After a tense moment, surrounded by guards outside the gate of the Lizardfolk fortress, a captain speaking broken common came out to meet with the party and asses their intentions. When they explained that they were representatives sent by
Saltmarsh to learn of the lizardfolk's activities, the captain was confused. He claimed that they had sent a group of scouts to the town in order to request aid, and that they had been rebuffed by some town representative and offered a sale of weapons instead.
Now the party was confused, as no mention of previous meetings with the lizardfolk had come to light. Something strange was going on.
Seeing the parties genuine bafflement, the lizardfolk captain allowed the party to enter their camp to meet with their queen
Othokent . The had to surrender their weapons, but Molly managed to hide the silent dagger in her boot.
Inside they were guided through damp, rough-cut halls, passing by scenes of lizardfolk going about daily rituals and tasks. They noted the surprising number of children, elders, and crafts folk in the fortess. This clearly wasn't exclusively a war camp.
They were brought to the throne room and there met
Othokent , the lizardfolk queen and her aged minister
Sauriv. The queen spoke common well, with a commanding presence. Through discussion with the party some things became clear.
- The Lizardfolk had no intention of attacking Saltmarsh. They had been driven out of their ancestral home by an invading force of Sauaghin.
- They were forming an alliance of other faction in the region to drive the Sauaghin back.
- They had sent representative to Saltmarsh requesting aid, but those representatives had been lead astray somehow and had been tricked into purchasing of shoddy weapons from the Sea Ghost slavers. Because of the parties attack on the Sea Ghost, then never received the weapons they paid for.
- The lizardfolk were insulted by this perceived fraud, and are now mistrustful of Saltmarsh. They also doubt the land dwellers would be ush help in their underwater battles.
- Representative groups from the Merfolk, Locatha, Koalinth, and Sea elves were there in the fortress to negotiate.
After these talks the party wished to mend the relationship with Saltmarsh by offering their aid and support, and when the queen heard that they had just survived a dragon encounter she was impressed enough to consider the idea. She gave them 24 hours to impress her people and earn their support. They could move freely through her domain, meeting with important members of the war camp.
BowBow and Oceanus first went to meet with the Head Shaman, who was brewing health potions in his temple. The shaman spoke no common, and was clearly offended by the intrusion of outsiders in his sanctum. he swatted at them with a big ladle and chased them both out. Meanwhile Molly pulled Grey aside and tried to get an explanation out of him about the black dragon that was apparently hunting him. Unwilling to reveal the painful secrets of his past, Grey brushed her off and insisted it was none of her concern.
They next all met back up to visit with the old lizardfolk minister Sauriv. He greeted them warmly in his small room, and they discussed many things. Firstly Bowbow noticed a book he had been reading that bore a striking resemblance to his mother's cookbook. When Bowbow mentioned this Sauriv realized that BowBow must be the son of Snickeem who was a renowned scholar. He explained that He and Snickee were both part of a small organization of scholars called the
Athenaeum, and that last he had heard BowBow's mother had intended to visit him after meeting another member called
Miss Holly to assist with some important work deep in the swamps. He was very pleased to meet BowBow and offered to help him compare notes between their two cookbooks.
Oceanus asked Sauriv for some info about the Sea Elf representative, but other than noting the the man's name was Marin and that he had rather distinctive ears he had little else to share.
Grey asked the old scholar for information about black dragons. Sauriv new little about dragons, but did share a rumor he'd heard. That a dark and powerful fey and ensorcelled four black dragons to her bidding, and had sent them in the four cardinal directions to hunt something down. The
Onyx Queen was known as the queen of shape shifters, so some of his collegues argue that perhaps these weren't true dragons, but rather powerful fey who had ben granted the ability to take the forms of dragons. Noting's Grey's intense interest in this subject peaked Sauriv's suspicions, and the sharp old lizard sensed the curse upon Silver the owl. Though he wished to, he had now way to break such a spell, but he told grey of the wizard
Keledeck, who specialized in such things.
Curious about the presence of a Sea Elf representative in the camp Oceanus went to meet the man. A strange looking sea elf named Marin, that Oceanus had never even heard of before, which was odd as the sea elf population of the region was small enough that Oceanus was sure he new of all his kin. Talking with the odd elf, Oceanus became more an more suspicious of the representative. He was overly friend, boastful, and evasive. He claimed to be a travelling adventurer, away from the ember shard bay for many years and only recently returned. He seemed to have little knowledge of deeper sea elf culture.
Suspicious and worried, Oceanus relayed this to his companions and they decided to return to Sauriv to ask for council on the matter of the potential spy.
Comments