Session VIII: delivering "the goods"

General Summary

(13 Ready'reat) In a clear morning, the Sea Ghost set sail, rounding the point at the river mouth and setting course to the west. By mid-morning, she had reached her destination, and dropped anchor near the mouth of the Dunwater River. A promontory, at least eighty feet tall, rose up adjacent to the swampy river's mouth. A trail could be seen on the far side of the river, as well as climbing the seaward side of the promontory. A bit further west, a cave at sea-level could be seen. Our heroes thought to load the lizardfolks' weapons into their small boat and rowed to the cave mouth, and then inside. Though it was a little low, the cave's ceiling let them take their boat inside. There, they were met by lizardfolk sentries, who were quickly reinforced by other watery allies. After some talking, they were introduced to the Queen's advisor Sauriv. In turn, he took them deeper into the caves, along with some guards. There, he introduced them to Queen Othokent, who was watching arms practice. The queen, along with Sauriv, had been the ones to reach out to the smugglers for weapons, as well as to try and obtain allies among the nearby locathah and koalinth tribes. They had been run out of their previous lair by sahuagin, and wanted to win it back! Over a dinner of broiled shark (and sahuagin), they all talked of plans and possible alliances. Zaria Solmar tried to get Taldas to participate on the part of the sea elves, but he didn't seem to be doing too well on the negotiating. Eliandra succeeded in impressing some of their warriors with arm-wrestling, but Lyra Pennyworth didn't do very well speaking with the shaman. To be fair, the shaman didn't seem to really want to be talking to any aliens at all. The queen was fairly impressed with their talk, but wanted to see them put words to action. Upriver, they had tried to send envoys to the bullywug people, but they had not returned. She asked them to look into that, pointing out that her chief envoy had a magic helmet that might assist the air-breathers if they were to engage the shark-men. Most of the afternoon had passed by the time they had sailed their two small boats up the sluggish, muddy Dunwater. Baethra pointed out a tower that rose above the trees, its glass-domed top glowing green. Zaria tracked both bullywug and lizardfolk footprints around there, as it seemed the lizardfolk allies had been jumped. She then scouted around the tower, finding an entrance through its obsidian base, as well as the (closed) main door, two stories up the slope. Others noticed that the tower seemed like it had been plopped down into the swamp, flattening at least one tree. Waiting until sundown, they sneaked into the cavern at the base of the tower. Up some stairs, they found a wrecked storeroom with a giant toad and a mostly-eaten lizardfolk. Up the stairs from there was a stinky kitchen with three dead lizardfolk, dressed for later eating. Above that was a grand hall and three bullywugs. That turned into a grand brawl, with the bullywugs arriving in waves, leaping down from higher floors onto a balcony. By the end, 10 of the frog-humanoids had been slain. Above these flights of stairs, there was a small apartment, a library, and finally the glass dome on top. Up there, was a wizard who'd been captured and used as a footstool by the chief bullywug. He gratefully rewarded them with a scroll of water breathing and all of the platinum coins he had. Hakeem intended to return to his magical order, clean up his tower, and resume his explorations of Oerth. In the belly of the slain toad, they found the envoy's helm of underwater action, and the bullywug chief's axe, Splitter, was also magical. With his thanks ringing in their ears, everyone watched as his tower magically faded from view, teleporting away with a strange "vwoooorp, vwoooorp" sound. As that magic faded, they realized they were still in the swamp, in the dark. Something big seemed to be splashing nearby? Baethra reminded them that the river was the hunting ground of Thousand Teeth.

Campaign

Saltmarsh in Greyhawk Campaign

Protagonists

Report Date

30 Apr 2022

Primary Location

Dunwater River

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