Excerpted from the journal of Etaf Gerin
April 1, 1376 (The Year of the Bent Blade)
Today started on the Haptooth, like the previous few days, as
we wallowed our way from Waterdeep to Stillsquall. (Yes, “wallowed” – the Haptooth isn’t exactly a racing yacht.)
And like those other days, it started with an argument between Friar Francis
and Omiata. I tried to ignore most of it, but there’s only so much room on a
small boat.
“…but my son, how can you take
what is rightfully another’s possession? It’s against all the laws of
Lathlander!” The Friar had a good set of lungs, and wasn’t afraid to use them.
I could see Ahmed wince a little – I suppose being from the desert accustoms
one to quieter surroundings.
“Who’s to say what is ‘rightfully’
yours?” Omiata wasn’t afraid to argue, which I suppose spoke well for the Elf’s
intelligence and self-image, but I certainly wished he had less perseverance. I
was getting mightily tired of hearing the same argument over and over. “And
don’t tell me ‘Lathlander’ – when he speaks directly to me, I may listen, but
not before.”
I stifled a groan. That last
crack was sure to bring our other zealot into the mix. Unfolding himself to his
full 6’10” height, Helieos Ray towered over the rest of our small group as he
spoke in his deep, harsh voice from behind his mask. “Do not presume to speak
of Lathlander with disrespect, pilferer. You may not believe, but those who of
us do may wish to…educate…you.” Helieos was well-spoken for a half-orc,
probably due to his monk training, but the pause he put into the end of that
retort was pure barbaric threat.
“Pilferer? I am a rogue, you
overgrown…”
“Land ho!” Oh, thank Mystra!
The argument could wait – the lookout had spotted Stillsquall. I hurried
forward to get the best view, followed closely by my companions. Well, they
were sort of my companions – I mean, we just met on this boat, but at least we
were all heading to Stillsquall to talk to Magistrate Aurus, even if our
reasons differed. We had just naturally fallen into a group. Although keeping
the thief and Lathlander’s devout away from one another’s throats may not be
worth the trouble.
Stillsquall, even with the
best view on the Haptooth, was
unimpressive. A couple of piers, a small collection of warehouses and inns, and
the town proper beyond – with a lighthouse on the end of a peninsula that we
were passing on the way in. Ahmed asked the captain about the lighthouse, but
he seemed reluctant to speak about it. I pulled Ahmed back quickly, I had no
desire to see a fight with the captain on his own ship, and asked the question
myself. “Look, Captain, I realize there may been some history with that
lighthouse, but you’ll be on your way soon – could it hurt to give us a quick
rundown?”
The Captain didn’t seem overly
enthused, but he did open up enough to tell us that the lighthouse was known as
Deadlight Rock. Sailors spoke of ghostly lights that played among the
broken-down old building at night, and of adventurers who had gone to
investigate but never returned. Ahmed immediately asked how to get there, but
the Friar broke in. “We must assist the Magistrate first! The poor people of
this town will be without livelihood until the mines are reopened.”
Fortunately, before yet
another argument could break out, a sailor told us that a rowboat was ready to
take us to shore. Everyone piled into the rowboat, and the sailors began to
shove off, when I suddenly realized we were one person short. Literally.
“Where’s the dwarf?”
A quick search of the Haptooth found a snoring dwarf in the
hold. After a few attempts to shake him awake, I gave up and let Helieos kick
him a couple times. Suddenly the dwarf came awake, sprang to his feet, and
swung his huge axe threateningly. “Bad Axe!” I was suddenly very glad that I
hadn’t managed to wake him.
“Calm down,” grumbled the
half-orc. “We almost left without you. Now get moving.”
With that auspicious start, we
made landfall at Stillsquall. A guard met us as we came ashore, with the usual
questions about our business. He was fairly pleased to hear that we’d come to
help the Magistrate. He gave us directions to the town hall – not that we
needed them, as Ahmed had already managed to procure a map of the town from somewhere.
Magistrate Aurus was an older
man, with a huge white beard and a pleasant manner. He also was glad to see us;
he even offered us lunch while we talked. Never one to turn down free food, I
accepted, and we munched as he explained the situation. Apparently the local
town guard had its hands full, between people out of work from the mine
shutdown, bar fights, and wanted criminals. There was one particularly wanted
felon, the Grackle, who had apparently burned down a tavern recently. Aurus was
even more interested in capturing the Grackle than in solving the mining
problems for now. “After all, if I can’t maintain the peace, no one can work.
The Grackle is the highest priority, my friends. There is a handsome reward for
bringing him in – alive, preferably, as I would make an example of him.”
I assured Aurus that we had
every intention of helping him – not that I had a lot of choice. Damn Oahbe and
his manipulations! But I digress – Aurus had more to tell us. The town’s surviving
tavern, the Sandcrab, would be a good place to start looking for the Grackle.
We should be careful not to run afoul of the local Thieves Guild, who were
looking for the Grackle for their own reasons.
Upon hearing mention of a
tavern, Ahmed slipped away; to get a head start on the drinking, I later
learned. Meanwhile, the rest of us wrapped up lunch with the Magistrate, then
headed for the Sandcrab. As we walked, we noticed a dwarf sitting in an alley,
crying over an empty wineskin. I was ready to walk on past, but the others
stopped. I was too far to hear what happened exactly, but I saw Badaxe speak
with him, and then the Friar. Neither seemed to get any results. When Omiata
stepped forward and leaned over the dwarf in a clearly threatening pose, I
poised for action – the last thing we needed was a drunken dwarf fighting an
elf in broad daylight. But to all our surprise, the rogue handed over a few
coins, glinting with the bright wink of gold. They spoke for a moment, then
Omiata rejoined us.
“With a little…persuasion,
Gofi was very willing to talk. He says he saw the Grackle before the fire
started, loading something into a rowboat down by the docks under the Sandcrab.
Something that was handed down out of a southwest window from the tavern.” With
a sneer, he looked at Francis. “And Lathlander had nothing to do with getting that information.”
For the love of…”Let’s go
check out the Sandcrab,” I said hurriedly. “Quickly, while we may still be able
to find evidence.” I didn’t really think the evidence was going anywhere, but
avoiding another argument was well worth a little haste. With nothing more than
a few glares exchanged, we made it to the Sandcrab – where Ahmed was already
deep into a pint of ale. He’d already asked the bartender for news of the
Grackle, with no result, but had rented an upstairs room anyhow. With no other
immediate leads, we decided to go upstairs and discuss our next move.
Halfway up the stairs, we
heard a scream coming from an upstairs room! A young woman, from the sound – or
perhaps a horse, but that seemed unlikely in an upstairs inn room. I hesitated
for just a moment – and then the smell hit. No, make that Smell, it’s well
worth the proper case treatment. This was the kind of Smell you associate with
poorly maintained middens, with the old beggar that hasn’t washed in ten years,
with a dead skunk left unattended in the hot sun. It reached right up into your
nostrils and on up into the brain, and made itself at home right in the
retching control center. Which is what I did, for about the next 10 minutes –
waste of a perfectly good free lunch. Thus I missed all the action – so this
next bit is from what I heard later.
Apparently half-orcs have
strong stomachs, because Helieos went right up the stairs and into the room
where the scream had come from. Door? Sure, there was a door, but Helieos
treats doors like most people treat hand towels – use ‘em when you can, but
when you’re in a hurry, just keep on moving. He saw a girl in the middle of
climbing out the window, and one seriously strange-looking
creature that had apparently just been dumped out of a barrel in the
corner. The creature said, in pretty good Common, “I mean no harm!” Helieos
refrained from doing anything unrepairable, despite his (the creature’s) weird
looks and strangely twitching orifices. Meanwhile, some of the others (not me)
had recovered from the Smell, and Omiata and Badaxe went after the girl while
Francis approached the creature.
When asked, the creature was
more than willing to talk. He was a Flumph, a creature that naturally lived in
caves and generated the Smell when frightened. He and his family had been
living in the mines when the Grackle came and imprisoned them in crates, and
the other three family members had already been taken away. From bits and
pieces of conversation overheard by this Flumph, the others were on the Angelina, a ship in the
Meanwhile, the girl had been
caught, and Omiata and Badaxe learned that she was a Thieves Guild acolyte,
trying to make a name for herself by finding the Grackle. Before they could
question her further, the rest of us caught up to them (even me – the Smell was
finally gone), and in the confusion of filling everyone in, the girl slipped
away.
Ahmed found a small rowboat,
and we could see the Angelina in the
harbor, so we decided to head out and search the ship ourselves. Getting into
the rowboat was a challenge – most of us managed to not only fall off the dock,
but miss the boat entirely. Luckily the dwarf managed to land in the boat, and
he pulled the rest of us in. (In retrospect, I realized that there were stairs
just a little further down the dock that could have saved us a good amount of
embarrassment. But there was no need to tell everyone else that, was there?)
Getting to the Angelina took very little time – which
was a good thing, since the sailors appeared to be making ready to sail. We
climbed aboard using a rope dangling from the side. As we had made no attempt
at stealth (no point, with Helieos and Badaxe along), the captain was at the
rail to greet us. “How can I help you gentlemen? Looking for transport,
perhaps? We’re leaving on the tide, and I have very reasonable rates for
passage.”
There was an uncomfortable
pause, while we all looked at one another. More accurately, I looked around and
everyone else looked at me. Damn, guess I had to say something. “Ah, no thanks.
We’re actually in pursuit of a fugitive, known as the Grackle, and we believe
your ship may be carrying cargo that will assist us in hunting him down.”
The captain had some acting
skill, or he was genuinely shocked. “I assure you, I have nothing illegal on
board! Why, all I have is….”
We never heard what he had,
because at that moment two impressive shouts rang out. One came from about belt-level
somewhere behind me: “Bad Axe! Bad Axe!” The other shout was from behind us
near the tiller, where the huge half-orc mate roared “At ‘em, boys!” With a bit
of a lisp, I realized later – he must have been helping the Grackle earlier.
I spun around. The dwarf was
pointing to the other end of the deck, where a glance showed the Grackle creeping along the deck
toward the side! Badaxe may need some vocabulary enhancement, but there’s
nothing wrong with his eyes. In any other circumstances, we’d have been
ecstatic to have found our quarry. But at that moment, we were somewhat
occupied by the attack of half the sailor crew, following the half-orc mate’s
call to arms. It was a mutiny! The mutineers were more numerous than loyal
crew, who were as surprised as we were, as they leapt to the attack.
The next few moments were a
blur. Badaxe went after the half-orc mate. Helieos, Ahmed, and Francis attacked
mutineers that were coming for us. Omiata hung back, waiting for a chance to
sneak behind a foe for a backstabbing attack. I tried to help Badaxe with a Ray
of Frost, but in the confusion I missed the enemy entirely. The captain stood
dazed – apparently a mutiny wasn’t something he was prepared to handle. The
Grackle wasn’t idle either – he cut a line that unfurled a sail, and the ship
started to move.
It didn’t take long for us to
assert our superior fighting skills as adventurer against the mutineers. Several
rebellious sailors went down in quick succession. Ahmed and Badaxe teamed up on
the half-orc mate, the captain finally recovered enough to help, and the big
brute eventually succumbed to their attacks. I summoned a Celestial Fire Beetle
near the Grackle to distract him from escaping – a plan that nearly backfired
as Francis was distracted instead, shouting something in Celestial at the
beetle. (I later asked him what he thought was so important that he had to stop
and shout it in mid-battle. “I couldn’t pass up a chance to greet a Celestial
creature in its native tongue! I encouraged him to help our cause!” Great.)
As the last mutineer near our
group fell, Helieos ran across the deck, dodging fallen bodies and battling
sailors, and caught the Grackle before he could get to a boat to escape. That’s
“caught” with great prejudice – he broke the man’s ribs and nearly killed him.
Francis had to heal the Grackle to preserve our reward, but at least he was in
custody. We had just begun to relax when there was a ugly crunching sound and
the deck shuddered – we had run afoul of the rocks near the peninsula.
The surviving sailors
immediately began to abandon ship. Francis took the Grackle to our boat, while
the rest of us started to head below deck to look for the Flumph’s family. And
then – the Smell was back. Even stronger this time, which I wouldn’t have
believed possible. Alternately retching from the Smell, lurching around the Angelina’s hold, and occasionally
falling flat on our faces when a particularly strong shudder passed through the
ship, we searched for the Flumphs.
Fortunately it didn’t take
long to find the Flumphs – literally, all Helieos did was follow his nose.
Bashing open the barrels was a moment’s work, and the Flumphs slid out the hold
in the hull and were gone. Picking up the wand of Mage Armor from the wreckage
of the barrel, he started back toward the ladder to the deck. The others of us
managed to turn around and head for the boat, where Francis was yelling for us
to hurry.
Boarding the boat was no
easier the second time around – although at least this time we all managed to
land inside the boat. Unfortunately, Omiata landed first, which made him a
prime target for Badaxe. A dwarf on the head is not a good way to improve
racial relations with the elves. Despite this, no one was seriously injured,
and we escaped from the Angelina
before she broke apart on the rocks and sunk beneath the waves.
Being near the rocks also put
us near the lighthouse, which was a tempting target, but we held to our mission
and returned to town to hand over the Grackle. A group from the Theives Guild
approached Omiata, but he rebuffed them – a good choice, as I doubt the rest of
the group would have been impressed. The magistrate was extremely grateful to
see the Grackle in bonds. “A capital job, my friends! I will happily pay the
agreed-on reward. And now, my captain of the guard will take your prisoner from
you, and we will deal with him.”
We glanced at one another.
Shouldn’t there be something else….
“Wait!” That was a chorus from
all of us. The guard stopped, looking puzzled, as I continued, “We need to
question him before you take him away!”
The guard glanced at the
magistrate, who shrugged. “Certainly, as long as you’re quick about it.”
We learned a great deal from
questioning the Grackle (and took a good amount of loot from him, too). He had
been working for Kilion Kresner, who owned several mines in the region. Kilion
had heard of a Flumph infestation, saw an opportunity to use the creatures to
cripple the operations of his competitors, and bought the infested mine. He
then hired the Grackle to move the creatures around to other mines that
belonged to the competition. His first stop was in Stillsquall, where the
tactic had worked admirably, completely halting production, as the miners could
not work with the Flumph stench in the enclosed caves. Recently, the Grackle
was sent to retrieve the creatures and move them to other mines, which would be
forced to shut down, driving up the price for Kilion’s products. And the inn
fire that has started this whole manhunt? An accident.
We let the guard lead the
Grackle away and retired to our rooms in the Sandcrab. Tomorrow would be
another day, a chance for another adventure – and probably another argument in
our group over Lathlander or some ancient dwarven trespass against the elves or
the urgent need to retrieve Ahmed’s horse. I can hardly wait….
Some random out-of-character comments:
An enjoyable first night of
gaming for our crew. Mike E. rolled an incredible set of stats for Omiata –
that rogue is going to be our tank if the dwarf ever goes down. Chopper was the
fount of all character-building knowledge, as we got tired of looking up skills
and equipment and simply asked the guru for a good number of our stats. I
rolled a 98 of 100 during the start-of-campaign check for psychic ability,
which means I’m already screwing up Dave’s DM plans. We were on fire with the
inappropriate comments, the most impressive of which was Mike R. with “Free the
twitching orifices!” Take a guess where that one happened in the gameplay. Mike
J. brought an incredible amount of neat figures and playing surfaces –
incredible to newbies like us, anyway. I think everyone rolled a 20 at some
point, including the amazing Grackle-spotting by Demetrius on the Angelina. It is painfully obvious that
none of our crew has any dexterity whatsoever, as evidenced by our failure to
step into a boat, not once, but twice. One heck of a good start – now on to
round 2…
Last updated 04-12-2005 by Skip Franklin
