Dax Joins

The party woke and prepared bacon for breakfast. Rut seemed interested in Barnaby and got in his face.

After burying the boar, the party met Dax, a wounded fighter on a similar quest toward Gnomengarde, surrounded by five dead orcs and carrying orc rumors of a dragon in the area. Given food, he cautiously joined the party toward their shared destination — unsure whether joining the group was actually the fastest way to complete his quest.

Inside Gnomengarde, Hamish took an interest in mushrooms growing in the pond and discovered they were being farmed. The party wandered the passageways and found crab-like contraptions sized perfectly for Rut and Bean, then reached the kitchen, where gnomes were preparing mushrooms into oil, bread, and wine. Rut stole a piece of bread; Hamish learned how to harvest mushrooms. The baker told Dax to find the king to complete his quest, kicked Thom in the shins for asking too many questions (a busy woman, after all), and offered a tip to reach the king faster — which the party didn’t trust.

Then the party met Facktoré, a crazed gnome eager to test her heavy crossbow ballista on new targets. She immediately shot Thom. Sage and Hamish partially disabled the machine, Thom cast Sleep on the gnome, and Dax tied her up. Bean found her bag of 10 gold — her favorite!

Barnaby carried Facktoré and Bean to the entrance they’d been directed to and were met by several gnomes, less concerned about Thom’s bleeding and more worried about their crazy friend all tied up. Poor Facktoré! During a heated argument about letting a lunatic operate heavy weaponry, Rut freed her — and she promptly screeched and ran away.