Pembroke Errands

Quelenna and Fine Branch had decided they wanted to do a mission together.  They waved Dryali over.  "Come up to Arnari with us!"   Dryali, with his goggles pushed up over his forehead, and the leather in his gear looking sliced and torn, looked uncharacteristically wide-eyed.  "I'm dunno…" he hesitated.  "The Pembroke conjunction is tomorrow, and I have an errand there!"

"Aww c'mon," Quelenna nudged him, and Dryali relented.  After all, maybe Arnari had some Pembroke missions.

In her office, Arnari started out listing the two missions the Freelancers had been reluctant to take for a while now.

• Go to Pirates Dream river, and kill mutated shit.  It's 50gp/person, plus one uncommon potion each.
• Look around Cliffshadow and locate Ethan of the Daystar worshippers for the Church of Storms.

Quelenna looked a bit inquisitive at that, and Dryali told her, "I've seen him."

Fine Branch asked, "Did they have a flaming sphere?"  That was such a non-sequitur, Dryali asked in surprise, "What's this?"  Fine Branch replied, "The warehouse encounter [with Ethan].  Weren't you there?"

As Dryali shook his head at this news, Arnari interjected, "That was going well, until they set the warehouse on fire."  Dryali bit back a retort.  Arnari was always admonishing him and/or Kaikoa not to set things on fire.

After a brief pause, Arnari continued.

• House Ha'aheao – Hanohano would like a group to guide a herd of pegasus to Bandolier.

She looked at the three Freelancers in her not-exactly comfortable chairs:  the monk, the artificer, and the trickster cleric.  She added, "You might not want this one."

Dryali wanted to go to Pembroke, but near Gemhallow and the mines, not topside, curious as he was to see it.  "Just the three of us?" he asked.  Arnari said, "Yes."

Quelenna made a dubious face.  "How big a herd?"  Arnari glanced at her papers, then said, "Not sure… maybe 30?"  Quelenna's face shifted to incredulous.  "That's a lot, for three."

"The herd is draft pegasus.  They are slower than riding mounts," Arnari explained.  "You are welcome to try this, it's 200gp/person.  Really though, he should hire other people," she finished, exasperated.

Fine Branch said quickly, "I'm fine with the other two!"  Arnari held up a hand.  "There's another!"

• Martin, proprietor of the Kowiri Music and Tavern, has been steamrolled by his bardificers,  Durante, Simon, and especially Lynette, from Gemhallow.  [Arnari paused, to laugh.]  At Lynette's insistence, he sent a message to Pembroke, "build this instrument," and now it needs retrieval from Genhallow.

Dryali was suddenly very attentive, at least the corner of his mind that wasn't mentally trying to disassemble and reassemble one of those bardificer instruments.  "What's the penalty if the instrument doesn't make it?"

Arnari sat back.  "I'm not terribly worried about that; the airship won't wreck.  If you go," she added, "Go tomorrow, and I'll have a courier pouch for Einkil."

Dryali was not deterred.  "You dodged my question."  Arnari sighed.  "You don't get paid, and Martin will be pissed.  You might have to pay for the instrument."  Her tone made it clear that she felt the instrument was beyond their means.

Fine Branch interjected, "I'm more interested in the first two."  Quelenna added, "I'm really curious about this Daystar thing."

Dryali's face fell, and he sat back.

Fine Branch asked Arnari, "Are there any leads?"  She said, "Nothing beyond, 'He hasn't left Cliffshadow.'"

At that, Quelenna said, "I would be more inclined to clean up pollution."

The discussion digressed into how people could possibly get sucked into the Daystar cult.

Dryali finally said, "So the reason I want to go to Pembroke is, half a year ago a group went, and came back with this purple ore, and apparently if you silver your weapons or shield with it, there are some nice effects.  I was stuck in Hindmarsh with Quelenna the last conjunction, and wanted to go get some this time, for rapier and shield."

Fine Branch and Quelenna both expressed surprise that Dryali ever used his rapier.  He let that go.

Then Fine Branch did a doubletake.  "Wait, the courier pouch is extra."  Arnari confirmed, "Yes; Einkil will pay you 200gp, and probably give you one for me."  Then she added, "That pay is not subject to Freelancer's Cut."

The conversation devolved into Fine Branch and Quelenna asking Arnari about communications between Freelancer Taverns, while Dryali mused on how there ought to be a better setup than couriers for such stuff.

After leaving Arnari's office, Dryali swung by the quartermaster, and exchanged some of his gold for another 300gp diamond, and put it in his belt pouch.

Then, Dryali carefully inspected Fine Branch's shield, and Quelenna's fan, although it took a little persuasion for the latter.  He took a couple notes on weight, and advised Quelenna she might be happier to get a second fan for her offhand.  Then he took off to visit the blacksmith Oskar Torevir, a Rocklit dwarf from Gemhallow who had relocated to Cliffshadow, and was skilled in the silvering of weapons with purple mournlode.

Oskar explained he would need the weight of the item in the unsmelted ore, in order to silver it properly, which translated to 16 lbs of the ore for the arms in question.  Dryali thanked him and said he wasn't sure when he'd return, but he would travel to Gemhallow the next day.  "Fine, fine," Oskar said.  "With my apprentices at hand, will take five days to silver all the items; while them fans are smaller, they are delicate and require more time and skill."

After he left, Dryali went to Bright Leatherworks, a trusted leatherworker in Guildstrom which despite the name knew how to work with black leather.  Once there, he appealed to the owners, Peter and Morgayne about the state of his gear.  They came around the counter and looked at the little Dark elf, Morgayne tsk-tsking at the state of his leathers.  Dryali then brought out the two diamonds and explained how they should be part of new vambraces.

In the end they agreed to replace the shot leathers right then; Peter would fix the leather on the breastplate and craft new bracers by the end of the day, for 50gp.  Dryali left the breastplate and diamonds there for this work, and spent the rest of the day researching infusions, until he picked up the breastplate and bracers.

The new leathers had fingerless gloves, and the black leather bracers had lightning patterns instead of scrollwork.  The diamonds just under the upper edge flashed, leaving Dryali feeling more himself since he'd left Nadezhda, a full year ago.  He brushed his fingers over his spiky hair.  Ha.

The next morning, Fine Branch, Quelenna, and Dryali stopped by Arnari's office to pick up the courier pouch.  She directed them to take passage on the Wind elemental airship Ebilson, captained by Celeste, a female human.  From there they headed to the Cliffshadow docks, to see the Ebilson loading up for departure.  The Wind elemental was in a wooden "basket" in the airship's stern.

Fine Branch had been working on learning Primordial, and felt this was an opportunity to practice / check his progress.  "Seen anything interesting recently?"  The elemental seemed to look at him for a moment, then replied in Auran, "Go fuck yourself!" and flipped Fine Branch off.  Dryali hid a smile.

Captain Celeste grinned in amusement, then told Fine Branch, in careful Primordial, about the Ebilson's recent travels, how their main port was Cliffshadow and they traded with the skyliths within easy reach; how they tried to have their ship in Cliffshadow or Gemhallow for the Pembroke↔Duquesne conjunction.  When Fine Branch appeared confused, she repeated it in Trade.

A pilot arrived, on his peregrine gryphon, and the captain excused herself to tend to getting underway.  A team of draft pegasus were getting hitched to the bow of the Ebilson, and the crew was detaching from the docks.

The pegasus towed the Ebilson east and up towards the Duquesne boundary, as the wind elemental muttered about how slow and unnecessary flesh creatures were, for moving the airship.  Everyone ignored the elemental.  Quelenna watched in fascination as Duquesne shrank into a skylith like the others, albeit still large.

The pegasus team dropped away and the airship picked up speed, and then they were across the boundary, as smooth as ice.  The pilot bade the captain fair travels and took off on his gryphon, winging toward the tiny speck of an inbound airship in the incredibly large sky.  Once he was well away from the Ebilson, the airship accelerated more, flying higher and higher relative to Duquesne.  Pembroke was growing visibly larger, above.

The Freelancers stayed on the deck as the airship appeared to fly westward over Duquesne.  After a while Duquesne was too small to be seen beyond the curve of the fuselage.  A couple more hours passed, the elemental muttering to itself as it lent its speed to the airship.  Then, Fine Branch noticed what appeared to be two very large birds, far away to starboard, but angling to intercept.

He watched them for a short while, their wings appearing more flappy than a bird's.  Then he told Dryali and Quelenna, and a nearby crew member.

Dryali, with his eyes of the eagle goggles, was surprised to see a pair of quetzalcoatl, which normally frequent the skies nearer Nadezhda; the Dark elves could use them as mounts for 2 or 3 people.  "Why are these so far outward?" he asked out loud, prompting Quelenna and Fine Branch to look more closely.

"Their wings look a bit… tatty," Fine Branch observed.  "They look starving," Quelenna declared, "I can see their ribs.

"Can we feed these?  I don't like to see creatures starving," she continued.  Fine Branch gave her a sardonic look.  "Do you have create or destroy meat?" he asked her, and her eyes widened.  "There's a spell for that?!" she asked.

By now, Captain Celeste was also looking.  Dryali, watching them, concluded they were probably just lost, and he told her as such.  She positioned 3 crew members in the fore & aft of the deck with heavy crossbows.  Then Dryali turned to Quelenna, who'd overheard him, and said, "Maybe if we knock them out, they'll fall to a more familiar altitude."

Of course, Dryali's options to knock out flying creatures at range was limited.  He pointed his arcane firearm at the creature more aft, and sent three beams of scorching ray to burn it.

• Two crew, one in fore, one in the aft missed with their crossbows.  Another crewmember in the aft hit the quetzalcoatl with a bolt.
• Fine Branch backed up to the port side of the deck, and manifested a spiritual weapon in the form of a disembodied thagomizer next to the injured quetzalcoatl, which whacked it on the head.  He then brought down an overpowered guiding bolt on the creature more to the fore.  The bolt appeared to materialize from behind the incoming fliers.
• Quelenna, unwilling to convert her daggers into sky debris, shifted amidships and readied to engage any that came close enough to do so.
• And then they were upon the airship!  The quetzalcoatl hit with the guiding bolt swooped towards Dryali, but came within striking distance of Quelenna, who landed a solid blow.  It tried to impale Dryali with its beak, but he popped shield, rebuffing it.
• The other quetzalcoatl swooped the airship crew in the aft deck, injuring the crew who had landed a crossbow shot, then swooped again.

Both quetzalcoatl attacks had been flybys.  Dryali shot a firebolt at the same one he'd scorched, but missed.

• The two crew in the aft fired their heavy crossbows again, and the injured crew member hit, the other went wide.  The one crewmember in the fore deck landed a bolt on the other quetzalcoatl.
• Fine Branch re-manifested his spiritual weapon next to the same quetzalcoatl as before, smacking it with force damage.  A ringing sound tickled everyone's ears as toll the dead affected the other creature.
• Quelenna shifted her position, and readied herself again to react to an attack from above.
• Teh quetzalcoatl, however, were not interested in getting hurt any further; they were not seeking out a battle, they were looking for easy prey.  The two fliers folded their wings and dove, curving down and under the airship.

Dryali waited, prepared to firebolt if they returned; the airship crew also, heavy crossbows loaded.  Fine Branch and Quelenna peered over the port side of the airship, seeing the quetzalcoatls dwindle into specs.

Once it was obvious they were not returning imminently, Dryali cast cure wounds on the injured crewmember.

The rest of the crossing to Pembroke was without incident, although most of the Ebilson's crew, unused to seeing denizens of the inward system, were more tense than usual for a shuttle crossing.  As they approached the Pembroke boundary, the Daystar lighting up the stern of the ship and the glory reflecting from the trailing tornados erasing the shadows, a dwarf pilot on an owl gryphon dove from above and landed on the deck.  He was greeted by Captain Celeste and took over after another remarkably smooth boundary crossing, guiding the airship through the huge tunnels to Gemhallow.

As they debarked from the Ebilson at the end of their long day, the Freelancers saw that Gemhallow was only now brightening with the morning light as the Daystar illuminated the inward side of Pembroke.  Deciding first-things-first, they headed to the Freelancers Tavern to deliver the courier pouch to Einkil Logehr, leader of the Gemhallow Freelancers.

Einkil's office, which was downstairs from the tavern, burrowed into the rock, was full of hunting trophies, including a luxurious fur rug.  An imposing cave bear head was mounted on the wall, facing the door.  Also on the wall was some art, including a portrait of himself and another Rocklit dwarf, and their two owl gryphons.   Einkil's guest chairs were considerably more comfortable than those in Arnari's office.

He welcomed Dryali, Quelenna, and Fine Branch, and accepted the courier pouch.  After a quick glance at the contents, he gave them 200gp to split as they saw fit.  "I will need half a day to prepare a return pouch," he told them.

Quelenna said, "That's enough time to pick up an instrument and get some ore."

At Einkil's raised eyebrow, Dryali said diffidently, "Yes, this time we have other errands to fulfill."  Einkil said gruffly, "Well, good luck with that!"

Dryali took this as an opening, and asked Einkil if there was anything they should be aware of, wrt the shop with the instrument, or the area of Gemhallow it was in.  Einkil told them, "That's a bit east of the market."  He rose and pointed at the Gemhallow map on his wall.  "Right about here, but I've no interaction with it," his tone made it clear he did not truck with music at all.

As they took their leave, he called out, "The barracks are open if you need a place to rest; check in with the quartermaster if so."  They passed a handful of Freelancers on the stairway, perhaps on their way to Einkil in search of a mission.

The Freelancers were tired, but not quite yet ready to admit a rest was needed.  "Let's seek out the market, to find out if there are any one with ice wine casks," Dryali said.  So off they went.

The market was big and just getting going, and as they looked around for things, Fine Branch and Quelenna got sucked into a part of it with vendor booths catering to touristy kitsch, obviously only there for the time of the Duquesne conjunction.  Dryali was not distracted by such things, and quickly found a merchant of wines, with small casks of ice wine from Coldstream.  He was checking the seals when Fine Branch and Quelenna caught up to him.

The settled-upon price was 100gp/cask, and Quelenna proposed using the 200gp from the courier pouch to that end.  All quickly agreed, and the Freelancers returned to the tavern, casks in hand.

Late morning or not, Fine Branch proposed they rest now, and just go to the place of the purple mournlode that evening.  He assured the other two he could remember how to get there, as he was part of the group that had gotten the purple mournlode previously!  So they took a rest in the Gemhallow Freelancer barracks.

Once Fine Branch was fully rested, they headed north to the tunnel entrance leading to their destination.  The last traces of the crystalline glow was fading from the walkways, and the market vendors were changing accordingly.  As they passed through the market, Fine Branch stopped by a food vendor and bought a pork chop obviously butchered from a giant boar, for 10gp.  He carefully packed it in his backpack so it would not get other items messy.

Further north in the city, they passed through a crafting district, and Dryali thought a mining pick would be in order, so he bought one at an equipment supplier for 2gp.  Then they were out of the city and in the fairly well-maintained tunnels to the north, with Fine Branch confidently leading the way.

Three hours later, after many twists and turns that both Dryali and Quelenna suspected weren't intentional, Fine Branch told them, rather quietly, they had arrived.  In front of them, opening up to their left, was a fairly large cavern, pillars of rock holding up the roof, including a particularly broad pillar in the center.  The smell was unbearable.

On the other end of the cave, as far from the broad pillar as it was from the Freelancers, was a narrower pillar, and boulders around the bottom which looked like it could be the purple mournlode...  They weren't sure.

Dryali heard heavy breathing in the cave.  He told the others, and pointed out the horrible smell.  He saw nothing that could be the source of either sensation, let alone both.  Quelenna and Fine Branch also smelled the horribleness.  After a moment's hesitation, Dryali created a flamethrower eldritch cannon, with legs so it could move on its own, but set it on his shoulder for the time being.

Dryali whispered, "We should be quiet."  Fine Branch turned and looked at Dryali, eyes narrowing and ears flattening.  Then, he called upon The Cat – quietly – to grant Dryali Blessing of the Trickster.  Dryali felt so much stealthier.

Fine Branch pulled out his immovable rod from his backpack, and showed it to Dryali and Quelenna in the dim light.  It was enabled/disabled via an almost hidden button on the end.  Then he snuck into the cave while Quelenna and Dryali watched.  When he got behind the large central column, they saw him reach forward with the rod, and place it out of sight.  Then Fine Branch's doppelgänger sprung into sight on the opposite side of the pillar, as Fine Branch backed off.

Quelenna grabbed the mining pick and a sack from Dryali, and moved to that back pillar, which did indeed have boulders at its base with the ore.  She turned towards Fine Branch and paused as she saw the snoring cave bear, pinned gently in place by the immovable rod across its neck.  Dryali caught up to her, and when he saw the cave bear, he set the flamethrower on the ground, and prepared to cast thunderwave if it got loose.

The cave bear was obviously not the source of the horrible smell.  Quelenna looked around more, and some slight movement on the ceiling caught her eye.  "Doesn't look right," she murmured, "There's something on the ceiling."

Fine Branch looked up, and his ears went flat as he saw what looked like a really really big maggot, with tentacles waving about near its mouth.  It was upside-down, hanging onto the ceiling with what looked like centipede legs.  It wasn't moving, and he readied to call The Cat's sacred flame if there was anything else in the cave.

Turns out what else was in the cave was a second one of these things, and it climbed down the central pillar opposite the cave bear, and attacked the horrified Quelenna.  Fine Branch hit it with sacred flame, searing it with radiant energy, and Quelenna tried to punch it, but missed.

The initial creature climbed down and tried to attack Fine Branch, but missed.  The one attacking Quelenna tried to bite her, and missed.  Then it whipped Dryali with its tentacles.  He felt the poison trying to stiffen his muscles, but there wasn't enough of it.

• In return, the flamethrower went off, blasting the creature with a cone of flame.  It avoided some of the damage, but was still very burned.  Dryali tried to firebolt it, as well, but couldn't hit it, between fighting the poison and all the tentacles.
• However the noise woke up the cave bear, who was most unhappy to find himself pinned under a rod.  He roared.
• Quelenna, perhaps inspired by her horror, punched the maggoty thing, then followed up with a flurry of blows, which knocked it prone, centipede legs waving in the air.
• Fine Branch manifested a spiritual weapon in the form of a bouquet of roses, with extra thorns.  It struck the maggoty thing on him with force damage, and then he also cast an overpowered guiding bolt, burning it with radiant damage.

The creature moved closer to Fine Branch to bite and sting with tentacles, but missed both times as Fine Branch made good use of his shield.  The maggoty thing Quelenna had knocked prone righted itself, and tried to bite Dryali, who also made good use of his shield to avoid.  It then stung Quelenna with its tentacles.  The poison moved through her system, locking up her muscles.  Dryali watched as she went rigid.

• The flamethrower seared the creature in front of them again.  Somehow the flame did not improve the smell.  But instead of attacking, Dryali cast protection from poison on Quelenna, clearing the poison and its effects from her and bolstering against it happening again for the next hour.
• The cave bear fought the rod pinning him down, roaring.
• Quelenna punched at her attacker, but missed.  She again followed up with flurry of blows, killing it!  Unfortunately in death its fragrance was not improved, so she moved across the cave next to Fine Branch.
• Fine Branch's spiritual weapon struck the remaining maggoty thing with force damage.  A sound of carriage bells rang forth in a little jingle, but his toll the dead had no other effect.

The creature tried to bite Fine Branch, and missed; but its tentacles got through his defenses, and he was hurt from the poison.  However, it did not paralyze him.

• Dryali shot a firebolt at the thing, but missed.  He moved the flamethrower so it could attack it without flaming Fine Branch, Quelenna, or the cave bear, but it was able to avoid most of the fire.
• The bear was still trying to get out, very unhappy there were all these enemies behind him where he could not see or defend.
• Quelenna punched the burned thing, and it died. 

Dryali leaned over and inspected the maggoty thing in front of him, then walked over and looked at the other one.  He made an odd face as he recollected his schooling, and his voice had that slight singsong quality of reciting a lesson.  "These are monstrosities known as carrion crawlers.  Their toxin is paralyzing.  They are not, particularly, magical."

He looked at the struggling cave bear, and said, "Perhaps it would be more efficient to use shatter, instead of a mining pick."  The others said yes!  So he moved the flamethrower to the other side of the cave bear, carefully aimed so he would not break the pillar and bring down the ceiling, and cast shatter on the ore-laden boulders at the pillar's base.

They all moved to get the crumbled ore and shove enough into the sacks.  Right when they had about enough, the cave bear wrestled free!

Quelenna, not wanting to fight the cave bear, moved quickly towards the cave entrance.  Fine Branch grabbed the giant pork chop out of his backpack, and put it in front of the cave bear, then also re-cast spiritual weapon in the form of an identical pork chop.  He moved towards the cave entrance too, feeling mournful of his immovable rod.

Dryali cast mage hand, which grabbed the immovable rod, pressing the button, and brought it to Fine Branch.  He moved the flamethrower slightly, so it was on the other side of the pork chops, and he hid behind the rock column, hoping the cave bear would be more interested in pork chop than in armoured Dark elf.

The cave bear started eating the pork chop.  Gotta have one's priorities in order.

Everyone ran to the cave entrance, with Fine Branch pulling the pork-chop-looking spiritual weapon half-way there.  The cave bear kept eating its delicious pork chop, and the Freelancers took off down the tunnels, high tailing it back to Gemhallow.

It was in the wee-hours of the Gemhallow night when they got back, so they konked back out in the barracks for a long rest.  The next morning, they headed over to the bardificery shop east of the market, to discover the instrument they needed to retrieve was in a 3'x3' crate and required two people to carry it.  Also, to Dryali's disappointment, it was sealed.

After bringing it back to the Freelancers Tavern, they checked in with Einkil and he did have a courier pack prepared to take to Arnari.  "Have your other errands been taken care of?" he asked, knowing full well they'd headed out to do something overnight.  They confirmed they were done, and he said, "Very well.  Take the Fire elemental airship Pandion back.  Nolan Mountainbond is the captain."  He handed them the packet.

In the barracks, they contemplated the problem of getting the crate, the ore, and two casks of ice wine to the Gemhallow docks, but Fine Branch hired a porter at the edge of the market, and had him carry the two casks.  Given that the instrument was actually their mission, Quelenna and Fine Branch carried the crate, and Dryali carried the ore and courier pouch.

The return trip was uneventful, although longer than on the Ebilson, and the boundary transitions were not quite as smooth.  After 12 hours' travel, they arrived in Cliffshadow mid-morning, and contemplated their belongings again.  Dryali wanted to get a mule cart, but Fine Branch simply hired another porter.

They went south into Guildstrom first, to drop the instrument off with Martin at the Kowiri Music & Tavern.  He was very happy to have his expenditure realized, and paid the Freelancers 400gp, admonishing them to give 10% to Arnari, of course.  Then they headed to the Freelancers Tavern, and left the casks at the backroom bar, dismissing the porter.

It was noon by the time they arrived in Arnari's office.  She looked up to see three heads peering around her doorway.  "Come in, come in!"  They arrived, and said, "Here is the pouch from Einkil!  And, here is the Freelancer's cut from Martin."  Arnari laughed, shaking her head, at the 40 gp on her desk, but did not move to pick it up like she usually did.

After checking the courier pouch contents, instead she added 120 gp to it.  "That's yours for the return pouch!"  Quelenna and Fine Branch had not realized it paid each way, and were pleased.

Arnari sat back, smiling a little, looking at their faces.  "Did you happen… to find… any ice wine?"  Quelenna said, "Ta daa!"  and Dryali explained, they'd used the prior courier fee to get two casks, which were now in the downstairs bar.   Arnari paid a 50% markup for it, so they got 300gp there too.

A lucrative trip, to be sure.

That afternoon, the three of them paid Oskar Torevir a visit, sacks of ore in hand.  He told them it was 50gp/item to smelt the ore and apply the silvering, and to return in 6 days to retrieve the finished items.  Quelenna left him her old and one new fan, Dryali his rapier and shield, and Fine Branch his shield.