Session 2

30/5/2026

• Session starts with a brief retrospective on how the party came together and their individual backstories, Kremit Croakbane the male frogfolk bard tells the party of his time in various military bands roaming the countryside; he plays the “frogtar” a tall, stringed musical instrument that he made and learned to play himself, by watching other bards. He is from the Goobermensch Swamp and aspires to create his own powerful war band to help stabilise his war-torn home region.

• Spastica Autistica is a female human ranger who left their home town to search for their parents who went missing after the village was attacked by goblins about 10 years ago and many people were slain. She was effectively orphaned and fled the village during the attack, ended up in the wilderness and was raised by a bear for about 5 years. After that, an elven ranger called Erevan (Elfstein?) accidentally injured her with an arrow while hunting and took her in, training her as a ranger for the remainder of her formative years.

• Coinclinkz is a male aarakocra warlock, he was abandoned by his birthparents, found by some human farmers who took him in, raised him and trained him to stand in their field as a living scarecrow. He has always wanted to know who his family was and why he was abandoned. One day while wandering in the woods he found a mysterious book and magic focus, the book whispered to him and taught him the dark path of becoming a warlock. He has a fascination with artefacts and shiny objects. One day he decided to spread his wings, leave his foster home to seek his destiny and his lost parents.

• These three met in the Dran and Courtier Inn, in Red Larch, after arriving on the same day during their individual travels, looking for lodging and odd jobs on the road. It was a busy day with many people making business deals, creating new franchises and Spastica was approached by a greasy, slick haired business gnome with a monobrow called “Gnomeo”. He offered her a business opportunity to make a great deal of profit with minimal effort by joining him in standing up a new franchise of Acq Inc; alongside her, he managed to persuade Kermit and Coinclinkz, they formed their enterprise “The Band of the Badgers”.

• He had very little money himself, convinced them to invest all their savings into this new business venture to pay the initial licensing fees and provide them with startup capital. Early on, he directed them to run an errand on the far side of town to collect some simple wares; when they arrived at the warehouse, they were not expected and the workers had no order to fill for them. Returning to their business, they found that Gnomeo had disappeared, along with all of their money; weeks later, they pieced together that he had fled on an off-planet transport bound for a place called “Northern Tiefland”. Rumour came back through various traders that he had been killed by an owlbear in Northern Tiefland, much to the concern of a local politician who frequently railed about owlbear attacks.

• This left them in charge of a failing business with no source of income and looming contractual obligations to head office; they must continue to pay their franchise fees of 100gp per quarter, plus 10% of their profits on time, or face liquidation. This is where Grunt Roarson joined the party, a blue dragonborn paladin, born into wealth and granted a small loan from his father to invest in a business. On intentionally poor financial advice from his much more intelligent brother, Gary, Grunt was convinced to purchase this failing franchise that had been listed by Acquisitions Inc for quick sale. He rebranded the company as “Nihilus Creatatus”.

• Grunt is a nepo baby that is fresh out of a fancy private school “The Academy of Applied Adventuring”, where he studied business, among other things, and discovered his favourite buzzword “synergy”.

• Now the session starts properly where they left off at the end of Session 1, in Ted Bramble’s clearing, deep in the enchanted forest and they are discussing the current situation with verdant expansion company with him.

• Grunt inquires about the magical wellspring and if it is “infinite”, then tries to ask Ted about tapping it and finding a way to monetise this source of power. Ted reminds him that VEC attempting to tap the wellspring in the past is what caused the regional instability and destroyed the town several times over. Grunt persists in his line of questioning and wants to know if maybe they could “filter” the magic, perhaps through the trees and siphon off a lesser amount of the power, citing rubber and maple syrup trees. Ted says that that is a painful practice for the trees and he doesn’t really approve of that sort of thing.

• Grunt says that when he was younger and sick once, they took some of his blood out, it hurt briefly, but it made him feel better; perhaps if they took some of the magic out, it would ease the pressure and make the forest feel better. Ted doesn’t feel that that is valid here, it’s not quite how this works, being an infinite magic source, it’s better left alone as greed has already led to calamity. Grunt inquires about the magic water that flows through the forest into the grippli village that seems to have healing qualities. Ted tells him that it seems to have picked up ambient magic, like a normal stream would pickup tannins from the local trees.

•  Ted tells them that they need to stop VEC, get the crystalline extraction drill, the research notes and reports and destroy them. He expands that no one with knowledge of these things can leave this forest, it’s too dangerous, someone could start this work all over again. He only grew over and hid the camp last time this happened and it wasn’t enough, as the research was re-discovered and the drill was reverse engineered, he’s adamant about being more thorough this time. The balance of nature must be preserved.

• He clarifies that the workers in the camp need not be killed, he can use the magic of the forest to modify their memories if they can get them to enter the trees. He also requests that they avoid involving his “children” the grippli, as he wants to protect them, but offers the assistance of the crab, the Forest Guardian, that is currently in the clearing protecting him. Kremit pats the giant crab.

• Kremit begins planning how they can assault the camp and deal with the occupants, but Grunt isn’t sure how this venture would pay their bills, he wants a financial incentive. Coinclinkz is on board with Kremit and is excited to assault the camp with the crab. Kremit proposes luring some of the VEC personnel out into the forest, perhaps telling them they found some valuable resources, allowing Ted to mind wipe them.

• Grunt says that the plan has promise in the absence of any other plan, but starts talking about profit again and attempting to trade with the grippli for their magic water to export instead, for a permanent revenue stream. 

• Spastica agrees that they should lure some of the staff away from the camp, but suggests having 2 of their party sneak into the camp and try to rob them off the research notes etc while that is happening.

• Kremit consults Coinclinkz for ideas, he agrees that he’d like to get the head dwarf from the camp and lure them into the forest. Kremit loosely agrees with Spastica’s idea to split the party and have half survey the camp while the other half lure off some of the workers.

• Suddenly, Grunt has a thought, what if Ted wipes their memories as well, after they have finished this task for him and the rest of the party agrees that this has been on their minds too. Kremit asks Ted if he’d wipe their memories and he says “noooooo, that would be TERRIBLE….” and Kremit narrows his eyes.

• Kremit relays their plan to Ted, that they will go off to the camp, lure off some of the workers with a story of a massive tree that looks very magical and full of resources, then have ted mind-wipe them. Grunt says they should look for some foil in the camp, if there is a mess hall, and cover their heads to protect them from Ted’s mind wipe just in case.

• They depart with the crab and head to the camp; from the treeline they can see workers continuing to log trees, working in pairs and making very slow progress with big bandsaws on the magical wood.

• Spastica tries to talk to the crab and give it some basic instructions, giving it the command word “submarine” to charge and chase people away if they need it. It folds its legs and arms in and basically looks like a blue rock as it waits for the command word and they head into camp.

• They meet with the foreman and he is suspicious as to why they are back so quickly, he only sent them off to return the tool cart to town about an hour ago and they couldn’t have possibly made the trip in that time. They tell him that they found something more important that they need to tell him about, and try to tell him about the special tree they allegedly found. He isn’t interested and tells them to go talk to the quartermaster and surveyor about anything to resources, he just oversees the labourers.

• They head to the camp office, tell Tamsin and Alistair about an impressive tree they found, they are very receptive to this; Alistair the mage asks if the tree was growing and Grunt tells him it was covered in glowing resin and growths, very impressive. The mage asks for the location of the tree, but Grunt tells them they have to agree to terms first, they want to be paid for the information. Tamsin says that they could potentially cut them in for 3000 copper pieces, in exchange for the information and makes this sound like a tremendous sum of money, when it’s only really 30gp. Grunt accepts immediately, not understanding the exchange rate.

• Alistair, 3 guards and 3 labourers assemble to follow the party into the forest, Grunt tries to size up the named characters but can’t make much of them; Spastica discerns that Garrick looks tough, he’s got a fancy looking war maul on his back and armour.

• They head into the forest, after a short while, they enter a stand of trees with fungus growing on them that starts to release a fog of glowing spores; the party walks further ahead acting like they are scouting and leading, while the spore cloud thickens and engulfs the VEC personnel. The labourers collapse along with one of the guards, looking bewildered as they go unconscious, while Alistair and two of the guards resist the spore effects and stagger out in a coughing fit.

• Before they can react, the party choses to attack and gets a surprise round; Grunt charges into their midst and swings at Alistair, but misses as he moves his head coughing. Spastica also misses her attack with her longbow, falling over a tree root, and is prone. Kremit tries to grapple the mage, succeeds and has restrained. Coinclinkz casts Sleep and one of the guards is unconscious.

• Grunt attacks the remaining guard and hurts him pretty badly, Spastica shoots the mage, Kremit tries to shove the mage into the spore cloud and fails, Coinclinkz casts sleep again and drops the remaining guard. The mage casts scorching rays and deals high damage to Kremit and some damage to Grunt and Coinclinkz, then starts ranting that he will kill them all.

• Kremit stabs the mage, Grunt misses him as the mage keeps wrestling with Kremit, Spastica shoots him again, Coinclinkz hits him with an eldritch blast for small damage.

• The mage casts shocking grasp on Kremit, who is starting to look pretty injured. Grunt hits the mage and smites him for massive damage, but non lethally knocks him unconscious.

• The party tie the 2 guards and the mage up, then drag them back into the spores so that they will be affected and have their memories erased. 

• Grunt searches the mage and finds a couple of Happy Animal Friends trading cards, 20 gp and the crystalline drill they were looking for.

• Coinclinkz and Kremit search the guards and find 10 silver pieces on them and take their longswords.

• The part has a short rest and heal up, the spores have dissipated in the intervening time and the guards, mage and workers are all delirious and confused. Grunt asks a guard what they remember, their memories are from before they started their assignment at the logging camp, they remember travelling. Grunt successfully deceives them, telling them something went wrong, they were ambushed, went crazy and had to be tied up for their own safety. The guard breaks down in tears saying “what have I done!?”, looking down at their bloody hands and badly injured mage next to them.

• Grunt tells them to relax and have a sleep, they will go and find the people that did this to them and stop them, then come back for them and make sure they get back to their headquarters, get a bonus and a day off. They are very happy and said they always knew that the company would look after them and that they were part of the corporate family when they signed their contracts.

• They are trying to formulate a new plan and consider returning to the camp, Coinclinkz is smoking a pipe and very astutely remembers that when they were last at the camp, the workers fled at the first sign of the crab. They only have 3 guards left to deal with plus Tamsin and Garrick. Grunt suggests to Kremit that he get the grippli to follow them in to battle and tries to persuade him with images of glory and leading a frog army to victory, but this fails as Kremit wants to avoid them being hurt.

• Grunt attempts to talk to the mage and asks them what he remembers, he tells him that he remembers being in the card shop back in New New New Jerusalem looking at Arcana cards, but he didn’t buy any of them because they are so lame. They discover that there are 3 competing card shops all next to each other “Games”, “OK Games” and “Slightly Above Average Games” all run by men of different ethnicities. Examining the mage, Grunt noticed that he had a VEC company tattoo with their franchise name “The Crimson Carrion” on it on his shoulder.

• Grunt says to Kremit, that as he’s the smartest among them, he should become their corporate strategist “Stratestician” and formulate a new plan for them to maximise their synergy. Kremit says “The profit margin with the crab will raise exponentially when attacking the camp, given our synergistic ability to become autistic” and Grunt says that he “Could not become more autistic, I’ve become non-verbal” and that he’s had a “Bureaucrogasm”.

• They settle down and leave the area, moving back towards the logging camp, Coinclinkz in the rear of the party is too focused on smoking his pipe and doesn’t notice roots beginning to sprout from the ground around the bound guards and mage.

• The party names the giant crab “Terrence” and Grunt uses the side of his shell as a whiteboard to plot their strategy. He suggests that they run towards the camp with Terrence 30 seconds behind them and pretend to be fleeing from him, using him as a distraction, so they can get behind the guards in the camp and pincer attack them.

• They run into the open, yelling that the crab is coming, the workers start to flee, but then pause when nothing appears to be coming out of the trees, and start to walk back to their tools. The party manages to run all the way to the walls of the camp before the 30 seconds elapses, met by confused and sceptical guards, then the crab erupts from the trees and the workers flee in mindless terror.

• The crab is very large and fast, it catches the slowest of the workers very easily, picks them up and crushes them in it crusher claw, causing Grunt to wince from the unintended innocent death.

• The guards are starting to rally and run towards the gate nearest to the crab, the foreman Garrick grabs two of them by the scruff of the neck, drags them near and starts hurriedly talking to them, making special ops hands signs, gesturing at the crab. He runs out of the camp with the two, lets them get ahead of them, then the two guards join hands, lower them and fling Garrick into the air as he steps on their hands; he sticks the landing on top of the crab, attacking with his war maul. Terrence attempts to grab Garrick in a fury but can’t get its claws up over its back, it attacks one of the guards instead and crushes them violently.

• Grunt runs into the camp office and starts yelling to Tamsin telling him that the camp is under attack and the guards are dying; he asks where the safe is, saying that they need to get it safe, suggesting that he gives it to them so they can “take it back to headquarters. This makes Tamsin suspicious and Coinclinkz, standing outside the entrance, mimics the voice of Garrick and says that Tamsin needs to trust Grunt, he’s holding off the crab as long as he can, but he needs to give them the safe. Unfortunately he fails his deception check and Tamsin immediately attacks Grunt with 2 daggers, doing negligible damage.

• Grunt hits him back for considerable damage, followed by Spastica slashing at him with her short sword, injuring him significantly. Outside, Kremit cinematically jumps on top of the crab, somersaulting between its closing claws, and confronts Garrick with his sword out. Coinclinkz casts eldritch blast on Garrick, doing very minor damage, singeing his armour.

• Garrick hits Kremit with his maul for massive damage, reduced slightly by Kermit’s Cutting Words “Hit me harder, Daddy” that unsettle him.

• Terrence attacks the guard in front of him but misses, slamming his claw down into the earth.

• Tamsin is engaged with Grunt inside the camp office, realises he’s in bad situation that he is unlikely to survive, disengages and runs out of the office, fleeing. Spastica tries to shoot him in the back with her bow as he flees, but misses. Coinclinkz shoots him in the back with an eldritch blast and he is starting to look quite injured as he staggers from the blow.

• Grunt runs out of the camp, uses his Champion Challenge ability on Garrick, swearing at him, making him mad. Spastica shoots the guard in front of the crab for high damage, Kremit casts Dissonant Whispers on Garrick dealing modest damage. Coinclinkz shoots Tamsin in the back again with an eldritch blast for high damage, causing him to sink to his knees and start to crawl away as he continues to flee. The guard in front of the crab turns and rushes towards Spastica with his spear, Terrence fails to hit him with his op attack, the guard hits Spastica for minor damage.

• Garrick moves to hop down from the back of Terrence, Kremit misses his op attack, Garrick jumps down and charges at Grunt. Grunt uses his readied action and attempts to hit Garrick as he comes into range, misses, and Garrick makes two attacks against him for massive damage. Garrick laughs, taunts, and then spits on Grunt. Terrence attacks  Garrick and attempts to crush him in his claw but doesn’t do much damage and Garrick holds them open heroically.

• Seeing Grunt being massively injured by Garrick and Spastica desperately fending off a guard, Coinclinkz decides to shoot Tamsin once again with his eldritch blast as he pleads for his life, saying he’s only an accountant. Coinclinkz says “keep the change” and blows a grapefruit sized hole in his chest, executing him.

• Spastica keeps tangling with the guard attacking her and misses with her short sword, Kremit attacks Garrick again with dissonant whispers doing modest damage. Grunt attempts to use Command on Garrick and this fails, his voice breaks as he squeaks “stop”. Garrick hits him with his maul and crushes him into the ground, knocking him unconscious.

• The guard fighting Spastica misses with his spear. Terrence attacks Garrick and misses his first attack, then critically fails his second attack, getting his claw stuck in the wall of the camp office that has been caved in. Grunt critically fails his death saving throw and is very close to death. Kremit uses healing word on Grunt, yelling “Get lifed!” evangelically, causing one of Grunts arms to grow slightly so his hands are the same length.

• Spastica hits the guard with her short sword and he is near death. Coinclinkz runs over to Tamsin’s corpse, collects the safe key and then fires eldritch blast at Garrick, mildly damaging him and causing one of the links of his chainmail to split open. Garrick turns away from Grunt now he’s no longer a threat and makes 2 successful attacks against Terrence for massive damage, wiping out half of his maximum health, smashing through the chitin of his shell.

• Grunt tries to stab Garrick in the back, but fails as his sword is batted aside by Garrick wheeling it around to make another attack against Terrence. Kremit casts dissonant whispers again, causing significant damage and Garrick is looking very weak now. Spastica slashes the throat of the guard attacking her, causing his head to flop back as he drops to the ground, Grunt screams “non-lethal!” At her in the background, dismayed.

• Coinclinkz attempts to cast Toll the Dead on Garrick but it does almost no damage. Terrence attacks Garrick, manages to clasp him his crusher claw, raises him up from the ground, manages to break his other claw free of the building and uses it to tear him in half, showering Grunt with blood and gore. He drops the mangled corpse and armour to the ground, Garrick’s maul drops head first into the mud, its haft standing straight up, invitingly.

• Kremit searches Garrick and finds a Maul +1 and a snuffbox of “beetle snuff”. Coinclinkz searches Tamsin thoroughly and finds a sealed document tube with research notes and reports in it, a sample of magic wood and a vial of glowing resin. Looking through the document tube, Coinclinkz also finds a spicy female drow calendar.

• Grunt takes the maul and equips it. Coinclinkz enters the damaged camp office and unlocks the strongbox “safe”, collecting 200 silver, 75gp, some signed blank requisition forms, and on the wall in the office is a taxidermied pigeon that Grunt grabs. Kremit searches the dead guards and finds 30 silver, 2 more longswords and a spear.

• The party mount Terrence and ride him back towards Ted’s clearing, they pass the area that they left the bound guards and mage in earlier, but there is now just a mass of roots that appear to have bored through fabric there. The crab keeps moving and shortly they arrive at Ted’s glade, Grunt asks to bathe in his healing waters and Ted says they are welcome to. This close to the source the magic is potent and anyone that partakes feels like they’ve had a long rest.

• Grunt tells him that they have cleared the camp and that Ted may now cover it again, he says it is already underway, he felt the disturbance in the forest and that the logging had ceased, beginning to direct the growth of the trees to obscure the camp.

• Ted says that he sensed the mage that they left bound earlier and felt it was best, for the safety of all in the region and the balance of nature, if he were no longer and threat and hopes that they can forgive him for gently killing them. He expresses that they felt no pain, they simply went to sleep from some more spores and was absorbed by his roots. The party are not comforted or convinced by this, with Grunt saying “no pain ? What, as your roots bored through their bodies!?” And Coinclinkz chuckles and mock screams. 

• Ted tries to assuage their fears that he is a threat and expresses that the mage had knowledge of the wellspring, the research and was the one that had reverse engineered the drill. The threat of someone potentially being able to recover that knowledge from his mind through magical means was too great, even if it was remote.

• Grunt inquires after the rest of the workers and Ted placates him, saying that they posed no threat, they were innocents and had their memories modified and they are being guided out of the forest by his magic, watched over by the grippli. Ted asks what Grunt has attached to his belt, spying the taxidermied pigeon and Grunt tells him that it is Speckled Jim. Ted says that isn’t Speckled Jim, Speckled Jim is known to him, he’s a dashing rogue of a pigeon, quite a character that is alive and well, last felt flying north over his forest a few weeks ago; the taxidermy is Dotted Greg!

• Grunt is enraged by this news and hurls the taxidermy into Ted’s stream, as Ted continues to wax nostalgic about how great Speckled Jim is and how he’s happy that he’s free of that “horrible old woman” who kept him in a cage. Grunt is confused about how pigeons work and says that he’d just fly back to the woman but Ted explains that pigeons instinctively fly home and uses messenger pigeons as an example, when they’re released they fly to the place they are trained to go. Grunt has the wrong end of the stick and is now concerned that the “horrible woman” might be sending nefarious messages somewhere.

• Coinclinkz is looking at his draw calendar in the background.

• Ted tells Grunt that Bartemius Fowl in town is the last remaining member of this franchise of VEC, they just have to get him into the forest and then he can wipe his memory. He asks for the crystal drill that they were sent to collect as the subject of the mage’s untimely death comes up again and Grunt tries to lie that they haven’t seen it. Spastica asks what the drill is made out of  and Ted says “chocolate” sarcastically, no it’s obviously made out of crystal…

• Kremit starts to pipe up about the drill and Grunt tells him to shut up, then starts talking about making a deal for access to the healing water again. Ted says that if they could give him the drill, the research materials, reports, and clear up the remaining VEC personnel with knowledge of the wellspring, he may be able to come to an accord with them for a few barrels a month of healing water.

• He asks them if they have found any of the research materials, Grunt again tries to obfuscate and say that Ted will find them when he absorbs the logging camp but Ted says that will take a long time and he needs confirmation that this knowledge hasn’t gotten out. Grunt asks why this knowledge is import and how is it dangerous, Ted recaps again that the region would be destroyed if they tried to tap the wellspring again; the reason its called “new new new” Jerusalem is because the town was destroyed a number of times and many thousands died.

• He is becoming suspicious and attempts to detect Grunt lying, but Grunt passes his deception check and they sense that Terrence was slowly circling behind them, anticipating an attack, but has stopped. Kremit says that they shouldn’t be too greedy and is trying to nudge Grunt to back down and not antagonise the ancient druid in his lair.

• Grunt asks if they could take one of the small grippli, maybe serve as a representative of Ted, but he isn’t really swayed by this suggestion, saying they already have a frog man in their party, why would they need another. 

• The party wants to have an aside and Ted says that he isn’t going anywhere, take their time.

• They mull over the offer for the healing water, Kremit counsels against trying to swindle this ancient tree druid, Coinclinkz is considering forging documents and Grunt says that he should be their Master of Corporate Espionage moving forwards.

• They give Ted the research notes and reports and he destroys them with acidic sap, thanking them enthusiastically. Coinclinkz asks if he can keep the nsfw drow calendar and Ted says he doesn’t feel like that has any real relevance, he doesn’t care. Grunt and Coinclinkz try to glance at the documents before they are destroyed to glean something from them and manage to memorise some information about the samples of magic forest materials and their potential use.

• Ted says they just need to find the crystal drill now, Kremit asks if this is what he is looking for, produces the drill and Ted produces a vine that lashes it from his hand violently, smashing it against a boulder, atomising it.

• Kremit asks if Ted could make Bartemius gay when he modifies his memory and Ted confusedly says he could probably do that ?

• The party return to the road, collect the empty cart they were pulling earlier and head down the road. They run into a group of workers in plain clothes slowly walking along the side of the road in a daze, Grunt approaches them and says they have work for them to do, hands out contracts and says they should sign them. “What? Something need doing? Work-work”. The workers say they aren’t literate and Grunt is even more enthused by this, has them sign a simple “x” on the employment contracts, he’s gained 4 new basic labourer employees. Kremit says he wants to train them in swords and martial arts, he wants a mercenary band.

• The party is sitting inside the cart, with the workers pulling it back to their “head office” hovel. They meet their secretary “Roz”, who is an ancient goblin and ask in a husky smokers voice if Grunt has lost any more money today, cackling at him. In their head office there is a few poorly constructed plywood dividers to make rooms, a boardroom that Grunt spent most of their money on with a lavish table, chairs and chandelier and the “Bio Drainage Synergy Centre” that is the lavatory.

• There is a man in a suit with a briefcase waiting for them that wants them to pay their franchise fee and tithe, Spastica pays him a hundred gold and 13 silver. He congratulates them for turning a profit finally, he informs them they are now considered a rank 1 franchise and offers them an Acquisitions Inc Portable Vault. Spastica says that she will take it as CFO, he hands her a contract then grabs her hand and stabs it with his quill, then writes her name and the franchise name on the back of a card on a lanyard, in her blood. He incants a spell, runes flare and he hands her the card, telling her to tap it against the wall.

• She taps it against the wall and a massive vault door magically extrudes from it, she spins the wheel unlocking it, it swings open and reveals a 10ft cubed pristine white tiled room. The rep tells them that only the registered user can open the vault. Grunt asks what happens if they lose their card, or their CFO dies, can they still access this vault ? The rep says they can fill out the paperwork and requisition a new card that should arrive within 3 - 75 business days, or they can travel to head office and pay a fee for them to open a portal to their vault. The vault exists physically on a licensed demiplane that Acquisitions Inc own.

• Kremit asks what if her soul was in a different body, or if she was undead, the rep says that they are very open and accepting of alternative lifestyles, if she was feeling body-fluid, or was undead, they could make some accessibility accomodations for her.

• As the session closes, Grunt is tasking the new workers with fixing up the office and improving the shoddy walls and fixtures in the building.