The Tall Tale of Kalbaek

The Tall Tale of Kalbaek is an arc of the Sailor Doom campaign. It begins once the party arrives in Kalbaek. No giants were harmed in the making of this arc.

Grandma, Owl, Chad
Arriving at the city gates, the gang is stopped by some guards, asking them to identify themselves. The guards recognize Valentina for an incident she caused a while ago, which left part of the dock damaged. She still has a large bill to pay because of that. After a stern warning and some glaring, the party enteres Kalbaek. The town is in the middle of celebrations of honoring Njord. Sailor Doom is walking on the main street, and enjoying the festivities. They decide to visit an inn called Kelvin's Comfort. After impressing the proprietor Kelvin with Valentina's drinking, he suggest he sponsor them to participate in the local drinking competition. While discussing the details, a rainbow owl, Rob, shows up. He's now Valentina's pet but we will forget about him in about 3 seconds.

Kelvin points out the shadier parts of the town were, and this had an irresistible effect on Shawn - he's planning on buying some poison. So we go to The Northlook Inn, the rowdiest and shadiest of inns in Kalbaek. There, we are greeted by a familiar face - Scramsax. Scramsax points out that GranGran was also in the house. Valentina and Jacques introduce their new friends, and GranGran swiftly proceeded to feed them and share her nuggets of wisdom.

After that, the group proceeds to enter the archery competition. Here they meet another one of Valentina's crew mates, the mechanic Chad, a nice human guy. The archery contest was a battle of skill (and an unlucky spectator got shot multiple times). In the end though Danai won out and placed first, followed by Valentina as second and Jacques as third.

Elza but we can't let go
The party plans to visit The Blackiron Blades, the local smith,to see if there is anything interesting going on there. When they enter the store, they are greeted by a strong, unpleasant smell. It seems to come from one of the owners of the store, Elza Blackiron. Elza is a very friendly person despite her smell, and she tries to use her sales skills to sell items to the party. She offers discounts upon discounts, but the party is yet to be swayed. While Elza is giving the party some demonstrations of the weapons they sell, Danai sneaks off and explores Elza's residence. She finds Elza's older brother laying in his bed, all drunk and knockout, and she stumbles upon the room of Elza. While searching the room, she finds the source of the horrible smell -a "perfume" that is sold by the AirDnD corp.

The party leaves the store, after buying a tiny club for Bob, but they have grown suspicious of the extremely low prices of the Blackiron. They decide to break-in during the night and find some information on their business practices. After a small break at Kelvins Comfort, Danai sneaks in, while the rest of the party tries to acrobatic break inside. Danai discovers a contract between The Blackiron Blades and a Dwarven school for smiths. It appears that Blackiron buys all the rejected items from that school and resells it.

Once Upon A Slime
After our parties nightly visit to the blacksmith, they notice a dark shadow, moving slowly through the quiet streets of Kalbaek. Jacques tries to gently communicate with the oozing creature, but soon discover that the slimy creature is not interested in any form of communication. It just eats and grows, and the party decides it has to stop the black pudding from eating any more, before the size becomes too big to handle. The party tries to avoid the corroding nature of the black pudding. Valentina drops a bomb in front of her feet, and it blows the black pudding into little pieces. The separate pieces attack the party, after an intense battle. They stand victorious after defeating the Black Pudding.

All this ruckus causes Elza to come out of her home. After some Valentina flirting magic (I'm just quoting the DM ok), Elza is convinced that the party did a great favour for her.. As a reward, Elza offers the best weapons they have to the party. The group declines and suggests that Elsa should give all their weapons to charity. Elza also decides to drop out of the drinking competition so they have a better chance of winning. After resting up at the inn, the party decides to increase their chances to win the drinking competition: They visit GranGran and manage to convince her not to enter, because GranGran has a softspot for Valentina. After this small sidetrip, the party finally enters the Drinking Competition.

The Plot is moving forward (champain-fully slow)
Things are starting to heat up for our party. The drinking contest has started with Whuseak Bottleheart as the host. After a intense battle, Valentina is lined up against Rendaril - Val wins. In the mean time Danai gets robbed while she is handing out flyers for Kelvin. Shawn witnessses the robbery and tries to signal the others what has happened. They run through the small city of Kalbeak and Jacques manages to parkour and tackle the thief. The thief appears to be a small kenku bird named Cat. They decide to keep the little thieving bird around.

Valentina, decides to be helpful and warn the town by yelling that they are all going to die and are doomed because the big man in the sky said so, while Jacques is trying to ease the crowd by yelling that it will be fine as long as they will evacuate the town. This causes quite the panic in town, and they are dragged off by Duvessa. They are confined to their place at Kelvin's Comfort until they figure out what they are going to do with the party. After 2 days, they are suddenly picked up by the local guard. The town is approached by 12 Forst Giants and Sailor Doom is asked to help in the battle. After some small negotiations, they manage to get the ship for free if they stay and help out the town.

We fight giants and it's no big deal
Sailor Doom is preparing for their potential demise against the group of frost giants that are coming to town. There is much discussion between the group members and the town council. After a heated debate in the end they decide to try and talk with the giants (plan A) and hope to avoid combat (plan B). If all fails they can go and shout at the sea (plan C).

The town of Kalbaek mobilises and Elsa, GranGran, Sirac of Suzail and Redaril team up with Sailor Doom to help out when needed. The party prepares and awaits the arrival of the giants on top of the city wall. Finally the giants arrive and the leader, a female frost gian,t yells, "Surrender Artus of Suzail to me or die!". It appears to be the father of Sira, but he has no clue why they would want his father. After some social skill mastery they found out the following: While distracting Duffy, they make a deal with the other Frost Giants. If they manage to best Duffy in battle, they will leave, because there is little honour to be gained to battle small ones. They also manage to find out that the reason they want Artus is because they believe he is in possession of The Ring of Winter, an item of great power among the giants.
 * 1) Artus is located in Waterport
 * 2) Duffy (leader of the Frost giants), doesn't have the support of the follow frost giants
 * 3) Duffy is easily distracted by playing Despacito

Sailor Doom sneak attacks Duffy and after a fierce battle, which almost kills Elsa, they manage to slay Duffy. They loot Duffy's corpse and find a cow in the sack. Valentina ties the cow to Elsa, and whispers in her ear to become a farmer lesbian, everyone claps. Duvessa thanks Sailor Doom for saving the city. The sheriff gives them the title of “Defender of the City”. Sirac tells them location of his father in Waterport, and Duvessa wants the party to find the source of the giant unrest.

Elza becomes a lesbian famer and we meet my best friend Torli
Sailor Doom wants to move on and leave the city. Before that, Valentina convinces Elza to start a farm. Sailor Doom visits the docks to check out the mercenary ship, the Harpy. The Harpy is commanded by Captain Vidi and a crew who all wear the Nyan Cat tattoo. Upon inquiring which god they ask protection of, they learn that it is Umberlee the Sea-Witch. Jacques immediately indicates that she is feeling uncomfortable with this and they leave.

They now decide to visit the merchant caravan instead. The caravan is led by an Orc called Torli Bazeberg. Torli decided to hire them as guards and they agree to protect the caravan during their trip to Waterport - and a small excursion to somewhere else, which Torli hasn't explained yet. The party has now has a way of transport and decides to visit Gran Gran before leaving off to Waterport.