Part 5: Session 3: Shopping Spree!

Session 3: Shopping Spree!

Morning everybody.

“Ugh.”

Sorry I got you all up so early on a Saturday, but I’m leaving tomorrow, so we had to do it early or not at all. So where were we?



Right, you had just rented a room at an inn and got some sleep.

I could go for some of that right now.

So you’ve recovered some hit points and a few astral points overnight. What do you do next?

We should go buy a lamp before he starts yelling at us again.
Don’t bother. I can enchant my wand to act as a permanent light source. Oh yes, and then I can do another ritual to change it into a length of rope, and then the last one (the good one, I should add) reduces all spell costs by two points each.
Those sound awesome. How come you haven’t done them yet?
Blame Bob. He told me he wouldn’t let me pre-cast them without reducing my AP at the game’s start, and AP takes way too long to regenerate. And someone didn’t tell me he’d be sending us into a dungeon first thing.

I’m didn’t force you guys to enter the crypts.

You might as well have, with Hal in the group.
Yeah, I probably would have gone down even without anyone else.
Could we please get to playing the game now?

Right, sorry. Hang on, let me roll on the random encounter table here…huh.

Now what?


_{(What’s a Bit again?)}
The copper piece. It’s cheap toast.
Cheese toast sounds pretty good to me.
_{(Wish I had some real cheese toast.)}
Kara buys some toast.

It’s delicious.

Great, now I’m hungry. Anyone else want something?

Have Suzie go with you; she knows where everything is. So, Alex, you said you wanted to switch characters?

Yeah, I got the new sheet here with me. I was thinking maybe I could be that Thorwalian guy we met last time. Is that alright?

It doesn’t look like…no, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t come up again, so yeah, it’s fine.


Party arrangements can only be changed in temples, but it can be for any god. In this case, I headed for the temple in the Market Square.


What the hell? He sounds like a cross between a con man and a hobo.

Kind of. Phex is the god of…“Merchants and Thieves and Lord of the Night. Nothing Arkanian is foreign to Phex, which explains why a heavy purse can go a long way to help a miracle along in one of his temples.”

Stop doing that thing with your fingers, man. You’re creeping me out.

Sorry. So who’s your new character, Alex?

I came up with the perfect name for him. What do you think about…




You might note that I’ve actually bought a shirt this time.
And we’re all very proud of you, Alex.

Yeah, but you put points into edged weapons and bought an axe.

An axe is edged.

…It’s got its own proficiency. We went over this last time with Hal.

Oh yeah. Well, I did get that saber, too. So should I give Hal the axe? I think he still needs one.
Shouldn’t we be rollplaying this? I mean, how would our characters respond to…er…Joxer leaving and the Thorwalian taking his place?

That’s right. I’ll give you some bonus XP if you can rollplay your old character leaving and the new guy coming in.

Alright. I can do that. *ahem*
“Sorry, guys, but it turns out I can’t leave Gabrielle alone, so I’m going after her again. Bye.”
“Well, hi there, fellas. I’ve gone and hyerd you were gonna help me with tha dwarfen myine, yah?”
_{(Oh god, it’s Midwestern Norwegian.)}
What’s going on in here?
“Iy’m Lourd Boxter, tha Thorwalian fella you guys saw yesterday. Do ya want ta help me free tha dwarfen myine a those nyasty old orcs?”
Do I? “Aye, laddie, we’ll be havin’ a fine time killin’ those blasted green foolk! And then, we’ll be havin’ us some proper Scotch whisky, right?”
“Oh, yah, that sounds real goot.”
What the hell were you thinking, Paul?
I didn’t know…I didn’t know…
You guys want some cheese toast? Hal and I decided to make some of our own.
Hooray!

*Later, after a quick snack*

So what were we doing again?

You were buying equipment, as opposed to talking in stupid accents.

Oh yeah. “So, leettle dwarf fella—”



You’re in the marketplace now. You might want to start buying goods.

Great! So who’s selling weapons?

That would be Wolfson Ign…In-gos-dottin.

So did the module writer just hate DM’s or something?

I can only hope these names are easier to pronounce in German. Anyway, the weapon and armor seller says,


Kara asks him what he knows about the town.
“Um, Riva’s a town, pretty much like all the others. It’s more the times that are special, and you should really be prepared for anything. So, maybe you’d like to shop here instead of just talking?”
Can you tell us anything about weapons?
“Ah, of course I can tell you all about weapons!” For the next twenty minutes, the arms dealer tells you every possible thing there is to know about arms. You’re not quite sure if he’s more enthusiastic about the weapons, or the fact that he can sell them to you. In fact, you are all pretty sure that you’ve learned all you need to know about weapons. So can we please get to the selling part now?
Fine, be that way.


This is an example of the sell screen. Everyone’s inventory is pooled into the slots in the main section, and the owner’s name is highlighted in blue, along with red if it’s currently equipped. Only goods the merchant will buy will appear, though. The party’s money is also pooled, and can be seen as the right figure along the top. The total price of selected goods (before haggling) is displayed to the right of the slash. Also convenient is the weight of purchased items compared to the party’s remaining encumbrance, as well as the amount of items they can still carry.


You can also select anyone to do the haggling. Always go with whoever got the skill highest.



The market arms merchant has a huge inventory of weapons and armor, and for a pretty good price. You can’t see a weapon’s stats without buying it, but fortunately they’re arranged by cost, and I get the suspicion that more expensive items are more effective. Also, you can find out if a character can use a highlighted item since their name turns green if they can.

Unfortunately, armor has the side effect of making a character less combat effective. Not only does it increase weight, which decreases action points, but it also lowers your attack and parry skill levels, making it harder to hit things. On the plus side, though, you become incredibly hard to hit yourself.



Let’s see…so that’s a bunch of arrows to refill the archers, a new axe for Hal, a sword for William, a spear for Paul, and a giant pile of armor for the frontliners. Is that everything?

Looks like it. Should we get anything else?

Well, there’s an herbalist and a general goods merchant in the marketplace.

What about the Square? I’d like to go see what other merchants are in town.




There’s another general merchant just to one side of the marketplace, the chandler…um…“Isida Ingstrok.” She doesn’t have nearly as much for sale as the one in the main building, though.

She’s got a whetstone, though. Can I get one?

Fine. Roll your Haggle.

Not bad. So, can I sharpen everyone’s weapons?

Go ahead. I think that adds something to them…Yeah, looks like it.

Sweet.
Anything else, though?




You and William should be interested in this place, Paul. Looks like there’s a bowyer nearby, “Caya Senn…scheid.”

That’s not how you pronounce “sch” in German.

I don’t really care at this point. Anyway, she’s got some special bows for sale here.


Note how the smaller merchant has to charge more for her goods; arrows were five bits and bolts eight at the marketplace. However, the marketplace merchant doesn’t have ultra-light longbows for sale.

I want one of those, and I want it right now.

You guys don’t have enough money. Unless you think Alex can get you a good discount?

Damn it, you’re right. I’ll just go for a light longbow, then.
We’ll probably have to buy a few days’ rest at an inn so I can get my AP up, so we should leave enough for that.
Hey, I got a pretty good discount this time! So, do we head back to the inn now?
If that’s all the shops in the Market Square, we’ll do that.

Hang on, I’m going to roll for an encounter again…


So?

I think it was a reference to another module in this series.



Anyway, you spend another day at the inn, giving Lewis enough time to regenerate and cast his second ritual.

Hang on, don’t I still have tetanus?
Oh yeah.
You’re the only one who saw which herbs we picked up from that first chest, Lewis. So do any of them work with tetanus?
There are a couple that work for disease in general.
I’ll roll for Treat Disease. *roll* That looks low enough. How did I do?

You successfully realize that there aren’t any plants in or around Riva that can help against tetanus. You’ll probably have to look for a professional healer.

What? Are you messing with us?

There’s a note in the appendices about it. See?

Rrrggh. Fine. So, where’s a healer?
Can’t we just use the cure disease potion now?
We’re in town, and I’d like to save that for emergencies. Potions can be rather hard to obtain in DSA.



As it turns out, one of the two healers the crowd was talking about the other day lives in the poor section of town, which is just to the left of the inn you’ve been staying at. The seeress, to be specific.

Is she an important character?

Maybe.

We should rollplay our first meeting with her. Lewis, do you know anything about seeresses?
Well, Hesinde is the goddess of Magic and Wisdom. That’s probably her patron goddess.
Good enough for me. I fling open the door and shout, “Hesinde be with you, ya youbetcha!”
The seeress gives you a forced smile and responds, “I was born under the sign of Phex.”


The menu on the right now has several new actions you can take at Quenya’s house. Aside from talking and buying things (herbs, in her case), the third icon on the top is Treat Wound, followed by Treat Disease, Treat Poison, De-Petrify, and Get Fortune Told.

Awk-ward.
Especially if the magic hobo is her priest.
“I apologize for my rude…companion. So, we have heard that you can tread diseases, rather than only tell the future.”
“What do you mean, ONLY tell the future? But yes, I also have knowledge of herbs and potions.”
Should we ask her about all those runes you said were in her house?
“Why yes, runes are my passion! I can spend days just deciphering runic inscriptions. Most of them are actually conceptual glyphs, really, it’s only the newer ones that form a syllabic or even alphabetic script. Often you need to know the background and the subject of a text to make any sense of them.”
Does she really have that hobby, Bob, or did you just pick a random NPC to project your history minor onto?
It’s just a happy coincidence.
*Ahem* “We have a fellow comrade here who appears to be beyond my means of treating her. Will you be able to heal her disease?”
She gives Belle a good looking over, then tells you, “Belle Fleur has definitely come down with tetanus. I’ll try to help her for 78 silvers.”
Are you sure—
Potions are really, really expensive.
Fine, we pay her.

Congratulations, Belle is fine now!

Yay!
So can we get back to waiting for me to cast the other wand rituals?

Just make sure you pay the nice man 3 silver per day.


Got it!
Can we finally get going now?
Shouldn’t we wait until Lewis maxes out his AP?
With the fourth ritual active, I’ll be able to cast plenty of spells with just this. Let’s go.



Sorry, but I’m going to have to end the session here. It’s getting pretty late.

*Sigh*
At least we got all our shopping done.
Yeah, maybe we won’t all die horribly this time.
Hey, that was just Alex!