As we rounded a corner, just a block or so from the north sewer entrance, I heard a soft strain of music coming from a room directly south. I lifted a hand to pause Cambrin and Ceylas behind me so I could listen (Perception: 5+4=9) but I couldn’t quite make out more than the soft tinkle of some sort of melody.

“What is it?” Ceylas asked, glancing at the closed door.

“I don’t know.” There was a soft glow of light beneath the door, flickering like the flame of a candle. “Should we check it out?”

I was still damp and filthy. Some of the rat bites were starting to itch, but there was something intriguing about the music and light deep in the sewers of the city.

“We are almost near the surface,” Cambrin said, pointing to the where the corridor angled upward back to the street level.

“Just a peek, Cambrin. You can’t tell me you’re not curious.”

He sighed and I knew he was already going to let us but that didn’t stop his final protest, “We do not have the time for this.”

Ceylas and I grinned at each other and I crept over to the door (Stealth: 10+3=13; Ceylas Stealth: 10+3). I carefully tested the handle and the door opened easily. I pushed it just a crack so we could look through.

The room, while not decadant, was clean and unlike anything we’d seen in the sewers so far. There was a large dining table in the middle of the room, adorned in candles. At one end sat the rotting remains of what looked like it might have been a goblin. It was dressed in an ornate gown threaded with copper that gleamed in the candlelight. Before her, lay a dinner placing with a plate, an engraved jasper cup, and a pair of unmatched by ornate salt and pepper shakers.

More strangely, beside her, singing softly in a tongue I didn’t recognise was a large, hairy humanoid. He had hulking arms and shoulders so dense I couldn’t even see his neck. His ears rose to points and fangs protruded from his lower lip to frame a black snout. And he sang along with a phonograph that crackled a soft melody from the corner of the room where what looked like a pile of rags and old furniture had been clustered.

Bugbear.png [http://www.rebeccalaffarsmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Bugbear.png]

“That looks unfriendly,” I whispered to Ceylas. She appeared much more occupied tallying up the value of the dinnerware.

“We could take him,” she whispered back.

“Are you crazy?” I hissed, trying to keep my voice low while I was losing it at Ceylas’s recklessness. “It’s a frikken walking bear man!”

She rolled her eyes at me. “It’s just a bugbear. CR1 at most and we’re three level two characters.”

By CR, Ceylas was totally metagaming. She was talking about the challenge rating of the monster. And if this were a game, at home, from the safety of our tabletop, I might agree with her. A challenge rating of one would be a fair fight for a party of four level one characters. We probably could take it fairly easily as a party of three level twos. The difference is, if we were wrong we would be dead. The risks were a bit more serious, and permanant than needing to reroll a new character.

“We have no idea if the rules of this world match those of the game. That thing looks huge. He could be an easy thing to face, but by the look of that morningstar he could also cave our heads in. The morningstar resting on the table was huge. It was easily the length of the creature’s arm and it had a spiked head on it that looked painful.

“We are wasting time,” Cambrin said, stepping up behind us. The scales of his armor creaked and his boots landed heavy (Stealth [armor disadvantage] 4/7+0=4). The bugbear’s head snapped up and he growled in our direction.

“Guess we’re fighting!” Ceylas said, she tucked a potion bottle into my hand before darting past me and bursting into the room. She danced to the right of the door, tucked herself into the corner there, and tossed a blast of energy at the bugbear who was rising to his feet. He knocked the chair over in his haste and bumped the dishes on the table, sloshing drink and food everywhere as he roared in anger.

Cambrin followed his sister. He took up a position next to her and launched his javelin through the air (Javelin: CRIT! 20+3=23; damage: 4+3+1=8). The javelin struck true, finding a weak point between the bugbear’s armor. Despite penetrating deep into the beast’s flesh the bugbear looked more angry than hurt.

“No disturb our dinner!”

My eyebrows lifted. The darn bugbear could talk. His words were rudimentary and his vocals raspy like grinding over gravel but he’d spoken in common.

“Sorry man,” I shouted, not sure I wanted to disturb his dinner at all but he was already reaching for the morningstar. I glanced at the bottle Ceylas had given me, it was a pretty good healing potion. I was still pretty messed up from all those rat bites so popped the cork with my thumb and downed it as I ran forward (Potion of Healing [superior]: 1+1+1+4+2+2+1+1+8=21). All of the bites and bruises instantly healed, as tingling energy pulsed through my body from the sparkling red concoction. I’d only just been able to toss the bottle aside and grip the heft of my staff as I reached the bugbear. I swung down hard attempting to knock his hand away from his weapon (Staff: 9+5=14). My staff glanced off his leather bracer and he snarled at me.

I went to circle around him when, from behind me, in the chair where the dead goblin sat sprawled, a dessicated arm slammed out at me (Slam [opportunity attack]: 8+3=11). I managed to dodge the strike and kept move around to position myself to the back of the bugbear who roared again.

“Two unfriendlies!” I shouted to Cambrin and Ceylas. “The dead one ain’t dead enough.”

“Okay, so challenge rating is a little higher than we thought,” Ceylas said as she glanced at the zombie that was lumbering out of its chair.

“You go away or you die now!” the bugbear roared. He gripped the morningstar in his bulky fist and swung it up toward me (Morningstar: 18+4=22; damage: 5+4+2=11).

I went to dance back from it but it still caught me in the shoulder, rending deep into my flesh. I gasped as pain lanced through my whole body. “Fuck,” I muttered, stumbling back a little. “Guys, I’m not so sure we should mess with this fella.”

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The zombie goblin ambled out of its chair and lumbered over to Cambrin and Ceylas. It drove its body forward, slamming into Cambrin (Slam: 12+3=15; damage: 2+1=3) who mostly sidestepped but still caught the hit to the side of the body.

Ceylas bit her lip and I could see her glancing between the two enemies as she tried to decide what to do. Eventually she reached out and twirled her fingers in an intricate weave of magic as she muttered a word of power (Charm Person) (Wisdom check [hostile advantage] 9/14+0=14). For a second the bugbear seemed to be dazed, turning to stare at Ceylas before shaking off the effect of the spell and roaring again in anger.

“Guys!” Ceylas cried out, “That didn’t work!”

“No shit,” I roared back as the beast flexed his muscles.

Cambrin, face-to-face with the zombie, thrust forward with his javelin (Javelin: 16+3=19; damage: 5+1=6) the stab barely seemed to bother the zombie at all. She just groaned, mouth wide as her bloodless body shambled in place.

“Run or fight?” I cried.

“It’s a damn bugbear and a zombie, Lo’Kryn. We can’t just leave them alive under the city,” Ceylas shouted, she was already charging another blast of her power.

I’m pretty sure I muttered a string of curse words and blasphemied several gods as I gripped my staff, bringing it down across my body and bracing with my elbow in a downward smash (Staff: 14+5=19; damage: 2+3=5). It barely did any damage but I used the momentum of my hip twist to power a spinning back kick (Unarmed: 12+5=17; damage: 2+3=5) and followed it up by dropping low to slam a fist into the beast’s solar plexus (Flurry of Blows: 7+5=12). My arm ached as it hit nothing but thick hide, brass buckles, and taut muscle but the other two blows had landed and the bugbear was looking a little worse for wear.

It roared, spittle and blood flicked from its open maw all over my face as it swung at me (Morningstar: 8+4=12). I flinched back, closing my eyes and I braced for the hit, but somehow managed to dance out of the way of the blow. It swung, less than an inch from the end of my nose and I felt the air over my face. My breath caught, my heart racing.

I was more distracted by the close call with the morningstar but Cambrin was having his own problems as the zombie slammed at him again (Slam: FAIL! 1+3=4). He darted to the side and the zombie slammed into the wall. Cambrin circled, keeping himself between it and his sister.

Ceylas screamed, glancing between the two enemies again. I think she could tell I was pretty messed up because despite wanting to defend her brother she threw her spell at the back of the bugbear’s head (Eldritch Blast: FAIL! 1+5=6). It soared over the bugbear, slamming into the stone ceiling and showering chunks of rock down over us both.

“Eyes open, Ceylas,” I shouted back at her. I felt the irony given I’d just closed my own eyes in fear of the bugbear’s blow.

“You try throwing this stuff. It’s not that easy!”

Cambrin grunted as, ignoring both of us, he focused on skewering the zombie (Javelin: 8+3=11; damage: 2+1=3). The sharp blade pieced through the unarmored undead flesh, slightly tearing the pretty dress it wore and hacking another section of flesh from its body.

I swung an upswing with my staff, this time trying to connect with the bugbear’s chin (Staff: 9+5=14) but it brought up its gauntlet to fend off the blow so I again, sunk low beneath the defensive strike and came up with an uppercut to the bugbear’s jaw (Unarmed: 18+5=23; damage: 3+3=6). The blow cracked the creature’s head backward and carried up through the snout, slamming the hard cartlidge of the nose. Brain matter started seeping from what was left of the mangled nostrils and ears as the beast slumped to his knees and then toppled forward.

“Big fella down,” I cried, cresting his body as I moved to flank the zombie with Cambrin.

It seemed oblivious to its dead companion. Instead, it focused on Cambrin’s flesh. It opened its mouth, slamming into Cambrin again as it tried to bite down on him (Slam: 5+3=8). Cambrin shoved it back. Ceylas stepped further into the room, up beside the body of the bugbear so she could stand with clear line of sight at the zombie. This time she carefully aimed her blast of magic (Eldritch Blast: CRIT! 20+5=25; damage: 2+2+3=7). It pounded through the zombie, leaving a gaping hole in both the dress and the zombie’s chest cavity. The zombie didn’t even seem phased.

Cambrin stabbed out (Javelin [flanking advantage]: 16/11+3=19; damage: 4+1=5), running the blade of his weapon through the belly of the animated corpse. It looked like it was barely hanging to whatever power gave it this strange unlife but still it flailed toward us.

[http://www.rebeccalaffarsmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Zombie-Goblin.png]It was actually kind of sad looking. The body still had the kind of greenness that goblin’s have and although its flesh had puckered as moisture evaporated, and it stank to high heaven, the woman had been pretty. Well, as goblin’s go, anyway. I felt kind of bad as I bonked it on the head with my staff (Staff [flanking advantage]: CRIT! 20/16+5=25; damage: 8+2+3=13). The zombie crumpled, its head completely bludgeoned open. Thankfully there was very little blood or brain matter left in the corpse.

Ceylas dashed forward. “Did we ruin the pretty dress?”

I shook my head, constantly surprised by my crazy friend. “You punched completely through it with your power, Ceylas. I don’t think a sewing kit is going to help with that.”

“Do either of you have mending? We can fix it, surely one of you have mending.”

“Sorry, no,” Cambrin said, he was already using the dress to clean his javelin.

“Well, maybe it will still be worth something,” Ceylas added, pushing Cambrin away as she began stripping the dress off the corpse.

She forced Cambrin to hand over his pouch, shoving the dress inside. He and I collapsed into the chairs as she began circling the table, dropping everything she could find into the bag of holding. Most of it looked like pretty dinnerware. It might fetch some coin but probably wasn’t more than decorative. There were a few potion bottles. Ceylas glanced at them and handed me one that looked exactly like the one I’d downed and dropped earlier. As soon as I’d stashed the potion she scooped up the cork and empty bottle from the floor and added it to her stash.

She continued to skirt around the room, gathering up anything that took her fancy (Investigation: 16+3=19). Cambrin and I just watched, silently. Eventually, she even hauled up the morningstar and started pulling off the bugbear’s armor.

“Ceylas,” I said, raising an eyebrow.

She lifted her gaze to mine. “What?”

“Do you really need a bugbear’s armor?”

She looked at it. The armor was actually just mostly scraps of aged hide but some of it was well crafted. “Maybe it’s magical?” she asked, dubiously. She looked hopefully to her brother.

“I am not wasting a spell on this right now. I am tired, Ceylas. Lo’Kryn and I need rest.”

“Well, I’ll take it for later then,” she said, resuming pulling the pauldrons from the bear’s broad shoulders and shoving them along with the gauntlets into the bag of holding.

“So, we’re taking a short rest?” I asked Cambrin. He gave a brief nod, before tilting his head to rest on the back of the chair and closing his eyes.

I crossed my legs, settling comfortably in the chair I’d taken beside him and closed my eyes to concentrate my energy inward.

Over time, Cambrin and I regained some health from the rest (Cambrin’s hit dice: 5+1=6; Lo’Kryn’s hit dice: 4+3=7). Ceylas had eventually joined us to eat a little from her field rations which she shared with Cambrin and I. She handed Cambrin back his bag and he clipped it to his belt. Despite all she’d managed to shove inside it the bag didn’t look any bigger or heavier.

“What’s up with that?” I asked Cambrin.

He glanced at the bag I’d gestured to. “It is something I can do. When I focus I can embue ordinary objects with enchantments. A part of my mana continues to fuel the item, keeping it bonded to me. If the bond ever breaks then the item would revert to its normal state. At the moment I can maintain two infusions simultaneously so I created this bag of holding and empowered my javelin. I have nothing in the way of combat magic. Truth be told Cambrin never expected to need any. He is a scholar, an inventor, not an adventurer.”

“I guess the gods had other plans for him.”

Cambrin grunted, nodding his head as he ran his thumb over the shaft of his javelin. “I may need to make different choices for him in the future. Our lives may depend on a less studious approach.”

I nodded. “Speaking of a less studious approach, we should probably kick off again.” I turned to Ceylas who was just finishing up using Cambrin’s bankers box to convert the piles of coin she’d dug up from a footlocker in the corner of the room where it looked like the bugbear had made himself at home with a bed, a stool, and a small bedside table. I had no idea what was up with that. He must have been living down here a fair while. I couldn’t help but wonder why. I couldn’t really let myself wonder through, that way lay the rabbit hole of unnecessary sidequests. Instead, I called softly to Ceylas, “Ready, pack rat?”

She grinned at me, snapping the lid of the box closed and passing it back to her brother who tucked it into his backpack and drew the string closed. “Fifty-four platinum, that’s eighteen each,” she said, handing me a small stack of platinum coins and then doing the same for Cambrin before tucking her own into a separate pouch. There was still a small tinkle of coins in the party pouch along with the gemstones that she tucked back into her vest.

I tucked my coins into my own coin pouch. We were gathering a tidy sum, but since we were no doubt leaving town as soon as possible it wouldn’t do us any good until we found somewhere we weren’t being hunted down as theives.

“Come then,” Cambrin said after he’d put his own coin pouch away. “Lead on, Lo’Kryn. The exit should be just a few feet to the left."