Among the Breakers - 23/12/2021 - A Kavel Perspective

Early Morning Run from Daring Heights to Port First

Shit! That is what my time management has been like recently. I had forgotten about my next wood carving lesson with Morgana, and then I got a message from the Acorn Squad telling me I needed to be in Port Ffirst by the lighthouse.

Mercifully it is a very cold morning. Others may not use the term merciful to describe the cold weather, but I am goliath and to me; this is good running weather, and I needed to run.


In Front of the Lighthouse

Of the adventurers there, I arrived last. Normally I am one of the first to arrive, giving myself plenty of time to warm-up for whatever challenge we’ll face. I guess today my run here will be my warm-up. Fortunately, it looks like an employer is not waiting on me yet. So, I’m not late.

“You’re late!” This statement came from comrade Sterling. It was the same mouth that wanted to know if I’d had much success not banging my forehead against entrances, since the last time we met. Comrade Sterling is a remarkable halfing. He is one of only two artificer magic people I’ve met. More remarkable though is his disagreeable way of speaking. It’s even more remarkable when the other artificer I’ve met is the complete opposite to him, and she is also here.

Comrade Pipper is a young lizardfolk. In a literal sense she wears her artificer proficiency on her sleeve - her right arm is entirely metal infused with magic. She is warming herself up in front of a fire. Comrade Sterling appears to have acquired a metal dog since we last met. How odd. I wonder if it needs feeding and if it does different tricks to regular dogs?
Sterling is examining Pipper’s right arm, which Pipper has detached for Sterling’s convenience. They are both fascinated with each other’s inventions. This is nice. Good comradery amongst fellow artificiers. I like this.

Comrade Silvia is new to me. She is a very tall human. She dresses in a simple manner like me. Silvia and Sterling appear to know each other. They are exchanging curt responses to each other. Strangely this seems agreeable to them.

Yuli was also a new comrade for me . An owl aarakocra with a longbow. She asked Pipper why she couldn’t regrow the arm; since she was a lizardfolk. This was an interesting point. But, Pipper said that she was born without a right arm.

“How strong is the arm?” I asked.

“It’s only as strong as the other one,” Pipper replied. I left Pipper with some words of wisdom, “you should make it stronger”.

At that moment, the door to the lighthouse swung open.


Into The Lighthouse

We all went in. The right hand wall lit up. Silvia informed us that the wall is an illusion hiding an entrance that goes down. Sterling sent his metal bird up the stairs to check what was above us, but the lighthouse guards he found did not seem like they were expecting us. So, we went down through the illusion.

Upon entering the downstairs room, we could see the walls covered with illustrations and bits of string connecting picture to picture and notes. Two tables in the centre of the room had maps sprawled out on them with notes too.

“Best crazy person room I’ve seen,” said Sterling as we took in the room.

From the far corner of the room, opposite the entrance, a woman in her late thirties responded to Sterling. Although, it was really more of a retort. She was an agent of the Harmonious Order. I began looking for the Acorn Squad. Where were they hiding? But, the Order’s representative told me they weren’t here.

The Breakers, some pirate faction here in Port Ffirst pay tribute to the sea goddess Umberlee. Umberlee and the god Milil share a temple in the Tritooth Wharf of Port Ffirst. The temple is called the Temple of Two Faiths. The Breakers recently stole a temple organ from the Milil half of the temple. The Order are keeping track of the Breakers plans and movements. However, they have a problem. They have no one in their employ who the Breakers haven’t already confronted. So there’s no way for the Harmonious Order to infiltrate the Breakers with their own crew. We were to infiltrate the Breakers in their hideout, a cave at a place referred to as Breakers’ Point.

The Harmonious Order learnt where the hideout was, by intercepting and capturing the new recruits, and interrogating them. There were five recruits and five of us, and fortunately, it turned out that the Breakers had not met their new recruits yet. We were to go into the base, pose as new recruits and learn; who the leader of the Breakers is, what it is they are doing, and what their next plans are.

We were advised not to try and fight the Breakers, just stick to reconnaissance. Previous adventurers had recently tussled with the Breakers and they are quite strong. On their own turf it could be worse.

The recruits were supposed to reach the hideout by noon. If we were to replace them, we had to leave now.


Onwards To The Breakers’ Base

Outside, by the lighthouse was a ship called, The Furious, that would take us to Breakers’ Point, which was north of Port Ffirst.

We found Breakers’ Point easily enough. The Furious waited for us, hidden in an alcove nearby. We entered the cave and came before a large, well fitted door to the cave’s entrance.

Not for the first time, Pipper checked with the rest of us whether she should put on her armour. We said yes. She must be getting a feel for when is a good time to don armour now. And not for the first time, I saw her activate her armour cube on her bandolier, and the most magnificent splint armour enveloped her body. Seeing the spectacle of Pipper’s armour donning itself to her body is not getting old. It is very impressive. It also made me think; where is Sterling’s own version of this? He has a metal bird and a metal dog. He’s also wearing studded leather armour.

“Sterling. You are an artificer too. Do you have impressive, self-donning armour like Pipper?” I asked my other tinkering comrade. But, no response came, which was unusual for him. Instead he wandered up to the cave door and announced he would pick the lock. Silvia reminded him we were not sent here to steal anything, but instead to join the Breakers. Yuli checked the entrance for traps.

We knocked on the door. Around the level of an average sized humanoid, an eye-level window box opened, and a guard looked out at us and asked, “password?”

“... Umberle is really cool?” Came Pipper taking the initiative.

“Haha. No password. It’s just a joke,” said the guard, and he proceeded to open the door for us. Many bolts unlocked and the door swung open towards us. Pipper and Sterling became fixated at the locking mechanism, in the same way I would become fixated at a new strength apparatus. They both concur there is a magical element to the door.


Meeting The Breakers’ Crew

Landyr, as he was called, led us in through the door and into the hallway of the cave, where he remained on duty. Just before we got to the hallway, Silvia switched positions with me, and walked behind me. I cast a glance behind me to see why she was muttering to herself, and caught her casting a spell. Understanding she was up to something and wanted cover, I puffed my chest out and tried to take up as much space as I could. Three snakes slid past us. Landyr was busy answering our questions, he didn’t notice the snakes go by.

Landyr told us the boss would be here soon, in an hour or an hour and a half. She will then initiate us, the new recruits. Landyr gave us the option of either heading forward to the first corridor, which would take us to the personnel quarters, where we could meet a few other Breakers. Or, if we wanted, we could take the right hand corridor and help out at the docks.

I thought to myself that if we were to blend in like we were actual recruits, then it would be a good idea if I went to the docks and helped with some heavy lifting. What better way is there for me to prove how useful I can be? But, before I could put one foot in front of the other; Silvia, Yuli and Pipper were already making their way to the docks. Perfect! We’re all going to the docks!

Sterling, however, was heading down the corridor to the personnel quarters. Damn! I wanted to go to the docks, but I did not think it wise to leave comrade Sterling on his own, so I followed him to the crew’s lodgings.


Meeting Breakers In The Personnel Quarters

In the personnel quarters, comrade Sterling and I found a few tents set up for the crew, a fire in the centre, weapons and other gear stored against the walls. A sad looking human woman was in front of one tent. On the opposite side of the fire was an enthusiastic tortle sharpening an impressive looking axe.

Sterling approached the tortle and asked him about his axe. The axe’s shaft was around four feet long. It was taller than Sterling. Wim, as he introduced himself, was shorter than me, but by maybe no more than a foot. Sterling called me over to come look at the man’s axe. I offered Wim that he could hold my Chakan-poleaxe, if I could have a look at his axe. Wim agreed, and we got talking. Wim is one of those people who names his weapons. The axe was called Vera. Wim mentioned something about slashing infidels and a place called Za’Suul, which I latter learnt is northeast of Port Ffirst on the island Joran.

Wim is happy to speak to us ‘new recruits’. He tells us more. We learn that a lady called Milincali is in charge. They are busy getting supplies; food and weaponry ready for an attack. They are in need of a ship captain.

After learning this information, Sterling makes his excuses to leave and check on the others. He notices a smaller corridor on the right side of the quarters leading to a room guarded by a heavily armoured woman.

Wim offers to spar with me. I am genuinely interested. This is the type of comradery I miss from the Iron Strong Company. If only Wim were not a pirate, I would be glad to have him come join me in Kavel’s Corner. I tell Wim I look forward to it, but I will go follow Sterling, because I said I would help out at the docks after meeting people here - this was of course a lie. I never said any of that to the team. I would have preferred if we could have battled to achieve the mission, but our employer warned us not to. So, I guess sometimes you have to put strength aside and adapt to espionage. I think I’m doing well at that.

On my way out, I looked at the sad-looking woman and asked, “Hello. What is your name? And are you okay?”

The human woman just shrugged her shoulders, glanced up a bit at my face and said, “it’s Alisha. And yep.”

“I am Kavel. Okay then.” And I carried on walking to catch up with Sterling.


Hallway Exchange

As it turned out, the others were making their way to us in order to exchange information gathered. We crossed in the hallway by Landyr. Yuli noticed that Landyr owned a bow like her, so she engaged him in conversation, cleverly leaving the rest of us to exchange findings.

Between us, we have figured out that;


We decide to swap locations while we wait for Milincali to return. Yuli stayed in the hall with Landyr, now taking it in turn to loose arrows at a target. Me and Sterling were now off to the docks. Pipper and Silvia went to the crews’ quarters. However, before Pipper walked into the crew quarters’ corridor, she turned invisible. Landyr was too occupied to notice. Pipper was going to attempt to pass by the armoured guard and get into Millincali’s quarters.

Earlier, while me and Sterling were talking in the crew quarters, Silvia had managed to subtly inspect the crates in the dock for their contents, by using one of her snakes to slither inside the crates. But, the snake she sent ahead of me and Sterling in the crews’ quarters got squashed by the fearsome-looking guard, who we later learnt was called Uluryn. Sterling had an idea to help Pipper get past Uluryn, and infiltrate Milincali’s quarters.

Before joining Sterling on the way to the docks, I stopped to interrupt Landyr before his next attempt at target. “Comrade Landyr. Why is Alisha so sad-looking. Is she alright?”

“Ah. Yeah. Her sister died recently,” came Landyr’s response.

I thanked Landyr for his response, and made my way to the docks to join Sterling.


Strong Man Lifts Crates And Loads Them On To Ships At The Docks

As I followed Sterling to the large expanse that was the docks, we saw what we were told to expect from the others. There were a number of strong-looking weresharks loading crates on ships. In the water, guarding the ships were sahuagin armed with trident-like pole weapons. And finally, there was an earth-genasi by the name of Cree. Silvia warned us that Cree worked on The Furious. It seemed he was a double-agent, on our side really, but deep inside with the enemy. Silvia said Cree was the foreman here at the docks and a little pissed off with them. Pipper especially did not seem to endear herself well with the people here at the docks while Silvia and Yuli did better. Silvia said it would be best if we avoided Cree and didn’t try to chat with him.

Comrade Sterling went straight up to Cree and started pitching ideas for ship weapons and armament. The sort of artillery and forged armour that Sterling seemed to specialise in.

I went up to some of the weresharks who were picking up some crates, and was glad to be able to lend a hand here. I know I was about to help pirates, but it still felt good to be helpful, especially if I got to use my strength.

“Hello. I am a new recruit. Can I lend a hand with the crates? I am very strong.” Looking back at how I introduced myself, I was very eager. The weresharks were happy to receive my help and pleased to see a new recruit get stuck in with the work.

I don’t mean to be big-headed. But, I impressed myself with how much I could lift.

I haven’t been able to truly test my capacity. But I reckon I’ve made some incredible gains since my time here in Kantas. I estimate my carrying capacity to be around 960lbs, just shy of 1,000lbs. To think my pack only weighs just under a fifth of that. I have carrying capacity to spare!

What about my work strength? Pushing, dragging and lifting? I wouldn’t want anyone to get the picture that I’m being self aggrandising, but most people’s work strength is approximately twice their carrying capacity, and no joke - I reckon I can shift close to 2,000lbs fairly comfortably. If I was to be more specific, then 1,920lbs. I’ll have to get some practice in, if I want to lift over 2,000lbs. More time spent at Kavel’s Corner is due!

I was able to lift not just crates, but pallets of crates to help my new ‘comrades’. They were very impressed with my strength and hard work. They were happy to have someone like me ‘join’ the crew. I must be doing well at espionage, and all I’m doing is being myself.

Between journeys back to pick up more pallets, I could hear Sterling telling Cree he could demonstrate now what type of thing he had in mind for the Breakers’ ships, if they would agree to deal with him. Pallet of crates resting on one shoulder, I stopped to watch comrade Sterling’s demonstration. The darndest thing happened.

Sterling nodded at his metal dog and pointed away at the lip of the cave’s entrance out to the sea. The dog transformed itself into a futuristic looking half cannon, half ballista. I’ve never seen anything like this. The mobile dog-cannon walked on top of a rock a few feet away from Cree and Sterling, and fired a magical blast at the cave entrance. There was a loud explosive noise as the dog-cannon fired. A chunk of rock flew away from where the force blast hit. We later learned that this - plus Silvia annoying Uluryn - was useful to invisible Pipper, as it helped her stealthily enough get past Uluryn and into the boss’s quarters.

I think I like Pipper’s mechanical armour more, but Sterling’s dog-cannon was very impressive.

A few moments later, a horn was sounded. A ship was coming into the docks. It was Milincali’s ship.


Milincali and Initiation

Some saraquin guards debarked from the new ship, followed by a merfork woman with a huge platinum medallion round her neck.

“Cree bring out the new blood. I do wish to meet them.” This was Milincali.

We were lined up on the dock as Milincali walked along the line, inspecting us.

Milincali asked, “you’re all here to join our rank? All believers of Umberle?”

No one gave a verbal response. I think we all felt in this situation, being addressed by our superior meant we had to look forward, but not at a superior, and only speak when spoken too… was Milincali not asking a rhetorical question? I do not know, but didn’t know if I should ask.

Uluryn brought a small box to Milincali. I could see Milincali take some coins from it. Cree spoke up and pointed at a couple of us, and said, “they’re not quite ready”. Pipper and Sterling both received a coin. I did not. I was a little confused. I didn’t see anyone else load more crates than me.

The waters rose at Milincali’s command, “Umberlee welcomes you all!”

To Landyr, our new ‘boss’ said, “let them out, they will come back when they are needed.”

We left the hideout and boarded The Furious and set sail back to the lighthouse.


Mission Debrief At The Lighthouse

Aboard The Furious, Yuli told the caption about Cree. The captain already knew that Cree was a double-agent, spying for someone called Donovan.

At the lighthouse’s secret basement, we gave our employer all the information we learnt; Milincali was the Breakers’ leader. They needed a ship captain, they were preparing supplies for a battle, and finally, Pipper had learnt in Milincali’s quarters that the Breakers were planning on taking over the Milil half of the Temple of Two Faiths. They were really pissed off at the Milil clergy for being too loud and disrupting Umberlee worship.

We had earned 60gp each. Not bad for espionage, I guess. Certainly very good money for loading crates onto a ship and just chatting to people.

I later learnt that I was fortunate not to have received one of the coins Pipper and Sterling were given. These were cursed! They were called Umberlee’s Mercy. Technically they were very good if you were around a large body of water. It seemed that around water, Umberlee could bestow strength to you through the power of faith. However, you would be less capable at fighting sea-people, and you would get an addictive person’s withdrawal symptoms if you stayed too long away from large bodies of water. What I learnt here is it pays well to show some comradery with other people, even if you are spying on these people. Also, use your strength to be helpful. Being helpful and strong means avoiding forced loyalty by curse.

Now. Back to Daring Heights. It’s time to get back on schedule. I have woodcarving to improve on, and I’m going to need to carve some really, really big heavy clubs, if I’m to eventually lift over 2,000lbs.