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25 Dierdos 1120
Unholy Alliance
After returning from Aniel, Quinn and W'Illot took an interest in an old news item. While they and their party had been en route to the Island of Castanamir, the body of a Captain Bulrick had been found floating under the docks in a condition that, to the adventurers, now sounded familiar. A few words with the city watch only strengthened their suspicions. Bulrick had been found in a badly deteriorated condition and with his back ripped open. The heroes speculated that Bulrick had been taken by a tsochar, either before his final voyage to the Tumari coast or immediately afterward. They set about reconstructing Bulrick's movements after his ship's return. His widow told them that Bulrick's manner had been distracted, as if something was bothering him, both before and most definitely after the voyage. He had taken to spending more time away from home, presumably at his favorite bar, the Eight Bells. The night before setting sail for the last time Bulrick had been out all night, stopping at home only long enough to grab his bag at dawn. A search of the Daybreak, authorized by Mrs. Bulrick, turned up nothing of interest except the captain's log. The log was odd in that it contained no mention of the sahaugin attack or of the fatalities reported upon the ship's return. The heroes surmised that Bulrick was hosting a tsochar at the time that prevented him from recording the events. W'Illot and Quinn turned their attention to the adventuring party Bulrick had reported dead. The report was wrong -- that party had arrived in Marhaven alive and well, with their cleric charges, a week or so after Bulrick's body had been found. It seemed possible, at the very least, that one of that party was also hosting a tsochar. If not, they may still have information that might shed light on what the mage-preferring tsochari would want with a simple ship's captain. They located the party's ship, the Torchwood, and hailed the occupants. W'Illot used a detect aberrations spell from his ring and determined that none of the group was hosting a tsochar at the time. After a little initial stumbling from being too close with information, W'Illot and Quinn loosened up and a good level of rapport was established with the Tumari heroes. The Torchwood party listened with interest to descriptions of the tsochari's methods and abilities and provided another interesting piece of data: the Daybreak's first mate, who had been reported as among those killed in the attack, had not been part of the landing party. The groups joined forces and sought to find any of the Daybreak's former crew that might still be in town. The Eight Bells seemed a likely place to start; it was a popular watering hole and flop house for sailors laying over between runs, and had been a favorite hangout of Bulrick's according to his widow. Inside the Eight Bells, sailors were drinking and a bard was singing from a corner of the bar. The group listened long enough to recognize the bard's song as a distorted version of their own discovery of a ruined darfellan settlement (The Hunted). In the sung version, the party had been aided by a company of elves and slain the 'evil' dragon in the settlement. The group took umbrage at the tale and briefly contemplated taking the bard (a human named Jackson) to task, but ultimately let it go in favor of remaining focused on the mission at hand. Tika, W'Illot and Quinn found a pair of Daybreak alumni quietly drinking at a table and joined them for a round. The sailors were in a friendly mood and sufficiently inebriated to be unsuspicious of a trio of armored folk asking about Bulrick. They told the heroes of Bulrick's odd manner as the landing party set out, seeming to want to leave the deck but then being pulled back by some unseen force. They related a short brawl between Bulrick and his first mate when the mate protested Bulrick's orders to cut and run instead of trying to help the people under attack. And they shared a ship rumor that Bulrick had fought and killed his mate later that night and thrown the body overboard. Bulrick continued to act out of character after the return to Marhaven, leaving the bosun to see to the crew's pay and spending time at the Adventurers' Guild. W'Illot took Vondran with him to see Grimaldi at the Guild. The research chief agreed with their idea that Bulrick's death looked like a tsochar attack. He checked guild records and determined that Bulrick had come to the guild after his return from the Tumari coast in search of a guide for a salvage operation. The guild had put him in contact with Maenon, an aquatic elf rogue with extensive knowledge of the waters and caves under Marhaven. Grimaldi looked up the rogue's contact information and provided it to the group. Maenon had given as his primary address a rooming house in Marhaven Below. As the only water-breather in the group Quinn volunteered to check the rooming house and bring Maenon back with her if she found him. Find him she did, at the bar. The rogue seemed quite taken with Quinn at first, then grew cautious when she broached the subject of meeting her group and discussing business. He went with her after making sure the bartender knew with whom he'd gone. They met up with the rest of the group at Chez Tralene, the under/overwater restaurant and sushi bar on the upscale side of the Service Sector. There Maenon related his dealings with Bulrick. A few days after his return to Marhaven, Bulrick had sought out Maenon for information about the area known as the Lower Shelf, a wide ridge of flat land about 500 feet below the surface on the north side of the land mass that once supported the original island. They had met several times over the course of a week and Maenon had answered questions about tides, currents, land conditions, recent exploration, etc. Bulrick had been cagey about his exact purpose, but Maenon got the impression he had been looking for a smallish object, probably a container of some sort, that would have been lost on the Lower Shelf some six to eight years before. He had a basic idea of the area Bulrick intended to search, but Bulrick had not contacted him about the actual trip before he died. After hearing about the group's suspicions, Maenon agreed to take them to the area that Bulrick -- or, as seemed more likely, the tsochar wearing Bulrick -- had been looking at. To explore the Lower Shelf the party would have to gear up for an extended deep sea dive. They would need a way to breathe (except for Quinn and Maenon, of course), a way to see in the darkness, and a way to endure the cold and pressure at that depth. A visit to the bulletin board at the Adventurers' Guild proved most valuable. The group met up with a wizard named Mercurio who was looking to sell a used wand of water breathing that had enough charges left for the group to spend 36 hours submerged if necessary. Mercurio also had an intriguing invention of his own for sale called a light bee that could be used as a portable light source. The group purchased three at 1500gp each, plus the wand of water breathing and a wand of endure elements to protect themselves from the environment. The next morning they assembled by the northeast docks. Ash opted to leave her familiar, Tak, aboard the Torchwood. Baelavin, Quinn's medium shark companion, joined the party. At Maenon's urging, Tika left most of her chainmail suit behind and wore only the shirt. The reduced bulk had a pronounced impact on her ability to swim with only a small reduction in protection. Tika and Quinn took turns using the wands on the group and then secured them. The party made their way quickly through Marhaven Below and came to the edge of the Upper Shelf, the area that provided the land base for the undersea community. It was a straight drop of 400 feet to the Lower Shelf; all they had to do was swim well enough to control their rate of descent. With no particular pressure and a little coaching from the natural swimmers in the party, they all made the descent without incident. The floor of the Lower Shelf proved to be a soft basin of muck littered with debris and the occasional clump of kelp. Vondran and W'Illot searched around and found a trail that looked like multiple sets of boot-clad humanoid feet dragging a heavy object between them. They followed the trail toward the mountain side, which was dotted all over with cave entrances. Partway through the muck W'Illot felt a movement behind him followed by a sharp sting as a pair of large, bone-encrusted creatures attacked by surprise from the cover of the muck. W'Illot's wound throbbed and he felt his endurance draining from the creature's poison. He backed away and readied the aquatic crossbow he'd bought the previous day just for this outing. Ash opened hostilities with a magic missile spell. Both Quinn and Baelavin attacked the other creature and noted that it seemed to be resistant to piercing damage because of its boney covering. Vondran landed a good blow with his harpoon and also noted that the damage was reduced. Tika noted the creatures' boney look and surmised that they were a form of deep-sea undead, a conclusion Maenon supported. She raised her holy symbol and called on the power of Pelor. Her symbol shone with a brilliant light and the creatures, called blackskates, were repelled. Tika restored most of W'Illot's lost constitution and the party resumed following the trail. Maenon warned that blackskates were tenacious and would likely return to pursue them, so they moved quickly. The trail led to a tunnel in the mountainside and the party followed, using their light bees to illuminate the way. The sand and silt wore thin and then vanished, taking the trail with them. The party continued on knowing that so far there was only one way to go, so the trail was no longer necessary. The path led down deeper into the mountain and opened into an oblong chamber filled with slowly swirling water and a cloud of debris. Across the room a humanoid body lay still and silent on the floor. Vondran swam toward the body to examine it. As the scout reached the center of the room, a shape vaguely like a big fist formed in the water and struck him. To Vondran's surprise the clubbing form stuck to him with a force that he could not break. With their companion clearly under attack the party sprang to action. Karu proved the futility of throwing shuriken underwater, while Loki had more success throwing his mind blade. Quinn used a saltray spell on the moving mass, which was nearly invisible in the water but for the debris inside it, while Ash worked her way around the perimiter toward the body. Vondran thrust his harpoon into the creature and then had to jerk it violently away to free it from the ooze's adhesive. W'illot landed a second crossbow bolt and the creature seemed to decompose, allowing the metallic debris to settle to the floor and releasing Vondran. (Later research showed the creature to be a flotsam ooze, a mindless aquatic relative of the gelatinous cube.) The body was that of a human male in studded leather armor. His gear was unremarkable save for a bright metallic choker around his neck. The choker's mithral clasp bore a magical gylph that Ash recognized as a symbol for breath. Surmising that the choker was a magical device to enable water breathing, she claimed it for her own. The rest of the group gathered up the loose coins and gear that had been suspended inside the ooze and the party continued on their way. Further into the cave system the party came upon a large round cavern. The walls were covered in carvings depicting sahaugin hunting other humanoids, likely darfellans. Off to one side was an iron chest, apparently the only item in the room. W'Illot knelt down at the chest to examine it for traps only to discover that the chest itself was a trap. It sprouted a clublike fist and slammed against W'Illot and held him fast with a powerful adhesive, much as the flotsam ooze had done with Vondran. W'Illot knew right away that he was dealing with a mimic, a deadly aberration infamous for luring adventurers by disguising itself as a potential treasure. It would continue to hold him and crush him until it died, so W'Illot grabbed a dagger and began working to make that happen. At the same time, the walls of the chamber shimmered and vanished to reveal more mundane stone sides, along which waited three sahaugin and two merrow. A sahaugin spoke and from one of the many tunnels leading out of this place came three large sharks. The lead sahaugin charged at Quinn with his gleaming trident while the other two attacked Vondran and Tika. Karu used his ki power to turn invisible, seeking an advantage, but learned to his dismay that he had merely created a humanoid-shaped bubble in the water. The shark he attacked was not impressed. Maenon whipped out his aquatic longbow and fired at one of the merrow but his shot went astray and hit Ash instead. The merrow laughed and thrust a huge longspear into Ash with sickening strength, dropping the sorceress to the ground with a mortal wound. Tika called upon Pelor for aid and her deity responded with a special favor: he granted Tika the spell righteous might. Tika increased in size, in strength, and in toughness. She advanced on the merrow and stood over the body of Ash to protect her from further attack. Quinn tried a new spell she'd learned recently, capricious zephyr. The spell created a 5-foot-wide ball of swirling water with enough force to knock an opponent down. It did that quite effectively with her sahaugin opponent, allowing Quinn to attack the creature at an advantage as it tried to get up. Vondran focused on his sahaugin opponent and used the Arm of Telomir effectively against it. Ash recovered thanks to a healing spell from Tika and protected herself further with mage armor while Tika continued to provide cover and engage the merrow. Ash tried a scorching ray against the merrow but failed to execute the fire spell under water so the switched to magic missile attacks in support of Tika. Loki prepared dual mind blades and thrust them repeatedly into his shark adversary. Karu used his athletic abilities to flank the second merrow and deliver telling strikes until a long blue-black tentacle burst out of the creature and flailed at Karu. Quinn and W'Illot recognized the tsochar tentacle and warned their allies about its grappling and poison abilities. W'Illot delivered a series of precisely aimed blows against the mimic and managed to destroy it before his own strength ran out. Maenon, in the meantime, was engaged in a frustratingly futile exchange with the third sahaugin and was happy to let Vondran cut in with his harpoon. He turned his attention to the less armored shark as it swam by and helped Loki kill it. Quin continued to knock her opponent down with the zephyr and then attack while it tried to get up. She was hit once by the sahaugin's trident and felt a surge of chilling cold accompany the hit. That changed her strategy: she knocked the sahaugin down again, but this time seized his weapon for herself. She plunged it into the creature's body and felt the flash of cold as her opponent fell for good. Realizing that she now held an adamantine weapon, Quinn charged across the cave to assist Karu with the exposed tsochar. While the party was dispatching sahaugin and sharks, the second merrow continued to trade blows with Tika and absorb magic missiles from Ash until it toppled and fell. A tsochar burst out from within but, seeing that it was alone on the battlefield, the aberration fled through one of the many openings. The party had just enough time to note that it swam quite well, in the manner of an octopus or squid. The protracted fight had left everyone wounded and tired, but the party was victorious. They gathered what valuables they could find on the bodies of their enemies as compensation for surviving what was clearly a trap. Quinn claimed the sahaugin chief's +1 adamantine frost trident for her own and nobody argued. W'Illot found that one of the merrow longspears had an adamantine head that could be reforged into a short sword and took possession of that. The miscellaneous valuables from the dead passed to the Torchwood's crew. The sahaugin chief had an eelskin scroll tucked into his belt. The document contained a rare sight -- written sahaugin language. The group took the scroll to Grimaldi and he was able to translate it fairly easily:
The groups parted company back on the surface. W'Illot and Quinn offered their services if needed in the future, and the Torchwood crew responded in kind.
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