To the Sewers! - 30/05
Jun 2, 2019 16:44:34 GMT
Malri 'Taffeta' Thistletop, Milo Brightmane, and 3 more like this
Post by Markas Virnala on Jun 2, 2019 16:44:34 GMT
"Making friends and Summoning Demons"
8th Entry in the Journal of Markas Virnala
Today was a weird day… a few of us got together to deal with a job from a guy called Himal, who's working for the Lenoirs. Something about the sewers beneath Port Ffirst. Baine, Bogg, their adoptive son Urso and me grouped together and headed off to the Flourished Hook, bumping into Doddil on the way. When we got there, there was a woman I'd not seen around before who seemed to be responding to the notice too. She was a human and went by the name Holly and had a Raven on her shoulder.
It's starting to get a little frustrating meeting people who aren't who they say they are. Holly turned out to be Serpentine, a Blue Tiefling with these big devil-like horns who has worked with Baine before, while the Raven is actually an Imp that travels with her. How many other people are hiding things like this!? I gather everyone has their secrets but how many of the people have I met so far not been who they say they are?
I mean they have always ended up helpful so I don't really understand why they hide away.... aside from Langston that is. He was NOT helpful....
Anyway, I guess that's not important now.
Himal, a man with dark Olive skin, Green eyes and a white turban, came in and laid out the situation for us. The richer folk of New Town are starting to complain about some issues with the new sewer system and there have been reports of noises and sightings in the Sewers. There was also talk of some robberies in the area so could even be bandits hiding out down there. He didn't seem to care much about it but since the Lenoirs are taking an interest he needs someone to look into it. The job was to just investigate the rumours going around and bring back proof its fake or resolved. He gave us a few leads: 2x names of workers who had made reports, another name of a worker who went missing and directions to the entrance of the sewers.
We went to speak with the 2x 'witnesses' before venturing in to see if we could get a better idea of what we were dealing with here.
The first was a man called Priest. He wasn’t actually a Priest though, which made the whole thing a little confusing…. He was very distrustful and was clearly a drunk but then I guess if you're working in a sewer all the time it's easy to see why. He was convinced we were sent by Isabelle, his boss who keeps accusing him of drinking on the job, which he denies (Clearly lying). We eventually got him to trust us a bit and he let us in. His house was simple but clearly the home of an alcoholic. There were so many empty bottle lying around I'm sure he could keep Jedd in business alone. Urso asked for some Milk and I immediately almost started vomiting again…. Bad memories of the milk in the Bar….. Urso drank it and his body has apparently finally reached breaking point as he looked…. BAD. He was holding himself together at least for now.
We got him talking after slipping him some gold. Priest was the worker who reported seeing something down there, a large shadowy shape with 10 arms walking towards him! Urso was convinced it must be an octopus since the sewers go into the sea but seemed unlikely to me. Priest wasn’t convinced either. He said he used to work on ships and that was no octopus he saw, for what that’s worth anyway. Apparently he kept hearing a metallic scraping noise as well but there wasn’t really any indication of what this was. Anyway, when he saw this shadow, he freaked out, dropped his lantern and the workers all ran out and haven't been back since. When Doddil asked about this missing worker (Arlo we learned was his name), he just said he went missing a few days later. They wasn’t close but he thinks he might have been a pirate just looking for some coin, realised the work wasn’t worth it then left.
We left Priest to what he was doing and set off for where he said Alicia lived, the other 'witness'. He looked happy with the few Gold Baine flipped him but as we were leaving, he suddenly started to panic and bolted off down the street… Right about now, Urso took a turn for the worse and Baine tells him to throw up the milk to get it out of his system. I mean, I can't fault Baines logic here… but picking up Urso as he did exactly that was possibly one of the worst things I think he's done…. Urso, with a force that should not be possible from such a small body, proceeded to projectile Vomit, while Bain holds him in the air and starts to panic, COVERING ALL OF US IN VOMIT. If my clothes weren't already ruined, they are now… The only 'good' thing to come from this whole fiasco was Baine spotting that Holly still looked suspiciously clean…. He pressed her as to why which is when Serpentine revealed themselves…
Moving on, now a troup of offensively defiled group of adventurers with one hulking Half-Orc saying sorry and a child running around now back to full health, we headed for the second witness: Alicia. Needless to say, everyone on the way gave us a wide berth…
Alicia was pretty much as distrustful as Priest was. I guess I can see why given how we met.
Doddil and Urso knocked on the door, she cracks it open to see us, all covered in vomit except for Baine, who winks at her.
She closes the door.
After slipping some gold under the door, she opened it back up again, still only a crack asked Baine to take a step back (he wasn’t pleased with that!), and helped us out with some information. She has a very different view to Priest. She agreed with Isabelle (and all of us… except Serpentine who seemed to believe him?
) that Priest was a drunk and had definitely been drinking that day. The noises, she said are always there, it’s a sewer! And as for the mysterious shadow, she didn’t see anything. Priest just sort of freaked out and practically barrelled into her on the way out…. All this fuss he's causing is nonsense and she just wants to get back to work. As for the missing person, Arlo, she didn’t really know anything about it, probably just didn’t want to work. We were just about to leave when Alicia asked Serpentine (disguised as Holly) to take her out for a drink sometime! Serp said another time but Alicia's face looked like she was listening to something for a second afterwards before smiling…. I'm wondering if Serp can talk to people's minds now I think back on it…. Would explain some odd events from today like this and Priest freaking out.
We decided not to speak to Isabelle and instead head straight for the sewers. Urso was causing a fuss about not knowing what this blockage that was reported and Baine was playing the father figure again, trying to placate him… It's funny watching the three of them, Bogg, Baine and Urso. You'd think they actually were a family.
We found the entrance, a small brick building with a ladder going in. Bogg cast a light spelll for those who couldn’t see in the dark but what we entered into was a large chamber with all these pipes discharging into it, with sewage running into a deeper channel leading off through a small tunnel. To be honest, its bigger than I expected down there, but Baine still had to duck a lot of the time. We started heading down the main route from our entrance to what was clearly a main channel in the sewers. We could all hear the metal grinding noise that was described but couldn’t tell what it was…
The main channel I guess was where things started to take a turn. The channel was deep and running pretty fast, I almost couldn’t reach the bottom with my staff when I tested it. The only way across was a small plank stretched over the gap. We started heading over one by one; I couldn't help but show off a little, this is exactly the sort of thing we practiced in training. Anyway, I guess Urso probably tried to copy me doing a cartwheel across when he fell in! Baine screamed in panic and dived in with Doddil just behind trying to grab onto him!
As we watched from the other side, Urso was swept away and Doddil, unable to hold Baine, let him slip into the current as well! We looked down and suddenly Urso is out of the water, walking along the ceiling!? That kid is full of surprises! Baine starts trying to swim against the current as we're trying to work out what to do when Serp jumps in and gets taken by the current down to Baine. Just as she reaches him, there is a deafening explosion, Sewage gets sprayed everywhere and the pair are stood back next to us, both dripping with sewage. Doddil, manages to pull himself back up while Urso comes along the wall back to us in tears, crying sorry… From what they could see down there, they were pretty close to going over a pretty deep drop.
With everyone safe again.. We started to explore the other side of the channel. Immediately there was a ladder heading further down and a weird metal wheel on the wall. We didn’t get much of a chance to check these out yet though as we went off to explore the rest of the tunnel. Bogg spotted a symbol with directions on (Just looked like a weird drawing to me?) so we followed it. Serp had already run off ahead so when we caught up to her, in another large room with cascading pipes of sewage, we spotted him walking into a secret door. As I stepped in after her, I heard someone threatening us not to move but everything just looked black…. Suddenly, the rooms lights up and we meet Olowin and Bo.
Serpentine and Baine recognised these two pretty quickly…. I think they ran into each other back when Bain first got to Kantas. Olowin is a Halfling with long curly hair and an immense moustache, with a big cigar hanging out of his mouth, while Bo is a Half-Orc with Grey skin, big tusks and a long black cape. He was wearing this big medallion with a sigil on that looked kind of odd.
For the most part, the rest of us just watched this encounter... We were introduced but Baine was excited to see Bo again while Serpentine was reminiscing about a fight the four of them had before. Urso (still walking on the ceiling) was being rude to Olowin, saying he doesn’t trust Halflings (Even though he himself is a Halfling…. So is Bogg for that matter.) I'm pretty sure he spat at him once or twice even, cueing the inevitable scolding from Papa Baine.
All in all, this was a weird side-track to what we were doing. From what I could gather listening in, they have some kind of underground…. Business (criminal obviously) going on and had tunnelled into the sewers while expanding. They were setting up traps (they pointed out a weird Glyph that Bo had put on the door) to protect them. They had been attacked recently by some sort of shark people in the sewers but didn’t know anything else about what we were doing. Needless to say, they offered to "trust us" if brought them evidence of dealing with it for them, since it seemed tied to what we were already doing. A quest, within a quest….
They eventually left so we doubled back to the ladder and that wheel to carry on looking around, deciding to turn it and see what happens. EVEN THIS turned into a drama…
I tried to turn it to the left but was stopped by Baine. Serp then had her Imp (Called Monty) to turn it left. Baine steps in trying to turn it to the right while Urso starts climbing all over him like a climbing frame…. This mess carried on for about 5 minutes until they collective decide to turn it right… causing some weird noises that…. Didn’t seem to do too much. Looking back, the main channel seemed a little slower but that’s about it, so we headed down the ladder, finding another wheel we turned to the same result. We were about to carry on when Baine saw some Goblins tracks in the filth on the ground.
Serp must have sent her imp off ahead again here, turning it invisible as I've now learned. As Baine told us of the tracks and we started to sneak forward, we could hear a shouting from round the corner, someone sounding panicked and another voice saying he knows someone is there and that they are armed. Baine, SURPRISING EVERYONE, suggests to the voice we talk it out…. Then there was a loud crash and a Goblin drops from round the corner to the floor in front of us. We step out to see what the hell is going on and another one charges us, shouting we killed his brother. He lunges at as…. And Baine decapitates him with one swing of his sword, sending the head rolling to the wall behind us.
I'm not really happy with how this played out. Serp tied up the remaining Goblin, who was only unconscious it seemed. She had Monty drop a large crate on his head before which caused all the fuss. They eventually woke up in a panic and actually wet himself in front of us…. I didn’t get into this to torment creatures like this… He called us dysfunctional…. With Baine trying to talk to him after killing his brother, Urso shouting about shark people, Serpentine cutting off an ear from the severed head and Bogg already looting, I'd say he called it well.
I'm not sure how but Baine managed to calm him down and somehow earn his trust!? He told us about these shark-people that they'd seen further in the tunnels and then tried offering us his services…. The Goblins basically are stealing and selling stuff here in the sewers so we have now met our second criminal contact for the day… This whole trip has been confusing. He told us he has 35 other brothers but this one was his favourite, now Ghetul is his favourite…. Goblin culture seems pretty strange… We untie him and carry on through the tunnels anyway, hearing the Goblin scream something about an ear as we go (Serpentine seemed happy about that).
We reach the main channel again, where the deep drop would've led Bain and Urso to if they hadn't of got out of the water. I'm genuinely amazed at how deep these sewers go…. We cross over, this time without incident and follow a short tunnel into a wider opening with a large Pool. We manage to sneak a look as something climbs out of the water…
It started with two, meaty looking webbed hands, grabbing onto the edge of the pool, that then started to pull a huge muscular body with greenish blue skin and a big tail with a fin on. The head of this thing was long like a fish and we could see Gills on its neck. Luckily it hadn't noticed us yet so we started to prepare to surprise it….. Until Serpentine had her way of course. She looks at us, says "I've always wanted to do then this" then turned back around, did…. Something!
The next thing we know there is this hulking red demon standing next to the creature that crawled out of the Pool… and we rush in, all ideas of stealth now gone.
Spooked by this sudden appearance of a Demon, the creature lashed out at it with a spear, while Doddil, Bogg and myself fire off a volley of arrows at it, each hitting it with Bogg's catching it in the head, sending it falling back into the Pool of water… we move into the chamber as 2x more jump out of the Pool at either side, one with 4 arms and a trident, stockier than the last jumping out in front of the Demon Serp summoned, while the other is taller and more feminine looking, also with a large trident jumped out on the side I was on.
The huge Demon launches a flurry of giant boulder sized fists at the 4-armed Creature, when Doddils trademark Ice Knife explodes out of its back, cutting both the creature and the demon to bits. Serpentine fires off some sort of blast attack at the both as I charged the one in front of money, slicing it open with my sword but not landing the second punch I threw. Suddenly another ice knife launches into the back of the 4-armed creature and drops it, sending the feminine one in front of me into a rage. She closes her eyes, holds out her hands and suddenly my muscles freeze up again, just like in New Hillborrow…. I need to find a way to stop this!
The next thing I could see was a small ghostly hand appear and seem to electrocute the creature in front of me… This was Urso it turned out, but before I knew Baine was next to me, asking if I need a hand as he parries the trident out of its hands and runs it through with Phil. My muscles immediately free up again as it slumps back off of Phil, dead.
We relax and spot movement to the back of the room, where a small demon looking thing pokes its head out at us before vanishing away…. And that was that. Baine rubbed my head with his knuckles and told me for the 80th time to buy a new shirt…. Urso seemed to have lost some control when casting that spell and now couldn't speak, only blowing pink bubbles instead? Serp finished off the demon she summoned before it could turn on us I guess (not really sure how that works?) and Bogg seemed to have picked up an old pair of glasses from somewhere? He actually jumped into the Pool in the middle of the room to clean off the sewage (seemed pointless to me as we still had to get back out?) and said it was sea water and that he could see a cave at the bottom…. Must be where they came in from? Doddil and I checked out the pile of stuff at the back of the cavern but was mostly just these odd stones that had been placed about, one with a weird symbol engraved in it? Serp seemed to think they were some kind of infernal text…. I sketched it out anyway, maybe someone in town can read it for us later.
We retraced our steps out, stopping by Olowin and Bo on the way to show them the hands and head of the creatures Baine decided to cut off (Everyone just seems to be harvesting body parts today?). They were happy, and said we could count on them in the future…. Then we just went back to the Flourished Hook to show Himal what we had but he didn’t seem to want us to stick around for long, covered in sewage and all.
Doddil was actually pretty on point the whole day. He was the one who suggested we speak to the witnesses and got us pointed in the right direction quite a few times… I mean, Baine's a loveably guy and Bogg and Urso are too but I kinda feel like that isn't their strong suit sometimes. I'm not sure why I didn’t think of half this stuff to be honest… I'm not sure what's going on with me lately. Serpentine I'm not convinced would've thought of these things… She strikes me as the sort to do whatever she wants, whether it makes sense or not…. Not that I don't think Doddil is clever of course…. I'm just used to him walking straight in and knocking on the door of a possible murderer or haunted house while we all talk about what to do! and I guess maybe there is more to the things Serpentine does? this is still my first encounter with her.... I think.
Hoop was decidedly not happy with being left at home for this trip but Somehow I didn’t think they would enjoy traipsing around the sewers with us…. They soon changed their mind once I told them about what we had been doing! They liked the Trident I brought back but they were happiest of all when I changed and took my old clothes outside to burn them once and for all. They seem to prefer me in black now anyway... Maybe it’s the Grey hair? Baine still keeps calling me a Silver-fox but I've still not asked what that means, I'm assuming its good.
I do need some new clothes now though, maybe something I can move a bit more freely in… I've been looking at Baine's armour with all the power words on and starting to wonder if there is maybe more to it than just decoration? I might stop by that wizard we met before, Ernetta I think? See if she can help me find something or even read that writing from the cave? In the meantime, I need some new robes. And maybe I'll speak to the Lenoirs again…. We never did get a look at that cave Bogg mentioned seeing.
Thinking on it, we never found out what happened to Arlo either!
8th Entry in the Journal of Markas Virnala
Today was a weird day… a few of us got together to deal with a job from a guy called Himal, who's working for the Lenoirs. Something about the sewers beneath Port Ffirst. Baine, Bogg, their adoptive son Urso and me grouped together and headed off to the Flourished Hook, bumping into Doddil on the way. When we got there, there was a woman I'd not seen around before who seemed to be responding to the notice too. She was a human and went by the name Holly and had a Raven on her shoulder.
It's starting to get a little frustrating meeting people who aren't who they say they are. Holly turned out to be Serpentine, a Blue Tiefling with these big devil-like horns who has worked with Baine before, while the Raven is actually an Imp that travels with her. How many other people are hiding things like this!? I gather everyone has their secrets but how many of the people have I met so far not been who they say they are?
I mean they have always ended up helpful so I don't really understand why they hide away.... aside from Langston that is. He was NOT helpful....
Anyway, I guess that's not important now.
Himal, a man with dark Olive skin, Green eyes and a white turban, came in and laid out the situation for us. The richer folk of New Town are starting to complain about some issues with the new sewer system and there have been reports of noises and sightings in the Sewers. There was also talk of some robberies in the area so could even be bandits hiding out down there. He didn't seem to care much about it but since the Lenoirs are taking an interest he needs someone to look into it. The job was to just investigate the rumours going around and bring back proof its fake or resolved. He gave us a few leads: 2x names of workers who had made reports, another name of a worker who went missing and directions to the entrance of the sewers.
We went to speak with the 2x 'witnesses' before venturing in to see if we could get a better idea of what we were dealing with here.
The first was a man called Priest. He wasn’t actually a Priest though, which made the whole thing a little confusing…. He was very distrustful and was clearly a drunk but then I guess if you're working in a sewer all the time it's easy to see why. He was convinced we were sent by Isabelle, his boss who keeps accusing him of drinking on the job, which he denies (Clearly lying). We eventually got him to trust us a bit and he let us in. His house was simple but clearly the home of an alcoholic. There were so many empty bottle lying around I'm sure he could keep Jedd in business alone. Urso asked for some Milk and I immediately almost started vomiting again…. Bad memories of the milk in the Bar….. Urso drank it and his body has apparently finally reached breaking point as he looked…. BAD. He was holding himself together at least for now.
We got him talking after slipping him some gold. Priest was the worker who reported seeing something down there, a large shadowy shape with 10 arms walking towards him! Urso was convinced it must be an octopus since the sewers go into the sea but seemed unlikely to me. Priest wasn’t convinced either. He said he used to work on ships and that was no octopus he saw, for what that’s worth anyway. Apparently he kept hearing a metallic scraping noise as well but there wasn’t really any indication of what this was. Anyway, when he saw this shadow, he freaked out, dropped his lantern and the workers all ran out and haven't been back since. When Doddil asked about this missing worker (Arlo we learned was his name), he just said he went missing a few days later. They wasn’t close but he thinks he might have been a pirate just looking for some coin, realised the work wasn’t worth it then left.
We left Priest to what he was doing and set off for where he said Alicia lived, the other 'witness'. He looked happy with the few Gold Baine flipped him but as we were leaving, he suddenly started to panic and bolted off down the street… Right about now, Urso took a turn for the worse and Baine tells him to throw up the milk to get it out of his system. I mean, I can't fault Baines logic here… but picking up Urso as he did exactly that was possibly one of the worst things I think he's done…. Urso, with a force that should not be possible from such a small body, proceeded to projectile Vomit, while Bain holds him in the air and starts to panic, COVERING ALL OF US IN VOMIT. If my clothes weren't already ruined, they are now… The only 'good' thing to come from this whole fiasco was Baine spotting that Holly still looked suspiciously clean…. He pressed her as to why which is when Serpentine revealed themselves…
Moving on, now a troup of offensively defiled group of adventurers with one hulking Half-Orc saying sorry and a child running around now back to full health, we headed for the second witness: Alicia. Needless to say, everyone on the way gave us a wide berth…
Alicia was pretty much as distrustful as Priest was. I guess I can see why given how we met.
Doddil and Urso knocked on the door, she cracks it open to see us, all covered in vomit except for Baine, who winks at her.
She closes the door.
After slipping some gold under the door, she opened it back up again, still only a crack asked Baine to take a step back (he wasn’t pleased with that!), and helped us out with some information. She has a very different view to Priest. She agreed with Isabelle (and all of us… except Serpentine who seemed to believe him?
) that Priest was a drunk and had definitely been drinking that day. The noises, she said are always there, it’s a sewer! And as for the mysterious shadow, she didn’t see anything. Priest just sort of freaked out and practically barrelled into her on the way out…. All this fuss he's causing is nonsense and she just wants to get back to work. As for the missing person, Arlo, she didn’t really know anything about it, probably just didn’t want to work. We were just about to leave when Alicia asked Serpentine (disguised as Holly) to take her out for a drink sometime! Serp said another time but Alicia's face looked like she was listening to something for a second afterwards before smiling…. I'm wondering if Serp can talk to people's minds now I think back on it…. Would explain some odd events from today like this and Priest freaking out.We decided not to speak to Isabelle and instead head straight for the sewers. Urso was causing a fuss about not knowing what this blockage that was reported and Baine was playing the father figure again, trying to placate him… It's funny watching the three of them, Bogg, Baine and Urso. You'd think they actually were a family.
We found the entrance, a small brick building with a ladder going in. Bogg cast a light spelll for those who couldn’t see in the dark but what we entered into was a large chamber with all these pipes discharging into it, with sewage running into a deeper channel leading off through a small tunnel. To be honest, its bigger than I expected down there, but Baine still had to duck a lot of the time. We started heading down the main route from our entrance to what was clearly a main channel in the sewers. We could all hear the metal grinding noise that was described but couldn’t tell what it was…
The main channel I guess was where things started to take a turn. The channel was deep and running pretty fast, I almost couldn’t reach the bottom with my staff when I tested it. The only way across was a small plank stretched over the gap. We started heading over one by one; I couldn't help but show off a little, this is exactly the sort of thing we practiced in training. Anyway, I guess Urso probably tried to copy me doing a cartwheel across when he fell in! Baine screamed in panic and dived in with Doddil just behind trying to grab onto him!
As we watched from the other side, Urso was swept away and Doddil, unable to hold Baine, let him slip into the current as well! We looked down and suddenly Urso is out of the water, walking along the ceiling!? That kid is full of surprises! Baine starts trying to swim against the current as we're trying to work out what to do when Serp jumps in and gets taken by the current down to Baine. Just as she reaches him, there is a deafening explosion, Sewage gets sprayed everywhere and the pair are stood back next to us, both dripping with sewage. Doddil, manages to pull himself back up while Urso comes along the wall back to us in tears, crying sorry… From what they could see down there, they were pretty close to going over a pretty deep drop.
With everyone safe again.. We started to explore the other side of the channel. Immediately there was a ladder heading further down and a weird metal wheel on the wall. We didn’t get much of a chance to check these out yet though as we went off to explore the rest of the tunnel. Bogg spotted a symbol with directions on (Just looked like a weird drawing to me?) so we followed it. Serp had already run off ahead so when we caught up to her, in another large room with cascading pipes of sewage, we spotted him walking into a secret door. As I stepped in after her, I heard someone threatening us not to move but everything just looked black…. Suddenly, the rooms lights up and we meet Olowin and Bo.
Serpentine and Baine recognised these two pretty quickly…. I think they ran into each other back when Bain first got to Kantas. Olowin is a Halfling with long curly hair and an immense moustache, with a big cigar hanging out of his mouth, while Bo is a Half-Orc with Grey skin, big tusks and a long black cape. He was wearing this big medallion with a sigil on that looked kind of odd.
For the most part, the rest of us just watched this encounter... We were introduced but Baine was excited to see Bo again while Serpentine was reminiscing about a fight the four of them had before. Urso (still walking on the ceiling) was being rude to Olowin, saying he doesn’t trust Halflings (Even though he himself is a Halfling…. So is Bogg for that matter.) I'm pretty sure he spat at him once or twice even, cueing the inevitable scolding from Papa Baine.
All in all, this was a weird side-track to what we were doing. From what I could gather listening in, they have some kind of underground…. Business (criminal obviously) going on and had tunnelled into the sewers while expanding. They were setting up traps (they pointed out a weird Glyph that Bo had put on the door) to protect them. They had been attacked recently by some sort of shark people in the sewers but didn’t know anything else about what we were doing. Needless to say, they offered to "trust us" if brought them evidence of dealing with it for them, since it seemed tied to what we were already doing. A quest, within a quest….
They eventually left so we doubled back to the ladder and that wheel to carry on looking around, deciding to turn it and see what happens. EVEN THIS turned into a drama…
I tried to turn it to the left but was stopped by Baine. Serp then had her Imp (Called Monty) to turn it left. Baine steps in trying to turn it to the right while Urso starts climbing all over him like a climbing frame…. This mess carried on for about 5 minutes until they collective decide to turn it right… causing some weird noises that…. Didn’t seem to do too much. Looking back, the main channel seemed a little slower but that’s about it, so we headed down the ladder, finding another wheel we turned to the same result. We were about to carry on when Baine saw some Goblins tracks in the filth on the ground.
Serp must have sent her imp off ahead again here, turning it invisible as I've now learned. As Baine told us of the tracks and we started to sneak forward, we could hear a shouting from round the corner, someone sounding panicked and another voice saying he knows someone is there and that they are armed. Baine, SURPRISING EVERYONE, suggests to the voice we talk it out…. Then there was a loud crash and a Goblin drops from round the corner to the floor in front of us. We step out to see what the hell is going on and another one charges us, shouting we killed his brother. He lunges at as…. And Baine decapitates him with one swing of his sword, sending the head rolling to the wall behind us.
I'm not really happy with how this played out. Serp tied up the remaining Goblin, who was only unconscious it seemed. She had Monty drop a large crate on his head before which caused all the fuss. They eventually woke up in a panic and actually wet himself in front of us…. I didn’t get into this to torment creatures like this… He called us dysfunctional…. With Baine trying to talk to him after killing his brother, Urso shouting about shark people, Serpentine cutting off an ear from the severed head and Bogg already looting, I'd say he called it well.
I'm not sure how but Baine managed to calm him down and somehow earn his trust!? He told us about these shark-people that they'd seen further in the tunnels and then tried offering us his services…. The Goblins basically are stealing and selling stuff here in the sewers so we have now met our second criminal contact for the day… This whole trip has been confusing. He told us he has 35 other brothers but this one was his favourite, now Ghetul is his favourite…. Goblin culture seems pretty strange… We untie him and carry on through the tunnels anyway, hearing the Goblin scream something about an ear as we go (Serpentine seemed happy about that).
We reach the main channel again, where the deep drop would've led Bain and Urso to if they hadn't of got out of the water. I'm genuinely amazed at how deep these sewers go…. We cross over, this time without incident and follow a short tunnel into a wider opening with a large Pool. We manage to sneak a look as something climbs out of the water…
It started with two, meaty looking webbed hands, grabbing onto the edge of the pool, that then started to pull a huge muscular body with greenish blue skin and a big tail with a fin on. The head of this thing was long like a fish and we could see Gills on its neck. Luckily it hadn't noticed us yet so we started to prepare to surprise it….. Until Serpentine had her way of course. She looks at us, says "I've always wanted to do then this" then turned back around, did…. Something!
The next thing we know there is this hulking red demon standing next to the creature that crawled out of the Pool… and we rush in, all ideas of stealth now gone.
Spooked by this sudden appearance of a Demon, the creature lashed out at it with a spear, while Doddil, Bogg and myself fire off a volley of arrows at it, each hitting it with Bogg's catching it in the head, sending it falling back into the Pool of water… we move into the chamber as 2x more jump out of the Pool at either side, one with 4 arms and a trident, stockier than the last jumping out in front of the Demon Serp summoned, while the other is taller and more feminine looking, also with a large trident jumped out on the side I was on.
The huge Demon launches a flurry of giant boulder sized fists at the 4-armed Creature, when Doddils trademark Ice Knife explodes out of its back, cutting both the creature and the demon to bits. Serpentine fires off some sort of blast attack at the both as I charged the one in front of money, slicing it open with my sword but not landing the second punch I threw. Suddenly another ice knife launches into the back of the 4-armed creature and drops it, sending the feminine one in front of me into a rage. She closes her eyes, holds out her hands and suddenly my muscles freeze up again, just like in New Hillborrow…. I need to find a way to stop this!
The next thing I could see was a small ghostly hand appear and seem to electrocute the creature in front of me… This was Urso it turned out, but before I knew Baine was next to me, asking if I need a hand as he parries the trident out of its hands and runs it through with Phil. My muscles immediately free up again as it slumps back off of Phil, dead.
We relax and spot movement to the back of the room, where a small demon looking thing pokes its head out at us before vanishing away…. And that was that. Baine rubbed my head with his knuckles and told me for the 80th time to buy a new shirt…. Urso seemed to have lost some control when casting that spell and now couldn't speak, only blowing pink bubbles instead? Serp finished off the demon she summoned before it could turn on us I guess (not really sure how that works?) and Bogg seemed to have picked up an old pair of glasses from somewhere? He actually jumped into the Pool in the middle of the room to clean off the sewage (seemed pointless to me as we still had to get back out?) and said it was sea water and that he could see a cave at the bottom…. Must be where they came in from? Doddil and I checked out the pile of stuff at the back of the cavern but was mostly just these odd stones that had been placed about, one with a weird symbol engraved in it? Serp seemed to think they were some kind of infernal text…. I sketched it out anyway, maybe someone in town can read it for us later.
We retraced our steps out, stopping by Olowin and Bo on the way to show them the hands and head of the creatures Baine decided to cut off (Everyone just seems to be harvesting body parts today?). They were happy, and said we could count on them in the future…. Then we just went back to the Flourished Hook to show Himal what we had but he didn’t seem to want us to stick around for long, covered in sewage and all.
Doddil was actually pretty on point the whole day. He was the one who suggested we speak to the witnesses and got us pointed in the right direction quite a few times… I mean, Baine's a loveably guy and Bogg and Urso are too but I kinda feel like that isn't their strong suit sometimes. I'm not sure why I didn’t think of half this stuff to be honest… I'm not sure what's going on with me lately. Serpentine I'm not convinced would've thought of these things… She strikes me as the sort to do whatever she wants, whether it makes sense or not…. Not that I don't think Doddil is clever of course…. I'm just used to him walking straight in and knocking on the door of a possible murderer or haunted house while we all talk about what to do! and I guess maybe there is more to the things Serpentine does? this is still my first encounter with her.... I think.
Hoop was decidedly not happy with being left at home for this trip but Somehow I didn’t think they would enjoy traipsing around the sewers with us…. They soon changed their mind once I told them about what we had been doing! They liked the Trident I brought back but they were happiest of all when I changed and took my old clothes outside to burn them once and for all. They seem to prefer me in black now anyway... Maybe it’s the Grey hair? Baine still keeps calling me a Silver-fox but I've still not asked what that means, I'm assuming its good.
I do need some new clothes now though, maybe something I can move a bit more freely in… I've been looking at Baine's armour with all the power words on and starting to wonder if there is maybe more to it than just decoration? I might stop by that wizard we met before, Ernetta I think? See if she can help me find something or even read that writing from the cave? In the meantime, I need some new robes. And maybe I'll speak to the Lenoirs again…. We never did get a look at that cave Bogg mentioned seeing.
Thinking on it, we never found out what happened to Arlo either!
