Locate Lakeview Pollution

On her return from exercising Jigsaw, Cathance saw Freelancers Tavern was abuzz with tales dominated by the words "would've" "could've" and "almost" as the tired team sent after Mansel and the Daystar "worshippers" regaled the others with the events of their attempt.  Cathance noticed Kaelani's glance was sharper than usual, as he questioned them closely on the divine magic they'd witnessed.  Who worships the Daystar? she thought.

Quelenna was at the bar, quietly sipping a drink, absently toying with a deck of cards in one hand.  Nearby, at one of those tall tables not meant for sitting, was a tall Bronze dragonborn, and a leatherclad female Wind sagani, who looked dangerous.

Cathance went up to Kaelani.  "Let's go talk to Tomtom, and see what there is for us to do," she told him.  Her glance included the others.  The two of them went upstairs, followed by Quelenna and the other two.

Tomtom welcomed them into his office, and waved them all into appropriately-sized chairs.  The dragonborn, who was named Torinn, crossed his arms and instead stood near a wall, watching everyone.  Cathance and Kaelani stretched out their feet.

As Tomtom sorted through the documents on his desk, the others noted a shelf with pebbles on it, labelled with the names of skyliths.  Quelenna watched him wonderingly.

Finally, Tomtom declared he had three missions for them, and... a fourth which might be "a stretch".

• Research the Daystar lotion shipments; where did they go?
• Lady Sonya Drogo would like an escort to Stormhaven and people to run errands
• Lakeview… the fields to the west of town have a spider problem

"What kind of spider?" Cathance demanded.  Tomtom looked down at her.  "Big!" he declared.  Cathance scowled.  "How big?!"

Kaelani interrupted, "sounds familiar."  Tomtom explained, "They chased it away, and appears to have returned."

Cathance would not be deterred.  "Big enough to eat me?!"  Tomtom admonished her, "Don't interrupt!  But, size of a small pony."

At this, Khalid weighed in, her coolness cracked.  "That sounds… horrifying."

Tomtom added in the silence, "The last mission is pollution tracking."  Then he noted, "Also Lakeview."

Khalid said quickly, "Let's do that."

Kaelani held up a hand.  "Which of these is the 'stretch' mission?"  Tomtom said shortly, "Pollution."

Cathance crossed her arms, unintentionally mimicking the silent Torinn.  "Pay?" she asked, and Quelenna suggested, "A relatively easy mission escorting the Lady might pay well."

Tomtom read out from his papers again.

• Research:  100gp/person
• Spiders:  100gp/spider, it's a bounty
• Lakeview pollution: 100gp each
• Escort Lady Sonya: 100gp each, but I heard a rumour that she tips.

The pollution one sounded interesting, so everyone decided to go with that.  They all came to look at the Duquesne map on Tomtom's wall.  He pointed out where the others had scouted along the Pirates Dream river feeding into Mossey Lake.  Cathance had to climb on a chair to see properly.

Torinn finally spoke up.  "We should travel along the treeline to get there, not cut through the forest."  He pointed out the treeline was almost a direct route from Cliffshadow to the lake.  "I can fly above, on Jigsaw, and keep an eye out!" Cathance declared.

Thus agreed, the 5 Freelancers trooped out of Tomtom's office, discussing preparations.  They did not see his grimace of worry as they shut the door.

Although Torinn was from another skylith entirely, he still was able to lead the group in their intended direction northwest from Cliffshadow towards the lake.  Since his plan was so well-thought out, Cathance called for the guidance of the Tortoise, and on the first day they made good time and found a good camping spot.  Good thing too; about 2 hours before midnight, a storm rolled over Duquesne.  While not too windy, the rain came down hard, and the sky was lit up by lightning.

The second day, they made slower time, and with the rain having washed away many signs of danger, Torinn and everyone else somehow missed the pack of wolves until all heard the growling.  Then Torinn, Khalid, Quelenna, and Kaelani were face to face with 6 of them!  Cathance was still up in the air.

Quelenna moved like the wind!  She ran up to the eastmost wolf, pulling out a fan, and used it to slash the wolf's nose.  Then she followed up with a punch to the wolf's head, killing it!  She moved to the next wolf, but Khalid also moved to it, pulling out a daggar… and tripped on a tree root and fell down.  She did get up and attack the wolf, to no avail.

Cathance tried to cast chill touch on the westmost wolf, wobbled in Jigsaw's saddle, then did cast it.  Necrotic damage spread from the wolf's muzzle as the hand grabbed it by the nose.  Jigsaw swooped down and beaked the wolf, killing it.  Then Jigsaw turned onto the next wolf and swiped with his claws, killing that one too!

Torinn moved to the two wolves on their north flank, grabbing a stick.  He hit one on the snout with the stick, and growled at it himself, which was kind of scary from the big Bronze dragonborn.

The wolf in front of Quelenna and Khalid bit Quelenna pretty hard.  "Ouch!" she exclaimed, offended.  The wolf Torinn had hit was undeterred from his growl, and bit him.  The wolf next to them bit Kaelani.

Kaelani brought out his rainstick.  The ends of it had a light glow.  He swung at the wolf, but hesitated, not wanting to damage the rainstick, and the wolf dodged away.

Quelenna hit the wolf that bit her with her fan, and followed up with a spinning kick to the head, dropping it.  She moved a bit closer to Torinn and Kaelani, but did not engage, as she was still hurt from the bite.

Khalid moved to the wolf on Kaelani, striking with her daggar while it was distracted, hurting it badly.   Cathance cast chill touch on it, killing it.  Jigsaw flew up over the wolf on Torinn, but left it for him.

Torinn lunged forward, and grabbed the wolf, wrestling it to the ground.  He grabbed some food, and tried to convince it he was its friend.  It bit him again, but then ate the food.

While the wolf was thus occupied, Kaelani used lay on hands and healed the worst of the bite on Quelenna.  Torinn tried again, feeding the wolf more food, and got another bite for his troubles.  Kaelani used lay on hands and healed him as well.

Torinn tried one last time, and got bit again.  Disgusted, he punched the wolf in the side of the head, killing it.  Khalid cried out, "No!  ...why?"  Torinn stood up, dusting himself off.  "It bit me, a LOT," he said, displaying the unhealed wounds.  "Let's go."

They continued, and at the end of the day, they arrived, where the Pirates Dream river began, at the fork of the River of Dreams, and Pirates River.

That night, the skies were overcast.  There was no storm, but the stars were obscured.

The next morning, everyone started poking around in the nearby environs.  Kaelani and Torinn felt nothing was right.  Quelenna went downriver a bit, and determined the animals were a bit big.  Khalid went a bit up Pirates River, and found really big crickets.  Really big!  As she was looking, Torinn stepped on one.  "I'm doing my part!" he told her proudly.

Cathance flew up River of Dreams a little ways on Jigsaw, but saw nothing of untoward size, until flying back to where the waters mixed.

"We should go up Pirates River," Khalid declared.  Cathance retorted, "You sure you just don't like the name?"  Khalid's reply was cross.  "Yesss!  They are bigger!"

Quelenna intervened.  "We should check it out," she said wisely. 

They started trekking up the river, Cathance keeping low on Jigsaw.  As they went, they noticed acid marks on the trees, and seared grass.  It appeared to be chemical burns.  Cathance tried to use her new herbalism skills to figure it out, but all she could tell was these grasses couldn't be used.

They figured the burns were from oozes, especially given the prior Freelancers' report; but were the big animals turning into oozes?  What was the relationship?  Torinn, examining it, figured out that while they were both effects of the pollution, the effects were independent.

They decided to continue up the river, with Cathance circling above.  Everyone kept an eye open, except Quelenna, who discovered she missed the forest, and was happy with their trek.  Torinn was less happy, because he wasn't sure what to look for.

As they proceeded, the forest became much more quiet.  There were just no creatures.  The chemical burn marks changed as well, and became more acidic.  Cathance scouted further away from the river banks.  There were marks there too, but not as much.

The Daystar had sunk behind the hills to their west when they noticed the fish were much bigger, and started looking for a campsite.  They found one near where the river had a large turn at the base of the mountains, from an eastward flow to southward.

Watch order was Quelenna, Kaelani, and Torinn, and the night was quiet, but Kaelani heard cracklings in the brush that did not come near.

The next morning, they broke camp and headed up the river, Torinn in the lead, followed by Khalid, Quelenna, Kaelani.  They noticed more acidic marks on the ground, and seared vegetation.

Cathance flew above on Jigsaw, but the morning and the view were so nice after the recent stormy weather, she didn't really notice anything.  Which is perhaps why they had no warning when a large, undulating, black ooze thing, with the consistency of a pudding, emerged from behind a rock in front of them on the riverbank, right as they'd passed a neat wooden bridge across a narrow part of the river. 

Kaelani headed past the party towards it, then readied himself to dodge any attacks from the thing.  Quelenna stepped up to it and stabbed it with her daggar.  It made a bit of a "glorp" sound, splashing her with acid.

"Look at my daggar," she shouted, appalled. "Look at the pits in it!  This thing is gross!"

Khalid, cueing off Quelenna's shout, pulled out a club and beat on the ooze.  It did not "glorp", but the club came away also pitted with acid.

Cathance circled overhead on Jigsaw.  She extended her arm and formed a 4" chromatic orb of writhing energy and hurled it at the ooze.  As it flew, the diamond in the tortoise on her neck flashed reddish orange, and a 4" orb of fire hit the ooze, burning it badly.

Torinn walked up to the ooze, which was considerably bigger than he was, but was obviously looking for something on the ground.  He sneezed, and to everyone's surprise shot out lightning that smacked into the ooze!

The ooze shuddered and shook with the energy from the lightning, but did not appear hurt by it at all.  Then, it split into two oozes.

Cathance, no longer distracted by the beautiful morning view, remembered why she was aloft.  "Guys, there's two!  It broke in two!" she called down urgently.  "GUYS, IT BROKE IN TWO!"

One ooze reached out with a pseudopod and smacked Kaelani, both bludgeoning him and burning him with acid.  The other attacked Khalid with a similar result.  Khalid, considerably less protected against such attacks than Kaelani, dropped to the ground, out like a light.  Kaelani moved to Khalid – "his" ooze tried to hit him again with a pseudopod and was unable to – and used lay on hands to revive her.  Khalid lay there, blinking.

Quelenna, seeing two of these gross oozes, disengaged and ran towards the bridge.  Khalid stood up, disengaged, and also ran.

Cathance saw no reason not to repeat her prior attack, and did so, sending another firey orb at one of the oozes.

Torinn disengaged almost idly from the ooze, and was still looking on the ground.  He moved towards Quelenna and Khalid, then stooped and picked up a long stick.  Lighting the end on fire, he flew into a rage, roaring.

The oozes both moved towards the group.  One smacked at Torinn with a pseudopod, missing.

Kaelani, glancing at Khalid's acid-etched club, pulled out a warhammer instead of his usual rainstick, and smote the undamaged ooze.  The warhammer glowed briefly with the divine radiance of Ua, burning the ooze.  It still went "glorp," splashing Kaelani.

Quelenna, seeing this, ran back and struck the same ooze with her daggar.  Then, grimacing in disgust, she followed up with a kick of her booted foot.  She didn't entirely avoid the "glorp" from the daggar.

Khalid, torn between wanting to run away from this ooze thing, and not leaving her newfound friends to fight it, picked up a rock and threw it, hitting Quelenna in the shoulder as the throw critically failed.  She ran the rest of the way to the bridge.

Cathance saw the burned ooze in front of Quelenna from above, and sent the necrotic hand of chill touch at it.  The ooze crumbled as rivulets of decay moved through it.  Jigsaw circled north.

Torinn, full of rage, crit the remaining ooze with his burning stick, beating it and setting on fire.  It attacked him back with a pseudopod, but his rage shrugged off most of the blow.

Kaelani moved up and struck it with a mighty blow with his warhammer.  The ooze wiggled and jiggled, then lost cohesion and glorped into the ground.  Kaelani and Torinn jumped back to avoid the grossness.

Nervous and dismayed, the Freelancers looked around for an origin of this creature, but they found nothing.  Cathance meanwhile, carefully scouted for more from above, and she found none.

They took stock, and decided that proceeding further could be unwise, since the fauna was still increasing in size as they went further up the Pirates River and who knew what the next hostile encounter would be.  They reversed course and headed back to Cliffshadow.

Back at Freelancers Tavern, they reported their findings to Tomtom, who was unable to conceal fully his relief they were safe.  Since their scouting trip indeed isolated the pollution source considerably, and revealed a higher danger than he'd expected, he paid them the 90gp fee-minus-the-Freelancers'-cut and thanked them for their work.

• Quelenna, Torinn, Khalid → lvl2!