PCs
Amethyst Trueheart
Magnolia -Fiction-
Remila
Auxra Malt-Maker
One-Shot Synposis
The party begins in the wizard Tyndareus' tower where he tells them the mission that he's hired them to embark upon. He needs them to head to an abandoned bakery are retrieve Grammy's Country Apple Pie recipe from the bakery. It's been overrun by goblins, otherwise he would have done it himself. Auxra, the amateur chef of the group, asks what a pie is because he's only familiar with pancakes and milkshakes. Tyndareus says it's not quite like either of those, to which the rest of the party disagrees and they decide that a pie could be made out of a pancake crust and a milkshake center. After that debacle, Tyndareus gives them a map and promises to pay them some gold when they return with the recipe.
The map shows a two day ride to the bakery, and for the most part, it's uneventful. However, as they grow nearer to the bakery they encounter a Vine Blight and enter into combat. Amethyst gets the final hit in and slaughters the Vine Blight after it's been hit with radiant and necrotic damage. After that, Magnolia makes the dead vines bloom with flowers using Druidcraft and Auxra goes to gather some of the vines to make into salad. Upon further investigation, he realizes maybe that's not the best idea and he lets it go.
They follow a gravel path up to the bakery, where there's a large apple tree out front and the smell of ripe apples in the air from the extensive apple orchard in the back. Auxra and Magnolia head up to the tree that appears to have a face, and Remila and Amethyst go to gather some apples for Amethyst's horse Nadine.
As Amethyst and Remila go to get some apples from the trees, they successfully gather some. An apple goes flying past Amethyst's head from further into the orchard, and instead of investigating, they decide to head back to the rest of the group. They notably heard giggling and whispering from further into the orchard. When Amethyst said "Hello?" the giggling stilled for a moment before continuing.
Meanwhile, Auxra and Magnolia approach the tree and it seems to come to life and begins to speak. They introduce themselves to the tree, who is a treant named Mac (or Macintosh). They gather some information from Mac, who tells them that although he doesn't know anything about a recipe, he does know that Grammy used to hang out in the orchard with the dryads pretty often so he suggests talking to them. Magnolia asks a question, wondering if Mac, as an apple producing tree, feels a certain way about people using his apples to make pie. Mac says he'll have to get back to her on that, and they gather back with the group.
They decide to try the front door and find it barred from the inside, the wood rotting. Amethyst pulls at the door to try and get it to open, and it doesn't, so he tries again and the door comes off the hinges, the wood breaking. They enter into the Shop part of the bakery. There they find a staircase leading up stairs, a door leading out into the orchard, and two closed doors on either side of a long countertop. They search around the room a little bit and find a locked cashbox. Magnolia spends a few minutes trying to bash it open, realizes that this is not their strong suit, and hands it off to Amethyst who pries it open with his sword. After they've gotten the gold, silver, and copper pieces from the cashbox, they enter into the room on the left.
The room on the left turns out to be the kitchen, where there's a whole bunch of magical tools like knives and ovens that are continuing to cut apples that aren't there and open continuously despite no pies going in or coming out. They search around just a little bit, only finding some healing potions in the glass cabinet, and they leave that room to search for an office where there might be some papers or a cookbook or something.
They retrace their steps to check out the other room in the back of the bakery and find an office. The office has a lot of bookshelves, a desk, and another door off to the side. Magnolia doesn't find anything when they search and throws a tantrum until Auxra gives her a bagel to calm her down. Amethyst finds a trapped drawer in the desk and calls over Auxra, who tries and fails to disarm the trap and gets poked with a poison needle.
Meanwhile, Magnolia rams into the other door twice and breaks through it, then flies back through and opens the door. It was unlocked, they were just made they hadn't been able to do anything yet. The group enters into the guards room where they find some quarterstaffs on the floor and a locked chest. Remila breaks open the lock on the chest and inside is Shillelagh oil. Remila takes two of the bottles and Auxra takes one.
Magnolia makes the lock sound like a whimpering animal and freaks out Remila, and everyone else knows its just Magnolia. Magnolia then apologizes and they decide to head upstairs to continue looking for the recipe. Auxra, beforehand, ties a bag of flour to the end of his quarterstaff and swings it out as Amethyst casts pass without trace.
They make their way up the stairs and find 3 goblins, two of which are arguing with one another. Magnolia casts sleep and sends the two arguing ones to sleep, freaking the third out. They catch sight of the group now, and instead of fighting, they are able to talk it out. The group finds that his name is Zoc and he and his goblin friends "just live here" and really like the pies but the pies have all ran out. The goblins can't read though so they don't know if they've ever come across the recipe. He does point out where some papers were which is on the desk over in the corner. He also asks if they'd teach him how to make the pies if they found it, and Magnolia mentions they have a master chef (Auxra) who could teach him how to cook.
When asked about other goblins, he says there's some out on patrol and some down in the kitchen but the group must have missed them. He gets asked about the thrown apples and if it was the goblins, but he says no, it was the dryads. They apprently like to play a game called "hit the goblin" so he says maybe they thought Amethyst was a goblin. He then gets told by Magnolia to go to sleep so he does that.
The group investigates the desk and find that there's a trap on this one too. Amethyst is well prepared to just go ahead and open it, but instead Auxra wakes up Zoc and tries to convince him to open it (unsuccessfully) so Magnolia casts charm person on Zoc. He opens the trapped drawer, taking a good deal of poison damage and being poisoned for an hour. He's mad initially, but Auxra convinces him that it's just the mark of becoming a chef. He shows the mark he had on his hand from being stabbed with the poisoned needle as proof. Zoc accepts this and invites them back to the bakery in the future. They find the second half of the recipe in the previously trapped door, take it, and leave. Notably, Amethyst places the door upright again from where he had knocked it down earlier.
Outside, they spend a moment talking to Macintosh, who answers Magnolia's questions about whether or not he thinks that people using his apples for apple pie is weird. He responds that no, he doesn't, because otherwise they would just fall onto the ground and rot there.
The group heads back to the wizard's tower, where the wizard greets them warmly. He casts mending on the recipe and sends it off with his imp servant who goes to make the pie. He gives the group a bag of gold and a rust bag of tricks, and they all eat pie together, their adventure completed.
Later that night, Magnolia goes back to the bakery and touches all of the magic tools in the kitchen (as zoc had mentioned some of the goblins didn't like when they were touched) and riles up some goblins before misty-stepping away and flying into the night.
Trivia
- There was talk about some parts of this "fiction" being true in the Tiresian Archives world. Although not confirmed, it very well could be, considering that Magnolia is the author of the book. The people in the stories could be fictionalized characters of people Magnolia knows.
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