Session 2
August 07 2019
In the cavern below our secret cellar, we followed the trail the Kobolds left, but we quickly lost it, and we ended up going down (or rather, up) a side path that led out to a ledge overlooking a giant mushroom forest. We could hardly help admiring the view and the star-like lights on the ceiling before admitting that we had taken a wrong turn and would have to head back.
Meanwhile, Penub managed to free himself, and he tried to sneak away, but he ran straight into a kobold, who immediately raised the alarm. Soon, Penub found himself surrounded by kobolds threatening him with javelins. He successfully snatched one of them, but was then impaled by several others, falling unconscious again.
It was then that the rest of us arrived. Though vastly outnumbered, we prepared for battle, revived Penub with a ranged healing spell, and demanded Penub’s release. The kobolds told us, in Draconic, that Penub was food fairly caught. We offered the kobolds other food in exchange for Penub, and the kobolds’ leader accepted. Most of us went to retrieve the promised meat and ale, while Star Moonwhisper and Milo Goodbottom stayed to make sure the kobolds didn’t go back on their deal and eat Penub. As they waited, they sweetened the kobolds’ Penub-free stew with Goodberries, and Milo, reportedly, partook of some of the kobolds’ mind-affecting mushrooms.
When the rest of us returned with a good amount of meat and ale, the kobolds willingly released Penub and agreed to purchase additional food each tenday by giving us an equal volume of “shiny rocks,” which some of us recognised as gold and silver ore, which the kobolds seemed to have in abundance.
The kobolds also mentioned that they had been trapped in this cave by wizards and that they occasionally had run-ins with large, furry monsters that sometimes had wings. We’ll have to look into this more later.
In the meantime, we turned our efforts toward making our franchise profitable. I, Valonor Kharagon, do not know how all of us spent this time, but I do know that Penub and Orel set about the work of refining our newly-acquired ore; Burke, [Steve’s Character], and I worked on running the franchise, and most of the others looked for other (hopefully not illegal) ways to turn a profit.
We seem to be off to a good start. What started as poor luck for Penub became excellent luck for us all, and we now have a lucrative arrangement with the kobolds, covered well by the facts that we run a tavern (thus, buying a good deal of food isn’t suspicious) and that Penub does our smelting in the secret basement smelter we acquired. With luck, we will soon find ourselves running a highly-profitable franchise.