Alert: May contain spoilers for the module “The Village of Hommlet”

Ezekiel and Mikael got some branches to make a stretcher for the chest of coins – since otherwise none of us are carrying it.

Meanwhile, Elmo sharpened some sticks and made a barricade across the opening of the bugbears’ cave. Obviously this isn’t his first rodeo.

Ezekiel asked Elmo over supper about the nice dagger he used to kill the bugbear chief. Elmo says it was a present from his brother Ottis.

Ottis is a man-at-arms, and was hired by a “gentleman” a while back – somewhere not in town.

It’s good to have an older brother you can look up to.

****

Lydia has a spell that makes people stronger – for three hours, at least. She cast it on Mikael so he could help Elmo carry the stretcher with the chest…

When he got tired, Raven took a turn – but Elmo still felt fine.

We made pretty good time, and reached Hommlet shortly before noon.

As we were walking along, Mikael cast some kind of spell, and then he and Ezekiel had a conversation at the rear of the group.

I thought they were getting up to something…then Ezekiel called me over and told me that Elmo’s axe, chainmail, dagger, and shield were all magical. He said that Mikael even thought the axe was a different one than the one we’d bought him.

So maybe that’s what the two of them have been muttering about all this time.

Ezekiel went up to Elmo and asked him how his armor and weapons became magical.

Elmo gave a “well, I’ll be” face, and said he didn’t know.

So Ezekiel took Mikael (and Nori of course) with him to go talk to Elmo’s parents about this mysterious magic armor (since the axe and chainmail we bought for him probably weren’t magical…) while the rest of us went to the money-changer’s to convert our wealth.

Ah…math. That thing we hate.

Between me, Raven, Lydia, and Elmo, I think we got a pretty square deal. The money-changer (Nyra Meddles is his name) helped us count up exactly what we got off the bugbears…and it came to more than I was anticipating.

So maybe Raven’s complaints about his back are warranted, after lugging that chest all this way.

We converted the copper coins – and as much of the silver as Mr. Meddles had on hand – because gold coins are more compact for carrying. There was still quite a pile of electrum pieces…not to mention the gold coins we found in the chest (Mr. Meddles pointed out that some of those coins were minted in Greyhawk…so I guess our bugbears had robbed some long-distance travelers).

After his fee (which was higher than I expected, but it’s not like we’re going to take our business elsewhere – and I suppose he earned it for doing all the counting and calculations) we ended with:

291 gold

1157 electrum

and 18 copper left over

Elmo had a handy sack for carrying away our booty – which was good, because the latch on the chest was pretty useless, and the lid had trouble staying closed after being wrenched open and carried all this way and what-not.

On the way, we had talked about ways to hide our treasure in Hommlet while we return to Nulb (including having Mikael put a Fire Trap on a chest – a new chest, presumably – and having Raven fake a trap on the chest to scare away any potential thieves) but now that it’s been reduced in size and weight, I don’t think that will be a problem.

The money doesn’t quite divide equally between six people (Nori doesn’t count for a share), but I used my leadership skills and decided we could use the extra to buy everybody a “team victory” dinner at the Welcome Wench.

Ezekiel and Mikael (and Nori) joined us shortly after we reached the inn, so we sat down to something worthy of a victory dinner (even though we only defeated a hideout of bugbears).

Elmo is already spending some of his share on ale.

I don’t know about that guy.

Ezekiel and Mikael haven’t told us what they learned from his parents…

But what are you going to do? We would have come out a lot worse without Elmo’s muscle.

Father used to say, “You can’t go through your whole life mistrusting everyone. Sometime, somewhere, you’ve got to trust someone…just choose carefully.”

Yeah, well, I guarantee Bartholomew and Clarance never dared stick a miniature scilithid in Father’s bed. Or teach him to swim by dropping him off the bridge into the river. Or drop a snake down his shirt when some girls are walking by.

If it weren’t for Alpheus, I might have grown up into a conspiratorial paranoiac with trust issues. Just imagine that.

---

To read the previous entry, click here.

Read the next entry here.

To read the start of the adventure in Hommlet, click here.

Subscribe to Kimia Wood’s mailing list for book updates!