Tomb of The Serpent Kings Part 7

Meanwhile, back at Bebbanburg Keep . . .

Waiting at the edge of the small village outside the keep’s walls was a weather worn old farmer who was nervously ringing the brim of his cap. He was the father of the peasant girl the party had hired to carry their lanterns. The girl was in shock after the monsters and violence she’d witnessed. A basilisk, a black pudding, a 15’ tall skeleton that brutally killed several people right in front of her. The kid was messed up. The party claimed not to be concerned but paid her a handsome tip anyway and told her they would be in touch.

[DM Note: The players were extremely unconcerned a few sessions back when Marvolo the magic-user and Kit the linkboy failed their morale checks and ran off. That is probably my fault. I basically said, “Here, you’re level 2 now, you can hire someone and this NPC wants to tag along.” There wasn’t a lot of RPing to build bonds or anything.

My fault or not, it doesn’t mean there aren't any consequences. If Kit had not been recovered I was going to ham it up with the old farmer and lay on a real guilt trip for leaving his only surviving child in the dungeon.

The Witch of Bebbanburg is PISSED that one of her apprentices was killed while moonlighting with the PCs. I’m going to have fun with that soon.]

Approaching the gatehouse the party ran into Sister Amelia and her two mute and unblinking acolytes. They were leaving the keep for a time. One of the acolytes lead a donkey laden with provisions. Amelia had shown a bit too much interest in the party’s comings and goings since news of the lost Serpent-folk dungeon became public. Rumors that the party had found a crown that drove men mad were floating through the keep (they had) and Amelia was extra curious about it. She then said several things that made the party feel perhaps she was the unknown witness who knew that they had accidentally burned down the Slumbering Giant.

[DM Note: Amelia is basically the evil cleric out of Keep on The Borderlands. I’ve been dropping a few rumors about strange goings on in one of the Baron’s outlying villages (Orlane) and if the party investigates that it’s Against The Cult of The Reptile God time, and I will slot Amelia in as the evil cleric in that situation too. Orlane is actually where she and her acolytes are headed right now.]

On the heels of Sister Amelia the party ran into the Bailiff who was supervising the clean up of the Slumbering Giant site. He was just as concerned as the cleric about finding out who was responsible for burning down the only inn in Bebbanburg, but in a manner that did not strike everybody as extremely suspicious. They then spoke a bit with the owners of the inn who lamented that lacking the funds to rebuild they would have to leave the keep and become sharecroppers. 

Claiming it was for the greater good of the community the party made a 500sp donation to the family. The Bailiff was so impressed that he helped them rent an empty row house inside the keep (since they had been living at the inn they destroyed). Keeping what they thought was enough silver to live on for a month the party then sank all their remaining funds into carousing and making donations to the church. They love that XP from spending silver on dumb stuff.

This time nothing burned to the ground. In fact, now the entire keep knows who they are (perhaps the Baron will take note soon?). The party gave Haco a fitting send off into Valhalla and got matching, if embarrassing, tattoos to commemorate the event. 


Then everyone split up for a few weeks. Cletus disappeared into the temple archives and deciphered what she could from scrolls she had recovered -mostly the writings of insane mummies but the name “Baltoplat” appeared more than once and something about a summoning. While there, Cletus spoke again with Curate Halden who was worried by troubling reports of lizardfolk from several of the villages to the south of the keep. He also let slip that he did not like the nosy Sister Amelia very much.

JD the magic user took the party’s unidentified magic ring to the witch to have it identified. The rest set about making the row house livable. 

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