On the Road to Rennes — Caravan Duty -

Malo was bustling, and I believe I found the last vial of good voidwater. Apparently, the source which we re-opened is tainted and half-effective. Maybe the vial I found was half-effective too, because when we ran the ritual, the enchantment flamed out. Let me back up.
 
When I first sold our extra bottles of voidwater on the gray market, I think we got 100GP / bottle for the party. This time I paid 400GP of my personal coin for a go at the enchantment. The good (great) news was that Verxatitus generously offered to do the ritual for me, since I had done so for him. Since as far as we know (magic journal revelations) 1) the ritual can be very dangerous in worst case castings, Verxatitus was generous to the extreme to take on the risk for my trident. I appreciated that greatly since we believe I would have done so at some disadvantage since I had done the ritual before. 2) On the other hand, the ritual did not take. My Trident gained no enchantment, and cost me 400GP voidwater. So my luck ran out with Verxatitus or... I bought half-effective voidwater at an exorbitant price. Now I’m tempted to try the ritual myself, even though the journal says I can only do so at penalties (and therefore additional risk). So be it.
 
Problem: I need more funds for another voidwater, and I don’t know where to get a safe and solid vial... since that was the last (supposedly) good vial!
 
The other good news was that Verxatitus is tough. He recovered in one day what took the rest of us near a week of recovery. He’s one tough sumbitch. So we did not stay in Malo for the full week as intended. When our business was done except, I believe, for Barton’s custom lute (which he did not even properly order!), we jumped at the chance to rejoin the hustle.
 
On the Road to Rennes — Escorting Merchant Caravan
 
We were lucky enough to find an easy job escorting a caravan to Rennes which was maybe a two day ride. We set out to do it in one (long) day. We also were escorting the merchant whom we had saved from the goblin caves on our first adventure together. So it was a bit of a reunion. And of course, we were serving our lordship (actually, the lordship’s lordship) by helping open or secure the road to Rennes, since caravans had been disappearing of late from... all over. (I wonder if supply lines are being cut off, not just bandit attacks?) In any case, the job got complicated, but nothing the rest of the party couldn’t handle!
 
God King of Goblins!
 
I defer to Oisin’s retelling of the tale as he does so in grisly detail and took more than his fair share of the attacks! My one wrinkle would be that Griswold did contribute with his little bit of long range spell attack and even managed to strike the final blow to the first manticore, and that was the blow which sent the remaining manticore and goblin packing. Good riddance.
 
Well, one other wrinkle. Where was the God King of Goblins? And why didn’t the lieutenant goblin announce them as the God King of Manticore goblins? I wonder how many more goblins (and manticores) there are lurking in that area still? They may not be finished. While we completed the job, our work may not be done.
 
Rennes Arrival
 
We did finish escorting the caravan to the very gates of Rennes, but not before spotting some suspicious activity a mile out of Rennes... at the edge of some forest. When we returned the next day, we found our Hobgoblin Chieftainess acquaintance from Gersey Isle: Doricor. Perhaps we should call her Dori as she keeps popping up and is quite conversational! Last time, our arrival indicated an imminent large scale assault on Gersey Isle. This time, given her 5x (and presumably more out of sight) highly trained lieutenants accompanying her, we suspect her appearance foreshadows a large scale assault on Rennes. This will not do, as our Lord would be... disappointed. And Rennes would suffer massive civilian casualties.
 
We told her she needed to depart. We negotiatated, but she wanted something in return for leaving. I don’t think she really intended to leave the area, just the edge of forest. When push came to shove, she offered a one-on-one battle to “win” the occupation argument. Griswold offered (David vs. Goliath) but no one took him seriously (until much later). Frankly, the fight would have been interesting, but if/when Dori managed to immobilize Griswold, the fight would have been over. So the question is... did Dori have effective ranged skills or magic, or would Griswold have stood a chance? Like I said... interesting. Only the gods know for sure.
 
In any case, we agreed to go our separate ways, but realistically speaking, the result was that we were able to return to Rennes safely and warn the city of the likelihood of an impending assault. And Dori is out there somewhere with her 5x lieutenants and some unknown number of highly trained troops (we suspect).
 
Again, I wonder if the merchant troubles are by larger (military) design, rather than merely some uppity goblins and (possibly) bandits? And will we be able to find (and survive) Dori next time we cross paths? Both parties have promised consequences to the other, so the next meeting should be interesting.
 
Fingers crossed Rennes survives to live another day!