Session 22 — A Toll on the Bridge, a Footprint on the Road, and the Inn at the Crossroads

Session Recap

The bridge standoff from Session 21 is settled not with steel but with bluff and barter. Eldrich the Elder buys time from the bandit lord Mindel Cromelon, lays the party's options on the table, formally challenges her to an honorable one-on-one duel (she refuses with a shrug and a newspaper), and finally bargains safe passage: she takes three of the caravan's six carts — all of them decoy trash — while Liv & Viv quietly sleight-of-hand the cart holding Dr. Provostinalkov out of the three she points to. Mindel needles the old knight that his "slain" children may yet be alive, and as the bandits melt away the party realizes their hired guide and navigator Durahan was the traitor who sold the route. They part with one-star reviews and a plan: fake a turn toward Penway under Thalia's Pass Without a Trace, double back, and push north toward Ponterford (passing near Cathalon) while Eldrich keeps dithering over where to seat his secret base.

On the road they crest a hill onto a Reclamation militia camp grieving Tony, a scout flattened two-dimensional inside a single giant's footprint — the work of Cormoran, one of Laewendas's bandit lords, a giant so large he leaps across the land. Here the party meets the session's newcomer: Jex (Nat's new character), an amnesiac orange Oozen slime archer attached to the troop. After burying Tony, the troop dissolves — one scout leaves to become a Venatori, Jex joins the caravan — and the group reaches the Keep Grow Inn at a war-torn crossroads by dusk. There they trade riddles with a 200-year-old philosopher, comfort a mud-haired orphan whose mother was hanged by the local Laewendas brute Guilford, learn of the many-handed cave beast Grabbler (100-gold bounty) and the grim truth of Ponterford's drowned children, and watch the inn's stable master cave in spy Tichael's skull at Lash's nod — costing the caravan its only healer. The session ends with four roads open.

Key Events

• The bridge parley. Eldrich asks Mindel Cromelon for time to confer; she kicks out a stool, sits, and unfolds a newspaper. He walks the party through the options: fight (only viable if not one bandit escapes to spread word of a 20-strong group felling Mindel's ambush), flee down the rapids in the boat (abandoning the rest), or haggle passage. He reveals three of his five-or-six carts are decoy garbage he's happy to cut loose; only the one carrying Dr. Provostinalkov "we cannot spare."
• Lash's bluff. Chatting up a club-wielding goon, Lash claims the caravan hides an archmage who could collapse the cliff and kill every archer plus a mage-hunter (Fenric) — and passes the deception. The goon nervously scans the carts for a star-robed wizard, can't find one, and believes her anyway. (She cheerfully admits afterward she was just messing with him.)
• Thalia reads Mindel. An insight check (18) paints her: young, an opportunist, born and raised into Laewendas's bandit-lord society, never having known a Rivalon without the usurper; capable, rat-like, holding her last slivers of land against the Reclamation. Her cruel jab at Eldrich about his children is either pure spite or a coded handoff that they live — and whether she'll honor the deal (or follow their tracks by night) is unknowable.
• The duel and the deal. Eldrich challenges Mindel to single honorable combat for passage; she flatly declines. They settle: she takes three of the carts and none of the boat. She recognizes him — "You're Eldrich, aren't you… Looking for your kids, I guess" — and when he says his children were slain in the war, she counters "That's not true… Did you watch them die?" Faethlyn steps in to steady him. Liv & Viv repackage the carts, performing a slick swap so the scientist's cart is not among the three taken.
• The traitor revealed. As the party leaves, the navigator and horse-master Durahan — the scarred former-POW guide hired in Keraford and introduced as "an old friend of Eldrich's" — stands with the goons and is handed back his bat and bandit mask: he sold out the route. (The GM rendered his name "Dermahan/Derman" at the table and briefly mixed him up with Dervin, the unrelated Keraford beast-tamer who sold Lash the salamander — they are two different men.) The party awards him "zero stars… we'll compromise, one star"; he answers by flicking a bogey at Thalia (Dex save, glancing).
• The misdirection plan. The party decides to fake a left turn toward Penway under Thalia's hour-long Pass Without a Trace, then double back so their tracks vanish on the wrong road and reappear on the right one. (Ironically pointless — the guide never knew the destination, because Eldrich never picked one.) They aim north for Ponterford (Silithane's missing-children job, and close enough to scout Cathalon); Eldrich still weighs Giffield (favored), Marmoth, and others for his base. Time: 11 AM.
• Random encounter — the giant's footprint (≈6 PM). Cresting a hill, the party finds 3–4 Reclamation militia investigating a horror: a mounted scout, Tony, squished flat — two-dimensional — with his horse inside a single giant footprint. There are only two prints, ~100 ft apart: the giant leapt. Fenric's investigation (25) confirms the triple-jump theory; the heel-to-toe points northeast (toward Marmoth), while the party heads northwest. A two-faced signpost marks the border: they are leaving Mindel's land and entering Cormoran's — confirming Cormoran is a giant bandit lord of Laewendas, "as large as a keep."
• Jex joins. The newcomer — an amnesiac, slightly-translucent orange Oozen slime in humanoid shape (leather armor, a recurve bow, hair that's just shaped goop) — is one of the militia scouts. Found washed up on a beach near South Shore (~30 miles south) about four months ago by the late Tony, she remembers nothing before. Her troop: leader Jordane, the attachment-prone George/Georgeworth, the grieving Carmichael, and the lost Tony and Gareth. (Per the militia, similar slime-creatures of unknown origin exist in the Veilwood.)
• Burying Tony. Jex takes the lead — fetching her standard-issue shovel and starting the grave, with George and the salamander helping dig, then shoveling the smushed remains across; Carmichael throws in a journal he and Tony kept of their post-war dreams and a wildflower; Magra plays a mourning song on her ocarina.
• The troop dissolves. Inspired by Lash's talk of the Venatori, Carmichael resolves to leave for the Veilwood to become a monster-hunter. Jex comforts the grieving George at the grave (and lets him believe she'll be "back") and hugs Carmichael goodbye; Jordane then trades Jex to Eldrich's caravan for two caravan guards (who reluctantly accept a life "in the woods"), and hands Jex a special arrow — "save this for something that matters." George, who can't grasp goodbyes, is told it's a training exercise.
• The Keep Grow Inn (≈7:30 PM). A one-and-a-half-story crossroads inn between three war-footing settlements, run by a nervous, deliberately neutral barkeep (Radek) who wants no part of the war. Outside: refugees sleeping under the cart-shelter, an eager adventurer at the bounty board, a robed thinker on a rock. Inside: two rowdy Laewendas goons pranking the waitress, two men whispering to arrange "a time and a date," the trapper Averick nursing water, and Guilford snoring in the corner. The party tucks away its signets — open Reclamation colors here would start a fight. A Herald of Laewendas tolls a bell every three waking hours, praising Queen Laewendas's "splendor" (9 AM, noon, 3, 6, 9 PM, midnight).
• The philosopher. Magra and Silithane meet a ~200-year-old robed thinker who poses riddles — the unanswerable question ("Yes"), the weightless stone (one weighing), the moral-claim cube ("which face is the lie?"), the hourglass-handle door (turn it sideways) — and rewards them with his hand-written book of riddles and a wearable trinket that makes the wearer "less stupid." His lore: Laewendas burned the schools and culls the clever youth, leaving only the sick, old, and deformed for the Reclamation to heal and house beyond the wall; he has twice watched the dragon (Bael'Drakkor) gather its hoard (last in 1300, having voyaged to the cold north to witness it).
• Barry the orphan. Thalia befriends a small girl with wheat-colored hair keeping vigil at her dead mother's grave by the inn. Her mother told her to put mud in her hair because "Guilford's a bad man." Barry mentions the 13 island witches and asks Thalia point-blank if she's "the blood witch" (whom she'd have to fight). Thalia grows the grave's flowers with Druidcraft; Barry decides she can trust anyone "not named Tycho."
• Guilford. The local head of Laewendas's outpost — 7 ft tall, 6 ft wide, "big as a bear" — strings up women with wheat-colored hair who spurn him (or whom he imagines spurned him). Magra learns from the rumor mill that a dozen elves, many wheat-haired, have been hanged, and dreads it touches her elf-healer mother. Guilford wakes at the Herald's toll and starts working his "charm" on a married fair-haired woman.
• The trapper's leads. The goateed local trapper Averick (whom Silithane briefly mistakes for being addressed as "Aethelric" — Radek's name for him) tells Silithane of the Grabbler: a many-handed beast in the nearby Gray Veil Cave (once a human dwelling before Laewendas took the crown), which has killed several of the queen's drunk men and carries a 100-gold bounty. He marks the cave on the party's map. He also confirms Ponterford's curse: abducted children return waterlogged and dead, "drug down beneath the water," on the first of the month — and only those with sons or daughters are at risk.
• Lash smiths; Tichael dies. Lash agrees to forge the stable master 3 copper horseshoes overnight by the trough. Meanwhile Tichael keeps badly spying through the inn windows (and "talking to a horse"); Thalia chases him off and finds him reading last rites at a child's grave. When Lash confirms to the stable master that Tichael is a spy, the stable master sledgehammers him unconscious and — Lash declining to stop him — caves his skull in ("Only good spy is a dead spy"). Lash loots him and plans (vetoed) to feed the body to Squishy. The caravan has lost its only healer.
• Session close. The GM lays out next session's roads — Ponterford (drowned children, first of the month), Marmoth (Cormoran lore), Giffield (seat Eldrich's base), or the Gray Veil Cave (the Grabbler) — and will prep Ponterford and the cave. Cross-table: the parallel "red" group killed Smiling Sam in the sewers; a player, Nico, may also join next session to bring the party "back to full power."

Combat & Encounters

• No combat this session. The session's central threat — the Mindel Cromelon bridge ambush — is resolved by parley, bluff, and a paid toll (three decoy carts), not blows. The party never rolls initiative.
• The giant's footprint is an aftermath scene: the giant Cormoran had already killed the militia scout Tony (and his horse) by landing on them overnight. No giant appears on screen.
• The only killing is the inn stable master executing Tichael with a sledgehammer at Lash's tacit go-ahead — an off-combat death of the caravan's own (spy) healer.
• No party casualties. Losses are NPC: Tony (militia, to Cormoran) and Tichael (caravan healer, to the stable master).

NPCs & Factions

• Mindel Cromelon — appears in full this session. Refuses Eldrich's honorable duel, takes a three-cart toll, and lets the caravan pass — but reads as a young, capable opportunist who may yet track the party by night. Her taunt that Eldrich's children live cuts deep and may be a deliberate, cruel "gift" of information.
• Durahan — unmasked as the traitor: the scarred former-POW navigator/guide hired in Keraford (an "old friend of Eldrich's") sold the caravan's route to Mindel and now stands openly among her goons. An enemy from here on. Not to be confused with Dervin, the separate Keraford beast-tamer who sold Lash the salamander.
• Cormoran — a giant bandit lord of Laewendas, "as large as a keep," who leaps across the land and crushes whatever he lands on. Killed the scout Tony. Holds the territory north of Mindel's; the people of Marmoth suffer him most and pay him a pittance to be left alone (as does the inn).
• Jex — party: Nat's character, an amnesiac Oozen slime archer found near South Shore by the militia. Joins the caravan from the dissolving scout troop; leads the burial of Tony and farewells her old squad.
• The militia troop — one-scene: leader Jordane, the attachment-prone George/Georgeworth, and the grieving Carmichael, who leaves to train as a Venatori in the Veilwood. Tony (squished by Cormoran) and Gareth (lost to bandits last week) are dead. Kept to this note.
• The philosopher — a ~200-year-old robed thinker outside the inn; trades riddles for nothing and gifts the party his book of riddles and an intellect-boosting trinket. Lore-bearer on Laewendas's culling of the clever and the dragon's hoard. One-scene (kept here).
• Guilford — the head of the local Laewendas outpost at the inn; a bear-sized brute who hangs wheat-haired women who reject him. A standing threat to Magra's missing elf mother and the orphan Barry's late mother.
• Barry — the wheat-haired orphan girl keeping vigil at her hanged mother's grave; befriended by Thalia. Drops the 13 island witches / "blood witch" lore. One-scene but pointed (kept here).
• Averick — the goateed local trapper who relays the Grabbler and Ponterford leads and marks the cave on the map, then leaves for "a bath and sleep." Briefly addressed as "Aethelric" by the barkeep (a name slip). One-scene (kept here).
• The barkeep (Radek) — the deliberately neutral keeper of the Keep Grow Inn, surviving on a war crossroads by picking no side. (See the inn's note.)
• Tichael — killed this session. The least-subtle spy in the world is finally undone — not by the party, but by the inn's stable master — after Lash confirms he's a spy. The caravan loses its healer.
• Eldrich the Elder — runs the bridge parley with grudging skill, protects the scientist's cart, and still won't fix his base (Giffield favored). Cannot enter the inn (a famous anti-Laewendas knight would start a brawl), so he waits with the parked caravan; takes Jex into the caravan when the militia trades her over.
• Liv & Viv — perform the sleight-of-hand cart swap that saves Dr. Provostinalkov.
• Faethlyn — steadies Eldrich when Mindel's taunt about his children lands.
• Venatori — invoked by Lash to the militia; inspires Carmichael to leave and seek them out in the Veilwood.

Locations

• The bridge — the Session-21 cliffhanger, resolved by toll.
• Cormoran's territory — the road north of Mindel's land, marked by a two-faced signpost and a giant's footprint; the giant's tracks head northeast toward Marmoth.
• The Keep Grow Inn — a 1.5-story crossroads inn in the Outskirts between three war-torn settlements, run by a neutral barkeep; refuge for refugees, watering-hole for Laewendas's local goons.
• Gray Veil Cave — the nearby cave (once inhabited) now lair to the many-handed Grabbler; a 100-gold bounty target, marked on the party's map by Averick. (Covered in the Grabber's note.)
• Ponterford — the town north of the inn where children vanish and return drowned on the first of the month; the party's tentative next stop.
• South Shore — the beach ~30 miles south where the militia found Jex; also one of Eldrich's mooted base sites.
• Giffield / Marmoth — Eldrich's candidate base settlements near Cathalon (Giffield favored, a small farming community).

Loot, Items & Rewards

• The philosopher's book of riddles and a wearable "less stupid" trinket (a Headband-of-Intellect-style item) — given to Magra and Silithane for solving his puzzles; offered to whoever in the party would benefit most.
• Jordane's special arrow — handed to Jex with "save this for something that matters."
• Tichael's loot (after his execution) — an over-tall helmet (smashed), a real reliquary with a scrap of religious tapestry (a faith he only pretended to), a brass censer with incense cones, 11 silver and 70 copper, partially-destroyed splint mail, a kite/"cow" shield, and a book of information.
• 3 copper horseshoes — Lash forges them overnight for the inn's stable master.
• A bottle of wine (the inn's only one, 4 silver) — bought by Fenric; crispy potatoes and drinks all round (3 copper a head).

Decisions & Open Threads

• Four roads, one choice (the cliffhanger). Next session the party picks among Ponterford (drowned children, first of the month), Marmoth (Cormoran lore), Giffield (seat Eldrich the Elder's base), or the Gray Veil Cave (the 100-gold Grabbler). The GM will prep Ponterford and the cave.
• Mindel may still pursue. The party laid a Pass Without a Trace misdirection toward Penway against a night ambush; "getting rid of her" was one of their standing aims.
• The traitor Durahan is now openly with the bandits — a loose enemy who knows the party.
• No healer. Killing Tichael leaves Eldrich the Elder's caravan without its only healer — a self-inflicted consequence (and the loss of a Varian spy whose handler was never identified).
• Magra's mother. Refined to heading for Baelheim / the cold north ~3–4 months ago — a wheat-haired elf, now in country where Guilford is hanging wheat-haired elves. The stakes on finding her have sharpened.
• Roster. Jex (Nat) joins this session, replacing the Keraford hireling slot; a player, Nico, may join next session to bring the party "back to full power." Ashlyn remains recalled to the Veilwood; Draak is gone and Ryan has left the campaign (he is not present from this session on).
• Cross-table. The parallel "red" group killed Smiling Sam in the sewers (per Magra, who plays in both groups).
• Carryover: the Grabbler bounty; Cormoran/Marmoth giant lore; Eldrich's undecided Outskirts base (Giffield); the Veilwood still the longer-term heading; Lash's in-progress auricalcum hammer; the missing mothers (Magra's Vianola Greysong; Thalia's tree-mother).

Memorable Moments

• Eldrich formally challenging a bandit lord to honorable single combat — and Mindel just unfolding her newspaper and shrugging.
• Mindel's bone-deep cruelty: "Did you watch them die?" — and Faethlyn's quiet hand on the old knight's shoulder.
• The party's one-star Yelp review of the traitor Durahan, answered with a flicked bogey and a Dex save.
• "Deaf Tony on his deaf horse" — the table reverse-engineering how you fail to dodge a giant ("it sounds like it's coming from everywhere"), and the soldier standing two-dimensional in a single footprint, bunion-prints and all.
• Jex interrogating her own squad about herself — "Have you found any people like me before?" — until the GM gives up: "Why am I telling you about you?"
• Magra's ocarina dirge over Tony's grave, and Carmichael burying the book of post-war dreams he and Tony wrote together.
• The 200-year-old philosopher who shuts his eyes to make you cease to exist — "If you don't perceive them, they no longer exist" — and pays out a "less stupid" trinket for solving his puzzles.
• Thalia's grim pact with Silithane: if a giant's foot is descending, kill her quick — "I'd rather die to you than to this."
• Mud-haired Barry: "Your name's not Tycho, so I can trust you."
• The world's worst spy finally dying — not to the party but to a stable master with a sledgehammer ("Only good spy is a dead spy") — with Lash declining the chance to stop it.