Finn’s Recounting of the Night at Aalborr’s Event
(See also First session of our 2025 DnD Campaign for Inez'view)
The prison was never quiet. Chains rattled. Someone coughed. Voices in the distance. Finn leaned against the bars of his cell, watching the warden make his rounds.
Warden Halrick Greaves had the strut of a man in power. Two jailers shadowed him like royal guards. One of them—a mean-faced bastard called Arvin Quill, too eager with his club—lingered near Finn’s cell, giving him that look. The kind that said, Go on. Give me a reason.
Finn put on a slow, lazy smile, offering no affront. Quill seemed disappointed. He always went after the smaller inmates.
Finn glanced down at Roslynn, perched on a loose stone near his foot, nibbling at something. He nudged her gently with his toe.
“You ever been to a proper party, Ros? Not this sorry excuse for a gathering—I’m talking fancy invitations, free drinks, and folks too rich to know better.”
Roslynn twitched her whiskers.
Finn grinned. “Well, let me tell you about Aalborr’s big party. I reckon he and our warden here would get along famously.”
He stretched out, settling in against the bars like he was in some cozy tavern instead of a damp prison cell.
“When that green invitation found me, I figured it was a mix-up. The Slynts don’t get invites—especially not ones that scream money. But hey, I wasn’t about to say no. Free food, maybe a few marks to pickpocket, and some laughs. What could go wrong?”
He sighed, shaking his head. “Turns out? A lot.”
The Drunken Badger
The Drunken Badger was packed, rich folk dolled up like peacocks at market. They stuck out in Nook—too clean, too soft. Finn had barely made it through the door before some people started squinting at him like they might recognize his face from a wanted poster. But whatever.
Then he spotted Inez, painted up like a porcelain doll, and figured this wasn’t just some random get-together. Jonathan showed up too—man of faith, looked lost, like he’d wandered in by mistake. Aalborr, that smug bastard, made sure they got separated from the posh crowd. Green envelope, green table. That’s when Finn knew they weren’t there for tea and biscuits.
He leaned in conspiratorially toward Roslynn. “Now, Roslynn, when you’re in a room full of rich folk wearing their finest, with their attention elsewhere, you don’t listen to what’s being said—you spot your marks. But maybe I should’ve paid attention.”
The floor disappeared beneath them.
One second, Finn was standing with Jonathan and Inez. The next, he was eating dirt in the dark. They’d dropped into a massive underground cave, glowing and eerie, the air thick with damp earth and something... off.
Finn rubbed his chin. “First thought? Where in the Nine Hells are we? Jonathan lit up the place with magic. Second thought? Wow—up close, Inez looks...” Inez caught him glancing down her dress.
“In my defense, Ros, it was right there. If you put your wares on display, don’t get mad if they get noticed!” He scratched behind his ear, smirking. “She disagreed. Slapped me good.”
Old Finn absently touched his cheek, as if it still stung. “She had a good right arm; I’ll give her that.”
A Cave of Fools
“We’d landed in a big pile of dung, Ros.” The trio stood at the edge of a cavern, surrounded by mushrooms. A lake stretched across from them, and beside them, a raised platform offered a way to circumvent the first patches of fungus.
They started exploring, and Finn climbed onto a small platform. Jonathan triggered a mushroom into trembling, releasing an awful screaming sound, attracting a walking mushroom guard—a big, angry one, armed to the teeth. At Finn’s urging, they sneaked away before it could reach them.
“But we didn’t know where we were, let alone where to go.”
Mushrooms that screamed when you got too close, a giant mushroom guard, and then—the damn raven.
“Big, black, beady-eyed. That thing started squawking, and I swear it said something. Not natural.” Finn’s grin faded slightly. “And book girl? She wanted to feed it crumbs. Like we were having a picnic in the cursed mushroom tunnels. Jonathan was all for it too. And me? Well... sometimes you gotta let idiots be idiots.”
“And speaking of idiots—Jonathan wandered straight into another mushroom that released some spores and started screaming about spiders.”
Finn exhaled slowly. “Imagine a grown man flailing at the air, slapping himself like he’s covered in invisible demons. That’s what I was working with.”
“Inez must have gotten the taste of slapping men, ‘cause she tried to slap him out of it. Didn’t work. Now, you know I never go anywhere without a good bit of cheese. Had a nice old Smuggler’s wedge with me—tastes like heaven, smells like a troll’s armpit. I stuck that under Jonathan’s nose. Woke him right up. Might’ve been too strong, though—he bumbled straight into the next mushroom, and this one froze him and Inez both like statues. Drooling statues.”
Finn glanced at Roslynn, shaking his head. “So, there I was. A lone genius in a cave of fools.”
Since the cheese was too potent, he doused Jonathan with cold lake water, which sorted him out.
“Now Roslynn, I don’t want you to think ill of me, but my cheek still smarted from Inez’s opinion of me noticing her dress. I may have suggested to Jonathan that I didn’t wake him up with water, but with piss, and that he needed to step up and piss on Inez. You know. Like for jellyfish stings.”
Jonathan wasn’t having it. Went the boring route—more lake water, no piss. Worked, but Finn still thought his way would’ve been faster.
“The old folks from the Shambles always insisted the tunnels were haunted. When you are there, you need to be alert, else you may disappear without a trace. Down by the lake, there was this little dragon hovering around. At least, I think it was a dragon, could’ve been an illusion. I swear it spoke, but the sound came from behind me and it didn’t seem friendly. None of us were in the mood to find out if it was real, so we pressed on, following the raven.”
The Jelly Door
Then came the jelly door. It was this weird, wobbly, hazy thing full of objects. They tried everything to open it—Inez cast some magic, which did absolutely nothing. Finn tried to work the lock with his tools, but it was like sticking a spoon into a bowl of porridge.
Finn let the others figure it out and took a step away to take a nibble from his cheese wedge and mull it over. Finn had seen a lot of doors in his life—locked ones, trapped ones, ones that led to very bad decisions.
Then he noticed something.
The objects weren’t just floating randomly. They were arranged. Like—Finn smirked. “Like a belt, Ros. A proper bandolier of blades. Which meant...”
He reached back into his pocket, pulled out a wedge of cheese, and flicked a slice at the door.
“The jelly ate it!”
Finally, their altar boy had a breakthrough. Jonathan conjured water from nowhere, and the door started to dissolve. Finn grinned.
“Now, Ros. I knew what had to be done. I turned around, made sure Inez wasn’t too close, and let loose. My piss blasted that jelly door wide open.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Halfling ingenuity, Ros. It’s a gift.”
It worked. The door dissolved. And, sure, Inez was fuming—she got some splashback—but the door was open, wasn’t it?
The items floating inside were what he thought: four blades. He flushed them off by the lake, both to clean them and to take a moment to inspect them alone. Three were regular daggers. But the fourth? Special. It had a weight beyond what it should.
“You make your own fortune, Ross.”, Finn said tapping his temple.
“Nice.”
A Game Rigged from the Start
The next room was creepy as hell. Completely empty with a tea party set up for three with a sign that said, “What’s missing?”
“Inez was useless, sipping bad tea while Jonathan and I solved the puzzle.” The door leading to the next room wouldn’t open, but when Finn turned the knob, the teacups started to rattle. Seemed like everyone needed to be at the table. Inez and Jonathan drank the tea, and they seemed ok enough.
“Now I was starting to feel a bit puckish from all the action, so I tried the scones which were amazing! Reminded me of raisin bread and were particularly enjoyable. Turns out we were the missing pieces. Figures!”
Finally, they made it back to the inn. Turns out, Aalborr’s little party was actually a race—and they’d come in dead last.
Aalborr’s damn Aarakocra goon rubbed it in, cracking jokes about halflings and piss. He told them to escort Inez home and not to “get fancy.”
Finn flicked a crumb to Roslynn, watching her snatch it up. “Still can’t decide if that night was a disaster or a triumph. Probably both. Inez owed me for getting her out of those spores, even if she didn’t see it that way.”
He stretched out again, letting his head rest against the bars.
“But one thing’s for sure, Ros. Men in high places don’t get there by being the strongest or the smartest. They get there by keeping the game rigged. Aalborr, Greaves—same trick, different table. And me? Just another coin in the pot.”
