AAR: [2M] The Novice Alchemist 2020-05-24 1900 GMT

[Brian L]

Journal Entry of Reyis Poriv (1421 05-20 TH) The Novice Alchemist (05/24/2020)

Vinnidamous (Vinnie) Goronich claims to be a novice alchemist in need of some assistance gaining alchemical supplies and is willing to pay for adepts to help him out. I am willing to work as silver seems to go away far too quickly for my taste. According to Vinnie, his cousin Dubhan has acquired an alchemy lab in his travels and Vinnie wants to use it for profit. I arrived and there were other Adepts also willing to help Vinnie with his task. Vinnie wants to get the most profit that he can from his endeavor, his goal is to remove as many of the middle men as possible. Thankfully not through assassination. He wishes to gain access to reagents from their source, and as all the sources in the immediate locality are claimed, he wants Adepts to help in journey in search of new sources. Preferably ones that don’t have access to a lab and want to use them on their own.
Lucky for Vinnie, Dubhan also mentioned a location which seemed unclaimed, and well stocked with the items he was looking for.
Vinnie’s location was in Ironbark Grove, which was near Irondelve settlement.
Our journey to Irondelve was excellent, the trail was easy to follow and nature just seemed to want to hand us food. We were set upon by wolves, giving us Adepts a chance to earn our keep. Once again my employer seems almost useless outside of town. The evening of the wolf attack Vinnie admitted to us that there were no ‘backers’ for his little endeavor, just a pile of poker winnings to get him started. Sometime later he also admitted to having no official access to the alchemy lab, but it seems that cousin Dubhan is gone a lot. This endeavor keeps getting sketchier as we go, but silver earned shadily is still silver.
Irondelve is a newer and more cautious settlement, and we were asked to go through the greeting ritual. I need to practice my skill some. Torgun did well, and Daylor was allowed into the settlement as they knew him. Had I not announced my skill as cooking, and called it something like poisoner I could have made it inside as well. Most of us spent a peaceful night outside the walls with the guards standing watch for us.
The next morning we were met by Bandaar, a Orkish Healer and leader in the community. With our help (mostly Icarus & Torgun) Vinnie was able to come to an agreement with her about rights to harvest, payment to the settlement, and other businessy things. I seriously hope that Vinnie is a passable Alchemist as he seems helpless in other arenas.
Ironbark Grove is beautiful, and I want to go back there in the future. There is a small problem of large bloodsucking bees, but it is still a beautiful place. Vinnie was able to find many items that were of interest to him, and we packed up to head back to Thoral our expedition complete.
On the way back, we were ambushed by another of Vinnie’s cousins, a Bogdamous (Bog) Goronich who was upset about Vinnie walking away from the poker table with his winnings in his pocket. Bog offered us the chance to leave and let him settle with Vinnie in private. We chose to honor our contract, and lit into Bog. Bog’s ruffians were even more useless than Vinnie and it seemed that it had never occurred to Bog that we might side with Vinnie rather than him. Vinnie may lack redeeming qualities, but he is still an improvement over scum like Bog. Upon our return we were paid in full, and even managed to obtain some simple Alchemical items. Vinnie needs some practice in the skill, and he needs to find someone to do his travelling for him, but he might make a good Alchemist.
I just wish I could remember the aunt’s name.

[ottdmk]

The Great Library of Throal thanks Reyis, Icarus, Dalyor and Torgun for their contributions. +40 Legend, +50 sp.