The session starts during the Agate Seekers' second downtime week, with Dareth Lion'el once again taking Mikhail on a date. This time, they found a corniolan restaurant in the city, the Pizzeria Napolaeni, where both ordered pasta-dishes from the very corniolan Halfling man in charge. The conversation eventually veered into some dark places, with Dareth wondering if Philomena Snapdragon is right, and he may just be a monster; but he quickly gets reassured by Mikhail.
Over the course of downtime, several things happen. Furnando and Crysta Damanti become more used to the place, with Furnando also taking on butler duties, and with Crysta cleaning up after the party for the time being; and scolding them for leaving things on the floor. Crysta also becomes friendly with The Mock, who meanwhile gets taught several things by Kilbi Leaftooth about service and working as a server, and they surprisingly learn quite quickly, and even befriend the kobold. However, Kilbi couldn't help but feel a bit traumatized after watching them eat an entire roast suckling pig. Punchy meanwhile did not have much work this week, due to the business not being open yet, but was still able to diffuse a situation with a drunk person of a tavern at the other side of the street. Kilbi meanwhile is serving the party all kinds of food over the week, but it becomes quite clear that Ulrich Brauer kept her a bit in line, as she serves a speciality from Grenwal to the party; Mettbrötchen. Raw, minced pork on crispy bread rolls, topped with onions. Thankfully, made with strict, grenwalian standards. Volks wolf-brain turns out to really like this for some reason.
After Downtime, the party is having breakfast in their new place, Pancakes made by Kilbi, when they suddenly hear a *Ding* from the upstairs. Volk Lesnoy goes on to investigate. Turns out the party's quest board was updated, as their two weeks off are now over. After an attempt to bring the quest board down, the party just goes upstairs and looks at the quests. Three quests in particular stood out. A quest about a storm in the northern Kingdom of Graern, a request to investigate the disappearances in an area of the Lowla Republic, and a quest about the retrieval of instruments from Orc bandits in Svantmiirik, in the Kingdom of Bursztyn, in order to save the city's founding festival.
After some deliberation, with an initial split between the quest in Lowla and the one in Bursztyn, the party decided on the latter, and off they went. After a short visit at the Liwilai Adventurer's Guild's HQ, meeting Marlène Lebas, the party went to the teleportation room and was instantly transported to the city of Svantmiirik, and greeted by two dragonborn guards, a Silver one and a Red one. After looking around, letting the sights and sounds of the very musically and artistically inclined city soak in (with Dareth being quite confused after 1. seeing a lot of Kobolds, and 2. Kobolds being friends with Gnomes), the party made their way to the Bard's College to meet with their quest giver.
There, they met Nax Skyscale, a former adventurer and current professor at the college, as well as speaker to the city's protector-dragon and Zeolon "Scruffy" Nimblehoof's sponsor to the Guild. A pleasant conversation was had, jokes about Scruffy's wariness around Volk were had, and details were given; a bunch of magical instruments, the so-called Cobalt Dragon's Violins, were stolen from the bard's college by a disgruntled, former student who was expelled. While said student was caught, he sold the instruments to a band of orc bandits in the woods to the north. And as they're both extremely valuable and quite important to the city's founding festival's string orchestra, they need to be reacquired ASAP; especially since the festival for the city's 400th founding anniversary has already been postponed. The party, armed with this new information, immediately went towards the city's northern entrance, towards the forest.
On their first day of travel, the party came across a wanderer collecting mushrooms. Volk looked through said wanderer's basked, finding a mildly poisonous mushroom that he then tossed- quite far, mind you. In secret, the wanderer and Volk then had a short conversation. Turns out it was a Wererat; a friendly one, of Sehanine Moonbow's strain. And after a short conversation, the party and wanderer went their separate ways.
In the night, not much is happening, until Dareth hears some noises in the distance. Two children from a nearby village, Igor and Jan, heard rumors about bandits in the area, and the two snuck out in the middle of the night to check, so that they could warn their village in time. After getting a talking-to by Dareth, and later Volk, the children went home for the night. Volk and Dareth then had a conversation about the plan regarding the bandits... Only for Volk to hit a nerve, after calling Dareth "Royalty", due to his "hoity-toity way of speaking", who then immediately went back to camp to pout about it.
The next morning, after Dareth received a pep-talk from his "Bunny" Mikhail again, the party continued their travels and came across 5 injured orcs around a campfire. Dareth was able to understand all of it and translate for the group; turns out that they're originally from the Bandit Camp, and one of them, one Ranzokk Hand Hammer, former leader of the bandits, not deposed by their War-Drummer, using a Cobalt Dragon's Violin. The party, choosing diplomacy, engaged in conversation with them. Turns out their War-Drummer Grumakk challenged Ranzokk to combat, only for him to beat him using magic. Most of the bandits then rallied behind Grumakk and banished Ranzokk and his followers, who is now taking this as a sign to turn his life around and go legit; though hopefully not before Grumakk is deposed once more, and he is back in power with his war band.
The party, agreeing to help depose him after gaining the location of their encampment, went along, arriving in the dead of night. When discussing their approach, Dareth decided to engage in diplomacy once more and to talk to the guards, and then Grumakk himself. The guards, after some rather persuasive arguments, decided to call Grumakk over and have a conversation with Dareth; who proposed an idea to Grumakk; making money through legitimate means with his talent, which the bardic orc-chief really enjoyed the sound of, inviting Dareth into the camp... and leaving his companions in the dark bushes, watching the situtation unfold.
SESSION END