11th Session

 The group ([[Ardour]], [[Camillune]], [[Kaupu]], [[Lorrin]], [[Lotte]], and [[Peltogyne]]) continue toward the mountains. [[Lorrin]] says the next town is [[Riverside]] and that it's an intermittent market. On the way, they pass farmland, but don't stop. I creeped them out with a children of the corn reference.

The introduction I wrote for [[Riverside]] goes:

Here the river, still on your left,  widens and slows and makes a gentle curve to the right, framing the back edge of what would normally be a small town. But sprung up around the wooden structures of the town proper is a veritable metropolis of all kinds of tents and temporary structures.

Thus far you've not seen any merchants or traders on the roads, but clearly this is the start of the time of year that merchants are much more commonly found. From here, you can see tents and wagons, with an area full of bailed goods near the river on the far left of the city,  and corrals full of animals of all kinds on the far right. Everywhere there are people. All kinds, all sorts. Even at this distance, the noise of that many people is immense. As is the smell. As are the swirls of color and movement.

[[Ardour]] makes a joke about fireballing the town and is taken more seriously than he intended. Everyone either chastises him or encourages him to try to be less bloodthirsty.

Moving down into the crowds, there's some debate about what needs to happen. As this is my first homebrew, I'm trying things and one of the things I want to try is survivalist type stuff in the mountains. I told the players that they might want to be aware of that. It's something the characters would have thought of in a real situation, but not something that would necessarily come up in game, the way we've been playing it thus far.

I had [[Camillune]] roll a perception. She caught a little red haired kid stealing money from her pouch. She decided he must've needed it, so she gave him that coin and others, but he'd done his job so he was mostly just confused. He was the distraction. I had everyone else roll perception checks as well, setting the DC at 15 (which is high, but not unreasonable given that the idea is that you're somewhat distracted and focused on [[Camillune]]).

In my prep notes, I had said that what happened was based on how far below 15 the character got. There were two 13s and the rest beat the check. [[Ardour]] found that some of his magical gear had gone missing. And the red-headed kid that was with the cleric was nowhere in sight.

[[Kaupu]] and [[Lotte]] did some tracking and investigating while everyone else tried to figure out why this gear was so important to [[Ardour]]. Eventually, they found the "alley" in the stockyard area. This is where the kids had gone to split up the loot: some coins and two diamonds with red flaws in them.

[[Peltogyne]], [[Lorrin]], and [[Ardour]] came down the alley. The kids tried to scattter, but [[Lorrin]] hit them with a sleep spell. They reclaimed the gems and [[Lorrin]] took a brass ring that the leader of the kids had on his thumb.

From there the group split up. [[Ardour]], [[Kaupu]], and [[Camillune]] went to find a bathhouse to clean up (the alley was described as being at least partially the area where refuse and dung was disposed of). [[Lorrin]], [[Lotte]], and [[Peltogyne]] went looking for [[Lorrin]]'s family.

They met [[Nazita]] and [[Lorrin]] and she exchanged some family gossip. He agreed to send home a letter so his mom would stop fretting about him. [[Nazita]] helped them identify the ring. It apparently grants access to a bazaar in a place called the City of Brass, although there wasn't anyone with a firm idea what exactly that meant.

The group met back up, made sure they had supplies for the mountains, and began to leave the city. At the city's edge, they were stopped by the thief kids and about 30 of their accomplices. The leader kid, [[Ryn]], demanded his ring back and argued and mouthed off his way into being asked to become [[Ardour]]'s apprentice.  He didn't get his ring back.  Currently [[Ardour]] has it, although [[Lorrin]] has asked for it back.