Alastor Crossclaw – blogpost 4

In Skullport, we find ourselves in an inn. It’s in lower Skullport, so my bed is hard and dusty; the quality of living is not up to standard in this hell hole. The name is Guts and Garters. Luckily, the food is eatable, and I’m munching a lot: I have to bulk up for the beast we’re going to slay. I thank the lady of the house for the lovely food and pay her 5 copper pieces. 

The group would like to go shopping for magical items in other parts of Skullport, and I decide to go with them. I might be handy when it comes to *kuch* ‘persuade’ people when we strike a deal or bargain. We take POES as well, but I see we draw a lot of attention toward ourselves. We shouldn’t have brought him. 

We enter a casino to see whether we can make some money. I stay in the background, I don’t like this way of earning money, because gambling is dishonest. You have to work for your coin to earn it – I’ve been a street performer, so I know what it’s like. In the casino, we spot pictures on the wall, 4 to be exact. One in particular, with a Gnome on it with goggles on his head and a metal dog next to him, strikes the rest of the party. I have no idea why, but they’re asking the Goblin behind the bar. However, the Goblin doesn’t want to tell them anything. That strikes me. What does the Goblin have to hide? Why would she be unwilling to help other creatures?

As the party exits the building, I ask why we need information about the Gnome. 

“We want to know who he is, because of the metal dog. We have POES and we need to know how he works, so the person in the picture could help us clear things up.” The White Mage says.

“Okay, I’ll ask her myself then.” I walk inside again. 

I make my way to the front desk and cut the line. 

“Don’t cut the line.” The Goblin says annoyed. 

I turn around and look at the people in the line and putting a smile on my face. 

“Please dear people, could you be so kind to let me go first? I am in an extreme hurry and I won’t be long.” 

I persuade two of them immediately, but a half-elf demands 5 gold pieces to give up his place. I tell him he can get 3, and with a firm handshake, I hand over the money. The Goblin behind the desk snorts and is even more annoyed with me. That’s gonna be a hard task, getting her to talk. 

“My dear lady, could you please tell me who that is?” I say, pointing at the Gnome. I give her a nice smile and find her eyes. 

She sighs in exasperation, but she pulls open a cabinet and starts searching for information. 

With a nasal voice, she says: “This is Farryn Flamel. He is banned from here because of the destruction of property.”

“What did he break?” I ask surprised; most Gnomes are tiny and nimble and don’t have much strength as far as I know.

“The table in the back.” She points.

I can see the table is totally wrecked. Wrecked my a little Gnome… interesting, I’m impressed. 

I thank the Goblin and the others in the room and leave the casino. Outside, I share the information with the others, and we decide to look for Farryn Flamel and meet in a couple of hours at the inn to see who gained more info or found him. 

I decide to go to the marketplace and ask strangers if they know Farryn Flamel. Someone says: “Is that Farryn from the song?” the creature laughs and walks off. Weird, is there a song about a Gnome bashing a table or something? I approach the closest bard and ask if he knows the song about Farryn Flamel. 

“No… no, I don’t know the song about Flamel, but I do know the one about the Never Evers!”

We take a while and the bard teaches me the song. When I can play it myself, and we’re just jamming, Mohan finds me. He tells me he found Farryn Flamel and asks me to come with him.

After a short while, we get to a dingy-looking parlor shop, where I can already see the White Mage walking toward us. 

“Farryn Flamel is in here, and the reason why is that he stole from the Zhentarim guild.” he sighs. “He is quite mouthy, but probably what I’m searching for.” 

We decide to first scout the place before we’re bursting in. Mohan transforms into a rat and crawls through a small creak in the walls, and we return to the inn to wait for more intel. 

In the inn, I just start eating again, and the White Mage starts writing: he is studying spells, and he is writing VERY fast. My eyes can hardly follow the pen on the page. After a short while, the White Mage learned about ten spells, and I hear “I found Farryn!” coming from the opened door. Mohan returned. He tells us he has the feeling Farryn is kept imprisoned without a good reason. Furthermore, he is talking to someone who is not there, so he might be a little disturbed. Farryn told Mohan everything was taken away from him, and that the metal dog Grond was in the next cell. They’re all chained up, but they prepare for us coming to rescue them.

“Okay, let’s rescue them tomorrow.” the White Mage replies, packing up his books to go upstairs. 

“Come! COME! They’re leaving, come on!” I hear from the bar. A tiefling drags another toward us. 

“Hi! I’m Turbulence, and this,’ she gestures to the person she’s dragging, ‘is Violence. We overheard your conversation. Don’t worry! You’re going to break out Farryn, right? He helped us, and was the only person in the Wizard Academy without magic.”

“You’re willing to help us?”

“Yes, we have magical powers. We are taught by Hallaster HIMSELF,” says Turbulence importantly.

I ask for the Shadowdusks, because I’ve heard they live in Undermountain, and if the two sisters have lived there, they must know something. 

“Oh, hey. Yeah. That was Skrianna…” they’re both laughing. “What a bitch. She was popular, but we didn’t like her.”

“You’re talking in the past tense,” I notice.

“Yeah, there was a freaky accident that caused a couple of students to die. She was one of them,” they say matter-of-factly. 

“If it’s really Farryn, the only survivor – we have to get him out!” says Mohan. “It is so sad, he was talking to someone named Calyx.”

“Yeah, we know him too, he died.”

“We have to save Farryn Flamel! Let’s go as soon as possible, let’s leave in an hour?!”

Within an hour, we approach the dingy shopkeep again. We try to be stealthy, but my armor makes too much noise. I try to be a distraction for our enemies, instead of attracting attention to the party, so I walk to the front door and pretend to be hammered. I try to come across as SO drunk, that I convince the people inside that I think this is a bar. I knock on the door.

“This isn’t a bar. Go away.”

“No… wait… This MUST be a bar.” I say. 

They try to close the door on me. “Just ONE drink, guys, please?” I mumble and put my mace in between the door, so it cannot be closed. The guy closing the door notices, and says: “Yeah, sure. Let’s gamble.”

I stumble in and sit on a chair near the door. “I first need something to DRINK!” I say pompously. 

“But, let’s just gamble – with gold.” says the guy opposite of me. I look around: Mohan told me there were 4 humans and one Deep Gnome. I can only see 2 humans and the Deep Gnome, so I must attract attention, so everyone is in the same room. 

I grab my instruments, and start playing the Never Ever song, but very upbeat, like a war song. 

The rest of the humans come in and clap along with the song. When they’re all close to me, I stop, then smile, and ROAR. This must be a sign to my party outside to come in.

Sitting on my chair, I smack my mace to the back, because someone is keeping me on my chair. However, all the men grab me and prevent me from standing up. “Let’s gamble…” says one ominously in my ear. He forces dice into my paw and almost makes me roll them. Then, my party comes in, plus Turbulence and Violence. The White Mage electrifies the room, and almost kills the humans in one go. That Tortle is super powerful! Turbulence casts a fireball, and I use misty step to escape from the chair and end up near the Deep Gnome. He tries to attack me but misses. Then, a dart hits the Deep Gnome right in the head, and he falls dead to the ground. I hear a maniacal laugh from the other room. 

As soon as all the enemies are dead, we gather in the center of the room. We have to rescue Farryn and make sure we hide the bodies because if the Zhentarim know the cause, they will come after us. 

“HEY! Can anyone get me out?! I haven’t got all day!” we hear from the other room. Probably, that’s where Farryn is. I get his stuff and walk up to the cells. 

I give him his clothes. 

“Hey, can you also hand over my belt?” he asks. I give him his belt as well, and he pops it on. He pushes some sort of button on the belt, I cannot really see what he’s doing, but immediately, he looks buffed up. He grabs the barred fence of his cell and lifts it out of the wall like it’s nothing. In an utter surprise, I just stand there, watching him. This must be magic, but still, it’s a powerful little Gnome. 

He walks over to the Deep Gnome who imprisoned him, smashes his head with his hammer, and looks in every pocket if he can find something of value. 

Then, with the blood spatters still on his face, he looks up and recognizes Turbulence and Violence. 

“WE FINALLY FOUND PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO SET YOU FREE, FARRYN!” they shout, running toward him and hugging him. 

After the hugs, Farryn starts to tell us what needs to be done: clean up bodies, get him out of his chains, and where we have to go. I don’t like that, he doesn’t even know us, and isn’t even GRATEFUL we got him out, and he has the AUDACITY to lay out the rules for us?! I’m snorting. 

“I’m Cross,” I say as I step forward with an outstretched paw. 

He shakes it briefly and continues his story. Ugh, I think. A know-it-all… I’m not sure I’m up for this…

The tiefling sisters are doing neatly what Farryn asks of them, and they already started investigating the shack. In the end, Farryn got all his stuff back, and the tieflings found a secret compartment with a lot of dough in there. As I’m looking at all the money, Farryn throws a bag of holding around the corner and yells while walking off: “You can stash it all in here!”

Damn, he is STILL telling us what to do. I’ve had enough already. Turbulence and Violence get all the money, and Mohan is controlling fire to burn the bodies and remove any kind of traces that we might have left in the dingy shop. 

Heavily obscured, and with Farryn invisible, we walk back to the inn to get some rest. As we walk away from the fire, more and more people run toward it, trying to put it out.