Pirates Dream River Monstrosities

Quelenna did not have her fans.  For some reason, that made her itchy to take another mission.  She talked to Terrance about it, then to the sorcerers Tuala and Cathance.

Once in Arnari's office, Arnari also noticed the lack of fans.  Quelenna said, "They are getting the treatment."  That made the other three would-be compatriots each raise an eyebrow, so Arnari explained, Quelenna is just back from running errands in Gemhallow, and Dryali had convinced them all to go get some purple mournlode for their weapons.

This led into Arnari mentioning the mission at the top of her list.

• While a little more time consuming to get back, Hanohano of House Ha'aheao still wants his herd of draft pegasus to go to Bandolier.

Cathance cocked her head, trying to picture it.  "How would that work, with a pony hippogryph?"  Arnari waved away the implied objection, "They are slower, and well-socialized."

• Go to Stormhaven and track the halfling man that was tracking Freelancers before.  We think he might be who freed Jamie from the Skyguard, and hired the Blue Bandanna people.
• Still, find Ethan – maybe Tuala had found something? – 150gp/person for definite location.
• Still, pollution cleanup along the Pirates and Pirates Dream rivers.  50gp/person plus one uncommon potion.

There was no debate; everyone wanted to do pollution cleanup.  They examined the map on Arnari's wall carefully, calculating the travel times.  Then they picked up the necessary rations (because of Jigsaw, Cathance bought 12) and took off.  Quelenna, feeling a need for ranged attacks without yielding her daggers to an enemy, picked up a set of shuriken.

The Freelancers made good time heading straight to Mossey Lake along the treeline.  Quelenna led the way, with Cathance flying above on Jigsaw keeping an eye out.  They set a watch order of Terrance, Tuala, Quelenna, and Cathance, so the two without darkvision weren't so much in the dark.

On the first night, however, Tuala perhaps dozed off during his watch, because a not-that-nearby wolf startled him, sending him calling out "Wake up!  Wake UP!"  Cathance sat up sleepily, "Whaaaaat!"  The others came even more alert.  But there was nothing there.

They got to the lake late on the second day, but the Daystar was still in the western sky.  Quelenna found a good campsite, and started a fire while Terrance tried out her new fishing tackle in the lake itself.  She easily caught enough fish to feed everyone, including Jigsaw!  Cathance, remembering their mission, checked if the fish had any abnormalities, but they were okay.

Terrance wrapped up the fish and put them to bake in the fire's embers, and then (since watching a fish bake was boring, and there was still plenty of light) the Freelancers explored up the shore, looking for … things.  Cathance rode Jigsaw, since otherwise he would have probably eaten all the fish.

They got to the mouth of the river, and still saw nothing, so they started looking a bit upstream.  Then the three who were walking found grass with chemical burns.  Oh-oh!  They called up to Cathance, pointing it out.

Cathance circled, trying to figure out how big the area of burned grass was.  It was really big!  She determined it was 200' radius around a pile of rocks, set back about 300' from the riverbank.  She swooped down near the rocks, looking for the cause.

Three ooze creatures emerged from the rocks, trying to grab Cathance!  Pseudopods reached out in a futile attempt before glorping back into the blob of ochre.  Failing that, they somehow saw the Freelancers far away, and started moving towards them.

The oozes moved towards the Freelancers, setting out pseudopods to pull themselves forward.  It was altogether a horrifying sight.

• Terrance pulled out her short bow, and shot the ooze furthest to the south.
• Cathance cast… a writhing bolt of chaos, which evolved into fire by the time it struck the northernmost ooze.
• Quelenna raised her fists to attack, then thought better of it and pulled out her shuriken.  She stepped up and expertly threw one at the burned ooze, its blades slashing.
  • The ooze rippled away from the slash, then split in two.
• Tuala sent magic missiles into the rightmost ooze that had split.   Parts of it splatted off from the force, and it became smaller.

The ooze in the middle, and the undamaged smaller ooze from the split, again reached up pseudopods at Cathance, who was still in the air on Jigsaw.  The other two kept heading for the Freelancers on the ground, but they were not quite close enough to attack them.

• Terrance drew her rapier, and pierced the ooze she'd shot with the bow, telling Quelenna "These need to be pierced, not slashed, because look what happened?"  She then disengaged and stepped back 10'.
• Cathance cast chill touch on the ooze that had been splatted by Tuala.  As the skeletal hand touched it, the ooze lost integrity, and sank into the ground.  She had Jigsaw circle south, to kind of tease the two oozes who had harmlessly tried to attack her.
• Quelenna nodded at Terrance, and drew her daggar, and stabbed the same ooze Terrance had.  She checked it for damage, but it was fine.
• Tuala sent magic missiles into the same ooze, then used sorcery to do it again, splatting various bits of it into oblivion.

The middle ooze tried again to get Cathance and Jigsaw, but the undamaged smaller ooze moved back towards the other Freelancers.  The ooze they'd been attacking moved after Terrance, but did not attack her.

• Terrance attacked it, though.  As her rapier pierced it, it lost cohesion, spreading out across the ground.
• Cathance shot a ray of frost at the small ooze moving towards the others.  The ray froze the base of the ooze to the ground, preventing it from moving.  She kept circling the middle ooze.
• Quelenna ran up to the stuck ooze, and struck it with her daggar, then disengaged and moved back.
• Tuala shot a firebolt at it, and the unfrozen bits were incinerated.

The remaining ooze was still trying to get Cathance.

• Terrance shot it with her short bow.
• Cathance flew back over the rocks, and shot a ray of frost at it, so now this ooze had its base frozen to the ground.
• Quelenna ran up to this stuck ooze, stabbed it with her dagger, and again disengaged and moved back a little.
• Tuala shot a firebolt at it.

Since she was closer, and obviously hurt it, the ooze tried to attack Quelenna with a pseudopod, but it was stuck and could not reach her.

• Terrance crit it with her short bow.  The ooze wiggled, and jiggled, and turned itself around.
• Cathance landed on the rocks, and cast chill touch at the ooze.  Bits of disgusting rotting ooze fell away from where the skeletal hand grabbed it.
• Quelenna stabbed it with her daggar again, and the remaining ooze lost integrity, fading into the ground.

Cathance looked down between the rocks, and it was gross and dirty, but something in there was glinting.  Coins?  Colourful pebbles.  Other stuff, but filthy.  "Guys!" she called out, "There's stuff in here!"  She bent forward and used prestidigitation on some of the filth so she could see better, as the other Freelancers hurried to the rocks to join her.

The space was too narrow for the others to get there, so Cathance cleaned it up a bit more, and squeeze in there, to find 

• 159gp
• 50 gp gemstones (x11):
  • Bloodstone (opaque dark gray with red flecks)
  • Carnelian (opaque orange)
  • Chalcedony (opaque white), ×2
  • Chrysoprase (translucent green)
  • Citrine (transparent pale yellow-brown), ×2
  • Jasper (opaque blue)
  • Moonstone (translucent white with pale blue glow)
  • Zircon (transparent pale blue-green), ×2
• A pair of boots with wings
• A deck of 21 cards
• A golden brooch

Terrance was excited about the boots, she was feeling a need to get fancier boots. They puzzled over these items a short while, then remembered the fish, and hastened back to their camp.

The fish was delicious.  As they sat there eating and contemplating these items, they were sure the brooch looked familiar.  Finally they remembered.  Arnari wears one, and this was a brooch of shielding.  The boots of course, were winged boots.  The cards were more of a puzzle.  Quelenna compared it to her deck, but finally Tuala realized it was an incomplete deck of illusions.

These items were all very intriguing, but they decided to hash out later who-got-what.  Everything went in Jigsaw's saddlebags for later, and they settled down to sleep and take watches.  Fortunately, the night passed with nothing more eventful than the occasional splash from the nearby lake.

The next morning, they broke camp and headed up the Pirates Dream river, keeping an eye open for anything unusual, especially froggoths, which Cathance had warned them about.  Quelenna was in the lead, with Cathance above, but everyone was on the lookout.

Despite looking sharp, they saw nothing, and made good time, and were approaching the fork, when Cathance saw… a really weird thing floating over the water, about half a mile downstream from the fork, just upstream of where it narrowed, so over some calm water with reeds.  It had a big gryphon beak, which appeared to be attached to a brain!

Many tentacles hung below, and as Cathance watched, appalled, from 100' away, she saw that it was fishing!  The tentacles grasped a fish from the shallows, and brought it, wriggling, to the thing's beak, and it ate the fish.  She flew back to the others and described what she saw.  "I don't think it has eyes," she concluded.

Quelenna declared, "It seems like this is the kind of thing we are supposed to clean up."  

They crept forward so all could see it.  The brain of it was 7' above the water, and the tentacles easily got the fish as it moved about the reeds.

The Freelancers discussed quietly what they were going to do.  Cathance said, "Ray of frost?"  Terrance asked, "Does it slow it?"  Cathance said, "Not attacks, just its movement."  They considered available cover and how it moved.  Then they moved in place.

Quelenna and Terrance snuck closer to it, then Quelenna checked if it "saw" them.  She watched, fascinated, as it caught and ate a fish.  Where is the fish going?

Everyone was in place.  Cathance shot it with the ray of frost.

• Quelenna crit it with a shuriken.  The creature screamed like an angry eagle.
• Terrance moved 15' north, and shot an arrow with her short bow.  A tentacle flicked the arrow away.  Terrance moved back south and hid in a bush.
• The grell – for such it was, gentle reader, although these Freelancers knew it not – floated towards Quelenna, fish still in one of its tentacles.  It attacked her with another tentacle, but she avoided it.  It then pierced her with its beak, ouch.

Cathance almost instinctively invoked tides of chaos, and shot another bolt of chaos at the grell.  It hit, but she did not see it, as the chaos backlashed and she exploded in a fireball.  She quickly used metamagic to mitigate the effects of the massive fire on herself and Jigsaw, but he was horribly burned, and screamed.  Cathance landed and dismounted from the injured hippogryph.

• Tuala, initially taken aback of this turn of events, shot magic missile at the grell, then used his own metamagic to do it again.
• Quelenna struck at the grell with her daggar, and then followed up with flurry of blows, killing it.
• Unfortunately, at this turn of events, four froggoths hopped out of the river.
  • Quelenna did not see them, because for her, the ground started swirling, and the tree branches grasping.  The grass lapped at her feet like waves.
• Terrance put on her ring of swimming, and then skewered one of the froggoths with her rapier.  Then she hid inside the bush again.

Cathance got a heal pot out, and gave it to Jigsaw.  Then, she mounted and had Jigsaw fly up and away, out of froggoth weirdness radius.  She tried to cast chill touch on a froggoth, but missed, no doubt because she was unnerved by the fireball.

• Tuala shot one of the froggoths with a firebolt, but failed to kill it.
• Quelenna said, hesitantly, "Everything is moving…" and backed up northward 20' which was really away from where anyone was at all.
• Two of the froggoths hopped after her.  Their eyes lit up, and Quelenna and Terrance were both slammed with the biggest headache, incapacitating both of them.  The froggoth Tuala had hit also had its eyes light up.  But something went wrong, and it flipped over.

Cathance cast chill touch on the flipped over froggoth, killing it.

• Tuala shot another froggoth with firebolt (one of the ones that had hopped after Quelenna), killing it.
• Quelenna was trippin', she still could not see the froggoths, and moved behind the big log, dodging instinctively.
• The froggoth that hadn't hopped after Quelenna hopped after Terrance, who suddenly discovered the bush she'd been hiding in was perfectly capable of holding a conversation with her.

Cathance cast chill touch on the remaining froggoth pestering Quelenna, killing it.

• Tuala shot the last froggoth with firebolt, killing it.

Quelenna looked around, and realized the terrain had stopped swirling.  She saw the small misshapen creatures that had caused her this woes and swore.  "Frogs!  More frogs!  Gah I hate them!"

Terrance was still talking to the bush, and was mostly doubled up from headache pain.  It took about a minute to recede, and she stood up, trying to shake off the dregs.

Cathance landed next to her, checking Jigsaw more carefully.  "We're not even to the fork yet!" she exclaimed.  Terrance sat down, holding her head.  "I don't think I can make it," she said mournfully.

Cathance declared, "We need to yell at the people who claimed to have cleared this."

After a pause, they investigated the surrounding area, but didn't really find anything of interest.  They looked at the grell, too, and still couldn't figure out what happened to the fish it had been eating.

Discouraged, they headed back to Cliffshadow.  Since it took them 3 days, they had plenty of time to figure out who got what while on the way back.  Tuala took the deck of illusions, and once seeing the winged boots gave a flying ability, Terrance, who already had her broom of flying, relinquished any claim to them, so they went to Quelenna.  Cathance took the brooch of shielding.  The rest they divided evenly, although Quelenna wanted the jasper and the moonstone, and Terrance wanted the zircon.

Arnari was not as disappointed at how far they'd gotten as they were, noting philosophically that things flow downriver.  She told them the beak-brain-tentacle creature they had slain was a grell, but she also was puzzled at the idea of it eating fish.  She paid them 45gp each, and pulled out the uncommon potions.  Cathance got a potion of poison, and the others each got a potion of water breathing.  

• Tuala → lvl5!