Nodding, Vardarel says “Magical.”
He hands the beret to Fran saying “You are probably better able to tell what it does.”
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"Magic Hat?" Stitch muses out loud after he stops pushing rocks around with Meat Wagon. Gets out and checks the bumper for damage. "Looks like we're good here. I guess I'll lead the way since well, its big." He points down to the rumbling mount.
He rolls not far before pointing to the narrow passage to the immediate north "In there or down to the right? If you want to get in there it'd be faster for someone smaller to check it out than me squeezing Meat in there.. otherwise I'll roll down sewer main street to the right."
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Fran plays around with the beret for a bit. More like Mister Midnight messes with the hat, pawing at it and trying to lie on the comfy, clean fabric. After about 10 minutes, she concludes that a) Mister Midnight is adorable, yet distracting and b) the beret is actually a >Hat of Disguise<.
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Through the powers of "eh, whatever" you head around the bend and find a small room.
Tall stone cylinders stand in a line in the center of this chamber. Broken pipes protrude from the ceiling above the cylinders, rusted and covered in green algae. Every few moments, one of the cylinders makes a feeble grinding sound and a dribble of water flows down from the top of the cylinder and drips to the floor.
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"Um, so this hat is p-pretty neat," Fran explains as the party moves on around the bend in the corridor. "It takes a little bit to get going but if you put it on you can use an illusion to disguise yourself! Looks like it only has enough power to work once a day but sometimes that's all you need, I suppose."
She offers the hat to anyone who wants to carry or use it, otherwise she pops it on her own head but doesn't activate its magic. "Too bad Bella and Khiari aren't here, this is something I think they'd enjoy..."
Her voice trails off as they enter the chamber and she gets a good look at the stone cylinders and broken pipes that dominate it.
"Oh...now I get it. This part of the city sits low and always has problems with water infiltration, so at some point people must've had these sump pumps installed - probably ran by magic. It would've drawn water from below the foundation and pushed it through the pipes into the sewers so it could be channeled away," Fran explains. "Looks like, um, the earthquake destroyed the connection to the pipes, which mean the water situation got out of hand again and now the whole thing's broken. Probably for, um, for good."
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Once the all clear is given Stitch gingerly climbs down off Meat Wagon and heads into the room. He adjusts his strange eye piece to get a better look at just what these pumps would take to get back to functioning.
"Yep, would probably take a total rebuild. But you're right. I'd hire gnomes to rebuild my sewer any day." He grins, clearly a dig on Gnomes. Then heads back outside and remounts.
Crafter's Eyepiece Item 3+
Invested Magical Transmutation
Source Core Rulebook pg. 609 3.0
Usage worn eyepiece This rugged metal eyepiece etched with square patterns is designed to be worn over a single eye. Twisting the lens reveals a faint three-dimensional outline of an item you plan to build or repair, with helpful labels on the component parts. While worn, this eyepiece gives you a +1 item bonus to Crafting checks. When you Repair an item, increase the Hit Points restored by 15 per proficiency rank instead of 10. 60g
As you discuss potential repairs and replacement opportunities, you notice a crack in the wall that leads to a small cavern.
The sides of this chamber are rough and uneven, dropping sharply to a large pool of water that fills the entire room. To the north and south, the masonry of the sewer walls has crumbled away.
The water is much deeper in the pool, you'd guess at least 6 feet deep. The center of the pool must be even deeper, maybe 15 feet or so. Through the calm water, you catch the glint of something shiny at the bottom of the pool.
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“Are any of you good swimmers?”
Stitch gives the new Elf a bit of a raised eyebrow with a side of Are you serious? before glancing down to his old self in a far too heavy breast plate that hardly likes to walk around on his own never mind SWIM!
Its amazing with just a look can communicate.
"Bella I think was a decent swimmer. Roark's third cousin is a herring gull so I bet he can do it eyes closed."
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Vardarel says “Seems some of you are quick to volunteer Roark. Is he the only one competent among you?”
Looking to Stitch, he says “All that armor, you should have no problem getting to the bottom.”
"Yes, Dwarves excel at sinking. Its the climbing back out or holding our breath forever that's held us back."
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Suppressing a chuckle, Nicole manages to stifle her amusement as Stitch brings up Roark's cousin being a herring gull, thinking if it is possible. Shifting her focus back to the task at hand, Nicole turns to Stitch and inquires, "Could the Meat Wagon perhaps transform into a boat of some sort? I'm wondering if that's a viable option. Considering the depth of the pool and the uncertainty of whatever is there, we could potentially use a boat to approach the shiny object from above, then swimming to get that shiny thing below the pool. What are your thoughts on this? Alternatively, one of us could brave the swim if need be."
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"Um, I don't but maybe if someone has a big spear that could work? I don't have any hooks either but I've got a sickle we could tie to something long, if we really don't want to get in the water..."
Suddenly, Fran's eyes light up. "Oh! I don't know if it will work, but it seems like this is as good a time as any to try it. I might be able to grab it with my magic, but I need to get a little closer to the pool first..."
Assuming that no one stops her, Fran carefully moves past Stitch & Meat Wagon and closer to the pool of water so she can get a better look. She then focuses, attempting to see if she can grab whatever is in the pool and lift it out with the power of telekinesis...
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Responding to Nicole "I could certainly make some modifications to Meat Wagon, trim it down a bit, to make it a bit more sea worthy, but that'll take at least a day of downtime.. and we don't have that kind of time right now."
He keeps on the lookout as Roark and Fran work to retrieve the sunken booty.
With a little bit of magic and a lot of floundering, Roark and Fran manage to dive down to the bottom and retrieve a barnacle-encrusted lockbox, sealed with frozen wax.
Stitch is certain he could smash or melt the box, but he figures the team wants to preserve the items inside.
The team tries their best but no one is able to break the seal.
As you examine the box for a bit longer, you begin to hear footsteps, alongside with a woman's voice, bickering amongst her allies.
Vardarel's superior elven hearing picks up the sound of 4 pairs of footprints, approaching from the sewers. The woman's voice is all too familiar: she was leading the rival group when they made that awful performance.
"And I don't care how bad it smells! We gotta get there first. The king doesn't need to know we're here. We do the recon, we get paid and THEN we go to the bathhouse! Got it?"
"Wait just a minute!" A familiar voice rings out. Three mercenaries run up after you, weapons drawn. The leader holds up her hand to halt her compatriots.
"Look. Pathfinders. Right?" She scans the lot of you. "Back off. We're getting paid well to explore these sewers first. Once we're done you can do whatever you want. But if you're going to get in our way..." Her associates raise their clubs, short swords and crossbows. "It's going to get messy."
She snorts at Vardarel. "Ah yes, the so-called king. Sure, whatever. He's not going to care as long as the monster is flushed out of the sewers. So how about you make it easy for us, eh?"
But Roark turns on the charm at a critical point, managing to defuse the tension. "Finally, someone's making sense." The leader points to herself. "I'm Tess." She points to her teammates. "Gerrod, Fedor, Maxim. We were hired by Olansa Terimor. She paid us 30 silver pieces each to search the sewers and do it first. I don't know why, she said it was classified."
"Look, we have a job to do. Just... maybe? I dunno."
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"Um...I'm Fran," she waves cautiously, "and this is my friend, Mister Midnight. It sounds like we've b-both got jobs to do...so maybe we could work together or something? The lady that hired you doesn't have to know..."
She gives the group of mercenaries a curious look. "But, um, I guess I should also ask - who's Olansa Terimor? I'm not familiar with her either."
Fran appears and initially startles them before critically calming them down. Maxim sheathes his weapons first. "Boss, maybe we should tell 'em?"
Tess nods and lowers her club. "Olansa Terimor. She's on the ciry Council? Big name property dealer? Openly worships Norgorber, god of secrets?" She pauses so the exposition recognition kicks in. "She gives us orders, pays well, and we do the job. She ordered us to help the goblins get take care of the basement, and then explore the sewers underneath. Why does she want here?" Tess shrugs. "She pays us well because we don't ask questions."
She sighs. "But we can't complete all of 'em. She'll still hire us again." She turns to her squad. "Alright fine, let's get out of here. Straight to the bath so we can get this smell out."
The mercenaries back off and begin walking back to the basement entrance.
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Stitch wakes up from a doze just in time to see the merc crew leaving, but a name seems to ring in his head none the same.. Olansa Terimor it rattles around in there, maybe sticking?
After they've run off he huffs "Guess they didn't want to be run over.. good work." He grins and gives the group a thumbs up before heading down the nearest stretch of sewer towards b5.
Stitch rides Meat Wagon over to the last remaining stretch of the sewers.
Crashing water and the occasional bit of flotsam from the sewers flows into this large, broad pool that fills the entire cavern and extends to the northwest. A small cove stretches to the southeast where a barnacle-covered boat is moored. The craft is mostly filled with water, and the rope securing it to the shore is saturated and beginning to rot.
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"Oh, um...okay! ENJOY YOUR BATHS!" Fran calls out after the mercs as they make their exit. She then turns to the group, a relieved smile on her face. "I'm glad those guys could, um, see reason. Or just didn't actually care that much. Seemed like a little of both."
As the group moves on and they reach a large underground pool, Fran looks around with amazement. "Wow! It's wild to think of things like this just being, um, only feet below the surface."
When Vardarel announces the boat to still be seaworthy, so to speak, she looks surprised. "R-really? I guess it's good craftsmanship to thank for that." She looks around. "Maybe there's an oar lying around here somewhere..."
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Thanks to the three of her allies, the encounter did not escalate into something deadly. "Whatever they are looking, fortunate for us, they get to leave." she says in relief.
Moving forward and now faced with a boat ahead of them, she comments, "This would have been handy to discover earlier. Let's extract it from the water and flip it over to drain out the water it has."
"Or maybe a bucket instead to bail the water out."
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Vardarel says “Could probably use that lock box to bail water.”
Vardarel looks at and then in the ivory jewelry box that had been found, trying to figure out if it is valuable.
Then he asks “Is there places here we haven’t explored yet? Might want to do that before trying to use a boat in an underground lake.”
Vardarel knows the ivory jewelry box is valuable. Maybe some of the debris in the pump room could be used as makeshift oars.