Bounty Hunters - Session 18

Estrabule, We Hardly Knew Ye

• The gang spends a week of downtime checking out routes to head toward Nia-Agliare, figuring that the Neo-Alexandrians are too well-embedded here and they'd rather gain allies closer to the belly of the beast than risk strength-on-strength confrontation here.
  • They decide they will take a ship to the last "major" coastal town en route to Nia-Agliare, the one-prosperous Onatach, and then decide from there whether to continue by sea or by land.
  • Before heading out, they learn some things about the Plains of Dust, that someone hopefully wrote down.
  • Whip and Joana make some contacts among the poorer.
    • Whip ends up rousing up some trouble and gets a rival for the effort, but Joana manages to make some friends in the confusion (two contacts/favors).
    • The party may have engaged one of these favors to make introductions for the members of the house of St. Grodlem of Wyrr. If they did, a sending would coordinate this with the Crestence-based group.
  • Elian supports himself through manual labor, Bern dedicates herself to learning gnomish.
• They set sail, on the Silver Star!

Shipwise

• Sailing happens. The group mostly tries to stay out of the way.
• On the evening of the second day, the sky is lit with a fantastic meteor shower. Madrin confirms that there is no periodic shower expected around this time, so its status on the spectrum between "interesting phenomenon" and "portent of sinister events" is undetermined.
  • The party discusses the spectacle over the next couple of days, but comes to no conclusion.
• On day five, the captain shouts an alarm! It's an attack!
  • Six merrow are approaching from the depths.
  • They open with a salvo of harpoons, aimed whichever targets are nearest, who happen to be mostly crew. Three crew are harpooned (one mortally), but the two who aren't immediately knocked low hold fast with surprising discipline.
  • Whip gets in the way and starts stabbin'. Elian sets off a moon beam, then jumps into the water and turns into a hunter shark to harass the merrow on their own turf. Madrin blesses up and pew-pews the targets she can see. Joana whips out some trusty chaos bolts.
  • The captain gets whipped pretty hard on the opening salvo, but gives as good as he got and inspires Bern to wreck one merrow straight back into the ocean. The tide turns pretty quickly from there, and only one merrow escapes the bloodbath.
• Grateful and impressed, the captain becomes very friendly and talkative.
  • Sahuagin were always a problem, but lately have been pretty stirred up, and he figures the merrow might be why. He'd never seen one himself, but heard stories from his grandfather about their terror.

Onatach

• The party reaches Onatach, and the captain spares some time to point out relevant details. He says he'll be taking the load for his next leg (back to Estrabule) for a couple of days, but they're more than happy to keep bunking on his ship until then, and will always get free passage from the Silver Star for as long as he is captain.
• Some brief scouting turns up tidbits:
  • The place is a mess. As inland became more and more swallowed up by the Plains of Dust, its trade dried up, and now it survives almost entirely off fishing export, and serving as an intermediate waystation between Estrabule and Nia-Agliare.
  • Maybe thirty years ago, this place was the base of a particularly cruel and powerful Pirate Prince who was eventually overturned in a coup that returned home rule but not order.
  • Any reading or magic of value has been scooped up by Neo-Alexandrian representatives, probably sold at a bargain by people desperate for coin.
  • Those Neo-Alexandrians have a fair presence here, and in addition to the outreach the party saw in Estrabule, they also have a paladin peacekeeping force. Whip stakes them out while the rest provision for overland travel:
    • The paladins seem well disciplined. They carry black shields with a red tree of a type the group does not recognize.
    • They are all human. There are about six or eight in total, with probably three dozen non-paladins working in the outreach center.
    • Most of them are fairly young, although the obvious ranking member is older and clearly experienced in the ways of conflict.
  • They stock up on water containers for their mounts and food for the ~23 days it will take, and set out the next dawn.

Edge of the Desert

• It takes a day to reach the desert proper. In their path, they come across what was clearly once the workhouse for prosperous olive orchard, abandoned decades ago. Given the timing, it is convenient shelter, so they take a look.
  • They explore it carefully. Meandering through its courtyard are the tracks of some humanoid. Olive presses and ruined pottery are found in empty rooms.
  • The footprints turn out to be from dust mummy, who leaps out to suck the life out of Whip!
  • Madrin blesses up. A bolt from Bern has almost no effect, signaling Whip to bring out his red iron dagger. He slices, he dices, he makes chili and fries!
  • Elian Kool-Aid-Mans straight through an intervening wall, doing no damage but removing some mummy for the cover. This distracts the mummy just enough for Joana to take position behind and set it ablaze. Its parched raiment immediately catches, and it bursts in a cloud of noxious fumes that catch Whip and Elian before they can move, doing some damage.
  • For their efforts, apart from gaining shelter, they find some loose change and a gemstone, forgotten among the wreckage.

• Session ends: 9th Whitefall