Session 21 — Out the Gate: Ice Cream, a Salamander, and the Bandit on the Bridge

Session Recap

With the sewer errand essentially finished, the party finally turns its face toward the wall. Waking on a stone slab in the Gwyndinas Sewers (16th of Spring's End), they spend a last morning in Gwyndinas on chores — Thalia gathers a post-bag for the border, Magra gets her five arena gems identified by a gnomish gemologist, Silithane offloads a session's-old hoard of firecrackers and cadges a free familiar, and Lash shops in vain for an exotic pet — before the scheduled lunch with Eldrich the Elder. Over butterscotch ice cream and ginger beer (and under the watchful eye of his bodyguard, Squire Faethlyn), the old knight celebrates the secured Shard of the Autark deal, offers to help find the party's missing mothers, and lays out his next move: he is now homeless and leaving the city, taking a caravan beyond the Palisade to set up a base of operations closer to the war. The party privately tells him about the friendly sewer changeling they released and asks him to track it down and ally with it rather than hunt it. The meeting ends in alarm: the dead man at the doctor's lasers was a Varian, which means Varia knows about Dr. Provostinalkov — and Eldrich bolts to extract the scientist at once.

The rest of the session is a long, warm wind-down and travel montage. Draak leaves the party (Ryan stepping away; the Reclamation hauls the 24-day-old "child soldier" off to school), his gear divvied among the group. After an armor-shopping spree the party pulls their own land boat out of Gwyndinas — through rebuilt New Neaton and past the great mill of Gristgrinder — to Keraford, the heaving staging town just inside the Palisade Gate where ten thousand adventurers fight over a single bounty poster. There Lash buys and tames a smuggled Veilwood river salamander, Squishy, to pull the cart, and the party links up with Eldrich's caravan: the obvious Varian "spy" healer Tycho, the twin warrior sisters Liv & Viv, the navigator Dervin, and the now-relocated Dr. Provostinalkov (lab shrunk into a box). They pass through the wall into hostile, scorched Laewendas country — and on a bridge over a river, a crossbow ambush springs: the Southlander bandit lord Mindel Cromelon herself steps into view, wand to her throat, booming drop everything or we'll skin you alive. Session ends on the standoff.

Key Events

• The recap. Silithane walks an absent Magra (and the table) through Session 20: climbing into the surface house, knocking out and dragging down the changeling (rendered "Ektera"), mind-reading it, and realizing it was helping the Reclamation by quietly doing the jobs of slackers (e.g. the drunk, whoring Westport Dockmaster) — so they let it go, which nearly set the allied knights fighting each other until summoned mages de-escalated. He also notes Ashlyn was called back to the Veilwood (Vale's character temporarily out) and the rescue of the captive tree-healer (the missing Spirit of Nature), reunited with Wiggleus.
• Planning the exit. The whole table votes, in effect, "get beyond the wall and do our job." Thalia asks to make mail stops in the villages along the way; the Ponterford missing-children job is judged too time-lapsed to reach in time but worth seeing the aftermath of.
• Morning errands in Gwyndinas:
  • Thalia picks up a half-full post-bag of letters from worried capital families bound for Keraford and the border.
  • Magra finds a gnomish gemologist (monocle, floppy hat) who identifies her five socket-gems — a grayish-blue (cold/frost resistance), dark red, greater white, green, and greater magenta — explaining each embeds into armor/ring/weapon for a minor benefit at a small to-hit penalty (the "greater" gems carry the better trade-off). She buys rations.
  • Silithane sells ~165 gold of long-carried firecrackers for 150 (25 gold each to the party), and gets a free Find Familiar at the Mage's Society — a crow with mimicry, conjured on the guild's own components.
  • Lash hunts for an exotic animal "that reminds me of home" and finds only horses and goats.
• Lunch with Eldrich the Elder. At the booth restaurant, Eldrich sits with his bodyguard, Squire Faethlyn (young, blonde, plate-armored, pale-but-daytime-safe). He takes the transaction receipt and the failed Shard of the Autark flake, delighted the god-killing deal is sealed — the stuff, he says, that can "make a farm hand into a hero." Fearing a mole in the Reclamation who "has already betrayed us once," he resolves not to report the Shard to the Rivalonian Knights Council at all. He gives each PC a 6-pint tub of butterscotch ice cream (melts within hours) and a round of ginger beer.
  • He offers to pull strings to find the missing mothers — Magra's mother Vianola Greysong, and Thalia's Veilwood mother (unnamed).
  • Lash tells him she was conscripted by the Venatori (against Reclamation norms); he offers to file a complaint, she declines — she's happy now.
  • Eldrich's three plans: (1) stay in the capital as a fixer/spymaster, feeding the party jobs from beyond the wall; (2) lead a caravan out to found an Outskirts base (he floats Giffield or Twin Falls, 30–40 miles south of Cathalon where "the Bitch Queen" Laewendas hides); (3) a third plan held back "for a rainy day."
• The changeling pitch. Lash sends Faethlyn to guard the door, then quietly tells Eldrich about the friendly changeling they released; Silithane lets him read its captured thoughts off a coin. Eldrich — wary it could replace him, reassured it's not that grade — resolves to find and ally with it via a Varian spy network, leveraging the party's goodwill into its trust. He'll have the seized forgery documents returned to help.
• The Varian alarm. Silithane names the lasered dead man — "Franz Sands Aylwater," a Varian name. Eldrich realizes Varia already knows about Dr. Provostinalkov, panics, and rushes off with Faethlyn to extract the scientist immediately.
• Draak departs. Reclamation officers collect the 24-day-old Drak ("we can't do child soldiers") for "daycare." Ryan is stepping away from the campaign (after Kain and Drak, "maybe I'm just not feeling it"). His gear is divvied: 120 gold split (24 each), his minor/basic healing potions, and his high-roll Pirate's Greatsword left on him in case he returns. The land boat stays with the party.
• Armor & downtime shopping (the party declines to formally join the caravan but will meet it at Keraford):
  • Fenric: Reinforced Leather Armor (100 g) → AC 19/20 with shield + subclass.
  • Thalia: Brigandine (275 g) → AC 18.
  • Magra: Copper full plate (AC 17, crafted by Lash — "lashed armor," reduces slashing damage by 1) plus a tower shield (40 g); bins her kite shield.
  • Silithane: a Shrouded Doublet (35 g) — doesn't look like armor, +1 stealth.
• Thalia's apology gift. Before leaving, Thalia sends an "edible arrangement" — fruit skewers, flowers, and daggers — to Sir Braille (the spiked-armor squire) for dragging him into the shapeshifter mess.
• The road out. The party pulls the land boat themselves (a comedic sight) through New Neaton (rebuilt on the riverbank after Old Neaton's cliff collapse) and up past the great hilltop windmill Gristgrinder that feeds the whole Palisade, reaching Keraford. Magra relays intel from her sister Dwin's group — a forest portal near Gristgrinder was reactivated during a blood-mage investigation, and a dangerous creature came through (a liability if Laewendas ever controls one and slips a force behind the wall).
• Keraford. The famous scene of 50–100 idle adventurers stampeding a nervous 12-year-old over a single bounty poster (a salt-and-pepper halfling parkours to it first — for a missing-rabbit job). Thalia earns 6 gold for three days' mail work and goes recruiting a hireling at the tavern; the party will collaboratively design the new companion, who'll catch up on the road.
• The salamander. Out to find the caravan's navigator Durahan, the party instead stumbles on the beast-tamer Dervin — a scruffy, unibrowed young man — hosing down a smuggled Veilwood river salamander in a pond. Lash, alarmed it'll turn feral without the calming song her people sing, buys it for 100 gold (making Dervin promise to stop raising them), names it Squishy, and stays an extra night teaching it the song. It'll pull the land boat.
• Joining the caravan (18th of Spring's End). Eldrich arrives in travel armor leading ~15 people. The party meets:
  • Tycho — a transparently bad Varian spy posing as the caravan healer (real green-glow healing, a treasured 25-year-old "Healer of the Year 1372" certificate). Silithane forgery-checks it: the certificate is genuine but the supervising trainer's stamp has been meticulously erased, scrubbing Tycho's past. A "Reclamation officer Dormers" name-drop draws no reaction.
  • Liv & Viv (Olivia & Vivian) — twin warrior sisters, one armored, one a bare-knuckle brawler, who roughhouse constantly; Magra bonds with them and weathers an awkward "Fuji" refugee-slur moment.
  • Dr. Provostinalkov — out of the sewer, who claims he shrank his entire lab into a box (and plans to invent a "larging ray" to rebuild it). Squire Rowan is also along.
  • Durahan — the scarred ex-prisoner-of-war Rivalonian navigator, an old friend of Eldrich's, hired in Keraford to keep the caravan on the safe roads (and the spare horses). (He will be unmasked as the bandits' traitor next session.)
• Beyond the wall. The caravan crosses into hostile Laewendas land: torched farms, salted fields, Reclamation soldiers hanged from the signposts. They reach a crossroads near the still-living settlement of Marmoth.
• The cliffhanger ambush. Crossing a stone bridge over a river, the caravan is boxed in — crossbowmen on the high ground, club-goons fore and aft. The Southlander bandit lord Mindel Cromelon (long brown braids, pointed elven ears, mixed plate, spellbook, voice-amplifying wand) steps into view and booms: drop the carts, drop the weapons, "or we'll skin you alive." Session ends on the standoff.

Combat & Encounters

• No combat resolved this session. The bridge ambush by Mindel Cromelon is the cliffhanger — the parley/fight is deferred to next session. The party is pinned mid-bridge with a kill-box of crossbowmen above and club-armed bandits at both ends.
• No party casualties. The session was downtime, roleplay, and travel.

NPCs & Factions

• Eldrich the Elder — central to the session. The Shard deal is sealed; he gifts ice cream, offers to find the party's mothers, and unveils his plan to leave the capital with a caravan and base nearer the war. He commits to tracking down and allying with the friendly changeling via Varian spy contacts, and panics when he learns Varia already knows about the doctor. Now the leader of the caravan the party travels with.
• Squire Faethlyn — new note: Eldrich's young, blonde, plate-armored bodyguard; pale and vampire-adjacent yet sun-safe. A rigid Knight's Code thinker ("no exceptions for shapeshifters"), combat-extraordinary but socially green; Eldrich calls her a promising student who "must sharpen her thinking mind." Travels in the caravan.
• Dr. Provostinalkov — extracted from the Gwyndinas Sewers by Eldrich, who showed him his own note and warned of Varian interference. He claims to have shrunk his lab into a box; cleaned up, sun-squinting, still socially oblivious. Now a protected member of the caravan, to resume making the Shard of the Autark at the new base.
• The Sewer Changeling — not present, but pivotal: per the recap it was released ("Ektera"), and the party now actively wants Eldrich to befriend it. He'll pursue it as a covert asset.
• Tycho — new note: the caravan's "healer," an obvious Varian spy (real healing magic; certificate with the trainer's stamp deliberately erased). Harmless-seeming, comic, and watched.
• Liv and Viv — new note: Olivia and Vivian, twin warrior sisters in the caravan (one armored melee, one unarmed brawler), inseparable and rough-and-tumble. Magra's instant friends.
• Durahan — new note: the scarred, ex-prisoner-of-war Rivalonian navigator (and old friend of Eldrich's) hired in Keraford to guide the caravan along the safe roads. Distinct from the beast-tamer Dervin — two different men our earlier draft had conflated.
• Mindel Cromelon — new note: the Southlander bandit lord under Laewendas, appearing in person at last to ambush the caravan; confirmed elven, armed with a spellbook and a voice-amplifying wand.
• Dervin — the nervous young Keraford beast-tamer who sold Lash the salamander, dreading the knight at his door would jail him for the smuggled Veilwood creature; a kindly exotic-animal handler, not the caravan navigator. (Name also rendered "Durvan"/"Durban"; the GM once slipped "Daewynn".)
• Squire Rowan ("Ruin") — the inner-city gate guard from Session 17, now traveling in the caravan (mentioned only in passing).
• Reclamation / Venatori — the Reclamation Concord/treaty is re-emphasized as the party leaves: they must hold a higher standard than the bandits (no attacking commoners, honor scores enforced). Lash reconfirms the Venatori conscripted her against Reclamation norms.

Locations

• Gwyndinas — the morning of errands (gemologist, Mage's Society, firecracker fences, the Eldrich lunch) before the party leaves the capital, likely for good this arc.
• Keraford — new note: the riverside staging town just inside the Palisade Gate, where every adventuring group out of Rivalon resupplies. So flooded with adventurers that its bounty board is permanently empty and every spare room, shed and attic is rented out ("adventurer Airbnb"). The party stages here, recruits a hireling, and meets the caravan.
• New Neaton — new note: a moderately-sized riverbank settlement one day from Gwyndinas, rebuilt after Old Neaton was lost to a cliff collapse; the "in-betweeners'" town, with its own smiths, inns and quest boards.
• Gristgrinder — new note: the enormous hilltop windmill granary that feeds most of the Palisade; its sails spin alarmingly fast in the Rivalonian wind. (Likely the same Gristgrinder whose owner's signature was forged on Silithane's leaving-papers in Session 15.)
• The Palisade — new note: the protective wall and gated frontier enclosing the Reclamation's safe zone in Rivalon; passage out requires earned signatures and adherence to the Concord. Beyond it lies torched, hostile Laewendas country — burned farms, salted fields, hanged Reclamation soldiers.
• Marmoth — a still-living crossroads settlement beyond the wall (named in passing).
• Veilwood — not visited, but it remains the destination and the source of Lash's salamander; Ashlyn has been recalled there. Fenric flags that silver is outlawed in the Veilwood, a wrinkle for whenever the party finally enters.

Loot, Items & Rewards

• Magra's five gems identified — grayish-blue (frost resistance), dark red, greater white, green, and greater magenta; each socketable into armor/ring/weapon for a minor effect at a small to-hit penalty.
• Armor upgrades — Fenric's reinforced leather, Thalia's brigandine, Magra's Lash-forged copper full plate ("lashed armor," −1 slashing) and tower shield, Silithane's shrouded doublet.
• Silithane's free familiar — a mimicry-capable crow, conjured on the Mage's Society's components.
• Firecracker sale — ~150 gold for the old hoard (25 each).
• Draak's inheritance — 120 gold split 24 apiece, two healing potions, and his Pirate's Greatsword (3d6 high-roll) left on him pending his possible return.
• Squishy — a tamed Veilwood river salamander (10 ft, ~28 HP, venomous, aquatic), bought for 100 gold to pull the land boat; comes with a beast-tamer's kit (collar, hat, toys, clicker, treats).
• Eldrich's gifts — butterscotch ice cream (perishable) and ginger beer all round.
• Mail wages — Thalia earns 6 gold for three days' delivery work.

Decisions & Open Threads

• The caravan is the party's vehicle out. Rather than join formally, the party meets Eldrich's caravan at Keraford and now travels with it beyond the wall toward an Outskirts base near Cathalon — with the Veilwood still the longer-term heading.
• The bridge standoff. The immediate cliffhanger: parley, fight, or surrender to Mindel Cromelon — the party is pinned mid-bridge against a superior position.
• A hireling incoming. The party is collaboratively designing a new front-line companion recruited in Keraford, to catch up on the road.
• Eldrich's changeling hunt. He means to find and ally with the released changeling — and to keep the Shard of the Autark secret from the Reclamation's suspected traitor until it's safe.
• Varia is in the game. The Varian dead man at the lab ("Franz Sands Aylwater") proves Varia is running its own play on the island and knows about Dr. Provostinalkov — a faction wrinkle the party and Eldrich now have to manage.
• Tycho's scrubbed past. Someone deliberately erased the human link in Tycho's training record. Who he really reports to (Eldrich? the doctor? someone else) is open.
• Roster shrinks. Draak is gone (Ryan away) and Ashlyn recalled to the Veilwood — the party is down to Thalia, Fenric, Silithane, Lash and Magra (plus Squishy and the incoming hireling).
• Carryover threads: the missing mothers (Vianola Greysong; Thalia's tree-mother); the reactivated forest portal; Lash's in-progress auricalcum hammer; the Smiling Sam case and blood-mage Rhys Wengler; Ankley Island the sealed prison; Ponterford's missing children; whether Draak (or his absence) leaves any Kain threads loose.

Memorable Moments

• The empty Keraford bounty board: a hundred bloodied veterans bodychecking each other to reach a terrified 12-year-old's single poster, won by a parkouring halfling — for a missing-rabbit job.
• Eldrich eating "outside food I brought of my own accord" — six tubs of butterscotch ice cream — in a restaurant, while a jealous Squire Faethlyn glares from the bar behind a deliberate curtain of hair.
• Magra testing the new healer by stabbing her own palm with a crossbow bolt — and a horrified Tycho: "Through the palm of all places, woman, are you mad?"
• Lash gravely warning a beast-tamer that his pet will eat his arm if he never learned the song — then spending a whole night singing to a salamander in a paddling pool.
• The running joke that Tycho is the world's most obvious spy ("an amalgamation of Michael and the wrong letter"), capped by: "Tycho's not a Laewendas spy, okay guys?" / "He's just a regular spy."
• Draak's gentle exit — carted off to "daycare" because the Reclamation "can't do child soldiers" — and the party deciding to leave his giant greatsword on him "in case he comes back."
• The doctor cheerfully explaining he shrank his entire lab into a box and will simply invent a "larging ray" later, delivered so confidently no one can tell if he's joking.
• Magra discovering the entire table thought platinum was 100 gold all campaign — "No, everything's 10 in D&D, I think."