Session 43: Thunderstrike at Crow's Crossing

It's the RavenQueenSea 4 roughly 7pm, we are with the tribesmen having a feast in honor of their fallen.
 
Joe and Franz make friends with Sajon, a fellow who seems curious of us but leary. He tries to put together a party to loosen up the night. We reminisce about when we were young and that time that Joe drowned Peter and Elias developing a deathly fear of water.
 
Joe finds druidic writing on a rock, and it's got their family crest on it. It's a marker that Joe recognizes as something used to mark a hidden stash.
 
Turns out there is a barrel of Oakenfoot Ale burried here. Joe learns there were some Oakenfoot dwarves here about 10 yrs ago. They were hunting down some kind of creatures in the mountain. Joe learns that whatever these creatures were were the original inhabitants of Hammerfall. They were githyanki, and were driven out of Hammerfall by the dwarves. Apparently they were trying to purge the Githyanki.
 
None the less, Joe offers to share the ale with the tribe, and it's a good time. Haydr plays a game of Catch the Spear with the barbarians. With some guy named Gordron. He wins and they become friends.
 
As we go to sleep for the night, Ash and Hazel are talking. Ash is distracted from her watch and someone sneaks in and stabs Hydr in the chest. We see it is a small orc girl. As Ash tackles her, Panfyr tackles Ash by mistake allowing the young orc to get away.
 
Franz is able to polymorph her though into a penguin. Luckily, only the elder sees this use of magic, but he doesn't say anything.
 
We tie up the penguin and turn her back. We learn she is the daughter of the orc that we killed a few sessions ago and she stabbed Hydr because she believes he is the leader of our group. Her name is Luca. We end up convincing the elder of this village to take her in and try to raise her as she shows a great aptitude for tracking.
 
It's the RavenQueenSea 5. 8am
 
We head out and get to a place called Crow's Cross. Apparently Marion Hoccleve lived her for a bit when she was a little girl. Her maiden name then was Surewood.
 
We go to the Inn and get some lunch. The innkeeper, Lilb Raymu seems a bit nervous when we walk in. We see a tortle sitting in the corner. Elias asks the innkeeper if there are any Surewoods still living here. There is a Diane, Nicholas, and Betty Surewood that still live here.
 
Joe also learns that their is an Oakenfoot dwarf that lives here and works as the blacksmith. There is also a deep gnome staring at panfyr strangely.
 
This town was founded by the Ca'va family. Joe talks to a dwarf who is an Oakenfoot. His name is Gribus Oakenfoot. They trade stories about what they are doing there. They talk about how all the good food of this region comes from this town.
 
Joe offers to give him the recipe from her uncle Jester's barrel. Joe learns he was part of the hunting party 10 years ago that were looking for the githyanki. He learns they never found them.
 
There is also an evil water spirit that is in this area. However, the innkeeper defeated it one day by dispelling its magic.
 
The water spirit is actually a woman. A long time ago, there was a woman who was thought to be a hag named Lizara. They say she was a hag so they drowned her. Others say she was waiting for her lover that went off to the Arcane Forge War, but never came back. She's been causing havoc for the last 10 years.
 
Panfyr is looking nervously for a gnome that was there, and Elias notices. Elias check in with Panfyr and Panfyr admits that gnomes make her nervous, but she doesn't get into details.
 
Elias then remembers that he has seen the innkeepers name somewhere and remembers that it was on the ledger he acquired from the dragon named Barrett. Maybe that's why he was so nervous when we first walked in. Elias tells him that Barrett is dead. There is a guy named Dirck here that is making them pay to keep the water elemental creature at bay.
 
Dirck may be responsible for the destruction of homes here and seems to have power over this creature. He can make it disappear instantly. All the money this city makes goes directly to Dirck.
 
Lilb mentions that Amelia from Pontimunde, the leader of the theives guild there. Elias isn't sure if this the same Amelia that we had to kill.
 
We use the sending stone to contact Drew back in Eldoria. However, Drew forgets he has only 25 words and we immediately lose contact with him. We'll have to try again tomorrow.
 
We decide to go spy on Dirck a bit. On our way, we run into a fishermen named Avery Ca'va. He's the famous cook around these parts. We talk to him about Dirck...we learn hes' been here for 10 years now...which is when the water elemental showed up. And now he's got some soldiers from Eldoria helping him now.
 
Turns out Avery dated Elias's mom back in the day.
 
Ash turns into a spider and goes into Dirck's house to spy. She recognizes that the guys there are the police that roughed us up when we first got to Eldoria. she doesn't get much information from them. They talk about girls and how they miss their station and respect in Eldoria.
 
Ash tells everyone this and Franz decides to turn into Blackwood and try to "recruit" them back to Eldoria and get them to join again and leave their station here.
 
"Blackwood Franz" knocks on the door. Gives a convincing speech, and they invite her in for drinks.
 
She goes in and tries to talk to them. Turns out they kind of hate blackwood for what she did, and they start to get a little hostile with her and start to surround her/him.
 
Blackwood Franz offers double their salary and per diem. The policemen agree to this, and we learn that there are about 20 of the men there. They start to get ready to leave first thing in the morning.
 
Blackwood Franz actually pulled this shit off. Will Dirck counter though? Only time will tell.
 
Elias reviews the ledger and finds that Avery as well as other folks of this town are listed on it. We formulate a plan to ambush the policeman when they come to meet us tonight to retrieve their paperwork from Blackwood Franz.
 
We have a couple of wickless bombs we could put on the bridge to blow it up. There is also a hurricane a coming to town. This could be the perfect opportunity to destroy the bridge, wipe the bad guys away and blame it on the storm.
 
We have a message delivered ot the police telling them to meet us at the inn. We rig the bridge with a couple of bombs we have.
 
We get everything set up and prepare. Later that night, we see Dirck trying to rally the policemen as they are completely wasted.
 
As they all gather on the bridge (except for Dirck) Franz shoots an arrow striking the bomb causing the bridge to blow up and flush most of the policemen away.
 
Dirck takes off across the river, but not before Elias and Panfyr do some damage. Haydr throws a goat at some guys in the water. What in the fucking world is happening? The water elemental shows up and starts to slap the shit out of Ash, but Joe dispels it immediately. Thank goodness the DM told us about that trick earlier.
 
Franz pursues Dirck on Marzapan and starts shooting firebolts at him. Dirck eventually just throws up his hands to try and surrender. Hydr throws 2 goats next to try and hit Dirk over 2oo ft away, one of them is on fire for some reason? but they just end up landing in the water. Ash just shakes her head at the absurdity of the nonsense.
 
Just as Dirck is about to escape, Panfyr snipes him with an arrow right through the neck. Boom! All 20 are donezo now.
 
We all make it to the other side of the river. Some using Marizpan. Franz and Joe have to walk around the long way because they got struck by lightning while trying to cross.
 
We search Dirck and find another ledger on him. It's from Pontinmunde. We learn that Dirck was using stones of water elemental summoing and we find 5 more in a chest. He was buying these from Pontimunde for about $400GP each from someone the DM doesn't know their name. Actually, it's Moma says the DM.
 
We find a chest full of the gold that Dirck had been collecting from the gold. Elias wants to give this back to the town.
 
Elias sees his mom's name in this new ledger and it has a ridiculous amount listed that she owes.
 
As we are searching Dirck's house, a random guy storms in, his name is Jaren Silverleaf. He's a merchant. If we invest in his business he will give us discounts later. This is where we end. Hanging out with this merchang guy who is well traveled and probably know a lot of things if we ask about them.
 
It's 6:30 pm on It's the RavenQueenSea 5 year 1093.