"Life is priceless." Cricket says as he turns towards the door. He looks at the kobold risking his life for nothing, sighs and shakes his head.
Brijetta whispers to the sound of the gears, trying to get them to slow, but has little luck. Finally realizing there's a strange smell in the room, she realizes it's time to leave.
"We need to go!" she urges.
Gig searches for the most valuable coins among the strange currency, coughing through the rising poison fumes.
"Sure but you could still help push!!" Mal shouts after Cricket.
Already braced, she manages to jam the doors for a while, but eventually she cracks under the pressure.
"Push? I'm too old for that... two farts in a row could give me cramps on my back..." He says, shaking his head.
Uhe sighs as the trap is sprung! The dwarf peers about for a way to stop it.
Overcome (Both Phases): DC 13 Merchant Lore, DC 13 Underworld Lore, DC 15 Athletics, DC 15 Thievery, DC 16 Society, DC 17 Perception.
Overcome (Phase 2 Only): DC 15 Fortitude
The Investigator's hands begin working! He quickly mixes a cocktail and grabs his tools!
Red wire, blue wire, green wire. One fish, two fish blue fish...
EDIT
Uhe looks a bit greenish....
You gather up as much coins as you can as the gas fills the chamber and the doors inexorably close. Finally, you call it, rushing out of the room before the doors seal you inside!
"Yes! We did it!" Fazil cries, holding the Blacknoon coin up triumphantly! But as you make your way back out of the corridors, you hear hissing sounds, and a foul stench begins to waft down the passage. Xulgaths!
FORAGING XULGATHS (COMPLICATION)
"Hurrah," Gig sputters, looking a bit green.
"Oh no, everyone be quiet!" Brijetta quietly urges, seeming to shrink in on herself even more. But perhaps because of any lingering effects of the poison -- not that she even seemed to notice it -- she's a little clumsy and makes more noise than she wants.
"What did you say, Brijetta?" Cricket asks.
"Oh slag! They musta heard that!"
Uhe coughs.
The Investigator sneezes.
Unfortunately, you are unable to remain hidden from the xulgaths. Two of the scaly humanoids appear at the end of the corridor, brandishing their clubs! Their stench washes over you!
Gig starts a rousing speech, calling back to several moments of triumph in dwarven history. Then, he launches some sharp shards of metal at the lead xulgath.
for
Crossbow in hand, Cricket studies the foremost xulgath. As they are running towards them, this leaves Cricket little time to actually aim properly, causing him to shoot wide before he turn tails and gets away from them.
"Oh no!" Brijetta whispers before the stench hits her, causing her stomach to roil.
Still, concentrating, she summons the elements of the forge to her, and a sudden shroud of sparks and the sounds of hammers hitting metal surround her! Though the sparks spread out 10 feet and cover several of you, the sparks merely sting for a moment, barely noticeable.
As the elements gather, she gestures, and a blast of fire rockets toward the nearest xulgath. A moment later, jagged metal shards form in the air and lash out from her.
"What an awful pickin' reek!" Mal complains, tears and snot leaking from her face. With a look of loose determination on her face she whistles up a bolt of electricity for the xulgath pair before joining Cricket out of the stink.
Uhe sheepishly looks up at the two approaching xulgaths. The dwarf's left boot being gently placed down on what appears to be empty tin cans...
Who just litters like this anywho?
The Investigator's nose wrinkles in disturbing fashion!
He promptly vomits!
Who let the wet dogs out!
The Investigator then decides to take out his bow and Strides 25' opposite the stench!
The xulgaths twist away, dodging some of Mal's lightning. Brijetta blasts one xulgath with lightning, then hurls metal shards that impale the same foe! Uhe manages to demoralize one of the xulgaths. Cricket's bolt misses, but Gig hits the more wounded xulgath with needle darts, taking it down!
The remaining xulgath rushes at Brijetta, the only one to stand her ground. It snarls and swings its club at her head, scoring a critical hit!
"Oh no!" Cricket exclaims as the xulgath gets to Brijetta. His fingers move on their own as he reloads his crossbow while Cricket looks for an opening. Once he finds it, he aims for the head.
"Oof, walk it off, Brijetta!" Gig provides some encouragement as he tries to resist the sour odor of the xulgath.
This time, Cricket's bolt hits the xulgath between the eyes! Blood flies, and the creature falls.
"Yes! Let's get out of here before more show up!" Fazil declares. You hustle out of the Gauntlet, fortunately managing to make it out without further incident.
"Well, that was certainly exciting! I wonder what further excitement awaits me as a member of the Blacknoon Thieves' Guild?" the kobold muses.
"Well, that was more excitement than seems healthy." Gig examines the caustic burns on his clothes and the spatters of blood.
"All well and good for an adventure, but Fazil, would you want that to be your life every day? There won't always be friendly teams of adventurers to show up and help you."
"The thieves' guild would have left you to die in there. Do you want Ussa to worry about you every time you have a job?"
"Ow!" Brijetta cries, as she is slammed by the xulgath. She's about to hit back -- just as her uncle taught her to do to her bullies! -- when Cricket takes care of it.
"Thank you!" she says as they hustle out of there.
As she daubs at the blood still streaming down, she looks at Fazil.
"I'm sure there will be all sorts of stuff," she says, sounding more sure of herself than she usually does. "My uncle Royken made a good living. Though he also always told me --" and her voice suddenly drops into a low, throaty growl -- " Brijetta, don't you f%!#ing be like me now. I'm Royken Slatehound, and I do what I have to do to help my family survive. But you can do whatever you want!' "
She pauses and thinks.
"So you need to decide if that's just what you want to do, or if it's something you need to do."
Uhe gives the budding Rogue a thumbs up!
"Huh. If it's just excitement an' all you're looking for, d'you reckon you want to go with a thieves guild? It's great to have folk who'll have your back, but a lot of times that just ain't what thieves really do. I mean, take a look at this test, t'wasn't about how to work together with a crew, that part was just us being meddlesome. If they don't care about you, why look their direction for fun? This is Highhelm - there are so many groups and guilds. You don't have to just go with the one who brung you here."
Fazil considers your words for a few moments, then grins. "Nah, it's cool. This is what I want to do, so I'm gonna do it! Thanks for having my back, though. I'm sure I'll find some way to return the favor in the future!"
Before he leaves, the kobold shows off his design for his setup snare, giving you the formula as well as a single snare that is ready to deploy. As thanks for rescuing the kobold, the ysoki Ussa offers you 8 gp and 5 sp that she managed to collect.
You feel stronger after your recent experiences...
Uhe begins to Day dream of new experiences and adventures!.
"Maybe we should go make sure the crabs don't hurt anyone?" Brijetta suggests.
"While we are down here, let's check on those crabs." Gig says. "We did so well taming those mules. We're going to get a reputation as beast tamers!"
"Oh don't have the crabs. Trust me. Wait the crabs aren't how the people got sick. But probably we just need to talk to them instead of eating them anyways."
Though elevated and landlocked, Highhelm produces ample seafood, with much of it farmed thanks to the aquaculture expertise of Clan Pearlcask. By filtering water from the Rapid River, carefully selecting feed, and using a selection of mussels and snails to keep things clean, the Pearlcasks keep their artificial ponds healthy.
When you arrive at Pearlcask Aquaculture, you find a dwarf busily clearing one of his ponds’ walkways by scouring the rogue mussels starting to grow there. He tosses the bivalves into a basket and carries them over once he realizes he has company. The dwarf is dressed for working on the water, wearing little beyond sturdy trousers, a teal sash around his waist, and several pearl studs in his ears. He’s muscular, with a horizontal scar under each pectoral.
"Ah! Hello there, friends. I'm Tregellon Pearlcask, at your service." He begins to shuck and share the mussels in his basket as you introduce yourselves.
Once conversation turns to recent crab attacks, the jovial Tregellon visibly deflates with worry, and he shares what he knows.
“My shell-beasts are my pride and my livelihood, but there’s one who’s a living legend and the jewel of her papa’s eye: Lady Shimmersnip’s her name, and she may as well be high queen of Highhelm. She’s half again the size of any I’ve raised before, ancient as the stone, a shell that sings with all seven of Shelyn’s lovely colors, and… well, I digress.
“Fact is, she’s sick—sick with leeches! Now, I keep good, clean ponds, and there shouldn’t be any way leeches that big would get into the water. And leeches of that type would have killed a lesser crab, but Lady Shimmersnip?” He scoffs proudly. “They’ve just made her angry. Leeches like that are slick and they burrow partway in, but they don’t latch. I’ve been trying to extract them, but Her Ladyship isn’t her gentle self these days; won’t let me near. That’s why I called in some help. I need some folks with tough hides and tough grips to wrangle some leeches free and kill them off without harming my beautiful Shimmersnip.”
Why does everyone expect me to have tough hands? Ugh!
"Well, there's no one handier than my friends, here. I'm sure we can help your crab."
"Oh no, that's awful," Brijetta breathes, barely audible as she seems in awe of Tragellon's care for his crabs.
She speaks up a little as she asks him, "Is there anything she normally likes? Maybe we can distract her while we help her?"
"Well, she’s not excited about any visitors, so expect her to get especially snippy," Tregellon says. "Crabs scuttle sideways, so if you move sideways, too, you’re saying ‘I’m a fast thing, like a threat… or a suitor.’ She likes to wave, though, and she’s a dancer at heart. You might be able to calm her down enough to get close.
"I’m pretty sure the leeches are giant speckle-bellies. They’re maybe three feet long and as thick as your arm when hungry, but they bloat to dwarf proportions when feeding. They wriggle, they bite, and they’ll bleed you dry if given half a chance. Salt shrivels them, but these ponds are fresh water."
"Maybe we should go find some salt?" Brijetta suggests, not expecting anyone to agree with her (or even acknowledge her suggestion).
"I think that's a great idea. I don't want these bugs sucking my blood. We should be able to find some at a shop of restaurant, right?" Gig isn't a natural dancer, but he knows a few steps. Maybe that will be useful.
Mal's cheeks blaze red as she murmurs a greeting "'m Mal." Spirits! Look at his... Spirits!
...
Oh slag, the crab!
"Don't worry, we'll keep Lady Shimmersnip safe... Would she eat another crab? Or fight her?"
"Normally, I would say no, but her Highness is quite ornery at the moment! I'm not sure how she would react to another crab," Tregellon tells Mal.
Gig is able to run to a nearby restaurant and borrow a bag of salt!
"...they really gonna want their salt back once it's been leeched?"
"Okay, I'll just have to be a really, really pretty crab."
Mal closes her eyes and focuses. The red from her hair gradually spreads down her face, then the rest of her body. The soft lines of her joints harden and deepen as her skin thickens and hardens into a shell. And of course, she shrinks, down and down and down, only being caught by the sudden expanse of additional legs.
She pokes her eyestalks up at her new friends, and dances back and forth, clacking her claws excitedly. "Ready?"
Cricket is for sure not among those with strong arms, but he hopes his deadly aim could help. If those leeches are as big as Tregellon says, perhaps he could shoot them!
He doesn't draw his crossbow yet, not to scare the poor dwarf.
"...they really gonna want their salt back once it's been leeched?"
Brijetta giggles at Mal's comment.
Tregellon laughs in delight as Mal transforms. "Magnificent!"
The typical aquaculture pool forms a broad loop around a broad, natural rock pillar, enabling pumped water to flow one direction to better disperse nutrients and flush out waste. Lady Shimmersnip has been quarantined in a wide niche near the pool’s exit, penned in by 4-foot-tall wicker weirs that Tregellon shifted here. The pool is designed for raising several mollusk species, with swaths of mussels anchored to the floor, foot-long freshwater conchs slowly patrolling the area, and immense cave crabs whose pointy legs easily step among the mussels.
Without a doubt, the venerable Lady Shimmersnip is a rarity; her shell spans 9 feet in width, and with every molt, the luster of her carapace only grows. It’s clear why she’s Tregellon’s prize crustacean. She’s also irresistible to the two giant leeches attached to her body.
The weakened crab is sunk into a crouch. When you get within 60 feet, she stands and feebly waves a claw as a threat to stay away.
Uhe furiously writes down on his ever-present notebook. The Investigator splashing ink on his pages in his haste.
Pond.....crabs....wet....furious....salt...water....taffy....
Eyeing the two giant leeches latches lazily on Lady Shimmersnip. The Investigator begins to Devise A Strategem to deal with the Leeches.
Known Weakness
The dwarf then begins to take out his shortbow and to fit an arrow and.....
Gig hands off the salt to someone who might be more useful with it.
"Mal and I will calm the crab, you deal with the leeches!"
Gig raises his hands and does his best to scuttle in a calming manner.
[dice=Nature]d20+8[/dice
Oh slag! I forgot the steps!
Though Mal's crabwalk is less than convincing, Lady Shimmersnip seems intrigued by Gig's scuttling. She calms down a bit, allowing you to get closer to her.
However, once you are within 30 feet, the leeches attached to the crab begin to wriggle and gnaw on her! Lady Shimmersnip waves her claws vigorously, enraged by the pain, and begins to advance!
UNCOMMON CONCENTRATE VISUAL
Using exaggerated movements while within 30 feet of her, you try to distract or placate Lady Shimmersnip. Attempt a Nature or Performance check against her Will DC (typically DC 18). If Lady Shimmersnip has 15 or fewer Hit Points, use the outcome for one degree worse.
Critical Success: Lady Shimmersnip is captivated, becoming slowed 2 for 1 round or until she takes damage.
Success: Lady Shimmersnip is intrigued, becoming slowed 1 for 1 round or until she takes damage.
Failure: Lady Shimmersnip is unaffected.
Critical Failure: Lady Shimmersnip misinterprets the signals and responds aggressively, gaining a +1 status bonus to attack rolls and becoming temporarily immune to the Captivate Crab action for 1 round.
HP 36/36
AC 18
Fort +10, Ref +8, Will +5
Hero points: 1
Infused regents: 2
Effects:
"Leave her alone!" Brijetta calls out to the leeches as sparks start to swirl around her, a surge of them shooting out toward the leeches. They miss but swirl back at another gesture from the young dwarf, badly burning one of the leeches.
Oh! Uhh... something like click click clickety-clack
She liked that one!
Mal turns and scuttles farther back, much, much smaller] than Lady Shimmersnip and not wanting to be crushed.