Brazen Wolfe Tabletop

2024 Campaign Adventure 14

Plot:

Recovery

Taking stock of what they had and their injuries the party decided that they needed to rest until the banquet. Getting ready Kai prepared several spells in case they would come into use at the feast – the anticipation in that the meat was poisoned or tainted. However with rest came the realisation of what he had lost – his arm hung limp by his side and broken in several places with the splints that Hilder had used on his destroyed arm. The realisation that Frost thorn was also gone came hard as he had no other weapon except for a few daggers.

This made the first stop they went to being the Local Smith. Anne was there and after a short moment she produced a short sword that would serve the goblin well. After a plan was discussed they left for Tom, the Mayors, house where the feast was about to be on the way. They were met with a large line where all the villagers of Fustmach were excitedly wondering which of their favourite meals would be present. At the door the guards asked the party to surrender their weapons but, after some persuading and Tom vouching for them they were let in with their weapons on the condition that they don’t cause a fuss.

The Feast Hall

The hall was adorned with Dwarven memorabilia. Shields, dwarven axes, statues and the like adorned the walls and made the once-dwarven barracks feel very homely. The room was buzzing with voices and merriment as nearly the entire village crammed together into the large room to partake in the weekly feast, a way of giving thanks to the townsmen.

The food was piled high on plates across the tables with steaming heaps of cut meat, roast, boiled and grilled vegetables and as much ale as anyone could drink. Tom sat up the end of the table and watched with satisfaction at the attendance and the joy that everyone was succumbing to. However the party, Kai in question, noticed that the life sized dwarven statue at the end of the room behind Tom looked identical to the statue of King Boralis the 3rd they found in the mines.

Kai snuck under the table, pretending to drop a spoon, and cast purify food and drink on the food able them before crawling back out. Tom opened the feast with a speech, paying homage to the dwarves who once tended this land, the people who made the village as successful as it is now and to those that they had lost along the way. He then lit some incense and asked everyone to begin the feast.

Hungry Work

The party immediately watched as the village filled their hands with food and ate voraciously. The party followed suit and found out that the food was well cooked and delicious, however all was not what it seemed. As they ate Kai, Groku and Armaeth shrugged off an oily, hungry presence that reached out to their minds and they watched with horror as Tater became more voracious in how he ate and drank.

The entire room grabbed fistfuls of food and mugful’s of ale and consumed them at a horrendous pace. Something wasn’t right and the magic that was cast upon them had taken tater completely over. As the panic of the situation set in and the feasting became more depraved and voracious the party turned to physically attacking their ally, Tater, in an attempt to get him to snap out of the magical influence. However this drew the attention of Tom.

“My friends, let’s continue to feast!” he called out once realising that some were not under the magical influence and in doing so a vibrant lightshow appeared in the centre of the room. Immediately everyone, except for Kai due to his fey heritage, became enthralled. Thinking quickly the Goblin stamped on the injured foot (due to Kai stabbing it with a dagger) and broke him out of the spell, which in doing so caused Tom to become aware that his plan had failed.

“It seems that some people here do not like to feast or show gratitude to their host.” he chided as his body began to swell and shift into a large, bloated ogre-esque form.

The food fight

Kai began bolting to the door hitting the hypnotised Groku with a hypnotised Armaeth to wake them both up. As they stirred Tater, noticing the shifting of form of Tom, roared a battle cry and rushed at Tom. This changed Kais plan to flee instantly.

First up Kai rushed at Tom and threw a dagger, hitting true and embedding the dagger into his body. He then watched as Tater tried to bring the large man down, but his swing was wide (not surprising for someone who nearly ate and drank his own body weight a few moments ago). Groku called her axe to her hand from the front door – the ring of magnetism coming very handy as it managed to cut one of the guards that was rushing to apprehend the party. Armaeth tried to blind Tom with one of her poisoned arrows but it failed to take hold.

The enlarged Tom scooped up his villagers and carefully placed them on a table before picking up the bench with his right hand before bringing it down towards tater, narrowly missing the dwarf. Kai took this as an opportunity and rushed up the bench, retrieving a vial of light from his pack before smashing into the eyes of Tom hoping to blind him. The goblin finishing his ploy jumped backward expecting a three point land, but slipped on the table of potatoes, gravy and meat and thudded down on the wood. The light that radiated from the monstrosities face was blinding in close proximity and after a moment of staggering around while Tater dealt a massive blow from psionic-infused axe.

Groku was stabbed by one of the guards before she started to make short work of her assailants, deciding to render them unconscious instead of killing them outright. Kai and Tater had no such dilemma’s as they Kai darted outwards and slashed at the large figures legs before hiding under a table. That’s when he noticed Tom sniffing loudly, his head turning to track the goblins movement. It appears that not all his senses were hindered.

This is why we can’t go nice places…

In preparation after noticing his sense of smell was unhindered Kai used his one remaining hand to stow his dagger and prepare to go primitive. Preparing his hand to be a vessel for goblin filth that would produce a smell so foul that it would render the sense of smell of the large man useless. That was until he felt the tentacle like appendage of the man reach out and wrap around him, pinning Kais hand to his body and down the rear of his trousers.

Hearing his friends cries as the tentacle wrapped around him, Tater created a forcefield around the goblin preventing most of the crushing damage. However he should have saved it for himself as the entire wooden bench crashed down upon him – the axe taking most of the blow but it staggered the might dwarf. Taking a moment to breath and bolster his second wind he noticed that Groku was nearly done with her assailants so he struck another massive force-infused blow from his axe.

Tom staggered before raising the helpless Kai into the air and bashing him into the floor and ceiling. Groku knocked out another assailant with a skilled shield bash before Tater, enraged, swung a little too wild and missed the abomination. Growing tired of the dwarf and goblin Tom threw his captive across the room, crashing into Groku before trying to beat in the dwarves head with the bench again. However he had now freed his prisoner. Bolstering his reserve the, admittedly, filthy goblin threw his foul ordinance at the face of the hulking figure and struck true. The smell being so rank from a nearly-carnivorous goblins diet that he lost his greatest sense – the sense of smell.

Tom flailed around trying to see his assailants but now blind and unable to smell he ended up grabbing his own villagers, his treasured people and began pulverising them thinking them his assailants. The rest of the conscious guards ceased to fight and began to waiver as they watched, in their mid their kindly mayor kill their friends.

Soon the entire party was cutting, hacking or stabbing into Tom and several more villagers fell to their blind and enraged mayor. But the spell holding them hypnotised was over and they began to flee in panic. Groku rushed in and with a brutal horizontal slashed she opened the chest of the monstrous Mayor and he fell, defeated at last.

While Tater tried to calm the villagers, Kai rushed off to loot… Classic goblin… He pocketed anything that his one arm and one pouch could carry including a few well made blades (two long swords, a scimitar and four daggers) as well as several golden rings and various gold coins.

Tater investigated the golden statue and confirmed, with a touch and re-possession, that it was the source of the voracious hunger. After Kai returned from scouting the rather clean looking kitchen, despite the slabs of questionable meat, the party exposed the mayor to the people of Fustmach, revealing his true form to them all who once interacting with his bloated form broke the illusion.

Tater then decided to try and pry off a bit of the gold statue and in doing so, broke his axe – the one his father had helped him forge. After Hilder was requested to leave and return to remove the curse on the statue John, the Halfling that ran the Fat Sow Inn returned and identified the meat in the kitchen to be humanoid in origin. This revelation the party deemed not urgent to reveal to the people of Fustmach. They then explored the last remaining door out of the kitchen and revealed a tunnel that had been bored into the mountain. Following it along the air became colder and frigid and eventually they came to a large, vertical, circular hole through the stone. A hoist and platform had been created here and John and the party descended into the cavern.

The source of the meat was revealed. At the bottom of the lift was cages filled with deceased humanoids, orcs, gnolls and kobolds primarily who were preserved in the cold of the cavern. In one corner a pile of possessions and belongings had been piled up and at the end of the cavernous space was a thin passage that was lined with stalagmites and stalactites.

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Main NPCs:

Sidekicks

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