Tortle-licious Liberation!

The place is The Stubbed Toe. A local eat & stay buried in the commercial district of Iriaebor, the Tor-nestled & famed ‘City Of A Thousand Spires’. Seated at a central table are four adventurers, freshly back from their latest jaunt. They were tasked with putting down an evil warlock who thought "yes this city is where I shall gather all the souls I need to enact my plan of world domination!". Of course it didn't go as planned for him as the heroes vanquished him after a lengthy battle with he and his minions. So now it was time to rest and re-energize.

You have Avery, the feisty female Ranger with her wolf companion Nobu. Then you have Sir Reginald Archibald IV, the male white Harengon monk who fancies himself a beer. Or whiskey. Next to him is the Warforged Paladin officially named 0101010101010100001010101010 or something like that. The party affectionately simplified that to just ‘01’. Then you had the wise-crackin, mushroom eatin, Half-Elf druid Gary Leafspring from an 87’ S10. They all sat and ate (well of course 01 didnt eat but asked a lot of questions) and talked about their latest adventure. There was even a discussion about “the man”. Man.

When suddenly, the doors of the tavern burst open! There came pouring in the orange hued afternoon Sun. The door is blown closed by the wind, and four individuals stand there. They are clearly human men, adorned in white painted plated armor with crimson trim. Well, its not exactly sets of plate armor, more like ill- fitted patchwork plate armor. They saunter past the party table. They are varied in size and stature but clearly there is a big boy leader of the pack. They give a couple of the party members the stink eye, check out their food dishes, and even give Avery a lil extra attention as they make their way to the back. Avery’s eyes rolled in angst. As they passed the table, there is a fifth being with them. Now, running together for the past 5 levels, the party has seen things out in the wild, and this creature is very well known. Except this one in particular stands on two legs. It has a large muscular frame, hunched to about 5ft10in, easily 3-400lbs and a large dark brown shell on its back. Shackled around its wrists and ankles, connected and bound by chains, is a tortle. The world has heard of this exotic sentient turtle race that reportedly comes out from the Chult peninsula. Its one eye facing the table examines the party as its pulled along to the back of the tavern where the armor-clad men have taken a table under the staircase that leads to the guest rooms. You’d have to be a blind man to not see the utter look of resignation in the Tortle’s eye. The men holler out for the staff and get their orders in. They to some would be categorized as rabble rousers extroidinanaire.

Avery doesn't like the looks of this situation. She sees chains. She sees slavery. And slavery is just a big no to her. Reginald who had run upstairs in fright when the door of the place flew open, makes his way back to the table. Avery makes her claim that she will make her way over and see what this is all about. 01 decides to join her with it’s protective nature imbued. The other two, well all they can think of is...”Avery gon get sum booty…” A chuckle is had by the group as the Ranger…saunters…her way over to the table, 01 close in tow trying his own blocky construct walk of sauntering.

Arriving at the table they can see the men have been gloriously eating and drinking, while the Tortle is hunched down in the corner just to their side, on its knees. One of the men is using the Tortle’s leg as a foot stool. Overall they are not being nice. Avery brings on the charm, innocently trying to see if she can free the gentle beast by playing coy as to why it’s in chains. The men gruffly offer her the “thing” for 500GP. After making a silent determination about the ordeal, she and 01, who took some jokes from the men, make their way back to their table. Where a quick discussion of why douchebags “kill the vibe”, & what happened when Avery paid the men a visit. While this happens, they are interrupted by one of the men, now rather drunk as he shoots his shot with the Ranger. Something about what else she would do for gold…clearly doesnt sit well with the group as the Reginald the rabbit-kin hops up on the table. Before they know it, they are now surrounded by the drunk man’s compadres, clearly looking for a fight. And a fight is what they found because no sooner did the leader of the pack aka Big Boy, try to make his presence known, Reginald leapt up into the air and landed a concise blow on the big man’s face. Initiative had been rolled!

It was a back and forth affair. The men landed their blows confidently. Then they took their blows from the bow of the Ranger, from the literally hand-crafted weapons of the automaton, and somehow, from the fists of the gorilla! Gary the druid decided he had enough of the ideology of this rag-tag band of men, and used his innate Wild Shape powers to turn into a ferocious primate. Being kind of new to it, he didn’t have all the success he had hoped for. But still, a gorilla in a bar in Iriaebor? Quite sure The Toe’s resident Bard wrote that down. Once the party had decided enough was enough, primarily Avery, the men had eventually yielded. But not because of the party, but because their boss had arrived. A huge man. Over 7ft tall, leaning towards 400 rock solid pounds. This bearded giant, whose armor clearly showed he had done his time in service as not a piece was out of place. Or stained. He glared over his men, including the dead one laid out behind Gary. “Grab the fucking Tortle and go!” he boomed at his men. They bowed their heads sheepishly as they made their way to the back room and started to march out of The Toe with the Tortle. Looking to make quick amends, and put Sir Reginald physically in his place back on the table, the large man claimed to the tavern staff, “anything they want, I’m covering it.” He offered a gestured goodbye to the party as he just walked out behind his men, and out into the darkening evening.

Avery, with her immeasurable perception noticed something peculiar the Tortle did as it made it's way slowly behind its leaders. While in full stride, it was able to crack off a piece of one of it’s large toenails, and kick it. The nail piece skidded almost silently across the wooden plank floor and stopped dead center under the party’s table. Reconvened back at the table, Avery taking advantage of the distraction leaving the Toe, scooped up the nail piece and pocketed it. The party then discussed together that they had a decision to make. Follow the men and free the Tortle tonight, or stay, rest, regroup and resupply in the morn. After a round of CON rolls, it was going to be tonight! No rest for the wicked-ly good. Avery consulted the map and along with the group, discovered that the Tortle had managed somehow to etch into the surface of the nail, a map of the surrounding area. It seemed it was purposely drawing whoever was reading the map, west of Iriaebor. Out into the wilds. Into the dark. Before they made their way, the barkeep makes his way over to the table with a simple warning. “There’s a lot more of them than you think.” More of…them? Ponders the party as they make their way out.

The cool night air hit them immediately as they made their way towards the western city gate. The last of the night’s resident strollers making their way to their homes. Shops had already closed for the night at sundown, so the party was out of luck if they needed to stop for supplies! But they were confidently prepared and ready to face who knows what at the location the Tortle-nail map was pointing them to. Eventually they came upon the great Western gate of Iriaebor. A quick conversation with the city gate guard helped the party realize, yeah we should just keep going. And there they were, once again a party of five(yes Nobu the wolf counts) making their way out into the Sunset Vale. Except this time there was no sunlight. It was well past dinnertime. The lights of Iriaebos shrinking behind them, they lit their torches and started walking along the main road, the river Chionthar drifting by on ther left. A deeply concentrated effort by Gary and Avery picked up that through all the foot, hoof, wheel and whatever that was, tracks in the dirt of the main road, there stuck out one set of very particular tracks. ALmost as if two snakes were side by side making their way up the road. Almost like if a set of chains was being dragged along the ground. The party decided to follow this peculiarity for as long as they could. Then the road forked. Consulting the nail-map, it seemed the road went left into a wetlands, and right into a wood. Another investigation revealed that the pair of tracks they had been following, veered off to the right, towards the wood shown on the map. Off they went after also seeing some distant small firelights spread out across the landscape. And sensing they must be getting close to something, anything to help them help that tortle. Lets just hope its not snakes that Reginald thinks is making the tracks, nor the aliens that Gary thinks is making the “signs” in the road. Oyy…

No, they did not come across any snakes nor aliens. Gary decided it was time to ingest one of his mushrooms. It was one he had not taken before. Found on one of his recent adventures Gary chose to…roll the dice (hold for applause)and find out the outcome of ingesting this random fungi. After swallowing it down, he suddenly felt the ability to cause fear to any creature of his choice within 100ft of him! Which gave him such a Druidic boost of confidence and belief in himself, he magickally transformed into a crocodile! Also known as, his last use of Wild shape! Sir Reginald saw this nifty transformation and thought, “I’m going to ride that crocodile into battle like all the legendary rabbit-folk of the past!” and as he thought he did it. Springing up onto Gary’s now dinosaur-like back, they marched off toward the wood. Avery and the construct thought better and hung back to see if providing cover for them would be a better option for now. Gary and Sir Reginald made their way a bit towards the darkness of the approaching wood, which was still a bit of a ways off by sight lines. Eventually they arrived at a rise in the land, which gave them a sweeping view of the landscape. From this height, about 30 ft above ground level, they can hear voices of men off in the distance in the wood. They see fires strategically places in a circular fashion covering quite a large area. And a row set up as a lit path into the wood. Onward they went down the drop and closer to the wood.

Back to the lady, the dog and the lifeless one for a moment. Nobu took Avery’s instructions and advanced through the tall grasses where the followed tracks went. Nose to the ground, nose to the air. Rinse and repeat. Nobu was smelling oh so many wonderful scents. Flowers, grasses, poops, birds, mammals, and…ahh yes there it is. The salty briny, almost leathery scent of the Tortle was just barely a whiff on the air. But Nobu’s nose knows!. He signaled back to Avery they he had found the trail again and for her and the bot to advance to him. Once reunited, they made their way to meet up with the crocodile and rabbit. Who Reginald by the way thinks it best to just walk in the front door and ask for lodging, then see if they can be told where the Tortle is. Not an entirely bad plan. Avery beefed up the thought with “ok you and the crocodile distract the guys at the front gate, and the rest of us will sneak our way in and start looking for the Tortle.” As they were all finalizing the plan ahead, Nobu growled. Nobu got into a defensive posture. Something was coming. All with high enough perception checks, the party looked out beyond the halo of light their torch provided them, and saw two sets of red eyes in the darkness. Then they heard the growls and snarls and whatever the other sounds were of the unseen threat just out of ther visual reach. And the smell, ugh the smell. Either way, the party was about to run into the “junkyard dogs” of the Wood.

Into positions the battle began. Back and forths ensue. The crocodile snaps one of the creature’s legs in its powerful jaws, grappling and crippling it. Sir Reginald tosses his dart…off into the night, missing completely. So out of frustration he throws the torch which hits the enemy, plunking off its chest. The firelight landing at its feet finally illuminates into the party’s vision, a pair of snarling, snapping Bugbear Ambushers! One with a large jagged sword, the other with a massive mace. Seeing this sight, Reginald immediately darts off about 40ft away. 01, contemplating once again everything in existence around him, decides to fire his integrated crossbow at the bests, striking one. The monsters lash out in defense, the first releasing itself from the jaws of the crocodile with a bit of physicality, the other swinging its mace at 01, striking the metal being with two solid hits. Avery comes at them with her short swords, striking true. Followed up by her trusty sidekick Nobu getting a bite in. In the end, the bugbears fell but not before exhibiting some strange behavior. The party saw one of the beasts mightily rip and tear some sort of collar off from around its neck and throw it at them, then take Avery’s final strike as a “put me out of my misery” move allowing her blade to deal it’s fatal blow. Avery surmises that whoever those men from earlier were, they mist be some kind of slave traders and are making slaves out of any and all beasts the come across whether they are bad or good.

And this idea was fortified once they finally reached the entrance to the wood, which had many small but strategic fires spread throughout, including the whooping and yelling of the rabble rousers. 01 did have a moment before entering where his programming told him there was a larger force at play here, way up high in the sky, but he could not place it. So it and the party decided to follow the trail through the woods where they came upon many beasts and creatures locked in cages, thanks to following Nobu’s nose(that knows!). Liberating as many as they could, including another of Sir Reginald’s kind! It was an older, word-down Harengon that was afraid to leave its cage. After some encouragement it finally did. It was feeling freedom or the first time in decades. It was clear this was some sort of zoo. But why? As the party pondered this they finally came upon the last cage which contained the tortle. After 01 ripped the door off its hinges (and having an epiphany realizing that the cages are made of metal just like him), the Tortle, returned of some of its vigor, pointed the party to the center of the wood where there was a larger singular fire and the sounds of men being torn to shreds by wild animals that had recently finally been liberated. Ahhh sweet primal revenge.

The party approached the clearing and saw before them a huge multi-roomed outdoor tent. Nearly a carnival type tent if it weren't for the evil bellow coming from within. Nearly tempting them all to enter. Then one of them had an idea. There's a fire here, there's a cloth tent there…suddenly a flaming torch was put upon the fabric building by 01. The party & the Tortle were able to actually take a moment here and just enjoy watching the once grand tent become a towering inferno before them. And within it, flaming walls of tent material fell down into disappearing embers, revealing The Zookeeper. The large man that had wrangled up his boys from the tavern earlier. The leader of whatever pack this was. Now stood alone, enraged in flames.

The party not knowing the full story of what was actually going on here, but enough that they ran into some sort of horrific scenario decided it was best to take him down! A major battle ensued between the party and The Zookeeper. His blade, long and broad swung mightily and maniacally as his laughter continued. And then the party saw a familiar thing. Around his neck also was one of those collars they saw on the bugbears(and a few others they had rescued earlier). As the battle ensued, the numbers game took its advantage as the party kept taking The Zookeeper down further until he also acted very strangely. Mumbling was the last thing he did as he took his final blows, and an unseen force snapped his neck out of nowhere, silencing him forever. His death topped off by his lifeless body sliding down the bladed edge of his massive sword, neck side up.

Recapping their energy and accounting for each other and their new companion in the Tortle, the party heard another maniacal laughter, But this time it booming overhead in the waning darkness. Something flew over the wood way high up in the sky and towards the rising dawn. Not far enough though they couldn’t hear an ominous voice bellow out “You may have released some of the children, but you will never release all of them….’