them to wait for members of the guild of Galas'nor and attack should some pass through the area. They were not told why they were attacking guild members, just to do it.

Encounters:
Gandin vs Kin (No exp)
Annia vs Jin (No exp)
Circus Guards vs Group (No exp)
6 Ruffians/Bandits

EXP:
Gandin, Annia, & Kin - 1200 each
Jin - 1350

Bonus EXP:
Character Development: Gandin & Kin, +200. Gandin apparently does have the short-temper of the average dwarf. But instead of keeping it fist fight to fist fight, a fist fight with him will probably turn into an actual full-on battle. We also learned that Kin and Gandin will probably never get along after this.

Resourcefulness: Annia & Jin, +100. Annia used her steed several times. First making it attack one of the bandits, and then riding it to chase down the runaway ruffians. We also learned how disgusting Jin is when he used the entrails of one of the killed ruffians to bind and gag their first captive because he did not have rope.

Best surprise RP moment: Kin, +100. For punching Gandin for his proposal to kidnap the circus fight and thus starting the fight with the dwarf, even though he did not intend to.

Overall Roleplay: Everyone, +100. You managed to create what felt like an hour's worth of non-GM roleplaying by battling each other. Why was your first actual fighting "encounter" of the roleplay between yourselves?!

Loot:
6 Daggers
3 Leather Armor
2 Longbows
?? Arrows

Spells Used:
Uh... Jin used some.

HP Status:
Pretty sure everyone needs to heal up/rest before continuing.

[Ella]

Session 3

Zultar finally rejoined the camp after the battle, though no one is sure why he disappeared on them. While the group continued on, Jin stayed behind to take care of the rogues. It grew dark before they could reach Magnolia and they were low on HP, so they decided to stop and make camp rather than try to continue in the dark. They decided to take shifts, Zultar and Annia taking the first two, with Kin taking third and Gandin taking fourth. However, Gandin decided to be selfish and said he would not take his shift.

He proved true to his word when sometime during Kin's watch, a troll burst into camp and stomped out their campfire. Apparently, it was the wife of Tzane the troll and had been searching for those who had killed him. Everyone woke up to help fight, except for Gandin who decided to turn over and go back to sleep. Since the campfire was already out and no one had any sort of fire or acid attacks, they made do with chopping Bane's head off and chopping her up into small pieces. As punishment for his lack of help and unwillingness to take his shift (which happened to be the best one of the three), Kin buried him in troll body parts.

Just as he finished burying the dwarf in troll body parts - at some point during the time when it would have been Gandin's shift - he heard indistinguishable whispers and movement in a bush outside of camp. When he went to investigate, a figure darted off. Since there had obviously been at least two beings behind the bush, he decided to search the bush. A second figure tried to run off when he did this, and Kin chased him down. Pinning him to the ground, the half-ling knocked him out before he could draw his dagger. Kin decided to drag him back to camp to tie him up, but upon returning to camp, he found that the other figure who had run off had just released their two captives from the ambush the day previous. Nearly naked and weaponless, the two men ran off. The others awoke again and killed the man who had released the captives. This time, Gandin actually woke up to help, but since he was buried in troll body parts, was unable to participate. As he tried to dig himself out, some chunks of troll flesh fell into his beard of holding.

When their last living captive woke up, they questioned him. They found out that he did not know any more than the buddies he had rescued. He and his companion had been told to find out what happened when no one ever came to let them know the Guild of Galas'nor was coming. There had been a camp up ahead, but it had been dispersed when they were dispatched just in case. They were not told where the next location would be, only a select few members of the previous party would have been told that. Their boss seemed to be a very cautious guy. They were from a group called the Jeweled Hand that had a base in both Ternadan and Magnolia, and who knew where else.

Jin finally rejoined the group, having apparently camped further back along the path for the night, but packed up early to catch up with everyone.

Since it was already dawn by that time, the group, including the newly awakened Gandin, decided to head for Magnolia and see what they could find out. After Jin torture-interrogated their captive, they turned him in to the authorities, who told him they could only give one gold coin for their troubles because members of the Jeweled Hand were far too common to be giving out more every time one was brought in. They spend the rest of the day trying to find more information from the locals and authorities about the Jeweled Hand. The only thing most of the people knew about a faerie was that their local guild of wizards was called Fairy Tale. They did not seem to understand that the group was talking about an actual faerie. After some searching, they finally found some information about the Jeweled Hand. They were a bandit group who was known to take on questionable jobs from clients. There was a tavern where clients usually went to leave word that they had a mission. It was also used as a meeting place for clients and various bandit/rogue groups.

After some discussion, the group decided that there was a chance that if the tavern was run by the Jeweled Hand, then their descriptions might have been given to those who worked in the tavern and they might be kicked out or attacked right away. Unsure what to do if that were the case, the group took a room at an inn and decided to rest on it.

Encounters:
Bane the Troll
2 Ruffians/Rogues

EXP:
Annia - 875
Gandin - 375
Jin - 160
Kin - 875
Zultar - 933

Bonus EXP:
Character Development: Gandin, +200. We learned that when Gandin says he won't do something, he really won't do it. Even if it means there is a chance he might be put in danger as a result.

Best surprise RP moment + Resourcefulness: Kin, +200. Its not every day that someone takes the body parts of a slain enemy to bury one of their companions as punishment for not helping out.

Overall Roleplay: Everyone, +100.

Loot:
2 Daggers
2 Leather Armor

Spells Used:
N/A

HP Status:
Refreshed from resting at the inn.

[Throndir]

Exp resolved for first 3 sessions above.

Did not resolve inventory items.

[Ella]

Session 4

Because no one actually listened to the summary or remembered what happened previously, the first 30 minutes of this session were a wasted effort to disguise a cheap wagon to look like a merchants wagon and draw some bandits in in hopes they would know where the base was. During this time, Zultar had apparently wandered off again. After realizing their efforts would take all day, they abandoned the idea in favor of continuing from where they left off. That is, Annia decided to just walk right into the tavern that bandits met at and have a seat, with no disguise or any precautions in case they might recognize her. No one even noticed her at first. Then, Gandin and Jin entered. Kin decided to stay behind in the doorway to wait for everyone to become distracted so he could sneak in and explore the back area behind the counter.

Gandin tried starting a food fight by throwing food at someone's face, drawing the attention of the guy and his two companions. One of the companions was a buff guy who Jin had decided would be a great person to dump some beer/ale on. After slowly standing up, with Jin still pouring alcohol down his front the whole time, swept his arm to knock Jin away. Then proceeded to light on fire thanks to Jin's fire cloak? thing. This drew the attention of all the current occupants of the tavern. A few tried to flee, including the first one who Gandin had tried to start a food fight with. Gandin, however, grappled him and held him back. His other companion continued on without him. At some point in time, either Gandin or Jin planted a Guild of Galas'nor flag on one of the tables. This drew everyone's anger, bringing forth a few calls of "Down with the Guild of Galas'nor" and "Kill them all!"

Thus, Jin and Gandin spent quite some time battling all the occupants in the tavern who had not escaped. During this time, Kin and Annia decided to move to search the back. At some point in the battle, one of the rogues got bumped and ended up shooting straight up at the candle-lit chandelier above her. This knocked down a few candles, starting a fire in her area, which happened to be in the center of the room close to where everyone else had clumped in an effort to kill the two Guild of Galas'nor members. Most of the thugs ignored the fire, concentrating on defending their domain from the Guild of Galas'nor members who had invaded. Some would have died before being able to leave the building anyways, so gave their dying breaths continuing to fight. Gandin also failed to realize that his beard had started moving of its own accord.

While most of the fight was happening, Annia and Kin found a store room that had a door leading outside and another door leading to room with a secret door in the floorboards. It was dark, but seemed to go down pretty deep. Luckily, it was all brick and stone rather than wood, so the fire behind them would be left behind. Unluckily, the ladder down was made of wood and would most likely burn while they were down there. Halfway down, they found a room opposite of the ladder that Kin jumped over to while Annia continued down. After attempting to disable a trap, Kin found the room had three doors, one in each wall. He could hear snoring coming very loudly from one of the doors, so decided to unlock and look behind a different one. It turned out that all three doors led to one big c shaped room that was much like a haphazard barracks. Fearing this could end badly for them all, Kin used up all of his rope to tie all three doors shut before continuing down the ladder to join Annia.

Annia had found a single door in the room at the bottom of the ladder and went to open it, not thinking that she should wait for Kin to check it for traps. Bolts came from the opposite end of the room she was in, nearly hitting her. She was lucky to dodge the attack, and in so doing let the bolts hit someone inside the room she had just opened. Inside, the man who had just been shot at with bolts looked like he had been walking towards two other men sitting in the room. A battle starting, with Kin showing up just in time to help.

In the meantime, Gandin chased the last survivor of the battle out onto the streets, which by this time had become crowded with onlookers and members of the Fairy Tale guild using their magical powers to try to put the fire out. Giving up on chasing the man, who had run into the crowd and disappeared, Gandin decided to take a moment to heal up with a potion. Jin, on the other hand, had stayed inside the burning building, now in the furnace of his metal armor as he tried to loot the dead bodies inside. He escaped just in time.

After resting for a time, the two realized they had no idea where Annia and Kin were, so went back into the nearly burnt building to search. Jin decided to check and see if they had slipped out the back door, but found nothing. Gandin, seeing that the ladder had burned away, decided to just jump down the hole rather than tie off a rope and climb down. He took a bunch of damage, but did not take a potion to heal up. He joined Annia and Kin not long after they finished their battle, and upon seeing they had just found a room with two full treasure chests, ran for one of them.

The chest he had gone for happened to be a Mimic, which promptly opened its mouth, grabbed Gandin, and stuffed him in. Kin thought he was getting what he deserved, but Annia tried to help him anyways. In doing so, she triggered the second Mimic, who grabbed her and stuff her in its mouth. Luckily, she was able to get out on her own, going once again to help Gandin. Kin joined in the battle against the two mimics. Unable to escape the mimic, Gandin fell unconscious. During this time, five little trolls came crawling out of his beard. Their struggles helped deal damage to the mimic at first, but after the mimic was defeated, some ended up attacking the unconscious Gandin, eventually bringing him into a dead state. Jin joined the battle towards the end, having stopped in the haphazard barracks area to light the whole area on fire to prevent the angry men inside from attacking him and his group from behind. They killed the trolls before they could escape the now dead mimic.

As they were still in search of Callista, Kin decided to continue to the next room, which had a trapped and locked door, while the others took care of Gandin. The entire room was full of traps, with a tiny bird cage dangling high up from a beam in the ceiling in the center of the room. Kin spent the better part of the day disabling each one, then proceeded to take Gandin's crossbow to shoot the cage down. At first, he saw nothing, but he heard a tiny voice reprimanding him. After a fairly short discussion, he learned that the sassy voice was indeed Callista, who had gone invisible but revealed herself upon learning that Kin was a member of her guild. Since she was supposed to have met up with Gandin, her first question after being let out of the cage was where he was. Had he not come to help rescue her?

Upon entering the room, Callista saw Annia and Jin and came to the only conclusion she could. Gandin had become so injured, he had fallen asleep and, after Annia had tried healing him, needed to be woken up. Casting her Drench spell, she hoped it would be enough to wake up Gandin. Failing to wake her dead friend up, the upset faerie continued in her denial that he had perished whilst trying to save her. Luckily, Annia told her that Gandin could still be revived if the made it to a temple in time for a priest to bring him back. And so, using their winnings from the battle with the two mimics and money from their own pockets, the group brought Gandin back to world of the living.

Encounters:
13 Bandits/Rogues (Jin + Gandin)
3 Bandits/Rogues (Annia + Kin)
Barracks of Sleeping Bandits/Rogues (Kin + Jin)
2 Mimics (All)
5 Tiny Trolls (All - Gandin)
Loads of Traps + Locks (Mostly Kin + Some Annia)

EXP:
Annia - 2800
Gandin - 4450
Jin - 5000
Kin - 3800

Bonus EXP:
Overall Roleplay: Everyone, +500. For Jin and Gandin for creating a large distraction so Annia and Kin could do what needed to be done. For Annia and Kin for actually continuing the mission rather than being exp-hungry monsters like their two companions. Also for Gandin because nothing beats a loot-hungry dwarf being eaten by a mimic because he failed to do a check first.

Loot:
Whatever we told Jin he got from the burning down Tavern.
1 longsword.
1 crossbow + bolts.
2 daggers.
900 Gold

[Ella]

GM Notes/Planning

The Missing Faerie The Circus

*Gandin impatiently waited for Callista to meet him at their designated meet-up place to discuss their next mission. She was usually on time when it came to missions that interested her and she rarely accepted missions that did not. She had seemed eager to take on the mission before, so there was no reason for her to be late. Finally, after thirty minutes of waiting, Gandin marched to the room the faerie shared with Annia and Aria to either collect the small creature or retrieve her whereabouts from her roommates.

*If they check her sleeping quarters, they look the same as usual when she is staying at the guild/not on a mission.
*Other guildies claim they have not seen her in a while, though that is not entirely unusual when she is planning a prank.

*Someone mentions a circus having been in/near or coming through the town. Circus people either claim to not have seen her or saw a tiny girl hours ago.
*If they search the place (diplomacy to search wagons?) they find nothing.

*Someone follows them or goes to them later and tells them they heard someone suspicious talk about taking a girl ahead, so perhaps the circus people plan to taker her to the next town.

*Stalk the circus or try to get ahead and continue to the next town?

*First Encounter: Must roll for spot/listen! Ruffians either sent ahead to guard the trail or trailing behind to guard the rear of the circus train. Perhaps hired by circus to prevent pursuers from catching up. One ruffian per character + 1d4. One escapes and heroes are ambushed if there is a check failure.

*Second Encounter: Spot/List check! come across a camp of ruffians, also hired by circus. Ambushed if check failure.

*If following circus, they will also come across the strongmen and/or some others from the circus.

*Get to Magnolia. If following circus, can follow someone to a warehouse. If not, must ask around. Maybe they took a ruffian hostage who they can persuade to take them directly to it?

*Once finally in warehouse, must fight way to back room/basement to rescue Callista from cage. (She may be invisible.) Cage is hanging from ceiling like a bird cage in the center of the room. Entire room is full of traps.

[Throndir]

Session 5

Party sees 3 men harassing a lady out in the road. Eric explodes them all with his bomb. Wolfrin summons vines which gropes everyone. Lyolf has fun. Zultar grapples well-endowed lady. Party puts down Zultar, and drags him. Eventually they find a campsite. They are brought in to festivities and merrymaking. Zultar eats lots of meat. Eric eats sweets. Wolfrin eats some cake. Lyolf is suspicious of everything. Zultar and Eric fall asleep and Wolfrin resists. Combat starts.

Game is saved right after Lyolf takes his turn. Lyolf deals 54 damage to one of the circus troupe, right south of him (according to grid map below)

Initiative:
Lyolf
Wolfrin
Lord Circus
Circus Troupe
Beasts

RP Exp
+300 exp for Zultar for scaring the poor well-endowed lady, (and groping, and attempting to knock her out)
+200 exp for Wolfrin for winning the dance off.
+100 exp for Eric for getting second place.
+100 exp for Wolfrin for being the most normal
+100 exp for Eric for Karaoke
+100 exp for Lyolf for fart music

Inventory:
Wolf: +50 gp
Eric: +25 gp

Three Harassers (talking about weather)
+338 exp per char

Please update your own inventory and gold, I'll handle exp.