Kayleigh continues her slow-motion push toward the rest of the party, drawing a wand as she closes.
Turning to see the incoming creature, Ariadne utters an incarnation, extending a hand as a trio of shards of pure force zip through the water to strike the advancing enemy.
With the creature moving so fast, it would be stupid for him to try to close the gap between them, so Zahur remains in place, ready for when it comes closer.
"It's always something..." mutters Vedika as she draws her kukri.
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"Its a sea hag" Brig says as she lumbers forward and drinks one of her brews to make herself sturdier. "Her gaze can curse you and her appearance can make you ill."
Grimacing as Ariadne hits with her spell the Sea hag stops at 10' away from you andturns her Evil eye on Zahur.
.
10' away. The party can now act!
Kayleigh casts sound burst behind the hag, hoping to not catch any party members in the spell's radius. She seems surprised when the spell fails to affect the hag but chugs forward another 10 feet.
Seeing the ripple through the water caused by Kayleigh's spell, but noting no effect on the hag, Ariadne readies herself for a hard fight, one hand quickly tracing a defensive spell as she conjures a shield of energy in front of her, before touching her breastplate, as arcane sigils flare to life all over her armor, extra protection surrounding her form as she swims forward, preparing to engage..
Brig walks quickly along the deck, swinging as hard as she can trough the water, every thing feels like slow motion.
Vedika maneuvers carefully to try to come around the hag and reach a flanking solution opposite Brig.
Unfazed by the hag's ugly gaze, Zahur swims closer to her and swings with his grappling hook as hard as he can!
Brigita stabs the hideous creature with a dagger, drawing blood.
Zahur swings hard and digs deep with his hook, drawing a lot of blood and making the Hag shriek bubbles.
The Hag lashes back at Zahur with the spear she is clutching in one hand.
Stabbing deeply and glaring at him with hate.
Party can now act.
With all her comrades gathered around the hag plus her own slow movement, Kayleigh opts not to move forward any more. Instead, she uses a charge from her wand of spiritual weapon to create a glowing morningstar of force that she swings at the party's foe. She connects but only scores a glancing blow.
for
The barkskinned alchemist lumbers behind the hag as it spears Zahur, trying to get in a better position to stab it.
Being hit back was expected of course, but that did not mean Zahur liked it. "F&*$!" He glares back with equal hatred, picturing her as one of his worst clients.
Having moved into a flanking position, Vedika produces a punching dagger with which to stab from behind.
... to no avail.
Taking advantage of the additional options fighting underwater Ariadne swims under the hag, striking up at her from below.
Kayleigh slightly wounds the Hag, then Zahur guts her with two savage hooks.
Loot:
Short spear +1.
Wand (Cure moderate wounds, 18 charges)
A2 has nothing, A3 is where the Hag was lairing and aside from being filthy has nothing. The door to A4 has swollen shut and needs to be forced with a strength check to open.
What now?
At the stuck door, Kayleigh casts guidance to help facilitate opening the door.
After putting up her dagger, the blacksmith looks at the door, considers the places to grab, then nods in thanks to the cleric for her help. Grabbing, straining, grunting even, she tries to pull the door open.
Ariadne waits, prepare to deal with any nasty surprise that might be on the other side of the door.
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Zahur takes a look at his wound before joining Brigita with the door.
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Kayleigh notices Zahur's subtle hint and moves to heal him. "Sorry--I've been kind of preoccupied with maintaining forward momentum since we entered the water,"
After examining the group's newest ally, she asks, "Is that enough for now? I can see you're not fully healed. If you want, I can use a charge from the healing wand Vedika gave me."After giving Vedika a warm and genuinely thankful smile, the cleric adds a quick whisper, "She seems all tough and aloof, but she's a softy inside!"
Chugging over to her not-quite-human friend, Kayleigh reaches out a hand and touches Vedika's arm. "Milani's blessing upon you!" With another smile Kayleigh adds, "Lasts for up to a minute, I can do it again and again--assuming I have the time--and, best of all, it's free!" Then she casts another guidance spell on Vedika.
"Huh, you apologising for what? If you are not a mind reader, then it is not on you for not seeing a wound." He shrugs, poking at the wound. "It was a scratch, I'm fine, but thanks anyway."
"I'll be soon like new. You know? You need to let the body do its job... rely too much on magic stuff and soon your body becomes lazy, like a spoiled child."
He doesn't comment on her take on blessings from a God or Goddess being free. She might know what she was saying, but to him dealing with them always felt like taking stuff in the market with a promise to pay it latter.
"But...but, healing is my specialty--what I'm good at." She's initially perplexed by Zahur's philosophy but then remembers that she is pretty much a creampuff city girl unaccustomed to lingering wounds.
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Brigita forces the door with a bubbly grunt. The swollen wood reluctantly giving way.
A4 Captain’s Cabin
Along with a few other bits of ruined furnishings, the tattered sheets of a canopied bed twist like ghosts above the snapped wooden bed frame. Knotted amid the linens, a drowned man idly floats in the room’s murky waters. A closed footlocker sits on its side at the far end of the room.
The corpse, wearing simple black robes, floats in the room. An examination of the body reveals a nasty head wound—not something that would kill, but certainly enough to knock a person out.
The body has been partially eaten by crabs and fish, particularly the face. It wears a silver unholy symbol of Urgathoa on a chain around the neck.
Loot: (The Footlockers seal is intact so you open it on dry land)
Within the footlocker is a leather pouch containing 50pp and 38gp,
and a cloak of resistance +2 bearing an embroidered image of the unholy symbol of Urgathoa. The symbol on the cloak can be removed without harming the cloak’s magical properties with a successful DC20 Profession (tailor) or similar check,
The footlocker also contains a copy of Serving Your Hunger, Urgathoa’s sacred text. This book is exquisitely illuminated and bound in black silk and velvet over darkwood covers, yet its pages are ancient and fragile. The book is worth 1,500gp. Any nonevil church in Korvosa will pay this price as a bounty in return for the book, which the clergy will either then archive (if the church is Abadar’s) or destroy (any other nonevil Korvosan church).
As the book made it to the surface undamaged, you can peruse its contents. The text is largely presented as a combination prayer book and cookbook for the preparation of various humanoids as meals, but also
serves as a primer for taking a conciliatory approach to dealing with the undead and for the transformation of oneself into undead.
The owner has committed blasphemy in his copy—whenever the name “Urgathoa” appears in the text, he’s scratched the name out and penned in the name “Andaisin,” an indication of a deep obsession.
If the PCs learn the name Andaisin, a successful DC20 Knowledge (history or local) check, or a successful DC25 Diplomacy check to gather information, reveals a disturbing tidbit of information.
Cressida Kroft automatically knows the following information if the PCs mention the name to her. Several years ago, the small village of Beorandy on the northern shores of Nidal succumbed to a sudden and devastating outbreak of bubonic plague.
Nidalese investigators found evidence that the cult of Urgathoa, led by a woman named Andaisin, had engineered the outbreak, but the high priestess and her cult has absconded.
Evidence that she’d fled aboard a ship compelled Nidal to alert authorities along the western coast of Avistan that Andaisin was a wanted criminal, and that if apprehended, she was to be returned at once to Pangolais to face charges of mass murder.
Andaisin was never caught.
You've investigated the ship and are back on dry land. What now?
"I'm not sure what all of this means," Kayleigh admits as she wrings some water out of her hair. "Maybe we should meet with the field commander again and see if she can make sense of what we saw in and around the Direption."
After inspecting the corpse and removing the vile unholy symbol from around its neck (the idea of leaving that on the dead body of a cleric of undeath seems to be a really bad one), Ariadne works with Brigita to bring the footlocker to the surface.
Once they'd settled in safety, and opened the footlocker, she looks through the items, noting the unholy text, her academic side cringing at the defacement of the book, not to mention the blasphemous nature of crossing out the dark goddess' name and replacing it with another.
"That sounds like a good idea, she might have some insight into what we found. After that, you should turn in the book and holy symbol to your temple Kayleigh. I'm sure they'll be quite pleased with you taking something like this off the streets, so to speak."
After heaving the chest out with Ari, Brig takes a moment to wring water out of her hair and clothes, before joining to read what she can over the other's shoulders. She has no idea who this Andaisin is.
After few moments she says flatly "Good it sank. If he wore her symbol, why did he risk striking out her name?"
Once you report your exploration of the wreck, Cressida Kroft is
surprised to learn the ship may not have been a plague ship after all, but if as you found evidence the cult of Urgathoa was involved, she grows grim.
She now realizes the “plague ship” was intended to do little more than delay or misdirect an investigation into the sickness. The presence of a worshiper of the goddess of disease on the ship can be no coincidence, and she is coming to believe a cult of Urgathoa is operating in Korvosa.
Once she learns Andaisin is involved, she becomes even more worried, for this notorious Nidalese criminal has already destroyed
towns via plagues, if Nidal’s claims are to be believed.
For obvious reasons, Kroft doesn’t want to further complicate Korvosa’s situation by letting word of Andaisin’s possible involvement reach Nidal.
Cressida asks you to be on the watch for further clues but to continue working to fight the spread of blood veil throughout the city. As long as cultists of Urgathoa remain active, possibly encouraging the plague’s spread, stopping the contagion grows even more important.
========================================================================
Shortly after you have spoken with Marshall Croft you are approached outside the citadel by a mousy, second-hand fishmonger with jaundiced eyes, Eries Yelloweyes.
She quietly explains her problems to you. She is a Were-rat, one who has lived in Korvosa for 50 years causing no one any problems. Unknown as a Were.
As in many large cities, the tunnels and sewers beneath Korvosa attract all manner of unsavory elements. Combining elements of thieves, vermin, and monsters that prowl the reeking depths, the wererats of Korvosa
eke out a living from the city’s refuse.
Most Korvosans contentedly believe the monsters are nothing but stories
to keep children out of trouble, and thus, the lycanthropes and their unwitting hosts have long lived in a kind of oblivious accord. Until now.
Giving voice and violence to their fear of the plague, a mob of Midland citizens publicly execute a wererat they discovered foolishly prowling in an alley.
Their misguided violence quickly leads to a few drunken dockworkers braving the sewers to hunt wererats, blaming their problems on the lycanthropes believed to dwell below.
Used to fear and abuse, most wererats respond to the attacks by abandoning their dens and hiding elsewhere in the city. However, a
wererat firebrand named Girrigz Ripperclaws refuses to do so, instead calling his kin to war against the weakened humans above.
Eries Yelloweyes has lived in secret as a wererat for more than 50 years and is one of the oldest lycanthropes in the city. She has seen much suffering in her time, including devastating government directed
purges, a return of which she fears Girrigz’s warmongering ways could quickly incite.
Her efforts to talk sense into the violent wererat and his gang have
failed, but Eries heard of you through her contacts in the Korvosan Guard and has approached you in her human form for help.
Quietly proud of her lycanthropic blood, she explains that something must be done about Girrigz before more lives are lost. She asks you to speak with him and, if necessary, offer him an example of the force
the city will doubtlessly employ should his rebelliousness continue.
Begging you not to kill her people if it can be avoided, she gives you directions to Girrigz’s lair beneath Midland.
In exchange for their help, she promises to work to convince her wererat kin to help fight the plague from the shadows by disposing of infected bodies and doing what else they can to fight its spread.
What is your response? You don't have to rush there immediately. You can take a little time to prepare.
Zahur listens to Eries's tale with some skepticism. "This Girrigz is your kin, but he does not listen to you." He states. "He is sicking others against us... and you expect us to be able to talk some sense into him?"
To him, despite her words, it was very clear she wanted him gone. "I think you want him gone gone, but doesn't want to put your ass in the line and risk your kin turn against you."
"You are pragmatic, and I can get behind it." One life lost to save many. Not a hard math, even if most folks would frown their noses at it.
Brid listens "I think she want us to beat him, to teach him fear..." she remembered how to get the bullies to stop. Break them so hard they would never ever hit someone else again. The large woman looks solemn and nods "We can do that."
Kayleigh squirms a bit at the thought of killing someone (even a wererat) at the behest of another (also a wererat!). But then she compares what Eries asks against what she and her friends are doing for Field Marshal Kroft, seemingly for the greater good of the city, and...she's still somewhat uncomfortable. Instead of chiming in, she studies Eries as she talks, trying to read whether she's lying and possibly leading the party into a trap or truly believes the words she speaks.
Eries is honest here. She would prefer you talk Girrigz out of making trouble and prevent more grief coming down on the Were-rats. She has been a Were-rat of over 50 years and lives a peaceful life showing it's possible. If s few hot heads need to be stomped on it's better than having mobs hunting and kill any Were-rats they find!
What now?
Vedika took a little time to dry out her clothing and clean off the muck of the bay before the next meeting, but is still shaking her hair to help it dry when the team assembles for this unexpected alley rendezvous.
"I've knocked people on the noggin before, but how does that work with a wererat? Do I need to hit him with a silver statue or something?"
Kayleigh tries to make up her mind about something and then moves to Ariadne's side. "I don't detect any insincerity from her; I think she honestly believes that what she says is the best thing for the rest of her people."
Brig looks to Vedika, then at Yelloweyes, then back at Vedika "Yes... we'll need silver." Brig had studied most humanoid creatures in her time. Her desire to create ways for herself to be better meant doing knowing all the ways humans were inferior. "Wererats are resistant to most weapons other than silver." the blacksmith lifts her silver maul and frowns down at it.
She looks back at YellowEyes "I'll still try not to kill him"
"Ooh--my morningstar's silver, too! I got it more to use against any of the stray imps throughout the city, but I guess it should work equally well against a wererat. I suppose I could lend it to someone who fights better than me."
Zahur takes a look at his silver coins and wonder if they could be thrown. Too light probably. So he heads for an alchemist shop and buys a silver weapon blanch, and then coats some sling bullets with it.
Just in case, he also buys a fancy silver knife from a pawn shop.
Travelling through the sewers is just as wonderful as you thought it would be, until you reach the area Eries pointed you to.
B1 Sewer Tunnel
Through the disgustingly visible haze of noxious sewer reek, the flow of unmentionable slop through the sewer tunnel’s filth-slick channel unexpectedly forks.
Most of the muck continues on its expected path, but a small stream of ooze diverts off through a wide cleft in the moldy masonry wall.
The man-sized crack cuts deep into the rock behind the wall, and wisps of thin white smoke issue forth.
Anyone who proceed down the main tunnel another 20 feet find that the sewer bends east and is blocked by a large, rusty grate. From here, you can easily see into area B4.
B4
Two thick grates of rusted iron hedge in this section of sewer tunnel.
From a human-sized crack in the northern wall seeps a steady flow of sewage, oozing into the greater flow of tainted water.
A hulking pile of filth and debris partially blocks the stream of offal, forming a cart-sized clot in this disgusting artery.
What are you doing?
.
Vedika wraps a kerchief over her mouth again for this expedition.
She surveys the rusted grate critically and notes, "With my crowbar we can probably pry open those grates."
She points to the large mound of offal and says, "That's probably a filth-eater of some kind."
Kayleigh tries to make up her mind about something and then moves to Ariadne's side. "I don't detect any insincerity from her; I think she honestly believes that what she says is the best thing for the rest of her people."
"I believe her as well. His militant stance puts all of the werefolk...including those who don't follow him and want a peaceful existence, at risk, and give an already tense city a scapegoat for a disease most don't understand." Ariadne replies, agreeing with Kayleigh's assessment. "Hopefully he can be reasoned with...if not...we'll have to make it clear how bad an idea starting a war with the other denizens of the city is." she says with a shrug, no stranger to hard decisions at this point.
-----------
As they enter the sewer, Ariadne makes a brief gesture, casting a simple prestidigitation spell to generate the strong scent of mint around her head, though a simple spell it would last an hour before needing to be renewed.
"I think that might be the best move. And yeah, we should probably avoid...whatever that is."
"If that is alive." He says, pointing to the pile of shitty-stuff. "Opening the grate would not free it?"
"Instead of opening it, could you not damage it in a way that it doesn't open, so we can cross this wall and be sure nothing will slip by to flank us?" He asks Vedika.
For this stinky mission, Zahur has kept his grappling hook coiled by his waist and instead is holding the recently bought silver knife while keeping the bullets on a quickly accessible pocket.
"Opening it would be the way6 in. It's likely this gate is sort of the entry point to the were-rat undertone. Starting off with damaging it isn't likely to make a good first impression." Ariadfne points out.
"We've got enough of a challenge ahead of us without going out of our way to piss them off."
Vedika shrugs. "If you want to not go that way, sure, we don't have to."
Kayleigh keeps quiet and follows the others' directions.