dnd-lore/Seighell/Expanded Universe/Nihilus Creatatus/Grunt's Quarterly Reports/Entry 5.md

23/08/2026

• Session starts in the greenhouse after their fight with the mimic wheelbarrows.

• Grunt decides to perform a more thorough check of the main house but confirms there isn't any reference to the underground complex in the records that are available above ground. It seems that there are mainly only personal effects and evidence that people left here in a hurry.

• They note that there is a barn on the site in addition to the greenhouse and main building, deciding to check there before going underground to "check behind them first". 

• Kremit decides he'll handle this and steps infront of them to the side door of the barn, then knocks on it, nothing happens and he reports he's out of ideas. Grunt simply pushes him aside and opens the door, revealing the interior of the space, it's mostly storage, some ruts in the middle where carts are regularly moved in and out. Grunt points out that this must be where they do their "oil changes" and service the carts, looking for an inspection trench. There are some rusty red stains on the ground by the ruts at the far end of the building where the main doors stand flung open haphazardly, no cart in sight. They poke around the crates and barrels of things in storage, it seems that it's mostly mundane expired food supplies, strange implements, long pole with a cup on the end, trace amounts of blue stuff, consistent with the magical fertiliser, on the ground. etc. More evidence that people left in a hurry just grabbing whatever they could carry, but leaving the majority of it behind.

• Grunt specifically looks around for, and retrieves, some wooden chocks.

• They return to the greenhouse and Grunt re opens the hidden stairwell by sliding the planter at the far end back, he uses the chocks to prop it open as well as sliding the sliding latch in place, worried about them getting trapped down there if it automatically slides closes behind them.

• Grunt lights a torch and boldly head down the stairs in the lead, after travelling down several landings and winding down, they come to a small room that seems to hold alcoves of gear, strange forms of PPE, heavy leather aprons, a pair of steel toed boots, a clear face shield etc. There are two notices in the room, on the wall one says "Remove contaminated PPE before returning to the surface" and another above the door at the opposite end of the room "Do not handle active specimens without resonance assistance." They notice there are some unusual implements down here, grippers on the end of a pole, something that looks like a dog catching pole with a noose like apparatus on the end, a cup on a stick with blue residue in it, basic clubs and similar items, they appear damaged and in disarray, scattered over the floor, not properly stored after their last use.

• There is a basin and buckets with some powdered chemicals that seem to be used for cleaning and decontamination. The door at the other end of the room is standing open and appears to have been damaged with some scratches/grooves in its surface. Coinclinkz investigates the door to see if he can determine the cause but can’t really tell, it just seems like something rough has pushed past it and scraped it.

• Grunt feels that this place has only been abandoned for maybe a year or two, the buildings upstairs weren’t completely reclaimed by nature or anything like that. He casts Detect Poison and can’t sense any dangerous creatures but notes that the cleaning chemicals are poisonous and is mindful that they shouldn’t drink the bleach.

• They move to the far doorway and look down the solid, smooth stone corridor beyond, Grunt appraises the corridor and feels that this was likely formed from natural bedrock using something like Stone Shape, instead of being mined or constructed from stone. He feels that there aren’t any traps in the corridor and Kremit goes forth and knocks on the ground, confirming that it is not made of lava, but is out of further ideas.

• They begin to investigate the corridor and take note that there are name plates next to each door, the first is “Specimen containment”, followed by “Reference object repository”, “morphological conditioning chamber” and finally “Observation and behavioural analysis”. Grunt poses ignoring the other rooms and going straight for the observation room, wanting to find out what’s going on down here. They enter and find a workspace like a research office, it has a couple of desks, some filing cabinets standing open and various items of stationery. The room is in disarray and appears like someone tried to clear this out in a hurry, there are a few loose papers scattered around along with stationery strewn all over the work surfaces and floor, there is also a large rusty red stain on the floor near one of the desks. On the far side of this relatively small room is a reinforced door with a plate that says “Advanced Domestication Trial Chamber - Current Trial: VH-M7 ‘Porter’”.

• Spastica decides to investigate the papers on the floor in the room and finds out the following: “Growth catalyst B7 - VEC Biological Reagents Division: accelerates growth, mutation and cross species trait expression, avoid exposure to concentrated fey essence. Handwritten Note: Show to accelerate mimic reproduction”, Certificate in frame on wall “Verdant Expansion Company regional franchise: Viridian Harvest - Project ‘A.G.R’: Biological Asset Domestication Division”, An urgent memo “Questions being asked regarding undeclared biological imports and livestock losses in the northern ‘Marches. Freight records are being reviewed, your location has not yet been identified, but the Baron has ordered a search for suspicious activities. Suspend A.G.R activity and relocate  sensitive assets immediately. Destroy this message”. From what Spastica can gather from these fragments, it seems that people were trying to selectively breed mimics in this facility and modify their behaviour. There is an additional note that she finds that says “Specimen VH-M7 ‘Porter’, conditioned responses: Stay, Return, Open. Optimal resonance frequency: 313Hz Brass. Aggression: moderate, Trainer Acceptance: moderate”. 

• Coinclinkz investigates the stain on the floor, determines it is old blood, there was a body laying here at one stage, there are scratch marks in the floor and underneath the desk next to it, there is a small oblong, dark blue stone with a nubbin on the end of it. He puffs on his pipe and says “The game is afoot”.

• Grunt collects an abacus from a desk after confirming first that it is not a mimic by lightly hitting it.

• Coinclinkz investigates the dark blue stone and picks it up, it is a “Whisper Stone” or “WhiStone” as they are branded by the company that created them, on the front of it are various runes and symbols that seem arcane, there are two standout symbols, one green and one red. On the side of the WhiStone, there are 4 gently glowing white pips. Grunt goes on an autistic rant mansplaining how most arcane symbols are generally written in draconic and tries and fails to read the symbols. Coinclinkz turns the device over in his hand and notes on the back is a very clean minimalist bell logo in the centre and then in small text near the base of it, it says “Aetherbell Industries WhiStone Mark 1”.

• They deliberate over this device for a while, musing about what it might do, Grunt is too scared to experiment in case it sets off a bomb or something, then Coinclinkz just starts pressing buttons. He presses the red one first, nothing happens, then presses the green one, noting one of the pips winks out… but nothing seems to happen. Spastica is now worried that this has unleashed something somewhere else in the complex.

• They decide to leave the reinforced door for now and investigate the other rooms, Grunt heads back to Specimen Containment and elongates his neck around the door that was standing open with scratches on it. He finds that it is full of animal cages of varying sizes that are in varying states of damage. Some have twisted metal bars, corrosion and are broken open, there are some handwritten nameplates and tags on some of them that are intact. On the wall is a safety notice that says “Resonance first, command second” and there are 3 tuning forks remaining on a long rack on the wall, Purple: 451Hz, Blue: 438Hz, Green: 387Hz. Looking at some of the tags on the cages they can see the following on them: “VH-M2, juvenile, chest form, response 412Hz moderate, aggression high, handler compliance poor”, “VH-M3, juvenile, stool form, response 396Hz strong, aggression moderate, handler compliance improving”, “VH-M4, juvenile, unassigned, response to resonance testing inconclusive, refuses stable morphology” “VH-M6, sub adult, storage crate form, response to 417Hz strong, aggression low, handler compliance acceptable.”

• Grunt examines the cages closer and finds that one is still intact and closed and there is some sort of goopy, deflated-looking sack in the centre of it. Coinclinkz calls for an immediate head count and makes sure there are still four of them, he then suggests that they should do a head count when exiting every room to make sure there are no imposters, Grunt delegates that responsibility to him.

• Grunts collects up the tuning forks and spends some time musing over how they could modify them to change their frequencies, etc., but is too scared to ring any of them. He is completely forked. He posits that maybe Coinclinkz would be able to mimic frequencies if he heard them with his Kenku mimicry trait.

• They feel like they’ve gotten what they can from that space and move on to the Reference Object Repository, the door is closed, Kremit knocks on it, nothing happens and he tells the rest of the party that he’s out of ideas. Grunt is annoyed and grabs him and then uses him to shove the door open, it’s not locked. Inside the room is a wild assortment of random objects, many seem to be storage items but there are also a lot of novelties in here as well. On a shelf there is an array of what appear to be nesting chests in ascending order, wooden chests of various sizes that are all identical and look like they can be stacked inside of each other, there is a label that says “Standard Coffer sizes A-F”. Among the other various items, they find an adventurer-themed novelty metal lunchbox with Acquisitions Inc branding featuring a cartoon image of Binwin Bronzebottom and the tagline “Binnit to Winnit”. A cuckoo clock, a gumball machine, a big brass orb, a garden gnome, a dwarven themed beer stein, a novelty spellbook container with a hollowed out interior, a wind-up plush owlbear toy. Everyone is getting interested in all the novelty items in the room and then Grunt suddenly calls for everyone to stop and not touch anything. He expresses growing concerns that anything in here could be a mimic and starts looking for any identical items, but he doesn’t find anything. He just gets jump-scared by Coinclinkz’ reflection in something shiny, thinking there is another version of him for a moment.

• Grunt starts musing on whether anyone has any noxious gas spells or something similar that they can use to coax out any hiding mimics. Coinclinkz suggests Cloud of Daggers, but Grunt stops him, clarifying that that would destroy all the valuables in the room. At talk of “gassing the room”, Kremit perks up and becomes animated, talking about how he has a lot of experience with this subject matter and rushes out of the room to go and find the bleach and other chemicals that were in the PPE room, excitedly “Haw-haw-haw” ing as he goes. He returns and mixes the chemicals and water and plumes of noxious gas begin forming inside the room, he closes the door and tells him with mysterious precision that it “normally takes about fifteen minutes to be effective”. Coinclinkz asks if the gas is flammable and muses about casting Eldritch Blast on it and Grunt becomes panicked, telling him to stop and explaining that that would probably kill all of them. Coinclinkz tries to bargain with him, keen to set off an explosion “C’mon, just a tiny blast, just a little one, just the tip?”, but Grunt isn’t swayed.

• They stand around in the corridor for a while and muse over mimic facts, wondering if they breathe, can cast spells if they mimic a caster or wand and if they can talk.

• They move on to the Morphological Conditioning room, open the door that is secured with a sliding bolt and find a room that is a perfect cube with all interior surfaces painted a pristine white. In the centre of the room, there are two identical piggy banks on the floor. Coinclinkz is excited and rushes into the room, picking up each piggy bank in turn and shaking it, finding that one rattles and appears to have a coin in it and the other is sticky… before it bites him on the hand, it’s a mimic. Grunt says they should kill it, but Coinclinkz is reluctant, wanting to find some way to pacify it and keep it as a pet, thinking that the piggy bank is cute. Grunt rings the highest frequency tuning fork that he’d collected hypothesising that young people can hear higher frequencies, so that should work on this mimic and sure enough, when it’s rung, the mimic appears to quiver and hesitate. He tries issuing it a follow-up command and says “open”, curiously enough the mimic does reluctantly release Coinclinkz and falls to the floor where it sits growling and snarling. 

• Grunt gives the tuning fork to Coinclinkz and says that he is now responsible for it, he should put it in a cage, he has to clean up any messes it makes, needs to train it and look after it etc. Coinclinkz is excited by the prospect, but doesn’t want to cage it, he wants to find a kinder way to look after it. Kremit doesn’t think that this is a good idea and tells Coinclinkz to “Grow up”.

• Coinclinkz decides to try and use his voice to make a slightly different pitch to see if that has a better effect on the mimic but this is a long shot and has no effect. 

• Grunt yells at Spastica and Kremit to do something, he tells Kremit he should use his musical abilities or something to give it inspiration to calm it down. Kremit maliciously complies, plays the marching song “Erika”, giving the mimic bardic inspiration as it is now uplifted, tapping its feet and marching towards Coinclinkz’ ankles. It lunges at him and starts savaging his ankles, using it’s bardic inspiration to deal extra damage.

• Grunt tries to ring the tuning fork again and give it another command, he yells “Stay”, the flesh of the piggy bank quivers in response to the frequency, but it succeeds on it’s save, gritting it’s teeth and refusing the command. Coinclinkz decides to try and non-lethally hit it with his dagger, but misses. Spastica tries to feed it in the middle of combat, offering it a copper coin, it considers this morsel and lunges to snatch it, now becoming stuck to her hand instead. Kremit races down the corridor trying to find a cage after Grunt tells him to go and get one, he continues playing marching songs as he goes.

• The mimic critically hits Spastica as it continues acting aggressively, dealing considerable damage to her as it munches on her fingers. Grunt is tired of this and swings his maul at it non-lethally, crits it, smashing it off of Spastica’s hand and into the floor, it is now unresponsive, thoroughly incapacitated. Coinclinkz wags a finger at the flattened mimic and puts on an authoritative voice asking it what its learned, attempting to train it. Kremit returns with the cage that is like a small dog carrier, Coinclinkz loads the mimic into it and decides it is now called “Dr Pepper”, retrieving the wind-up Owlbear plushie from the reference object repository room, now that the gas has cleared, and puts that in with the mimic to make it more comfortable. Grunt has a closer look at the items in the room now that it is deemed safe, the cuckoo clock goes off, a tiny goblin pops out and it says “Time is money, friend” he thinks that is amazing and wants it to put in his office. The gum-ball machine appears to dispense small spherical bottles of novelty healing potions and says “1GP” on the front of the dial, Grunt wants to put this in their lobby. There is a big brass orb that remains unidentified, the garden gnome that appears “aggressively cheerful” and is holding a shovel, the dwarven themed beer stein has an auto opening flap on the top when you go to take a drink from it and plays a little snippet of “Rock and Stone”, Coinclinkz wants that. Grunt casts a healing spell on Spastica while they are enjoying these novelties and is keen to build an office for himself to put these things in.

• They head back to the observation room, Coinclinkz opens the advanced testing chamber door and peeks around it, seeing a very large chest in the centre of the room, approximately 15ft long and around 7 feet tall. He carefully closes the door again and then does a quick head count of the party, confirming that there are still only four of them. Grunt has his own peek around the door, noting the big chest, musing on whether it could fit through this door, then notes that there is some kind of hand painted track around the outside of the room with a few ramps. Spastica tries to look into the room but is just awed by the big chest. Coinclinkz finally enters the room and looks around properly, he sees that there are labelled places on the floor around the room on the ‘track’, examples include “Load” and “Home” that he can see. There are some handler tools on the walls, including a long pole with a sizeable cup on the end of it that seems to have a blue residue in it, here is also a large brass tuning fork with “313Hz” on it. When he enters the room, an eye forms on the front of the mimic and snaps open, its attention on Coinclinkz, but it doesn’t otherwise react. Coinclinkz clumsily tosses a coin and it flies across to the far side of the room, the mimic’s eye briefly tracks the moving coin, but it doesn’t otherwise react.

• Coinclinkz returns to the observation room and leaves his cat and the ‘pet’ mimic, Dr Pepper, on a desk for safekeeping as he preps to fight the big mimic.

• They stand around and deliberate over what they are going to do for a good while, Grunt doesn’t want to fight it, he just wants to leave, can’t see a reason to continue. Spastica wants to try shooting the tuning fork inside the room and see if they can trigger it and command the mimic, Coinclinkz says “Enough worrying, it’s time for action!”. 

• Grunt looks in his novelty lunch box and finds there is a small metal thermos in there, neat.

• Spastica shoots and misses the tuning fork, Kremit makes fun of her and asks if they’re sure they should be letting a female do this.

• Coinclinkz says dismissively that she’ll probably fail and takes out his light crossbow and makes his own shot, at the same time Spastica frustratedly takes another shot, both roll equally high and hit it. The tuning fork starts to ring and rattles its way off of it’s hook, falling to the floor, the big mimic is visibly quivering and appears to be responding to the tone, Grunt shouts “Open!”. The mimic’s large tongue lolls out, it has a gold appearance and it licks the rim of its lid tantalisingly, its fangs are also the colour of gold. Grunt says that he has an erection now.

• Spastica uses her medicine to assess its health from a distance, acknowledging it appears to be in good health and it’s “big and strong”.

• Kremit is quietly playing with the WhiStone in the background while they are trying to assess how to get the tuning fork from inside the room, they remind him that he has Mage Hand and he uses it to retrieve it.

• Grunt enters the room, now more confident, tuning fork in hand, inspects the pole that has the cup on the end with blue residue in it, the mimic is watching him and seems to perk up inquisitively when he handles this implement. He experimentally steps towards the mimic, when he crosses the track towards the centre of the room it starts growling but doesn’t move, when he backs off again, it calms down. He starts doing a lap of the track, investigating the “Load” and “Depot” positions on the platforms at the top of the two ramps on opposite sides of the room. At the “Depot” position there is a chute low on the wall and he can see that there is some gravel down in there. He starts musing on what all this means, are they trying to train a mimic to cart goods? he is talking loudly across the room with the others who are still in the observation room, Spastica decides to try a different command, they ring the fork again and say “Deposit”, but the mimic just squirms a bit and nothing happens. Grunt walks around behind the mimic by the wall, it sprouts a second eye that travels around the rim of its lid, maintaining a visual on Grunt and the rest of the party simultaneously. Grunt tries to approach the mimic and it gets increasingly distressed and aggressive the closer he gets, little fingers and splinters of wood standing up all over it like raised hairs. He retreats again. He goes to the “Load” position on the track, notes a pressure plate on the ground and a chute over head that appears to be connected to it, it seems to be filled with gravel as well. He decides he doesn’t care about any of this, he wants to go back to the party and leave, he has no interest in fighting something this large for no obvious reward.

• He goes back to the observation room, carefully ponders what they understand about this place and rolls an intelligence check, it seems broadly like they are trying to domesticate mimics and have them perform specific rolls, they’re doing this under the radar as it’s likely illegal to be breeding mimics and they are an invasive species that is not native to this continent.

• Coinclinkz is itching to hit this big mimic, he really wants to fight it, Grunt finally says that ok, he can do it, maybe he can shoot it continually from the door with Eldritch Blasts and it wont be able to reach them. Coinclinkz starts blasting, Porter starts rushing towards the door, he gets off a few blasts before it arrives and forms a large pseudopod that reaches through the door and seizes him, beginning to try and drag Coinclinkz into the training room. Kremit is dismayed and asking “what the fuck they are doing”, not wanting to fight it either.

• While it has hold of Coinclinkz, Spastica rings the tuning fork and tries to command it to “Return”, Coinclinkz pipes up and frantically tells her “that’s the dumbest idea ever, you’re even dumber than I thought” as it will drag him back into the room.

• Coinclinkz tries to use his Fey Presence ability to cast a fear effect on every creature within ten feet of him, this includes the party as well as the giant mimic, whoops. Grunt and Kremit are frightened, Spastica saves out of it, but because of the fear, they can’t move past Coinclinkz to attack the mimic beyond the doorway. Coinclinkz is dragged back into the training room as the mimic tries to obey the “Return” command.

• The rest of the fight is gruelling there are a lot of attempts by Spastica and Grunt to try and use the tuning fork to command the mimic, but it’s rolling well and continues to save against it, Coinclinkz tries to mimic the sound of the tuning fork as well but fails to convince the mimic. Eventually they stop trying to command it and just commit to killing it, Coinclinkz is nearly eaten as he nears death in its clutches after it gets a second pseudopod around him. Grunt rushes into melee range and starts wailing on it with his hammer, smiting it for massive damage. When it is significantly injured it transforms into it’s secondary form, a large wheeled cart and it rockets away from Grunt, releasing Coinclinkz, as it’s forced to flee under the influence of Kremit’s Dissonant Whispers. 

• The Giant mimic is just about to do its big second phase boss battle attack and ram through the whole party in it’s cart form while critically injured, when Grunt drops to one knee and critically hit smites it’s wheel, killing it and causing it to careen away, rolling into a wall. It dies and loses its form, turning into a big fleshy sack. They rummage around in it’s corpse and find a magical item, a Verdant Expansion Co Handler’s Harness, 100GP, two HAF trading cards that turn out to be a seahorse and a giant wasp, Grunt is very disappointed. Coinclinkz also finds a novelty t-shirt that says “I fought a giant mimic and all I got was this lousy shirt”. They spend some time musing over the function of the trainer’s harness and wondering what it’s function is or if it’s just weird BDSM gear, Kremit tries knocking on it, then he’s out of ideas and Coinclinkz slaps him.

• Grunt decides that they should now gather up everything they can that will fit in their cart and fill it up, they do so. While outside, Kremit is playing with the WhiStone again and presses the green button, in the distance, towards the trees, he can just faintly hear what sounds like a Nokia 3310 ringing. Spastica goes to investigate the noise, finds a cart crashed into tree, broken straps where a horse was attached to it, rusty red stains everywhere, part of a humanoid corpse, broken cages and spilled sacks of magical fertiliser and damaged crates of handling equipment in the cart. In the hand of the corpse is the other, paired WhiStone that has now stopped ringing with 2 glowing pips remaining on the side. Spastica picks it up, presses the green symbol, calls the other phone that Kremit answers, then has a very awkward conversation with him with some heavy breathing, she hangs up, they’ve established what the WhiStones do.

• Spastica does a more thorough check of the area and notices that at the base of the tree, there are two pristine speckled feathers on the ground. Grunt sees these when she returns and he says they should take these feathers to a church and get some sort of divination spell cast on them to get a precise location.

• They spend time loading up the cart with the goods from the Reference Object Repository room as well as any other basic materials they can scrounge. Grunt gets the rake he wanted, then spends a lot of time agonising over whether or not he wants some potted plants for the garden at their base. They get four bags of this magic fertiliser to take with them, approx. 20KG. Grunt is curious to see what he can do with this stuff, he wants to try dumping magical fertiliser on their magic tree at their base and see if it will do anything spectacular, then has a daydream about it flowering and producing fruit that is made of solid gold.

• Their poor, tired old horse, Bilbo, now has to pull this fully laden cart full of random crap all the way back to their base and they are limited to a walking pace as they travel. They have a chance to have a long rest on their travels and arrive back in town refreshed.

• They arrive back at their headquarters, the tree has grown another foot or two, they find their workers have begun construction on the shed, the foundation is three metres from the tree currently. Greg is very pleased with the course of the construction so far and is double-checking that things are up to code, noting that there are a number of cans and other debris in the concrete for reinforcement. The shed looks like it will be made of wood and approximately 4x2 meters when it’s done. Roz is standing near the headquarters main building with her arms crossed watching this go on and Grunt expresses his displeasure to the rest of the party when he notices her.

• Grunt approaches Roz and says that he thinks they’re doing a good job so far under the foreman that he chose and Roz just shakes her head and says that he’ll find that it would have been better going to her to arrange this, next time. She tells him “Maybe you’ll learn your lesson and not try to go over my head next time. I’m sure that shed is perfectly distanced from that tree….” Grunt is annoyed that she is poking holes in his plan and he suggests she “just get back to that fucking conveyor belt of paperwork”. Roz jabs him on the chest with one of her talons and tells him not to tell her how to do her job, then she disappears back inside.

• Grunt now realises that they have brought even more junk home and they have nowhere to put the stuff that is in the cart at the moment, the shed isn’t close to being finished, not that that could hold much. Hopefully it doesn’t rain.

• Greg approaches Grunt and asks for operating funds because they need to purchase materials and pay the workers for the construction of the shed. He wants 10GP and Grunt is being very stingey and doesn’t want to part with any money, whilst Spastica says that they can easily afford it. The topic of the West New New New Jerusalem District Council comes up and them being painful to deal with for planning approval and fighting any developments in the region. Grunt muses suggestively out loud about someone hiring a bunch of people with muscles to “beat the ever living shit out of some government officials” and Greg is mortified and says that would be horrible if that happened, Grunt agrees and clarifies that he’s thinking it would be terrible. Grunt asks Greg to get him a list of local council members, saying that he’d like to have a meeting with them at some time.

• The subject of the Battle Bracer comes up again and Greg tells Grunt that he’s looked into it and it would cost approximately 3000GP to purchase one from a private seller on the mainland, causing Grunt to do a spit-take. He says he’s also checked with Ali, even though Grunt didn’t want to go to him and found that his “similar” product, the “Kombat Kuff” is only 30GP and Ali suggests it’s “just as good”. Grunt isn’t very happy and says to leave that with him to think about, he decides that he’s going to give everyone a long weekend and give them two days off. Kremit lays down on the ground and continues to play with one of the WhiStones, they’ve had all four charges restored at the start of the new day.

• Coinclinkz spends time studying the Trainer’s Harness that they found and determines that it’s primary function is giving a character that is wearing it advantage on saves against becoming grappled and advantage on attempts to break a grapple.

• Grunt relents and approves Greg having the 10GP for the shed construction. He then goes to the foreman and tells him he wants to make some modifications to the shed’s construction, he doesn’t want it to be firmly attached to the foundation, thinking he can move it later if the tree grows too big. The foreman is confused by this and asks him to confirm that he really doesn’t want it securely bolted to the foundation and Grunt confirms that is correct. He says “Bolt it down to ‘wind level’ but not ‘earthquake level’, use your discretion” and the peasant foreman scratches his head but says ok.

• Grunt starst asking the foreman about building an extension on to the Headquarters, the foreman asks how big the extension would be and Grunt tells him “really small”, but then clarifies that it should be “big enough to fit a fancy mahogany desk in”. He tells him that this is going to be his office. The foreman scratches his head but says this should be possible then scratches around in the dirt and then counts his own fingers and tells Grunt that it will probably cost somewhere between five and three hundred gold. Grunt tells him not to worry about trying to figure out costs, he is going to delegate that to Greg.

• Grunt doesn’t want to have to spend more money on expanding their base so he very reluctantly decides to go inside and talk to Roz instead and see if there is any way to get a grant or something from Head Office. He tries to be nice to her and butter her up, then says he’d like to do something to improve moral around here, him having a new office and appearing fancier and more professional might go a long way towards this. Roz says that there are disability grants she could apply for and get him a “special” office just for him, being very patronising but Grunt doesn’t perceive this, he’s just keen to get his own office and tells her to proceed. She tells him that she could talk to a consultant about getting him an accessibility kitchen as well and Grunt is very keen, he’s also pleased that Roz seems to be being nice to him.

• Coinclinkz enters the office and asks if Roz has time to speak to him and holds up Dr Pepper the pet mimic, asking her where he can store that and Roz is vey angry asking him why he’s brought that ‘filthy animal’ in there, then looks between Kremit the frog man and Coinclinkz the Kenku and asks why they’re even in there.

• The party starts to plan their character’s downtime activities that will happen over the “long weekend” between sessions.

• Grunt: find a fence or vendor to sell all the crap they’ve collected to, wants to know about how the local council works and how he might get elected to it.

• Spastica: Spastica considers going to the local library and studying pigeon behaviour to see if she can work towards her goal of finding Speckled Jim.

• Kremit: Going to work on the health and combat training of their workers, morning pre-work tai-chi and evening combat training. Grunt specifies that all of that would be unpaid.

• Coinclinkz: Feeds some magical fertiliser to Dr Pepper, goes to the local library to try and study mimic biology and behaviour to see if he can learn how to start training his mimic.