Gone With the Wind
They attacked my carriage, stole my treasure, and took off with my daughter! Help me catch those kidnappers and thieves!
(Unintelligible signature)
Recap
A hastily written note about a stolen treasure and kidnapped daughter with an unintelligible signature summons Gaalanaac, Pippin, and Erik to a desert road. Shouting riders pass by with a screaming woman. The party follows on foot and finds a small walled village.
Thanks to intimidation from Gaal, an overly-confident attitude from Pippin, and outright shock value from Erik, they talk their way into meeting Captain James, who informs them they’re interrogating a woman who stole from them. By being willing to hand over their items, they earn enough trust to offer their services as unhinged interrogators.
Inside a tavern, a boss named Jesse interrogates the woman. He is less convinced and invites them to leave. Gaal uses telepathy to communicate with the woman, who then insists she’ll only talk to the party. Boss Jesse slaps her, initiating a fight!
Even though Boss Jesse seems able to bolster his men, the thuggish guards are easy to handle and the woman tries escaping the situation entirely but struggles leaving through a back window. Captain James finds himself endlessly flailing at the mercy of Pippin’s grease puddle. Erik explodes a cabinet open to access weapons but decides to “sha la la” a broom handle instead. Gaal easily takes a longsword off of James and then handily brings Jesse to his knees and he begs for his life.
The group is merciful and also determines this is a case of thieves fighting thieves. They loot recover stolen items and gear for subterfuge from storage rooms and leave with the woman, who insists they were sent by her father. Escorting her out of town, they learn these are two rival families contesting ownership of special treasure. She leads them to recover what she hid.
As they are looking for its exact location, a giant scorpion looms in the distance seemingly trying to get them to leave its territory, but attacking it reveals it is an illusion! Pippin saves an attempt to mess with his mind, and as Gaal runs back sees the mage attempting to distract them all and grab the treasure. Though the cultish mage packs powerful psychic damage, threatening even Gaal’s tremendous stamina, it doesn’t take too long to bring him down working together. The woman reveals the treasure: a gold necklace with a special looking key. She is disturbed that “they” were after it.
They finally return her to her father, who is gleeful to have his treasure (and daughter) back safe and sound. Erik insists on gifting him some of the boots he’s been stealing from everyone along the way.