[D&D 3.5/Eberron] A Quick One While He's Away

[Old Fezziwig]

The second thread in my on-going Eberron campaign. Here are links to the rest of the appropriate threads for those of you keeping score at home:
1. Part One: The Forgotten Forge
2. OOC Thread
3. Rogues Gallery.

The current party consists of:
1. Rawhide, Shifter Brb2
2. Plonk, Gnome Art2
3. Gannon, Human Clr2 of the Traveller
4. Flawed, Warforged Trans1/Ftr1

Game on in the next post...

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Sar, 2 Aryth 998 YK
Exterior, Cliffside ward, Ship's Towers district — Morning

Ah...Sharn at low tide. Your sense of smell is overwhelmed by salt. Unlike the upper levels of the city, where the air is crisp and has an almost sweet scent, the districts in Cliffside have a salty, pungent odor, some unholy cross between human sweat, salt, sewage, and various trade goods. This part of the city, with its rough stone streets and humble residences, houses a mass of peoples, from itinerant sailors to bandits, prostitutes, and the occasional honest merchant. The teeming throngs of humanity push and jostle as they make their way to work or sleep (with there being no distinction between the two for some of the people down here). As they move, they dodge an unfathomable mess of cranes and pulleys used to move cargo from the docks into the rest of Sharn.

And the noise. The longshoremen shout and yell as they unload the freighters. Children giggle and scream as they play, unchecked, in the streets. Merchants boast and beg alternately as they try to eke out a living here. As with Smallweed's Market in Lower Dorasharn, the people are dirty and suspicious. More than one person eyes you and your gear suspiciously before ducking back into the crowds. The City Watch, so prominant in the Upper City, is no where to be seen — and thus, the chaos of the ward falls into its own rhythm, unmolested by the whistle and bar.

If you are to find passage to Xen'drik, you'll have to start here. Numerous businesses — bars, flophouses, and small shops of various specialties — line the street as it winds precariously over a jagged cliff. In the water below, a web of rafts, houseboats, and other watercraft surround the docks, connected by a lattice-work of rope bridges, gangplanks, and piers. A human child, grimmer than his years suggest he ought to be, stands on the corner, covered in soot, and hawking his daily supply of the Sharn Inquisitive. "Monoliths in Sarlona! Monoliths in Sarlona!" He has a horrible time working his tongue around the word "monolith," but he gives it an admirable try and eventually spouts out a reasonable facsimile.

OOC: Remember to level up and buy equipment in the OOC thread...and remember when buying equipment, you'll have to have enough money to pay for passage across to Xen'drik.

 

[MadMaxim]

Gannon walks along the harbor and tries not to breathe in too much of the air. He's somewhat used to fitting in into different environments, but the scent almost makes him gag. He's most certainly a stranger in this place. As he walks past the paperboy he throws him a silver piece and picks up a copy of the newspaper. "There you go, kid. Don't spend it all on candy now." Gannon smiles at the boy before he starts flipping through the pages of the Sharn Inquisitive.

Monoliths in Sarlona...? What are they up to over there? Well, it doesn't matter anyway. I've never been good at politics. Let the kings and queens handle that, even though they have their own agendas and the like... No wonder, I left the church. Way too much politics for me... He tries to find out whether there have been any interesting discoveries in Xen'drik lately.

OOC: Removed 1 silver piece from Gannon's pocket.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Gannon: You start to leaf through the latest issue of the Sharn Inquisitive.

 

[Ashy]

Rawhide, who seems to be totally unaffected by the smell (in fact, he smells worse than the surrounding area, having spent the night in a small fetid pond after drinking and eating all of his hard-won silvers away), belches loudly and scratches a fishbone out of his backside. He looks to Gannon, and as the small boy approches, he makes the "Gannon face" at him.

Once the boy scampers away, Rawhide's face shifts from the rictus grin and he frowns, "Him not like Rawhide, but Rawhide think him one of the cleanest boys ever!" The shifter chuckles.

He looks to Gannon, "Wot'we doing here, boss? Is'zis where we gonna eat some of them xendrics?"

 

[Knight Otu]

Flawed looks at Rawhide, and if it could, it would frown. How often had they tried to tell the shifter that Xen'dric was a continent? But instead of trying again, Flawed simply asks "How much will the passage cost?"

 

[Krug]

Plonk reads over Gannon's shoulder, I mean, armpit. "Monoliths uh? Hmmm..." mutters Plonk.

Over time, the gnome had grown tired of the Shifter's bland talk. The creature was handy when there was a fight though. Plonk looks around to see if there's any ships that will offer passage to Xen'dric.

Willtry to update my char sheet sometime this weekend.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Plonk: [Gather Information check] There are a number of ships in the harbor offering passage to Xen'drik, according to the rather shaggy looking dwarven longshoreman that you ask. He suggests that you try either the Tenth Century or the Blonde Griffon, two merchant frigates headed over to Stormreach. He estimates the crossing time on one of those two ships as being about one month. "If'n yer wantin' things te go faster, ye'll be wantin' te talk te the bloomin' 'alf-elves." He gestures down the docks somewhere, and you can vaguely make out a banner with a mass of tentacles hanging off of a small building.

 

[MadMaxim]

Gannon addresses the group after having talked to the dwarves: "Well, as far as I can remember, Plonk said that somebody needed help in Xen'drik pretty badly, so I suggest we go see House Lyrandar about their fastest way of traveling. I know it may be rather expensive, but I'm willing to pay for it if they can get us there faster than those merchant ships."

He hands the Sharn Inquisitive over to Plonk. The artificer seemed rather interested in the article about the monoliths. Then he looks at Rawhide. "I believe they have some pretty exotic dishes in Xen'drik, Rawhide. We will without a doubt get a chance to try some of them." Then he starts walking towards the small building that supposedly houses House Lyrandar.

I wonder how the half-elves ever got that business going...? Well, they're supposedly good at their job, so we might as well go for the best.

OOC: I assume that the houses are pretty well-known and that most people know the names of them? I don't want my player knowledge to get ahead of Gannon's actual knowledge, after all.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

OOC: The characters in the party, except possibly Rawhide, would certainly be familiar with the dragon-marked houses and their various roles.

Assumption: The party follows Gannon towards the House Lyrandar outpost.

The street snakes along the side of the cliff, and you follow it towards the small building flying the flag of House Lyrandar. Rather modest and completely unimpressive, the small wooden structure rests directly against the cliff face. The inside, too, is rather spartan and unassuming, with the main room (some forty square feet) mostly bare. A fireplace dominates the wall to the right of the entrance; a circular table and some chairs occupy the left half of the room. In front of you, directly opposite the door you came in, a slender half-elven woman in spectacles sits at a bronzewood desk, carefully studying a giant ledger and scrawling notes in a smaller book. Behind her, there is another door.

She looks up when you enter. "Shipping or transportation?"