As Hard As Dragon Scales - 23/07/2024 - Mendal Recounts

“Look at it boys!” Mendal said with straightened arms gesturing toward the courtyard table, and then holding his arms out wide.

On the table sat a considerable lump of mithril that Mendal had recently acquired on an adventure.



As Mendal explained to Kavel and Archie, it was during a meeting with Divine Hammer Rickon Thundercog (brother to the Watch’s Captain) where he became aware of a location of mithril ripe for the plucking if one could dive to the bottom of the ocean and retrieve the mithril, and of course breathe during the whole operation.

When Mendal had received the letter from the Divine Hammer, he immediately recruited his human knight friend, Elarris de L'Etan, the Herald of Archwyrm Eroshira. Elarris desired a suit of mithril plate and Mendal was keen to craft such a spectacular set of armour.

Only one adventure answered the call Mendal put out to the adventuring community, another human knight, the very tall and stern paladin, Adelard The White Shield, servant of Helm.

The Divine Hammer, devoted to the god Gond, had discovered the location of a long ago sunken royal vessel, The Floating Rock. A dwarven prince was shipping mithril to Kantas to help in founding a new dwarven kingdom on the new continent. The ship never made it to shore, and the treasure aboard was lost, and the cause of the disaster unknown. But there were two adventurers keen to acquire the lost mithril, and one who offered his protection to law-abiding people as a matter of honour and devotion to his god, Helm. So together, three adventurers decided to discover the lost mithril.

Unfortunately for the three adventurers, none had the capability to breathe underwater, navigate the seas, or owned a ship or any magical means of achieving what they needed to do. In Mendal’s divine repertoire of spells, the god Moradin had blessed him with the ability to cast a spell for Water Walking - unfortunately the opposite of what was needed, as the treasure was below the sea line.

However, Elarris knew of a ship and crew who might sail for him, and the promise of unspecified treasure. So the band of treasure hunting knights set off to Port Ffirst to meet with the crew of the Wave Skimmer, a newly ‘acquired’ ship for Captain Ishmael and his crew. Mendal noted that his party was three, and the captain’s crew were five, and was happy to split everything but the precious metal eight ways. The mithril would be his, and Thundercog’s. The captain agreed to the deal.

The ship followed the map that the Divine Hammer had given Mendal to the village of the Tritons. Before carrying on for ten more miles to reach the point where The Floating Rock was believed to have sunk, the adventurers chose to wait and encounter some Tritons. In order to best navigate the seas, and locate the sunken ship, who better to employ than an underwater faring expert, like Tritons? The crew of the Wave Skimmer were sceptical. But the Tritons agreed to help with no need for payment. They even provided the three adventurers with seal-skin leather armour, to better move around under the water. It would be a reduction in the protective quality of armour for the three knights, but a considerable increase in mobility whilst underwater. However, the Tritons could not provide a solution for underwater breathing, for non-sea-native humanoids. The crew of the Wave Skimmer though, could, and negotiations were renewed.

Mendal and the adventuring party agreed to new terms. The Wave Skimmer sailors would get all coins found in The Floating Rock. The new terms were agreed upon, and a member of the Wave Skimmer offered the party a magical item that would provide eight hours of underwater breathing.

Guided by a young triton, the Wave Skimmer reached the location of the map where The Floating Rock was believed to lay. The young triton confirmed this.

Mendal and Elarris changed their garb from segmented plate and mail for seal-skin leather. Adelard, however remained in his segmented plate reasoning he offered more to the group fully armoured even under the water and even at the expense of improved mobility. And so it was, two knights in leather and one as he was; descended with tridents in hand and with the magic of water breathing cast on them, and a long rope to tie treasure to.

On the ocean floor, the adventurers found The Floating Rock split in half with giant bite marks across both halves. The ship lay in a pit, with a strange, seemingly decorated cave entrance to one side of the pit, and one giant shark lurking around the furthest half of the ship.

Adelard stood guard outside the closer half of the ship, whilst Mendal and Elarris, dressed in seal-skin leather moved into the ship via an open cavity and began searching the cargo area.

Amongst crates and barrels was a stone container large enough to store two gallons of water. Dwarven runes marked the container - this was the container for the prince’s mithril!

The ship delvers began exploring more containers for extra treasure and payment for the Wave Skimmer’s crew. Mendal searched for hidden treasure within the barrels only to fill the location with ancient beer that needed to be waved away for the search to continue. Elarris found a chest of coins, and in one crate he found a suit of plate, but also a suit of plate made of mithril!

The two adventurers pulled the crate with the sets of armour out, turned it on its side and filled it with the coins from the chest. Eager to not have to carry the stone container, Mendal chose to remove the mithril inside and stow it in the armours’ crate. Mendal took the time to cast the Detect Magic spell, to determine if the stone container had protective abjuration magic to it. It did not. With Elarris’s help he shifted the stone lid off of the top - and then they both got zapped by the protective anti-tampering lightning spell from within the stone container! Blood entered the water from their wounds…

A knock from the side of the ship. Adelard was alerting his companions to not one, but two sharks in the vicinity! Adelard himself was about to be set on by a shark and also a swarm of fish. The swarm of fish, they all saw when they descended to the ocean floor and thought nothing of them. Adelard was the first to realise these were not prey, they were predators. They were a vicious, and numerous swarm of sharp teeth.

From the inside of the ship, Mendal and Elarris placed the lump of mithril from the stone container into the crate of armour, resealed the crate, and began to push the crate out of the hole they entered the ship by. But whilst one of the two nosey sharks went to greet Adelard on the outside with its sharp teeth, the other came into the ship to greet Mendal and Elarris.

Adelard with his mighty tower shield at hand shoved his shark aggressor away from the entrance to his allies inside the ship and impaled the shark with the trident he was given with a powerful triple piercing throw. Adelard’s segmented plate did not help with his attempts to evade retaliatory shark bites, nor fish swarm bites, but it did provide more robust protection than the sea-skin leather would have.

Elarris kept his shark at the end of his trident and Mendal pushed the crate of goods out of their entrance, and rejoined Adelard on the outside - what he could see of Adelard. Adelard was now fully swarmed by vicious, sharp-teeth biting fish and a water cloud of his own blood. Shield nor armour could prevent them from finding flesh to bite.

Mendal secured the goods to the Wave Skimmer’s rope, at the same time providing divine healing to his companion Adelard from afar, whilst Elarris escaped to the outside to join his companions. The three knights together, treasure secure, Mendal tugged three times on the rope to signal to the Wave Skimmer’s crew to hoist up the rope, and at the same time, he cast the Water Walk spell on himself, Elarris and Adelard. The three knights rose with great speed, escaping their hostile sea-life aggressors, and grabbed hold of the rope bearing their treasure to speed up its ascendance to the surface.

The coins, as agreed, went to the crew of the Wave Skimmer. The sea-skin leathers and remaining two tridents were returned to the Tritons, and Mendal made a note to make them more tridents and more crossbows to accompany the gift of a crossbow and bolts that Elarris had given the Tritons.

Adelard took the steel suit of armour. Elarris took the mithril suit. Mendal used his clan-crafting expertise and divine forge cleric magic to tailor the suits to his companion’s preferences. One with symbology of Helm (and frustratingly for Mendal no maker’s mark!) and one with the symbology of the great Archwyrm of the Radiant Light, Eroshira.

Upon returning to Fort Daring to meet Divine Hammer Rickon Thundercog, he was delighted to receive the mithril, which, as agreed, he split with Mendal.



“Absolutely splendid, Mendal!” Archie said, looking at the lump of mithril on the courtyard table. Kavel picked it up in one hand and juggled it.

“Light,” Kavel observed.

“Careful you!” Mendal said to his goliath, and supremely strong friend, “don’t need you sending that into the heavens by accident!”

As Kavel put the lump of mithril back down on the table, Archie asked, “Divine Hammer Thundercog, he didn’t join you on the expedition? From the name, I would assume him to be a cleric like yourself?”

“Gammy leg!” Mendal replied. “Not sure why he can’t heal that. Didn’t want to ask. I had more things to think about, like how I was going to breathe underwater!”

“I want to see the altar he builds with his half of the mithril,” Kavel stated. “Where is this temple being built? Why haven’t we heard of a temple to Gond and Moradin?”

“Why haven’t we been asked to be involved, too, right?!” Said Mendal. “You could build a bloody fortress in a day by yourself, with or without help from your cousin Krueger. And I! I’m a Vultan Clan Crafter, why the fuck would you not want my help in all facets of the temple build?”
The boast and indignation went fully observed by Archie. To be fair to his dwarven friend, it did seem odd, despite his short-comings of personality, Mendal’s artisan talents were strong. But another thought entered his mind, which he voiced to Mendal.

“What of your Vultan Zephyr Armour? The lightweight brigandine with magical enhancement to the wearer’s agility?”

“Ah yeeeess!” Mendal said, sighing loudly at the end of his words. “Divine Hammer didn’t have any money and wanted me to put my Vultan Zephyr Armour up as a reward for finding the mithril. I was fine with that. You have to spend a bit of coin to get a bit of marketing going to build your reputation. That’s fine. What isn’t bloody fine is no one needed my armour! Elarris, Adelard, me - we’re kinda the same, we all prefer plate armour!”

“Unlucky. No takers then.” Kavel lamented with Mendal.

“Fuckers just needed to turn up and go for a little sail on a boat and they could have had magical armour with a selling price of over 11,000 gold!”

“Whilst risking their lives underwater,” Archie added.

“Sure.” Was all Mendal had to say about that. And changing the subject, he added, “Thundercog, you know he rubbed me the wrong way a little. Prick wouldn’t shut up about Gond and basically suggested that Moradin was a poor man’s Gond. Don’t get me wrong though, I liked the guy! Man knew his craft, and I bloody respect that! But he also seems to have had a falling out with his brother, the Captain at the Watch. Balto gave Rickon some real shit accommodation in Fort Daring. Wonder what’s that about? And, I do wish the guy well at forging his altar to Gond… but if this temple cuts the mustard, then I’m going to let it house Moradin’s Sacred Hammer, and can’t wait to see Rickon’s face as the best item in the temple is something belonging to Moradin. Ha!”