Keep on the Borderlands - The Path of Evil - Session 31

SESSION 31: DAY 14 – BURG LIECHENSTEIN  

Lucien and Talmark gather the ears and go to find Captain Wallache. Travelling around the Burg they notice that it looks quiet at the moment. There doesn’t seem to be as many men at arms as there usually are. 

They find Knight Engel at his normal post. He welcomes them with in his usual profane manner and promptly goes to find Captain Wallache. 

He returns quickly and smiling he says “Captain Wallache is just taking his breakfast. He’ll be with you hideous nose picking stench cows shortly”. They ask about Sildar to which Engel says that he’s currently out on a mission. 

They wait for an hour and finally Captain Wallache comes to the gatehouse. 

He immediately provides an aloof and not all that convincing apology for the delay and asks the men to join him in at the small table to conduct their business. 

Lucien and Talmark produce the ears. Wallache is clearly surprised at the numbers. He counts through them: 38 sets of goblin ears, 1 set of ogre ears and 4 sets of hobgoblin ears. He questions the party representatives about how they, half a dozen or so men, were able to defeat what looks like a whole tribe of goblins? How did they capture the goblin warlord Ragnar? How did they kill the ogre? Where did they travel etc? [DMs note to players: Talmark and Lucien, please provide some responses to the above questions and I’ll come back later and re-edit your responses in].

He cannot accept that all the goblin ears are from combatants. “Some of these goblins look very scrawny” he rationalizes “some look like they are female ears”.  Looking at the ogres ears he quips “this looks very old, like you found it on an already dead ogre rather than one that you killed yourself.” He assesses that of the 43 sets of ears 33 are acceptable and he provides the 330gp bounty.

That’s twice now that Wallache has slighted the party of the bounty that they deserve. Lucien uses Sense Motive to try to better understand what Wallache’s motives are for treating them in this manner. 

The check is an opposed check done against a Bluff check from Wallache. Wallache rolls a 17 + 5 bluff skill = 23. Lucien rolls 6 + 10 sense motive skill = 16. He cannot quite work out why Wallache is short changing them. 

Still 330gp is a good start. They had previously sold their looted weapons to Berowalt at the Minotaur Blacksmithery. He had given them what had seemed like a fair deal and so they travel back to the Cold Hart Tavern and gather the looted weapons and some of the men at arms to help them carry them. 

They find in the smithy diligently working away. Entering the 20-foot-high building with the 5ft parapet upon the flat roof Talmark thinks of the defensive nature of the structure. The main room is occupied by a large forge, bellows and other items. The diligent Berowalt is working with two assistants. One is working the bellows whilst Berowalt and the other are working a new sword. 

Upon entering a small bell rings at the door announcing the parties entrance. Berowalt looks up from his work, wipes his hand upon his apron and approaches Lucien and Talmark. They present the looted weapons to which Berowalt scratches his beard and responds “Metal is hard to come by here and is in great demand. For the man sized weapons, I can put them into good order and sell them to the needy defenders of either the caravans of the Burg. If they are something else then I can use them for scrap metal, melt the down and re-use them.” He looks closer at the weapons and says “Look some of these are small. I’ll give you 2.5gp for each of the 25 small short swords, 7.5gp for each of the 12 small short bows, 4gp for that there morning star and 6gp for each of the 2 war hammers. That would be a total of 194gp. How does that sound?”

The deal sounds fair to Lucien and Talmark and is essentially the same as what was previously given to them by the hard-working blacksmith. Lucien and Talmark procure a set of scale mail armour and a heavy shield for one of the men at arms at the cost of 57gp. Berowalt thanks them for their business and the party leaves.

They proceed back to the Cold Hart Tavern and rendezvous with the party. There they present the three remaining men at arms with a set of scale mail armour, heavy shield, long sword, long bow and a quiver of arrows each and they distribute the remaining wealth amongst the four party members.

As they are talking about their next steps Per enters the room. He had been out for the morning equipping himself. He is clad in chain mail armour and carry a pretty nasty looking glaive. Smiling, he does a few fancy fighting moves to show off his new equipment and good natured chuckles can be heard amongst the group.

The party still has a few major items of loot to liquidate including the statute from Cragmaw Caves (50gp), the silver cup (70gp) and the tapestry (900gp). Summary of wealth is provided in the following table. 

The updated character sheet is provided below.

DEW