S2: Bready or Not

Participants

 * Lur Shell Crusher
 * Gerdo Stoneseer
 * Aurora Evelyn Lucia
 * Hildae

Summary
Having come into a bit of money and being pleased with the results of working together to defeat a witch, the four hired hands decided to go into business together. Taking out a loan, they established themselves in the lower ends of the Maul in an old storage facility. In spite of Pirjo’s promises of steady jobs, the four of them, now dubbed the “Witch Pinchers” by locals, decided that they needed to expand their line of work in order to make ends meet. After some brainstorming, they determined that the most effective way to make the money to pay rent would be to steal mattresses from people and then sell them out of their new pad, the incredibly marketable “Mattress Wholesale”.

With the increased workload that the WPs had to take on, it became immediately apparent that they needed more hands on deck. After a quick candidate search, they decided to take on Hildae, the crab bard who is DEFINITELY OKAY WITH THE FACT THAT HER GIRLFRIEND WANTS THE RELATIONSHIP TO BE OPEN. DEFINITELY. OKAY?

On a particularly slow day at the facility, Goober was trying his hand at creating some soup and was trying to get everyone else to sample it. Aurora turned her nose up at his offering and told him that it smelled and tasted terrible. When he stormed off with tears falling down his face, the rest of the gang felt decidedly awful for Goober and decided that they should do something for him. After someone suggested that they find a way to help him improve his cooking skills, Aurora and Lur both suggested that they visit their mutual acquaintance, Jared the Baker, who was established out of the wharfs on a boat made out of bread where he would sell his wares to anyone passing by.

A short trek past all of the various stalls selling fish brought them to the docks where Jared’s ship was tied up where an enormous snaking line awaited them. Some snooty rich folks waiting in the line traded some barbed insults with Lur and Hildae and things looked like they could escalate before Aurora rolled her eyes and told her party that she knew a secret way into Jared’s shop via the loading bay. Sneaking on board proved to be relatively easy as Aurora and Gerdo scaled up some ropes while Lur and Hildae climbed up the side of the ship. They found themselves in the storage area of the bakery with all of the food and wares, when a loud presence could be heard approaching from the front of the shop. A man wearing an absurdly large chef’s hat burst into the storage room and looked momentarily furious before recognizing Aurora and Lur.

A short catch-up was followed up by Aurora and Lur asking their baking buddy for advice on how they could improve Goober’s cooking. Jared spent a few moments thinking before suggesting that they get some spices from his local competitors just down the street, the Desmonds. According to Jared, the Desmonds were absolutely horrid bakers, but they had some “damn good spices”. It became quickly apparent that Jared wasn’t suggesting that they get the spices via legal means and after some initial apprehension, it was decided upon: they were going to steal those dang spices.

Strolling up the street and passing by more fish vendors, they quickly happened upon Desmond’s bakery, which was difficult to miss with its disproportionately large sign on an otherwise homely little building. Trying to be as discrete as a pair of crabs, a drunk-monk and a swordswoman can be, the four of them tried to intimate themselves as customers as best they could while scouting out the place. As Jared had indicated previously, the place was largely empty, with just one snoozing customer waiting in line. Mrs. Desmond, an old and somewhat disorderly lady, appeared to be running the kitchen by herself. Surprised at having this many customers, she began to try to take down everyone’s orders, which Aurora took as an opportunity to try to sneak off to look for the spices. Unfortunately, it appeared as though the security for the place was tighter than they had expected, as a magical alarm went off when Aurora grazed a rope barrier that was blocking off the entrance to the upper level. An argument ensued and Mrs. Desmond called for her large hulking assistant Sonny from upstairs, who thudded menacingly down the steps as he came.

While Aurora tried and failed to come up with excuses for touching the barrier, Gerdo carefully snuck past the rope barrier and made his way upstairs without being noticed. Mrs. Desmond opted to go in search of the Red Guard and told Sonny to keep an eye on them while she did so. Things were beginning to escalate towards a fight when Aurora challenged Sonny to a duel, and in spite of Hildae’s attempts to calm things down and distract Sonny with a song, it seemed as though things were going to come to blows. Thinking quickly, Aurora resolved the situation by casting a charm person spell on Sonny and telling him to go and convince Mrs. Desmond that there was no reason to call for the guards. Meanwhile, Gerdo narrowly evaded some traps as he forced his way into the attic. A quick search of the musty old room yielded a small lockbox neatly labeled “Special Spices” which Gerdo pocketed along with some old yeast that smelled like burnt dead gross awful garbage for the purposes of trying to brew his own alcohol.

Not wanting to overstay their welcome, the Witch Pinchers turned tail and rushed back to Jared’s. Jared’s bakery was closing up shop due to having used up all of their supplies and the line remained quite large. The snooty rich folks who had scoffed at the Witch Pinchers earlier in the day were still waiting in line and looked horrified when the four of them jumped the line and nobody in the bakery stopped them. Lur and Hildae took a moment to verbally dunk on them before entering. The problem of the lockbox was overcome through the use of some impromptu breadmancy from Jared using the old yeast Gerdo had stolen to create a key. The box turned out to be a container which had been segmented into three sections each containing their own special spice. Jared pocketed a decent amount of the spices, paid the heroes and gave them some excess spice, telling them that combining the three of them together would make anything taste amazing (and would have a vitality increasing property that would accordingly adjust the consumer’s hypothetical “health points”).

Our heroes returned to the Mattress Warehouse with money in their pockets and prize in hand. They were eager to show Goober what they had gotten him, but were in for a shock when they found him. Sprawled out across the mess hall table and covered in soup with a knife sticking out of his chest, Goober was dead. Lur paused a moment before positing, “.. did he die from fucking the soup?”

Spoils

 * Spices