Dramatis Personnae
Fenmyar (Freddie)
Galadin (Andrew)
Jakama (Rowan)
Lexomel (Rex)
Obsidian (Jase)
Calista (Reni)
Suddenly, the tavern’s front doors bang open! A large man sporting an outsized mustache bursts in, surveying the scene with obvious distaste. From behind him, four timid pointy-faced halflings slip past to try unobtrusively to find a booth behind Threestrings, back by the fire. Glaring at all present, the large man
Just as the friends feel that they can lean back and enjoy the fruits of their labors, crisis strikes!
The setting is early evening in the taproom of GLOK’s Jolly Food. It is absolutely packed with customers. Waterdeepers of every type, councilors, merchants, nobles, city watch, are elbow to elbow happily eating, drinking and basking in tunes provided by Threestrings. The friends survey this busy scene and mentally tabulate the gold they will make on such a night. At a corner table under the watchful eyes of Fenmyar and Lexomel, Maartin, the apprentice wizard, studies his loaned tomes with a half-finished strawberry milkshake at his elbow.
Fenmyar asks to see one of the spells Maartin has been studying. The boy grins and casts a Prestidigitation on himself, turning his hair a vibrant shade of purple. Fenmyar is expansive in his praise and sends the boy up to bed. Obediently, Maartin hops down, gathers his books and takes himself off.
strides across the floor, scattering customers in his wake as he stomps towards the packed bar. With one meaty hand, the man removes the woodworker Furney from his barstool to make space for himself. The enormous man’s other hand cartoonishly twirls the curled ends of his outrageously large mustache. Despite a glowing green poltergeist barman, the gargantuan fellow pounds a ham-sized fist on the zinc surface, demanding to service. Tankards and cups jump with the force.
Lief the Poltergeist pours the man a frothy root beer in an icy mug. The large man eyes it suspiciously, holding it up to the light as though examining it critically. He then ostentatiously extracts a large handkerchief from his pocket to rub something from the glass’s surface. Across the room, the friends exchange looks that say, “Here comes trouble.” Calista in particular can tell at a glance the man is only pretending to find fault with the mug. Grrr!
From under lowered brows the man calls loudly, “Where are the owners of this ‘fine’ establishment?!” People in the taproom are beginning to notice the scene the man is causing. The friends move towards him, and he eyes them with distrust. “I’m Emmek Frewn, sole proprietor of Frewn’s Brews, your competition down the street. I suppose I should welcome you to the neighborhood. I can see you’ve got yourselves many of my customers, and then some.” Although it wouldn’t seem possible, the man glowers at them with even more hostility.
Meeting each of them eye to eye, he rumbles, “I have a proposition for you. Let’s call it a friendly wager. Let’s see which establishment earns more by week’s end, yours or mine. May the better tavern win.” Frewn thrusts a heavily tattooed arm out. It hangs in space, an offer that the friends shake this meaty hand to seal his proffered bet.
The heroes, however, are repulsed by this idea. Objecting to a one, they begin to speak simultaneously, but clever Jakama, shaking his head, says, “I don’t think so. We won’t do that.”
Wise Lexomel agrees, “We don’t want to view this as a competition.”
Emmek’s fist pounds down on the bar, scattering flatware and tankards. “But I do!” he roars. “I see most of MY customers here at YOUR tavern!!” He glares around at the now quiet taproom, and seeing that he has everyone’s attention, states, “I considered buying this dump before Volo bought it. But it was filthy and infested with rats!!” Emmek pauses to look meaningfully around the room, then tips his head to delicately sniff the air. “It still smells ratty! So I let Volo buy the place.No doubt he found it too ruined to bring it back as a bar, so he sold it to you people. And you run it to serve food, despite the rat problem!”
Customers exchange looks with one another while the friends object strenuously to the charges GLOK’s is not infested with anything but poltergeist. Suddenly there is a piercing screech, “RATS!!” from the back of the room. A pair of large rats race from in front of
the fireplace, beneath tables legs and customer legs, zigzagging across the taproom to disappear behind some barrels in the back room. This chaos causes a server to topple a tray carrying four tall glasses on a table where two halflings are seated, legs dangling. Milkshake, whipped cream and cherries spatter the two empty chairs. Customers begin to quietly abandon their meals and slip out the front door.
Emmek looks around, hands on his hips, satisfied. “My work here is done.” He strides towards the door, calling over his shoulder “And yer boy, Threestrings, he’ll be giving notice. He’s gonna be playing at MY place, Frewn’s Brews, where the root beer is cold and there’s nary a RAT in sight!” With that, Emmek bangs out the door.
Lexomel protests that Threestrings is loyal to the friends. After a moment Threestrings slides off his stool and stand before the friends, eyes cast down. “I meant to speak with you about this earlier,” murmurs the bard. “Mr. Frewn offered me more gold for my songs.I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”
It is clear that Threestrings feels badly for putting the heroes in this position. Threestrings explains he has an elderly mother and some much younger orphaned siblings that he is supporting. Surely the friends understand the need to earn as much money as he can? A deal is struck, and Threestrings departs with more gold than he’d originally expected, as well as an agreement to return to GLOK’s rather than start work at Emmek Frewn’s establishment. Whew!
Meanwhile, as customers mutter about a rat infestation, the friends turn their attention to finding the rats. Jakama’s eyes narrow at the pair of halflings wiping milkshake from their waistcoats.
“Hey,” says Jakama, confronting them, “weren’t there four of you when your group came in?” Lexomel, staring hard at the pair, notices that each of the halflings have a particularly pointy face, are bucktoothed and have ears set just a wee bit too far and high. In fact, they appear very ratlike, it seems to Lexomel. He points this out to Jakama, who is enraged at the halflings.
Jakama demands to know if the halflings know Emmek. “Well, sure,” say the halflings. “Everyone knows Emmek. We even earn some gold from him on occasion…” Lexomel’s eyes narrow.
The friends reach the conclusion that the halflings must be wererats in the employ of Emmek Frewn.
Jakama picks up one of the halflings in his bony hand, and Lexomel cautions him to be calm, especially when the tavern still has at least a few customers. Jakama moves the squeaking halfling out a side door, his small companion trotting after and shouting, “We wouldn’t eat in a place so infested by rats!” Jakama slams the door behind them, still angry. The balance of the GLOK’s customers toss their napkins on the tables and depart. The friends, worried that their nearly very successful enterprise is dying on the vine, make a plan now that they are aware of their wererat problem.
Fenmyar races upstairs to watch over his apprentice, Maartin, who is sleeping by himself in a building with two wererats loose and looking for mischief. Calista and Galadin go up to warn Paderick and Yagra, who are now in the employ of GLOKs. Jakama and Lexomel
search the now empty taproom and find a fist-sized hole in the wall near the fireplace. Grateful to be a sentient skeleton, Jakama removes his hand and his head and balances his skull on the back of the discorporate hand. The skull spins, grinning at Lexomel and says “See you later!” Jakama’s skeletal parts move, spiderlike, into the rat hole in the baseboard.
Jakama, with his keen darkvision, is able to see drapes of cobweb within the walls, hanging over a clear trail of fresh rat tracks in the dust. He follows them up to the second floor where he pops out a second rat hole near the fireplace in a cozy sitting room. In fact, Jakama can see that two wererat hybrids—a form not fully rat but certainly not fully halfling. They are seated in a pair of cushy armchairs before the fire, hairy clawed feet up on stools. The two speak in rough, squeaky voices.
“Well, if that doesn’t shut this place down, I don’t know what will!” The wererats chuckle evilly.
Unfortunately, Jakama is spotted, and the wererats transform into full rat form and escape onto the porch. Here, they climb the outside walls of the tavern. Jakama pursues, but loses sight of the faster rats. He sends a message to his body down in the taproom.
By now, the rest of the group, along with Paderick and Yagra, have reconvened in the bar. The rising sun them standing near the inert, headless and handless figure of Jakama. They are dejected, having discovered the atrocities committed by the two rats overnight. The damage is terrible to behold. Every egg in the kitchen is broken. Each sack of flour, slab of meat, crate of apples and keg of root beer has been despoiled by ratty teeth and claws. This will take many hours to clean up and much gold to replace. Curses!
Fenmyar sadly hangs a sign on the door of GLOKs simply stating “Closed for repairs until further notice.” Grimly the friends turn back to begin a tremendous amount of work. Sigh.
Suddenly, they notice Jakama’s body, which has begun to move as though trying to convey some sort of message! It seems to be trying to tell them something! Calista runs for his broom of flying, and zips out the front door, rapidly ascending towards the GLOK’s tower. Out in the street, a woman is pointing and shrieking at two rats running up the side of this tower, and she yells out the dreaded words for all in Trollskull Alley to hear: “GLOK’s Jolly Foods is infested with rats!”
Blog for Mondays' 4 PM D&D Game 