The legendary hero and tavern owner Tybus Steelborn was looking for answers regarding the Azure Paragon. He received a lead about a band of knights called the Order of the Silver Dragon, who had gone missing some twenty years ago investigating the group. To uncover their findings, he hired the Devilborn Warlock Mormeros Fayan, a well-to-do nobleman who leaned heavily on his Fayan lineage. Tybus tasked the tiefling to track down the Order, but he first needed a party. Mormeros went off to the Ruckus Ring, somehow keeping his contract despite pissing off nearly everyone he encountered.
In the ring, the Human battlemaster Fighter Marcus Cromwell was set to face his first non-humanoid combatant, a fearsome Minotaur. Clad in Mithral, "the Swine" rallied up the crowd's interest, focusing attention away from themselves while his compatriots ran a familiar scam. The Gnome Tobias Villie Broadnose Cogsmith and Crossborn Ajuni Elajoral had long been bought from Hakra-Shoku Brickbasher as Marcus' wards, and the trio had formed a sort of thieving guild together. They would identify the easiest mark in the crowd, and Ajuni would use her Sorceress abilities to charm them as Tobias used his thieving Artificer skills to empty their pockets.
This time, however, their mark was Mormeros, who had come to watch The Swine fight the minotaur. As the monstrosity gored Marcus with an unexpected charge, Ajuni approached, and was immediately disarmed by the tiefling's disinterest in her and general lack of social awareness. Annoyed, she employed a suggestion Spell to get him to raise his arms, and Tobias switched Mormeros's bag of gold with beans. The warlock didn't realize that he had been robbed, and turned back to watch as Marcus completely humiliated the minotaur.
Post-match, Mormeros approached Marcus and told him of Tybus' deal. Intrigued at the money-making opportunity, Marcus accepted gracefully while simultaneously dissuading Ajuni, who wanted to force Mormeros to drink a cup of piss. The thieving group entered the Roc's nest that evening along with the Steel Defender Geronimo, a large metal beetle that Tobias rode astride on. Their new tiefling companion sought to impress them, ordering a two-thousand gold bottle of wine at a table designed for twenty people, before ordering a dinner meant to fill the entire table.
Tybus approached and took them to a back room, informing them of their mission as well as their handsome reward. They would travel north to Giantsbane in the Crowncrest Mountains, and their journey would likely take them through the dangerous Underdark. On horseback, Giantsbane was more than a seven day's journey, and the group had no way of knowing how long they would have to brave the mountains and tunnels. They accepted generous payment up front, and signed contracts in blood.
Mormeros, at this point, invoked the "status" of the Fayan name and nearly provoked Tybus to the point of hostility, as his wine stunt had already racked up a 2000 gold debt to the Fayan Trading Company. He told the party he would get them mounts at High Horse Stables; magically posing as Tybus to strongarm a good deal, he had a back-and-forth conversation that confused the hell out of the old proprietor. Midway, he realized that posing as the town's most powerful hero might get him in trouble, and backpedaled heavily. Mormeros eventually paid the old man fifty gold to pretend the conversation did not happen, then came back the next morning to purchase three Draft Horses at full price.
The party bought warm clothing and mountaineering gear from Cutton's Cold Cuts, and Tobias prevented Mormeros from "investing" in the business run by the naive Halfling Hiltrude Cutton. They also bought various magical potions and a Necklace of Fireballs from Taboo, their local Starlit Hand dealer, and set off to the Forest of Stone Tooth.
Near the end of a day's journey, Geronimo was alerted by suspicious movement, and the party found themselves in a classic "fallen-tree-blocks-the-road" trap. Xuk Smashmouth, the champion from years ago who had been humiliated by Marcus, appeared atop a massive Dire Wolf; he now led a group of Orc raiders and was desperate for revenge against The Swine. With a mage at his side, his plan was to disorient the group with magical darkness, but had not anticipated Mormeros Fayan; the tiefling held a strange Spellcasting Focus that resembled a red gem of shifting magma, and dispelled the effect before the orcs could even coordinate.
They were left exposed to the whims of the high-level heroes, and Ajuni began lighting up both his raiders and the surrounding forest. As she rained fireballs, Tobias and Geronimo busted heads. After a few seconds of demolition, Xuk's mage tried to flee in fear, but a crazed Marcus took her leg out with a handaxe before holding her down and slashing her to death. The battle raged on, the fires raged faster, and Smashmouth tried to flee; however, Tobias heated the orc's chainmail, baking him inside his own armor.
Tobias then ran through their rudimentary camp and pilfered Xuk's gear. He opened a lockbox replete with money and packets of Pixie Dust, as well as the body of the dead Pixie it was drawn from. The group steadied their mounts and fled off-road as the forest burned behind them.
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