The murderhoboes
Bleu, droning elf wizard
Zaber, suave and debonaire man
Logan, wolverine
Polly, cute and deadly elf archer
Thrognar, half-orc holy warrior
(Stonemaul, half-orc holy warrior)
What they did
I belch. "Hey, let's get that blabbermouth stuff for Quint!" The Aquan potion still is working, so everyone understands me.
Thrognar says, "Agreed. Where was the blabberwort again?" Polly and I both point him towards the blabberworts. "Then let's be off. Thank you for your hospitality, pixies."
Caendril yells at him, "NIXIES!"
Thrognar blushes. "Sorry, a vocal typo."
Garreth nods. "We'll see you again!"
We walk over to the blabberwort stocks. Garreth tells Thrognar that the plant is hostile, but Polly says, "It was just hungry and thought we were delicious. Probably." I slip between the blabberwort plants and use my knife to harvest seven fronds oozing with acidic goodness.
We go back towards the nixen lair, but veer left. We think we see a secret door in the wall. Bleu gets a good look. "As you can see, the sedimentation pattern here shows that this has undergone gradual buildup over the course of … " So on, so forth, "… that area however has been disturbed by actual hands to conceal an entrance in the otherwise natural rock formation."
Garreth says, "So that means a secret door?
Thrognar asks him, "Does she always go on like this?"
Garreth shrugs. "I hired her for water breathing and flight and stuff. Brevity wasn't a required qualification. She's great at what she does."
Bleu keeps babbling. "From the indentations you can see it clearly also houses spear traps. The spear traps appear to be a design of class 7 spears often associated with ogres." Bleu lectures us about ogre spear designs of the past several centuries.
I tell her the truth: "I like you better when you don't talk, Bleu." I go up to the door and disarm its trap.
Thrognar asks, "Shall we see what's hidden behind the door?"
Polly looks at me. "Sure! Maybe there's orks."
I give Polly a shit-eating grin and open the door.
It is hard to see how high the ceiling is in this big room, as there are many nets are strung up along most of it, as well dangling from an archway. The nets are clogged with brown and green bits of algae. Ahead of us there is a pile of jagged rocks in what looks to have been more of the room. Along the righthand wall is a big pile of dead plants and soft tufts of bright green algae.
Garreth hypnotizes himself. I go in and start swim upwards to check out the nets, but I spot a 20-foot-long eel ahead. I flip it off to see if it understands or even sees, more to the point. The hair on the back of my head stands on end, so I go no farther towards it.
The eel looks at me and sparks. "Funny, I didn't know it knew body Common!" We all pull out our weapons, and it sparks more. I keep feeling tingling, so I hold up my hand to hold everyone back, and wait for it to come to us. Thrognar steps and summons godly might.
I feel something coil about snugly from behind and grapple me. The great fishy beast coiling around me hacks at Logan with its halberd, but he gets out of the way. It also swings at Bleu, but she Blinks away, and Logan steps away from the rest of its blows. The eel swims up and lets out an electric shock, wounding all of us, and stunning Garreth and Logan, though Garreth snaps back fast.
Polly readies her buckler and new rapier and swims in reach of the eel. I try to cut the merrow but cannot hurt it through the pain. Thrognar stabs the eel in the eye, killing it, and gets his sword out before it gives off a dying shock. It shocks the rest of us, leaving Polly and me stunned as well as Logan.
The merrow hurls me at Thrognar. Thrognar drops his sword, reaches out, and grabs me, twisting in the water to stall the momentum. I am a bit dizzy and fall from his grip. It then swims forward swiftly, grabs Logan with its tail, and slashes at Polly four times with its halberd. It looks like she's dead but somehow is still standing.
Garreth slashes at the merrow and Bleu casts Great Haste on him. His second blow hits, knocking it out. Polly snaps awake and kills it before it can wake.
We heal up. Garreth pulls out the bag of healing potions, and Thrognar drinks a potion of Major Healing. After about twenty swigs between us, we're all healed.
Garreth asks Bleu, "What is that thing that attacked us? Is it worth talking to?"
Bleu tells Garreth, "It is a Merrow, a type of Sea Ogre. Normally they are extremely dumb, however according to Von Hofflestein's Postulate only the dumb ones are observed as intelligent ones stay away from civilization and adventuring parties. According to the Magnimus Cranius, Magnimus Brainius Law it may be intelligent, like a dragon, however, some arguments hold this is not true, as ogres and minotaurs are less sagacious. We could extract its brain and unfold it to see, a more wrinkled brain encodes more information by the Dwarven Engraving Movement."
I poke Logan and whisper in his ear, then he goes up to Bleu and licks her face again and again. She at last gets that Logan is licking her and looks at me. "Why is your mustelid licking my face?"
I tell her the truth. "Because I think it's funny."
Bleu says, "Please, this is a serious delve"
Garreth blinks at Bleu as Logan licks her face again. "What made you think that? You're in a dungeon with a drunken master and a wolverine."
I add, "And a master drunk."
Polly adds, "And an elven archer!"
Bleu helpfully gives examples of Delving Law, going back to the 74th Legislature of Mondrian.
I ask the others if they want him to stop. They don't say anything, so I laugh until I am bored, then I wave at Logan to stop.
Thrognar asks Bleu if if anything of the eel is worth something. Bleu says, "You can attempt to harvest the electric organs. They can be sold or used to fashion lightning javelins or the like." I take a look at the merrow body, and I find that it's wearing eelskin armor and a shiny silver ring. I beckon Bleu over and she says that those are magical, as well as the dueling halberd it wielded, made from hydra fangs. Carved into the halberd are some words in Dwarven, which I read:
"May yours nets prove ever bountiful"
I shrug. "Mistah Trosk, he dead." We go back to Cillamar to get Polly's Bless renewed.
