We set off from the ship and leave the two 2nd level warriors, Jacks, Riggs, and the seven commoner crew and go to the keep. The idea is that instead of going in guns blazing we have the idea to pose as envoys of the mayor to whomever is guarding the keep. Maybe we can bust in, kill the figureheads, and take over/loot/something.

Approaching the keep, we can see that some orcs are guarding a gate. As we approach, discussing how we are going to handle the orcs, we decide on a sneak attack would probably be best. And then we see that the entire area around the keep has been cleared for what seems like a mile or more. So much for sneaking.

Plan B hits me like a crossbow bolt: let’s just walk up there and talk our way in, get a view of what we are getting in to as far as defenses, and then fight our way through whatever is inside. While not necessarily one of my best strategic moments, we are not getting in any other way. Maybe we can pretend to be mercenaries there to join up. That cover seems a little bit better than just walking in. So, we stroll up to the keep.

Approaching the gate, the orcs seem surprised to see us. However, they entertain talking to us at least. A lot of our questions are met with some variety of the answer, “Balls.” The orcs are not interested in letting us in at all; we need to come back later when the boss is in. Because my plan is taking too long, Sven is getting frustrated and tired of talking to these orc dopes, so they start trading insults. I tell ’em they need to come down and open the door, and we can trade insults face-to-face. For some strange reason, the one I am talking to agrees and open the gate. Meanwhile, the other orcs are not having any of it, so one of them decides to fire a crossbow bolt or two at us, missing me but hitting Sven. Just as the gate opens, the bolt connects with Sven, who goes into a bloodlust rage and proceeds to scale the wall. I take that as the cue that our cover is about to be blown and proceed to gut the orc who opened the gate in front of me, and we charge forth!

Our momentum is great! We roll in and take on the orcs within the walls, and they fall like wheat to a scythe. The raging barbarian is having some trouble up on the parapet with his orc; however, those of us in the courtyard are faring much better, and orc bodies litter the area. Oddly enough, we kill the remaining orcs in the courtyard while Sven is still busy working on his original orc and another that had joined in.

Taking stock, within the walls of the keep, a very large, high, wooden platform has been constructed that connects with the walkway of the surrounding wall. A large well sits in the middle of the keep with a very large winter wolf chained to it, which a pair of trolls seem to be beating. We notice some orcs from another wall rushing over to the platform to make ready to fire on us. We decide the best course of action is to save the wolf, and to do so, we needed to distract the trolls. Therefore, it seemed to make perfect sense to throw some alchemist fire on the huge wooden platform and turn it into a giant pyre!

The battle with the trolls commences, with Sven joining myself, Miranda, and Rundazuk in the melee. While we are fighting, the wolf, even in its weakened condition, decides to come to our aid and also attack the trolls. The trolls decide they have had enough of the wolf and throw it into the pyre, where it gets caught behind some of the huge poles that hold up the platform. Rundazuk, fearing for the life of the wolf, leaps through the flames and slowly-collapsing platform and successfully pulls the wolf out through the other side, leaving both the wolf and Rundazuk barely alive.

Meanwhile, we keep slashing away at the trolls. With magic and sword, we dropped one, but he would not stay down for long before getting back up. Sven, still raging, decided to grab one of the trolls and grapple with it. They struggled against one another until the grapple ended up in the pyre, where both of them burned. Sven was able to roll free of the pyre just as the platform came crashing down, killing the troll within and burning it to ash. While Sven’s brawl went on, Miranda and I were able to keep the other troll down; we ended up throwing its corpse on the pyre to let it burn to ash also.

A couple of orcs got away, but we were battered enough not to pursue them. Cleaning up the battle involved policing the bodies and healing the burned Sven, Rundazuk, and the winter wolf. We burned the corpses after stripping them of anything of value. A short hour’s work later found Sven, Rundazuk, and the winter wolf healed enough that they decided to strike out to go and warn the other winter wolves that were part of the wolf’s clan and, if possible, bring back a huge number of wolves to meet the monster army that was bound to return to the keep. Thus, Sven and Rundazuk rode off on the back of a dire winter wolf to go somewhere and summon the Natural Army of the Wolf… or to be eaten by a larger pack of winter wolves. (Of course, Mini-pygma went with them, too.) Either way, they took off and left us to check out the rest of the keep and the mine.

In checking around the grounds and areas of the keep at the courtyard level, we found two barracks each full of ten peasants each. Notably, we also found an elven paladin/rogue of Sharess being held in a solitary cell. Her name is Jeex. She wears a plate mail bikini and wields a rapier. She told us she was being held captive and would like to accompany us. Of course, given that Sven and Rundazuk had taken off, we could use another sword. Giving her gear back to her, we released the rest of the commoners to their fate, also. We informed them that their was an army approaching the keep overland that was a day or better away from the keep, and that this army was between them and Marikest. Have fun!

We decide to take off through the mine to see what we can find. Going through the mine, the three of us kill a tentacle beast/chaos monster after having the paladin turn/destroy a large skeleton. The chaos monster infected Miranda with some sort of “chaos affliction”, or so the paladin’s trained eye tells me. Luckily, in the creature’s lair, we found several magical and divine scrolls and a couple of gems. One of the scrolls was restoration, which we used to cure Miranda.

Finding a dead end, we proceeded to the left side of the mine from the entrance and ran into a room filled with giant purple mushrooms. I decided rather than risk some more infection or something worse, we should use one of the scrolls. Unfurling the summon monster VI scroll, I summoned a fire elemental! We release the fire elemental on the mushrooms, which it makes short work of. We order the fire elemental onward! Destroy all of our enemies! The fire elemental charged forth and destroyed everything it came across, and we hurried after it.

Eventually, the fire elemental came into the chamber with the hundreds (400) of skeleton miners. We ordered the elemental into the chamber (but did not follow it). With its last burst of energy, it poured flame down upon the chamber inhabitants, washing away the undeath and leaving behind a wake of ash. Unfortunately, the spell’s duration had run its course, and fire elemental gated back home, leaving behind a substantial number of skeletons who were now intent upon killing something.

Thankfully, we had Jeex along. I had always heard about cleric’s divine abilities to destroy undead and cleanse the world of both holy and unholy things, so we sent her in. With no vested interest in her well-being, it seemed the best idea.

Best of all, sending her in there worked! She did some sort of strip tease dance/hymn/hip gyration/orgasm and destroyed the remaining skeletons. It almost made me a believer. Almost.

With the chamber covered in the dust and ash of hundreds of skeletons, and the entire top-level of the mine clear of beasties, I went out to the ship through the passageway to the river and gathered up the crews of Sven’s longboat and the pinnace. Instructing them into the mine, we had them pull as much in the way of uncut gemstones and whatever else they could find out of the mine using the carts and such the skeletons were using. Meanwhile, Miranda and I went about the rest of the mine searching the rooms we originally ran through for any worthwhile bits. All in all, a majority of the horde was hauled back to the pinnace. When we were finished looting as much as we could, I gathered the men from the pinnace and had them “close it up” as much as possible so no one could easily board. We left the longboat’s crew behind with the ships, and the rest of us headed back to the keep to make camp and wait for Rundazuk, Sven, and the winter wolf to return.

Leaving Marikest once more, we travel up river toward the keep again. Sven decides he needs his own longboat and comes with one and crew. On the trip upriver, we encounter a couple of skiffs with men, refugees from an attack on their ship on the river. Miranda and I decide it would be best if we pulled them in with our own crew. Thus, we added a few more common sailors, Jacks, Riggs, Thoradin, and Kai to the crew. With the rowers we rescued and crew we formed, we make good time.

It takes us one day of traveling to reach the entrance to the mine entrance up the river again. We reach it by nightfall. We set up watches. First watch with Miranda and Boz goes well. My watch with Griff we spot a sea witch. I watch her limp and stumble along the shore while Griff fumbled across the deck (not so silently) to awaken Miranda and the rest of the fighting crew. Myself, Sperry, Boz, Wallace, Griff, and the others all take aim at her and fire at her as she submerges into the water. Once she comes up, climbing up the prow, all of Sperry, Boz, Wallace, and Griff charge the witch. She is so horrifying that Thoradin (a new dwarven cleric), Miranda, and a couple of the pressed 2nd level warriors go very weak. Kai, on the other hand, died of fright. That is all she does before Sperry and company hack her to death with falchion and bastard sword. She dies. Hooray! The rest of the night goes quietly.

[There are many different threads running through this day’s dispatch. Not all of the information in them were presented to the party immediately. For readability’s sake, though, they have been organized as they happened. Things that happened out of order are surrounded by square brackets.]

As morning arrives, Sergeant Sperry informs me that Biff has disappeared and nothing remains of his equipment. He apparently did not tell anyone where he was going, what his intentions were, what his beefs were, did not submit a formal resignation, nothing.

Dav has decided he is growing bored with the idea of being in our party and requires payment of some sort or he will leave. Apparently we did not appreciate him enough for his work at turning one of the crew into a zombie (that we later set fire and used as an ineffective flaming missile that we launched against our watery attackers). In negotiating that he stay, he says that he will stay on and that he will also go and spy on the mayor for us in the interim (since he has some shadow magic abilities of some sort) if we will fetch him a warded book from the local library. This book is titled Ahm Dakir Fahlan. Not being able to decipher the title, we agree just to keep him on board.

With our information from dead fishman from the previous evening and Dav’s book request, we decide to go to the administrative district where a library and scholars can be found. Hopefully I can find someone to knit together at least some of this information.

[Thibul, who is still on the ship and invisible, overheard our negotiation about keeping Dav in the party that he needs a warded book in the library of Marikest.]

As we are leaving the ship and walking the streets to the district, both Miranda and I catch sight of Thibul rather indiscreetly following us. So, I start walking toward him with a mind of giving him a damn good thrashing because, well, he’s supposed to be dead; he cheated us before, and now he has cheated death. Thibul sees me approach and decides to kiss some random man’s wife and start a scuffle. During the scuffle, he casts summon monster II and pulls forth a giant squid from the sky, which drops down into the street. The crowd forms around the squid, Thibul and his pseudo-brawl, cutting myself and Miranda off from Thibul, leaving us on the periphery of the masses. A riot is slowly starting to form. I decide to go to the library and lose Miranda in the crowd; she takes off after Thibul, who is artfully disengaging himself from the situation. While making my way to the library, I pull in the occasional passer-by and tell them about how Thibul the Great conjured a kraken in the middle of the street that is killing people by the tentacle-full; maybe the crowd or the guards could bring Thibul closer to death’s sweet embrace and save me the trouble.

[Thibul escapes into a rowdy bar, where he charms the bartender into thinking he is hired help. He works as hired help for 15 minutes or so before escaping out the back, making himself a 9 cp tip in the process. Upon escaping, because Thibul overheard that Miranda and I were heading to the library for a book, he also heads to the library. Miranda loses track of Thibul and eventually finds her way through the crowd and, too, goes to the library.]

I arrive at the library. Wandering around, I find no book anywhere by the title. The library is not huge, but the organization system is either haphazard or inscrutable. Talking to the librarian, I talk him into finding me the book and paying the “expedite fee” of 20 silver pieces for getting him to find it before the afternoon. He tells me to return around 4 o’clock. Given that I had several hours, I leave and head outside to the surround, where random scholars, sages, and soothsayers gather for their intellectual salons, chess-playing, and what have you. Maybe someone knows something about the dead fishman’s info?

As I’m leaving, I narrowly miss Thibul in the crowd. Miranda appears and sees both Thibul and me, so she comes over and informs me. We decide we are going to approach again. As we approach, Thibul, in need of a weapon, attempts to pick the pocket of a scholarly gentleman nearby… and fails; he picks the guy’s pocket and gets a dagger, but the guy notices. Thibul attempts to talk his way out of the situation, but in a moment of … I don’t know what, Miranda decides to come to his aid and helps him bluff his way out of it. Thibul retains the dagger.

I come over and, pulling my sword, demand the dagger and want to know why he is still alive. Thibul gives me the dagger; my rather persuasive argument of calling the guards and fingering him as the man who summoned the squid and starting the dockside riot works well. He relates the tale of how he turned invisible, subdued Biff and disguised Biff to replace him aboard ship, and escaped to the hold. So Biff was killed and turned into the zombie by Dav. With that mystery solved, Miranda decides we should keep Thibul around, and we press on to find answers to the other mysteries.

For the dead fishman’s info, the academics in the area tell us to seek out a couple of old codgers, Sallen and Bogen, who are two learned men who seem to know at least something about the dead fishman’s information. We find them at their houses in another part of town. Sallen tells us Blibdoolpoolp is the god of the kuo-toa and Splech-phbbt is the sahaugin. So the sahaugin are the ones who reside outside the eternal flame. The ones we encountered looked like a cross-breed between sahaugin and kuo-toa. Sallen confirms that the sahaugin have not been here in a decade, and the intonation of the word implies that the sahaugin was somehow inclusive of the group. Sahaugin, according to Sallen, have migrated to some other area, apparently according to Bogen’s theory of the salmon migration. However, we didn’t get any information about the kuo-toa. Miranda and Thibul decide to leave and hit a tavern for beers while I sit and listen to Bogen provide another hour’s worth of lecture on his theory about salmon migration patterns in the area. Once Bogen concludes, I ask him if he knows of a linguist that could translate a book title for me. He does, and he can take me to this person. It so happens that Thibul and Miranda arrive back from their beers just in time to join Bogen and I for a walk to the linguist’s house.

We arrive at the linguist’s house. This person seems either unable to spell or unfamiliar with the words as we pronounce them. So, I decide to write the words in the dust on his floor to make it easier and get the conversation moving along. As it turns out, though the linguist cannot decipher it, Thibul casts comprehend languages and immediate knows the meaning. After forcing an apology out of us, he tells us Ahm Dakir Fahlan means “On Demon Summoning”. Thus taking three hours of academic searching/chatting/etc. and wiping it out in 10 seconds. We leave the sage’s house and return to the library.

We decide to split, with Miranda and Thibul to go to a shoddy pirate bar and I head back to the administrative district to wait for 4 o’clock and the library. Once I get to meet with the librarian, he tells me he can find the book on the library’s registry; however, he cannot obtain the book. Somehow, he is physically incapable of doing so. He wants to take the matter up with the head librarian, who works at home, so he wants to go visit him after the library closes. I give him 20 sp on top of the 20 sp I gave him before and go outside to wait for 5 o’clock when the library closes. While outside I sit around, play chess, and speak with the historians about the state of the sahaugin and kuo-toa that have been around in the area. Apparently, they have fought many wars and within the last 10/13/15 years the sahaugin have disappeared and the kuo-toa have kept quiet. However, recently, the kuo-toa have made a few appearances. An hour passes.

[While at the bar, Miranda and Thibul decide that retrieving Dav’s book has taken too long, so they are going to break into the library and steal it. Thibul will break into the library from above, and Miranda will just walk in and start sneaking around searching for tunnels. Miranda whisks inside, sneaks around, gets lost, and cannot seem to find the book or any place that could be hiding one.

Thibul decides he is going to break into the library by climbing to the roof and somehow entering from there. So, he climbs the side of the building, gets caught. He charms the man who catches him and tells him to stay near the rope and tell anyone that passes by that he is part of the public works department doing a safety test of the roof. So, the man obliges and tells anyone walking by the area, in a loud voice, that they shouldn’t worry, and that the public works department is checking the safety of the library. “Our tax dollars at work,” and all that rot.

Meanwhile, Miranda, sensing the book is present in the library but being unable to locate it, takes the librarian hostage and, putting a dagger to his back, demands to be taken to the head librarian. She escorts the man out at dagger point.]

And finally, when the librarian emerges from the library, I see Miranda walking behind him. Once they pull up, I inform them that I had already asked the man to take us to the head librarian and that there was no need for this dagger point business. Calling Thibul down from the roof, we go to the head librarian’s estate.

Upon arriving at the estate, the librarian gets us past the guards of the estate gate and into the grounds proper. I decide to go to the front door and knock. In the meantime, Miranda and Thibul decide to find a servants’ entrance and enter through there.

I go and knock at the door and ask to speak to the head librarian as I have a previous appointment (or at least that’s what I say). The maid let’s me in and tells me to make myself at home. Soon the maid disappears. And once she is gone, I disappear and pick my way around the mansion.

Meanwhile, Miranda and Thibul have found the service entrance and, once inside, disguise themselves. Thibul disguises himself as a pregnant servant woman and Miranda is the midwife. Apparently Thibul is going to birth a backpack.

As I’m making my way down a hall, I hear their voices in a kitchen screaming with another servant about how they can “see the crown” and “feel it coming,” etc. I immediately find my way away from that area of the mansion. Once the servants that discovered my compatriots are sufficiently convinced to go after hot water and sheets for the new backpack that’s a-comin’, they strip off their disguises and spirit themselves into the mansion. They run into me while I’m going down the second of three hallways of rooms.

While looking through a study with some journals of the head librarian’s I decide to lift, the head librarian comes in. The elderly man demands we all leave his estate immediately. Thibul decides to charm him. While charmed, we get the head librarian to give up his keys and tell us that a misdirection spell has been placed on the table that is holding the book, so no one can actually locate the book in the library. We deduce that we can use locate object to locate the table and then actually locate the book. So, we head back to the library with the keys in hand to do just that.

We make it back to the library before the awful beasties that roam the streets arrive and lock ourselves in for the night. Using some spells, we are able to locate the book and obtain it from the table it sits upon. We actually have to divine the location of a table in a library in order to find a book on it. However, between Miranda and Thibul, they find it. At first, we were going to wait out the night in the library, but we decide against it and make our way back to Miranda’s pinnace.

Once more aboard the pinnace, we meet up with Dav and hand over the book. He proceeds to tell us that he has been watching the mayor at our request. However, he does not understand why we are bothering with all of this cloak and dagger since we already know the mayor is guilty. After discussing it for a few minutes, Miranda and I decide the best course of action is to use the night raids as a diversion that we can then use to make an attack on the mayor.

(more to com

Night passed okay. Entered the mine from an entrance located along the river. Encountered a mysterious halfling from the previous adventuring group sent by the mayor on the same mission. The halfling explains that there is a green, hairy, toothy, large one that controls the keep that is some sort of priest that controls the army of skeletons and zombies that continue to mine the area for gemstones. The mine itself is not exhausted. The green one has an agreement with the mayor of Marikest that allows the green one to raid the town for slaves to keep the undead workforce supplied with recruits. In return, the green one gives the mayor a cut of the profits from the mining operation. This is all according to the halfling. The halfling made us a map of the keep and how it is laid out, telling us there is a wolf chained to a pillar or well in the middle of the courtyard that they keep ill-fed.

We didn’t penetrate very far into the mine. It is of dwarven construction that has been around for several hundred years. When I was inside the mine poking about, it looked like some seismic shift of some sort had occurred. Not very far into the mine from our entrance/outlet along the river, there were hundreds of skeletons and zombies working along side slaves that were mining out a large area of the mine. We decide not to brave through the undead horde and left the mine.

The halfling decides that he does not want to go with us anywhere near the danger zone. However, he does want us to give him a ride back to the nearest port city in exchange for the information he gave us. So, Miranda and I decide to hire him as a cook as he says that he can cook for 5 cp/day. Taking him back to the ship to make sure the hirelings didn’t mistake him for a robber of some sort, we take him aboard to find that Dav, the hired necromancer/priest that we brought with us, has slit Thibul’s throat and turned him into a zombie! “It makes him a lot more useful,” Dav told us. No real thought from Dav as to how unsettling this might be for our new crew member, the halfling we now call Cookie, or our existing crew members/hirelings.

As dawn breaks, we are attacked!

Interrogating the dead aqua-fish-kuo-toan strike team leader:

1. Why did you attack us? We will kill all of those who reside outside the eternal flame.
2. Who sent you to attack us? Splech-phbbt (name of someone or something) and Blibdoolpoolp
3. Who are these people that sent you? Blibdoolpoolp is the eternal source. Splech-phbbt is the one that will perish the eternal flame.

Arriving back at Marikest yet again, Cookie disembarks and, despite our entreaties to keep him in our little group of misfits, leaves our party and disappears into the throng of the city. We stay on the ship for the rest of the evening.

After conversing amongst ourselves, and in speaking with the mayor about his plight with the city and the attacks, where he has lost, at last count, 639 people to the nightly raids, we decided we would take up his cause to go and investigate the Brightstone Keep, the mine near the keep, and the potential source of the nightly raids. While this doesn’t take us any closer to the south to find Whizzo, if we do happen to solve the mayor’s problem, there’s land, money, and whatever else he can promise to make the problem go away. And, quite frankly, I’m okay with that. And the 100 gold upfront is always a welcome addition to any deal.

Hired Thibul the Great, an illusionist, to cloak our ship since we are going to sail as far as we can upriver to reach the keep and mine. Turns out Thibul’s “real” name is Todd, and he attempted to steal gold from us on our sailing trip. He created an illusion of himself rowing, and then went invisible and sneaked away into the hold. Found him, talked him to death, and then strung him up near the top of the main mast upside down for a couple of hours. Of the gold he took from us, seven gp came from Dren, four from Miranda, and 18 from Rundazuk. When we moored the pinnace in the river outside of the mine, I gave him back the 18 from Rundazuk (since Rundazuk found the illusionist to start with, and Miranda negotiated a fee of 50gp with him for his illusion services). Since we couldn’t really trust Thibul, we decided to keep him tied to the main mast for the remainder of the journey with my men given the charge to keep an eye on him.

As dawn breaks, we pull into the docks at Marikest. Bidding Old Nayal and his pile of junk goodbye, we disembark to Marikest. Immediately, we take our charges to the mayor’s manor, who greets us and pays us for our “refugees” that we ferried from Semdrakaal. He asks us about a problem his town has been having and if we would be interested in helping him. He also gives us a writ that we can use to get supplies from the local businesses around town. We tell him we will consider his offer.

Dren spends night in mayor’s manor. The rest of the party heads out on the town to conduct business of their own, and I send my henchmen to accompany Sven and Miranda. The city is attacked during the night while the swashbuckler was out with Sven getting the writ from the mayor forged. My men accompanied Sven and Miranda to the tavern to meet the forger. While out in the back alley, the nightly raid commences. Miranda was attacked while out in the back alley killing the forger. Apparently an army raids the city regularly? Sperry provides me the following report upon his return to the mayor’s manor:

As instructed, we accompanied Sven and Miranda to a tavern in town as part of conducting their business. The tavern common room was crowded, and we lost sight of Miranda while Sven was distracting himself with drinking and carousing. As the alarm went up and the night raid was befalling the city, we became concerned as we could not locate Miranda. Informing Sven, we split up, with the men and I going out the front of the tavern while Sven went out through some back door; the commoners barred the tavern door behind us. We did not find any sign of her on the front street. However, I took note of the fires going on several blocks surrounding, with some ghastly, black-robed skeletons flying about. We proceeded to go ’round back to meet up with Sven and make for some sort of defense.

Rounding the corner of the building, we were about to proceed down the alleyway when we saw a great clamor going on at the back of the tavern: a skeleton flying above, a hunched humanoid figure running about, and at least one large orc trading blows with… someone. Immediately, I had the men form a firing line and they all drew crossbows and I my bow. I ordered volley fire down the alley. We fired five to six volleys, most missing their target. However, the final volley saw several bolts hit home and fell the orc, who must have absorbed at least five of our bolts while sustaining other injuries. Seeing the orc drop, we saw the hunched humanoid run past the alley opening at the far end, so we ran forward. Meeting no other resistance behind the tavern, we fired off a couple of ineffective volleys at the escaping humanoid.

The situation in the rear of the tavern saw a couple of dead orcs, a dead gnoll, a very bloody and near-death Sven, an injured Miranda, an injured gnome I have never seen before named Rundazuk (he said you would know him), and a dead civilian I did not recognize. No threat seemed to remain. Miranda instructed us to not worry about the dead here and that we should leave before reinforcements arrived. She decided we should split up: she and Sven would make for her ship that was drydocked, and we should make for that or some other safe haven. I decided to return with the men back to the mayor’s manor; we sneaked back and met little resistance, but saw many civilians being carried off by the marauders.

The men are requesting hazard pay for last evening’s altercation. I recommend further drills with the crossbows.

It seems the night was rather eventful. However, we got four good copies of the writ, which are worth 500gp of stuff apiece. Miranda killed the forger in the back alley. Rundazuk somehow caught up with us. And, apparently, if I want to keep my men with me longer, I am going to have to pay them something additional for surviving the raid because, it seems, surviving the raid is not good enough recompense.

Sailing, sailing, on to Marikest! This bilge pump is getting tiring, and any more whining from Sven about the lack of beer/rum/ale on this pinnace and I think I’ll gut him and throw him overboard. Between that and the bawdy ballad-singing and the “phantom” horn-playing, he may die by my own hand. However, Old Nayal assures me that we will be arriving at Marikest on the morrow and, should we not arrive, I’ll have plenty of help in killing Sven.

However, life has been otherwise quiet, in spite of Old Nayal’s crazy stories of “demons in the water” and such. While I’m not exactly a dwarf with sea legs, and I’m glad we’ve had no need to fight on this pile of junk, I am unconvinced regarding the potential dangers of the river. At least, until the sea monsters come after us, I’m not going to worry about nonexistent trouble nor go seeking it.

I get up and await the awakening of the rest of team. Sven eventually comes down. However, it appears that the gnome and the priest have decided that evaporating into thin air would be the best course of action and leave me with Sven to figure out the rest of this predicament. Fantastic. After breakfast, we head over the slavers to grab the cargo.

The slaver actually had everything ready. I was impressed with his thoroughness. We decided to not take the teamsters, but we would definitely take the four mercenary guards at 3sp per day and a trained regular to lead them for 6sp per day. I made it clear to all of them that we were heading to Marikest and that the journey was liable to be dangerous. The city itself was perilous and the journey was likely to be similar. They seemed okay with risking their necks, so I had Biff, Griff, Boz, and Wallace take charge of the slaves with Sperry Linder to lead them with orders to defend our charges all the way to Marikest. Payment would be their daily wage for the first day now with the rest to be paid at the end of the journey. They seemed all right with that.

Old Nayal’s ship, a pinnace, was rather much more like a sponge than a ship given the number of holes it had. He had found a crew to keep it sailing. In addition, some other woman decided to join our little journey to Marikest to pick up a ship she had there in dry dock. Old Nayal put all of us not helping to sail the ship in manning the bilge pump below deck, a round-the-clock operation for his ship.

I make my way back to the market district alone and tell Corel we accept his proposal. He hands me a sack of coins and a metal disc bearing his mark, which I am to take to a slaver holding pen on the other side of town to be presented with the slaves. I am to take the slaves to the mayor of Marikest, Gerard Esker, and accept the rest of our payment there. The sack of coin contains 250 gold pieces, which is practically a king’s ransom around here. I’d say that guarantees the job as far as I’m concerned.

I go back and pick up the rest of the crew and tell them that Corel had paid us a handsome retainer of 100 gold pieces and give them each their 25gp cut. I tell them I’m going to take Sven and go and pick up the cargo, and that they should go and get whatever supplies they think they will need.

Arriving at the slave pens on the other side of town, I tell Sven to wait outside while I go in and gather up the cargo. I show the marker disc to the handler and tell him I am here to pick up the merchant Corel’s cargo for transport. He has some handlers pull out a drag line of eight scruffy-looking men of assorted ages. I ask him if he has some men or can find some men that can help me with keeping these guys in line. The slaver tells me he can round up some men, so I tell him to have the men and cargo ready by the time I get back as I have some shopping to do. Sven comes in and notices that the peasants to be relocated are all in chains and he has an uneasy time believing me when I tell him that it is for their own protection. He asks the slaver about the best way to get to Marikest as far as going by road is concerned, and the slaver tells him that he has heard of bandits raiding among other problems with monsters and the like attacking Marikest and generally making a mess of things. As Sven and I leave, he suggests that we head to the docks and look for a way of bringing them by ship along the river. It’s probably the first… well, maybe second brilliant idea he has had in all the long years I’ve known him. I tell the slaver that depending on the price, I may still need a couple of teamsters in addition to the guards, and if he would make the arrangements for them, that would be excellent. He agreed and we left.

After a bit of shopping around the market area, we meet up with the rest of the gang and head over to the docks. In speaking with Old Nayal, an old man sailor there, he says we can seek passage on his ship so long as we either find a crew or are willing to crew the ship ourselves. Since we don’t have a single deckhand among us, I ask him if he can find some sailors of his own to hire and we’ll pay their wages in addition to the cost of passage so long as we can get underway immediately. He agrees that it is possible so long as we can find a mere 12 gold pieces to get us moving along. After much ruckus, I get the party off of his back and pay the entire cost out of my own pocket. Buncha damn cheapskates.

After paying Old Nayal, he tells me that it will take him the rest of the day to make preparations, so we will set sail tomorrow. The rest of the group breaks to go do their thing and we decide to kill time however until the next day when we set sail.

Per Merrick, the gnome went south of Semdrakaal. In speaking with a human merchant in the market district, I found out that the gnome is named Whizzo and that he hides the gem under his turban. The merchant’s name is Corel, and he wants me to meet him for dinner this evening in the hoity-toity part of town.

After setting up the sex worker priest inside the building with me, the gnome outside in a nearby alley, and the barbarian on a nearby rooftop, I went inside this fancy eatery to have a meeting with the merchant. Met with Corel at the faux Elven eatery where he proposes a business deal where myself and my companions take some of his cargo to the city of Marikest. Even though I tell him I won’t transport anything living or anything that will put up a fight, he proceeds to get into the finer nature of his business that keeps him profitable, and the nature of his cargo is related to the press gang activity.

His cargo, of course, is slaves. He assures me that due to their nature that they will give me little trouble, and that payment is dependent on the number of heads that make it to his client alive. He will be paid silver per head that makes the journey successfully, and that he will pay us a retainer to take the job of transporting his cargo. His retainer will cover our expenses upfront, and we will get paid the rest of our fee by the buyer upon delivery. Corel’s price per head is 300sp. I tell him that I will have to talk to my companions and that I will have a final word on the deal tomorrow. I’ll meet him at his shop.

With that, we all leave, head back to the Emerald Cutlass, and discuss the possibility of becoming slavers in order to make some money to further finance our trek across the countryside looking for a funny-looking gnome. Considering we are all broke or down-on-our-luck and looking for work, we decide to go for it. It took very little work, but I managed to convince Sven that we were just helping some peasants relocate.