dnd-lore/Seighell/Expanded Universe/Nihilus Creatatus/Grunt's Quarterly Reports/Entry 4.md

26/07/2026

• Session opens in the bottom of the mine, the dwarves have just finished collapsing the ceiling to seal the fissure that the spiders had emerged from, revealing the entrance to an ancient, buried temple high on one of the walls.

• Coinclinkz sends Cheetos up the wall to investigate and then uses his familiar abilities to see through her eyes as she looks at the entrance. The entrance is sealed with wooden planks and beams that seem to have been enchanted, they are covered in a language that is initially illegible, but re-arranges itself in front of her eyes to a tongue that is readable.

• The inscription says “Let it be known that this place has been sealed by the Stars of David, on the holy mandate of the divine one, let none enter this pagan temple.” Coinclinkz immediately suggests that they should go in there and look for treasure and charges up the cliff-face after Cheetos.

• Grunt says that he is going to take the miners back to the surface and tell them that the mine should remain sealed off for the time being while they ensure it is ‘safe’. Ie fully ransacked of any valuables. Kremit asks if Grunt should be left alone with miners and be allowed to rescue vulnerable people; Grunt shows him his valid AVP card (Adventuring with Vulnerable People) with a picture of a rogue in a wheelchair on it and ensures him it’s ok.

• Kremit reluctantly follows Coinclinkz up the cliff face with a pair of expert frog jumps, then lets down a rope for Spastica who joins them.

• The stone of the temple seems unmarked by time and the natural stone has crumbled away from it like it’s made of teflon. The wooden barricade that has been placed over the large doors appears to be enchanted, there are no nails or visible fasteners attaching it to the stone of the temple.

• Kremit looks at the door and then knocks on it, nothing happens, he says he’s out of ideas. He looks around for any keyholes or slots and can’t find anything, he can vaguely sense its magical, he tries pulling on one of the wooden boards but nothing happens.

• Coinclinkz starts blasting and casts Eldritch Blast on the door, observing that it reacts to the spell but is damaged by it, it’s probably resistant to non magical damage. He begins repeatedly casting it like a plasma torch and slowly cuts through the boards.

• We cut back to Grunt making his way up through the mine with the dwarves, its been about 30 mins now, they are singing a marching song and having periodic outbursts of “rock and stone!”. He asks them about the minerals and gems present in the mine and how hard it would be to get a sample of it. The demolitionist says not too hard and offers to start blasting at them, with great enthusiasm, but Grunt says that’s probably not a good idea with their people still on the lower levels and the miner puts away his dynamite with disappointment.

• He asks them about why they dig so deep and keep going down when there appear to be rich veins at these higher levels. The miners explain that they are exploratory miners and it’s exciting to dig deep, they chatter excitedly and talk about how sometimes they dig ‘too deep’. The old beared one of the trio is autistically pointing out various minerals and precious stones in great detail as they go, boring Grunt.

• Grunt tries asking them about why this is a “copper mine” if there are gems in here, the old miner explains that gemstones are generally present in mines and they form naturally near metal veins. He returns to listing minerals etc obliviously as Grunt questions him about ‘the formation of the planet’ when surely these must have been placed here by ‘god’.

• Grunt continues fishing for details about the concentration of gems in the mine and if its above average, trying to sense if the foreman that he made a deal with was lying about the value of the goods; it doesn’t seem like he was. Old miner explains that these precious stones aren’t worth that much and especially not in their rough cut state, most of the value of the stones comes from jewellers refining them.

• Cut back to the rest of the party, Coinclinkz has finished destroying the barrier, they are now faced with the pristine marble, twelve feet tall, grand doors of the temple. Kremit tries knocking on the doors, at his touch they immediately begin swinging inwards.

• The interior is dark, only Kremit, with his dark vision, can see deeper into the chamber beyond the light of the torches. He enters the temple and can see it’s a vast, long chamber with vaulted ceilings, stylised pillars flanking the main walkway down to a dais and lectern at the far end.

• He can see that there is a lot of internal damage to the temple, it appears to have been desecrated, with all the bass reliefs, sculptures, gilding/paintings etc destroyed and rubble strewn all over the floor.

• Kremit wanders up to the lectern, searching for traps as he goes, finding none. The lectern is empty, no book etc present.

• Spastica enters the temple as well, not able to see beyond the edge of her torchlight, just Kremit’s torch in the distance at the far end. She searches through some of the piles of rubble, finding what appears to be a snapped off tip of a horn carved from moonstone in the rubble directly behind the lectern, at the focal point of the room. She also notices that there is a conspicuous square patch of floor directly behind the lectern, on the dais, that is completely free of dust, like it’s being repelled by something.

• Kremit suggests that Coinlclinkz should stand on it, he sends his cat, Cheetos, to investigate it instead and she settles down in the square, loafing, but nothing else happens, she just seems comfy. Spastica decides to do a religion check on the horn, scores high but doesn’t know anything about this, it doesn’t seem consistent with any god she knows of.

• Kremit looks around for any remaining traces, or intact references to the god of this temple, but it’s been thoroughly desecrated.

• Coinclinkz tries to move his cat but she’s comfy and he doesn’t really want to disturb her; he tries to pick he up and she just goes limp and elongates all her limbs trying to stay where she is. Kremit asks why she’s doing that and Coinclinkz replies that she just loves squares and anything else that’s a novelty.

• Coinclinkz tries to arcana check the square on the floor and can sense some faint magic but isn’t sure what it is.

• Cut back to Grunt with the miners, he’s now high up in the mine, passing the signs of struggle near the top where the first dead miner was found, having been killed by wolfspiders. He’s just pushing towards the surface, keen to get his rewards and lock in his deal with the foreman; another hour has passed roughly.

• Cut back to the group in the temple, Kremit is trying to put the horn on the square to see what happens, he is out of ideas; he places the horn in the blank square and nothing happens. Kremit wanders off and hears a blast, turning to find Coinclinkz giggling and firing Eldritch Blasts at the floor. He reveals that there is some pocket in the floor under the clean patch, in it is a pristine book that appears untouched by time. It seems to be ornate and likely a religious text, it has a red satin bookmark, gilded page edges and a purplish, raised textured infinity symbol on the front made up of runes or script that the party can’t read, it seems like something ancient.

• Kremit watches as Coinclinkz only vaguely glances at the front of the book, shrugs and just stuffs it under his robe. Kremit asks him what it is and Coinlclinkz simply replies “I don’t read” and laughs. Kremit wants to see the book but Coinclinkz is reluctant, asking him to promise to give it back.

• As they are talking, Cheetos ears suddenly prick up, she turns and dashes off, leaping through what appeared to be a solid wall. Coinclinkz runs after to investigate and notices that some of the rubble appears to be clipping into the ‘wall’, he puts his hand out experimentally and it goes through. Kremit comes up and pushes him through the wall, hearing him tumble to the ground, giggling, on the other side.

• Spastica wanders over to Kremit and they are both looking blankly at the wall, wondering what just happened, Coinclinkz calls out from the other side that there is nothing that would interest them. Kremit immediately enters, feeling he must be lying and there has to be loot, passing through the illusory magical barrier.

• He can see on the other side of the wall that there is a short corridor with two doorways, one is a standard door that appears to be open, revealing what appears to be maybe a reliquary or monk prep chamber, full of golden debris from destroyed chalices etc. The other door is far more significant and is covered in runes etc, these are not consistent with other symbols they’ve seen so far, they have been mostly defaced. Kremit performs an intelligence check, rolls dirty 20, learns three words that aren’t too damaged “Prison, Alcalan, Time”.

• Kremit asks Coinclinkz if he has any arcane knowledge of what these three words may mean, he just says “all i know is that it’s time for blasting” and he casts Eldritch Blast on the door, but it ricochets off into the ceiling and he’s shocked, this doesn’t normally happen to him. Coinclinkz bends down to talk to Cheetos and ask if she has any ideas, giving her a pat.

• Kremit tries knocking on the door, but nothing happens, but he looks down and notices a silent exchange between Coinclinkz and Cheetos. The cat’s one violet eye begins to glow and Coinclinkz cocks his head as though listening, nodding occasionally, before both of his eyes start to glow violet and he goes rigid. He stands up mechanically and turns to the door, then begins moving with unnatural grace, weaving his arms in front of him, a large glowing circle and various glyphs springing into existence as he radiates with power. This feels slightly concerning to the others, this seems like its far beyond what he should be capable of. The circle in the air, now seemingly completed, rotates and sinks into the door, causing it to shudder and begin to sink into the floor.

• Shaking his head and coming back to himself, Coinclinkz looks at the lowering door with excitement and runs inside as soon as he can; Kremit sees that inside the room there is a chained up, desiccated corpse in the corner with it’s hands clutching a hilt that is protruding from its skeletal chest. Coinclinkz runs over without hesitation and grabs the hilt gleefully, shaking the corpse off it like he’s flicking debris from knife. He dislodges what appears to be a dagger made of a dark, gleaming metal, it seems pristine despite the evidence of the passage of time here. Looking closer it has an undulating blade design and the metal appears like it’s wrinkled or creased strangely with lots of irregular ridges all over it.

• He is very pleased and promptly removes one of his plain daggers from its scabbard at his hip and replaces it with this mysterious new blade. He cocks his head and then whips around, looking around the room for a moment, before saying “it must have been the wind” giggling again without concern. Kremit is dismayed and biting back various warnings that have come too late; he looks around the chamber more carefully and notes that nearly the entire inner surface is covered in wards and magical runes.

• Coinclinkz seems disinterested in the room now that he’s plundered it and promptly starts wandering back out, leaving Kremit to investigate the corpse more thoroughly, rummaging around in its dust and sinews as it disintegrates at his touch He notices with his 20 roll that the damage to the chest and marks on the wall behind seem to indicate it was stabbed my something much bigger than the dagger found in it’s chest. It seems like it was wearing some sort of elaborate, perhaps ceremonial armour with a big fanged skull helmet made of bone etc but it’s all been damaged by time and seems to be disintegrating; if it were once magical, it seems its dissipated. He finds a mundane medallion in amongst the heap on the floor and examines it, it has a fanged open maw motif on the front but he can’t make much of it and pockets it for now. It seems that this body has been here for centuries, or possibly even millennia.

• Kremit turns to Coinclinkz as he’s leaving and asks if he has anything more he wants to check but Coinclinkz just dusts off his hands and says “Think we got everything there” happily, having no interest in the temple, its mystery or the corpse, just happy with his book and dagger. Kremit relents and he and Spastica agree to leave.

• Cut back to Grunt on the surface, he is now talking to the foreman, showing him that the party recovered his missing miners, minus Carl who sadly perished, who’s body they’ve brought back. Grunt makes some oblivious colourful comments about dwarves “you people, always digging too deep” etc and insults foreman Brint Slagbarrow while trying to sign off on completion of their contract. Brint pushes past Grunt, seeing the corpse of Carl being laid out and quietly says “rock and stone, brother.” while saluting against his chest and having a moment of silence.

• The human medic comes over and immediately cuts into the corpse’s chest with a long knife, rummages around in the cavity and pronounces cheerfully “oh yes, he’s definitely dead”.

• Brint now processes what Grunt had said to him and voices his offence, but ultimately admitting that dwarves do sometimes dig too deep and explains how sometimes when you’re working with blasting powder, it’s just too tempting to use too much. He says that he’s happy they saved most of his people but saddened by the loss of Carl. Grunt only tells him about the spiders, but doesn’t mention the temple. There is a lot of haggling over the reward, Grunt keeps trying to push for a higher percentage take, membership to a non-existent board of directors and ownership of shares that also don’t exist.

• Brint offers him 20% of the next shipment out of the mine, saying that he doesn’t own the mine and has limited capacity to offer rewards, Baron Eisenberg owns the mine and most of the infrastructure in the region. Grunt says that maybe he should talk to this Baron himself, he wants more than he’s being offered, he wants part ownership of the mine itself. Brint blanches at this and begs him not to involve the baron, it’s not worth it and may end in him or Grunt going missing, they can’t afford to divert too much of the mine’s output lest it be noticed.

• Brint shakes his head in disgust and says that “city folk” like Grunt are always trying to take too much, they are greedy gobshites. The argument continues and Grunt becomes increasingly rude, they start talking about economics and Brint tries to explain that if they just ‘increase efficiency’ of the mining operation, all that will happen is over production and exported copper being devalued. Grunt says they just have to divert the extra copper to different regions and Brint replies that that would require having extra buyers lined up to accept it. Ultimately Brint offers him 25% of the next shipment plus an ongoing share agreement, if Grunt can both find a buyer for the extra copper, and help them increase their mining efficiency. It’s agreed to and Brint spits on his hand and shakes Grunt’s, pulling him forward, Trump style.

• As they are finishing their handshake after their long session of haggling and arguing, the rest of the party can be seen emerging from the mine and Grunt suddenly tells Brint “oh by the way, we found this temple down there…” and Brint is surprised and exasperated. Coinclinkz says they found a bunch of treasure and Grunt tells him to shut up, Kremit asks Brint if he knows anything about “Alcalan”, showing him his notes, but Brint is just confused and has no idea what they are talking about. Brint says that sometimes old ruins and the like are found underground, especially when you dig too deep, it’s not completely uncommon.

• Grunt takes Coinclinkz and Spastica aside and asks him what they really found down there, Coinclinkz replies “oh just a stupid book and some dead guy”, Grunt tries to confirm that they got all the treasure from down there. Spastica recounts their adventure in the temple briefly, telling him about the horn, the book, the strange room with the body in it, just a bunch of religious and historical stuff. 

• Grunt returns to Kremit and the foreman who are still talking about the temple, Grunt asks Kremit if there was any gold down there, annoyed that so far it doesn’t sound like a very profitable mission. Kremit talks about digging too deep, more respectfully than Grunt and Brint agrees that it’s a thing that happens, sometimes dwarves dig too deep, Grunt is annoyed that Kremit isn’t getting in to trouble and it seems to only be racist when he says it. Kremit says “don’t worry about, my digger” and in the background a pair of dwarves can be seen giving each other an elaborate high five and greeting each other as “my digger”. Grunt mutters under his breath that dwarves only make up 15% of the population in any major city, but they make up 90% of the tavern brawls. Brint wanders off to commiserate with the other miners about their fallen comrade.

• Kremit admits that there was treasure in the temple that they didn’t collect and begins trying to make excuses to Grunt that they “were just in such a hurry to tell them all about it, that Coinclinkz forgot to collect it all”. He tells Grunt that there bits and chunks of gold and it was heavy, he didn’t want to carry it. Grunt just about loses his mind, dressing him down and telling him that the three of them will go back down there immediately, carefully catalogue and gather every speck of gold, then yells about how he isn’t surprised the franchise was failing before he took over. He shoos the rest of the party back into the mine, lying to the guards at the entrance that it’s still dangerous, they are doing a final sweep for their safety, and not to let anyone else in until they are done.

• In the background, one of the human miners that returned to the surface after being poisoned and cocooned by the spiders is idly saying that he still feels queasy and the medic pulls out his big knife/machete and offers to examine him, making the miner splutter that he suddenly feels better. Grunt overhears this and is worried that perhaps the miner has some spider eggs or something and they might burst out of him, Spastica offers to help with her medical abilities but Grunt tells her she is going back into the mine with the others. He casts Detect Poison on the miner, can sense some residual poison in his system and that he feels a bit under the weather as it’s still being broken down, but he does not seem to be infected with baby spiders. The ill miner is grumbling aggressively about the baron, saying he has a tummy ache and is mad at the government, he’s called “Mack”.

• The rest of the party completes an 8 hour montage round trip back into the mines, into the temple, collecting the all the golden chunks, worth approx. 200gp, and Spastica chucks them into the portable vault. They fiddle around for a while, trying to decide what to put in the vault and how much cash to keep on them, then head back to the surface. It’s now the middle of the night, Grunt is pacing around waiting for them, grumbling that he’ll whip them into shape as they arrive, the miners are sitting around a cook pot on a fire. They turn in for the night and stay in the camp.

• In the morning, Kremit looks for water, finds the camp’s water reserve in a big cask and selfishly runs himself a bath in a big trough intended for molten slag, annoying the miners who had to haul all that water up the mountain from their community. The foreman confronts him while he’s having his ‘bath’ and asks if he understands how much work it was to get that water up there, Kremit did not, but deflects by asking if the foreman can help them melt some metal down they found in the mine. Foreman says he can, asks what it is, Kremit tells him it’s gold, foreman gets excited thinking there are gold veins in the mine, kremit clarifies its chunks of debris from the temple and tries to downplay the amount they have, seeing his interest. Foreman offers to melt down the gold for a percentage of it, Kremit noncommittally says he’ll consider it, feeling in over his head, he’s just a simple frog having a bath, he tells the foreman that he wants to finish his bath first. Foreman is much nicer to him now, calls him ‘sir’ and offers to see if he can find some herbs in the cooking supplies to make his bath more fragrant/comfortable, heading off.

• Kremit is left alone to enjoy his bath on this mountainside, looking out over the valley, its picturesque and the cold mountain air is causing a lot of vapour to come off the water, it has a hot tub vibe, in the distance he can see a man in a red jacket hiking up another trail on the mountain. The man puts his hands to his mouth and performs an echoing call out into the valley “MAAAAAAAAAATE.....”

• The part ghosts the foreman that was waiting to see Kremit wanted him to melt down their gold for a cut and they spend the next few days trekking back to their base in New New New Jerusalem.

• Arriving at their headquarters, they find that the tree on their land has grown significantly and now appears to be around a year old, it’s a large sapling and appears to be a discernibly unusual breed, looking like a baobab tree. The slim trunk is already beginning to look a little thicker than other species and it’s about 6 feet tall.

• Grunt tells the others that they will have a meeting in 20 minutes in the boardroom, before pausing at the front door to the headquarters, mentally preparing himself to face Roz. He enters, Roz and Greg are having a discussion with Roz praising Greg for his efficiency and organisation, telling him he looks thin and should go and have a well earned lunch break. Seeing Grunt enter she adds “How you manage to do all this work and this idiot still owns the company, i’ll never understand” gesturing to Grunt as he tries to hide his face and walk past without engaging her.

• He tries to enter the board room, but as he opens the door it clangs into something and he peers around the roughly 1 foot gap of the ajar door. Inside the room he sees that it is almost entirely filled, floor to ceiling, with glass bottles in crates and is shocked into stunned disbelief. Roz pipes up at this moment, smugly and tells him that his bottles have arrived and she isn’t sure why he ordered so many, especially when they have no store room, so she put them in the meeting room. She lets out a slow cackle and then says “Another brilliant Grunt plan, great job.” and gives him a slow clap.

• Grunt is flustered and says that he is going to lunch and storms out, telling the others outside that they will be having their meeting at the pub instead. He is upset and gestures to one of the peasant workers that they acquired from the logging camp, telling him that he will now be their foreman because he doesn’t want to have to deal with Roz to manage the workforce. He tells the ‘foreman’ that he wants him to build a shed, close to the tree, when the foreman says “right next to the tree?” scratching his head, Grunt tells him no, not too close, but not too far away, refusing to elaborate and tells the peasant to use his discretion, leaving him confused. As the party are walking away, he yells back over his shoulder “and make sure it’s to code!”.

• Greg jogs over before they leave completely and mentions a city official from the council came by, he’s heard reports of building works etc being undertaken in the headquarters and was questioning if they had planning permission. He also mentioned that the extreme growth of the tree on their grounds was another point of concern and that it may be against regulations, being a threat to nearby buildings, he said he will return at a later date to talk to the business owner. Grunt waves this away and says he’ll deal with it, instead telling Greg that is promoting him to be his personal PA, in addition to his other duties with no extra compensation, but Greg doesn’t mind, he’s keen to do more paperwork. Grunt asks him to source him pricing for a “Battle Bracer”, but he doesn’t want to purchase from Ali, he says he doesn’t trust him.

• The party heads to the Leaky Tap, the cheaper of the two inns in town intended for peasants, because Grunt is cheap; this is also where the party stays, their budget working accommodations, because the headquarters doesn’t have any living space. They have a meeting, Spastica reports their current finances, Kremit talks about his ideas for new business ventures, the “frogcast” and his “foldable cart” ideas, he asks for 100 gold for RnD of his carts. Grunt asks what the return would be and Kremit pulls “100 million” out of the air, Grunt grants his request and tells Spastica to give him 100 gold, but she says this isn’t a good idea. Grunt is surprised and says “lookout, you’re getting some push back” and then Coinclinkz pipes up and says “your mom gave me some push back last night.” before he stands to get some drinks. 

• Coinclinkz talks to the bartender and orders a round of the Leaky Tap’s specialty, a very cheap form of extremely strong alcohol called “Munt” and he tells him to put it on Grunt’s tab. He returns to the table and tells the party that he bought them a round of drinks, handing them out. Kremit keeps going on about his foldable carts idea, but doesn’t really have any specific ideas, he isn’t quite sure what he’s talking about.

• They move on to developing their “Corporate charter” and company ideals/strategy with Grunt suggesting Kremit speaks first as their resident “frog person” basically indicating he’s a diversity hire and they eventually end up with: 0. Make money, 1. Don’t die, 2. No dismemberment, 3. No strangulation, 4. Stay away from diggers, 5. No silly business. At “no silly business” Coinclinkz expresses jokingly that he wants to resign.

• Grunt asks who their best gardener is and Spastica, being a ranger, puts her hand up; he asks her for information on the tree they are growing that Ted gave them and an estimate on when it will be ready. She rolls ok, but isn’t 100% familiar with this type of tree and the strange magic affecting it, she loosely estimates it will be ready within a few weeks. Grunt moves on to the bottle storage issue, says they should store them in the portable vault instead if they will fit in there. They resolve to put half the bottles in there and  distribute the rest around the headquarters passive aggressively while Roz isn’t paying attention. They have around a thousand bottles with nine in each wooden milk crate. They head back to the headquarters and spend some time tidying up, then resume their meeting in their proper boardroom, now sitting on crates of bottles. Kremit points out that Grunt bought bottles, but no caps or any other method to seal them, making Grunt cringe and imagine Roz’s reaction if she finds out.

• Grunt asks Coinclinkz where they are at with corporate espionage and he says after some hesitation that he thinks they could steal peoples pets and then “find them” and give them back to them for a reward. Grunt isn’t entirely sold on this and says they can workshop the idea. He asks Spastica for an update on Speckled Jim and if she has “sensed” him during their travels so far, but she says no. They sit there listening to the corporate music that plays in their meeting room, emanating from some magical device that Grunt had installed there and Grunt mentions that he isn’t sure which direction they should take at the moment.

• At this moment, there is a knock on the door and Greg sticks his head in, apologising for interrupting and saying that during his new PA duties, going through all the paperwork that Grunt should probably have been doing, he found some documents that they’d accidentally been sent from head office. These “yellowed pages” seem to have been miss-filed and he is quite frustrated by this and says this is why colour coding exists, but he gets back on topic and reveals that these papers reference old business listings in the area that don’t seem to correspond with anything on the map. The region has had a bit of upheaval over time with the magical disasters that plagued the area, but he’s managed to, so far, roughly triangulate where one place called AGR or “Agricultural Growth Repository” was located to the north east. He tried to cross reference it with the city but there were no public records of it.

• Grunt considers this, remembering that Ted mentioned that Speckled Jim was last seen heading north and decides that they should go and check this place out, it’s in the same rough direction. They end their meeting for now and Grunt heads outside to try and communicate with Ted through their tree.

• He starts by saying hello to it several times, nothing happens, he starts shouting hello, then trying to talk into the leaves, finally accidentally touching it and feeling a strange sensation. He holds on to the tree and feels like his consciousness is stretching over a long distance and finally he hears the voice of Ted in his head.

• Grunt asks him if they need to fertilise the tree and Ted advises that, no, they don’t it’s magically infused, it should be mature enough for water to begin collecting inside it after a few more weeks. Grunt asks if the grippli know much about smelting and forging and Ted tells him that, no, they are relatively primitive and know a lot about basket weaving, hunting and gathering they live in harmony with nature. Grunt is thinking to himself that they sound useless and is disappointed, but moves on to asking about Speckled Jim.

• Ted reiterates that he hasn’t felt him in his forest, as he told them the last time that he saw them. Grunt asks if Ted has done that mind wipe trick that he used on the people from the logging camp many times before, Ted tells him no, he was actually pleasantly surprised that it worked and didn’t kill them all, but quickly changes the topic. Grunt asks if they can log his forest for building materials for his shed and Ted tells him there are mundane trees in the other forest to the north where the humans collect wood, they should get some from there, Ted wants to minimise people venturing into his wood. Grunt says he will get back to him another time and hangs up the branch that he was talking in to, a bit of a tendril that was growing into his ear gets pulled out. Grunt muses that he should have asked for some more rocks for his zen garden, realising that Ted probably would have been quite happy to pass that along to the grippli and he’s annoyed but doesn’t want to call Ted back and bother him again straight away.

• Grunt meets back up with the others and readies to head to AGR, talking to them about the businesses listed in the “yellowed pages” and how abandoned business might be a good place to acquire some materials and merchandise, they study the map and plot their route. They collect their cart to put loot in, which Greg has transferred the registration for, getting a “R1BB1T” license plate for it for Kremit, then they head through town, Spastica being made to pull the cart as normal. They talk about getting a horse to pull the cart to make it easier/faster to transport, Grunt tries to lower expectations and asks if they could get a really old horse, or a pony, a “draft pony”, or even a big dog to pull it that would be cheaper. They end up going to a knackers yard and getting a really clapped out, high mileage horse for 50gp. It barely moves faster than their normal walking pace, Kremit calls it “Bilbo” and attaches it to the cart. He’s going on an adventure. Coinclinkz says he thought he called it “Dildo”, giggling.

• Spastica has been freed up by this change and Grunt asks her to scout ahead of them, saying that he’s “better utilising their corporate assets and promoting ‘synergy’ between the team”. Spastica comes across a mud slide that has obstructed half of the path at one stage and alerts the party, guiding them around, but Grunt decides to wait and collect some of the mud. He has an idea for a cosmetics line, combining a small amount of magical water with ‘worthless mud’ to make facial masks with mild healing properties. He convinces Kremit to collect the mud for him, using some questionable logic about him being a frog man, therefore having an affinity with mud and avoiding doing any manual/dirty labour himself. They gather ‘the cleanest mud/clay they can find’ and fill a crate full of nine bottles with mud.

• After about half a day’s travel, they pickup an old track and arrive at a T crossing in the path, with the right path heading down the waters edge and the left path heading in to the forest. They head left into the forest, considering that pigeons would be more likely to be in the forest, Coinclinkz is mildly offended that Grunt always asks Spastica for information on birds, when he’s a literal bird man.

• They wander down the path into the forest and eventually arrive at a fence with an arched gate, on the arch is the logo of “AGR”, beyond the fence they can see a large greenhouse and a couple of detached buildings. Grunt assigns Spastica and Coinclinkz to surveilling the greenhouse, while he and Kremit enter the main building. Kremit walks up on to the veranda and knocks on the door, nothing happens, Grunt doesn’t hesitate and just grabs Kremit and barges in the door with his face.

• This seems to be some manner of business’ workers accomodations, with a dormitory, common areas, alcoves/lockers for workman’s clothing etc but it is all dusty and seems to have been undisturbed for a good while. They find the remnants of a meal in bowls on a table and it seems that the people left in a hurry, not taking anything with them, or returning for it.

• Out at the greenhouse, Spastica does a lap of the exterior studying it, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly off about it, peering through the glass she can see that it appears to be very overgrown and the plants haven’t been tended to. Entering it seems fairly normal, aside from the melange of different, strange looking plants in a series of planters down the centre and at the far end. Some of the plants have glowing growths or sap, they are all different species and it seems that some are somewhat recognisable but perhaps mutated or excessively crossbred. Up the closest end by the door are racks filled with gardening equipment, small pots for germinating seedlings on shelves etc, there are a handful of large sacks with AGR branding on them on the floor along one of the walls. One of the sacks has split and there is some coarse blue powder or granules spilling out onto the floor, it seems to be some kind of chemical/magical fertiliser.

• Back inside the main building, Grunt and Kremit are searching for valuables and documents, rifling through assorted personal effects of the workers and different papers/journals/notebooks, most of which Grunt callously discards as ‘worthless’. Grunt tries to make an investigation check to determine the purpose of this business and rolls low, he definitely suspects they are doing something with plants here. Kremit tries reading some of the notebooks and journals dotted around and discovers that it seems that AGR were experimenting on plants with magical fertiliser, using it to bring about wild mutations, as well as crossbreeding. It doesn’t seem that they had one specific goal they were trying to trying to achieve, mostly just trying to produce something unique and marketable that they could profit from or exploit. There were notes in a margin about some promising results with attempts to produce a combustible lemon.

• Back in the greenhouse, Spastica is looking around the rest of the greenhouse, she notes that there are an unusual amount of wheelbarrows in here, at least seven. She muses on whether they’ve been breeding and sees a tiny wheelbarrow drop from the cloaca of a large wheelbarrow. She begins checking and testing each wheelbarrow, rummaging in the contents, which is mostly just dirt, then trying to lift them. When she approaches the large wheelbarrow with tiny wheelbarrow behind it, she grabs the handle of the large wheelbarrow and tries to lift it, then notices that her hand is stuck to it, it’s a mimic wheelbarrow and it attacks her. 

• Combat starts and there is a frenzied exchange with three  wheelbarrows and the tiny wheelbarrow animating, revealed to be mimics, they start to converge on spastica in the middle of the greenhouse. she takes a fair bit of damage upfront and choses to fight instead of trying to free herself, Coinclinkz sends Cheetos to find Grunt and Kremit and try to warn them something is happening, then casts Cloud of Daggers on two of the mimics, doing high damage and killing the baby mimic outright. 

• Cheetos arrives at the main building, charges in through the front door and just starts going ballistic, clawing and screaming at Grunt’s legs, very out of character for her. Grunt is just pissed off and tries to kick the cat who retreats out the door, looking back at them to see if they follow, Grunt chases after her, but just intends to attack the cat. Spastica is focusing on defence and trying to avoid damage, Coinclinkz is firing eldritch blasts, one mimic breaks off and charges towards Coinclinkz. Grunt and Kremit sprint to the doors of the greenhouse pursuing Cheetos, who rejoins Coinclinkz and hides behind his legs.

• Kremit attacks a mimic with Dissonant Whispers and its looking near death, Spastica crit fails her attempt to resist the mimic moving out of the Cloud of Daggers that has grappled her and is dragged along behind it like a ragdoll, It bites her again for massive damage and she is near death. Grunt is still upset that the cat was scratching at his armoured legs and wants to attack it but Coinclinkz and Kremit yell at him to stop, he sees there is a real battle going on and starts attacking wheelbarrows.

• The tide turns, with Kremit’s expert swordsmanship and Grunt barely contributing, the party is able to start killing the wheelbarrow mimics. Spastica goes down from a massive attack by the mimic that has grappled her, continuing to shake her like a dog with chew toy. Her limp body is still adhered to the handle and is now being dragged along by the mimic as it moves to attack someone else.

• Coinclinkz kills the mimic that had Spastica stuck to it with an Eldritch Blast, blowing a grapefruit sized hole in it and delivering his customary one liner. Combat ends and the party is once again in the tranquility of this overgrown greenhouse. Grunt uses lay on hands to grant Spastica a single hit point and then immediately berates her for smashing up all the wheelbarrows, reducing the amount of resources they might have been able to obtain. They have an argument and Spastica tries to tell him her side of the story, recounting what happened in the greenhouse before he got there. There is flare of red light and Coinclinkz shoots one of the dead mimics again with an Eldritch Blast, giggling.

• They spend some more time investigating the plants, Grunt gets some pots and wants to pot some plants to take with them before they leave, along with a rake, for his zen garden. Kremit looks at the white bags/sacks that were on the ground, but there are no identifying marks on them beyond the AGR company logo, they just appear to be a type of chemical fertiliser that is blue. Coinclinkz chains up one of the mundane wheelbarrows as a precaution and tries to question it, to see if it is a mimic as well.

• Grunt rolls high on a perception check of the rest of the greenhouse and discovers that the horizontal planter at the far end of the room has gouge and scrapes in the floor at one end. He also finds that there are Monstera plants and ferns in the plant bed, it seems to be the damp, rainforest end of the greenhouse. He notes the elongated scratches and pushes the plant bed, finding that it moves easier than expected, seemingly having some hidden tracks underneath it, revealing a concealed stairwell downwards, underneath it. The party decides to rest and prepare before they venture further.

• To be continued.