A Rather Odd Shovel [Judge: Bront]

"Keldar, you do remember what we're doing here, right? Looking for some thieves? Archaeologists? Urton? Though, uh, I admit I share your curiousity about what the armored people are doing in the boat." Tommy says.

"I knew you'd not be happy until you found out," says Keldar.

The boat rocks a little as the man awakens. "Ah! Eh? Oh. Mm. Yes." He sits up and the boat rocks harder, waking up the woman. She yawns gracefully as the man stares at Keldar. "Just sleeping. Cheaper than an inn. We can hold our breaths for a remarkably long time without any harm." The woman finishes her stretch and adds, "Actually, most people can hold their breaths for a long time. It's not remarkable at all."

"Hm. I suppose you're right. Well in any case, don't worry about us, boy." He touches his helmet and settles back in to continue his snooze. The woman does the same, winking at Keldar before she closes her eyes.

"I've been sleeping on a ship, but I suppose I'll have to find an inn. Or a luxurious upper level apartment. I've not decided. Uh, yes, well... keep up the good work," says Keldar vaguely. He leaves them to it.

"Odd people," he declares.[sblock=OOC]What now? As Keldar says, a new base of operations might be handy. As our investigation may draw the wrong sort of attention from the Archaeologists or other bad guys, we ought not to stay at the Gimmons'. Besides, the ceilings are too low. We also have a lot of money in our pockets.[/sblock]

"You'd think they'd at least take their armor off," Tommy agrees. "That looks dreadfully uncomfortable."

He squints at the small circle of sky visible high above. "What time would you say that is? It's so hard to tell down here."

[sblock=ooc]Another base of operations is probably called for, and I agree that the Gimmons residence is probably not ideal. I wonder, would it be too clever to see if Mr. Turket would rent us his house for a while? Maybe offer to send him on an expenses-paid cruise to, say, scenic Orussus? Failing that, an inn will probably do.

As for what's on the agenda, here's what springs to mind, in no particular order.

• Visit Turket's house, which unless I'm very confused used to be Urton's house.
• Go back to the library and get as much circumstance bonus as possible before trying to decipher Urton's journal.
• Further investigations of the noble houses connected to the Archies. Maybe see if any of their members mysteriously disappeared around the time Thyrin's tower was not-quite-burgled? Will probably involve going around talking to them.
• an orgy of item crafting! All this money is starting to burn a hole in some packs.

I've probably forgotten something, though...
[/sblock]

"Getting late. We were in the library for hours and hours," Keldar answers. "We should find somewhere to stay, but I don't think we should take advantage of the Gimmons' hospitality, or even be seen visiting, if we can help it. I'm sure the Archaeologists know he has a longstanding reward for news of their shovel, but if five strangers - well, three, now - suddenly turn up and are heard asking too many questions about them, it would be best if there were nothing to link them to Fimbus Senior. I'm not even sure Fimble should... well, he is quite inconspicuous, I suppose. He should be the one to pass messages, though, or, you know, collect our reward money for us. For instance. Right now, we should go look for rooms, before only the seedy inns have space left. Or we could rent an apartment. Something more befitting the status of Keldar Warbray, retired sea captain."

"I wasn't too hard on that portly chap, was I?" Keldar asks after a bit. "After all, he did give us the gems. He could have waddled away and kept them all for himself. Oh dear. It was the shock, you see. I still can't believe they just left us without a word. It must have been Galwynn's doing. That priest of Halina got him so inspired to do what he thought was her bidding that he couldn't think straight and wouldn't wait, and Rapture knew she'd have to go with him to stop him from doing something stupid, because I wasn't there to stop him. But she'll come back and find us as soon as he's calmed down, don't you think?"

"Well, I don't think he'll be sending you birthday cards any time soon," sighs Tommy. "As for Rapture and Galwynn's departure, I'm disturbed by it too. I wish them luck with whatever it is that made them decide to leave so quickly. But, in the meantime, we have a task to do. And we need food and rest if we are to complete our work. What about that place where we got the flipfish? That was an inn, wasn't it? Let's go see if they have lodgings. Maybe I can finish up on that project I was telling you about, Keldar. The circlet."

[sblock=ooc]I haven't yet remembered anything else that we intend to do, and it seems like the consensus is that it's late enough in the day to retire and move on in the morning. I propose the following plan.

1. Find an inn, secure food and lodgings, and do some item crafting to use up a bit of this portable wealth. Details to follow.
2. In the morning, go back to the library and have Tommy do his best, possibly with an assist from Keldar, to decipher the encrypted journal.
3. After that, go to Turket's house and see what there is to see.

Not much point planning any farther ahead than that; hopefully we'll have gotten new information then and can re-evaluate.

Now. Tommy's crafting plans for the near term run something like this. He intends to craft a Headband of Intellect +2 now, and a Blessed Book as soon as he hits level 5 and has the cash. (He'll take secret page as one of his free spells. See below for discussion of the cash.) Depending on how the money shakes out at that point, there may be enough left for a wand or some bracers.

Regarding cash, he's currently got 275.99g on his character sheet. We just got 9000g from the sale of the ship, and 5111.6g for the sale of the pirate loot. Assuming equal shares from the PCs that are left, that puts Tommy at 4979.86g. I believe we're also expecting 10000g from Fimble's father at some point in the near future. He spends 2000g on the headband, so he will have enough for the blessed book as soon as Fimble's father coughed up the cash. When he's finished with the BB, he'll copy all his spells to it and sell his spellbook, which will have at least 70 pages filled by then, so should sell for at least 3500. (Note: this would also be enough to pay someone back if Fimble's father doesn't pay up and he has to borrow the money to craft the BB. But let's hope it doesn't come to that! )
[/sblock]

[sblock=OOC: ]Assuming you got to the library around 9am, you spent 6 hours there, and maybe an hour getting back to the dock and dealing with the ship. That puts us at 4pm, and you are all ravenous. But once you eat, it'll still be relatively early in the evening, if you want to get some more done during this in-game day.[/sblock]

"I was thinking a bedroom each and white marble floors and a balcony facing east, so that the rays of the rising sun shatter into a million pieces as they pass through the arching crystal bridge a level above, but if you want flipfish again... no, but I'm sure that was just a restaurant," says Keldar. "Oh well, if you can find some grim bug-filled hut down here in the dark, that's fine too. Somewhere no one will notice or bother us."[sblock=OOC]"The restaurant is small in a cozy way". Can you believe that was almost 6 months ago!? Precisely, 132 days and a mere 139 posts. One other thing that had slipped my mind is that we have a letter of introduction to the Fallon guild of architects from their Orussus counterparts.[/sblock]