Esmeralda’s Journal 22.2.6828

22.2.6828

Today was a productive day. It was my first full day in the city of Bad Luck. I was at the inn run by Outreach Guild – you can’t get jobs around here without being a guild member. I was questioning innkeeper Jills about how to join the guild (there’s a challenge on 27.2 that gets a first-level membership) when suddenly a couple of metal monsters crash into the inn.

I, Aqua Aqua (the innkeeper’s partner) and a bunch of non-guild members – Thibedoux (Tabaxi), Ozymandias (Dhampir), Avet (???), And Caspian (human) – attacked the two metal things. Ozy has an interesting spider gadget that can crawl around and attacks monsters, too. We were victorious in vanquishing the creatures with the help of several spells including one that paralyzed them momentarily and another that grew a thorn barrier between them and us.

Jills explained to us that these attacks have been occurring for 3 days and asked us to question the other patrons of the inn to see if we could find out what was going on. I was unfortunately a bit distracted (my scimitar needed sharpening) so I missed this explanation, but I eventually caught on to what the line of questioning was about.

I questioned Le’ Nalo, Bounty Hunter of the Primal Evils and his companion Swivel. But since I didn’t know what I was supposed to be questioning them about, I just asked if they were looking for a monster-hunting companion. They were jerks.

I then questioned Lia, a woman who, like me, is interested in books. One particular book, in her case. She had taken an arcane book of rituals and was now being chased by machine monsters. Thibedoux (who had helped me question her) and I went to tell Jills, who was quite miffed that Lia hadn’t given this information.

Suddenly, our conversation was interrupted by a clamor in the other room. When Thibedoux and I rushed in, there was a monster in Lia’s place (apparently she’d attempted a ritual, as I discovered later). It was a hideous plant that was viciously attacking the other newly-fledged members. We rushed into action, and a few of us were injured as we defeated yet another monster in one day. I was severely pissed that Aqua Aqua didn’t join in this fight.

Afterwards Jills gave each of us non-members a rank 1 membership in the guild (though I’d still like to participate in the challenge). I went exploring the inn, and discovered a tall woman named Lyra in the garden. I went to buy her a tea and invited Avet to join us. He seems like a trustworthy guy, and I need one of those.

We chatted about the garden and medicine and a gigantic rat problem in a nearby tavern. Avet said nothing at all, but that’s ok. He’s the quiet type. All the better.

The other new guild members and I checked out the quest board and picked out a couple that looked doable. One was to try out some “new remedies” as healthy test subjects. The other to fix the giant rat problem Lyra had told me about.

It turned out Lyra was the person who wanted test subjects. She gave us each a “remedy” it was this weird sparkly color, and I decided not to try it. Ozy’s turned him into a sheep and he also took mine, so he started floating away, baaing like mad. Avet’s did nothing.

After Ozy turned human again, we all took rooms and settled in for the night.