2023-04-19 Travel: Port Flizna - Fire on the Water
Player Characters
- Ano
- Dane
- Laucian
- Essa
- Remly
Allies
Summary
The characters convened in Salmund and on the road to Port Flizna.
Upon arriving a the port city's gates, they went through a brief inspection. The guards were mostly interested in extradimensional storage that might smuggle a criminal out of the city.
The party visited the harbormaster's office, meeting Harbormaster Vanya Garnet. They learned about the situation:
- The Brine's Bounty, owned and captained by Captain Prak, was burned at dock 4 two weeks ago.
- A shady suspect was caught leaving the scene and was imprisoned in the jail nearby.
- The Spiritchaser, owned by Wishkin Works and captained by Captain Zola Enzar, was burned at dock 6 one week ago.
- The previous suspect could not have burned the second ship, as she was still imprisoned.
- Captain Zola was last seen at the Sea Serpent's Bite, a popular tavern very close to the docks.
- Each set of three docks is overseen by a different dockmaster; dockmaster Temperance is in charge of docks 4-6. His office is down near the water.
The party traveled down the sloped cobblestone roads to the Sea Serpent's Bite and began to mingle with its inhabitants.
- Essa met two half orc sailors throwing darts. She joined them, and impressed them with her ability to aim, despite never having played before.
- Laucian found Captain Zola drowning her sorrows at corner of the bar. He asked her about her situation and cheered her up by singing the Shanty of the Sun. Other sailors joined in, enjoying the song. Zola opened up about missing her family in Solaki. She was afraid of losing her job after the fire, and felt responsible for the immolated ship.
- Ano bought a round for the entire tavern, livening the mood. He chatted with some of the patrons.
- Dane won 10gp in a dice game, and bought another round for everyone.
- Remly approached a hooded woman sitting in the corner of the bar. She introduced herself as Nora, and indicated in thieves' cant that she was busy watching someone. She asked Remly if he was interested in working for The Murids at some point, which he said he would consider.
- Two thugs that had been sitting in the tavern approached Nora's table, and began to threaten her as she tried to leave. Ano asked the bouncers to do something about it. Appreciating Ano's generosity, they gladly kicked the thugs out, no questions asked.
Remly tailed the thugs, and the rest of the party followed behind. Dane caught up to him.
The goons traveled to a dim alleyway, where they met two others and well-dressed half orc captain. The gang discussed some kind of shady business, mentioned that the captain's name was Prak, and informed Prak that Nora was tracking him.
As the group dispersed, Remly and Dane snuck past the goons to talk to the captain. Remly asked Captain Prak why someone would burn down his ship. Prak implied that the Brine's Bounty carried contraband, and that a rival gang might have targeted it (indicating the Murids). He promised them a lucrative future if they would join him in working for The Red Hand. Remly said he would consider the offer.
As Remly and Dane left, the two thugs from earlier warned them to watch their backs. They began to trail the PCs around the city.
The party returned to the bar to talk to Captain Zola more, asking her why her ship might have been targeted. Through tears she said she had no idea, and suggested that perhaps a competing Snavonese corporation was behind it. She mentioned that her ship had just come from Feather Island with a shipment of a strange fruit called a banana.
The party traveled up to Safter Jail near the harbormaster's office.
Havar, the jailer, informed them that the prisoner was not allowed to go anywhere until they could confirm her identity by sending ravens to wherever she was from. She had refused to answer or comply, and had been imprisoned since the first incident two weeks ago.
The party talked to the hooded girl, who refused to say anything until she is set free.
Essa traded identities with the girl, who called herself Low. They party told Havar to send the letter about Essa, apprentice of Malivette, living in Salmund. He sent the carrier pigeon, and told the party to return in a few weeks.
The PCs negotiated with Havar, and paid 20gp to get her 2 days of parole within the city. He required their faces to be recorded first and held them responsible for her detainment.
After leaving the jail, Low told them what she knew. She was hiding onboard the Brine's Bounty and saw three different sets of people aboard, one set at a time, shortly before the fire caught. Any of those groups could be responsible for igniting the galleon.
The groups were: three sailors who knew their way around this ship (one bald male human with tattoos, one coy female human, one unknown humanoid who was fully wrapped and did not speak), one stealthy hooded person who searched the hold and then left for the Sea Serpent's Bite, and one tattooed halfling woman with war paint who went briefly to the hold, then some side room, then left.
As the sun began to descend, the party began a pub crawl, searching the streets for any of the people Low mentioned. They found Nora walking quickly through the streets and talked to her. She admitted to boarding the ship, and stated that she was searching for a haul of illegal drugs in the hold, which she did find. She claimed that she did not burn the ship, however; her goal was to spy on Prak and his smuggling operation without drawing attention to herself. Nora told Remly that he could find her later in Salmund to discuss possible jobs.
During the conversation, the thugs that had been following the party tried to interrupt. Ano and Essa stopped them in their tracks, and a fight broke out. The party killed one goon and incapacitated the rest. Nora fled during the fight.
The town guard arrived. They led the party back to Harbormaster Garnet for questioning, and locked up the thugs in Safter Jail. Witnesses cleared the party, stating that they were the ones who were attacked. Low slipped away, avoiding the harbormaster confrontation, but rejoined the party afterward.
The PCs felt that Low was withholding information, and led her to a tavern to drink. Once she was sufficiently inebriated, she confessed that she had run away from home to seek adventure, and that she was trying to stow away on the Brine's Bounty to travel to somewhere new.
The party noticed the group of three sailors in the bar, and approached them.
- The trio were sailors working on the Brine's Bounty for Captain Prak. They had joined the ship somewhat recently, and sailed its most recent courses from Port Flizna to Port Saru, then back to Port Flizna. The next destination would have been Feather Island.
- The tattooed man was named Tarnash. He had three tattoos: an eclipsed sun, a tree, and a pearl. He was looking forward to traveling to Feather Island to "earn" a feather tattoo. Tarnash did most of the talking.
- The coy, calmly spoken woman was named Sunja. She claimed that the three of them were on the ship the evening that it burned to chill together, strongly implying that they were smoking silkroot as a group.
- The man covered completely in gloves, a hat, large glasses, and other clothes and wrappings was named Will. Will did not speak, but charaded messages. Tarnash and Sunja mostly spoke for him.
- The sailors claimed they had no motive to burn the ship, and were confident they did not accidentally ignite it.
- The tattooed, war-painted halfling Low witnessed was Calaria, the bosun of the Brine's Bounty. The crew had a lot of respect for her. She can be found smoking silkroot by herself on the jetty of the lighthouse at night.
Night had fallen. The party traveled to the rock jetty, where they found Calaria. She did not look directly at them, and spoke tersely. She offered the party a hit of her pipe, which they declined.
They questioned Calaria. She claimed that she did not burn the ship, and that she had sailed it longer than even its captain; it was like a home to her. She did not know about Prak's association with the Red Hand, but said that "many folks on the Brine's Bounty have their own private business". Her secret business was that she delivered letters and small packages to the ship's destinations. She mentioned delivering a personal letter recently to Captain Zola, whose ship burned down later. Calaria said Zola was staying in Urb's Hostel. She then bluntly told the party to take their stupid questions elsewhere and leave her be.
The party went to the hostel neighborhood, finding Urb's Hostel. When Remly failed to pick the front door lock and drew attention, Essa covered by shaking the knob loudly. A kindly old dwarf woman answered and invited the party to come in and spend the night for very cheap. While Essa kept her busy by listening to stories about her grandchildren, Remly snuck into Zola's room. He took the letter from her husband as well as 100gp from her pouch of 200.
The letter warned Zola of strange people with snake eyes and serpentlike appendages causing trouble in Port Saru in Solaki. After reading it, the party put it back in her room.
The party tracked down the trio of sailors. Dane seized Will's goggles, but found normal eyes behind them. As Tarnash tried to stop the party from removing Will's gloves, the quiet man suddenly fled.
The PCs gave chase through the city, dodging puddles and wagons and following him through alleyways and down into the sewer. Remly managed to catch up and grab Will, pulling him off a ladder.
"Will" pulled off his arm wraps and gloves, revealing snake arms. He turned to fight the party, and two snake-eyed allies and a constrictor snake slithered out of nearby tunnels to help. During the fight, the snake man hissed at the party about their kind's intrusion in his people's home on Feather Island.
The party defeated the yuan-ti squad, capturing the snake-armed man. They found the corpse of a pale human in an adjacent room, along with some money and a circlet of blasting.
They hauled the captive to jail. Upon regaining consciousness, the yuan-ti hissed insults at his captors, confessing to burning the ships in the process.
The party were paid the reward for solving the mystery. Port Flizna's docks would soon be open again.
Low thanked the party for showing her what real adventure is like. She declined the offer to join them, resuming her original plan to sail away.
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