Me, Na'ima, Surx, Ivor, and Mila were invited to the town of Parnast and we were to be tracking hobgoblins looking for a wizard tower. These hobgoblins may be working for a hill giant named Badfrual and they want us to investigate and see if there is plans to come after the town. Badfrual usually has different tribespeople that follow her like goblins, giants, ogres, etc.

Near everyone else in this group seems to have beef with the man that hired us...

But anyways we went off to begin our job and a golden pseudodragon sppeared saying "Seer" is requesting access to the wizard tower and that they'd pay us for it. A few of use recalled the Seer has hired the Guild before and has shown trustworthy at the moment now. But it was agreed to give them the wizared tower if we so find it.

We ended up walking through a swamp. :I

As we continued through, we found dead hobgoblins. They were laying on muddy parts of ground and half underwater. So we began our investigation. One of them had a magical Conjuration ring on them but I'd rather not get near them in the event of something dangerous. And as if on cue, the water rippled at its edges as if small creatures were coming. We prepared ourselves for battle and mud elementals bubbled up from the water and then the actual water started to come to life like a dragon. We defeated the elementals and the water but another mud elemental was just...watching. He smelled awful. He called himself Feetor and I really can't descirbe the smell. But he did tell us about a powerful leader called Momma Knuckles that's deeper in the swamp, living on an island.

We proceeded forward after checking the hobgoblin corpses for items. We had to walk for hours. Luckily we didn't get lost. Feetor still smelled bad. But eventually we came across an encampment. Much of the group outside myself and Ivor went ahead to see about communicating with whatever was inside and then I receieved a mental ping from Surx letting us know that they did not succeed in talking to whatever was inside and we had to battle. There were ogres. Smelly ones. This is the worst day and time of my life.

The battle was rough--Momma Knuckles was some type of hag and we defeated her but the ogres decided to run away to joing Badfrual. Mila--for whatever reason decided to yell the Syndicate's name for them to say they should behave or else we'd come after them. Now. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Why are they yelling about who we are and giving away our identities. I can't.

We investigated the remains and looted everything out, finding the camp was around the actual wizard's tower. I suppose that would be prepared easily. I don't want to come back to this smelly place though.

After mending the relationship with Parnast, Surx, Ivor, and I made our way back with Sal and Mila, as the infamous Ragnar Redtooth had requested help from the Syndicate once more. It was... a rough meeting, as both Ivor and Surx utterly fail to play nice with people we hate. Subtlety in the Syndicate? Unheard of.

He, however, was worried about a war band of Hobgoblins to the south, fearing their mission to uncover some 'wizard's tower' would end up with them aligned with Badfrual, a female hill giant who already had a sizable army of ogres, trolls, goblins and the like. Frankly, I found that this could have been negotiated, especially with Mila the Hobgoblin accompanying us. Wishful thinking, on my part.

Making our way south, we were stopped by a golden pseudo dragon with clouded eyes. Blind, one can only assume; but the most blind of us all was Ivor as he immediately agreed to do whatever the tiny creature asked without a single question as to the intentions behind its request. It served 'Seer", a name I read somewhere, but Seer needed us to find this Wizard's tower. Since Ivor agreed before we could discuss, we added this to our to do list.

We came across a dead platoon of hobgoblins. They were half buried in the swamp, and as we were inspecting the bodies, mud mefits and a water monster attacked us. It was no issue, despite how much Sal protested to the smell and the conditions. A pudgy mud mefit came out and congratulated us for our victory, saying that he would align himself with us. Feetor was his name, and he smelled... unique. I sprayed him with perfume. It didn't help. But, he was a massive help, telling us of Mother Fingers and her Boys, another powerful faction in this swamp. When pressed on it, Feetor informed us that she was near that Wizard's tower, so we had him direct us to her home.

It was a dreary 6 hour march through the swamp. Imagine if we didn't have a guide.

We came across ogres, and I told Surx that we should approach and start negotiating with them. Surx, of course, is incapable. We started combat, and whittled down their numbers. Mother Fingers was, of course, a hag, and I nearly killed her. I nearly killed her. That conniving pixie Surx had the audacity to take the kill from me, standing right in front of me, smiling like the smug bastard he is. This has utterly soiled his reputation in my mind. I am utterly enraged, even now, writing this days after.

One ogre escaped. I think Mila, in a moment of pride, voiced who we were to it as it fled. A foolish decision that is sure to have concequences. But, who is to say? They could have been too concerned with their life to listen, running breeze could have filled their ears, or they could be too stupid and forget. It was an ogre, after all.

Upon further inspection, the area was the top of the wizard's tower. Apparently, it had sunk so far into the swamp that it was utterly underground. I must return, and see to the end of this endeavor.

I have joined Surx, Ivor, Salviron and Na'ima to a mission on behest of mayor of Parnast. Apparently there was a band of Hobgoblins spotted seeking wizard's tower in the swamp. The mayor was an individual whom my companions had poor opinion of. And he didn't exactly endear himself to me with his assumption I'm one of the hostile Hobgoblings, already captured. We did manage to learn the Hobgoblins are likely serving in what my village used to call a "grab-bag" army - assortment of random mercenaries, tribes and bandits of different species, unified only by presence of one warlord leader. In this case, the warlord was a hill giantess, Badfrual. I guess giants like to keep my people under their boot as well.

Before we could venture on our quest, however, a pseudodragon familiar showed up. On behalf of some sort of Seer, it requested we keep the tower out of Hobgoblin hands and allow them later exploration of it,. Since some of my companions remembered the Seer as an past client of Syndicate, we agreed to this offer.

I was hoping that, once we meet the Hobgoblins, we will be able to talk to them and maybe even convince to switch sides. Unfortunatelly, by the time we found them, they have already been slain. Their killer (Water Weird, I believe), that attacked us with a bunch of Mephits. One Mephit, which smelled horribly, observed us fighting these enemies. After our victory, he offered to lead us to leader of local forces in the swamp - Mother Knuckle. After I gave fallen Hobgoblins quick burial, stinky Mephit lead us to her lair. Which turned out to be on top of a sunken tower, likely the very one we were looking for.

We tried to sneak into the camp, posing as "monsters" looking for work. But this attempt failed so hard the only explanation is that we run into Faerun's most paranoid Ogre. We were force to defeat Mother Knuckle and her Ogres. Some of them fleed after seeing their leader fall. Hearing them plan to join Badfrual, I attempted a preemptive intimidation tactic. I told one of them to make sure to let Badfrual know what quick work Glassfang Syndicate made of his previous employer. My reasonign was that it may cause the giantess to think twice before crossing our paths. But my companions felt that it would rather provoke her to seek us out, and killed the Ogre. A shame, but they did make a fair point, so I won't be arguing.

Did I ever write how much I hate Parnast?

So yeah, another mission there. My boy Raggnar :) was worried about a group of hobgoblins that were “too close” to town. (Not close enough, in my opinion.) Apparently, they wanted to join a hill giant’s army at some wizard’s tower.

So, me, Na’ima, Ivor, Sal, and Mila went to where these hobgoblins were supposed to be. On the way, a tiny dragon appeared, and Ivor—being weird about dragons—didn’t even let the thing speak before agreeing to do its bidding. That might be something he needs to work on, honestly. Anyway, the tiny dragon asked us to find a wizard’s tower.

We eventually found the hobgoblins… dead, in the middle of the swamp, with no apparent cause. Well, we figured out the cause soon enough—mephits and these water snake things started attacking us. We dealt with them without too much trouble, and then another little, smelly mud mephit showed up and started talking. Very annoying creature. Still, it led us to the wizard’s tower from before. Quite a long walk, by the way.

When we got there, we found a group led by someone called “Momma-something,” with around ten ogres under her command. We tried to infiltrate their ranks, but that didn’t work, so we had to fight our way through.

When we finally reached this “Momma” figure, turns out she wasn’t a person she was a hag. A sea hag, to be exact. Honestly, I feel a bit bad for them. They’re so ugly that people and animals fear them on sight. I imagine that’s part of why they end up so cruel they can’t really make friends. Must be a difficult existence.

Anyway, the rest of the group was terrified of her :)
Not me, of course. I see beauty differently. When you can be whoever you want, it’s hard to judge based only on appearance… though, yes, she was ugly.

It was a tough fight. I was handling three or four ogres at once, but I’m good, so it was manageable. In fact, I even killed the hag myself—with a single hit. All me.

Once she went down, the ogres lost their nerve and ran. We let them go, and no one said anything that could cause trouble for the Syndicate.

All is good :)

Surx