We were assumed to have picked up that cargo and started on the road back to Otari.  However, Brian pointed out to Dan that the book we got last time was full of arcane spells.  With Clarissa’s feat, she had a pseudo spell book so she might want to transcribe interesting spells before we returned it.  Or broke it.  That got him looking at his character sheet and he realized, despite her new bag of holding, Clarissa was currently encumbered.  (Not a surprise, given her -1 STR.)  That launched an hour discussion on encumbrance rules, pouch of holding functionality, inventory maintenance, etc.  Basically, that new Staff of Fire was heavy and he hadn’t loaded his pouch and backpack correctly.  She also had some stuff she’d never use like a pile of sling bullets which she could dump.  He also tossed a potion and a wand into the party sheet.  Brisco took the potion.  The wand was a 1^st level Harm spell which at 5^th level, wasn’t that useful.  Brisco decided to “pay” 30 gold into the stash, take the wand and destroy it.  We did acquire it in an evil temple.  In and amongst all that, Paul looked at the email traffic and realized Xeelie wouldn’t exist for another month so all the money he spent on throwing axes and various parts was going to have to wait.  Eventually, finally we got rolling again.

We came onto the map of the Otari area, just before the road went under the log plume.  We tripped an Alarm spell and came upon an ambush/sabotage site.  There were a wide array of goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears who seemed to be guarding a priest in a dog mask performing some sort of ritual.  There was a glowing pentagram under the plume with an innocent farmer acting as a sacrifice.  (That “farmer” had an initiative of 38 by the way.)  There were also goblins unloading barrels and placing them at support beams.  We sprang into action however we were over 100 feet away.  TerStegan moved up to some logs to get some cover from the guys with crossbows.  Some of them moved up to meet him.  Clarissa was eager to wipe them out with a Fireball however it was pointed out that this would likely take out the plume.  An arcana roll indicated that the ritual was conjuring a big fiery explosion with the addition of making fiery explosions in the area bigger.  She decided not to do their job for them.  She instead took a shot at one of them.  The mounted pixie was still with us as she had business at the Dawnflower Library.  Brisco stayed with the wagon and moved it forward. Oakwood turned on his powers and used a manifested wooden long bow to hit the priest now that the wagon was within 100 feet.  Brian rolled a “concentration” roll and he kept control of his ritual.  The minions weren’t too tough but there were a lot of them.  And those crits still hurt.  They all had different abilities so it was slow going while Brian navigated through the big list.

TerStegan continued to swing and crit and cleave bad guys.  The next time the wagon moved, Oakwood no longer had a shot at the priest.  Since no one else could reach him, he got off and shot him again.  This time, he missed his roll and the ritual started to get away from him.  Would it get worse or better? A random die would tell, evidently.  That made Oakwood a prime target and he was hit with 3 bolts in rapid succession.  The ritual got “better” and shrank a little.  The pixie ran across the map on her raptor, cast a Gust of Wind on the ritual and pushed it away from the plume a bit.  And then ran back to give TerStegan flanking.  With his axe mastery and Bless spell, he could hardly miss.  Brisco got off the wagon and did BFMed on TerStegan and himself.  Even though we weren’t yet close to the caster, he decided it was time to go.  He grabbed the “innocent victim” and flew away with a fly spell.  At this point, Brian pulled us out of combat.  2 rounds.  The ritual went off but the plume was saved.  The villains got away as was preordained by plot requirements.  The pixie tried to follow them but flying over a forest as opposed to running through it proved to be too big an advantage.

We finished off the minions and since Brian was in control, took no prisoners.  The pentagram was broken.  Fire enhancing runes were found on the barrels of oil.  (GM plot runes not player useful runes.)  We put them back on their cart with hopes of selling them.  (TerStegan has needs and every nickel counts.  It occurs to me we didn’t search and gather their loot.)  We did note that the priest and the “victim” were communicating in sign language, just like those two accountants that were causing trouble in town.  We were pretty sure it was them but we had no hard evidence.  We rolled into town, the evening before the day before the election.  We delivered our goods and returned the wagon.  We reported to Longsaddle.  There was no reward for the previous bandits, by the way.  We told him about the sabotage.  We figured we could rest up at the clubhouse and take on the crypt in the morning but TerStegan and Brisco wanted to continue investigating the accountants.  So, we spent the rest of the night on that.

It was pointed out that that much oil was not trivial to get.  We talked to Tamily and she agreed to buy it once Brian figures out what it is worth.  She suggested it must have come via the port so we talked to the harbormaster.  He gave us a surprisingly big list of townsfolk who had recently purchased a lot of oil.  A dead end or at least a multiple end.  (We need to get into the oil business.)  They then went to talk to Wren about the runes again.  She didn’t share anything new there but it turns out she sold the oil.  Evidently some very nice goblins came into town and wanted to buy a lot of oil.  She had to special order it for them.  She didn’t know where they went and knew of no connection between them and the accountants.  She did say they looked over her books and found ways she could increase her profits.  Brisco decided to stake out the accountant’s room for a couple hours.  At some point, a young lad showed up with a package and then left.  Brisco turned into a pest and snuck in to get a peek.  He even used a hero point on his blind stealth roll.  They unwrapped their DoorDash dinner, put out an extra setting and invited him to join them.  (Remember that perception-based initiative roll of 38?)  Brisco ran off.  And they finally concluded this was, in fact, a dead end.

Next time, we are going to the Menhemes crypt to retrieve the cloak.  It occurred to Oakwood that if the election goes against his father and the holy symbol transfers to Carmine, it becomes much harder to get.  So, we want to do this before the election.  Brian said it shouldn’t be a problem for Oakwood to get it.  No game on July 4^th so we’ll try again on the 11^th.  By the way, Brian says that the next level of the dungeon is the 5^th so we shouldn’t expect to level up again until after that level is done.