Flooded Warehouse Basement

Fine Branch and Cathance had just finished filling in Terrance about their heroic rescue of the deceitful Tian, when a gangly human entered the tavern.  He was pale and bespectacled, and had obviously just been talking to Arnari about joining the Freelancers.  He fiddled with his new badge.

They waved him over, with Cathance doing her best to put him at ease.  He was Block Lantam, and had been studying off-skylith as a weather Skywatcher.  The more experienced Freelancers, who had already been inspired to do a mission after their tale of mishaps, hauled Block with them up to Arnari's office.

Arnari had changed her office around, she waved them all into new chairs, which were appropriately-sized for all.  Terrance and Cathance were happier to be less awkwardly seated, but the chairs were still not all that comfortable.  Arnari ignored their reaction and looked at Block anew, assessing him for mission assignments.

She mentioned, "I am setting up a Demonstration of Prowess for the Freelancers, in coordination with the Academy of Magic, a few days hence."

Cathance was intrigued but cautious.  "What are the rules?" she asked.  Arnari frowned slightly, and said sharply, "I am not explaining things twice."  Cathance concluded from this assertion that the rules were not yet agreed.

Arnari came to some conclusion about Block, because she started listing off missions.

• Pollution cleanup:  the mage Gwydion will pay 50gp plus an uncommon potion each.

Fine Branch interrupted, "Has he cleaned up his act?"  Arnari replied, "He's stopped, but there's still weird shit to clean up."  She then continued,

• Find Jamie in Hindmarsh.  Presumably he's there with two accomplices.  You might have trouble apprehending him [that was aimed at Block], but finding him is sufficient.
• There's odd… flooding in the basement of Finneasal's warehouse, in the southwest Trade District.

The flooding was intriguing, simply because why would they have come to Freelancers about it?

Cathance asked the obvious: "Why is Finneasal, and what does his warehouse house?"  Arnari told them, "Finneasal is a Cloud elf, and he's the warehouse manager."

Terrance noticed this was a non-reply, and reiterated the question, "What's in the warehouse?  Is it okay?  Is it near the river?"  She obviously felt that there was possibly something shady happening here.

Arnari sat back and steepled her fingers.  "It's not near a river," she started, "Finneasal is not new, it's legit.  The flooding is not affecting the nearby buildings.

"He houses crafted goods, as well as agriculture, waiting for shipment."

Block said, "The weather is nice, let's do that."

The four Freelancers headed to the warehouse in the southwest Trade District and walked in, quickly finding the office.  The door was closed against the noise, but when they knocked, it was opened by a typical-looking male Cloud elf:  tall, bronze skin, blueish/blondish hair.

He took a look at the group and exclaimed, "Oh!  Oh!  Are you the Freelancers, and are you here to help with my horrible flooding problem?"  Terrance replied simply, "Yes."

Finneasal stepped out of his office, and pointed them at a wide stairway downwards at the western end of the warehouse.  "It's just down those stairs," he said.

"How long has this been happening?" Cathance asked.  "Just after the Calm Holiday," he told her.  "At first, it was just a little water seeping through the walls.  Then it got worse and worse," he lamented, "We tried bailing it out."

Block asked, "Can we see it seeping in now?"  Finneasal frowned.  "It's not deep," he explained, "But it reacts kind of weirdly… doesn't flow the same.  Sometimes, it piles up in a corner."

Fine Branch was intrigued, and asked for a bucket.  Finneasal directed a worker to give Fine Branch a bucket, then went back to his office.  Fine Branch filled it from an outside source, and went down the stairs, and carefully poured it where the water was shallow.  The water just… flowed, to the back corner.  He tried scooping the water up in the bucket, and looked to see if it moved, inside the bucket.

Cathance, after noting the edges of the basement, started inspecting the upstairs part of the warehouse, to see if there were any items that could be attracting the water.  The basement was big, though – 65'x80' – and the upstairs was bigger, so this took a while.

Block went down the stairs, studying the walls of the basement carefully.  He really didn't see where any water was seeping in.

Terrance stayed on the wide stairwell and cast detect magic.  She didn't really detect anything.

Cathance was in the storeroom over the watery corner, and realized with all the crafted goods, detect magic would be handy.  She fetched Terrance from the stairwell.  Terrance didn't detect anything in the storeroom, but magic reached up through the floor!  There was some sort of conjuration in the northeast corner of the basement, where the water had "piled up".  They went back to the steps where Fine Branch and Brock were.

Fine Branch had moved towards the deep part with the bucket, and Brock walked over… then waded next to him, trying to observe if there was a flow of water.

A small head of water popped up next to Brock, and burbled in Primordial.  It spat water at both Brock and Fine Branch.

Cathance called out, "Guys, there was a head!  It came up out of the water!"  Fine Branch and Brock spared her a look.  Terrance put on her swimming goggles.

Another head popped up.  "There's two!" Cathance's voice was more urgent.

Brock, thinking twice about being in front of the others against what appeared to be multiple elementals, dumped a bottle of ink into the water to make the elementals more visible, and fled towards the stairs.  Two more heads popped up, burbling, and spat water at him, hard enough to hurt.

The four elementals were little – smaller than Cathance was tall.  But the ink caused a full-sized water elemental to rear up, unhappy and burbling.  Cathance ran back to Finneasal's office and told him.  "But, we don't speak Primordial, can you come?"  Finneasal reluctantly agreed.  He didn't really want to get in a fight with elementals.

Fine Branch backed up to Block, earning more water spit at him, but it was harmless.  He picked up Brock, and dragged him further away.

The big elemental dove back into the water, and then emerged right next to Fine Branch.  It tried to attack the Freelancer, but missed.

• The little elementals took their cue from it.
  • One[4] came up to Terrance but did nothing.
  • Two[1][2] spit at Fine Branch, but missed
  • The last one[3] spit at Brock, hard enough to hurt.
• Terrance poked the little elemental[4] with her rapier, piercing it magically.  It splooshed back into the water, expired.  Then she disappeared.
• Block ran back to the stairs.
• Cathance and Finneasal had returned to the steps by then, and Cathance told him, "Oh, no," when Terrance pierced the little elemental.

Finneasal:  Water eles!
Cathance:  What to do?
Finneasal:  <wearily> Make them go away.
Cathance:  Ask them why they are here?
Finneasal:  Oh!   <calls out in Primordial>
Big elemental:  <angrily burbles>
Finneasal:  They decided, this was a nice place to be.  ...I don't know why, they won't tell me.  Just kill them, make them go away.

• He left.  Cathance nodded, then turned and hit the big elemental with ray of frost.
• Fine Branch's eyes narrowed as he turned to assess whether Finneasal's declaration was a lie, but decided it was not.  As Fine Branch turned back towards the big elemental, he bumped into the invisible Terrance next to him.  Startled, he jumped in the air, as cats and nekomata do.  He moved away.
  • The big elemental smacked him really hard, ouch.
  • Fine Branch turned and cast an overpowered guiding bolt at the big elemental, and then for good measure manifested a spiritual weapon in the form of a mop, which also whapped the big elemental.

Despite being invisible, Terrance was standing in the water.  Her position was obvious if one looked at the water.  So, the big water elemental tried to hit her.  However since she was invisible, it missed.

• The little elementals again took their cue from the big one
  • Two of them[1][2] moved to Cathance, but missed her.
  • The other[3] missed Fine Branch.
• Terrance struck at the big elemental with her rapier, piercing it magically, but it did not go sploosh, and she was no longer invisible.  She disengaged.
• One of the little elementals[2] on Cathance splooshed back into the water as Block's dagger struck home.
• Cathance pulled out her warhammer and swung it through the other little elemetal[1] on her.  The hammer splashed enough water out of it that it too splooshed back into normal water.
• Fine Branch hit the big elemental with the spiritual weapon mop, and then cast toll the dead, to no effect beyond annoying everyone with a high-pitched ringing in a water-laden room.

The big elemental dove into the water, then surfaced next to Terrance, and entirely missed.

• Terrance crit it with her scimitar.  The magical damage caused the lower half to drop back into the water, and then a moment later, the upper half did, sounding much like a waterfall.
• Block ran back down the stairs into the room.  "Is everyone okay?!" he exclaimed, obviously excited.
• Cathance saw the water in the room starting to flatten out, without the big elemental to hold it in the corner.  She stayed where she was, but hit the remaining little elemental[3] with ray of frost.  It froze solid, then cracked apart in the warmer water.
• The water from the corner crossed the basement in a wave, knocking the unsuspecting Fine Branch down.  Fine Branch leapt up in the air again, casting guiding bolt at the water before he landed with a splash.  The cast was a crit, and where the bolt struck, the water boiled away.

Fine Branch walked out of the water and up the stairs with as much dignity as he could muster.  Cathance managed not to laugh, but did cast prestidigitation to clear the water from his fur.  Then she went back to retrieve Finneasal from his office.

The water was now deep enough for Terrance to swim around in, so she poked around in the corner that had formerly held the deeper water.  She found some random art objects.

• Carved bone pendant
• Pair of engraved bone dice
• Silver ewer
• Small gold bracelet

They each appeared to be worth ~25gp.

Finneasal checked around the basement, and nothing seemed to be damaged that wasn't already waterlogged.  They all returned to his office where he then checked his inventories, and none of the found objects were part of his crafted goods.  He told the Freelancers to keep them, and then doled out 75gp each for their service, thanking them profusely.

"Make sure you give Arnari the Freelancer cut!" he called after them as they headed back to the Tavern.

• Block → level1 Druid!