Players: Tre/Tienarth, Henry/Ferris, Nick/Azrak, Jeff/Ghevont, Oliver/Glubo, Audrey/Nebula
Into the fort rolled a fancy wagon driven by the potion master. He announced a potion-drinking contest. The rules were somewhat complicated. To play, the characters must bid on the number of swigs to take from a randomly-chosen potion. Each bid required placing a gold piece in a basket. The highest bidder was to drink. If he kept the foul liquid down, 8 tenths of the gold in the basket would be handed over.
In the first round, only two dwarfs, Azrak and Nebula, put their bids in. Azrak bid highest. He hesitated at first when handed the goatskin full of owl spittle. The potion stayed down, though, and not long after he became insubstantial. Everyone could see him, but no one could touch him. The players thought about casting invisibility on him to make him a truly invisible ghost who could spy on any number of things. Alas, Tianarth explained that the spell required touch to activate. The potion-master promised to pay the 2gp to Azrak when he recovered in a few hours.
The second round involved several other people, including a sickly fort-dweller whom no one thought should participate and a stout guard who eventually was highest bidder at 10 swigs. He, too, became insubstantial. With that, the contests were over. What other weird things could happen when drinking these odd potions? Maybe the party will get a chance to try again some day.
The party debated about potentially visiting the island of Carsea, farther north by land than they’d traveled before. The village there is small, and the story is there’s an abandoned dwarven mine on the island. Eventually, they resigned themselves to returning to the dungeon that goblins claimed as their own despite never actually being spotted within.
When they arrived at the camp spot, they found bugbear armor wrapped around a tree trunk with a bloody handprint. They puzzled over this.
Camped in the familiar crossroads, the same nobles they’d met coming south passed by going north. They were as rude as before, but no incident arose. Much later, just before dawn, a pack of bandits woke the party and demanded all gold. A human leader spoke for them, a halfling at his side. And 15 strong men stood in a group behind. Naturally, the party refused to comply and launched an attack. Globo, Nebula and Azrak surged forward to attack. Half the banding men stepped up to surround the party’s fighters. The other half turned to the right to engage Ferris who’d shot an arrow at them.
Unfortunately for the bandits, Tienarth made ready a sleep spell. Once cast, nearly all the attackers fell asleep. The halfling ran down the road into the darkness. The three bandits left awake were quickly cut down, then the sleeping bandits’ throats were cut–a bloody mess that the party left in the road as a warning. From the bandits, the party took much coin, some gems and also a nice suit of magical leather armor that was given to Ferris.
Loot bags full, the party turned around and re-entered Morgansfort.