Find Pirates River Polluter

The Pembroke conjunction was 5 days past, and nobody had been needed for courier to the Gemhallow Freelancers, because Arnari had done it herself!  She had returned, and in the company of another bard, a male human with brown hair and blue eyes named Julian, whose studded leather changed in style and colouration as he saw fit.  At the time Arnari's gear seemed a bit broken, but now she was in her usual garb, the two of them were against one of the walls of the tavern, telling tales.

Watching him from across the tavern, Cathance thought about when she'd gone to Gemhallow on a mission, and how they'd captured a hippogryph.  Fine Branch had kept her…

Fine Branch bounced into the tavern as if her thought had brought him.  "We did it!" he told her.  "The hippogryph is broken and trained!  I named him Nighthawk!"  Cathance's eyes widened.  "We can go on a mission, flying!"  They smiled.

Julian was strumming a lute as he and Arnari spun their tale.  They'd been part of a party to rescue a Freelancer, who had insufficiently scouted a Cloud giant castle.  They'd failed to bail out upon discovery the castle – Melville Castle – was occupied.

Two others of the party were Julian's friends:  Wolf and Fiona, for whom he had arranged to meet in Cliffshadow, and here he was!

The next morning, Fine Branch and Cathance swung by Arnari's office to see what missions were available.  They found her going through all the papers that Tomtom had painstakingly arranged to his satisfaction, muttering to herself about his thought process.

When she saw them, though, she greeted them warmly, and rapidly listed 3 possible missions:

• Go up the Pirates River and track down that pollution
• Track down Mansel of the Daystar Cultists
• House Aldous still wants eggs; we're still in season

Cathance and Fine Branch told her they'd take the pollution one.  "We're flying, so twice the travel speed!"  Cathance told her she knew where the black pudding had been found.

They weren't yet sure how to hunt their mounts, so Cathance checked with Sovelai about how much feed to bring, and Sovelai told her just to feed Jigsaw rations, "Twice as much as you'd eat, now!"  Cathance calculated how long they'd be gone and bought 14 rations for 5sp each.

Nighthawk, Fine Branch's hippogryph, was a magnificent burgundy.  Jigsaw was a brown-and-white paint pony hippogryph.  Travelling thus, it took Cathance and Fine Branch a day to get to the juncture of Pirates River and River of Dreams.  After camping there for the night, they started flying up Pirates River slowly, landing every mile or so to have a good look around.

They continued in that manner until they got to the location of the fight with the black pudding Cathance had been in with Quelenna, Torinn, and Khalid a full eighth ago.  There were no surprises.  Checking the area, Fine Branch was sure there was no recurrence of acidic ooze trails.  Cathance was less sure.

They continued on, stopping from time to time to dig up earthworms, which were too big.  They started to notice the crickets had extra legs.  Another mile or so, and Fine Branch also saw strange frogs moving weirdly, with extra legs?

Cathance didn't see any burned grass, so she flew down to check that out.  But as she got close, everything started shifting and swirling!  She could no longer see the frog.

Fine Branch watched Jigsaw start flying weirdly, dodging around empty air.  "Is everything okay?" he called out, alarmed.  Cathance cried, "Everything is changing!"  She and Jigsaw flew back up, weaving and dodging more.

Things settled down when she reached Fine Branch.  "Tree branches were popping up and there was swirling ground," she babbled at him in dismay.  He checked if she'd been poisoned, but no.

Cathance looked back where she'd been, and it was fine.  She flew a reluctant Jigsaw closer, but couldn't quite figure out where this experience ended.

Fine Branch cast detect poison and disease, and then flew back a ways, landing.  He got off, and started securing himself in the end of a rope, and then securing the rope to Nighthawk's saddle.  As Cathance landed on Jigsaw, Fine Branch said, "You ride Nighthawk.  I'll swing on the rope below."

Cathance regarded the large hippogryph dubiously. "But… okay…"  Fine Branch lifted her into the saddle, and they flew up, Fine Branch dangling helplessly 20' below.  Jigsaw hovered nearby, displeased.

Fine Branch was flinching at empty air, trying to avoid the tree branches grabbing at his feet.  Cathance called down, "You doing okay down there?"  Fine Branch, still flinching, called back, "This is weird!"  He cast detect magic, but nothing.

Cathance was concerned and asked, "You want me to pull up?"  Fine Branch directed her, "Fly along the river, away from the frog!"  Cathance called, "Okay…" and did so.

Fine Branch called out, "The effect fades out at about sixty feet!"  Cathance asked in return, "You still wanna be hanging down there?"

Fine Branch's "Um" was loud enough for her to hear.  "Let me know cat!!" she yelled.  "I want to be LOWER!" he cried.  Cathance's "Uh" was loud enough for him to hear.  "Let's land and lengthen the rope!" he called.

They landed, and as he lengthened the rope, Fine Branch told her, "I can't see the frog in the swirliness!"  He used a ritual to detect evil and good, and they took off again.

With that spell, Fine Branch was able to figure out where the effects were coming from, and Cathance was able to see two frogs from her perch atop Nighthawk.

"They are not frogs!!!"  Cathance cried out.  "There are seven eyes!"  She guided Nighthawk higher.  "Fly up Nighthawk!  Fly up!"

Fine Branch was calmer.  "Let's land, and figure it out."  Cathance flew back down the river, and landed gently.  Jigsaw, still puzzled, landed nearby.

Cathance dismounted from Nighthawk, frowning thoughtfully.  "Are we looking at the source, or the symptom [of the pollution]?"

They decided to attack from above, first, and answer Cathance's question, after.  Mounting again, they flew up.

Fine Branch sent a guiding bolt on the first froggoth, incinerating it.  Cathance used chill touch on the second one, and it hopped towards the two Freelancers, who stayed out of the range of its weirdness.  Fine Branch then followed up with toll the dead, swooping in to cast it.  The froggoth dropped dead as the bell rang out, which was a good thing as Nighthawk had started to wobble like Jigsaw had done earlier.

The zone of weirdness dropped with the demise of the froggoths, and the Freelancers landed again to check the bodies.  Cathance then checked the river itself.  She saw some very big bugs, and the fish in the river were wrongly shaped, and some were oversized.

They examined the froggoths more closely.  Cause or symptom?  "Too much magic can cause aberrations," Cathance said; but Fine Branch's detect magic found nothing.

Fine Branch picked up the froggoth he was examining and put it in a saddlebag for later, and they decided to keep checking upstream as they had been doing.  As they made their way up the river, they left the acid-burned grass behind.  Once they found a really big bug.  They spotted another froggoth, and killed it from above as well.  Cathance, watering Jigsaw, saw a fish aberration, a flounder with three eyes instead of two.

As the Daystar disappeared behind the mountains, they sought out a place to camp for the night, well away from the river, on the valley side of it.  Surrounded by trees and rocks, the Freelancers and their hippogryphs rested from dusk until dawn.

The next morning, they returned to the river, and continued upstream.  They saw more and more weird creatures, but fortunately no more froggoths.  Then, around noon, it just… stopped.

They backtracked, taking more care, to find a small stream feeding the river from the mountain side.  They followed it upstream, still flying, to find a stone structure: a broad, relatively squat tower.  Cathance noticed it had a mill section, diverting water from the stream.  Water flowed in, and… liquid with weird, vibrant rainbow colours, shifting in patterns not matching the flow, came out.

Fine Branch looked pensive.  "I did not come, prepared to fight a wizard," he mused.  Cathance suggested, "Perhaps we should just ask them to stop polluting."

Fine Branch was entirely taken aback.  Then his face changed.  "Okay."  He summoned his doppelgänger, who knocked on the door.  A young male human with sandy brown hair answered.  He wore a knee-length tunic, and one hand was gloved, the other bare; he held a glove in the gloved hand.

Doppelgänger:  are you the owner of this tower?
Apprentice:  of course not!
Doppelgänger: We would like to speak to whoever is.
Apprentice: Master Gwidion is doing important work, and is not taking visitors!  We are doing Important magical research, and do not wish to be disturbed.
Doppelgänger: <darkly> you might wish to consider this disturbance less disruptive than the alternative.
Apprentice: <haughtily> what do you know about magic?
Doppelgänger: <cast thaumaturgy to be dramariffic> Do not mistake me for a purveyor of cheap tricks

The apprentice rolled his eyes, and closed the door.  The doppelgänger backed to the bottom of the steps.  The door opened to reveal a picture-perfect wizard of alchemy.  His gloves were big, and he wore a leather apron over his clothes.  All displayed acid stains.

Gwidion: what is so important that you disturb my research?
Doppelgänger: don't want to disturb research, but want to tell you of some effects of your effluent; you can judge.
Gwidion: <surprised> interesting!  What effects?
Doppelgänger: <gestures at effluent> downstream, there is enlargement of creatures; some primes ago, there was a black pudding; and safety concerns have arisen, with the Mossey Lake dam.
Gwidion: <sighing> Alright.  I suppose … <muttering> this will set back my research for primes

Gwidion started thinking, and fell into a fugue.  Fine Branch could tell the wizard was only intellectually interested in the aberrations, but instantly realized leaving them unattended would result in a less pleasant future disruption to his research.

Doppelgänger: perhaps, if you tell me about the research, we can help with your research.
Gwidion: <scowling> I'm here to avoid stealing.  <scowl turns calculating> Are you with the Freelancers?  This feels like a Freelancers' thing.
Doppelgänger: yes.
Gwidion: perhaps I can pay the Freelancers to take care of these effects.

Fine Branch then tried to drop one of the froggoth corpses on the doppelgänger.  It landed close by, but broke apart.  Gwidion picked it up carefully, gloves on, examining it.

Doppelgänger: there are other effects too, which are very concerning.  We'd need to know the nature of the toxins we are dealing with.
Gwidion: <still looking at froggoth remains> this is neat!  <attention split> I'm still not telling you.  Can I keep this?  ...I'm dealing with enhancements.
Doppelgänger: it might be in everyone's best interest to sweeten that pot.

The doppelgänger was almost out of time, so Cathance and Fine Branch landed a bit behind it.  Cathance smiled sweetly at Gwidion as Fine Branch cast detect good and evil in an attempt to detect aberrations, but he detected nothing through the tower stone walls.

Gwidion: I could offer each a small magical item, from my extensive collection
Fine Branch: not a sample of your work?
Gwidion: <smiling> one moment.

Gwidion opened the door to the tower, and went inside, leaving the door open.  Still no aberrations detected.  He returned without the froggoth, and with two vials (obviously greater healing potions), and handed Fine Branch and Cathance each one.

Gwidion: This is one of the weaker potions.  But, I will stop the pollution.  Let me prepare a message for you to take back to Arnari Rilynn'sithek.  Do you think she will accept payment in potions?

Gwidion stepped back inside, removing his gloves, and returned in a couple minutes with a folded parchment.  "Here is a mission request, to clean up the creek, Pirates River, the lake, and affected feeder streams," he said as he handed it to Fine Branch.  He looked at the liquid flowing into the stream, and added, "I assure you, I will set my apprentices to create a filter for the effluent."

Fine Branch accepted the request, and then he and Cathance bowed and took their leave.  They flew off as Gwidion went back inside the tower.  "He's sincere," Fine Branch said.  "He doesn't seem a threat," Cathance agreed.  She looked back at the tower, then circled back with Jigsaw.  Pulling a vial out of her herbalism kit, she carefully filled it with the rainbow-coloured effluent.  Looking at it before she packed it away, she saw the colours refused to mix.

Cathance and Fine Branch decided the best course of subsequent action was to return to Lakeview with this new information, and flew straight there.  While it was a day's travel by hippogryph, with the late start they arrived about 3 hours after dark, on very tired hippogryphs.  They got stabling and rooms at The Biting Badger for the night for 13sp, and went straight to sleep without relaxing in the taproom.

The next morning they rose early and sought out Popoki, the Mayor of Lakeview.  An unremarkable Wind sagani, he was prepping his two fishing boats to go out for the day.  He became happy upon hearing that the Freelancers had discovered the source of the pollution, and even happier Gwidion had agreed to stop, and paid Fine Branch and Cathance 100gp each.  Cathance showed him the strange rainbow water in the vial, and he marvelled at how the colours stayed unmixed.  Then he took his leave to attend to his fishing boats.

Returning to Cliffshadow on Jigsaw and Nighthawk was a long day's travel, but they got back to Freelancers in the evening.  Once they were settled back in, they had dinner in the tavern, and caught Arnari's attention for later discussion.

After dinner the three of them went into Arnari's office, and Fine Branch produced the parchment from Gwidion.  She read over it, considering, then got up and consulted the map.   "This is going to be a lot of work," she told them.

Cathance brought out the vial of effluent to show Arnari.  "This is the actual effluent causing it all," she explained.  Arnari took it, swishing it back and forth, watching the colours move.  "Is he good for these costs?  What about his potions?"

Fine Branch brought out the two greater healing potions.  "He gave us these," he said.

Arnari set all three on her desk, and brought out her harp; then she looked at the time, and just cast identify on them all without bothering with a ritual.  "That effluent is… a mess," she said, wonderingly.  "These two healing potions… are really it," she added. "A good sign of willingness to pay up."

She looked at the two of them.  "What do you think, of him paying up?" she asked.  Fine Branch told her, "He cares only about his research, and did not hesitate to offer us a bribe."  Cathance told her, "He's not that forthcoming – he has more people, apprentices, than he wanted to say."

Arnari considered the parchment again, and the potions.  "Alright.  I will give you 50gp each for finding missions!"  She pulled out a small lockbox, and extracted coins.  "40gp each, I'm deducing the Freelancer's Cut for Popoki paying you."  She gave them the coins, and then, "Here, of course you should keep these," and handed them the greater healing potions.

• Cathance → level 4!