The murderhoboes
Bleu, droning elf wizard
Zaber, suave and debonaire man
Logan, wolverine
Polly, cute and deadly elf archer
Thrognar, half-orc holy warrior
What they did
In town, Thrognar fills up his emergency major healing potion and goes to the town orphanage and drops off 9,000 copper farthings. This makes the orphans happy. Afterwards, he and Garreth take the blabberwort to Quintus. Quintus claps his hands and smiles widely once he sees the blabberwort. "Ah! Splendid! Blabberwort! Come back in a while and I will have the herbicide for you. It is too bad Stonemaul is not here. Dwarven hatred works well in herbicide."
Garreth blinks. "I got plenty of hatred right here."
Quintus says, "Well, think hateful thoughts while crouching down really low." Garreth growls low and angry and sees swirling images of the hydra melting and dissolving in the brew. Quintus pats him on the back. "That's the spirit!" Then, he moves carefully away from Garreth. "Try thinking about plants, not just the hydra." Garreth thinks about that hydra then pushes his hatred towards the mana-eating plants in his memory.
He stays that way for a couple days beside the cauldron before wandering off to get riotously drunk and wrestle with Logan. Then he sleeps for the rest of the week, waking only to eat.
I spend the week hiding out, drinking in the gutter. After a few days, the bar owners are putting up missing persons posters. I see my face drawn on a pitcher of milk, and then find the artist and bid him to do a better job. The artist says, "I'm sorry Zaber, but the best artist in town, Lord Flitwick, has gone missing." So I draw a crude camel on the milk jug, and label it, "Wickprick." After a few hours I hear hearsay that I'll turn into a camel if I ever sober up.
I go looking for Seépravir to find out where Flitwick is, or if she has a spell that can help me get Flitwick's daughter into bed. Seep is busy ascending to a higher plane of consciousness, so I just get plastered instead, dance in my underwear at the bar, and sleep with a barmaid. The barmaid looks much less like an elf princess when I wake up, so I shudder. "Happens every time."
Sometime later as the sun beams down Chauntessa comes up to me. "I think that's enough antics for this week, Zaber. It's the weekend and time for you to get Garreth and your other friends and head back to Whiterock. My staff might work themselves to death if you stayed around over the weekend."
I ask her, "Can you get me my clothes? Your barmaid stole them." I run outside in my undergarments to everyone's laughter, and Chauntessa announces a scavenger hunt to find my clothes. Folks find my clothes over half the town over the next few hours, while I gather with Thrognar and Garreth at the Slumbering Drake. "I really should settle down and get drunk with the same woman every night. Avoid surprises for what awaits me when I wake."
Chauntessa laughs. "If you drank with the same girl every night they'd die of alcohol poisoning, it's going to be days before my barmaid dries out enough to work." I point out that none of the other patrons drink enough to sleep with her, so she should be safe. Garreth says I should hook up with a half-orc woman, and Thrognar says I should pick a dwarf woman. Neither seem right. "I'd toss the dwarf woman. The half-orc woman would toss me."
We drag Logan out of the pantry of the Slumbering Drake, and Chauntessa has folks find Polly and bring her back. With them together, we set forth for the lake again. Garreth leads us back to the room where we fought the eel and merrow.
In the room, we find a ratty old giant clam shell against the wall. When we move it, we find a small alcove. I look a little more, and inside we find an eelskin pouch, a metal rod about two feet long with many dents in it, a flash, and a bunch of big fish jaws. I look at the rod for a moment, and realize this isn't the fabled Rod of the Hedgehog. I hand it to Bleu, who takes it and hands it to Garreth.
Garreth taps the rod against a nearby wall then swings it around. It's kind of graceful as a mace, but not as a two-handed sword. Then he holds it up against the clamshell and the dents match the clamshell. "This was used to pry and prop open dire clams. Let's keep an eye out for more clams. You wouldn't keep a tool like this around unless you had a purpose." He slides the rod into the Bag of Holding.
I ask Blah if any of this is magical, and she says it isn't. I look in the pouch and find a bunch of big pearls: white, smokey, and black. I also find a small pouch holding some smooth pebbles. Garreth says that you'd use the pebbles to start clams in growing pearls.
I also notice a twisty small passage wending its way into the rubble that the eel was hiding in. Garreth, Logan, and I squeeze in while Thrognar keeps watch at the entrance. After I walk a few feet, I feel the hair on the back of my head stand up. I look around me, as well as above and below. Up ahead I spot the flickering bodies of many baby eels. Beyond them I notice a scroll case with green gems glinting off it. The eels look at me with open mouths, like they haven't been fed in a week. Logan looks back at the eels, also thinking they are tasty.
I hide, and the eels start to back off. Logan runs forward and eats the eels with a minimal shock. The tunnel is a place of carnage, blood, and dismembered floating bits of electric eel misery. I grab the scroll case, slimy with eel bits. It is pewter-worked with emeralds.
We get out and I show the scroll case to Blah, who tells me that it is a Scroll Case of Power that grants three energy for casting scrolls left in it overnight and holds ten scrolls. I sarcastically say that it sounds exciting, which makes Bleu almost excited. She helpfully tells me all about the Power spell, which is related to Recover Energy. I pretend to listen, and nod.
We go north past the hydra lair and find a pile of rubble that seems like it might have once been a tower. We see the sweeping wall heading off to the West and check it out. We keep going west, and it bends a little to the southwest, and see the back door to the room where we drank in the bubbles.
Not far past the back door, we find a hunk of the wall that has fallen into a pile of shifting white rock rubble. The barren landscape is pockmarked by clumps of plant growth here and there, and swarms of tiny fish dart in and out of the rocky crevices.
I don't see anything hazardous, but feel tingly. I check things out, usual full circle and above/below look. I circle around, hey, there are more interesting rocks over there too, around the corner. I move more warily towards there. I check the currents … something has me on edge
I have Logan smell, and he gets excited. I slip towards the bend, and let Logan swim to eat whatever it is in the pile of rocks.
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