Le Count
For our esteemed shareholders – a report on Pebble Toss Incorporated’s latest investment in adventure capitalism.
PTI executive team:
CEO and Leader – Dwaff, the voice of Jamb
Senior executive who obviously has seniority because I have no idea what her actual job or title is. Bakes cookies – Yatari Silverkin
Overworked Assistant Deputy Secretary, Scout, and Chronicler – Dakka Doon
Coalition Members:
Jyn – Representative of Cairn’s Vanguard. This is a joint operation where they will be assisting in the selling of our goods in the completion of the final stretch of PTI sponsored road construction. All profits from those projects will remain within PTI, of course.
Independent Contractors:
Balthier – Hides in bushes and shoots people with a bow, so…ranger?
Orgeran – Oath of Consumption Paladin
Alessio – Pathfinder, shoots people with a bow, so…ranger?
Rig – Beneficiary of PTI’s Community Outreach Brain Worm Rehabilitation project. A bold new initiative where PTI, working with local clerical bodies, help those tragically stricken with brain worms to enjoy the dignity of employment. Claims to be a goblin though clearly a human – half naked, swole, and wonderfully bearded. Shame about the brain worms now that I think about it.
Stage I : Actualizing opportunities
PTI was summoned to the Burning Forge in Ruined Oak. It was assumed the summons were important so CEO Dwaff answered it personally, accompanied by his beautiful goblin secretary. Upon seeing Cairn’s Vanguard representative Nog arrive as well, knew it couldn’t be that important after all. Still, as our glorious leader reminded me, no task that can potentially increase our margins is beneath notice.
Product received at 50% of cost, total inventory acquired:
First Bill of Sale:
Item Name | # | $ Roster | Buy@ | *# | 50% total
Shortbow | 50 | (25gp) | 12.5 | 50 | 625 gp
Shortsword | 50 | (10 gp) | 5 | 50 | 250 gp
Longbow | 50 | (50 gp) | 25 | 50 | 1250 gp
Longsword | 50 | (15 gp) | 7.5 | 50 | 375 gp
2500 gp initial investment
I suggested donating the goods to Ruined Oak Orphanage but Dwaff smelled the potential for profit. He knows best, of course.
A few days after the purchase, on my way home from an impromptu networking engagement, I met with Reina of the Rushing Stream Monastery (back when she had a home and a job). She had a potential sales lead for us to the north. Dwaff, who had been unsuccessfully trying to subcontract the sales work, decided we should handle it personally. The lead, conveniently, was from the merchants of the Gobashkin Kingdom, which is in the west end of Speckhome Glade. And just so happens to be right at the end of the proposed and paid for, yet still incomplete, road our guild had sponsored – Pebble Toss Highway Route 1.
We would oversee the road’s completion and meet our prospective buyers along the way. Yatari and I were there to support boss Dwaff, along with Jyn, who was there when Reina told us of the deal. Added to our party was Balthier, with a random group of other assholes I never met before, to help us guard our road workers. We set off as soon as we could get the road construction crew organized to leave from Port Mirandia. Deal was reported to be time sensitive.
Stage 2: Implementing core value initiatives
Some confusion with Rig wanting to slay evil and Yatari wanting to look evil, dressing up her flying pony like a nightmare. Nightmares are made by Night Hags, not devils, anyway. It’s in the fucking name. Consummate manager Dwaff enacted successful conflict resolution. No nose punching required from the Humanoid Resource department. Able to begin the journey with no other incidents.
The first day of travel was filled with odd shit but no danger. Found meteor shaped holes that I thought came from meteors because I have had one almost drop on me. I was wrong. Dwaff explained they were punch holes from giants randomly attacking the ground from back in ancient times when Jamb walked the earth. Very motivational.
Further down the road my superior scout abilities allowed me to locate a house on the side of the road. House was occupied by a pervert who had been buying used succubus bath water from local Loviatar cultists. PTI is a tolerant guild – so not only did we not murder him to protect the body sized pillows of this world, Yatari sold him some bath potions at cost and Dwaff let him purchase one our swords for a mere 500% mark up. He claimed he had wild succubus parties all the time, which was just sad. We left before we had to fucking hear about his “girlfriend in Icewind Dale”.
Last bit of weird shit was a magic well. We took turns daring each other to drink from it. Jyn, for some reason, decided to be the one to do it. At least she waited until we knew it wouldn’t age her. Created great booyagh (Mordenkain’s Sword) but it only lasted a minute and no one showed up to get chopped up by it. Alessio had good hunting and we found some broke-ass wands littered about. Other than that, the first day passed safely.
The next day we find another well of mystic fuckery and some lemons that make all the spell casters happy as they electrocute themselves eating them – but reported they give a slight increase in booyagh performance. Electric shocks have always been the key to increased productivity. Before all that, we found a damaged and empty tower. The assailants seemed large and maybe flying. They did not leave survivors but did not bother to loot much. We found a nice stash of gems for our troubles and the following phrase written in giant:
“These filth that could not use magic have been slain for the greater glory of my lord Xeldurius.”
Thought this tower was a wizard tower. Looks like we weren’t the only ones. The followers of Xeldrius do not handle disappointment well.
On the third day, we arrive at the end of the current road construction. Thanks to the good pace we set, we arrived early enough for work to begin right away. Praise Jamb.
Bodies found near the worksite. Genasi. Many different types of attacker, one of which Doctor Jyn, our dead-body checker, said was a fire giant. Yatari went on to explain that fire giants weren’t real to a bunch of us who actually know one(his name is Apnar). Her stance was that “all giants are basically the same” – which we at PTI firmly disavow. We are an inclusive guild that allows for giants to identify as any element they choose. Furthermore, this sort of problematic public speech is certainly coming up in Ms. Silverkin’s next performance review.
Stage 3: Overcoming adversity to reach project goals
We did not have long to argue over who the mysterious group wanding about the area murdering people were. They arrived on the scene with a well dressed aasimar who introduced himself as Xeldius. He had excellent fashion sense and elite communication skills. Clearly the result of high level management training. Xeldius explained he served the semilich Barragius who in turn worked for Leonid, a powerful entity with control over the forces of time. What all that means is that this asshole is middle management. The fool. PTI’s elite core will not fall to some trash without a corner office.
While Yatari tried distracting Xeldius by sexing him up, I was able to take stock of his minions: a female fire giant (it definitely looks like one), a halfling that is holding a crossbow and has necrotic energy around its hands, a tiefling sorcerer, a giant nothic that looks almost like a ghoul from its skin and a hill giant. Xeldius had a tiefling trollop of his own already on staff so he ordered his crew to attack us instead of getting sexed up by Yatari.
The fight went well thanks to teamwork and the healing light of Jamb. No losses, acceptable or otherwise, occurred. Rig slayed evil. So did me and a few others. All the evil. Xeldius mentioned looking for magic wells before the killing started, but other motives remain unclear. They will remain that way since he exploded in necrotic energy after Balthier shot him through the heart. Last survivor was the halfling, but he chose death instead of being hyper aged by his master for failure. PTI has a much better severance package, for the record.
While the benefits of the Leonid Ltd. are poor, their wages appeared competitive judging by the contents of their pockets when we looted the corpses. We did find a painting as well – Barragius the semilich.
Yatari was able to recall a semilich is a lich without a phylactery that has to survive on stealing years of life from others. This one might be thousands of years old. Unfortunately Yatari’s motivational status was impaired by processing this information and, as PTI’s on site Humanoid Resources agent, I was forced into an aggressive intervention. Also, this guy (or Leonid) is the dick responsible for the original bullshit aging well and all the shitty aging pillars. He is part of “the Array” and known by the AFK as an impediment to economic growth and sustainability.
Stage 4: Promotion and sales
That evening we met our promised clients. First was Sungchan.
He was a humble sort. Wanted the head guard to look at the killy sticks and tell him what he thought.
This guy was an aasimar so Yatari decided to try and sex him up. Perfectly acceptable sales 
Finally, the actual boss and her younger sister arrived. They would explain they were having trouble trading with the Yuan-ti. Her name was Kyoushi which means “teacher” or “breast city”. Crab people names make no fucking sense.
Kyoushi
We overall made a good impression on the merchant band and one of their members would be returning with us to town.
Dwaff negotiated a fair price for our goods which Kyoushi could not help but agree to (A real lesson in properly leveraging sex appeal in negotiations). Final deal was 12500 GP for all of our stock – a very reasonable 500% markup
We had a party to celebrate the deal and the soon to be finished road.
Stage 5: Proactively engaging paradigm shifts
Sungchan volunteered to be the merchant to stay with us and go back to Port Mirandia. Turns out he is a spell caster who studies nature magic. He didn’t know how to make goodberries though. Despite that bitter disappointment I stayed on mission and found some obviously magical tiny watermelons. I am a wise goblin and know watermelons are best with salt so I asked Orgeron to pass me some and carefully sliced a few open before sprinkling the salt on liberally. I was distracted by the delicious smell of the freshly cut fruit and didn’t notice what the others were saying until a beam of light reflected off of Rig’s bald head and caught my eye. At this point I noticed him happily chewing on watermelons, rind and all, and being fucking bald. He was not fucking bald a moment ago. Realizing the world has enough bald Goblins I decided to put aside my portion to give to my dear friend Nog who has suffered from a number of hair related problems – much more than the average Bugbear.
Later on, a group of young red dragons and a wyvern tried to swoop silently on our road crew for a quick snack. They were brats in dragon terms and their stealthy flying was no match for the keen eyes of our lovely long-legged lookout. I quickly pointed them out and most died to the first initial volley of arrows. Yatari used laughing magic to ground the biggest of the bunch and I used giant magic and my goblin mastery of choke holds to keep the bastard from taking off again. The real challenge of the fight was Orgeron’s: How do you cook meat that resists fire?
While carving up dinner we discovered a Halfling looking person that was actually a Celestial inside the largest dragon’s stomach. He was a bit gunky and gross but otherwise seemed ok.
Later we found a marble shrine to Lathandar, god of roads, which is nice since we had almost finished our road. It even had a healing potion in the back compartment. Making a note in case it’s a regular feature of Lathandar shrines. Shrines of Jamb, of course, give out TWO free healing potions if you find one and press the right hidden button.
That night we rested with confidence that the alpha predators in the area were in our bellies and our goals were soon to be actualized.
Stage 6: Staying Focused on Maintaining Value
Despite the excellent success PTI was having, the rest of Sleeper Island is kind of fucked. As we finished the road and connected it to the GQE portal we came across a shit ton of dead Yuan-Ti. Spent more time gathering body parts and making funeral pyres than working on the road. Still managed to do both. Respectfully, of course.
Most Yuan-Ti died running. Judging from the occasional other body, it looks like the aggressors were undead Tabaxi. Probably a lot of them. While we were very respectfully handling all the corpses a fairy showed up.
She requests a meeting with her boss, Yarsby. This would lead to some shit involving me and Yatari later on.
Road gets finished after this and everyone not a snake person safely made it back home, plus a bonus merchant or two.
Nothing else of interest occurred on the return trip. Attempts to recruit Rig and Orgeron to the PTI team were unsuccessful. Let the record show my suggestion we get a less thirsty recruitment agent on the team.
Individual and incidental expenses paid by cutting open bellies and rifling through pockets.
Total sale of 12,500 GP – Initial Investment of 2,500 GP sees a 10,000 GP return to our shareholders.
Consecutive missions without loss of personnel: 1