The Outlands Odyssey Part 3: Beauty and The Beasts

So there they were in the alleyway. The enchantment on Fergus expired, only for M’narr to immediately recast suggestion on him. Seeing his allies smitten with Fergus, Ragados took Lesley aside to scheme a solution. Lesley drank Ragados’ potion of invisibility, and the two returned with manacles and a plan.

But Ragados couldn’t subdue his friends. 12-Bar, despite his weight, is notoriously difficult to pin down. Lesley was convinced to run home and send for the city watch if Fergus did not come home. And so, terrified, she fled.

What Ragados didn’t know was that Circean Embers are a fickle thing. Over time, Fergus’ beauty had indeed become overpowering. He succumbed. The entire party was now dedicated to keeping Fergus nearby. Which on the one hand, was deeply troubling, but on the other, now allowed for them to continue on their journey. The party stopped off at the Stonevault Bank to convert their coin to platinum (minding the Stone Giant guardians as they went), and set off again.

Out in the wilderness, the party realised they would have to actually subdue Fergus if they wanted him to stay once the enchantment wore off.  He allowed himself to be manacled to M’narr, but was too weak to flee once M’narr finally rested. All the same, in the night, Fergus attacked M’narr, and his fists finally managed to slap some sense into the Gith. M’narr promised to bring Fergus to safety, sneaking from the camp into the wilderness of the Outlands. And in the night, M’narr killed Fergus. A sudden, violent end to the life of a foolish but innocent man. M’narr had decided that one life was worth taking to prevent the chaos he could cause back in Ironridge. M’narr wrapped the body and brought him back to camp for burial.

The grave took four hours to dig. M’narr wanted it to be deep.

The others woke up, and 12-Bar was a bit upset, but what was he going to do? Bring the body back to Ironridge? Pay for a resurrection? Noone else cared. 12-Bar used magic to commune with Fergus’ body, to find where the Khaasta had headed. The Forest of the Norns. M’narr used his familiar, now an owl, to send word back to Ironridge. And so they headed on. M’narr eventually needed rest, and the hamlet of Hamlet seemed as good a place as any. And so they rested.

 *    *    *    *

So it isn’t really worth doing a DM’s post for this session, because I hadn’t planned for most of it. I’d failed to anticipate that the players would get bogged down trying to break the enchantment of  the Thief of Charms, which was entirely predictable. I’d asked everyone in advance how they felt about nonlethal player-versus-player combat, and that was absolutely some worthwhile game preparation, and something I would recommend. And I’d made some homebrew rules for the Thief of Charms (which I've since lost). But that was it. They spent three quarters of the session just dealing with that. I think they enjoyed it, mostly? It’s hard to say. Chris deciding to kill Fergus means that we will all have something to remember from this session. It was very Of Mice and Men. The Stonevault Bank is a banking corporation from my homebrew setting, so that was easy enough to include on the fly.

I don’t think the party will be welcome in Ironridge any more.

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