Taking Care of Business in Winnowing Reach

by Jenny W. aka Mavry

Artwork by Leesha Hannigan on Deviant Art

Went on our way with cat lady who turned out to be even more annoying than I expected. Group traveling was very inefficient, especially on the main road -- why I travel alone. Got swarmed by bats and missed my first shot. Random axe flew by from unseen outsider and missed the bats. Lots of folks whiffing attacks on bats of all things. I started getting pissed, so I swatted the bats down with my daggers. 

Axe turned out to belong to a fancy looking vulpin. Looked a bit like Frey but seemed to also dislike her. Couldn’t decide if trustworthy but party seemed fine with her. Group seems very vulnerable to bad people; they seem to only recognize obviously bad folk. The fact that they trust me is a bad sign.

Decided to camp out for the night. Traveled maybe a total of 2 miles the entire day. Spent some time reading magical gemstone book but not too many details of interest. Cat lady was still talkative until bedtime. Was put on 3rd watch for the night, but got woken up to skunk smell by Paikea. She looked nervous about someone approaching us -- a mapach. Looked armed, possibly dangerous. Didn’t seem worth it to wake anyone else up, so decided to lure him away. Snuck around to a large boulder and shook my bag of fake coins and shouted that I dropped all my coins. Idiot mapach took the bait and didn’t bother us for the rest of the night. Went back to group and fell back asleep before my watch. 

Guess I didn’t have to help out there -- could’ve just left the group to fend for themselves. Too tired, though. Paikea also seemed scared I guess.

Vulpin either let me sleep in or is very lazy -- probably the latter. Ranger raptor convinced group to travel off the road -- smart. Finally made it to town. Cat lady had cool cart of useful things: 10 days ration, scarebeetle, dragon talon, old music player box, spoon with letter M on it. All good things for crafting later. 

Random corvum thinking he’s hot stuff pulled us into his office. Thought he was arresting us or something. But instead hired us to “take out” hedge with exotic-sounding name who might’ve caused the fires. Something about important ocarina that gave her powers -- intriguing, possibly tradeable with The Merchant? More than happy to take all of corvum’s coin. His fault for trusting us. Looked like rest of group also didn’t take a liking to him. Paikea flooded his office -- nice.

Susan lived in the swamp south of town. Rustic looking hut with smell of cinnamon wafting out. Warm, inviting elderly hedge woman who reminded me of my rescuer. She seemed to know nothing about the town, and was living in the swamp to keep to herself -- so no reason for us to bother her. She also wanted to figure out the source of the fires too, so maybe she could be useful. Wasn’t about to go running errands for her though. Paikea, vulpin, and ranger raptor seemed happy to help get some frog spleen and a dirty feather though. Cleric raptor and I stayed behind. Decided to craft old hedge’s ocarina to maybe fool the dumb corvum. Cleric made small talk with hedge lady. Turned out ocarina just an item from when she was in a band -- neat.

Group came back sweating and the vulpin looked surprisingly hurt. Ranger raptor carrying a giant frog spleen over her shoulder -- I shouldn’t get on her bad side. Hedge lady combined rest of acquired ingredients into her bubbling cauldron and managed to summon a demon of all things. Demon attacked Paikea first, but I landed a good shot and it went down pretty quickly afterwards. 

Wasn’t sure if hedge lady had summon a demon intentionally to harm us but she seemed too kooky for that. Group tried to explain to her that we were sent to “take care” of her but she wasn’t getting the picture. Obvious she would trust anyone and anything -- even a demon. Told her the truth directly and she gave weird look of confusion and surprise. I showed her my crafted ocarina and told her my plan to trick the corvum. She examined my crafted ocarina and asked to trade -- what, why? She’s exactly the kind of folk who get themselves killed for being so naive and trusting. How they’ve managed to live so long like this baffles me. I told her to keep an eye out for anyone else who might come after her. 

Returned to town with a plan to tell corvum that ocarina was “cursed.” Wasn’t able to convince him not to keep it though. I should’ve crafted another one and kept the real one to give The Merchant. But we got our 475 gold check to cash in Alderheart. Cat lady asked us to take her to Alderheart again -- whatever, I’d learned how to tune her out. Spending the night at this comfy inn. Gonna sleep early. Maybe without daggers under my pillow for the first time. Been a strange two days.

Trustworthy: Paikea
Cool: Raptors
???: Luma, Vulpin

Loot: 10 days ration, scarab beetle, dragon talon, old music player box, spoon with letter M on it
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