shifty louts

Tiny Fables Session 5 - Bill Pipp’s Big Fall

Players

Summary

The Month of Star. The First Fair of the Sixth Week.

After a little while, Milton the Fae returns to the mice, speaking of a great vine that has sprouted from a window and extends along the wall and is wrapping itself around a trellis. Milton says that the mice could likely climb up that, but Milton the Fae doesn’t need to climb, as they have wings!

The group sneaks past Red Rats towards the site of the castle to find a great vine has exploded out of an interior garden and climbs skyward. All along it are spiny, red “hairs”. Cherry stabs her spear into it, and a pungent sap that makes her eyes water like cut onions pours out.

Cherry and Crocus attempt to climb up but fail spectacularly, while Bill is able to climb up with no issue. He soon finds his paws and feet itchy and red. Perching himself precariously on the trellis, Bill looks within the window to see a “break room” of sorts.

Bill smells polished metal, a punch card machine on the wall, a stone key rests on a hook next to it, a weapons rack that contains 2 halberds in the corner, a couch, and, most concerning, a an illustrated poster that depicts two knights holding hands, covered by a large red “X”. Written below it reads “Workplace trysts are strictly forbidden!”

Bill deftly sneaks into the room as Crocus and Cherry climb the vine, followed closely by Milton the Fae’s fluttering. Crocus and Cherry soon find their paws begin to itch as well.

As Bill sneaks around the room, he sees a knight resting upon the couch, snoring. Its helm opens and closes with each snore, revealing it to be some sort of animated armor! Bill draws his dagger just in case, while the rest of the group inspect a large stone door.

Cherry tries to open it, but finds it locked. While Crocus and Milton keep an eye on the knight,y Bill uses his knife to open the lock, while Cherry turns the door handle. The group surprises two knights standing guard and quickly defeats all three guards, given their element of surprise.

Unfortunately, Milton the Fae receives a devastating cut from one of the knight’s swords. The weapon burns them as they dematerialize into a plume of daffodil petals and lavender and vanilla-smelling smoke!

Bill is upset and collects Milton’s petals as the group tiptoes into a hall, some sort of gallery filled from floor to ceiling with paintings. The group figures out that where they exited must have been some sort of secret room, as the wall behind them is stone!

A scream can be heard echoing somewhere in the castle, as the mice freeze, but then continue pressing forward.

The group investigates the various paintings, but Bill is particularly enthralled by a painting of a tree on fire. Its frame glows like embers, and there are scorch marks around the stone wall where it rests. Bill offers up Milton’s daffodil petals to it, but the painting shoots out a fireball and scorches him badly. His whiskers singed and fur burnt.

An enchanted mop appears and cleans the floor and “washes off” Bill’s scorch marks, leaving just as quickly as it appeared back deeper into the castle.

While Crocus tends to Bill’s burnt fur, a voice yells out for the mice to pay attention to it. Cherry turns and sees an aristocratic mouse in velvet robes holding an apple. He smugly bites into an apple and introduces himself as Remington Mapleton, the former owner of the castle, a wizard who has seemingly enchanted himself into a portrait.

The group runs over, and Remington asks if they can take him away from this castle, as his “ancestor” Chulip has ruined the castle; it’s dirty, the library is flooded, the garden is overgrown, there are rats stealing stuff, a mouse named Perceival stole some magical items from his ancestor Chulip, and the enchanted items are running amok – Château Maurice is in ruins, and Remington wants to get out of here ASAP!!!

Remington wishes to be hung up in a place of lavish majesty and be fawned over by many eyes. For such a task, Remington offers “all of his wealth.” Crocus chides Remington for being a bad wizard who trapped himself in a painting, while Remington calls Crocus a “good-for-nothing tenderpaw who should show respect to his elders”. The two nearly come to blows as Remington charges up a spell from within the painting.

Luckily, Cherry intervenes before the two can come to blows! While the wizard seems whiny and high-maintenance, all three mice agree to help Remington and tell him they will take him to the Fae Kingdom, as they need to get Cornelius, and perhaps the Fae know of a way to fight the Jabberwocky.

Remington speaks fondly of King Necarius and the lavish cotillions and practically begs to be delivered to the Fae Kingdom. Soon, they are led back into the break room, and Crocus is told to open up a loose brick.

As they do so, three Tin Knights halt them and ask what they are doing. Crocus responds that they are helping and are repairing the wall before it collapses. The dumb Tin Knights seem convinced and trudge off. Crocus finds a bag of 300p and a silvery wand with a blue sapphire on it! Remington’s own personal wand!

The group then proceeds back to the trellis. Unfortunately, the itchy rash from the vine’s sap causes Bill and Cherry to fall from a great height, as Crocus watches in horror as Bill’s body spatters against the icy earth. Cherry also seems on death’s door, but remains conscious.

Remington screams as Cherry was holding him, and Bill was holding his wand! Crocus can nurse Cherry back to a semblance of health as they carry Bill’s body back to the hole they dug a few days before while surveilling the Castle.

Crocus and Cherry notice that even in the low winter sun, Bill’s body holds no shadow, and Crocus is spooked, speaking of bad gris-gris. Remington comments that there are some strange magikal energies, and the group leaves Bill’s body to decay under the grey sky, afraid to bury him.

At night, the group prepares camp, and through the darkness, they meet the dreadlocked, darkness-worshipping cultist, Jack Witter. Remington is delighted to meet a fellow “student of the arcane arts and mystic ways,” while Crocus is still put off by this strange fellow

Jack and Remington discuss the finer points of magical darkness and thaumatergy, culminating in Remington recounting an ancient tale of Mab and how she created the Jabberwocky from shadows to make the woodland creatures bow down to her, as well as the burial mound of Mausritter Konrad, supposedly in the deep north that blossomed with a thousand roses.

Eventually, the group beds down for the evening, hoping that their itchy rashes from the plant subside.

The Month of Star. The Second Fair of the Sixth Week.

The morning is again overcast, a reprieve from the icy sleet and rain a few days prior. Crocus and Cherry awake to see Jack meditating, with his eyes unnervingly open. Crocus and Remington argued, seemingly both hard-headed in their own particular ways.

The group makes plans to head back to Thimblewood to recover from their expedition to the Chulip’s Castle, but are low on food, so Cherry forages in the morning and the group sets off, encountering a giant carcass of a deer.

Eventually, the group crosses Boris’s bridge to see more strange algae bloom within the river, and while making it through the skeletal trees of the forest, they have to dodge out of the way of falling acorns as the group sets up camp with Thimblewood just out of reach before the moon rises high in the sky.

Aftermath

Treasure Found:

Foes Encountered:

Rumors:

Deaths:

XP Awarded:

Notes

Events & Faction Turns