Arc 5 Post 2: Of Horn and Scale
Of Horn and Scale
20th of Rova 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
The White Eagle passes slow and stately down the Great Salt Harbor and into Fresh Harbor, where the ships are smaller, fishing vessels with high triangular sails. The wooden dwellings are smaller here as well and the roofs seem to hang lower, the walls stained by sea spray and soot until you cannot tell timber from stone. Yet the locals do not seem all that welcoming of the behemoth in their midst, you spy upon faces large, small, and broad. It is shocking to get your first sight of the 'sky dwarfs', the ones the duergar call betrayers, in the form of a bristly black bearded fellows manhandling crates with the ease of a dancer juggling colorful geodes to teach the youngsters their stones from their gems. Ears twitching at the din of many voices mingling, you catch a snippet of Caulker talking to the local 'harbormaster's assistant', a term that is as outwardly descriptive as it is fundamentally opaque.
"...yes I know that's a goblin, that is a giant fucking toad too, ever seen one of those before? Bet you its rarer than a good goblin."
"...one of the magic items appears to be a gem of fire elemental summoning. Tell me I'm not being crazy here captain. You think...?"
"...look, the girl's a Desnan. If a two headed three-eyed fire-breathing steel-toothed ogre walked up to one of their lot and said they wanted to stop chewing on travelers you know they'd at least have to listen!"
"Are you saying she's a priestess?" the harried man looked up from his parchments.
"I'm saying that three of my sailors would've been fish food if it weren't for her and that's just the healing. Look, oath to Abadar, they've been nothing but straight to me and to the halflings they came with."
"I," the man said slowly. "Am going to be spending the next five hours filling out paperwork, and no doubt Mr. Jenkin is going to be fielding questions about this business from three of the Guild Merchants by supper."
"Marrow Street?"
"Beg pardon?" The man sounded startled, almost alarmed. You wonder if you might not have to use your sword sooner rather than later.
"Marrow Street, West Copperdown, that's my bet judging from your accent. Don't get me wrong, you're good at putting on those Old Town airs, but you know and I know and Talmandor himself knows the gold munchers aren't going to give a shit about a giant frog and a goblin in East Copperdown unless they are making a jest of it over their plates of ousters boiled in Egorian Red and sprinkled in gold dust."
The official stops dead. "That's your final word on the matter."
"Final as Judgement," the captain replies.
Captain Caulker Diplomacy: 1d20+15 = 33 (Full Success)
Gorok who, like you, had been listening to the byplay, silently hands over a small tithe of gold, apparently for bringing a 'exotic animal' into the city, offers his thanks to the captain in the process, then he gets on Warty with Cob in front of him... and jumps, landing right between a fishmonger and and the dwarfs you had been looking at previously. In his joy at being out of the crowded confines of the ship the slurk's tongue darts out and he claims a fish.
Warty Will: 1d20 (DC 10) = 5 (Failure)
Lost 10 gp and 1 sp (Fees and Fish)
"We'll use the plank!" Mina calls out awkwardly as she pulls you along under the eyes of the surprised official and the chuckling captain. Not the worst man to have made an ally of, not by far.
***
His advice continues to be good as you make your way along the water's edge to a tavern with three wooden wings spreading out from a central tower. Once it might have served to warn the city of raiders from the sea, you imagine, now the main entrance has a sign of an oddly shaped horn with worn lettering one can just make out: The Minotaur's Horn. For some reason Mina blushes as she looks at it, but there is too much new and strange all around you to ask her about it.
A halfling in a coat that jangles more than a coat of scales offers to buy your sword for 'ten whole platinum pieces' that you are pretty sure aren't even silver, a one legged man invited Cob to dice with him, and a dark haired women in worn burgundy silks that had faded to a frothy pink tried to sell Mina 'shares in the Dragonfly River Timber Company.' Only one of those words made any sense.
Finally you push your way into the tavern to be greeted by a crowd about evenly split between suspicious looks and shading their eyes from the light of your passage. After giving the latter a sympathetic look you follow Gorok along to the bar. That much is familiar. And familiar too is the sour look on the face of the innkeeper, about as broad as a dwarf, though half a foot too tall for it, sporting a nose that looked like it had been broken in at least three places and eyes the same bright green as prickle pods and just as sharp.
From the way he is sizing you up it looks like he would let you stay even without the note from Caulker, though at far steeper a price. He takes one look at it, gives a half-whistled snort, and proclaims: "You break or burn something, you pay for it, ye hear?"
Gorok nods once and the bargain is struck with the shake of a clawed hand, to which the innkeeper, to his credit, does not flinch at.
Minor Favor owed to Arin Caulker
Minotaur's Horn Stay Negotiated: 13 sp/night (2/person*4 +5 stabling)
What do you do?
[] Speak to Iolda about the rest of your pay
[] Give Sirim the medallion
-[] ...and ask to accompany him to the Pathfinders guildhall (optional)
[] Find a temple willing to take in Click
-[] Desna
-[] Cayden Cailean
-[] Sheylin
-[] Write in (In the case of minor or regional gods a temple may not exist in the city)
[] Find a solicitor in Oldtown who can make sense of the banknotes you found in the moldfolk cave
[] Write in
OOC: I was not really happy with the options the last vote gave you so at the risk of precluding some people voting... here is another update.
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