Walgreens Delivery Gone Wrong (DnD Story)
- Setting: The town of Eartmann (custom)
- DM: Me
- Party: A warforged warlock, a druid firbolg, a human fighter, and an orc paladin.
- Background: The party is about to embark on a trip out of Eartmann after having sealed Mah'rya Caerie, the first boss. They are looking for means of travel and realize they cannot afford a wagon, carriage, or beast of burden. So, they look to stock up on resources before meeting their contact, the knife-slinging drow Cassandra, and then heading south to their next destination.
It Began With Good Intentions...[edit]
Jeff, the firbolg druid, was looking to make some extra money on the side while gaining some experience with the healing arts. It just so happened that Eartmann had an apothecary shop run by a middle-aged half-giantess. The apothecary offers him two gold to run a route delivering parcels of medicine, which he accepts. He gets payment up front and goes off on his route, which luckily consisted of only two addresses.
The first house is that of Old Man Harrison, a local curmudgeon. The town doesn’t use convenient addresses with numbers and street names. Instead, Jeff has to find the one house on the block with a blue roof. Easy enough. Harrison is a bit of a stubbornly unhealthy old man and Jeff is pretty sure the apothecary is just vending cannabis-equivalents after smelling the old man smoke his parcel. Anyway, one delivery down.
The second delivery location, however, is outside the usual town limits. He’s instructed to find the manor of Manson, which is located at the river that runs from west to east south of Eartmann. The party rejoins at the river, with the fighter and paladin working on filling a 40-gallon barrel with water for their trip. In their immediate area is also the town water wheel, and some old fishers on the opposite bank over the bridge. Upriver, they can see what should be the manor.
Jeff and the warforged warlock, AR1, go to the manor while the fighter and paladin stay to keep filling their barrel. The manor is rather old, with a collapsed fence and overgrown yard. At the front door, after multiple knocks, Jeff and AR1 actually try the door and it opens, having been unlocked. Jeff and AR1 wander around the inside, looking for Manson. They find the house is largely decorated with things like corals and sea-worn glass. AR1 discovers a false wall at the back of the living room where a hearth might normally be.
Unable to force the wall open, AR1 and Jeff end up calling the paladin, Garrian, over to help. Garrian leaves Qie, the fighter, to go see what AR1 and Jeff are shouting about over at the manor. It’s a long distance, but he picked up on the noise over the sound of the river. Qie learns that the two old half-dwarven fishermen live in the manor and came out to fish today. He goes after Garrian.
Lugging the partially-filled barrel after Garrian, Qie manages to also regroup with the others. However, he neglects to mention what he had just learned about the half-dwarven fishermen. Instead, they discuss the strange false wall in the manor and think maybe Manson could be trapped inside, and in great need of medicine. So, they decide to all push and force the false wall open. It works. The thing flips on one side, making a gap just enough for them each to fit, in one at a time.
... And Ends In Greed[edit]
Past the false wall, the party encounters a hidden dark space in the house. Lighting a torch, they see three locked chests within the stone-enclosed room, and six rectangles carved into the ground, with two being empty slots. The filled four slots have motifs of dwarven figures carved onto the face slabs in a position of repose. Seeing no Manson, the party largely opts to just leave, since they seem to have stumbled into a place they really don’t need to be.
AR1, however, goes and tries to open the chests while the rest of the party is going. The curious warforged discovers the chests are filled with gold, specifically gold doubloons. They are minted and shaped differently than any contemporary currency. Upon opening the chest, the lock falls to the ground with a loud CLANG the rest of the party hears. Garrian enters, fueled with suspicion, and AR1 tries to allay any suspicions about stealing from the house while Jeff and Qie go outside to see the fishermen returning.
AR1 is insistent they are not trying to steal, but they won't leave, either. Garrian won't leave until AR1 does, since the orc doesn't trust the warforged. AR1 eventually does admit they want some of the stash. Garrian and AR1 argue about taking gold from this old house and the sheer amount in the chests dwarfing any theft. Garrian is adamant that it is wrong to be stealing that which is not theirs, while AR1 believes the houseowners would not miss a few pieces. The DM is laughing the whole time. To buy time, Jeff goes to distract the two dwarves before they are close enough to the house.
The paladin and warlock finally sort of settle and the paladin, in mild disgust, tells the warlock to do as they please, but to not take more than they can carry. AR1 happily takes a handful of the gold doubloons (10 of them, to be exact). They both leave now, with the paladin being rather sore over the whole affair. No one closes the wall back up. At this point is when the paladin calls the warforged "a magical toaster."
Jeff, meanwhile, has been impressing the two fishermen. The half-dwarves were having a poor catch day and Jeff amazingly pulls off a catch with one try. He catches a fish worth 4 days of food. The dwarves give him half. He asks them about fishing and where they come from while Qie, AR1, and Garrian sneak away from the house in the background. Jeff gives the half-dwarves the medicine and then skedaddles before the half-dwarves get in their house to see what has happened.
The party goes to leave Eartmann only about an hour later after meeting up with Cassandra. AR1 is looking for a pawnshop or collector where the doubloons could fetch a price, since they can’t melt them down right now and they aren’t minted as money currently. As the party walks south, they can see, in the distance, a horse-drawn wagon making its way towards Manson’s manor…