Brian didn’t want to get bogged down with searching for treasure on the pirate ship and simply stated there was none. Or that it wouldn’t be ours, regardless. Likewise, the surviving pirates were declared to know nothing of the spy in Otari which saved us with the moral dilemma of threatening to chop off toes during interrogation. So, we moved on to the trip to the big city of Absolm. He wanted to use the Earn Income rules to cover the 7 days of travel. Unfortunately, the options were few as were the Lore skills possessed by the group so we had to get creative. We spent some time trying to come up with uses of the skills we did have, knowing that if it wasn’t a Lore, it wasn’t as profitable. We also realized that the jobs available going there (two ships) would be different than going back. So, he split it into two rolls.
Xeelie chose to use her Craft skill to fix up the pirate ship so that it would fetch a better price. Unfortunately, Brian rolled a 1. And used a hero point and rolled a 2. But a failure was better than a critical failure. She earned coppers and was told her services as a carpenter on the return trip would not be needed. TerStegan used his Intimidate skill to serve as a bosun on the pirate ship. Ordering people around. That was an officer level job so the pay was higher but so was the DC. He got a critical success and earned gold. To add a little spice, Brian said that his chair disappeared late into the voyage. An Intimidation roll got two sailors to finger Julian. He had tossed the chair off the ship. Another Intimidation roll and Julian became his chair. Oakwood used Athletics to work in the rigging. That was a low-level job but Brian gave him the night shift (darkvision) for a one step up. Brisco used his Nature to act as navigator. That was also an officer job but since we really just needed to follow the other ship, it wasn’t worth much. Both of them succeeded for silvers. Evidently Clarissa was sea sick and didn’t earn anything.
In Absolm, the pirate ship and the remaining pirates were handed over to the authorities. Our share was 50 gp, well above any treasure we might have found. We also had a chance to do some shopping however no one had enough to get magic armor or a striking rune for Xeelie. (Xeelie’s 50 went to Clarisa for past debts.) Brisco went to the local Druid temple (park?) and made an offering. Oakwood accompanied the merchant captain to the lumber buyer. He wanted to determine what the current lumber demand was so that his father’s company could be shipping what was desired most. Xeelie wanted to buy the recipe to create magic armor. It was 8 gp and everyone attending kicked in 2. Although, after discussing, having a player do it doesn’t save any money and having the recipe only speeds up the process by a day. So, I’m not sure there was a point. I guess Xeelie can do it on demand although the town NPCs play more often than Brian. Xeelie also bought a couple of cantrip scrolls which a witch can feed to her familiar and add it to her cantrip options. She’s still limited to two but she can choose them in the morning.
We sailed back. TerStegan and Brisco kept the same jobs and Brian let them use the same rolls to speed things up. Oakwood rolled anew and got a critical success this time. Xeelie took a job as a cook although they made her audition first after her carpentry failure. That was still a Crafting roll. (The super skill.) Once in town, there was a feast in our honor. Brisco chose not to attend, wanting to get away from the city. The only thing we did in town was TerStegan. He went to the town library/temple to see if they were interested in any particular books from the Gauntlight. (He talked to the town wizard earlier.) The priest’s first thought was that any books from there must be evil and therefore should be burned. Not what TerStegan was fishing for. Maybe they should be studied first in case there was something useful but it didn’t sound like he’d be getting much from them.
The next morning, we went back to the dungeon. By Brian’s reckoning, there was one door on level 2 still not opened. (Plus any secrets missed.) That led to a big room with a long dead purple worm decaying on a sandy floor. There was also a magically energy vortex going from ceiling to floor. Some Lore rolls revealed that this was similar to the energy tube we saw in the library. It somehow fed energy to the Gauntlight but again, it was beyond our level to mess with. TerStegan carved up the body and was rewarded with a +1 war hammer. It’ll be melted down for parts. Or sold. It’s the same difference. And distributed, I hope.
In there, was another door into what turned out to be a dead end. There were 6 alcoves, each with a sarcophagus. Once Xeelie and Oakwood snuck far enough, two Shadow’s attacked. Sadly, those two rolled at the bottom of the initiative and got in the way of the high man TerStegan. It was tight quarters but Xeelie used her Tumble Through to good effect again. They did significant damage, including negative, and also tugged on your shadow. That gave Enfeeble 1. (Minus 1 to STR stuff.) Oakwood got critted and reached Enfeeble 3 at which point his shadow was removed and became a weaker shadow and attacked. Xeelie used her healing focus spell on him to keep him up and Brisco cast a couple of heals. But no one went out but now that we’re 5th, the monsters are tougher still. These resisted all damage for 5 which I’m betting we’ll be seeing more of. Lore rolls revealed that it would take 1 hour to recover 1 level of Enfeeblement. With 1 hour, TerStegan and Brisco were good but Oakwood was still at -2. He voted for moving on, figuring it would take an hour of deciding and searching before the next fight anyway. But he was out voted.
It was near midnight and we considered stopping for the night but continuing on won out. We took the elevator room down to the 3rd level. TerStegan was eager to talk to the ghoul librarians about books. After picking a lock, we ended up in a ghoul craftsman’s room. At first, it looked like he was making books but upon closer examination, he was tattooing illustrations on skin pieces. And he was very annoyed at being interrupted. Xeelie was planning to pick up a tattooing feat and tried to engage him in conversation but he would have none of it. TerStegan came in and stood by the door out and got his dose of insults. When Oakwood moved to open the last door, that was enough. The ghoul started to attack and we rolled initiative.
Oakwood managed to hit him and he critically missed his Stunning Fist save. That lost him his first round. We beat on him. When he went, he tried to eat one of the skins on the wall to heal himself. However, that was a manipulate action so TerStegan got an opportunity attack. That was a crit so the action was interrupted. He didn’t live long after that however the fight alerted some of the ghoul librarians. They opened the door but TerStegan took them out, one a round, mostly by himself. The last one closed the door and fled. Xeelie and Brisco started gathering loot and TerStegan and Oakwood were not eager to charge off into a den of ghouls by themselves. So, to Brian’s surprise, we ended the fight and went into exploration mode. That’s probably the end of TerStegan’s plan to talk with them but we should probably be killing them anyway. Xeelie got some tattoo books and tools. Beyond stacks of Morlock bodies, the only other thing of interest was a silver hatchet which TerStegan took. No one attacked us yet but we hadn’t done any healing yet either. We had lost our momentum so we declared it “late” and quit for the night. Next game in two weeks.
