ADVENTURE 14: ARRR WE THERE YET?
PC Roster:
Game Session Date: 11 January 2023
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"I say!" declared Alistair. "Would you mind explaining why we're to be working for a thieves guild? We have a paladin among our number!"
"Well, we're not exactly working for a thieves guild," Ageratum explained. "I'm being asked to do a mission for a thieves guild, and I'm to ask 'my team' to come along as additional protection."
"That seems to me to be splitting hairs," argued Alistair.
"Well, it's your dumb fault they even came looking for me - you and that stupid song about what a great thief I am!"
"I don't believe I even once used the word 'thief.'"
"Splitting hairs, Alistair!"
"Perhaps we should see what this mission is all about before we argue our involvement," suggested Harlan, ever the peacemaker. Then he turned to the little halfling and asked, "When and where are we to meet to discuss this assignment?"
"Dark and Light Club, tomorrow right before Carp's performance. But I don't think they're expecting any discussion, they're expecting to brief us on what we need to do and then we're to go out and do it."
"Unacceptable!" scoffed Alistair.
"Did they give you any indication of what the job might be?" asked Chaevaris.
"Nope."
"Well then," replied Harlan, "I suppose we'll just have to wait until tomorrow to see."
The next evening, Oleg Kulakov from the Hall of Collection and Revenue, Enforcement Division, was there to greet the band of four heroes. With him was Macrell Slade, the head of the town guard, and a bearded man with shifty eyes named Boris Predatsia. After introductions were made, Oleg explained the mission. "You are to escort Boris, keep him safe," he said in clipped tones. "You go to ship, he finds crate, you return crate, you get paid. Is easy."
"We're going to a ship?" Ageratum asked, knowing full well Ghourmand Vale was in a landlocked part of the continent. "What ship? And how are we getting there?"
"Ship does not matter. We teleport you in, teleport you back."
"So you're hiring us to steal cargo off of a ship," Chaevaris replied. Harlan, in full armor with the sun-symbol emblem of Pelor emblazoned upon it, said nothing - they could easily see his devotion to the forces of good; plus, he was concentrating on reading the auras of the three men present. Boris and Macrell were definitely of an evil bent, while Oleg was surprisingly not.
"No. You merely bodyguards, keep Boris safe. No stealing."
"Piffle and nonsense!" exploded Alistair. "Our mere presence means we condone the theft of this crate from its rightful owners."
"No," replied Oleg again. "Crate already stolen, we returning it to rightful owners."
Harlan at last decided to speak up. "May we ask what is inside this crate?" At that, Oleg looked uncomfortable. He took the paladin aside, out of the earshot of Macrell and Boris; naturally, the other three heroes followed. "Boris doesn't know contents of crate, is better this way. Crate holds statue of frost barbarian." The frost barbarians were one of several tribes who lived up in the northern reaches; why anyone valued a statue of such a person was beyond Alistair's imagination.
But then another possibility reared itself in the young sorcerer's mind. "How do we know it's just a statue?" he asked. "What if it's a real person, and this is merely a simple way to pass along someone captured and bound for slavery without having to feed him?"
"Keep voice down!" hissed Oleg. "How you know of this?"
"What?" exclaimed Alistair. "Then it's true? You're asking us to traffic in slaves?"
"No no no! Frost barbarian agreed to become statue. Is best way to sneak him from point A to point B. Then ship attacked by pirates, crate he in taken with other goods."
"Then, this is in fact a rescue mission," Harlan surmised with a slight smirk. "In future, it might have been better to lead with that."
Ageratum looked up at Harlan, the group's unofficial leader. "Are you okay with this?" she asked. Upon seeing the paladin's nod of approval, she spun back to Oleg and asked the most important question. "How much for the job?"
"Two-fifty gold, each."
"And don't forget my cut," pointed out Macrell, who had wandered over to see what all the furtive whispering was about. "Nothing happens in my town I don't get a piece of."
Alistair studiously ignored him and pressed on with a point of contention to Oleg. "If we're teleporting to a boat on the open seas, we'll need a potion of water breathing for each of us, Boris included, I guess."
"Preparations your job," countered Oleg.
"We're not going without those preparations," replied Alistair, bargaining for the team. "Harlan and Chaevaris wear armor that would be quite detrimental were they to end up overboard. If you want us on this mission, keeping Boris safe, then this is a non-negotiable requirement." Oleg bristled, apparently not used to there being any negotiations when he gave orders, but he was wasting time with this uptight nobleman. "Very well," he said, signaling for one of his men to approach. The man pulled out a wrapped bundle from a side pouch and opened it, revealing five narrow glass flasks of liquid. He passed one to each of the four heroes, giving the last one to Boris; apparently Oleg had planned for this contingency after all.
"We will return the potions to you if they prove to be unnecessary in the successful completion of this mission," Alistair promised. He'd already decided he'd be leaving his grackle familiar Ambrose behind, since if anything were to happen and they'd find themselves underwater, that was not the best environment for a bird.
"Yes, good, fine. You are now ready?" Nodding their approval, the group was herded together into a group in the middle of the balcony. Boris approached, unwinding a coil of rope from his belt. As he placed it in a circle around the four heroes, Oleg came up close to Alistair and whispered, "Be careful: is traitor," nodding his head in the direction of Boris. Alistair gave a start, and was about to exclaim "I say!" when he thought better about alerting Boris to the fact his status as a traitor to the mission was known.
Boris now had the length of silk rope - a magical device known as a thieves' coil, with cylindrical metal ends - wrapped around the group of five. Closing his eyes in concentration, he brought the two metal ends together and with a brief flash of light the five had vanished from the balcony level of the Dark and Light Club, where Holyrood Carp was just beginning his first song.
The group had expected to arrive in the cargo hold of a ship, and technically they did, although the experience wasn't at all as any of them had expected. For one thing, the ship's floor was canted at a 30-degree angle, causing everyone to fall over; only Alistair managed to keep his balance and remain upright. But more importantly, although this was indeed the cargo hold of a sailing ship - as evidenced by the curve of the walls, they were either at the very fore or very aft of the ship's lower deck - it was empty of all cargo. If the crate containing the petrified form of a frost barbarian had ever been on this ship (and if this was indeed even the right ship), it was no longer in evidence.
Ageratum scooted around on her bottom and pulled a sunrod from her pack. Activating it, they were able to more clearly see their predicament: there was an open doorway on the wall currently lower than the other walls, due to the ship apparently being at an angle, and in the room beyond the doorway were five creatures best described as "fish-men." The bottom section of this tilted room was covered in water, and there was a hole in the side of the ship through which one of these fish-men was passing a small crate - much too small to hold the statue of a frost barbarian, but a good indicator of where the rest of the contents of the cargo hold had been taken: out the hole in the ship's side and into the seawaters beyond.
Seeing the waters that filled the bottom of the room toward which they were currently canted, and the waters beyond the hole, Ageratum swallowed down the contents of her potion of water breathing. Without a word, Alistair did likewise and helped Chaevaris right herself. Harlan, however, had teleported in right by the open doorway and when he lost his balance he fell through the doorway. Fortunately, he had snagged the side of the door frame and was now hanging by his hands with the rest of his body in the room with the fish-men. One of the aquatic creatures noticed the paladin and gave notice to its associates in some garbly language. One of the fish-men ran up the slope of the floor and bit at Harlan's legs with a row of surprisingly sharp teeth; if these "fish-men" were patterned after any particular type of fish, a piranha would not have been a bad guess.
Boris had landed at the side of the open doorway after his spill and was now busily wrapping the thieves' coil back up around his left hand and elbow, his attitude seemingly that of "fighting off those fish guys is your job, not mine." Harlan kicked off his attacker and pulled his way back into the cargo hold, got to his feet, and pulled his flaming burst longsword from its scabbard; the light from the flames gave off more desired illumination in the darkened hold. But the paladin stood his ground, making himself the first obstacle if these fish-men wanted to get to any of the others on his team.
Chaevaris fired off an arrow that went streaking past Harlan's shoulder to bury itself into the head one of the other fish-men; Ageratum finished it off with a thrown kobold spear striking the same creature's stomach. It fell over on its side and floated in the water at the bottom of the ship's lower deck for a moment, before sinking below and out of sight. Alistair spoke the words to a magic missile spell and sent three missiles streaking from his fingertips to hit another of these fish-men, who buckled in pain after the attack but failed to die.
Another fish-man scrambled up the deck floor to try to get at Harlan, but the paladin's flaming blade came slicing across the creature's chest and torso, erupting in a blast of larger flame upon impact. Immediately, the tantalizing scent of fried fish filled the ship's hold as the fish-man fell backwards into the water, also quite dead. Another fish-man scrambled up the deck but was a bit more wary of Harlan's flaming blade; as a result, he avoided the dangerous weapon but was similarly unable to catch the paladin with its sharp teeth or wicked claws. But then Harlan fake-pounced in one direction, and when the fish-man dodged, his blade was there ready for it, skewering it through the stomach and burning its internal organs. It joined the other two fish-men in death.
Chaevaris shot another arrow into a fish-man, and once again a kobold spear thrown by Ageratum finished the creature off. Perhaps influenced by the scent of cooking fish, Alistair cast a scorching ray at the last remaining fish-man, burning him to a crisp.
Harlan, being the only one to have taken any damage in this initial skirmish, used his inherent ability to lay on hands to heal himself a bit, then cast a cure light wounds spell upon himself with a charge from his wand. "We ready?" he asked the others, as he drank down the contents of his potion of water breathing. Boris nodded his assent, the thieves' coil now once again in a loop at his belt, and those who hadn't already done so drank down their own potions. Alistair was secretly pleased that Oleg wouldn't be getting any of these potions back after the mission; it was a petty thought but an entertaining one nonetheless.
Sliding down the canted floor was the easiest way to get to the hole in the side of the ship. Ageratum went first, cautiously poking her head and her sunrod through the hole. Underwater, she could see, at the very edge of the sunrod's illumination, another fish-man or two lugging crates and heading for an underwater cave. Alistair ducked through the hole beside her and was surprised to see if he stood up his head was above water. There were two beaches ahead, each before a cliff that met at the top; the underwater cave entrance was between them. A bonfire was blazing at the top of the rightmost cliff, its light quite brilliant in the night air.
If the group wanted to retrieve that crate with the petrified frost barbarian, there was nothing else to be done but follow the fleeing fish-men. The group ran along the bottom of the sea, giving chase to the slower-moving fish-men burdened by heavy cargo. Both groups had made it into the cave, inside which was a grotto of sorts with a section of cave to the left that was above the water's surface; a few other fish-men were busy stacking up the crates of various sizes when Ageratum caught up to one of the ones still in the water. She stabbed at it with her silver short sword, causing it to drop its crate and fall over to the side, dead. Alistair, mindful that his magic missile spell hadn't been powerful enough to slay a fish-man with one strike, opted to point his wand at another fish-man and send off a barrage of not three magic missiles (all he could manifest on his own at present) but five. He was pleased to see that a blast of five missiles from the wand was indeed powerful enough to slay a fish-man in one fell swoop.
Two of the land-bound fish-men jumped into the water to attack these interlopers, and one took a swipe at Ageratum with its claws, but the nimble halfling handily dodged the attack. As Harlan and Boris ran to catch up, Chaevaris stopped her own advancement just long enough to send an arrow into the fish-man attacking Ageratum. It looked in shock over at Chaevaris, not having expected an attack from so far away, and that was all Ageratum needed to finish it off with a stab of her silver blade.
Alistair used up another charge on his wand and slew another fish-man as he leaped into the water; yet another fish-man made it safely into the waters and tried attacking Agertaum with teeth and the claws on all four limbs, but the nimble halfling avoided all of its attacks, much to the aquatic being's annoyance. Harlan waded up and tried slashing out at the creature, but he wasn't as fast underwater as he was on dry land and the fish-man likewise avoided the sword-strike. It was interesting to see his flaming sword didn't actually have flames along its blade while underwater, but the string of bubbles following in the blade's wake indicated there was as much heat there as normal, causing the surrounding water to boil. But then Chaevaris killed the aquatic beast with a well-placed arrow to the back of its head when it was concentrating on Harlan.
Ageratum waded up onto the shore of the cave and threw a kobold spear at one of the landbound fish-men, which stood on two humanoid legs. The spear hit a glancing blow, causing the piscine creature to hiss in anger. But then Alistair slew it with another blast from his wand. He followed the little halfling onto the shore, glad to be out of the water. He was also glad he'd left Ambrose at home, for the grackle likely would not have made the underwater trek with his master.
Three more fish-men approached from the back of the cave, each armed with a longspear giving them plenty of reach. One stabbed the tip of his spear at Ageratum, but had no luck in skewering her as it had hoped to do. Harlan charged up onto land, facing twin spears (one of which gashed him in the side as he approached) to bring his longsword - now once again sporting flames along the length of its blade after having left the water - slicing into one of the aquatic spearmen. It dropped its longspear and crashed to the stone floor of the cave, dead.
Chaevaris stepped fully out of the water and slew another of the spearmen with an arrow to the throat. Ageratum hit another fish-man with a thrown spear, Alistair tried to finish it off with a cast magic missile spell, but it stubbornly hung onto life. But it did at least back off, heading further into the cave where there was a small pool of brackish-looking water. It dove in and disappeared to safety; none of the intruders was particularly interested in slaying every one of these fish-men they saw, so much as driving them away so they could examine the contents of the chests and crates brought over from the partially-sunken ship.
The crate the fish-men had dropped in the water just before the shore was too small for it to contain the statue the group was interested in; nonetheless, out of curiosity more than anything else, Boris pried open the top of the crate and discovered it was full of apples. Snorting in disgust, he waded onto dry land and started examining the larger crates stacked there.
With the fish-men either dead or having fled, the five all spread out and started examining crates; Boris seeking a particular marking on the outside, the others by the more labor-intensive method of prying open the crates. The cargo they unearthed was quite varied, consisting of dried biscuits, suits of chain mail, and a small chest of pearls, before Harlan discovered a statue of a barbarian woman. He called the others over, thinking this might be the statue they sought. "I say!" declared Alistair. "I had rather assumed the frost barbarian statue we sought was a male."
"Is correct: we want statue of barbarian lord," replied Boris, speaking in the same accent and curt manner as Oleg; they likely came from the same foreign country. Then, realizing what he'd just voiced aloud, he added, "Oops - not supposed to know that." But that recalled Oleg's warning about Boris being a traitor, which Alistair surreptitiously passed on to the others via whispered conversations as they continued checking out crates. Ageratum placed herself off of crate-opening detail - much of them were much taller than she was in any case, making the process somewhat problematic for the three-foot-tall halfling - and onto "watching Boris" detail, so she could see if he started doing anything suspicious, like perhaps forgetting to bring them along when it came time to teleport back to the Dark and Light Club.
Chaevaris cracked open another crate to find rather damp furs inside, when there was a bubbling noise from the waters behind them. Alistair looked over from the crate of arrows he'd just opened, and Harlan, having just discovered a crate filled with small barrels of beer, did likewise. Rising up from the water stood a humanoid form, standing some nine feet tall with glistening skin like that of a newt or salamander. It had a mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth and claws of equal concern, which looked to be able to disembowel a man with one blow. "I believe that's a scrag!" Harlan called out to the others, dropping the lid to the crate of beer barrels and stepping in front of the others, once again offering himself up as the first line of defense. "Fire and acid works best!" he added, swinging his flaming blade back and forth before him in an effort to ward off the scrag.
The scrag, however, was not to be dissuaded from attacking these delicious, living morsels before it. Seeing it move towards Harlan, Alistair gave it a blast from his wand only because he already had it in hand, but vowed to send a few scorching rays at the beast to see how he liked being burned alive. It did not appreciate being shot at with magic missiles, in any case.
Chaevaris sent an arrow across the cave and into the scrag's throat, but it just plucked it out and cast it aside as if it had been little more than an irritation. Ageratum decided the scrag was more than she wanted to deal with in a hand-to-hand fight and continued prying open the little crate she'd seem, pleased beyond belief when she saw it filled with bloodstones. She gave a glance over at Boris to make sure he wasn't up to anything nefarious, but he was still examining the outer markings on the larger crates, apparently looking for a secret rune or glyph or something.
Alistair sent a scorching ray blazing from his fingertips, but it struck the ground before the scrag due to a bit of nervous targeting. "Blast!" scowled Alistair, which was exactly what he had not managed to do to the aquatic troll. But the blast of flame at least put the scrag into motion, for it charged forward at Harlan, raking him with a set of powerful claws. Fortunately for the half-elf paladin, his plate mail armor took the brunt of the attack, and he was able to retaliate in kind with a slash of his flaming blade. He was pleased to see the scar he opened across the creature's chest did not heal over, as the hole from Chaevaris's arrow had done. But just as he thought that, the elven archer sent another arrow burying itself into the scrag's side; it might not hurt the creature as much as fire or acid did, but it might at least slow it down some.
Alistair cursed aloud when another scorching ray went sizzling just past the scrag's head, failing for a second time to connect. Fuming, the sorcerer vowed to return to his magic wand; magic missiles, at least, never failed to hit their targets. But then Boris gave a cry of delight - he'd apparently found the crate they were seeking. Ageratum saw him starting to uncoil the silk rope from his belt and headed over his way.
The scrag continued his attack against Harlan - who had conveniently put himself in harm's way for that very reason - bending down and biting into the paladin's shoulder. Once again, the half-elf's armor took the brunt of the assault. But then Harlan channeled positive energy into his sword, recognizing the scrag as a source of evil. His next sword-strike seemed to stagger the bandy-legged beast, who staggered back a step from the force of the blow. Chaevaris shot another arrow into it and to her surprise, that was the straw that broke the camel's back: with a moan, the scrag fell backwards onto the stone floor of the cave grotto. With a look of determination, Harlan stepped forward to sever the creature's head with his flaming burst longsword - surely that would prevent the beast from rising back up.
"Over here, guys!" Ageratum called. "Boris found the crate with the right markings!" They helped lug the crate away from the others, to an open space on the cave floor. "Is right marking," Boris said, pointing to a shape painted on the top corner of one of its sides. He was laying the thieves' coil in a circle on the floor around the crate.
"Not so fast, there," reprimanded Alistair. "Let's make sure we have the right statue after all - no sense in having to come back if we grab the wrong one." Boris shrugged and stepped back, allowing Alistair to pry open the crate with his dagger. It was, in fact, a statue of a male frost barbarian, but Alistair noticed an unusual detail: the man's left hand was out at his side, palm to the back. "Let me check that female statue again," he said, returning to the other statue they'd unearthed earlier. Sure enough, the woman had her right hand off to the side, with her palm facing forward. Alistair was pretty sure if they were placed side by side, they'd have been holding hands.
"Help me lug this one over by the other," Alistair said to the others. "We're taking them both."
"That not part of plan," argued Boris.
"Yeah, well, the plan's changing a bit," replied Ageratum. "We're not in any particular danger now that we've fought off the beasties, so we're going to open up the rest of these crates and see what's what." Boris wasn't particularly pleased with the delay, but he held his tongue. In Ageratum's mind the delay was well worthwhile, though, as one of the unopened crates was filled with amber. And as long as the thieves' coil teleported everything it was wrapped around, with a little squeezing together, they could fit all five of the people on the mission, the two crates of statues, and the smaller crates of amber, bloodstones, and pearls - especially when the latter three smaller crates were stacked on top of each other with the little halfling perched on top.
"Another change," added Alistair. "You won't be piloting on the way home. Hand it over." He held out his hand to accept the ends of the thieves' coil.
"You don't know how it works," countered Boris.
"I saw you do it," Alistair counter-counterpointed. "And I know I trust myself to get us to the right destination more than I do you. No offense." Boris scowled, but when he saw Harlan's unsheathed longsword spouting flames and ready for action, he bit his tongue and handed the ends of the rope over to Alistair. The sorcerer examined each of the ends, saw how they fit together, and noticed an arcane rune on the top edge of one end, alongside a burned-out one that hadn't been burned out back at the Dark and Light Club. Apparently the thieves' coil held charges, like a wand, and was good for only so many uses. Placing a finger over the unblemished rune, Alistair closed his eyes and concentrated on the balcony of the Dark and Light Club. With a flash of light, they were suddenly gone from the cave and back where they had started.
Oleg, Macrell, and Holyrood were there to greet them. "Mission successful?" Oleg demanded, frowning in puzzlement at the pile of crates when he had only expected the one.
"Quite," replied Alistair, pulling the silk rope back into a loose pile and handing it back to Boris. "These two are yours, the smaller ones are ours. Now then, about our payment...?"
Oleg examined the statues and handed over four bags of coins. "As we agreed," he grunted, then motioned for some of his men to start lugging away the crates bearing statues.
"Let's not forget my cut," pointed out Macrell. "I get 25% off the top."
"For what?" demanded Alistair, appalled at the very notion. "You did nothing!"
"On the contrary, I was the one who put you in touch with Oleg here. It's because of my contacts that this mission even went down in the first place."
"Pshaw!" scoffed Alistair. "It was because of Ageratum's notoriety - thanks to my songwriting skills and Holyrood's excellent performance - that Oleg wanted her involved in the first place. I posit your involvement added nothing to the equation."
"Is that the way you want to play it?" snarled Macrell, not liking being cut out of a quick and effortless profit. "You really think you want me as an enemy?"
"Please, please," interjected Oleg, happy now that the crates were hammered back together and being lugged off by his men. He held out a fifth bag of coins, handing it over to Macrell. "Here is your cut: 25 percent of payment to others. Now everyone happy, yes?"
Macrell snapped up the pouch and peered inside it, mentally estimating the value of the coins inside. "Fine," he grumbled, leaving the group in a huff.
Alistair turned to Holyrood Carp. "Alas, this rescue mission of ours forced us to miss your performance," Alistair said. "How did it go?"
"Very well indeed!" enthused the bard. "They loved the new song about Chaevaris. You guys are getting a lot of good publicity out of these, and I'm getting very grateful audiences. Here: a portion of tonight's earnings." He gave seven gold coins to Alistair, who thanked him and dropped them into the sack of coins Oleg had given him.
"Then I will bid you a pleasant evening," Alistair said. "I, for one, wish to get out of these damp clothes." He shook the bard's hand, nodded to Oleg, and lifted one of the smaller crates of gems. Harlan and Chaevaris each hefted another one, and then the four heroes returned to their horses and wagon, where Ambrose greeted his master. The trip back to the Stout farmhouse was uneventful.
- - -
Dan went through several changes when designing this adventure; apparently it was originally going to involve the pirates at sea who stole the cargo from the ship originally carrying the frost barbarian, hence the punny "Arrr" in the adventure's title. The fish-men were skum, the transformed servants of an aboleth (who was on the other side of the passageway through the "pool of brackish water" and would likely have killed us all had we been foolish enough to abandon our primary goal to follow the wounded skum back to its master). And we would have played through this adventure a week earlier, but Dan hadn't finished the maps. (He and his family had traveled to another state over the Christmas break.)
We each earned enough XP from this adventure to send us to 6th level. Each player opted to advance another level in the same class their PC already has; I don't think any of us are interested in multiclassing or taking on any prestige classes in this campaign.
PC Roster:
Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 5
Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 5
Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 5
Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 5
Game Session Date: 11 January 2023
- - -
"I say!" declared Alistair. "Would you mind explaining why we're to be working for a thieves guild? We have a paladin among our number!"
"Well, we're not exactly working for a thieves guild," Ageratum explained. "I'm being asked to do a mission for a thieves guild, and I'm to ask 'my team' to come along as additional protection."
"That seems to me to be splitting hairs," argued Alistair.
"Well, it's your dumb fault they even came looking for me - you and that stupid song about what a great thief I am!"
"I don't believe I even once used the word 'thief.'"
"Splitting hairs, Alistair!"
"Perhaps we should see what this mission is all about before we argue our involvement," suggested Harlan, ever the peacemaker. Then he turned to the little halfling and asked, "When and where are we to meet to discuss this assignment?"
"Dark and Light Club, tomorrow right before Carp's performance. But I don't think they're expecting any discussion, they're expecting to brief us on what we need to do and then we're to go out and do it."
"Unacceptable!" scoffed Alistair.
"Did they give you any indication of what the job might be?" asked Chaevaris.
"Nope."
"Well then," replied Harlan, "I suppose we'll just have to wait until tomorrow to see."
The next evening, Oleg Kulakov from the Hall of Collection and Revenue, Enforcement Division, was there to greet the band of four heroes. With him was Macrell Slade, the head of the town guard, and a bearded man with shifty eyes named Boris Predatsia. After introductions were made, Oleg explained the mission. "You are to escort Boris, keep him safe," he said in clipped tones. "You go to ship, he finds crate, you return crate, you get paid. Is easy."
"We're going to a ship?" Ageratum asked, knowing full well Ghourmand Vale was in a landlocked part of the continent. "What ship? And how are we getting there?"
"Ship does not matter. We teleport you in, teleport you back."
"So you're hiring us to steal cargo off of a ship," Chaevaris replied. Harlan, in full armor with the sun-symbol emblem of Pelor emblazoned upon it, said nothing - they could easily see his devotion to the forces of good; plus, he was concentrating on reading the auras of the three men present. Boris and Macrell were definitely of an evil bent, while Oleg was surprisingly not.
"No. You merely bodyguards, keep Boris safe. No stealing."
"Piffle and nonsense!" exploded Alistair. "Our mere presence means we condone the theft of this crate from its rightful owners."
"No," replied Oleg again. "Crate already stolen, we returning it to rightful owners."
Harlan at last decided to speak up. "May we ask what is inside this crate?" At that, Oleg looked uncomfortable. He took the paladin aside, out of the earshot of Macrell and Boris; naturally, the other three heroes followed. "Boris doesn't know contents of crate, is better this way. Crate holds statue of frost barbarian." The frost barbarians were one of several tribes who lived up in the northern reaches; why anyone valued a statue of such a person was beyond Alistair's imagination.
But then another possibility reared itself in the young sorcerer's mind. "How do we know it's just a statue?" he asked. "What if it's a real person, and this is merely a simple way to pass along someone captured and bound for slavery without having to feed him?"
"Keep voice down!" hissed Oleg. "How you know of this?"
"What?" exclaimed Alistair. "Then it's true? You're asking us to traffic in slaves?"
"No no no! Frost barbarian agreed to become statue. Is best way to sneak him from point A to point B. Then ship attacked by pirates, crate he in taken with other goods."
"Then, this is in fact a rescue mission," Harlan surmised with a slight smirk. "In future, it might have been better to lead with that."
Ageratum looked up at Harlan, the group's unofficial leader. "Are you okay with this?" she asked. Upon seeing the paladin's nod of approval, she spun back to Oleg and asked the most important question. "How much for the job?"
"Two-fifty gold, each."
"And don't forget my cut," pointed out Macrell, who had wandered over to see what all the furtive whispering was about. "Nothing happens in my town I don't get a piece of."
Alistair studiously ignored him and pressed on with a point of contention to Oleg. "If we're teleporting to a boat on the open seas, we'll need a potion of water breathing for each of us, Boris included, I guess."
"Preparations your job," countered Oleg.
"We're not going without those preparations," replied Alistair, bargaining for the team. "Harlan and Chaevaris wear armor that would be quite detrimental were they to end up overboard. If you want us on this mission, keeping Boris safe, then this is a non-negotiable requirement." Oleg bristled, apparently not used to there being any negotiations when he gave orders, but he was wasting time with this uptight nobleman. "Very well," he said, signaling for one of his men to approach. The man pulled out a wrapped bundle from a side pouch and opened it, revealing five narrow glass flasks of liquid. He passed one to each of the four heroes, giving the last one to Boris; apparently Oleg had planned for this contingency after all.
"We will return the potions to you if they prove to be unnecessary in the successful completion of this mission," Alistair promised. He'd already decided he'd be leaving his grackle familiar Ambrose behind, since if anything were to happen and they'd find themselves underwater, that was not the best environment for a bird.
"Yes, good, fine. You are now ready?" Nodding their approval, the group was herded together into a group in the middle of the balcony. Boris approached, unwinding a coil of rope from his belt. As he placed it in a circle around the four heroes, Oleg came up close to Alistair and whispered, "Be careful: is traitor," nodding his head in the direction of Boris. Alistair gave a start, and was about to exclaim "I say!" when he thought better about alerting Boris to the fact his status as a traitor to the mission was known.
Boris now had the length of silk rope - a magical device known as a thieves' coil, with cylindrical metal ends - wrapped around the group of five. Closing his eyes in concentration, he brought the two metal ends together and with a brief flash of light the five had vanished from the balcony level of the Dark and Light Club, where Holyrood Carp was just beginning his first song.
The group had expected to arrive in the cargo hold of a ship, and technically they did, although the experience wasn't at all as any of them had expected. For one thing, the ship's floor was canted at a 30-degree angle, causing everyone to fall over; only Alistair managed to keep his balance and remain upright. But more importantly, although this was indeed the cargo hold of a sailing ship - as evidenced by the curve of the walls, they were either at the very fore or very aft of the ship's lower deck - it was empty of all cargo. If the crate containing the petrified form of a frost barbarian had ever been on this ship (and if this was indeed even the right ship), it was no longer in evidence.
Ageratum scooted around on her bottom and pulled a sunrod from her pack. Activating it, they were able to more clearly see their predicament: there was an open doorway on the wall currently lower than the other walls, due to the ship apparently being at an angle, and in the room beyond the doorway were five creatures best described as "fish-men." The bottom section of this tilted room was covered in water, and there was a hole in the side of the ship through which one of these fish-men was passing a small crate - much too small to hold the statue of a frost barbarian, but a good indicator of where the rest of the contents of the cargo hold had been taken: out the hole in the ship's side and into the seawaters beyond.
Seeing the waters that filled the bottom of the room toward which they were currently canted, and the waters beyond the hole, Ageratum swallowed down the contents of her potion of water breathing. Without a word, Alistair did likewise and helped Chaevaris right herself. Harlan, however, had teleported in right by the open doorway and when he lost his balance he fell through the doorway. Fortunately, he had snagged the side of the door frame and was now hanging by his hands with the rest of his body in the room with the fish-men. One of the aquatic creatures noticed the paladin and gave notice to its associates in some garbly language. One of the fish-men ran up the slope of the floor and bit at Harlan's legs with a row of surprisingly sharp teeth; if these "fish-men" were patterned after any particular type of fish, a piranha would not have been a bad guess.
Boris had landed at the side of the open doorway after his spill and was now busily wrapping the thieves' coil back up around his left hand and elbow, his attitude seemingly that of "fighting off those fish guys is your job, not mine." Harlan kicked off his attacker and pulled his way back into the cargo hold, got to his feet, and pulled his flaming burst longsword from its scabbard; the light from the flames gave off more desired illumination in the darkened hold. But the paladin stood his ground, making himself the first obstacle if these fish-men wanted to get to any of the others on his team.
Chaevaris fired off an arrow that went streaking past Harlan's shoulder to bury itself into the head one of the other fish-men; Ageratum finished it off with a thrown kobold spear striking the same creature's stomach. It fell over on its side and floated in the water at the bottom of the ship's lower deck for a moment, before sinking below and out of sight. Alistair spoke the words to a magic missile spell and sent three missiles streaking from his fingertips to hit another of these fish-men, who buckled in pain after the attack but failed to die.
Another fish-man scrambled up the deck floor to try to get at Harlan, but the paladin's flaming blade came slicing across the creature's chest and torso, erupting in a blast of larger flame upon impact. Immediately, the tantalizing scent of fried fish filled the ship's hold as the fish-man fell backwards into the water, also quite dead. Another fish-man scrambled up the deck but was a bit more wary of Harlan's flaming blade; as a result, he avoided the dangerous weapon but was similarly unable to catch the paladin with its sharp teeth or wicked claws. But then Harlan fake-pounced in one direction, and when the fish-man dodged, his blade was there ready for it, skewering it through the stomach and burning its internal organs. It joined the other two fish-men in death.
Chaevaris shot another arrow into a fish-man, and once again a kobold spear thrown by Ageratum finished the creature off. Perhaps influenced by the scent of cooking fish, Alistair cast a scorching ray at the last remaining fish-man, burning him to a crisp.
Harlan, being the only one to have taken any damage in this initial skirmish, used his inherent ability to lay on hands to heal himself a bit, then cast a cure light wounds spell upon himself with a charge from his wand. "We ready?" he asked the others, as he drank down the contents of his potion of water breathing. Boris nodded his assent, the thieves' coil now once again in a loop at his belt, and those who hadn't already done so drank down their own potions. Alistair was secretly pleased that Oleg wouldn't be getting any of these potions back after the mission; it was a petty thought but an entertaining one nonetheless.
Sliding down the canted floor was the easiest way to get to the hole in the side of the ship. Ageratum went first, cautiously poking her head and her sunrod through the hole. Underwater, she could see, at the very edge of the sunrod's illumination, another fish-man or two lugging crates and heading for an underwater cave. Alistair ducked through the hole beside her and was surprised to see if he stood up his head was above water. There were two beaches ahead, each before a cliff that met at the top; the underwater cave entrance was between them. A bonfire was blazing at the top of the rightmost cliff, its light quite brilliant in the night air.
If the group wanted to retrieve that crate with the petrified frost barbarian, there was nothing else to be done but follow the fleeing fish-men. The group ran along the bottom of the sea, giving chase to the slower-moving fish-men burdened by heavy cargo. Both groups had made it into the cave, inside which was a grotto of sorts with a section of cave to the left that was above the water's surface; a few other fish-men were busy stacking up the crates of various sizes when Ageratum caught up to one of the ones still in the water. She stabbed at it with her silver short sword, causing it to drop its crate and fall over to the side, dead. Alistair, mindful that his magic missile spell hadn't been powerful enough to slay a fish-man with one strike, opted to point his wand at another fish-man and send off a barrage of not three magic missiles (all he could manifest on his own at present) but five. He was pleased to see that a blast of five missiles from the wand was indeed powerful enough to slay a fish-man in one fell swoop.
Two of the land-bound fish-men jumped into the water to attack these interlopers, and one took a swipe at Ageratum with its claws, but the nimble halfling handily dodged the attack. As Harlan and Boris ran to catch up, Chaevaris stopped her own advancement just long enough to send an arrow into the fish-man attacking Ageratum. It looked in shock over at Chaevaris, not having expected an attack from so far away, and that was all Ageratum needed to finish it off with a stab of her silver blade.
Alistair used up another charge on his wand and slew another fish-man as he leaped into the water; yet another fish-man made it safely into the waters and tried attacking Agertaum with teeth and the claws on all four limbs, but the nimble halfling avoided all of its attacks, much to the aquatic being's annoyance. Harlan waded up and tried slashing out at the creature, but he wasn't as fast underwater as he was on dry land and the fish-man likewise avoided the sword-strike. It was interesting to see his flaming sword didn't actually have flames along its blade while underwater, but the string of bubbles following in the blade's wake indicated there was as much heat there as normal, causing the surrounding water to boil. But then Chaevaris killed the aquatic beast with a well-placed arrow to the back of its head when it was concentrating on Harlan.
Ageratum waded up onto the shore of the cave and threw a kobold spear at one of the landbound fish-men, which stood on two humanoid legs. The spear hit a glancing blow, causing the piscine creature to hiss in anger. But then Alistair slew it with another blast from his wand. He followed the little halfling onto the shore, glad to be out of the water. He was also glad he'd left Ambrose at home, for the grackle likely would not have made the underwater trek with his master.
Three more fish-men approached from the back of the cave, each armed with a longspear giving them plenty of reach. One stabbed the tip of his spear at Ageratum, but had no luck in skewering her as it had hoped to do. Harlan charged up onto land, facing twin spears (one of which gashed him in the side as he approached) to bring his longsword - now once again sporting flames along the length of its blade after having left the water - slicing into one of the aquatic spearmen. It dropped its longspear and crashed to the stone floor of the cave, dead.
Chaevaris stepped fully out of the water and slew another of the spearmen with an arrow to the throat. Ageratum hit another fish-man with a thrown spear, Alistair tried to finish it off with a cast magic missile spell, but it stubbornly hung onto life. But it did at least back off, heading further into the cave where there was a small pool of brackish-looking water. It dove in and disappeared to safety; none of the intruders was particularly interested in slaying every one of these fish-men they saw, so much as driving them away so they could examine the contents of the chests and crates brought over from the partially-sunken ship.
The crate the fish-men had dropped in the water just before the shore was too small for it to contain the statue the group was interested in; nonetheless, out of curiosity more than anything else, Boris pried open the top of the crate and discovered it was full of apples. Snorting in disgust, he waded onto dry land and started examining the larger crates stacked there.
With the fish-men either dead or having fled, the five all spread out and started examining crates; Boris seeking a particular marking on the outside, the others by the more labor-intensive method of prying open the crates. The cargo they unearthed was quite varied, consisting of dried biscuits, suits of chain mail, and a small chest of pearls, before Harlan discovered a statue of a barbarian woman. He called the others over, thinking this might be the statue they sought. "I say!" declared Alistair. "I had rather assumed the frost barbarian statue we sought was a male."
"Is correct: we want statue of barbarian lord," replied Boris, speaking in the same accent and curt manner as Oleg; they likely came from the same foreign country. Then, realizing what he'd just voiced aloud, he added, "Oops - not supposed to know that." But that recalled Oleg's warning about Boris being a traitor, which Alistair surreptitiously passed on to the others via whispered conversations as they continued checking out crates. Ageratum placed herself off of crate-opening detail - much of them were much taller than she was in any case, making the process somewhat problematic for the three-foot-tall halfling - and onto "watching Boris" detail, so she could see if he started doing anything suspicious, like perhaps forgetting to bring them along when it came time to teleport back to the Dark and Light Club.
Chaevaris cracked open another crate to find rather damp furs inside, when there was a bubbling noise from the waters behind them. Alistair looked over from the crate of arrows he'd just opened, and Harlan, having just discovered a crate filled with small barrels of beer, did likewise. Rising up from the water stood a humanoid form, standing some nine feet tall with glistening skin like that of a newt or salamander. It had a mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth and claws of equal concern, which looked to be able to disembowel a man with one blow. "I believe that's a scrag!" Harlan called out to the others, dropping the lid to the crate of beer barrels and stepping in front of the others, once again offering himself up as the first line of defense. "Fire and acid works best!" he added, swinging his flaming blade back and forth before him in an effort to ward off the scrag.
The scrag, however, was not to be dissuaded from attacking these delicious, living morsels before it. Seeing it move towards Harlan, Alistair gave it a blast from his wand only because he already had it in hand, but vowed to send a few scorching rays at the beast to see how he liked being burned alive. It did not appreciate being shot at with magic missiles, in any case.
Chaevaris sent an arrow across the cave and into the scrag's throat, but it just plucked it out and cast it aside as if it had been little more than an irritation. Ageratum decided the scrag was more than she wanted to deal with in a hand-to-hand fight and continued prying open the little crate she'd seem, pleased beyond belief when she saw it filled with bloodstones. She gave a glance over at Boris to make sure he wasn't up to anything nefarious, but he was still examining the outer markings on the larger crates, apparently looking for a secret rune or glyph or something.
Alistair sent a scorching ray blazing from his fingertips, but it struck the ground before the scrag due to a bit of nervous targeting. "Blast!" scowled Alistair, which was exactly what he had not managed to do to the aquatic troll. But the blast of flame at least put the scrag into motion, for it charged forward at Harlan, raking him with a set of powerful claws. Fortunately for the half-elf paladin, his plate mail armor took the brunt of the attack, and he was able to retaliate in kind with a slash of his flaming blade. He was pleased to see the scar he opened across the creature's chest did not heal over, as the hole from Chaevaris's arrow had done. But just as he thought that, the elven archer sent another arrow burying itself into the scrag's side; it might not hurt the creature as much as fire or acid did, but it might at least slow it down some.
Alistair cursed aloud when another scorching ray went sizzling just past the scrag's head, failing for a second time to connect. Fuming, the sorcerer vowed to return to his magic wand; magic missiles, at least, never failed to hit their targets. But then Boris gave a cry of delight - he'd apparently found the crate they were seeking. Ageratum saw him starting to uncoil the silk rope from his belt and headed over his way.
The scrag continued his attack against Harlan - who had conveniently put himself in harm's way for that very reason - bending down and biting into the paladin's shoulder. Once again, the half-elf's armor took the brunt of the assault. But then Harlan channeled positive energy into his sword, recognizing the scrag as a source of evil. His next sword-strike seemed to stagger the bandy-legged beast, who staggered back a step from the force of the blow. Chaevaris shot another arrow into it and to her surprise, that was the straw that broke the camel's back: with a moan, the scrag fell backwards onto the stone floor of the cave grotto. With a look of determination, Harlan stepped forward to sever the creature's head with his flaming burst longsword - surely that would prevent the beast from rising back up.
"Over here, guys!" Ageratum called. "Boris found the crate with the right markings!" They helped lug the crate away from the others, to an open space on the cave floor. "Is right marking," Boris said, pointing to a shape painted on the top corner of one of its sides. He was laying the thieves' coil in a circle on the floor around the crate.
"Not so fast, there," reprimanded Alistair. "Let's make sure we have the right statue after all - no sense in having to come back if we grab the wrong one." Boris shrugged and stepped back, allowing Alistair to pry open the crate with his dagger. It was, in fact, a statue of a male frost barbarian, but Alistair noticed an unusual detail: the man's left hand was out at his side, palm to the back. "Let me check that female statue again," he said, returning to the other statue they'd unearthed earlier. Sure enough, the woman had her right hand off to the side, with her palm facing forward. Alistair was pretty sure if they were placed side by side, they'd have been holding hands.
"Help me lug this one over by the other," Alistair said to the others. "We're taking them both."
"That not part of plan," argued Boris.
"Yeah, well, the plan's changing a bit," replied Ageratum. "We're not in any particular danger now that we've fought off the beasties, so we're going to open up the rest of these crates and see what's what." Boris wasn't particularly pleased with the delay, but he held his tongue. In Ageratum's mind the delay was well worthwhile, though, as one of the unopened crates was filled with amber. And as long as the thieves' coil teleported everything it was wrapped around, with a little squeezing together, they could fit all five of the people on the mission, the two crates of statues, and the smaller crates of amber, bloodstones, and pearls - especially when the latter three smaller crates were stacked on top of each other with the little halfling perched on top.
"Another change," added Alistair. "You won't be piloting on the way home. Hand it over." He held out his hand to accept the ends of the thieves' coil.
"You don't know how it works," countered Boris.
"I saw you do it," Alistair counter-counterpointed. "And I know I trust myself to get us to the right destination more than I do you. No offense." Boris scowled, but when he saw Harlan's unsheathed longsword spouting flames and ready for action, he bit his tongue and handed the ends of the rope over to Alistair. The sorcerer examined each of the ends, saw how they fit together, and noticed an arcane rune on the top edge of one end, alongside a burned-out one that hadn't been burned out back at the Dark and Light Club. Apparently the thieves' coil held charges, like a wand, and was good for only so many uses. Placing a finger over the unblemished rune, Alistair closed his eyes and concentrated on the balcony of the Dark and Light Club. With a flash of light, they were suddenly gone from the cave and back where they had started.
Oleg, Macrell, and Holyrood were there to greet them. "Mission successful?" Oleg demanded, frowning in puzzlement at the pile of crates when he had only expected the one.
"Quite," replied Alistair, pulling the silk rope back into a loose pile and handing it back to Boris. "These two are yours, the smaller ones are ours. Now then, about our payment...?"
Oleg examined the statues and handed over four bags of coins. "As we agreed," he grunted, then motioned for some of his men to start lugging away the crates bearing statues.
"Let's not forget my cut," pointed out Macrell. "I get 25% off the top."
"For what?" demanded Alistair, appalled at the very notion. "You did nothing!"
"On the contrary, I was the one who put you in touch with Oleg here. It's because of my contacts that this mission even went down in the first place."
"Pshaw!" scoffed Alistair. "It was because of Ageratum's notoriety - thanks to my songwriting skills and Holyrood's excellent performance - that Oleg wanted her involved in the first place. I posit your involvement added nothing to the equation."
"Is that the way you want to play it?" snarled Macrell, not liking being cut out of a quick and effortless profit. "You really think you want me as an enemy?"
"Please, please," interjected Oleg, happy now that the crates were hammered back together and being lugged off by his men. He held out a fifth bag of coins, handing it over to Macrell. "Here is your cut: 25 percent of payment to others. Now everyone happy, yes?"
Macrell snapped up the pouch and peered inside it, mentally estimating the value of the coins inside. "Fine," he grumbled, leaving the group in a huff.
Alistair turned to Holyrood Carp. "Alas, this rescue mission of ours forced us to miss your performance," Alistair said. "How did it go?"
"Very well indeed!" enthused the bard. "They loved the new song about Chaevaris. You guys are getting a lot of good publicity out of these, and I'm getting very grateful audiences. Here: a portion of tonight's earnings." He gave seven gold coins to Alistair, who thanked him and dropped them into the sack of coins Oleg had given him.
"Then I will bid you a pleasant evening," Alistair said. "I, for one, wish to get out of these damp clothes." He shook the bard's hand, nodded to Oleg, and lifted one of the smaller crates of gems. Harlan and Chaevaris each hefted another one, and then the four heroes returned to their horses and wagon, where Ambrose greeted his master. The trip back to the Stout farmhouse was uneventful.
- - -
Dan went through several changes when designing this adventure; apparently it was originally going to involve the pirates at sea who stole the cargo from the ship originally carrying the frost barbarian, hence the punny "Arrr" in the adventure's title. The fish-men were skum, the transformed servants of an aboleth (who was on the other side of the passageway through the "pool of brackish water" and would likely have killed us all had we been foolish enough to abandon our primary goal to follow the wounded skum back to its master). And we would have played through this adventure a week earlier, but Dan hadn't finished the maps. (He and his family had traveled to another state over the Christmas break.)
We each earned enough XP from this adventure to send us to 6th level. Each player opted to advance another level in the same class their PC already has; I don't think any of us are interested in multiclassing or taking on any prestige classes in this campaign.
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