Session Eight

The Urchins

The following day greeted Beatrice and Nedria with pounding hangovers, while an entirely sober Solaris awoke from yet more vivid but elusive dreams.

The following day greeted Elegy with something too. Specifically, it greeted Elegy with a trio of actual, living children—street urchins, by the look of them—who had been peering at them from behind a corner. A corner in the house, which they had broken into. Elegy was less than thrilled by this and a timely intervention from their two hungover companions was the only thing that prevented the trio from being swiftly removed from the premises.

After some breakfast and gentle questioning, the three introduced themselves as Nat, Squiddly, and Jenks. They had broken into the abandoned manor in the past and were now curious about its new residents. The sound of conversation and smell of breakfast gradually roused Solaris and Valentino, rounding out the introductions before the three urchins scampered off.

The Drowned Marshal

Valentino, Elegy and Solaris had previously informed the other two of the shipwreck they’d learned of on their underwater and once the party’s surprise guests had taken their leave, the five of them gathered their gear and set out to the wreck.

A mariner cleric at the Wavehall of Valkur, the Dockside shrine to the God of Sailors, was enlisted to cast water breathing on the party, who then rented a rowboat to take them out to the rough location Val had uncovered. After some searching, the party came upon the the sunken wreck of the Marshall. Val successfully entreated the huge shark circling above to let them pass, and they descended from the upper deck into the hold.

It was swarming with quippers—ever-hungry carnivorous fish—who attacked the party on sight. The muted noise of combat and the scent of blood in the water attracted something else, too: a merrow that had staked its claim to the wreck and now defended it. After a short, vicious battle, the party ultimately emerged the victor, though not before a few were knocked unconscious.

Now unopposed, the group began to search the wreck’s interior. They discovered that the ship had been a missionary vessel, carrying the faithful of a little-known deity known as St. Cuthbert, the God of Common Sense. They also found the merrow’s sea-cave lair, which contained:

• 1,231 cp, 641 sp, 320 ep, 164 gp, and 12 pp
• A bag later identified as a Bag of Holding, which itself contained:
  • A Driftglobe
  • A Robe of Useful Items, several of its patches already used
  • Gauntlets of Ogre Power

That wasn’t the only thing, though. An investigation of the ship’s altar showed it to be magical, and further investigation revealed a hidden lid allowing the altar to open. The interior of its lid was mirrored, edges carefully edged with various symbols, and at the center of the altar’s hidden compartment lay a metal snake, coiled around a carved indentation.

The group quickly shut the altar before the snake could strike, and a more in-depth examination of it from Elegy led them to conclude that even were its guardian not present, they were missing something that would allow them to understand the altar’s properties.

As they entered what was once the passenger quarters, they also made the acquaintance of Barnacle Bess. Bess, a shy and skittish giant crab, had been magically awakened by one of the Marshal’s clergy before it sank. Though she was polite and pleased to meet them, Bess was ultimately reluctant to leave the remains of her home. Valentino assured her he would try and visit at some point in the future, and the party moved onward and completed their exploration of the ship, finding:

• A set of gilded navigator’s tools.
• A sapphire- and ruby-encrusted holy symbol, presumably of St. Cuthbert.
• A modified and much more plain symbol of the god, which Elegy identified as matching the shape of the altar’s indentation.
  

They returned to the altar and re-opened it, preparing for a fight, only to discover that when the iron cobra reared upwards, it became transfixed by the gem-encrusted symbol being carried by Val. Though it reacted aggressively when someone else approached, it allowed him to pick it up and coiled around his shoulders.

Elegy pressed the second symbol they had found into its indentation and subsequently discovered it to be an altar of scrying, capable of allowing its user to magically surveil a person or location once each day. Unwilling to leave something so useful behind, the group carefully extracted the altar and carried it up to their waiting boat.

Shivering, soggy, bloodied, but triumphant, the group rowed their way back to land.