Oneshot – Wild Sheep Chase (Crayon Etilli)

Our story begins at a market. The party consists of friends that have traveled a long time together. In this oneshot, I play Crayon Etilli, a human bard in his sixties. Crayon is a duo with Caunta, a gnome rogue wizard. Together they form a magical duo and are performing whenever they can. Then we have Wish, a tiefling bard with her cat Buttons, Pixar and his homunculus servant Pixie (Verdan artificer), and Garu, a kobold druid.

The invisible sheep
At the market, Wish, Pixar, and Garu are shopping for fabrics, weapons, and musical instruments. Caunta and I want to give a show. I take care of the entertainment and beckon the people to come closer. Caunta does a couple of tricks: find the queen. We earn ourselves around three gold pieces. Jolly good show! After, Caunta helps Pixar create a bag of holding for Wish by pulling a piece of fabric out of his sleeve. I like that trick. I laugh. 

Suddenly, we hear a ‘meeeeehhh’-sound. It is a sheep with a piece of parchment in its mouth. He gives it to Caunta, and Caunta gives it to me. It is a scroll to speak with animals. I now get why Caunta gave the scroll to me: he only talks to me and not to others. I activate the spell on the scroll and I can hear the common tongue instead of bleating from the sheeps’ mouth. It introduces itself as Finethir Shinebright, a human wizard. He needs our help finding his stolen magical artifact that is stolen by his apprentice that turned out to be an evil wizard. Shinebright wants to explain further, but a commotion outside of the market distracts us. Three big wolves, a half-orc, and a giant man walk to the market. Shinebright is scared and stands behind me. The half-orc halts in front of us and says importantly: ‘The sheep needs to be taken back to master Noke.’ He offers us money to take the sheep with him. I refuse. It is not our property, so we cannot take money. ‘However, it seems to us that the sheep does not want to go with you!’ I say to the half-orc. The half-orc really wants to take the sheep and attempts to walk past me. I see Caunta casting a spell on the sheep: our logo (Caunta & Crayons’ magical shows) appears on its’ buttocks. I am amused and tell the half-orc that we now have claimed the sheep, and therefore he cannot take it. That would be theft. He gets angry, but I am not afraid of him. I say that we are magicians and that we only have one trick left up our sleeves… I touch the sheep and cast invisibility on it: the sheep disappears. We are in for a fight.

It is a chaotic fight. Pixar throws valves to the enemies to create difficult terrain for them. I cast shatter but accidentally set a stall with clothing on fire. The best thing is that Caunta, a tiny but quick man for his age (75), casts magic missile on the giant man out of nowhere. ‘You’ve fooled me!’ I yell to him. He takes a bow and hides again in a stall. Garu turns into a black bear to take on the giant man, and Caunta almost castrates the half-orc by sliding under him and using his rapier. The wolves are searching around the market to try to smell the sheep because they cannot see it. I hear an ‘ouch’ coming from behind me: one of the wolves found Shinebright. We still cannot see him, but the wolf is dragging it along by an invisible leg in its mouth. The half-orc grabs the sheep. Wish shoots arrows at the half-orc but unfortunately hits the sheep. I attack with my rapier, Caunta throws knives, and we beat everyone. The market is ruined and empty. I lift the invisibility from Shinebright.

Shinebright continues its story: the evil wizard that took the magical artifact is called Noke. Noke was Shinebrights’ apprentice. The magical artifact is a wand of true polymorph, and Noke used it to turn him into a sheep. He was held captive in his own home and escaped yesterday. While Shinebright is talking, Caunta pulls the arrow from the sheep. I can see it hurts Shinebright, but Caunta is distracting him with a show. After a while, we travel to the house where Shinebright was held captive.

Animal farm
The house consists of three columns next to each other, and are reachable by stairs or bridges. We hide in a bush and see three monkeys. We notice that they are hostile. Garu casts a moonbeam on them and kills them instantly. Nice move! The sheep told us that Noke polymorphed other humans into animals, so we think he also did this here.

A man steps out of a building. He has black robes on; this must be Noke. He summons a big brown bear. We have to retrieve the wand of true polymorph, so we attack the wizard and his companion. Garu moves the moonbeam to Noke, but he transports and causes the bear to increase in size! What kind of magic is this? Caunta and I should look into this, I think in admiration. The bear tries to hide behind a small shack but fails big time: I can still see it, and I try to scare it with shatter. However, it fails in doing any damage but scares it nonetheless. Garu then transformes into a warhorse. How cool, that druid magic!

Then, the top of the bedroom explodes! A dragon ascends from the room, with Noke on top of it. The wings of the dragon are a bit weird, it looks like bedsheets! How odd, but intriguing. Pixar casts some scorching rays to Noke that sits on top of the dragon, and after that Caunta casts magic missile. That does the trick. Noke dies and the dragon turns into a bed! Together they crash to the ground. When the danger is gone, we try to enter the house. The first room is a room filled with plants. The next room is locked: Garu tries to smack the door down by running into it. The door explodes! Garu has got the power! We enter a library with a dining room, and via a bridge, we can enter the bedroom. Inside the library, Shinebright gets a scroll: now everyone can hear him speak common. The sheep brings the wand to me. He tells us that it has been tampered with. It is unfixable. If we want to polymorph him back, we really have to do well, otherwise, it will have awful consequences, tells Shinebright. Pixar attunes with the wand, I give him bardic inspiration, and he gets extra help. He succeeds! Teamwork! The sheep turns into a human again! He thanks us a thousand times and says: ‘If you ever need my help, all you need to do is ask!’