Tyranny of Dragons - Mini Session 1

As a warmup a couple of weeks ago, we had a small session with Lou, Thamior, and Gwen with the purpose of introducing Lou to the party, who, along with Ilda,  did not meet up with the group in Waterdeep. Hoping to do a similar mini session soon to introduce Ilda, but here's the notes from the last one. It also involved some hilarious role-playing that I couldn't capture at the time, but I'm working on a way to record the sessions to include some of the particularly good character quotes. Enjoy!

We met our adventurers in the town of Scornubel, the Caravan City, after riding long and hard along the Tradeway. Here they planned on securing passage by ship or barge along the mighty Chionthar River to the Uldoon trail, which they would follow to Greenest. However, it was getting late into the evening and the group made for the Dusty Hoof, an inn and tavern along the Walk, the open market in the center of town. While the rest of the group negotiated their lodging with the innkeeper, Gwen and Thamior took a walk around the town, exploring the new town and looking for any food traders who still had their shops open. They had a long journey to Greenest ahead after all and could use all the dried fruits, salted meats, and grains they could get.

Suddenly, a man in a hooded robe, a blur to Gwen and Thamior, burst out of an alley to their left and ducked into another one across the street. He appeared to be clutching something green, but moved to fast to be sure.

"That will teach y'all! Give me back Merle!" screamed a gravelly voice from down the alley the man ran from, just before two more robed figures burst out, these ones with their robes singed. Reacting quickly, Thamior attempted to stop the hooded figure sprinting down the alley. Managing to tackle the man after he didn't respond to Thamior's cries to halt, but not quite grappling him, the pair fell to the ground.

Another burst of arcane energy spewed out of the alley, sending the two hooded figures still in the street running away for their lives, pleading, "We don't want any trouble. We'll go. We'll go!" Then an old halfling, hands still glowing with magic, emerged from the alley and, seeing Gwen and Thamior running down the other alley, went into pursuit.

Gwen, imbuing her words with magic, yelled out, "Halt!" but the bandit was able to resist the magical command. Undaunted, and trusting in Thamior's abilities, she kept in pursuit. Gwen and Thamior both believing more and more that this man was indeed a thief.

Finally Thamior was able to grapple the bandit and the group, catching up, made sure he had nowhere to run. The halfling grabbed the green contraption from the bandit's grasp, cradling it and checking for any scratches or scuffs, again calling it "Merle".

Knowing that the town wasn't the most lawful of places, the group knocked the bandit unconscious and proceeded back to the main road. Talking more with the strange halfling, Gwen and Thamior discovered that he went by Luther, or Lou and that he was also going to Greenest. All together they made their was back to the Dusty Hoof and introduced Lou to the rest of the party. It was then that Lou locked eyes with Duckie, his former wife whom he hadn't seen in decades.