Continuing the interrogations of their prisoners, the party managed to establish that the Magus was originally from their world, had no idea (or was deliberately vague about) how he got to this world, and was willing to give them anything they wanted in return for his freedom. His measured opinion on Dungeon Master was that he manipulated people into acting out stories for his own amusement. Mouse, confused by all this talk of other worlds, was given one of the Drow's leaflets on Dave, and once again began to doubt the sanity of her fellow adventurers. After an extensive intra-party debate, during which the Warlord proposed just killing both of them and never speaking of them again, they opted for Chuck's suggestion that they just let the Magus go as he was, at least to start with, as much a "victim" as they. The Magus left quickly, groveling and promising them any magic items they want if they come find him in his tower in Vek.
Moving back to DM, they admitted they had no proof that it was he who was pulling people from outside into this world, and despite some misgivings, decided to risk giving him the ring as Chuck didn't want it anyway (due to its tendency to implant thoughts about taking over the world). After spending five minutes "absorbing" it somehow - apparently turning it into the pure essence of magic - DM looked a lot healthier and was surprisingly compliant when they decided not to give him his staff back and to make him come with them for a while.
After checking that Charles was indeed no longer in the time trap and concluding that there was little point chasing after the chronomancers just yet, they decided to head back to their house to check on the progress of the repairs. The workmen had cleared a lot of the rubble but hadn't yet started rebuilding. They were mostly sitting around drinking tea. The foreman came up to talk to them and explain that it looked like it would be more difficult than they first thought and will probably take longer and cost more money. Oh, and could they get some feed for their horse? The men found it in the stable half-starved and while it had been eating grass and corn from the surrounding fields those plants didn't look all that....healthy.
They took watched through the night just in case, but DM failed to try and kill them in their sleep. He continued to follow them meekly as, after consulting the map he'd given them showing the nearby locations of undead, they headed south to a forest inhabited by vampires. They arrived at one of the surrounding towns, Newtown, just before dusk and went to the local inn. The innkeeper was nervous and kept mentioning how it was getting late, but they continued to drink and had just persuaded him to let them stay the night when a gang of vampires burst in. The party immediately issued a demand for Treasure Tax, which just confused them. As more vampires piled in, they passed the question of Tax to their leader who indignantly replied that round here, people paid taxes to him. After a failed attempt to beguile the Warlord, the vampire-in-charge drew his sword and Mouse promptly shot him.
Chuck moved in front of the group and asked if this really was going to become a fight. The vampire leader simply growled "Kill them," at which Chuck blasted away several of his minions and replied, "Was that directed at them or me?" Mouse shot down most of the vampires as they charged, including those who were outside but entered at the sound of a fight. Their leader attacked Mouse but then became flanked by the Warlord and Cat, and once the last of his servants had been teleported outside by Chuck he turned into mist and fled. The party settled down to finish their drinks and some hours later the innkeeper came back and acted both surprised and terrified that they were still alive.
OC Comments: Was afraid the thing with the Magus and DM would drag on too long, but thankfully the players decided to just do something and then found something else to occupy themselves with. Although I gave them the map ages ago, it shouldn't be too hard to level up some of the adventures and the others I may have to rewrite, but it's certainly easier than thinking up yet more new things.
Quote of the Session
Me: "He draws his sword."
D: "Is it a particularly nice sword?"
Me: "No, just a bog-standard short sword."
D: "Oh, in that case I shoot him."
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