Not quite understanding the basics of a monetary economy, Bozvrig begins placing items in his pack before any money is exchanged. He hoists his pack back up and addresses Bruthwol once more, “Ol’ Timer, ye got any feed fer me pig?”
"What about reams of parchment or vellum and inks for writing?" Barnabus inquires.
Del looks over the goods, and nods in approval as the others pick out the items needed. "That spider silk, and the regular silk rope would certainly be useful, and I'm supposing we'll need some more pitons. I was hoping you'd have some more chemical things like thunder bags, flaming bags, and sticky bags. Would they be available anywhere in there"?
His mouth waters at the keg of whisky.
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"We have some armor and weapons that are of no use to us, would you be willing to trade for items that we are asking for? I am thinking that good quality weapons and armor should be an easy sell for you.
Do you have any specialty arrows, like silver tipped, or ones that burst into flames?"
Dalron looks over the wears for sale.
Remembering the note they found.
"Bruthwol do you know anyone by the name of Fadheela? And do you know anyone in the city that might help us find a pair of people?"
While the others are talking to the merchant, Scarlet pulls out the back of holding from under his armor and begins to take stock of what they have while also eyeing what the merchant has for sell.
Dalron looks around at the wagon and notices that there are no horses or mules, then he notices that the two gray lizards that are standing idly nearby have strange looking harnesses on them. It clicks that they are what Bruthwol uses to pull his covered wagon.
After the other request of items, Bruthwol looks through his items and begins pulling out the requested items.
“Here is what I have, along with the other items you have asked for. I am always interested in trading for weapons and armor that node travelers no longer need. What all do you have?”
Giving Dalron a sharp look as he mentions Fadheela, “The question I have is how have surfacers like yourselves heard of Fadheela? She must have a connection to Pedestal’s Assassins’ Guild. You see, like others in Pedestal, I pay protection money to the guild to leave me alone. Once, an agent collecting my dues worried to his friend in my earshot, ‘If we fall too far behind, Fedheela’ll gut us.’ So take warning, friends, this Fadheela is tough enough to rattle a Drow assassin...”
Barnabus will take the Ink,Pen, and Journal.
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Holding his hands up, "I just remembered seeing her name on a note we found, I did not mean to alarm you. So don't talk about Fadheela when we are in town, good thing to know."
Thinking that he does not want to loose a good supplier of goods and information. Not sure how many down here might be as friendly as Bruhwol.
Bozvrig stretches and swings his axe a few times to stay limber while Truffels rolls around in the fresh subterranean mud.
The Druid stares in wonder at the twinkling lights across the water, “Which way ye goin’ ol’ timer? Perhaps we can offer ye some extra protection on de road.”
With a wave of his hand Bruthwol speaks up, “Hey, I am not the one looking for Fadheela, you’ll have to deal with finding her... But, if you want to locate someone, talk to Es Sarch. You can find him in the Dripstone Inn on the Street of Five Hanged, directly north three blocks from Pedestal’s southern gate. He knows everything about the city, but he is sure to want something in return for his help.”
Turning towards Bozvrig; “Unfortunately I do not have any feed for your animals. My friends here,” pointing to his lizards, “typically find something along the way to eat, but I don’t know if... that eats the same. You should visit the Bazaar on East Row. Just guard your coin purses, there is no better spot to find what you are looking for but it is filled with people would would just as easily cut your throat as they would your purse....”
Seeing Bozvrig looking off towards Pedestal; “Oh, I will make my way back home in the next few days. All depends on when I need to go back for supplies.” looking at all of the items he has pulled out that the surfacers asked about. “So would you like to buy all of this or do you have anything in the way of trade?”
"Is there an arms trader in the the bazaar in Pedestal who might be interested in the excess weapons we are carrying?" Barnabus asks the duerger merchant.
Looking at some of the items that Scarlet has pulled out from the Bag of Holding; “I would take those five Masterworked Studded Leathers and the Masterworked Battleaxe for all of these items they you have asked about.” putting a hand to his chin, Bruthwol begins mumbling in dwarven as he thinks out loud. Pulling out a small pouch, he takes some coins out and puts them in another. He holds out a coin pouch to give to you in return. “I do believe that I owe you a little more for the difference. How does 13 gold sound?” He says as he tosses it towards you.
Opening up the pouch you find 13 gold pieces within. Each of them stamped on one side with the profile of a female elf and on the other side with a spider and some weird script underneath.
Scarlet knows it to be undercommon and the word says Pedestal.
Once he loads up the armors and axe he turns back towards Barnabus. “You’re looking to move weapons? Oh they will gladly take weapons off your hands, and not just the people who specialize in weapons. Things can be bad there and everyone needs a good weapon.”
Gladly exchanges the goods with the merchant and takes the coins he offers. "Pedestal coins."
"Yeah. We have an assortment of more weapons and a few pieces of armor that we can sell or trade. So if we can find friendly merchants or other individuals like you, that would be great."
“You will find people who will want to take advantage of you because you are surfacers. Were any of you merchants before setting out on your adventure? Having the skills that merchants have would be extremely hands, like the ability to appraise the value of items. I am not saying that everyone will try to take advantage of you, but it will happen.”
You find yourselves on a cobbled road that goes west to a natural tunnel, and connects to the Oceanbridge to the east. This cobbled road provides easy passage over the rough floor of the cavern that leads to the bridge.
Spans of massive stone blocks mingle with the sculpted southern side of the Great Grotto, forming a bridge over the ominous waters of the Sullen Sea. Looking out into the sea, a lone isle protrudes above the glassy water a half-mile or more away, faintly glowing with blue light from a source impossible to determine at this distance.
As you are walking across the bridge after some time you see a few of the massive stone blocks of the Oceanbridge are cracked and sit askew. A navigable path yet exists where the corners of the crooked stones come close enough together, but unlike the minor erosion endured by the majority of the bridge, this section seems to have sustained damage.
You begin making your way across the broken bridge with ease. Suddenly the water begins to church as four fish like creatures emerge from the waters and attack out at you with sharp claws and gaped maws. It was hard to see them through the darkness of the waters.
As the creatures half in the waters attack out at four of you randomly, three hit with claws scraping across your legs as if to pull you in. Del, Scarlet, and Lanliss are all hit, Bozvrig evades the attack.
Though the attack caught you off guard, everyone springs into action.
Initiative
All of you
Fish like creature
Stealth vs Perception
Initiative
1:Del 2:Dalron 3:Bozvrig 4:Truffels 5:Scarlet 6:Lanliss 7:Barnabus
From the rear of the group, Lanliss does his best to shoot a fish guy without shooting a human/dwarf/half-orc guy.
"They're commonly called 'crazy-toans'!" Barnabus calls back to Dalron.
He lashes out with his battle-axe.
Quickly drawing his bone sword, Scarlet lashes out at the fish thing that attacked him. "I hate getting wet."
Armed with scimitar and shield, Bozvrig swings at the fish creature in front of him, “Back in de water, beasties!”
He whistles, and Truffels grunts and moves around to support Scarlet.
Oy, Del put dat ring in me pocket as a joke, I know it. Better lay off de little fella fer a bit.
Del dances away pulling his new magical sword out, and plunging it towards the creature that scratched him. "No fishing out of water for you today"!
(Raging, Power Attack, Stunned)
Raging, Power Attack)
The group quickly dispatches two of the fish-like creatures. The one on Scarlet, and the one on Lanliss both fall into the water deep. The one that attacked out at Del and Bozvrig are still floating halfway in the water.
Del brings down Merthuvial as it starts to glow red. The strike cleaves the skull of this fish-like creature in two and it drifts into the water and sinks.
Suddenly the water farther out from the bridge, out towards the island, begins to churn. Suddenly a Huge Sized aquatic creature appears watching and studying the party. It lets out a noise that makes everyone flinch, but it causes the final fish-like creature to continue to attack.
It bites, and swipes out at Bozvrig. Only one attack hits and Bozvrig takes 5 damage.
Initiative
Everyone is up
S
This creature is a Skum. Aquatic humanoid aberrations. They are fierce combatants underwater, even more than they are above water. They also also slaves to creatures known as Aboleths.
This creature is an Aboleth. Aquatic Aberration. Has the power to Enslave living creatures. It has four tentacle attacks that are deadly. It has an extremely fast swim speed.
Scarlet has no clue what the creatures are, just that they are dangerous. With the one smaller creature still alive, Scarlet moves to thrust his bone blade into the fish-like creature.
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Dalron's eyes widen as he see the giant creature.
"Every one that big thing is an Aboleth! It has the power to enslave you, which means it can order you to fight us or just walk into the water and drown yourself. It is very powerful and we need to kill it quick!"
Dalron targets the Aboleth with his arrows
"That big one will turn you into one of the little ones."
Barnabus releases a force missile into the remaining skum.
"It probably wouldn't like burning oil on the water!" he offers a suggestion.
Watching your arrow fly through the air it strikes the Aboleth... or does it? You notice that a little further behind it there is a small slash in the water that you easily recognize as your arrow hitting the water. The arrow hits the water as if it never slowed down. That is when you see a shimmer to the Aboleth and it dawns on you that this is an illusion and that the Aboleth is not really there.
"If that big fish is so dangerous... Let's get the heck out of here".
Del steps up to try and dispatch the last "little fish man" before starting to run for the end of the bridge.
(Raging, Power Attack)
(Raging, Power Attack)
If Scarlet and Del take care of the last fishman, Bozvrig will cast Resistance on himself. If not, then...
Del moves up to the final fish-like creature and makes quick work of it. It slumps into the water and floats to the bottom like the rest of them. When this happens the Aboleth turns away from the bridge and begins to swim away and swim below the water.
Lanliss hurriedly ushers everybody across the bridge in the direction of Pedestal and away from the water. (Although, he'll let any looting that's occurring to finish up, first.)
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"My arrow it just went right through it. I think it was some kind of illusion. Barnabus do you know if it can project an image of it's self else where to draw the attacks? Scarlet lets take a quick look around to see if anything was left behind by anyone."
Dalron looks for anything from it's past victims.
As Dalron rushes with the party over to the other side, he keeps an eye out on the water.
Dalron looks into the water to see if the fish-like creatures left anything behind. He no longer sees the bodies as they had drifted into the deep of this lake, but wedged between two of the blocks you find a small coffer. It is easy to pull free from the water. As you are pulling it out of the water you can tell by how the contents are moving within that no water was able to get into the coffer.
It is locked.
When things seem safe, he bandages ups his wounds before he pulls out his thieving tools and begins to work on the locked coffer.
"C'mon kid, let's get outta here," Bozvrig gives Scarlet a touch and mends some of the deeper cuts.
Because of the rush of everything that just happened, Scarlet keeps fidgeting his fingers as he tries to work with his lock picks. Once things look as if they have settled down, he takes a deep breath and tries one more time. Looking within the coffer you find a pouch containing 96 gold stamped with the Elf and Spider, a sealed vial that has dust within it, and a small iridescent black pearl that is shot through with silver veins rolls around the coffer.
Del had taken 8 DMG
Scarlet had taken 15 DMG
Lanliss had taken 12 DMG
Bozvrig had taken 5 DMG
Once everyone is away from the water, Lanliss gives everyone a burst of healing energy.
"Thanks Lanliss. You're getting pretty good at that whole healing thing. Now let's get out of here before Moby Shark thingy comes back".
Del begins to move towards the pedestal... quickly.
"Thanks for the healing. We got more interesting loot. Some more gold coins depicting an elf woman with spiders, and two other items. A vial with dust in it and a black pearl with silver veins. Maybe both are magical."
While following the group as the head for the city, he offers the vial and pearl for magical examination while also appraising the black pearl.
"Let me take a look at those..."
Barnabus casts Detect Magic to see if the coffer or any of it's contents are magical.
After casting Detect Magic, you quickly realize that the dust has a moderate aura of transmutation, and the pearl has a moderate aura of divination.
This is a Dust of Dryness
This special dust has many uses. If it is thrown into water, a volume of as much as 100 gallons is instantly transformed into nothingness, and the dust becomes a marble-sized pellet, floating or resting where it was thrown. If this pellet is hurled, it breaks and releases the same volume of water. The dust affects only water (fresh, salt, alkaline), not other liquids.
If the dust is employed against an outsider with the elemental and water subtypes, the creature must make a DC 18 Fortitude save or be destroyed. The dust deals 5d6 points of damage to the creature even if its saving throw succeeds.
This is a Pearl of Undercommon
This iridescent black pearl is shot through with silver veins.
When you place a Pearl of Undercommon upon your tongue (a standard action), it is absorbed into your mouth until you speak command word “backtongue” to release it. While it remains absorbed, the pearl grants you the ability to speak and understand Undercommon.
In addition, while the pearl is active, it can be used to produce a Command effect once per day. (Will DC 11 Negates)
"Hmmm .... these items are magical, but I'm unsure about what their purpose is. I can try again with more preparation when we have a chance to rest."