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Session 119: Day 33 of Veksdan (9/8)

The party knows that they are politically still in Avisrune. It’s directly above the border between Avisrune and Striog and it is a contentious territory. Avisrune has Sisters’ Reach Port at the tip of the country and no other ports other than Upper Crescent Port City, the rest of the shoreline too rocky and densely wooded to accommodate other harbors. Striog agreed to cede Upper Crescent to Avisrune since they already had Port Zalfar, Bo’rava, and The Strand.

However, Galowen remembers Rian giving him a lecture about how the Upper Crescent citizens skew more Striogian and shouldn’t be held to Avisian laws. Striogian education and trade laws are stricter. He also knows it was one of the first ports during the beginning of the Valnorian War for Independence, where the Avisian founders landed in the dirt, building up the city there before heading further up through the continent.

When they glance behind them, the shop they came from is squat and looks as though it sells bait and fishing rods. It’s dusty and neglected. Most figure out it’s a front for the Dawnscale Trading Company to keep items.

Maeve sweeps her hand towards the beach and asks if they want to go swim. Hava says yes and then glances at Yolov who says his sister would probably appreciate some extra time to bake for tonight.

Maeve muses if they should go to the beach first or visit her ship. When Audacity points out they should be able to see the ship from the beach, she calls him clever before she leads them with confidence through the streets.

The city is physically smaller than Port Sciathan to Audacity’s eyes, but he also suspects that it might be that everyone is crowded towards the water here. They walk down large white steps towards the water, Hava breathing in the smell and hearing the birds call.

There are people selling food and jewelry near the water as well. Maeve tells the party not to make eye contact with the vendors as Hava begins to run towards the water. As they turn the corner, Maeve points out a crowd of anchored ships and says The Lost Mistake is one of them.

The stone steps eventually give way to sand and a very busy beach, with people lounging on blankets and towels and creating shade via umbrellas and tents. Hava rushes past all of them, stripping off her winter clothes as she runs into the water.

She hasn’t been in the sea in so long. She swims as far out as she can without getting in the way of boats, her hair shifting to pink as she dives as deeply as she can. She closes her eyes as she does. When she opens her eyes, she finds herself in murky darkness. She can’t tell which way is up. She remembers the feeling of sinking and the sensation of gnarled ancient hands of sea elves helping her to bring Audacity back from the dead.

Hava doesn’t see them again but she sees a glinting thing in the distance, bobbing along, the only source of light in this darkness. She swims after it. It feels like she follows it for ages until she comes upon a small piece of seashell. When she reaches out and takes it, it burns her hands, bubbles rising up towards the surface. A few of the bubbles remain and transform into a trident, golden and glittering with shells.

When she touches it, she is suddenly back twenty feet below the surface. A tiny fish comes close and touches her nose before darting back as though Hava startled her. The trident is still in her hands. Hava stares at it, willing it to go away.

Above the surface, Audacity has stripped to his shorts and is sunbathing.

Yolov asks Asa if she wants to get her feet wet and she says she’d like to, she doesn’t know why she didn’t bring a bathing suit along. Yolov says he didn’t even think to buy one when they were visiting a lake. He hikes up his robes to his knees and Asa does the same.

Audacity asks Diana if she has ever seen the ocean. She says she hasn’t, but it’s just a big lake with boats. As some of the party tries to explain the distance between continents, Diana drinks some of the seawater and immediately spits it out.

Asa explains that it’s salty because of erosion and other things.

Diana remarks that she hopes it’s more fun to swim in than drink. A second later her clothes are floating on the ocean as she dives into the water. Yolov watches this, sighing, and remarks that he’s glad he has Prestidigitation before he and Asa begin to Mage Hand the clothes out of the water.

Az goes through his belongings, searching for a particular letter from his father. He rereads it, remembering that his brother Mahura was in Port Zolfar and his sister likely was there too as of a month ago. He knows that Port Zolfar is not far from Upper Crescent at all.

Hava looks around and says, “What the fuck? You’re gonna give me this and not tell me how to send it back and retrieve it when I want it?” As she does, the trident disappears and a small gold band of seashells appears on her finger. She touches the ring and the trident reappears in a cloud of bubbles. She realizes it’s a bit cantankerous.

She arrives at the surface with the trident in hand. Audacity tilts his head and asks if she just finds weapons underwater. She says no, but this one has an attitude as it lags a few seconds after she tries to banish it before it disappears. She sits down to enjoy the sunlight.

It’s a beautiful day. She and Maeve go for a nice, long swim. It’s the first time that she’s been swimming with someone who can keep up with her. At one point they are playfully tussling and then she turns and Maeve is gone. A second later a burst of water slams into her and Maeve grabs her. She almost stabs her with the trident as Maeve laughs.

Hava hisses please to the trident and it disappears. She gets Maeve to point out The Last Mistake, which is a beautiful ship though it doesn’t seem very different to her than the others. Maeve immediately points out the differences.

Hava tells her she loves it and can’t wait to be on it.

Maeve says it’s going to be great, it’s all very exciting. She’ll get everyone’s rooms ready and rations prepared. She says she just has to go to Cross Bridge City and then everything will be perfect.

They head back to the shore, but not before Maeve dunks her under the water.

Diana waits until Az is done with his letters before she begins to plot about dumping water onto him.

Galowen has changed into the trunks from the lake visit.

They all relax on the beach for a few hours, Asa and Yolov trying to build a sand castle with Mage Hand. It’s nice and beautiful.

Eventually they see a couple people prick up their heads around them. A few blankets down, someone sits up a half second before the party hears the sound of a horn starting to blow within the city. The horn gets closer as the person flops back down and complains that it’s happening already. Everyone begins packing up and heading away from the beach.

Hava looks at Maeve, who says she doesn’t know what’s going on, this didn’t happen last time she was here. Hava starts to flop back down and says she doesn’t want to go as Yolov suggests that they ask one of the other people leaving what’s going on.

A half-elvish man and his gnomish wife explain that weird things have been landing on the beach for three months. A few people were badly injured the first time, but since then people have been on watch and sounding an alarm to evacuate the beach.

His wife complains. She knows it’s dangerous, but she doesn’t want to leave the beach.

Yolov asks if the incidents have been occurring more often, and the man tells them that not really, though it does seem like they appear more often when there are a lot of ships around. He thinks that there might be a nest underwater that the boats are disturbing.

He suggests that they pack up and leave quickly. He introduces himself and recognizes the name as they introduce themselves as Donnie and the Hooligans. He exclaims over them killing the dragon in Avisrune and then tells them to be careful what they say in Upper Crescent when Galowen corrects him that they’re in Avisrune.

He offers them a business card for a combination bookstore and coffeeshop.

The party looks out towards the water where they can see some exhausted looking guards holding spears, knowing that Avisrune doesn’t have a standing military. Then they see a beautiful rock on the water before they realize it is moving swiftly.

Diana and Yolov can see the back of it first, bumpy and textured. Looking at it, they both think it’s a really big turtle, dragon turtle sized. Diana sighs and dumps the water she’d planned for Az on herself and says it’s so much bigger than the elven man said. They know that it can understand Draconic, though they’re not sure it can be reasoned with.

The three guards have their spears out, blocking off the walkway up to the city.

The dragon turtle is gargantuan, towering over the group. It looks like an enormous turtle as it lowers its head towards them and tells them in Draconic to move. When Yolov asks its intentions, it explains it wants to destroy the city piece by piece and take the shiniest stuff.

Diana offers a bow and says that they would like to talk about it because the city won’t want that to happen. The dragon turtle explains that there have been disruptions to its lair and wants retribution. It describes three people who have been robbing its lair and it has come to eat them and get its revenge.

When Diana asks if they can go to the caverns and the dragon turtle flatly tells them they would drown. It explains that the people have been invading its lair with loud noises and tools and it wants them to die. Yolov gets permission from it for Audacity to cast Detect Thoughts on the dragon turtle to get a visual look at the three lair robbers.

Audacity swallows nervously before he casts the spell. Everything goes slow and quiet around him as he looks through the slow, hazy blink of its eyes as it swims around, feeling through the water a tremendous shockwave. In the distance he hears things break and feels the turtle’s frustration as it races up this cavernous cliff-face towards the surface. It crests at a mossy entrance to caverns on the shore. It sees two people wrenching and pulling items out of the water.

One isn’t quite an aarakocra, but instead a bit like a harpy, two jewel-toned wings instead of arms that turn into claws at the end, with a nice jacket. She flaps a wing in front of her face and coughs and says how awful it is. Coming out of the water after her is an enormous aarakocra that is about the same height as Galowen, holding a staff. He waves his staff and the water disappears with a wave of magic.

He says she’s quite right, this is not worth it at all for the dig. He whistles and trotting out from the cave after him is a griffin. It sits down by his feet. The aarakocra reaches down and scratches behind its ear just as the dragon turtle goes to snap at the woman.

The woman yells to get them out of here as the aarakocra grabs her and the griffin and they all disappear in a burst of magic.

Audacity pulls out of the spell and is told by the dragon turtle that his mind tastes funny. It says that the bird people are in the town and it wants them dead. Audacity draws the figures and shows it to the dragon turtle.

The dragon turtle tries to eat the paper before Audacity explains that this is to show people. The dragon turtle says that it seems accurate, adding that if they bring it proof of their deaths then it will leave the town in peace.

When Yolov asks if their deaths are the only thing the three people can make amends with, the dragon turtle leans down and its enormous head almost touches Yolov’s as it says it wants their heads and potentially the rest of them, and if not, it will have his. When Yolov gives a small nod of acknowledge, it says that it will give them five days.

When it asks if that’s enough time, if they would prefer thirty days, Yolov quickly says it is a big city and thirty days would be much more reasonable. The dragon turtle sighs that mortal time is strange before it leaves.

One of the guards runs over and says he thought the turtle was going to eat them. He introduces himself as Captain Treiaos. The party explains about the dig that is disturbing the turtle’s lair and that they have been tasked with finding these people or else the city will suffer.

The captain says there are no sanctioned digs around here and says he can gather information for them and have it in the morning. When he realizes that they’re Donnie and the Hooligans, he tells them that the taverns are full of bards singing their songs and asks for their autograph.

Hava says that they’ll be on Maeve’s ship. Treiaos asks if he can bring his daughter who is a huge fan. After Hava finds out he’s single, she tells him they can both come when he brings information the next day. Maeve tells him that they will all be on the Lost Mistake, looking a little uncomfortable as she glances towards the water.

As the captain leaves, Hava looks out and realizes that the Morning Flight is also harbored two ships away from the Lost Mistake.

Az tries to think of places where they can hear the bards singing their songs. He remembers spending time with a dockworker back when he visited the port with his father, where there is a fun but safe bar called The Gutted Fish. It has bards every night.

Yolov leans towards Asa and says he might have to send a Sending to his sister Sestri to tell her it might be a few days. She points out that they have thirty days, and Az says they don’t. She accepts that and adds that it’s probably an evocation wizard. After all, have they met an evocation wizard? Yolov takes her words for a joke, since Professor Dailiir and Sae’var Solray are both evocation wizards.

The party arrives at The Gutted Fish, where a goblin and a halfling are playing cornhole outside. They immediately engage Galowen in a game with money stakes, warning him they take cornhole seriously. He says he does too.

Galowen hands over two silver pieces before they compete for best out of three. The goblin’s bag hits the edge, and Galowen throws it in. The goblin says he was just getting warmed up before they compete again. This time Galowen throws too hard and hits the top edge, while the goblin’s goes in perfectly.

When Galowen teases him about taking two hours to warm up, and the goblin bristles and says he doesn’t even need to look, throwing and missing completely. Galowen throws his and it lands perfectly.

The goblin says sometimes people have bad days. Galowen says he’s taking this personally. The goblin says he plays cornhole every day at the Gutted Fish, he makes money on it sometimes. The halfling behind him mouths that he doesn’t have a job.

When Yolov says that he could always teach people how to play cornhole, Galowen says he’s not very good at it. The goblin asks why he’s being mean to him, it’s his birthday. Galowen realizes it isn’t even as Yolov begins to sweat a little.

Galowen points out that he won, and the goblin grudgingly hands over four silver. Meanwhile a few people notice Yolov’s unease and ask Yolov what he’s hiding.

Yolov says he forgot to treat them all to a nice dinner in Radiscune.

Hava realizes Yolov is still hiding something and leans in close to him, saying she thought they were the blue team. He stammers out that he wasn’t trying to lie, he just hadn’t told the party about his birthday. As the entire party yells, he says it was on the seventeenth.

At the sea of blank faces, he explains it was the day after the dragon attack and he didn’t want to be a distraction. Hava tells him he’s never a distraction. He says that it was also that he didn’t want anyone to even joke about celebrating.

He offers to pay for their meals and Az immediately agrees to take him up on it before Hava argues that they should treat him. Yolov says he wants to treat everyone, though the home-cooked meal in Greenrun will be best. Sestri is the best baker in Avisrune.

They all go into the tavern. They begin to eat the pretty decent food before the tiefling bard begins to sing a song. It starts out mostly factual about the Hooligans, with the fighting with pirates before it grows more and more inaccurate, starting with them becoming temporary pirates, then striking down three whole mind flayers, and fighting their way through Previdian. Supposedly Galowen wrestled the dragon. The song ends with the saving of the queen, except it’s described that Audacity held her in his arms as the others killed the monsters around them.

It’s a well done song, although full of inaccuracies.

Diana exclaims over everything they’ve done, wondering why they would be scared of trees if they’ve done all that. Hava says that only Az is scared of trees. Audacity bursts out laughing as the bard exclaims himself as the holder of lore.

The bard looks offended and asks what’s so funny. Hava tells him that none of that happened, and Yolov corrects that only some of it happened as his hand twitches towards his notebook to write out a more factual accounting.

Galowen tries to cast Vicious Mockery and is rebuffed by the bard and dealt psychic damage.

When the tiefling realizes that they’re Donnie and the Hooligans, he goes pale before apologizing. He introduces himself as Veracity, which makes some of the party laugh. He explains that he was in Silvrafel during the festival when it was attacked and has been following their exploits ever since.

He says that he elaborated on some of the gaps and used artistic license as the party tells him he’s not exactly accurate. Yolov, looking over Veracity’s notes, realizes he’s scarily accurate in places. Veracity quizzes them for more information, delighted when he learns that they were knighted the day before by the queen.

Audacity mutters he’s not drunk enough for this, and Veracity offers to buy them all drinks. He marches off to pay for them as the party settles in. Audacity drinks a few shots before he remembers he can no longer get drunk.

Az listens to the crowd, and overhears a few people talking about a job blowing in two days ago and realizes that Kiva has brought work into town. They realize it’s starting to get late, and decide to head to the Morning Flight.

Adrin stops and sits down as they get close to it. Diana asks what’s wrong and Adrin says they’re not going there. It’s a runt but it’s still big. It smells like him. Diana sits down next to her. She explains to the party that he’s red and they have bad experiences with chromatic dragons. She will stay with Adrin.

Yolov suggests that they can drop Diana and Adrin off at the Lost Mistake first, and Az offers to stay with her as well.

Maeve calls out to Travesty who curses that he thought he had a week. She asks if there’s something wrong and he says no as Diana, Adrin, Az, Maeve, and Asa head onto the ship. Diana sees through the lie.

Everything seems okay, but Maeve looks at him and says if something is the matter he’ll tell her. He says when has he ever let her down and she gives him an exact date. He says that wasn’t his fault.

Maeve says the rooms need to be prepared and then they’ll be able to get Aria. The guest rooms are very nice. Az and Diana can see Kiva’s ship from there, and one of his crewmates hanging out by the edge of the dock that leads up to the dock. They recognize Blade as he throws and catches a knife and promptly drops the knife almost in his foot.

Blade lights up when he spies the rest of the party approaching. He exclaims at the sight of them.

Hava waves at him excitedly.

He tells them how hard it was to leave Port Vestan. He almost got sent to prison because he stole off the dockmaster’s body in his coffin, which Hava says seems like a personal choice.

Yolov explains about the dragon turtle and their agreement after Blade offers to kill the illegal excavators for them. Yolov says that they’re hoping Kiva might have heard of these people. When he mentions that Audacity has pictures of them, Blade says they should show the pictures to the crew while they wait for Kiva to get back from a meeting.

Blade and the others don’t recognize the pictures, but Blade escorts them all onto the ship.

Yolov casts Sending to Az, telling him that they’ll be a few hours and that Kridos was worried about him. He also sends an apologetic message to Sestri: “Hello, Sestri. Unfortunately we ran into complications in Upper Crescent and now hope to arrive tomorrow night, though that may change. I will send updates.”

They’re all sitting in the place where they all used to eat when Kiva arrives back on the ship, growling that he wants to kill everyone in this city. He’s tired of the politics and the people. When he realizes Hava is onboard, he asks why they’re here.

Hava says that wouldn’t he like to know.

Kiva says he is simply suspicious. Trouble seems to follow them.

Audacity explains about the dragon turtle and the invasion of its lair. Kiva sighs at how annoying dragon turtle can be, trying to attack his ship from time to time. When he says that there is no dig site he knows about, Yolov says the guard captain agreed that there weren’t any legal sites.

When Audacity shows the pictures, Kiva sighs deeply and says he wants to kill himself. He says that he doesn’t know who the aarakocra is, but the woman is Professor Coisaira. She was an archaeologist before she became a smuggler of artifacts. The Col’Far do not deal in artifacts. It’s crass and boring.

Hava agrees that it doesn’t sound like him. She wonders what would be down there that they’re interested in.

Kiva describes the dragon turtle’s territory. When he expresses disbelief over the people damaging the lair and how angry the dragon turtle would be, Yolov says it was willing to destroy the city over it.

Hava takes Kiva’s face in her hands and tells him that she knows he’s a dragon. He curses and asks who told them and they say Terran guessed and they pieced it together from other people. He says he can’t help them with the dragon turtle’s territory, and they say they don’t need him to help with that, just to tell them more about these people.

He explains that she isn’t supposed to be here. It’s a bit embarrassing that she’s even still alive, since she double-crossed the Col’Far twice. She had been contracted to move a particular shipment from Bo’rava to the capital. Those objects then went missing and so did Coisaira. She resurfaced a few months later at a dig site in Striog where she made off with a bunch of items. She tried to sell the goods and claimed that she had been pressured to sell them due to danger from another group. She brought the items back to the Col’Far but also stole something from Kiva’s boss’ office before disappearing again.

Audacity goes very still when Kiva says that if they killed Coisaira his boss might owe them a favor.

Yolov asks about the group, if Kiva knows their name and Kiva says he doesn’t, he doesn’t pay attention to most people. Besides, he has other problems on top of Coisaira’s reappearance: there are three missing crates off Breezerunner’s ship, and he has to talk to Captain Breezerunner about it.

Hava tells him that Breezerunner is her twin sister.

He protests that they look nothing alike as Hava sighs.

Meanwhile on the Lost Mistake, Maeve is busy setting up the guest rooms. While she’s off doing that, Travesty offers Az, Asa, and Diana a drink, looking a little worried.

He explains about the three crates that disappeared. Two days ago he counted the crates and all twelve were there. Now there are only nine and he doesn’t remember seeing anyone come near the ship.

If he doesn’t find them, he tells them, he doesn’t know who will kill him first: Maeve or Dawnscale.