Out of Character discussion:

Eltrezar, we love you! This is just post-near-death-experience tempers getting the better of us! Let’s kill this Spugnoir and all have a beer together! :D

Oops. Postings all done!

Yes, Cuthbert is telling me that Spugnoir protests too much, sure sign of guilt! Kill the NPC, keep the scrolls!

But guys, I like Spuignor!!! He's just a nerd! Haven't you all braved the cruel depths of the internet to find a pdf you needed?! That's all he's doing! He's diving past the first page of google for the sake of knowledge!

He's a mouthy nerd...

Oops! I feel like Gilly got scolded for Ora’s remarks! 😅

Not at all! Ora may have said harsher words, but the words and actions from Gilly actually hurt. It's her opinion that Eltrezar cares about.

Not to rush anyone, especially if anyone in the group wants to stop and examine the cave (Gilly may be giving it some side-eye as she passes, if I'm reading @KCC's OoC comment correctly), but what is everyone thinking they're looking to do when they reach Hommlet?

It's currently about 1:30pm, so barring a pitstop/sidequest to the cave, I figure the party will reach the village of Hommlet around 2:45pm or so, so plently of daylight/business hours left. I assume Mal is going to be taking Thurig to be healed somewhere (which may or may not require a little roleplaying), I assume someone will have to take the gems to be appraised at the moneychanger's shop (which probably won't require much RPing unless a player wants to), and I assume that unless Spugnoir is being sent to return the cart to the Trading Post owners alone, there's likely to be A LOT of RPing when the party encounters Rannos and Gremag next (and there's a pretty good chance I'm going to leave that for PART 10 entirely).

So basically if each player can just give me a quick rundown of what each of their characters is planning to do once the party reaches Hommlet later, I at least have a basic idea of what irons I can expect to be in the fire here on the DM's end and get prepared a bit.

I think that Eltrezar will be sticking with Spuignor, and trying to convince him to still do a spell-swap.

Luban will offer to sell the gems, but I doubt the team trusts him in that regard. He might go with Gilly (I assume) to confront Rannos and Gremag, or perhaps to deliver the evidence of their wrongdoing to Elmo.

Alright, so I have:

Eltrezar: Stay with Spugnoir and attempt to negotiate a spell swap.
Luban: Gem Appraisal, either confront Rannos/Gremag or bring evidence to Elmo.
Maloria: ???
Thurig: ???
Gilly: ???
Luban: ???

Luban gets double billing and Ora doesn’t even get a mention! That doesn’t bode well for our scroll bearer!

Didn't you know? Ora is just a thiefy illusion created by Luban. Very tricksy, that one.

Just a heads up, I'll be backpacking from the 6th to the 15th of August, and will be very, very away from keyboard. I have no issues with people playing my characters.

As a show of brotherhood and camaraderie, Eltrezar gifts his portion of the loot to Gilly??? Sending her all the way to level 4?

More than generous!

Take anything but his new bling robes! And the swagger dagger (i.e. the dapper stabber i.e. the dank shank) that's he's gonna push everyone to help recollect.

Mal plans to level up as soon as physically possible. That's priority number one! I think we should involve Elmo (although I suspect him to be involved with the baddies which spurs his alcoholism) AND maybe some other authority. I know there's a good sized garrison of soldiers in/near town, the more mixed witnesses the better. Then we all confront Rannos and Gremag together.

Definitely heal Thurig first.

Eltrezar: Stay with Spugnoir and attempt to negotiate a spell swap.
Luban: Gem Appraisal, either confront Rannos/Gremag or bring evidence to Elmo.
Maloria: Wait for Thurig to heal up, and then bring Elmo into the fold before confronting Trading Post men.
Thurig: Gettin' healed (I assume by the church?)
Gilly: ???
Ora: ???

What's Luban doing with the longswords, daggers, and crossbow stuff he collected and threw on floating Thurig? Is he looking to keep that stuff, or is he trying to hawk it at the Trading Post? Or was there some other agenda for it?

Gilly considers their relationship with the trading outpost to be broke by now, and they’re probably gunning for revenge if a) they can put 2+2 together or b) Spugnoir blabs what happened.

So Gilly will be staying low. Keeping a low profile this time around. Probably accompany someone if they’re going off alone.

I suspect Ora might do the same. Nobody should be alone, that much is for sure!

Edit: Check in on Bors too! If he hasn’t been assassinated!

Okay, I don’t really want to burn a bunch of IRL days having you guys use the rest of Part 9 wandering around the village on shopping trip, and I DEFINITELY would like to see anyone that can level up BE leveled up because I think things have the potential to start getting spicy in town, so I’m tentatively thinking right now that for the sake of keeping the game moving forward, I’m PROBABLY going to end Part 9 at the point the party wanders into Hommlet, and then I’m going to award you XP, and then we’ll start Part 10.
Part 10, I expect to take place entirely in the village as the group rests, heals, *cough levels up, and interacts with some of the different locals that the party seems concerned with.

The XP award at the end of Part 9 will include the value of the gems you found in the well with the Giant Rats, but there’s a caveat that at some point during Part 10 somebody must actually visit the moneylender or someone else in town to have them appraised. Depending on the appraisal you may get more or less gold for them than what they’re worth, but I’m going to give you their literal worth in XP in advance... How they convert to actual gold will depend on you guys, who you choose to appraise them, and how you interact with them.

I’m not including the value of the small cache of weapons Luban grabbed in the XP or Loot values. This is because, while they’re definitely worth some gold, I don’t think it’s going to be a significantly large amount, and I’m certain that they wouldn’t make enough difference to push someone over to the next level right now (the gems on the other hand definitely will, so that’s why I’m letting you have the XP for those before Part 10 begins).
Also, it sounds like some at the table may be thinking about taking them to the Trading Post, and some people at the table are anticipating a confrontation at said Trading Post, and I have no idea yet how that interaction is going to go, but if something kicks off the weapons might not even get sold at all. So we’ll just have to see how that goes, and if the weapons do get sold at some point we’ll adjust your XP accordingly at the end of Part 10. But again, I’m certain nobody missed a chance to level up after Part 9 because the XP of the small cache of weapons wasn’t included (*ahem Now had the LARGE weapons cache come back on that wagon…).