Venerikine 23rd, 989 IaC
- With some downtime before their mission with Ayla Raddock on the 29th, the Cursebusters engaged in various individual pursuits
- Kel spent some time practicing the use of the greatbow she found in Thaloss Zinir, but found that she did not have sufficient strength to wield it effectively
- The black egg that Kel took from the fortune teller in Bucktuck City hatched, producing a small grey bird with a wide beak and black eyes
- Lambchop began harassing Rulan again, asking him for a net and a tripwire, which he dubiously supplied him with
- Lambchop also chose to do some research on magical eyes, learning about the petrifying gaze of the basilisk and the ten eyestalks of beholders, each with a different magical power
- Additionally, he learned of a beholder lynchpin that once lived in the area a few hundred years ago, but was destroyed by the Bronze Aegis and the Claw of Arali
- Cora started staking out the guild library, interested in who frequented the space
- She found the main culprits to be Steve and Adamine, but witnessed Erdo Elfast sneaking a book away as well as Merilann and Glutagg secretly stealing a book on politics and giving speeches
- While in the library, Cora conducted research on Eldag Hollow, discovering that it is a natural basin in the Scratchwood that has a historically waterlogged crypt of some sorts located at the center
- The crypt's contents have been lost for some time due to the flooding
- Ilryn continued to study up on time magic, just about exhausting what the guild's library could offer her
- She learned that sand is often used in time magic, and is often left as residue after its casting
- She studied up on the ancient gods of time Vaaltha, Nurenin, Tharamaias, and Berit
- Kel spent some time practicing the use of the greatbow she found in Thaloss Zinir, but found that she did not have sufficient strength to wield it effectively
Venerikine 24th, 989 IaC
- Eliza woke the party in the morning, throwing them a surprise celebration for their new positions as Claw of the guild
- Eliza ten broke out the good shit to start the day drinking
- Glutagg provided each member with a celebratory potato, and demanded a tithe from their adventures before going off and playing music with Merilann and Adamine
- The Iron silently gifted a small metal horse to each person, made out of a folded piece of sheet metal
- Tamidilly gave everyone a bottle of vintage red from the Smokehouse
- Erdo pulled the group aside to thank them for their help with the Rampager, giving each of them 60 gold
- Additionally, he gave the group a metal badge depicting a dragon eating its own tail, saying it could get them access to...certain places in Bucktuck City
- Under the pretense of not allowing Tamidilly to hear of its existence, Erdo gave the group Krogdim's Potent Spigot
- Rulan baked the party a cake
- Adamine gave each person a handwritten letter of congratulations
- Eliza finally gave everyone a framed certificate of their rank as Claws to hang in their rooms
- Taking the party aside, she asked them what became of the object in the crypt
- Eliza expressed disappointment after learning about Beetleman, stating that she preferred to keep no loose ends
- Changing her tone, as a final gift she gave the party a Bag of Holding to use between each other
- While the party decided that Cora would hold onto the bag for now, Lambchop took it to the Potted Pig, buying 70 pounds of cheese and stuffing it in
- The party passed the rest of their week engaged in research and various other pursuits
Venerikine 25th - 28th, 989 IaC
- The group pursued individual goals and research
Venerikine 29th, 989 IaC
- The party was awoken in the dark hours of the morning by Ayla, rousing them out of bed and beginning the trudge to their destination in the Scratchwood at Eldag Hollow
- Traveling through the day, Ayla led the group past the border of the Scratchwood, crossing into the forest before nightfall
- The group was unbothered in their night watch, peculiar for the Scratchwood
Venerikine 30th - Nokelume 1st
- As the party ventured deeper into the Scratchwood, Ayla slowly began to explain what she had learned of their opponents
- The mercenary group was a party of 6 known as the Lonely Fingers, as follows
- The leader was a man known as Balkan Barberson, a towering figure also called the Killer in Crimson
- Ilryn recognized this name, noting that he supposedly wandered into a village in eastern Kalhastia and murdered half the town with no motive, dying his vest red from the blood
- He wielded an imposing greataxe, and was covered in thick armor; Ayla regarded his as the superior threat in the group
- A roguish drow elf known as Still Edge, an assassin completely loyal to Balkan for some reason
- Never far from his leader, stays in the shadows, mostly
- Ayla found he possessed a magic dagger, but the properties were unknown
- A tall lanky man that wore a wooden mask, but Ayla never got his name
- Something in the pack he carried had a magical aura
- A loudmouthed bard that could create explosions with her music known as Cossidy Crane
- Cossidy wore a turtle-like shield on her back filled with magic
- A surly woman from the east (perhaps Sufessian) that wielded two curved swords named Olby Sandsinger
- Was very suspicious of the newest member
- A magic user named Nettleberry, a new addition to the group that was relatively distrusted
- Ayla believed her to be a necromancer
- Ayla also suspected that her power could far outclass the others individually, but she might be in trouble if they ganged up on her
- Ayla believed that Nettleberry was hired by the Lonely Fingers to clear the water out of Eldag Hollow, allowing them to retrieve the artifact in its depths
- Ayla was unaware of the nature of the artifact, but surmised that anything that was worth retrieving from the Hollow must have been of great import
- She also knew the tensions among the members of the group to be high, as they had been waiting for quite some time after the retrieval of the artifact waiting on their pickup
- Seeking to divide the Lonely Fingers, Ayla's plan was to sow discord between the veteran members and Nettleberry, hoping to start a fight and take advantage of the confusion
- Ayla put forward her idea to disguise the group as undead with makeup, and lead a short, ineffective attack against the Lonely Fingers to poison them against Nettleberry
- The party seemed on board with the idea, so the group began practicing makeup and their best zombie impressions as they traveled
- The group spotted an oddly moving piece of canvas, which startled Ayla
- Lambchop believed it to be the sentient tent that there was a guild bounty on, and gave chase; unfortunately, it managed to evade his grasp as it flew off into the forest
- The group's movements brought them into an older part of the forest, where the trees grew tall with wide canopies
- Ayla warned the group not to sleep on the group here, as their movements could attract Redhaunts - terrifying creatures that traveled in packs, tearing apart prey with their giant teeth
- At night while sleeping in a tree, Ilryn witnessed a number of redhaunts prowling below, slightly-canine beasts with no eyes or ears, but with strange, human hands that they used to feel their way around
Venerikine 2nd, 989 IaC
- While traveling through the woods, Ayla picked up on footsteps and screams in the distance, and told the group to scramble as a horde of goblin raiders approached
- The party climbed up trees while attempting to remain hidden, but a branch falling out from under Cora caught the attention of the raiders
- As they approached the group, they spotted Steve, who couldn't manage to climb up the tree and had fallen on his face
- As the worgs attempted to abduct Steve, the group turned on them and led an ambush from the trees
- The party elected to first distract and confuse the goblins from their Steve prize
- Kel began throwing Glutagg's potatoes downwards, leading some goblins to investigate
- Ilryn shot a bolt through a goblin's head, scrambling others as they believed they were being ambushed
- Cora attempted to use her longbow, but was overwhelmed by its size; regardless, the arrow falling to the ground further added to the chaos
- Ayla jumped from her tree and cut open a worg, distracting a number of approaching raiders away from Steve
- Finally, Lambchop revealed himself as Eyeman, showing off his disturbing deformity while screaming out at the goblins, forcing them into varying states of fear
- The battle devolved into a dirty fight
- Ayla was caught overextended as the goblins descended upon her, dealing some heavy damage
- Steve was scooped up by a worg
- Ilryn continued to try and snipe from the trees, but couldn't find a lot of luck despite her positional advantage
- Cora gave up on her longbow and jumped down into the fray, tearing into a worg with her Sword of Answers
- Kel started throwing teeth down at the goblins, prompting one of them to begin climbing up towards her
- Lambchop triumphantly threw a sack of flour down at one of the goblins, jumping down after it with his Spicy Hammer, flattening the first goblin on impact and using the Sevilan Spice to make a flour explosion, immolating another goblin as he ate the explosion with his rage
- The fight raged on as the party began to take some damage from the goblins' retaliations
- Ayla was brought to an inch of her life, but was saved by the distractions caused by Cora, Ilryn and Kel
- Kel continued to throw teeth but was later attacked and pushed out of her tree by a vengeful goblin
- Ilryn managed to get in a few good hits with her crossbow after some bardic inspiration, but her music drew the eyes of her enemies
- Cora managed to hack through a number of goblins, despite suffering some heavy damage from critical attacks
- Steve misty stepped out of the worg's grip, later popping up his mage armor and taking up a defensive position
- Lambchop spared a goblin that had pissed himself in terror, allowing him to go "spread the tale of Eyeman" before he was attacked
- As if he had been waiting for an opportunity like this, Erigor revealed himself to the isolated Lambchop, jumping out and straddling his body as he sunk his daggers into the half orc while screaming about eating his flesh
- Lambchop was unsuccessful in throwing off Erigor, so he began to head towards the others as the crazed fey man shocked and cursed him
- However, Lambchop managed to get a few hits in with his bone dagger by using his Mage Slayer abilities
- Cora continued to finish off goblins and worgs around her
- Ilryn circled around her tree to avoid a goblin pursuant, attacking others below
- Kel managed to barely survive her terrible fall, not skipping a beat and immediately going back to throwing teeth, taking a chunk out of a worg with a juicy crit
- Ayla managed to get her revenge on some of the worgs and goblins, gashing a few open with her dagger
- Steve moved to the offensive, braining the goblin that knocked Kel off the tree with a Magic Missile (by the by, this goblin led quite a life; it avoided death on ground after spotting Kel and dodging her teeth and later began climbing the tree only to get struck by Lambchop's javelin and survive. It managed to push Kel out of the tree and then shoot Ilryn in the back before getting beat in. Not bad for 7 hp.)
- As the remaining goblins began to flee, the party began to focus on tearing Erigor off of Lambchop
- Erigor managed to get a nice bite out of Lambchop while continuing to stab him
- Lambchop mostly resigned to having him on his back, stabbing him back with his dagger
- Cora moved to heal Kel after she was dropped by a worg, and then engaged Erigor
- Ilryn started cleaning up the remaining goblins with her crossbow
- Kel attempted a Guiding Bolt, a forbidden technique in the worship of teeth that ended up missing
- Ayla began sniping Erigor from a distance
- Finally, the party was able to finish off Erigor, Cora landing the final blow in a decapitation
- Using her powers as an adherent of Un, Cora learned of a short moment in Erigor's life where he was traveling with another man who was hording human flesh. Erigor, in response, created a bonfire inside the man's stomach and made a tent out of his skin.
- The group ruminated on what to do with Erigor's corpse as Ayla looked on quizzically
- Lambchop toyed with the idea of eating him before harvesting Erigor's eyes and swallowing them, something his body quickly rejected
- Kel, as is tradition, took some teeth for the road
- Ayla, rattled by the unforeseen complication, elected to have an early rest to better prepare them for their arrival at the Hollow the next day
Nokelume 3rd, 989 IaC
- The party traveled through the day into Eldag Hollow, a natural forest basin centered on their quarry
- During their travels, the heard the voice of a young woman flying overhead, away from their target
- Ayla recognized the voice as Nettleberry's, celebrating the good timing
- With their clothes tattered and bloodied from their previous encounter, and some makeup expertly applied by Ilryn, the party approached the ruins at the center of the Hollow, where they heard voices chattering from within
- Kel filled her mouth with some rotting old woman teeth, for "authenticity"
- The party approached the ruins, giving their best undead performance and stumbling towards the Lonely Fingers
- Ilryn, Kel and Steve provided cover fire, throwing random objects and haphazardly shooting arrows around the ruins
- Lambchop approached Olby, using his touch skin to endure some blows from her as Cora messed with Cossidy, pulling her pants down as she attempted to begin a melody on her lute
- Ayla used the distractions to run into the entrance of the crypt, seeking out the location of the artifact
- The party kept their ruse up to varying degrees of convincingness, Lambchop attempting to bite Olby and Cora pratfalling onto Still Edge
- Ayla emerged from the back with a small box, signaling the party's retreat
- The group booked it (still zombie-like) as Balkan emerged from the back, furious
- Still Edge tackled Ayla and retrieved the box, but she just kept running
- As Cossidy's music began to cause explosions and Olby continued to hack at Lambchop, Balkan rushed out and cut through Ayla and Cora with his axe
- Regardless, the group managed to retreat, the Lonely Fingers choosing not to pursue as their artifact was secured
- Traveling a ways a way, Ayla excitedly exclaimed that she recognized the artifact - a key that could open anything
- Some of the party was skeptical of her claims, but Ayla believed it to be the same key she had seen a picture of in a ledger of magical objects
- The group took some time to lick their wounds, taking a short rest
- As their rest finished, the party heard the sound of cutting air overhead, signaling Nettleberry's return
- The group snuck back to the ruins to look upon the scene
- Back at the center of the Hollow, the party found the Lonely Fingers in the middle of an argument against Nettleberry, with Olby accusing her of attempting to steal their artifact
- Nettleberry played ignorant with a childlike playfulness, something that Kel understood to be insincere
- As the mercenaries argued, Balkan shushed them all, approaching the forest line, having heard the party from their lookout position
- As Balkan neared, the group ruminated on what their next play would be
Point of Inspiration consumed and received for Lambchop's flour explosion play.