Brazen Wolfe Tabletop

Maribeth and Roderick

440TuMaRo

Queen Maribeth watched as the gifts scattered out before her, drifting in empty space as she struggled to keep herself level with what she assumed was the right orientation. It had happened so far but she could still remember the look of shock and horror on the faces of those near her, especially Roderick.

“I told you Roderick was no good.” her guard, Sven, muttered from nearby as he drifted upside down next to her.

“Come Sven, you know that Sir Roderick isn’t responsible He is one of the most decorated heroes that we have in the kingdom and has protected both you and I countless times in the past. Remember the Dark Autumn? He hunted the vampire single handed and moments before the beast drained your life he fought it off and managed to get you and I to safety.” Maribeth reassured Sven even as he grumped near by.

“Then what is this? If he didn’t get his pet witch to curse the bag then what?” Sven said as he pumped his arms and legs to try and right himself.

The sight of the giant of a man running in empty space yet not moving brought a smile to her face. “Well given where we are I can think of two things,” she began as she concentrated on turning in space to be on the same orientation as Sven, “we are in the astral plane. The gifting chest functioned like a bag of holding and I remember Sir Roderick telling us once that you should never, ever, place a bag of holding inside one another or you…” she paused.

“Get sucked into the astral plane.” he finished for her.

“So I just hope that the other guards don’t behead Roderick as he, and his ‘pet witch’ as you called her might be our only chance of a rescue.

---

Roderick shook with fear and worry. He hadn’t considered that the donation from his vassal, Lord Tokaois, would’ve been a disguised bag of holding. He had already called for Freja, his sorceress, to locate Tokaois and to question him to confirm his suspicions he had luckily been granted access to the library. His reputation of being fiercely loyal to the queen had served him well and he poured through books searching for the answer.

The mercenaries, some well known adventurers had joined him when the realised too that she had been sucked into the astral plane as he searched for a book. An ancient guide to the astral plane that the court wizard had once taught him about when he had been sent there to hunt for a beholder. He never found it but he did find a gith war party that nearly cost him his life if it wasn’t for the book and its guidance on how to tell the different puddle-portals in the Astral plane apart.

His ring started to warm up as the embedded sending stone activated. Twisting it counter clockwise he connected the two sending stones. “My lord, I have the information.” Freja began before the sound of whimpering in the background of her voice interrupted. “Lord Takaois was less than willing to part with the information but I managed to get it out of him. It was a bag of holding that had been disguised so Maribeth is as you assumed, in the astral plane.” she continued.

“Queen Maribeth. She may remember the stories that the old wizard told her but she wont be able to get out by herself. How quickly can you get here?” he asked.

“I can be there by tomorrow morning, I have a mess to clean up here and then I should be able to reach the capital. Why?” Freja asked. She loved playing dumb just to vex him.

“I need you to locate where she is and so we can open a portal to recue her.” Roderick sighed. He knew she knew, that’s why he kept her employed in his service.

“Oh my, that does sound very expensive.” she replied, a hint of amusement in her voice.

“We will deal with that later. I will see you at sunrise.” he said twisting the right clockwise to sever the connection. Turning to the adventurers he noticed that they had been listening. “I have a request in the service of the queen. Are you willing to save her?”