Session 1 - One too many Goblins

Session Date: September 10, 2019

Still in Nightstone, the party leaves the chapel where they had interrogated a goblin. They leave him tied up and head out to explore the rest of the town.

The next building to the east appears to be an Inn, and it has taken some serious damage from the falling boulders. There is a door to the south, and two small shed-like areas on either side. The northwest corner is completely blasted open and appears to be where a kitchen once was. Drork sneaks up and takes a peek, seeing the interior in complete disarray, there's a bar room and it looks to have been completely ransacked.

Investigating the eastern shed, Drork finds normal maintenance tools (hammers, shovels, rakes, etc.) and takes a crowbar.

Suddenly a goblin comes around the corner dragging a big satchel, and stuff is falling out of it. A whole chicken, other food scraps, etc. Stats manages to one-shot her with his crossbow, and takes a pumpkin from the bag. The bag also contains some wine and half-kegs of ale. Stats tastes the wine and finds it to be total plonk compared to his family's vintage. Drork takes one of the half-kegs of ale.

Distracted briefly from the inn, the party examines a cemetery north-west of the Inn, and sees a number of family names including but not limited to Delfrindel, Ostra, Aganor, Summerhawk. They also find a large mausoleum with the name Nandar. Hammerfeet recognizes this as the family name of one of his superiors, Julius Nandar.

Going back into the Inn, the party enters through the blasted out kitchen, and finds the taproom in total disarray, with rubble strewn about and a bed and wardrobe in the middle of the floor, apparently fallen through the floor of a room above. Some tables and chairs are still intact and a few lanterns sit about. Drork takes a lantern for his pack.

A goblin in the corner of the bottom floor is dead and has a crossbow bolt in its back, that wasn't the party's doing.

Heading up the stairs in the main room of the inn, the party finds a hall with four closed doors, with the one in the NW marked management. Raloric [i think?] bashes the door down and find the room has been completely crushed, with a gaping hole in the floor. There's a chest in the corner and after checking it for traps, Drork wrenches it open with a crowbar, finding some dwarf-sized chainmail and a helm, 45gp, 2 gemstones worth 100gp each, and a potion (blue and bubbly, steaming as if boiling). Hammerfeet takes the chainmail and helm, the rest goes in the party loot

the SW door is labeled 201 and contains nothing unusual - a bed, a desk with a tome of Lathander, a wardrobe, etc. and the party is able to see Darby out the window, across the moat, still waiting for them.

the NE room contains much the same, but Stats is able to see out the window a stable to the east and notices some movement in the hay loft.

Drork tries to bash in the SW door but is unable to break it down, and hears a voice saying "go away!" He and Hammerfeet try to speak to the person behind the door, but she does not trust them. Stats uses druidcraft to make a small flower and passes it under the door as a sign of peace. A small lizard-like hand or tail grabs the flower from under the door. The door ultimately opens and reveals a woman who introduces herself as Kella and the small lizard-like appendage must have been the tail of the flying snake that accompanies her. Kella says she'd like to head on to Daggerford, as one of her associates works for the merchant's guild there, the Sword Coast Trader's Bank. She says that they accept deposits from merchants and allow them to receive these deposits in other established branches around Faerûn. She mentions that nobody knows where the gold is actually stored, and it is speculated that it is kept in pocket dimensions.

Kella also mentions that she has a friend Xolkin who can escort her, and that he's on the way, and that the flying snake is named Smitty, and is a messenger from Xolkin. Given the option to stay or come with the party, she offers to wait in the inn and keep a lookout from the windows. Stats offers to take control of Smitty for the time being and send him back when the town is cleared of goblins.

The party leaves the inn and begins investigating the stables to the east. There are some stray pigs running around outside. The door to the stable is open and they hear some movement inside. Drork tries to sneak inside but botches it badly. The party comes in and begins a fight with two goblins, one and older hardened fighter and the other a very young goblin. Drork overhears them referring to each other as Derp and Chip, respectively. He also overhears Derp refer to Chip as Hark's son. Drork takes some heavy damage from Derp, and meanwhile the flying snake manages to bite Chip and he falls from the hayloft to his death. Enraged by the death of his nephew, Hark strikes another furious blow and knocks Drork unconscious, and then flees out the window of the hayloft. The party tries to hit him through the window but is unable to do any damage.

Hammerfeet then uses healing word to revive Drork, who rages, jumps out the window and cleaves derp on the way down, killing him. They search chip and find a necklace  that spells out "golden child" in teeth, and a small wooden dagger. Chip has flappy ears and bare feet, and a bit of a golden hue.

-- party takes short rest --

The party takes a short rest, after which Hammerfeet and Drork give chip a proper burial in the northern graveyard.

Exploring further south in town, the party finds a branch of the Lionshield Coster signified by a circular blue shield with stylized golden lion. The shop is empty apart from a goblin who is busy rummaging around. Drork sneaks in, kills a goblin and the party is then able to take whatever basic supplies they need from the store. (anything under 10gp from the adventuring gear table)

The party continues south to deal with the two goblins dicking around in the field with pumpkins on their heads. A short fight erupts and the party dispatches the goblins easily with the help of Smitty.

Heading towards the bridge up to the keep, Hammerfeet and Raloric notices a small flying cat. Stats approaches and recalls that this is a Tressym. Upon Stats' command Smitty approaches the Tressym and it flees.

While the party is viewing this, Drork heads back to the Lionshield Coster and returns with a number of ladders and some rope, and the party begins constructing a makeshift bridge to cross the gap in the actual bridge.

Carefully crossing the makeshift bridge the party sees the keep itself, with stone walls and ceilings about 20ft toll, with the Nandar name also inscribed on the front here as well. Entering the keep the party finds some guards arguing and nearby is an older woman laid out on a table, apparently deceased.

The guards turn and look, pause at Drork and pull their swords, but are quickly calmed by the rest of the party. They say that Lady Velrosa Nandar was killed the attack, and that they are the only 4 guards left in the keep. They identify themselves as Sydiri Haunlar, Torem, Alara, and Kaelen.

When asked for details about the attack, they say they were bombarded by rocks from a castle in the sky during a harvest festival. The villagers all headed north to caves about a mile away, while the pummeling continued and destroyed the keep. The 4 giants emerged, pulled out the Nightstone and left. The Nightstone is the town's namesake - nobody knows what it's for, but it was an obelisk in the center of the village, and must be important somehow if the giants came and stole it.

Hammerfeet asked about the Nandars, and Sydiri explains that Lord Drezlin Nandar had been trying to establish a hunting lodge in the Ardeep Forest, but some wood elves from Evermeet who were settled in the forest and set against them, enraged by their incursions into the Ardeep Forest. A year ago the conflict escalated and the elves killed Lord Drezlin, and in the aftermath, Lady Velrosa Nandar made peace with the elves and pledged never to make any such expeditions into the forest again.

Hammerfeet also asks about his superior Julius Nandar and if the guards know him, and asks about Hawk's Nest Pass. The guards say that the Nandar family has members all over the Sword Coast, and that Hawk's Nest is hundreds of miles to the northeast, past Sundabar

Stats notices a glimmer on the corpse of Lady Velrosa Nandar and distracts the soldiers with an illusion. He then he steals the ring, which is set with a Sparkstone.

Asked about Luscious, Sydiri says that she's operating out of the Ardeep Forest.

At this point, the little gizmo bird (pojo?) that we saw outside the window of AAA Adventures comes along and comes right up tot Stats. it says to put in the Sparkstone and the reward will be delivered. Stats puts the Sparkstone in a little compartment in the mechanical bird and it proceeds to crap out some gold (250gp) which he collects.

The front door opens and Darby comes in. He's brought the carriage and horses in and parked it within the town center.

Stats goes to explore the castle library, and Drork join him. Stats looks for info on sky castles, and family history of Parlon. Raloric joins and is looking for books on poems. Drork is just helping.

a few books of note are found: -- party takes a long rest -- -- party levels up to level 2 at this point, featuring some abysmal HP rolls --
 * The History of the Giant Folk - details a lot of information about Giants:
 * types of giant mentioned: hill, fire, frost, cloud, stone, storm. It is written by a human, so is observational but talks a bit about giant hierarchy. Regarding flying castles, they seem to be the domain of cloud giants, and are built of "cloud stuff"
 * Master the bedroom
 * this one is more of an "art" book about bedroom positions
 * A piece of a mind
 * poetry - notable poems include "Faerie tale girl" and others
 * Family trees and such of olden days
 * small section on the Parlon family does not have much detail about where they're from, but notes that they are a quite old family dating back to 1475DR and further. Book mentions the the high forest, and that they Parlon family was fond of drink and they have vineyards and such

Sydiri comes back and says the watch went without a problem. Mentioned something about the treasury being kept with the Sword Coast Trader's Bank.

She implores us to help save the rest of the villagers.

Exiting the keep, the party sees a number of soldiers of some sort in the courtyard across the bridge [I didn't take much note of this, and we'll get to it next session for sure.]

Previous Session: Session 0.5 - Welcome to AAA Adventures

Next session: Session 2 - The one where Stats dies