Session 4
August 28 2019
We’ve made some progress in unravelling two of the mysteries surrounding local events. During the 3rd week of the 2nd month of running our new franchise, we deduced that the mystery of the magical carrots probably had something to do with Thol Deepwood’s old mentor, Reni the Hare, a wizard with a fondness for carrots. Thol, Penub, Johannus and I [Kharagon] went to Reni’s tower a short distance outside of town. Knocking yielded no results, and Johannus’ attempts to pick the lock were thwarted by the fact that the keyhole seemed to magically move away from the lockpicks. After another unsuccessful entry attempt, where Johannus and Penub climed in place for some time, Thol discovered that the moving keyhole was an illusion. Johannus was then able to ignore the illusion of the moving keyhole and pick the actually stationary lock.
Inside, we found a disheveled mess of overturned furniture and claw marks, which Penub identified as belonging to a large rabbit. We found the large rabbit upstairs, in a room full of shattered potions, trying to get to a particular potion on a high shelf. As soon as it saw us, the rabbit attacked, to little effect. Johannus knocked the potion down from the shelf with an arrow or crossbow bolt, I didn’t catch which, nor did I catch the potion. Thankfully, Penub managed to catch the potion and feed it to the rabbit, who then reverted to his Halfling form as Reni the Hare. He told us that he was a “lypanthrope,” and that, since I had been bitten, there is a chance that I might become one as well.
We told Reni about the situation with the carrots and the rabbits, and he told us that he had enchanted the carrots to taste better, but they gained intelligence as a side effect, and anyone who ate too many of these magical carrots turned into rabbits. Reni gave us a cure for the rabbity transformation and told us to destroy the magical carrots, but he warned us that we especially needed to destroy the “the Master Carrot.”
Meanwhile, the other franchise owners, including Star, Burke, Orel, and Balasar, went to Starscape Park to investigate the events there. I look forward to reconvening with them to learn what they’ve discovered and share what we’ve learned as well.
[Unbeknownst to Kharagon, the others found that the park gates were surrounded by protesters. After they made their way through the protest and into the park, they learned the rabbits that Star had brought to the park previously had since turned back into their normal forms. As she went back out to get another rabbit to bring into the park, the other three looked around, and Burke found something odd about a tree in the center of the park. He found a hole, covered in foliage and illusions, and at the bottom of the hole, he found a circular door that seemed to lead into some kind of home. He called the others to him, and the four of them looked around the underground home.
They learned that the home belonged to a gnome illusionist, whom some of them recognized as one of the prominent figures of the Free the Park movement. They also found a spellbook containing 9th level illusion spells, which they took and, with Prestidigitation, made appear that the book had been taken a long time ago.
They went back out and saw the gnome in the crowd of protesters, maintaining an illusion of protesters around her. Burke walked through the illusion toward the gnome and asked her what she was working on. She indicated that she wanted to get into the park, and Burke indicated that he could possibly be persuaded to help her. The gnome attempted to “persuade” Burke by casting a powerful spell on him, but Burke interrupted her spellcasting by stabbing her with his rapier, after which the gnome disengaged from the conflict and vanished into the crowd. After losing sight of the illusionist, the four joined the guards in subduing the crowd, who had, by that point, turned violent. It now seems apparent to us that the whole Free the Park movement was started by the gnome illusionist, who simply wants to regain access to her home and her spellbook, which we now have.]
With what we have learned today, we seem to be in a position to solve one of the problems facing Athkatla, namely the carrot and rabbit problem, and the others may have made some progress toward solving the park protest problem as well. Hopefully, this problem-solving will bring some renown to our franchise, and with that renown, customers. We will have to make it clear that we, the Eyes of the Beholder, are the ones solving these problems.