IDLEWOOD

Raelin woke us VERY early the next morning and we all stumbled downstairs bleary eyed.  I fixed a nice meal of strawberries and cream, cheese, and fresh bread I had made the day before.  With fresh butter and strong tea it was a good way to break our fast.

We filled in Raelin as to what happened last night at The Dead Gull and we decided we should go back to to the bar to see if first, we could find John, (though we all thought he as dead) and see if we could find the port wine. Raelin said we should find out who the owner was and have him pay us for our troubles.   Samus said maybe the guard at the gate would know – and he did!  It was a Mr. Snargras who Raelin said knew him and went into Samus’ room for a change of clothes.  When he came out in a pair of Samus’ old pants and tunic he was taller and broader with short hair, a wide flat face, and huge ears.  “Call me Doug” he said.

We headed to the Dead Gull and Samus, using The Bender fame was able to get us through the gates for free. 

We went to the Dead Gull and Snargras was there along with Cedric and that Iron Wolf bully, Rollie. Cedric was telling Snargras to get his bar cleaned up and left. He did not see me even though he walked right by us.  We told Snargras we would clean the vermin out of his bar but it would cost him 2 gp per tail and maybe more depending on what we found down there.

We took some torches and headed down.  It was dark down there and I could see four rats that seemed to be cowering behind some crates they were looking across the room.  I could see a pipe without a grate that seemed to flow to the ocean.  The rats were on the other side of the room next to the sewage pipes.  In the center of the room looked to be a pile of seaweed.  There were crates of bottles, sealed crates, and barrels.  There was a crate of bottles right next to the stairs. 

Friz also noticed the rats were afraid of something and said to ignore them unless they attacked us.  I said I agreed and that they seemed afraid of the pipe across the room.  I said we were looking for the port and John and I would watch the pipe since I could see through the gloom better than the others.

Samus had other ideas and went after the rats.  Raelin nimbly leapt from the stairs onto a crate and shot a rat with his crossbow.  Obscura jumped down and looked at the bottles, grabbing two cheap bottles of rum. I shot one of the rats with a firebolt reminding everyone they hate fire, then turned my attention to the pipe the rats seemed to be frightened of again.  We brought two down when the other two escaping down the sewer pipe just as we heard the sloshing through the pipe across the room and a harpoon came out of the darkness impaling me in the side. Stones and Boulders that hurt! I peered at the pipe and saw a creature, part man part fish. He tried to pull me toward him but I ripped the harpoon out of my side.

“A fishman” I called, as the creature spoke in common saying he was going to bring us down to the marrow den.

Samus went running toward it, calling out that he found John and he was dead.

Friz grabbed me and we hid behind some crates while Friz frantically cast a healing spell.  Raelin and Obscura also hid behind crates and barrels, popping up to shoot crossbows at the creature.  I pulled out my spellbook and tried to sing him to sleep, but it failed so I used my old standby, firebolt.

It was a nasty fight and he proved to be a formidable foe, but in the end he fell. I cast detect magic and his harpoon and seashell necklace glowed.  Samus took the harpoon and I took the necklace.  Samus disguised it by putting the head of the harpoon in his backpack and tying a torch on the end so it just looked like an extended torch.  Friz harvested the fishman’s bones and parts, and Samus found 4 more rat tails.

We started going through the crates.  I found 2 aged wines – a Merlot and a Pinot Noir, what looked like a very good bottle of rum, vinegar for Friz, and the aged port. Samus found a rolled up piece of paper (written in an unknown language – I’ll have to decipher it later). 

I called out my find when we heard a scream from Raelin. A huge spider and a swarm of her babies attacked, the large spider had venom dripping from her fangs as she sank them in the neck.  He fell back, poison coursing through his body.  I sang a lullaby to them and they all fell asleep.  We quickly used the cheap rum pouring it over the babies and mother spider and lit them on fire.  Spiders don’t do well with fire. We stopped up the un-grated pipes to keep the rats and fishmen out.

Snargras was not very happy with having to pay us 22 gold pieces (12 pieces kitty/2 gp each) for our work,  but pay us he did.  I don’t like him very much, he’s oily. 

While at the wharf district we tracked down the White Knuckle and Rudy told us they would be ready to sail in a week – they were making repairs to their ship and from what I could see, and I’m no sailor by any stretch, it needed A LOT of repairs.

We headed back to Idlewood and met with Sam Creed.  Raelin bought the Bracelet of Protection and Sam said he would give us 500 gp for the harpoon, but I wanted to find out what it did first.  I asked Sam if he could get me pearl worth 100 gp and he said he’d could get one for me in a couple of days.

We rested up and then headed for the big fight The Bender vs Kong.  The first bout though was Masked Marvel vs Kong and Raelin and I bet on Kong and won 3 gp though the fight was horrible with Kong ripping apart the Masked Marvel.  I was starting to worry about Samus, Obscura and Friz.  We bet a 100 gp on The Bender with 20 to 1 odds.

As the fight began I started looking around at the audience when I noticed Snargrass with an imp of all things sitting next to him.  I nudged Raelin who was still pretending to be Doug and whispered, “Fiend’s tongue,” nodding to the imp.  “for the recipe.”  Then I noticed Snargrass moving his fingers and realized he was casting a spell.  I looked down at Samus and the others but they looked fine.  “Snargras is using magic of some kind.”

“Maybe against Kong, since Samus has higher odds.  Snargras likes money,” Raelin commented his attention on the fight. “GO BENDER!”

“I don’t think so, let’s distract him. Pretend you’re drunk.” 

We stumbled toward him and Raelin fell against Snargras as I reached out to hug his imp, who turned invisible and slipped away.  Samus was in the corner of the arena swinging his arms.  Obscura had her crossbow pointed at the ape, while Friz hid in the tunnel.  Suddenly, Raelin and I felt our arms feel like lead.  I couldn’t cast a spell even if I wanted to.

Samus moved to the center yelling at the ape but Kong turned his attention to Obscura who shot him with a crossbow, and moved away from him.  Then the ape saw Friz who was trying to see what was happening and punched and bit him almost killing him.  But the healer healed himself.

Samus yelled at Kong who turned back to Samus rushing him and punching and biting.  The crowd went wild as my stomach fell.  Samus was going to get killed by this beast.  Raelin stumbled into Snargras again then suddenly was sailing over the crowd into the arena.  The crowd went wild yelling “New Guy! New Guy!” Friz ran out and began to massage Samus’ shoulders and I knew he was healing him.

I moved away from Snargras hoping distance would cure my leaden arms, it didn’t and  Snargras, now uninterupted started doing his spell work again.  I had enough and was about to head butt him in the back like I had seen Fluffy do to people on many occasions, when I felt myself flying through the air landing on my back in the arena causing me to hear bells…oh, wait it was just the rest period bell.

We all huddled in the tunnel as Friz worked on healing Samus who said that if he didn’t kill Kong we don’t get paid. Our plan was simple, Friz would keep an eye on the ape’s health, and when his health was bad enough, Samus was going to grapple him from behind and look like he was choking him, and I was going to cast sleep in him.  Then Samus was going to finish him off. 

In the meantime, Friz was sending his little homunculus gargoyle creature and I was sending Mouse to distract Snargras. 

The bell rang and off we went with our assignments.  Samus grappled him from behind and Raelin was going to wound him with his crossbow to make him easier to put to sleep but his shot hit the ape right through the eye and he went limp in Samus’ arms.  There was a collective groan from the crowd and us, as we realized our payday wasn’t going to happen.  But…we did get another ingredient - hair from a wild ape and Friz harvested the apes teeth and blood.

There was a fatality to our group though – Friz’ homunculus didn’t come back.  Mouse told me the imp killed him.  I hate that imp as much as his master.

We waited for the crowd to dissipate and got our money back from the bookies, minus their 10 gold and headed back to Idlewood.  Not a terrible day – two more ingredients closer to the elixir.

We discussed what our next steps would be over a nice hot cup of tea and toasted bread. We knew where to get the sand and I told everyone about Snargras’ imp, so we knew where to get a fiend’s tongue – the question was how does one catch an imp and steal it from Snargras?  Raelin said we would have to watch his home and figure out his normal movements, so we would know when he was home and when he wasn’t.  But all that would wait until morning…tonight, we did good.