Welcome to a new series of Charleys Quest.
Storyteller Charley, who improvised the story as he went along after flicking through his Loke Battle Mats books set 1 Dungeons and set 2 Towns&Taverns which he got for Christmas.
Quest One: the Trident
CHARACTERS
Brantus, Captain of a Merchant Ship
Ursula, Nature Witch
Li, a civilised Barbarian Adventurer
Archer, a Bowman (mysterious backstory)
Sam, a Halfling Chef
Two wizards arguing loudly about the right way to cast a spell and anything else they can think to argue about (“in my 136 years of wizardry...” purple hat wizard
“in my 293 years of wizardry...” skull hat wizard)
Two Door Guards
Two Dancing girls
Young Barmaid who looks like a man and flirts with punters
Old Barmaid who does everything, serves at tables
A hobbit talking with Rufus the Inns huge mastiff next to the fire
(“You’re cute, aw you love me, licking my face tickles” hobbit
“You taste nice, I’m going to eat you in your sleep” the dog)
A zombie
Two of the Kings GraveGuards
A Grave Gremlin
A swarm of eight Grave Gremlins acting as one creature
Sea Beast (a giant crab thing)
Baby Water Dragon
PLOT
Sam the Hobbit Chef, barman of the Sharp Axe Inn hires four adventurers to retrieve a wooden chest purportedly floating off the shore some way from here to the NorthWest. The chest is said to contain a magical Trident which can control the sea. They will be paid 3000 gold between them for returning the trident to him.
OUTSIDE THE INN
Brantus approaches the Inn, his ship recently docked in the port.
“Papers” asserts the Door Guard.
Brantus asks if he doesn’t recognise his famous beard and swarthy reputation as an honest merchant.
The door guard calls him a pirate and says no pirates allowed.
Brantus shows him papers from the Sailors Guild which say he is an honest trader.
Brantus asks the Guards for their papers because he doesn’t know if they’re on the Inn payroll or simply loitering outside the front of the building.
Guards call for Sam the Hobbit Chef out of the Inn who verifies the Guards are genuine.
IN THE INN
Brantus enters the inn and looks at everyone in there, looking beyond the two sexy dancers near the doorway who bring punters into the Inn to spend money on beer and decides to approach instead two other women who are talking at a table.
Brantus has mind to hire them if they’re willing, he needs new crew for his ship since docking some of the old crew have left and he’s short. Besides these two look like adventurers which is useful.
Brantus at the bar asks Sam the Chef for a bottle of fine wine and lays 2 coins for it. He takes it to the women’s table and asks if he can join them to share the wine.
Old Barmaid asks if there is anything they need. Brantus asks if the women have eaten in the past few days and offers to buy them food. The food today is Rabbit-Bear stew, freshly caught.
Rabbit-Bears are a problem, they jump on roofs of houses and collapse them, it’s why the town is rebuilt of stone now ever since they moved into the area and it’s why there are so many old ruins all over the place.
The two women are Li the civilised barbarian and Ursula a nature witch.
As they eat their meal and drink the wine, they overhear Archer ask Sam if there is any work going.
Sam tells a story about a wooden chest containing a magical trident with power to control the sea, to be found to the NorthWest. Sam wants it and will pay handsomely for it 3000 gold coins.
Brantus asks Sam to prove he has the money. Sam retrieves a chest and shows him the money. Brantus asks how nobody robs him. Sam reminds him of the guards outside the Inn. Brantus concedes.
AT THE COAST
The party arrives at a ruined stone building and paved area which has steps leading down to the sea. The building is on a cliff top. Between them and the building is an old stone bridge over a rift which is filled with water.
Brantus accidentally steps on a gravestone. There are many gravestones here. The gravestone is thrown open. A zombie climbs out. Brantus steps back behind Li, the warrior woman he has hired to protect him.
“Who dares disturb the rest of the dead?” Asks a GraveGuard from close by, surprising them.
“Oh no we’re surrounded by zombies!” Says Brantus. “Quick, kill them!”
Li chops a zombi in half with one stroke of her greatsword because the combat system in Brains&Brawn is fast and lethal. A combat is resolved with two comparative dice rolls, the result of which is the difference is deducted from the losers Brawn points. The gory damage is explained through storytelling.
“Hey how dare you desecrate the graves! That corpse is the great great grandfather of the Kings cousin!” Shouts the angry GraveGuard. He pushes Brantus.
Brantus places his small pistol crossbow in the GraveGuards mouth and pulls the trigger. The guy is instantly dead.
“Hey!” Shouts another GraveGuard from the far end of the bridge. “How dare you go around murdering the Kings Guards protecting this graveyard and the respectable ancestors buried here!”
“Another zombie! Kill the other zombi!” Shouts Brantus.
Li charges over and again, slices the GraveGuard in half.
“You know what? I don’t think all of them are zombies.” Says Archer.
“Nobody cares. Let’s throw all the bodies in the sea before they get up and cause us any more problems.” Brantus walks over the bridge. As soon as he gets half way a small gangrenous looking creature with horns, spindly arms and legs and a fat round body bounces over and cackles at him.
“Oh dear! Yuck what is that atrocious thing?”
Li drop kicks the creature into the ruins where it lands on the top of a spiral stairwell descending into the ground and bounces down the steps.
“Nice!”
Abruptly a small swarm of the creatures acting as one pounce toward Li and Brantus.
“Not nice!”
Li hacks at the creatures as they jibber about not crossing their bridge. They’re fast and function as a swarm, although she strikes one it barely slows their attack.
Archer shouts over, to look behind them. He notched his bow. Behind them a huge version of the same GraveGremlins, the MotherGraveGremlin, is approaching. It is angry that the characters are desecrating their graveyard.
Ursula runs over to stand in the middle of the bridge. Using her power she shines a green light around which repels undead creatures. The swarm are caught inside the light, instantly they crumble to dust. The MotherGraveGremlin retreats back to wherever she came from, fading as she sinks into the ground.
“Wow!”
The team explore the ruin. Brantus waits with Archer while the women descend into the spiral stairway. Moments later they return.
“This place is old. Landslide and rain have blocked the passage.”
“Hey look over there, out at sea there is a chest floating. It must be the one Sam the Hobbit Chef hired us to find!” Says Archer who has been looking out to sea.
The team move along the cliff edge to the steps and descend. Brantus instructs everyone to get ready in case anything bad is in the water. He waded toward the chest. Sure enough a Sea Beast is seen heading toward him.
Archer peppers it with arrows so Brantus pulls its body to the steps which descend further down into the water. Then he retrieves the chest. Made of wood it floats however it was tethered to a rope. He cuts the rope and they haul it up the steps to open it.
Inside the chest is a small Sea Dragon which flutters up and circles around the chest within reach of the group.
“If anyone harms it I will kill you!” Shouts Ursula. She makes cooing noises and mumbles gleefully “aw how cute” and “it’s lovely!” Then she uses her magic again to place an enchantment on the Sea Dragon to make it like her. It lands in her arms, she hugs onto it as grips her and smiles, moving its head around her face happily.
The team discuss the lack of a trident in the chest. Ursula decided to name the baby sea dragon “Trident.”
Ursula asks the baby’s sea dragon “Where is the trident? Go fetch us the trident, boy.” The creature flies into the air and back the way they came.
The team decide to make a camp, recover their energy and roast up the dead sea monster for their dinner. They discuss returning to Sam the hobbit chef and demand he pay them anyway for the hardships they’ve faced on his behalf, at least some of the promised money, despite the rumoured trident not being there after all.
After two hours of exploring the area, resting, discussing their plan, they hear a shriek from the skies and are surprised to see the baby dragon return with the fat hobbit Sam the Chef in its claws!
The dragon drops Sam down between them. He is understandably angry and upset. After calming him down and preventing him from attacking the baby sea dragon, they interrogate Sam about the situation.
The fat angry hobbit explains he was simply serving at the bar when the dragon flew in, grabbed him, dragged him outside and flew away with him through a cold windy journey for the longest time until it dropped him down here.
The team explain to Sam that the Dragon flew out of the chest he has employed them to find, but there is no trident.
Sam is still annoyed and attempts to attack the dragon again. The party protect the dragon and tell Sam to calm down. Then they ask him if he still intends to pay them anything for all the danger they have gone through.
Sam explains that with no trident they have failed their mission so he owes them nothing. They explain they still at least checked out the rumour he sent them to investigate. They ask how he knew anything about the chest in the first place.
Sam says he hates adventurers because there are too many of them. He’s had it up to his eyeballs with their filthy kind bringing problems and dirt into his establishment the Inn which he wants to maintain a more upmarket clientele and as far as he is concerned getting rid of a few adventurers by sending them on some damn fool quest would be doing the world a good favour.
The adventurers are quite taken aback by this and decide they’re going to collect on Sam’s promise of payment regardless of his lying to them in an attempt to get them killed.
Sam attacks the group, at which time he is unfortunately one-shot killed in vague circumstances. They decide to feed his body to the fish or whatever other creatures might still be lurking over the cliff-side.
The Dragon which has been watching and occasionally appears to have been listening to the exchange is excited about something. It grabs hold of Ursula and swoops her up into the air out over the ocean some way before dragging her down beneath the sea.
Having rested the witch has sufficient power to protect herself from drowning by forming an air bubble around her whole body large enough for her to breathe safely underwater for an amount of time.
The dragon pulls her down to a shipwreck which contains a chest. Ursula prises the lid open and discovers inside a large blue trident which ripples like the sea. She recognises it immediately to be the one from Sam’s story and grabs hold of it. The baby sea dragon whisks her out of the ocean just in time for the last of her air bubble to disappear.
Back at the camp at the cliff-side ruins Ursula shows the trident to the team. As she dries by the campfire they discuss who amongst them should own it.
“Brantus has a ship. If it is true what Sam claimed that the trident of the sea god Poseidon can control the sea somehow, then it stands to logic he would benefit from it the most.”
“Aye but what about the rest of us?” Asks Archer.
“The rest of us can all be paid after returning to the Inn because witnesses there saw the deal we made with Sam to reclaim it. We’ve fulfilled our mission.”
AT THE INN
The wizards are still arguing this time about whether it was a baby sea dragon or a baby fire dragon they had watched fly in and grab the Inn owner and fly off with him.
Other staff of the establishment help Sam to make good on his deal by agreeing to give the team the chest of coins they have won. They even help haul it to Brantus ship.
Ursula remains outside with the baby sea dragon to avoid anyone from the in. Recognising it and suspecting foul play. The team say what a pity it is Sam is not there to make good on his promise of paying them, but they have to sail with the tide so they have no time to waste waiting for his unlikely return.
Archer decides stay with the group. Brantus hires her too. He now has three capable adventurer women on his payroll.
END of Quest One
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