The Manor

Skeeve says to Blornvid, "When you work on your armor, can you fix mine back up, too?"

After downing his class of iced fruit juice, Ealdwig smiles and relives the encounter in his head while sitting under the tree. When he looks over at Skeeve and Blornvid examining their armor, the smile leaves his face. That was pretty close, we got lucky. Everyone got dinged up pretty good. Glad we're all ok for the most part.

Smiling and in his usual cheerful demeanor great work guys. Blornvid, glad you're ok, looks like you got hit pretty hard. Same for you Skeeve, that's a decent size dent in the armor. Looking over at Etcher Etcher, you good?

Ok fellas, one vine down. How many more to go, 2 or 3? Dismissively, whatever,

Smiling with his mischievous grin that he has, he look at the guys, Ok, I've got a plan that I think will work. Etcher, you run in there first, kill all the remaining vines, and we'll wait here. Raising his glass in a "cheers" motion, whatdya say? We'll make sure we have plenty of drink for when you come back.

Etcher looks a bit worse for wear, but seems in good spirits. He raises his own glass. Cheers! he caws. More vines? How are we going to take down the next three? They will need me to stay sharp. Etcher downs his juice, and stretches. He lays down and closes his eyes. I’ll take a break while I can. We got lucky, I need to be better next time.

"Absolutely."
He turns to address Ealdwig. "Well done, lad! You came through for us! You must be paying attention to Etcher's training." He adds a wink.

He savors his fruit juice. When Etcher caws "Cheers!" he raises his glass to him.

After a bit, he says, "Considering what that thing took out of us, I'd like for us—and our armor—to be in tip-top shape before we go after the next one."

Tiptop. Good idea. Ealdwig lays down and closes his eyes to rest. Quietly tiptop, I like that.

Skeeve just enjoys the juice and the company. Taking it slow while the poison works its way out of his system.

Skeeve says, "I'd prefer to work through the grounds first. I'm still not ready for a dungeon and we just did a garden, which leaves the grounds. Then again, we have to do them all at some point, so I can easily be talked into any of them."

Etcher seems all but overjoyed reclaiming the garden. He has even started calling Skeeve and Blornvid "friends". His day of rest is spent practicing swordplay, or it would have been if he had not continued to be distracted by the new arrivals. Whenever Etcher spots someone new he excitedly runs towards whatever "friend" is nearby and demands to know if his companion knows anything about the new arrival. The Avian seems perplexed why people who were not "family" would visit the house, but looks to be happy seeing the manor thrive once again.

Once the group reins Etcher back in, his focus returns and he eagerly joins the conversation. He listens quite seriously to Skeeve nodding along. Wow Skeeve is good at thinking! Grounds! Etcher squawks in agreement

Skeeve thought about trying to use his day off to do some more research, but decided he would spend most of the day looking around the manor some more to get a better feel for it. He does take a half hour in the library to give himself two chances to make new two-word Sunburst scrolls. I am going to assume that he can convert gold to resources to make the scroll. (He will borrow from Blornvid since he technically doesn't have enough gold on hand.)

Edit: Thank the gods for focus!

Ealdwig takes the day off to relax and asks Skeeve permission to practice with the sword. When Etcher isn't distracted by the newcomers Ealdwig asks him for pointers.

The rest of the time, he wanders around, eats and relaxes. Being the curious sort, he looks around the manor trying to find anything of interest and locations or items that might be hidden.

Other than the things that can kill us, this place is pretty great. I could get used to being in a place like this.

When Ealdwig bumps into his companions, we're hitting the grounds next? I wonder what "fun" waits for us out there?

Skeeve tells Ealdwig to keep the sword. It was just a backup for Skeeve, so he's happy that Ealdwig can make actual use of it.