Port Peril Pub Crawl begins with the PCs traveling through the Shackles, a lawless archipelago to the west of Garund.
Venture-Captain Calisro Benarry invites the agents to meet her at the helm of the Glorious Payoff, where she navigates the vessel down the Garundi coast. They have been traveling together for several days and have had ample time to get acquainted.
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The android arrives onboard early. Wearing simple explorer's clothing with a dagger at his belt he seems like a simple citizen embarking for a journey. But the technomancer knows what he can rely on if something occurs. To the other pathfinders who won't miss to arrive he introduces himself this way: My name's Mec-02 and I come from the future to study the Pathfinder society. So I will join your part for this mission to see how you act.
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A short stocky man comes on deck, breathing in the salty air. His belt is laden with weapons of all sorts. What appears to be a scimitar is strapped to his back.
"Salutations! I am Zhan Phil. I travel the world hiring out my blade. I recently trained at Master Tortal's school. However, misfortune befell us and he has passed on. I therefore now have to make my way in the world."
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You see a fair-skinned female half-elf, with long red hair under a tricorn hat. She wears a black sailor’s outfit, and has a dagger and hand crossbow at her hip.
Upon boarding the Glorious Payoff, she addressed the gathered passengers. “Good day t’ye”, she said, doffing her hat. ”Black Molly’s the name”
Then she broke into a wide grin. ”Been some time since I’ve been afloat”, she declared. ”I know someone else who misses it. Cap’n on deck!”
At that, the space beside her wavered. A greenish-blue apparition appeared. It looked like a human pirate, with a long gray beard and an eyepatch. One hand held a cutlass, while the other was replaced by a shadowy hook. A skull and crossbones appeared on his hat, as well as Molly’s.
”Avast, me hearties!”, he proclaimed. ”Silverbeard walks again!”
Benarry looked askance at the notorious pirate, however dead he may be, but they soon bonded over their experiences at sea.
As a splash of salt crashes over the bow of the Glorious Payoff, Calisro Benarry deftly steers her ship through a hidden channel, carefully navigating through the barely visible rock and coral that protrude slightly from the water’s surface. Behind the Payoff, a slightly smaller ship—the Sea Sparkle—follows, making every effort to follow Benarry’s course as closely as possible. Off the port hull, the deep green of the Garundi coast is illuminated by the late afternoon sun.
“See those gulls?” Benarry shouts over the flapping of the sails after nodding at them in response to their introductions, “that’s the sandbar we’ll be dropping you off at. Barely sticks up over the waves, but the seabirds flock over it to feast on crab. As I explained earlier, Vidrian—you might have known it as Sargava not that long ago—needs explorers to chart the trade routes to the south that they couldn’t use back when it was ruled by Cheliax. Simple enough bit of adventuring, but the new nation’s been having trouble with the Free Captains of late. Turns out when Vidrian broke free of Cheliax, the locals stopped paying the pirates protection money, and now they’re the number-one plunder target in the Shackles. What’s more, the pirates have set up a blockade preventing our ships from making it down to Vidrian to assist.”
“Thankfully, we’ve got someone on the inside. Stella Fane, a Free Captain with ties to the Firebrands and the Pirate Council, has been in contact with the Society. She and members of the Society’s leadership have put together a fairly clever plan to help the Society’s ships pass through the pirate blockades unharmed. The Wind and the Waves willing, the Payoff and the Sparkle can sail to Vidrian, no problem. While we’re doing that, I’ve arranged transport for you to Port Peril to meet with Fane and get her to sign this contract making the whole thing official—she may be a pirate, but she’s the kind that holds to her word. You’ll need to avoid drawing too much attention until after the deal is done. Once she’s signed the contract her friends in the Pirate Council will ratify it and there won’t be much the lesser captains can do. Be careful. Anyone looking to put a stop to this need only ensure that contract never gets signed.”
”Do you have questions so far?”
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Old Crow considers the sea, entering a long trance, still and silent as a rock.
"Earth, Fire, Water"
Whispering to himself, he climbs down from the crow's nest, and squats, pulling out some of the inks and parchments from among his effects, and scrawls upon them.
Earth, Fire, and Water
Cantrips (□□□□□) @ Detect Magic, Read Aura; plus Scatter Scree, Produce Flame, Spout
First (□□□) @ Mudpit, Burning Hands, Hydraulic Push
"Her just signing? Not her character I believe. It is sure she will make you do something to see if the Pathfinder Society is worthy of the deal, that is why you are here to tell her what being a Pathfinder is and show her how good you are. We’ve crossed the same seas and shared the
same ports a time or two, that’s all, but information has it that whenever she returns to port, she spends time in one of the places in Port Peril. You can ask around when you get there." she answers Black Molly and Mec-02.
"If you don't have any questions, you should jump overboard now and swim to that sandbar," she points at the sandbar again. "because the water’s too shallow for my Payoff to get closer, so, chop, chop! Wait for Hlar and her boat to fetch you into Port Peril then you are on your own finding Stella Fane for this mission. Go now." she dismisses them.
The tide comes in as they wait on the sandbar, eventually leaving them standing in a few inches of water in the middle of the ocean. While they wait,
Old Crow notices a wooden crate barely protruding from the sandbar.
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"From the ocean, a gift, for she giveth, she taketh, and never not neither, for above all, motion, the perpetuity of ebb and flow..." our hermetic hero trails off here, perhaps because his memory is poor, or because his improv is likewise, or perhaps for dramatic effect, whether to entertain himself, or the person adjacent.
Having spotted the box from a ways out, he squaks, then pencil dives into the water, nearly plunking to the bottom, sinking as like a feathered stone, before kicking off the seafloor, and emerging with strong stroke above.
Dropping the unforcible box back into the sand, he grows suddenly disinterested, and proceeds to bury himself up to his neck to keep warm.
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Ensuring his weapons don't fall out, Zhan moves to the edge of the ship's rail. Double-checking that his weapons are secure, he lets out a yell and leaps over the side.
"CANNONBALL!!!"
Resurfacing, he strokes steadily towards the islet.
Zhan heads over to the box and attempts to force the lid open.
Nobody is able to open the wooden crate, might as well leave it there. About an hour later, a small boat appears, sailed by an elderly diver, Hlar. "Ey! You the Pathfinders Bennary asked me to fetch to Port Peril? Quickly, come aboard." The woman beckons them aboard, shifting around sacks of shellfish and crab traps to make room in the cramped vessel. Once everyone comes aboard, and for over the next few hours, Hlar sails her boat in a meandering path to shore along the submerged rock formations, every now and then jumping overboard and freediving for several minutes before reemerging with an oyster, sea urchin, or squid. When the wind dies down along the way, she rows the boat instead, passing one of the agents a spare oar, "Since Benarry made me come out of her way to get you, the least you can do is help get everyone to shore." she tells them gruffly.
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Rising from his sand bath, Old Crow at Mountain’s Top hops into Hlar’s boat, and grabs an oar, rowing silently.
When she dives under water to collect sea life, he takes the opportunity to do similar, an earnest endeavor which yields, in lieu of edibles, a bit of fishing line...
"Ha! It takes lots of practice," Hlar tells the tengu when she finds he got a fishing line. "Good thing you are not caught entangled with that." she adds.
Their short voyage is uneventful and sooner, Hlar’s boat arrives in Port Peril around sunset. As they drift into Crescent Harbor, they can see that sailors disembarking for shore leave remain clearly visible, singing rowdily as they work. Hlar soon lands at a smaller dock to unload her catch and gestures at a ship in one of the docks. "See that? That's Fane's ship, the Risen Albatross. If you are dealing with her, I'll just warn you that Stella Fane’s penchant for riotous nights on the town once she’s returned to port are well known, but I don’t know where the kids go these days. You could ask harbormaster Tsojmin Kreidoros. He would probably have a better idea of where he saw Fane head after her ship docked and unloaded." She looks around and points at the male dwarf dressed formally. "You are lucky the bald bureaucrat is close by, he's over there." she points in his direction, and he seems to be checking off tasks written in a ledger. "Off you go, I will wait here to fetch you back once you get back to me."
The harbormaster closes his eyes as if trying to compose himself for being disturbed and stares at the sprite and the goblin asking about Stella Fane's whereabouts. He then gets back to writing on his ledger without answering them. He then taps the pouch on the side of his suit twice as if telling something, you can hear coins jingling inside it.
The harbormaster gets his eyes off his ledger and stares at Black Molly, pondering how much she is talking about in their dealing with Stella Fane. He then gets back on his ledger. "There," he points at the farthest corner with his writing pen, "turn around that harbor and you will find a small islet. In that islet, you can see an open-air tavern called Last Catch, you can catch her there." and continues scribbling on his ledger. "And don't forget to get back to me to give me my share." he adds flatly.
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Not a little bit interested in advancing the mission objective as it were, nor helpful nonetheless as to having a particular skill set for interacting with humanoids, it is with a healthy combination of blissful ignorance and happy wanderlust that our hermetic hero finds himself carried aloft by his teammates, themselves bent firmly into the quest upon which all had set about.
Smelling the sea air, sinking his toes into the wet sand, feeling the light breeze against his plumage, Old Crow at Mountain's Top walks somewhere in the middle of the group towards their intended destination.
Following the harbormaster's direction, the group turns around toward the harbor, and they can clearly see that one of the docks leads out to a small islet. Walking down the dock, they find themselves at an open-air tavern with a large open space facing the sea. Several fishing boats have docked directly at the restaurant, unloading both ingredients and customers. Many of the patrons appear to be amphibious or otherwise from aquatic ancestries, and a few enjoy their drinks while bobbing up and down in the water off the pier. In a corner, Stella polishes off an absolutely massive plate of what looks to be a fried octopus.
When she spots them, Stella says, “Ah, you’re just in time! Like little baby cleaner fish, not knowing that the shark might decide it wants a meal more than sparkling teeth. Let’s see what we’re dealing with. But first, a toast!” Stella Fane orders a round of drinks and raises her mug in a toast “to calmer seas” before throwing it back. She gets another one and raises it for anyone from the group that who would like to partake.
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Bullied into the second drink, for in his life he had not had the chance to develop the concept of establishing boundaries in a social context, the “cleaner fish” that is our hermetic hero, bowled over by the force of personality that is their pirate contact, reluctantly downs the second drink...
”SquaAak!”
Everyone does not sputter despite the strong drinks Stell offered to them. "Calisro Benarry has sent her best agents, I believe. You are all impressive!" Stella is indeed impressed with all of them.
"Well, why not entertain me more before we formally proceed to our business? I hope you are more than drinking alcohol and all. Follow me." Stella leads them into a dart board nearby. Stella takes her place in a line on the floor in front of a dart board. "I challenge you to beat me at darts. Let's say best of three. Any volunteers?"