The Return to Utdanning - Session 7

Session 7 - 06/07/2024
***the story so far***
As I step 5 feet within the thick vines, I manage to gain vision of the strange man, and fire off one last Ice Knife, piercing his chest, rendering him lifeless on the floor of his dungeon.
All the spells dispel, and Roger becomes de-stoned.
< END BATTLE 11 - THE STRANGE MAN>
As we investigate the strange man's body, we find Uta's missing pass. (yay!!)
As we sailed down the underground river, clutching the barrels of anesthetic, I look over at Roger, who looks hella in peace (quelled some of that bloodlust i guess).
Near the end of the booze cruise, we spot a sign indicating the direction of Utdanning.
On the way, I find:
+1 dirt (-3)
On our way through a forest-covered path, I spot what appears to be a footprint and a drag line through the dirt. I pause, and get closer. As we continue down the path, we find an old man, who seems *off*. He has wrinkles that see incredibly tight.
Roger tries to pull out his packed weapon, but something odd happens. The old man jumps back in worry.
Exchanging that we're both collecting stuff in the woods, the old man points us towards a bag hanging from a tree, the bag containing bones (???). The old man seems to have a wide smile about how he got these bones. I turn to Roger, and I tell him "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?". Roger agrees - We intimidate the old man, and Roger wrestles the bag of bones away from the old man. I can detect a faint aura of magic from this old man, but can't tell where exactly its coming from.
As the old man points to his left, there's a large RUMBLE. A whirlwind erupts north of us, as a pile of bones forms into a skeletal troll.
< BEGIN BATTLE 12 - THE OLD CREEPY MAN>

As I shoot Poison Spray into the face of this old man, the skin droops, and he picks it back up to put it back in place.

As I disengage from the old man to run away, the old man pulls out a small dagger, a purple and black blade, dealing

The old man points his stick downards, and I can strongly feel the evil aura I felt earlier now. It's clear its coming from the old man and his stick.

A second pile of bones forms into a second boney troll.

As I transform into a Brown Bear, the boney troll swings down with a mighty greatclub, and knocks me Prone.

Willow shoots a blast at one of the trolls, and the old man reacts accordingly (*oh?*) It seems the old man is tied in some way to the trolls

I get up and charge the old man, and strike at him with my claw. This knocks ooze out of the old man to the side.

Roger aims square at the man and executes a finishing move.

< END BATTLE 12 - THE OLD CREEPY MAN>
The bone trolls collapse under their weight, seemingly no longer in control. Roger harvests the old man's skull and puts a little mark in it.
I take the old man's dagger:

+1 dagger (-1)

MADE OF: deals necrotic damage

EFFECT: Upon hit, the target must make a DC(8+CHA+Proficiency) CHA save or have their DEX and STR lowered by 1 until their next Long Rest

Roger takes the bone troll's skull (o_O)
As I look at this dagger, there's quite a lot of curves carved into it, shaped like a crescent moon. There's an emblem etched into the blade - the emblem looks like a skeleton of a snake. There's a strong feeling of *unnerved* coming from this daggar, not inherently evil. There's a hazy black mist emitting from the blade when i squint, coming out of the etched symbol.
Diaga comes over to look at this dagger, and sweat pools on Diaga - Diaga is taken aback, and says this is the symbol of an undead faction - the name of the faction is "Amidrakh", and the crescent moon-like symbol is associated with them. They're an Ezlekh faction that has been thought to have been dead for the last 100 years. Ezlekh is about a week's journey out... and this faction would have been from a western part of Ezlekh.... they are incredibly far out. Diaga remarks that this is the faction that... made me like this.
Pointing at Roger, painfully Diaga remarks that she wasn't born this way.
<INSERT ZACH BLOCK ABOUT DIAGA BACKSTORY>
I loot the bone trolls:
+2 undead bone (+0)
As I fish around the undead bones, I feel some magic emit from these bones - these bones are emitting an aura, but the aura fades away as I finish rummaging around.
Roger pours out the bones from the bone bag and tries to cast words to make an undead creature appear. It doesn't seem to work.
As we head to Utdanning, we make it to the borders of the city. In that time, Roger notes that his pack became lighter, and rummages for the skull in his bag. The skull is gone.
We make it to Utdanning as evening beckons upon us. The barrels of anesthetic feel really heavy. We recall that Dr. Motby works in Meadtown, and head in that general direction. As we wade through town, a bunch of people are looking at us weird (we are carrying barrels after all...). We pass by some soldiers walking around in groups wearing interesting armor - its a royal red stamped with a little bit. This color combo doesn't seem too familiar to me, but this probably some Promatican mercenary troop. The crowd is more reactive to these soldiers than us.
I do a little sniff of these troops - they smell like dirt and prized mead. There's no magical scent to these guys, absolutely zero. I Mark their Scent. We trudge on.
We find Dr. Motby and he remarks about the double recovery of anesthetics. We set the barrels down in front of Dr. Motby. He zooms in his monocole. Dr. Motby is so impressed, and tells us:

I can give you the pay PLUS a little bit more, OR

You can get a free arcsthetic framework, on me

Diaga immediately goes for the arcthetic framework.
Willow goes and gets the free Mimicry installment based on the discussion from the train - lots of whirring noises are made, and Willow now has Mimicry installed (!!!)
Roger takes the 10 silver pieces.
I DO NOT TAKE ANYTHING ( I ask to think about it a little longer)
Diaga arranges an appointment for tomorrow for his arcsthetic appointment.
As we exit Dr. Motby's, the mood of celebration is upon us, and we find a watering hole tucked away in a storefront not too far from the shop. It's got a nice acacia white oak interior, very clean, very nice bar. We go to the bar. The bartender, a large gruff Tabaxi man tells us to sit our sweaty butts down and have a drink. The bartender pours large pints of mead. As we look around the bar, there's quite a few people here - we seem to be here during peak hours.
Roger spots a quite snoody person - a large Goliath man, two tankers of mead next to him. The Goliath is just DOWNING cups of mead, not really breathing between drinks.
I lean into Roger and try to egg him on to have a drink with the Goliath man, who slams his down. We all take a regular mead. The bartender sets a tankerd of mead down (its literally bigger than our heads o_O, like 2 Liters worth). It smells like honey, with a nice layer of foam. Its very refreshing.
There's a group of gentlemen talking very ingriguingly, and passionately about something. Willow goes to move closer to drop in on them. I don't move along.
Roger tries to egg me along for something, but I'm too engrossed by the mead. Slightly intrigued, I look over at who Roger is pointing at.
There's a tiefling with blue curly hair who's been eyeing the cup of mead in front of him. He sticks his spoon into the foam and sips it (weird). This tiefling is like... "diagnosing" the beer.
Roger points at the 15 guards... he wants to do something to them. Roger seems unnerved by them, as they order around the barkeep.
Annoyed by this, I cast Create Bonfire at the feet of one of the guards. The fire lights right under his ass, and the guard gets all confused. He puts out the fire on his ass, and the guys behind him stomp on the fire behind him. Firebutt walks up to me, and asks if we have a problem. We do.
The Brewer's Inquisition guy notices this, and asks if the Promatican guards are giving me an issue. The Inquision guy feeds off my energy, and tells the barkeep that he doesn't like the Promatican guards either. The barkeep feels bad, and says he didn't mean to make a problem.
The guards approach me and try to intimidate me. I stand up to try to intimidate the guards, and cast Healing Spirit on myself. The guard seems unimpressed, mocks the bear. I shove my hand into the guy's face, and fail to cast Poison Spray.
< BEGIN BATTLE 13 - THE BAR BRAWL >

In a spectacular fashion, Roger, the two Brewer's Inquisition guys, and myself find ourselves pinned to the ground.

The guard tries to feed me some lies.

I transform into a Brown Bear.

I beary myself into a standing position. I roar at them, but not much happens out.

The 7 guards jump me, knocking me out of Bear form and dealing 12 damage. I feel nothing but pain.

< END BATTLE 13 - THE BAR BRAWL >
Willow drags me over the bar, slumping me up against a stool. Willow pats me on the head, saying "There, there", though i don't really hear much of this.
I fall asleep at the bar. The barkeep wakes me up, and I head outside. I come outside with tired eyes. It's about sundown at this point.
We make our way over to Warehouse Isle to crash at Uta's place. As we pass a series of blocky houses, we locate Uta's house and make our way inside to Uta's apartment.
I sneak over to Dr. Motby's shop to get an Arcsthetic Hand. It feels accordian-like, muscles flexing back and forth, and it *feels* like a glove almost. This Hand is very interesting - I hope to do some Runic stuff with this laster...
We sit and have a meal in Uta's apartment, watching the time pass by. Willow takes a restroom break.