A Thieves Obsession(Session 20)

I met with my allies Martin Dragonsbane and Aexidor Fargerios, and two new members of the Guild, Vercon, a member of the Cleric path but following a different deity to myself, and Titus Smashus, an appropriately named warrior. Our mission with the guild today was to steal back wealth and possessions stolen by a thief of some considerable talent. This was not a mission I would have generally gone for but in honestly it would be benefical given the upkeep required for my bakery and training

Before that however we agreed to help Martin on a short quest to qualify for invitation to membership of the Evergreen group, where we had to find and heal a dying member of their group. We found the dying halfling, Rom, and Martin called forth divine power to cure her of the disease. 

The cave where the thief reportedly was hiding was on the coast in the evil merfolk infested waters. The only other route was down a sheer cliff and Aexidor would likely have been the only one who would have made THAT trip successfully. As such we needed to find a way by water

Fortunately there was a village nearby, and the lady we had saved, Rom(?) agreed (after some questionable persuasion from Vercon) to be our guide at what she told us was the fishing village Watersmeet. Lacking other safe options we made our way to the village.

On arriving we were told by Barnaby, the guard at the gate that we had arrived on the day of a festival to celebrate the mayor's birthday and we would need to talk to him about borrowing a boat. We rather quickly found the mayor, a heavy set halfling bruiser called Fred Bastille. He told us because it was a holiday noone would be working, but if we wanted to borrow a boat we could if we beat him in a wrestling match. We left this to the noble warrior Titus while I went to collect materials. By the time I had returned Titus has emerged victorious, reportedly with ease,  and Fred had agreed to loan us use of one of their boats to reach the cave

Barnaby would be our captain for this journey. He told us that there were two thieves, known as the Fish and the Bear. They had apparently came to steal from the village and had taken a ruby from them, one that had been in the village for generations and was considered an ancestral relic to them. During their escape however, three of the town guardsmen had been killed by the thieves. Barnaby, under the watchful eye of the mayor asked us to return the ruby to them, and would only grant us use of the boat if we paid them 1000 gold as a guarantee of our return. 

Aexidor seemed troubled by this story. He told us that he knew of the Fish and the Bear, and while theives through and through, they has a well established reputation for being non-violent. So it was very strange to hear that they had killed three people all of a sudden making an escape after a theft. He wanted to go in first and see if he could talk to them and see what had happened.

We reached the cave without incident, and started to venture in. Unfortunately , and uncharacteristically for Aexidor, he went in with undue haste and was immediately snared by a vicious snake pit trap clearly placed by whoever was resident in the cave. Only a concerted effort by the group kept him alive, but injured we had to take him back to the boat to recover. 

We made our way more carefully now into the cave. In the first large cavern we came to there was a derelict and defiled shrine to Mishakal, with spores and vines growing around it. Testing the water the spores seemed to burst in a fairly dangerous looking cloud, so we made a note to avoid these. I decided to come back later to reconsecrate the shrine as Martin made the point that wherever the rusty and brackish water was coming from wouldnt stop, and we did not know who or what had defiled the shrines

In the cave we also found Mr Chips, who somehow had made his way here while drunk and fallen asleep. Jostling him awake gently we made him aware of the situation and he chose to join us.

There was a stream leading to the shrine from the opposite end of the cavern, but it seemed to lead into a wall. Martin noticed tracks leading towards the wall but could not detect anything on the wall. Vercon, taking the initiative, attempted to block the stream with rocks from the cavern but noticed something distinctly ethereal about the wall, and then discovered the 'wall' wasn't there at all.

We passed through the fake wall to find a larger cavern with a large fountain in the middle, with streams leading back towards the first shrine, and others leading deeper into the cavern. Both Martin and myself noticed something distinctly threatening coming from the well but could not tell what it was. Vercon went to investigate directly, choosing to stick his head under the water while we looked on incredulously. To our horror he then took a grievous hit from ... something under the water and was pulled into the well. 

Martin and Titus pulled Vercon out while Mr Chips jumped in the water attempting to attack whatever was in the water, only to take a severe blow himself. With a mounting sense of frustration at how to beat out dangerous and invisible foe, I decided to obliterate the water in the well. Apparently this killed the , well whatever it was as the attacks stopped. We healed up and headed in the path of the stream leading further into the cave

There we found a large man with a bolt in his shoulder. He was clearly in poor shape. We healed him and he told us his name was Pelton, and on further questioning he revealed himself to be the one known as the Bear. We asked him about the Fish.

He told us that the two of them had a severe disagreement and had parted ways after the deaths of the guardsmen in Watersmeet. He confirmed that the two of them had always been non violent prior to this, but his long term friend and ally had turned in recent times, become obsessed and paranoid about a set of artifacts he referred to as the Navaratna Gems

The Navaratna Gems, as he told us, are a set of nine gemstones, which together allowed access through secret pathways called 'Thresholds' The thresholds essentially gave a route through to increasingly more dangerous parts of the Forged Isles. He had no idea where the Fish had come across this information, much less the map that the Bear now had half of, but the promise of loot in the further reaches appeared to have poisoned the Fish's mind, causing him to become violent and lay lethal traps to protect himself, even from his friend. The Bear told us that these gems could be identified as they glow with the colours of the rainbow, regardless of their external colour.

It was now clear what the ruby the halflings had asked us to recover actually was, but we had pledged to return it, we could return to them another time. We asked the Bear if he would help us capture the Fish. He agreed on the proviso that we did not hurt him. 

With the Bear in tow we set off again. Our newest party member told us how the Fish had a special cloak which gave him unlimited underwater breathing and vastly increased swim speed. But for the Bear to get through the swim required to reach the hideout, water breathing potions were needed. Fortunately there were a good number of these available, and so we made our way down through the well

... to find ourselves in a tower inside a manor house. Apparently this was just one of many regions displaced by a magical event called the Effervesence, where landmasses or buildings were encased in bubbles, and teleported elsewhere. This manor at the bottom of a well was one such anomaly.

Attempting to stealth our way through the next room we were caught unawares by the Fish who had set up a ballista at the far end of the hallway, firing it without mercy and landing a critical wound on Martin, however the weapon was not a swift or practical one to fight large groups of enemies and quick thinking from Vercon and Titus had the Fish incapacitated with a javelin through the arm. The Bear was mortified and poised to attack, but we applied a healing salve to the wound to show him that we were willing to keep our end of the bargain. We convinced him to grab the treasure and the two Navaratna gems that the Fish had gathered so far, but before he could load all the stash, the Fish managed to summon a vicious pack of enemies , a fel flame skull, and two bear like monsters

After a hard fight we took them down, only to find the theives had escaped. However they left all of their bounty, including both Navaratna gems. We gathered the loot, I went back to reconsecrate the shrines and the fountain. and we went back to collect Aexidor, give the Mayor back the gem, and make our way back to town. We also found the other half of the map with the locations of the 9 gems. But following that up would be a mission for another day

Well said

Hi all,

What are the Pros and Cons of us all paying a small charge, say £6 to £10 so we can play in a function room somewhere?

I'm not saying we can find a function room that is available, correctly priced, but wanted to float the idea as some D&D groups do this.

I have no problem with this idea.

For our next session we have booked the fireplace part of the Signal Inn and we've been assured it won't be as busy on the 21st so we should have a slightly better time. 

But god yeah I would love to play in a place less public and less noisy!