Beneath the Missing Sea Episode 4

  

People with Barrels

Episode 4, featuring travel with a new companion and including further exploration of the seabed, people with various barrels, and a prophecy.

Played September 15, 2023

The Party for Episode 4

• crumblesthefarsightedghost playing Agamemnon
• Igneous playing Fiske
• mtb playing Manqoba

The next day found Esgorman indisposed privately celebrating an important holiday in his homeland. Instead, they were joined by Agamemnon, the true name of the hungry guy rescued at the end of the last trip. A bit of a hippy but also quietly a demonologist, he had come to the region from abroad to study the missing sea for any secrets revealed. Hemmingway the carper and Albert de Manc the hedge knight were happy to return to the seabed. 

But first, they decided to track down the wayward apprentice, Dalbran, mentioned by the arcanist Magda. It didn't take long to find him given the close confines of Coiner's Shelf and the fact that he was living rougher than most. Shy and clearly hiding something, he admitted to having fostered and then apprenticed with Marienn the Sea Speaker but then fled a short time ago without explaining why. Perhaps expecting that he'd need something found or delivered like seemingly everyone else, they asked if he'd lost something or dropped, to which he got very defensive. The crew decided to avoid antagonizing him further and additionally left 10 coins with him to butter him up for presumed future questioning.

The party had previously explored along the northern wall of the basic; today, they set out south to explore the foot of the western border. The first day into their journey under typically dreary conditions, they found a small fishing boat that some time past had crashed into the cliffside and collected along the bottom, with nothing but skeletons and some packaged beeswax candles inside. The sorcerous Fiske immediately started wondering how to turn the candles into hand grenades using the Feeding the Fire magic he'd been itching to use. They also found a small cut into the side of the cliff just manageable enough that a party might use it to climb. Why use this passage just outside of Coiner's Shelf instead of passing through the only barely civilized place in the area? And is this where that party they spotted heading west was going? They made a note on their map to explore this on the way back and camped for the night nearby.

The next day they started tacking east since they knew that Brost was directly south. The sandy dunes were by and large depopulated except for a pair of Andrussian Albatross circling overhead for a few hours, but they eventually heard, of all things, a raucous celebration nearby. Fearing some sort of party-based siren, they retreated some distance away, found some high ground, and spied ahead using Agammemnon's spyglass. It was just as they heard: there was a group of carpers out on the seabed, gathered around a keg of something, sharing a drink and having a whale of a time. Still fearing this might be a trap, Agamemnon volunteered to go ahead to speak with them. They didn't respond well. Grabbing at weapons and huddling together, they told the party in no uncertain terms to scram, so they did so.

Repeated shockingly poor reaction rolls. I guess they really didn't want to share their beer.

The next day found them crossing through a drying out and dying coral reef. It didn't glow like the last one, but it did contain an opening into a cave that they decided to explore. The cave floor was covered in bones of all shapes and sizes, a fact that did not put the party at ease. They did find another of those strange arcane anchors and pocketed it knowing that the arcanists would always pay for it, but then heard familiar chattering. Three anglergoblins, one of them a shaman, had entered the cave behind them. The group quickly decided that the fight wouldn't be worth nabbing the shaman that Garvym desired and so hid, and were lucky enough to have the goblins walk on by. They quickly retreated from the cave.

The next cold wet day found them continuing their trip southeast. As the day drew on, they came to realize that they'd reached the edge of the basin, the southern cliff face of the roughly rectangular-shaped former sea. It was while they were deciding where to continue that they spotted strangers approaching. Crossing the dunes from the east was a caravan of three wagons laden with barrels and about a dozen people. Repeating their strategy from two days prior, most everyone hid while the talkative Agamemnon called out to them until a few broke off and approached.

The lead introduced himself as Robert Clearwine and he was leading a caravan holding the most precious resource in the basin: fresh water. Laboriously carried overland, it was worth its weight in gold in Coiner's Shelf. While sharing a companionly pipe with the warlock, Clearwine explained he was crossing the dangerous seabed because it was quicker, and anyway, the path through Brost was also dangerous. But also knowing it was dangerous, he offered to pay Agamemnon and company to escort them. They'd nearly reached the end of the extent their rations would take them without finding anything else, so the crew decided to take him up on his offer.

Agamemnon's player asked for a way to approach more companionably. In many games, which would provoke some sort of skill check, neccesitating a skill system. But here, we use context and tools. I proposed he might be carrying a flask to offer to share. On the right track, but Agamemnon was more a pipe kind of guy, so he wrote in "Pipe and herb" in place of the quantum inventory slot in order to ease interactions, and I was happy to then just give him information and easier interaction for having utilized a resource for this purpose. Even better, this item definitely fit the vibe of the PC he'd already started to characterize.   

Returning back through the coral reef the next day, Fiske was called over to examine a weird thing someone had tripped over. It proved to be another one of those weird anchors. Explaining that it was magic, the caravaneers kept their distance from the wizard for the rest of the trip.

The next day found them passing nearby to the former site of the kegger, but this time they stumbled upon a strange sight. A platform of smooth marble, set amidst the featureless dunes, with a group of locals gathered around...something. The party decided to briefly separate from the caravan to examine this more closely. 

They found a desiccated but living merfolk laying upon the marble and being attended by the crowd of people, who were rubbing some sort of ointments upon it and muttering about his wisdom. The creature waved Fiske over but his speech came out only in rasps, so Agamemnon offered the grateful man his waterskin. He then gestured Fiske forward again and whispered in his ear:

When the rain returns, a woman of grey shall mark the return of monsters and an age of fury.

The party didn't quite know what to make of this. Who was the woman in gray? What was that about rains, it was certainly raining a lot but storms presaged the emptying of the basin, perhaps this was a prophecy about restoring it?

Whatever it meant, the party decided immediately that they needed to both save this merman and keep him a secret. So they left some water with the dehydrated prophet and returned to the caravan, explaining that it was a bunch of Barnies, a slang term for those affected by Sea Rot, which put to bed the rest of their questions.

Continuing up the basin, they reached the place where there was the passage up the cliff face and parted ways with the caravan, including Albert de Manc and Hemmingway. The path at the top intersected with the road to Brost, but by looking carefully at the side opposite where it joined, were able to find the faint signs of passage. Following this, they made their way into the woods outside Coiner's Shelf for the first time. The trail eventually ended at some sort of industrial-looking walled compound. 

Separated from the help and anxious to return to safety, they decided to leave this mystery for another day. It was nearby to Coiner's Shelf, perhaps someone would know what it was? So they made their way back to town and before settling to bed, did ask. Sure enough, that was Ogden the innkeeper's brewery. Well, former brewery. Forces unknown had taken over the place and that was why he had sent off the crew to Brost for his famed Black Sail Stout.

The party mulled over this new information and started thinking about their next trip beneath the missing sea.

Statistics

Days Passed: 27
Hexes explored: 9

Caves Explored: 3
Dungeons Explored: 0

Players: 4

Tragic deaths: 1

Foes vanquished: 1 feral dog, 1 anglergoblin, 1 anglergoblin shaman
Treasure obtained: 1101 previously + 270 caravan guard pay = 1371 coins + 2 unsold magic anchors
Money spent on hirelings: 300 previously + 120 = 420 coins
Questionable meals consumed: 48 + 24 = 72
Fishing trips: 2

Map

The map after 28 days

Episode 4 Notes

The new player, crumblesthefarsightedghost, playing Agamemnon, wished to have their PC introduced as already being involved with exploring the seabed. After some deliberation, we came up with the idea that he was the guy found at the end of the last session. Named Nathaniel, he was just a random encounter but I was happy to retcon that or to let that have been Agammemnon in disguise (or perhaps really high at the time) instead.

I think the greatest thing keeping them close to home at this point is the continuing shortage of coin. Food is expensive as I've established it, and while I didn't quite plan for that it has sort of limited the scope of their expeditions to what they could reasonably carry with limited help. for good or for ill, I'll have to keep this in mind for future hexcrawl-type games.

I feel like there hasn't been much fighting. My GM style almost certainly plays into that. I guess they haven't really gotten into any dungeons where things get much denser, but it still feels almost...peaceful...for a crisis that has provoked incredible suffering.