Session 9 - Hooch & Hides

VOD: https://youtu.be/95Q9eMExxnI Tavern Therapy: https://youtu.be/mIUK1HZfdGU
Previous Inspiration Awarded: Brand for fleshing out and giving growth to his character.

Friday, April 2nd, 764

Scarlet Nichols and Tatho Wildheart approach the poachers as the rest of the Investigator S.Q.U.A.D. hides amongst the trees in case things go south. At their camp, they find a rather skinny individual, named Cooter, working on some hides, and a rotund man, named bubba, working on a rusted-through pot still. The two introduce themselves as being lost trying to get revenge and hunting a gator and could use some rest. He asks if they're a cop, and after successfully deceiving them are able to sit and see that they are absolutely committing the crimes that they were described as doing. The two talk for a while but decided that there isn't any way to stop this from happening without combat. Tatho says the quality of the alcohol is worse than the quality as the men before him, and then combat starts.
Tatho runs in and begins to swing with his sword as the rest of the party pops out from their hiding spots and begins to pepper the two poachers with attacks. Cooter stands firm with a bow and arrow, while Bubba rushes Tatho down with his machete. Tatho quickly takes a lot of damage and as he tries to dodge his attacks takes one last slash from Bubba's machete and falls unconscious. Though Scarlet attempted to leave quickly after combat began after Tatho fell the two then swarm her and she falls to an arrow to the chest. The party now enraged at two of their fallen members hit back even harder with spells and arrows. Veiyanitara Lero at one point also enters her new starry form and brings life and energy back into Tatho and Scarlet bringing them back up. Unfortunately, the poachers see wise to this then rush down Vei and knock her unconscious. Quickly Brand is able to get to her and feed her liquid from his new jug, giving her just enough energy to get back on her feet. Tatho then after the second life Vei had given him sneaks up behind cooter and gives him a final blow. Yaros shorly afterwords then from across the swamp hits Bubba with a final arrow that brings him down.
They take a moment to check on each other and take a breather and recover a little after the combat. They then handcuff the two poachers and look through their stuff. It appears as though they were working alone on this operation, and the party only find very rusted and rudimentary equipment that they were using, along with a lot of illegal hooch and hides from the howlers. Brand becomes infatuated with the idea of bringing back the rusted pot still for his experimentation, but the party talks him down as they are all exhausted and beaten from the battle and they decide to come back for it.
The Investigator S.Q.U.A.D. bring the two individuals to the Bollothglade Penetentary. They brought them to an administrative officer who brings them through to the holding cells where they place the two. The officer lets them know they will have to go through processing and begins to start the paperwork getting the two investigated. The officers say they will have to investigate the site, and that they were rightfully arrested. After this everyone decides to go take a short rest and clean up after the battle before their next actions.
First they head towards the The Conservationists office in Bloom Wharf. They let the head of the conservationists, Alya Harris, and the head of the distributors, Arlo Morris know that they had successfully tracked down the two illegal poachers and distillers and brought them to prison. At first, they were ecstatic about the news, though as they talked more about what happened Arlo asked about the young triton that he had sent to go watch them. But the S.Q.U.A.D. had no leads and didn't find anything out there. The mood of the situation goes sour as Arlo says he now has to go tell his folks that he had sent out their son and he has gone missing. He asks one last favor of the party which is to go interrogate the two they arrested to see if they had seen any trace of the young man. They agreed to do so and in exchange, they said they would answer any questions they had relating to their operation.
From here they leave so Brand can make his appointment with Xavier Bennet to find about what he had been working on. Known as the Pharmagician, he works primarily on portable medicines. His home is slightly unorganized but in a controlled way. He shows brand some of the books he had been researching and Brand becomes amazed at the mass of knowledge he has here. Xavier then talks about how an approach is necessary and how knowledge is built on those before you. The two of them then trade books with Brand giving one about "The Paths" he had been researching when he was in The Shadowed Canyons. After this, he shows some of the medicine and trials he had been running such as the bark of the willow tree for pain relief and reducing fever that had come from druids in Aprimilla. The party then asked what was happening with The Surgeoness during their last meeting, and Xavier says that she puts a lot of pressure on herself and to not worry about it. Brand then asked if The Barbers would be able to help him out with a project the next day, and Xavier obliged saying he could get a couple of guys to meet him at the barber shop around noon. The party then heads back to their quarters for the night.

Saturday, April 3rd, 764

The following morning everyone heads back to the penitentiary to interrogate the two poachers to see if they can find out anything about the missing triton. Once they arrive and state their business and present their badges they are able to talk with them in the interrogation room. Brand begins the talks by shining a lamp in Bubba's face trying to intimidate them. Cooter speaks up stating that they're not going to be intimidated. Just yesterday they had almost killed all of them and called them cowers for having to bring six people to bring in two. He also brought up how they had successfully knocked out four of them. While Tatho jumps at the bars and Brand continues to verbally fight back, Vei casts a charm person spell on Cooter unaware of the legal or ethical consequences of doing so from her backgorund in Aprimilla. The party then asks them directly if they had seen a young triton man named Nathan Lavawrath. Cooter says that they had not seen him, and Bubba looked back confused as to why he is acting so strange. Scarlet asks if they had seen anyone out there at all, and Cooter begins telling everything. Bubba then stands up and walks towards Cooter and slaps him as hard as he can. He realizes that something magical is now going on and walks towards the door and bangs on it trying to get a guard's attention. Scarlet then gets very nervous that the guard will see them unethically getting this information and tries to pressure Vei to drop the spell, but Vei doesn't understand why this is wrong. As Bubba says they did something to Cooter, Scarlet succeeds at convincing Vei and she drops the charm person. Cooter then starts screaming that they did something to him, and the guards escort everyone out. Brand and Tatho then have a disagreement about who was right. The two people who almost had the six of them, or the six who ultimately won the day.