Bullywug Gambit, Part I
After getting our orders from Lavinia, we hit the streets to try to learn the location of Kraken's Cove. We have absolutely no luck so we return to Lavinia for advice and she refers us to Sloren Highwall, the local geography expert. He clues us in and we gear up to head out immediately. Attempts to secure a boat ride out to the place end up with our having to shell out 20 gold each since it would seem the locals don't much care for boating out there. On top of that we have to offer 10 gold per day for our ride to wait around for us (we didn't particularly want to walk back, even though that would have probably given us a chance to boost our xp a bit with wilderness critters).
On The Beach
It takes us nearly all day to get there and once we do we find the area has a lot of bad reefs and other dangers our pilots aren't familiar with. So on top of everything else we have to anchor off the coast a few miles away and hoof it from there. On our way we notice smoke coming from the area we're heading for, indicating there's a big fire up that way. We also notice quite a few dead and mutated critters as we hike along the beach, so we take formation and ready weapons just in case. Which turns out to be a good idea when some pretty freaky monkeys attack us halfway there.
Ruby takes initiative and since we all see the critters shrieking and dashing at us from the tree line, she moves behind the rest of the group and casts Mage Armor on herself. The first mutated monkey runs right up to Harrak, who misses with his AOO, and attacks him. He doesn't land a hit but the second monkey is right on his heels and heads for Ferra. She drops him with her AOO before he even gets to her. Pick then moves to flank the monkey on Harrak, dodging the AOO and landing one of his picks in the critters for a good, solid hit. The third monkey reaches us then and jumps on Pick, who's now the closest target, but misses its attack. Ferra gets her initiative and steps up to drop the monkey on Harrak with one swing. Harrak then finally reaches his initiative point and hustles over to drop the monkey that jumped on Pick, which then puts him as the closest target. So the final monkey jumps on him, though it misses its attack.
On the second round Ruby fires her crossbow into the last monkey and nearly drops it dead right off. When Pick moves in, dodging the AOO but failing to hit the monkey, Ferra swings and drops that critter as well. All four of the freaky monkeys dissolve into some kind of acid goo when they die, though all of us manage to avoid getting splashed by it.
Kraken's Cove
Once we reach the cliffs and can see Kraken's Cove we find out the smoke we've been seeing is coming from a small fleet of various ships that are all on fire down there. We can also see movement through the flames, so we know there's something running around on the beach down there as well.
Deciding on taking the old, rickety wooden stairway down to the beach we ignore the warning creaking sounds and so naturally end up making Reflex saves when the whole thing collapses under us, even though we spread ourselves out a bit to descend. Harrak and Ruby manage to grab the cliff side but Ferra and Pick are dunked right down in the ocean. Ferra takes a bit of a beating from the fall as well as the stairway dropping on her head. Pick manages to make a nice Tumble check that probably saved his butt since he was nearly 30' in the air. He's beat up even worse than Ferra, especially when the stairs fall on him as well. (On top of that, one of the ships breaks loose and slams into where the base of the stairs was anyway so we'd have all probably have been knocked off regardless.) Then, on top of all that bit of bad luck, Harrak and Ruby both fail their Climb checks and fall into the shallow water anyway, with Ruby nearly knocked out by the fall.
Following that little disaster, we form up again on the beach right there and scan around. We get a nice description of the only surviving ship in the cove so we make note of it (since it's probably going to turn up again this session). Since we don't spot any immediate dangers we get Harrak to work on healing everyone up as much as he's able to from the nasty fall...and then naturally realize we didn't gear up all that well for this trip. No healing potions (doh!)
Once we're healed a bit, we move forward and take position along the cliff wall so Pick can sneak ahead and spy inside the nearest caves. Before he quite gets there some mutated pirate thing jumps out of the wreckage on the beach and charges for him, taking us all by surprise and hitting poor Pick pretty hard.
Pick takes the Initiative and retaliates with both picks, landing one critical hit that drops the bizarre pirate creature dead. Pick is quick enough to avoid the critter's death attack and the acid goo when it dissolves. Before Pick can hide again to move ahead a second pirate critter has already jumped out of the debris and is headed for him as well. And since we all thought the fight was over with that first mutant, Harrak and Ruby missed their chance to move up to cover him. Ferra has fortunately (this time anyway) taken last spot in Initiative, so she lets loose with her bow at the thing attacking Pick but she misses. She drops her bow and wields her chain to run up next round.
Pick attacks again, landing only one weak blow on the critter and that leaves him in a tough spot. He hasn't many hit points left and one good hit will probably drop him. He elects to Tumble away from the critter, back towards the group for cover, and pulls it off without provoking AOO. Harrak charges forward and smacks the critter dead with one blow without being hit by its AOO either.
After that, we form up again for another good look around but still don't spot anything. With Pick in such bad shape we decide to go ahead and stick together from here on. Checking out the beach we note the corpses and how some are mutated and some aren't (most are). After picking over the area a bit to be sure there's nothing else that's going to jump out at us, we let Pick conduct a proper search for anything valuable or helpful but find nothing. We do note the weirdly barren area just off shore and Pick checks that out, finding five big chunks of black pearl that we stash away for now.
In The Caves
Sneaking ahead to spy out the cave on the left Pick is spotted right away by one of the two mutated pirates in there and we go right to combat.
A third mutant pirate that Pick didn't see comes barreling around the corner and down the tunnel to him, though it isn't able to attack when it gets there. Pick naturally lets him have it and lands a nice blow before running off back toward us. Ferra steps around next to Harrak and whacks it with her chain, knocking it dead. Since we've got a decent defensive position Harrak delays his action for the round until something comes to him, as does Ruby. The two remaining mutant pirates both come running and use up their action for the round getting into our AOO, so we let 'em have it. Harrak drops the first of the two and hit the second pretty hard. Ruby follows right after with a nice Magic Missile that finishes it off.
Before we can recover something else entirely comes running in from the same cave, apparently from a side tunnel or such. Unlike the pirates, this guy doesn't run right up to us and hangs back instead, actually daring us to come to him so he can eat us. When we don't come running, he/it runs off back the way it came. In light of that, we all delay our initiative (since the battle was still going on) until we can move as one, then move out after the critter.
Once we're in sight of the tunnel the critter ran into, Ruby spots him hiding on the ceiling in there waiting to jump down on us. It comes right at us then and heads for Pick. Ferra and Pick both miss with their AOO's but Harrak hits hard. It's not enough to stop the critter and it stabs Pick with its kukri for a critical that drops him dying. Before anyone else's Initiative point comes around some kind of mutant dinosaur comes charging out of nowhere from behind us to snap Ruby dying as well! Ferra got an AOO on it but misses and we're suddenly in real trouble.
On the next round the weird mutant monkey-pirate has the Initiative and it runs off for the nearby table for cover, having seen the big nasty mutant dinosaur has come to join the party. This time both Ferra and Harrak snag it as it runs by, dropping it dead before it can get away. Since it's a few feet away (I love spiked chains!), we avoid it's nasty death bite and acid goo. Harrak then delays for the dino to come after him and Ferra takes a swing with her chain.
When the big dinomutant moves after Harrak, Ferra snags it with an AOO as well for nice hit. When it misses Harrak with its bite, Ferra swings again but misses. Harrak uses his daily Domain ability for Destruction and swings at it, hitting it very hard.
On the third round the critter scares the heck out of all of us by leveling four attacks on Harrak, though luckily none of them hit. Ferra attempts a trip but rolls horribly and Harrak misses with his attack as well. During all this Pick and Ruby aren't stabilizing and both have taken further damage from lying there dying.
Fourth round: Harrak is hit with two claw attacks and is in bad shape. Ferra makes another trip attempt and snatches the mutant dino to the ground for Harrak to hack up. Harrak misses horribly, of course. This round isn't an utter catastrophe as Ruby actually manages to stabilize on her own after all that. Pick is still in serious trouble though and is close to kicking the bucket.
When the mutant dinocritter takes to its feet to attack again this round our AOO's cut it to bits and its nearly dead when it makes one weak attempt at slashing Harrak. Ferra not only misses her chance to drop the critter when her Initiative point comes around but she actually makes a critical miss and drops her chain instead. Harrak thankfully smacks the critter soundly and drops it at last. Its death bite misses and Harrak dodges the acid goo splatter as well.
Once the dinocritter is taken care of Harrak immediately drops his sword and jumps over to Pick to heal him. He has him back on his feet in moments. Harrak's out of any real healing for the moment so he drops four Virtues on Ruby and has her standing on her feet again, if a bit wobbly. Since we're so terribly beat up at this point we finally decide there's nothing for it but to retreat and rest up a bit, keeping the place under watch in case anything wanders out to escape or, worse, attack us while we're trying to heal up. We do stop long enough to loot the first two caves before we leave though.
Camping On The Boat
Harrak and Ruby both make saving throws against whatever poison or disease the critters that bit them carry, so we hoof it carefully back to the beach outside the caves to find a relatively safe place to rest. Since the ship with all the wyverns on it is securely tied down and relatively undamaged still, we hike over to it, climb aboard and make that our camp for the next eight hours. Taking a quick look around we don't find much on the ship beyond some basic supplies but more importantly it doesn't seem to be occupied. We take turns watching the two visible cave entrances for anything coming or going while we rest. Everyone takes the opportunity to level up as well.
Back Into The Caves
It's nightfall by the time we've rested up and are ready to clear out the place again, though the moonlight has allowed us to keep a good enough eye out that we're confident nothing has come or gone from the place since we bugged out.
Back in the caves we continue on through the larger of the two and down the left tunnel. On the side we check out a small cave which has been blocked with tables and furniture (Ferra and Harrak pitch together to push through). We find the dead body of a gnome there but none of us can tell what has killed him. We find a weird little tadpole creature with tentacles laid out on a table being dissected but can't identify it either. Ruby refuses to examine it or stash it away for later, so Ferra nabs the thing and wraps it up in the gnome's shirt, stashing it in her backpack. While Pick looks the place over for anything else valuable or interesting he comes under attack by some kind of tentacles fungus, which we manage to kill before it can hurt anyone.
In the next cave down we find cages filled with eleven mutated people, all trying their best to get free and chew on us. After examining them for a bit Harrak decides we should leave them and return for them later, when we can hopefully have something done about them. For now they're just too dangerous to mess with and putting them out of their mercy doesn't seem necessary just yet.
The next cave continuing around appears to be a trophy room or some such, so we take our time examining this one. We make note of some of the ship names we see, in case that information proves useful later. We nab a set of fine nautical charts that seem to be worth a good bit as well. The three locked chests we find Pick can't manage to open (despite taking 20 on one of them), so we haul them back the way we came and drop them off near the entrance to be gathered up on the way out.
More Mutant Pirates
Checking out the maze of tunnels off the trophy room Pick manages to finally remain hidden and spy a mutant without being seen. He reports back that there's one in there gaggling around. We take up formation around the huge dinosaur skull in the room and send Pick ahead to draw it back to us. He gets surprise over the mutie pirate in there and yells at it before dashing back to take position.
The critter Pick stirred up runs up after him and right into Harrak's AOO. Harrak drops him with one hit and its death bite misses but Harrak fails his Reflex save against the acid goo. A second mutant pirate that we weren't aware of comes running right behind the other and also runs wailing right up to Harrak, which is unfortunate because he's already used his AOO for the round and he's outside of Ferra's threat range. Interestingly, the acid goo from the first critter is still bubbling there and the second mutie isn't harmed a bit from standing right in it. It misses Harrak with its attack, too. Then a third mutant pirate comes running out of the maze, this one coming for Ferra, who nearly kills it with her AOO. It attacks her and lands a solid hit. Ruby plunks two Magic Missiles into the tentacled pirate attacking Harrak for some decent damage and Pick dodge's its AOO to land a pick in it as well.
The critter on Harrak is hurt pretty badly but still goes after him, missing both with its scimitar and its bite. Harrak knocks it out of the fight with one whack, though. Ruby holds her attack since Ferra's pretty confident she can drop the critter on her (the last of the three), so naturally Ferra missed badly. Pick then tumbles up to the critter's flank...and completely missed with both attacks as well. The GM was nice enough to take pity and allow Ruby to pretend she'd delayed her action rather than just not acting at all. She plunks a couple of Magic Missiles and kills it before it can bite anyone, ending the fight.
Through the small maze of tunnels we find a very nicely appointed little cave lair and immediately set about looting the place. One of the corpses (there seems to have been quite a fight here) gives up a magicked rapier with a griffon design, a magic ring of some kind and a darkwood buckler that almost convinces Pick to give up dual wielding.
Captain Harvis Javell
In the next cave eastward we can hear a fight still going on when we approach, so we form up and send Pick ahead to scout it. When he returns we move in to attack the mutant pirates from behind and help the pirate woman in there, hoping we can get some info from her in the process.
As the six mutated pirates attack the woman behind the overturned table, Ruby steps in and plinks two Magic Missiles into one of the creatures. Ferra moves in and swings her chain at another one of them, missing. Pick then takes position beside her with Harrak following up and moving in on one of the critters from behind. He levels a blow that drops it dead, dodges the death bite and makes his Reflex save against the acid goo splatter.
Now that they're aware of us, two of the remaining five (those waiting their turn to try to gnaw on the pirate woman) spin around to jump on us. The same critter Ruby Magic Missiled comes after Ferra and though Harrak's AOO misses, hers lands and drops the critter dead. It's death bite misses and Ferra, Harrak and Pick all make their Reflex save against the dissolving critter. The mutie pirate critter closest to Harrak attacks and lands a pretty hard blow on the poor dwarf. Ruby plunks 2 Magic Missiles into it and Ferra follows up with a swing of her chain to drop it dead. Its death bites misses Harrak. Pick then gets bold and charges one of the remaining three attacking the pirate lady...but misses, his off-hand attack missing as well. The pirate lady attacks one of those on her and drops it dead with four (!) blows from rapier and dagger. Harrak then finally gets to attack something and moves in on the unwounded mutant pirate. Its AOO hits him hard though and he's in trouble now, even missing his attack in the process.
In the next round the two remaining mutated pirates stay on the pirate lady, so we're free to attack from their flank. Ruby plunks two Magic Missiles into the one Harrak is facing and Ferra steps up to attack the one in front of Pick (dropping it with one hit). Pick goes after the remaining critter and lands a solid blow, then the pirate lady finishes it off in a flurry of blows from both weapons.
When the fight's over the pirate woman demands our names and business, which we go ahead and give her. When she hears Vanthus mentioned she flies off the handle a bit and we don't have any trouble getting information from her after that (at least once we make it clear we haven't any idea what the heck is going on with all the mutated creatures ourselves). Getting the lowdown on the black pearl and it's effect when cracked open (and apparently when blood is spilled on it as well), we show her the shards we found which she identifies as the remains of the pearl in question. Harrak uses Lesser Restoration to cure her of the disease she contracted from the mutant creature bites. Still, we aren't able to get any information out of her concerning whoever she was supposed to deliver the black pearl to and we decide we aren't quite up to forcing the matter.
Vanthus, on the other hand, she has a lot to say about and we learn she's sent an assassin of hers ahead to the Vanderborn estate to kill him and his whole family. When Ruby makes her Diplomacy check, with the rest of us aiding her, Javell actually apologizes for the trouble heading Lavinia's way and advises us to move quickly to intervene. She even sends a note along ordering her assassin to abandon his mission for us.
With that Javell has nothing else she's willing to offer and makes to leave. Since we can't figure any way to stop her we consider just tackling her and tying her up but we're in bad enough shape to make that perhaps not a great idea (she was making four attacks per round in the previous fight, after all). We let her go and quickly check the surrounding area for loot before heading out again, cramming everything we can in Ruby's bag of holding.
Krenshars and Vanthus' Mutant Girlfriend
Back in the cave we passed on the way we find two krenshars chained to the wall, both mutated from the black pearl effect. Though Pick was sneaking about, one of them spots him and charges for him though he's just outside the range of its chain. Once we established how far the two critters can reach, we send Ruby up alone to plink at them with her crossbow. When one of them attempts to scare her she makes her save and spends the next few minutes pin-cushioning the two critters. We don't find anything of interest in the room so it turns out to be a bit of a waste.
In the last cave we find what we assume is Vanthus' erstwhile girlfriend (she seems to think Pick is her "love", anyway, and she had a locket with Vanthus' portrait in it). She heads right for Pick, seeming to want to nibble on him a bit, so we let her have it when she ambles into threat range. Everyone misses terribly and only Ruby manages to land a hit, with Magic Missiles naturally. Fortunately Mrs. Mutant Girlfriend misses her attack on Pick and we lay into her. Pick moves to her flank across from Harrak and actually gets hit hard with her AOO for his trouble but he lands both hits with his picks so it was worth it in the end. Ferra attacks with her chain immediately after and drops the mutant woman. Everyone makes their Reflex save against the acid splatter and her death bite misses Pick.
With that we gather up the loot we’ve cached, head outside, hike back to the ship waiting for us, then sail back to Sasserine to report to Lavinia.
After getting our orders from Lavinia, we hit the streets to try to learn the location of Kraken's Cove. We have absolutely no luck so we return to Lavinia for advice and she refers us to Sloren Highwall, the local geography expert. He clues us in and we gear up to head out immediately. Attempts to secure a boat ride out to the place end up with our having to shell out 20 gold each since it would seem the locals don't much care for boating out there. On top of that we have to offer 10 gold per day for our ride to wait around for us (we didn't particularly want to walk back, even though that would have probably given us a chance to boost our xp a bit with wilderness critters).
On The Beach
It takes us nearly all day to get there and once we do we find the area has a lot of bad reefs and other dangers our pilots aren't familiar with. So on top of everything else we have to anchor off the coast a few miles away and hoof it from there. On our way we notice smoke coming from the area we're heading for, indicating there's a big fire up that way. We also notice quite a few dead and mutated critters as we hike along the beach, so we take formation and ready weapons just in case. Which turns out to be a good idea when some pretty freaky monkeys attack us halfway there.
Ruby takes initiative and since we all see the critters shrieking and dashing at us from the tree line, she moves behind the rest of the group and casts Mage Armor on herself. The first mutated monkey runs right up to Harrak, who misses with his AOO, and attacks him. He doesn't land a hit but the second monkey is right on his heels and heads for Ferra. She drops him with her AOO before he even gets to her. Pick then moves to flank the monkey on Harrak, dodging the AOO and landing one of his picks in the critters for a good, solid hit. The third monkey reaches us then and jumps on Pick, who's now the closest target, but misses its attack. Ferra gets her initiative and steps up to drop the monkey on Harrak with one swing. Harrak then finally reaches his initiative point and hustles over to drop the monkey that jumped on Pick, which then puts him as the closest target. So the final monkey jumps on him, though it misses its attack.
On the second round Ruby fires her crossbow into the last monkey and nearly drops it dead right off. When Pick moves in, dodging the AOO but failing to hit the monkey, Ferra swings and drops that critter as well. All four of the freaky monkeys dissolve into some kind of acid goo when they die, though all of us manage to avoid getting splashed by it.
Kraken's Cove
Once we reach the cliffs and can see Kraken's Cove we find out the smoke we've been seeing is coming from a small fleet of various ships that are all on fire down there. We can also see movement through the flames, so we know there's something running around on the beach down there as well.
Deciding on taking the old, rickety wooden stairway down to the beach we ignore the warning creaking sounds and so naturally end up making Reflex saves when the whole thing collapses under us, even though we spread ourselves out a bit to descend. Harrak and Ruby manage to grab the cliff side but Ferra and Pick are dunked right down in the ocean. Ferra takes a bit of a beating from the fall as well as the stairway dropping on her head. Pick manages to make a nice Tumble check that probably saved his butt since he was nearly 30' in the air. He's beat up even worse than Ferra, especially when the stairs fall on him as well. (On top of that, one of the ships breaks loose and slams into where the base of the stairs was anyway so we'd have all probably have been knocked off regardless.) Then, on top of all that bit of bad luck, Harrak and Ruby both fail their Climb checks and fall into the shallow water anyway, with Ruby nearly knocked out by the fall.
Following that little disaster, we form up again on the beach right there and scan around. We get a nice description of the only surviving ship in the cove so we make note of it (since it's probably going to turn up again this session). Since we don't spot any immediate dangers we get Harrak to work on healing everyone up as much as he's able to from the nasty fall...and then naturally realize we didn't gear up all that well for this trip. No healing potions (doh!)
Once we're healed a bit, we move forward and take position along the cliff wall so Pick can sneak ahead and spy inside the nearest caves. Before he quite gets there some mutated pirate thing jumps out of the wreckage on the beach and charges for him, taking us all by surprise and hitting poor Pick pretty hard.
Pick takes the Initiative and retaliates with both picks, landing one critical hit that drops the bizarre pirate creature dead. Pick is quick enough to avoid the critter's death attack and the acid goo when it dissolves. Before Pick can hide again to move ahead a second pirate critter has already jumped out of the debris and is headed for him as well. And since we all thought the fight was over with that first mutant, Harrak and Ruby missed their chance to move up to cover him. Ferra has fortunately (this time anyway) taken last spot in Initiative, so she lets loose with her bow at the thing attacking Pick but she misses. She drops her bow and wields her chain to run up next round.
Pick attacks again, landing only one weak blow on the critter and that leaves him in a tough spot. He hasn't many hit points left and one good hit will probably drop him. He elects to Tumble away from the critter, back towards the group for cover, and pulls it off without provoking AOO. Harrak charges forward and smacks the critter dead with one blow without being hit by its AOO either.
After that, we form up again for another good look around but still don't spot anything. With Pick in such bad shape we decide to go ahead and stick together from here on. Checking out the beach we note the corpses and how some are mutated and some aren't (most are). After picking over the area a bit to be sure there's nothing else that's going to jump out at us, we let Pick conduct a proper search for anything valuable or helpful but find nothing. We do note the weirdly barren area just off shore and Pick checks that out, finding five big chunks of black pearl that we stash away for now.
In The Caves
Sneaking ahead to spy out the cave on the left Pick is spotted right away by one of the two mutated pirates in there and we go right to combat.
A third mutant pirate that Pick didn't see comes barreling around the corner and down the tunnel to him, though it isn't able to attack when it gets there. Pick naturally lets him have it and lands a nice blow before running off back toward us. Ferra steps around next to Harrak and whacks it with her chain, knocking it dead. Since we've got a decent defensive position Harrak delays his action for the round until something comes to him, as does Ruby. The two remaining mutant pirates both come running and use up their action for the round getting into our AOO, so we let 'em have it. Harrak drops the first of the two and hit the second pretty hard. Ruby follows right after with a nice Magic Missile that finishes it off.
Before we can recover something else entirely comes running in from the same cave, apparently from a side tunnel or such. Unlike the pirates, this guy doesn't run right up to us and hangs back instead, actually daring us to come to him so he can eat us. When we don't come running, he/it runs off back the way it came. In light of that, we all delay our initiative (since the battle was still going on) until we can move as one, then move out after the critter.
Once we're in sight of the tunnel the critter ran into, Ruby spots him hiding on the ceiling in there waiting to jump down on us. It comes right at us then and heads for Pick. Ferra and Pick both miss with their AOO's but Harrak hits hard. It's not enough to stop the critter and it stabs Pick with its kukri for a critical that drops him dying. Before anyone else's Initiative point comes around some kind of mutant dinosaur comes charging out of nowhere from behind us to snap Ruby dying as well! Ferra got an AOO on it but misses and we're suddenly in real trouble.
On the next round the weird mutant monkey-pirate has the Initiative and it runs off for the nearby table for cover, having seen the big nasty mutant dinosaur has come to join the party. This time both Ferra and Harrak snag it as it runs by, dropping it dead before it can get away. Since it's a few feet away (I love spiked chains!), we avoid it's nasty death bite and acid goo. Harrak then delays for the dino to come after him and Ferra takes a swing with her chain.
When the big dinomutant moves after Harrak, Ferra snags it with an AOO as well for nice hit. When it misses Harrak with its bite, Ferra swings again but misses. Harrak uses his daily Domain ability for Destruction and swings at it, hitting it very hard.
On the third round the critter scares the heck out of all of us by leveling four attacks on Harrak, though luckily none of them hit. Ferra attempts a trip but rolls horribly and Harrak misses with his attack as well. During all this Pick and Ruby aren't stabilizing and both have taken further damage from lying there dying.
Fourth round: Harrak is hit with two claw attacks and is in bad shape. Ferra makes another trip attempt and snatches the mutant dino to the ground for Harrak to hack up. Harrak misses horribly, of course. This round isn't an utter catastrophe as Ruby actually manages to stabilize on her own after all that. Pick is still in serious trouble though and is close to kicking the bucket.
When the mutant dinocritter takes to its feet to attack again this round our AOO's cut it to bits and its nearly dead when it makes one weak attempt at slashing Harrak. Ferra not only misses her chance to drop the critter when her Initiative point comes around but she actually makes a critical miss and drops her chain instead. Harrak thankfully smacks the critter soundly and drops it at last. Its death bite misses and Harrak dodges the acid goo splatter as well.
Once the dinocritter is taken care of Harrak immediately drops his sword and jumps over to Pick to heal him. He has him back on his feet in moments. Harrak's out of any real healing for the moment so he drops four Virtues on Ruby and has her standing on her feet again, if a bit wobbly. Since we're so terribly beat up at this point we finally decide there's nothing for it but to retreat and rest up a bit, keeping the place under watch in case anything wanders out to escape or, worse, attack us while we're trying to heal up. We do stop long enough to loot the first two caves before we leave though.
Camping On The Boat
Harrak and Ruby both make saving throws against whatever poison or disease the critters that bit them carry, so we hoof it carefully back to the beach outside the caves to find a relatively safe place to rest. Since the ship with all the wyverns on it is securely tied down and relatively undamaged still, we hike over to it, climb aboard and make that our camp for the next eight hours. Taking a quick look around we don't find much on the ship beyond some basic supplies but more importantly it doesn't seem to be occupied. We take turns watching the two visible cave entrances for anything coming or going while we rest. Everyone takes the opportunity to level up as well.
Back Into The Caves
It's nightfall by the time we've rested up and are ready to clear out the place again, though the moonlight has allowed us to keep a good enough eye out that we're confident nothing has come or gone from the place since we bugged out.
Back in the caves we continue on through the larger of the two and down the left tunnel. On the side we check out a small cave which has been blocked with tables and furniture (Ferra and Harrak pitch together to push through). We find the dead body of a gnome there but none of us can tell what has killed him. We find a weird little tadpole creature with tentacles laid out on a table being dissected but can't identify it either. Ruby refuses to examine it or stash it away for later, so Ferra nabs the thing and wraps it up in the gnome's shirt, stashing it in her backpack. While Pick looks the place over for anything else valuable or interesting he comes under attack by some kind of tentacles fungus, which we manage to kill before it can hurt anyone.
In the next cave down we find cages filled with eleven mutated people, all trying their best to get free and chew on us. After examining them for a bit Harrak decides we should leave them and return for them later, when we can hopefully have something done about them. For now they're just too dangerous to mess with and putting them out of their mercy doesn't seem necessary just yet.
The next cave continuing around appears to be a trophy room or some such, so we take our time examining this one. We make note of some of the ship names we see, in case that information proves useful later. We nab a set of fine nautical charts that seem to be worth a good bit as well. The three locked chests we find Pick can't manage to open (despite taking 20 on one of them), so we haul them back the way we came and drop them off near the entrance to be gathered up on the way out.
More Mutant Pirates
Checking out the maze of tunnels off the trophy room Pick manages to finally remain hidden and spy a mutant without being seen. He reports back that there's one in there gaggling around. We take up formation around the huge dinosaur skull in the room and send Pick ahead to draw it back to us. He gets surprise over the mutie pirate in there and yells at it before dashing back to take position.
The critter Pick stirred up runs up after him and right into Harrak's AOO. Harrak drops him with one hit and its death bite misses but Harrak fails his Reflex save against the acid goo. A second mutant pirate that we weren't aware of comes running right behind the other and also runs wailing right up to Harrak, which is unfortunate because he's already used his AOO for the round and he's outside of Ferra's threat range. Interestingly, the acid goo from the first critter is still bubbling there and the second mutie isn't harmed a bit from standing right in it. It misses Harrak with its attack, too. Then a third mutant pirate comes running out of the maze, this one coming for Ferra, who nearly kills it with her AOO. It attacks her and lands a solid hit. Ruby plunks two Magic Missiles into the tentacled pirate attacking Harrak for some decent damage and Pick dodge's its AOO to land a pick in it as well.
The critter on Harrak is hurt pretty badly but still goes after him, missing both with its scimitar and its bite. Harrak knocks it out of the fight with one whack, though. Ruby holds her attack since Ferra's pretty confident she can drop the critter on her (the last of the three), so naturally Ferra missed badly. Pick then tumbles up to the critter's flank...and completely missed with both attacks as well. The GM was nice enough to take pity and allow Ruby to pretend she'd delayed her action rather than just not acting at all. She plunks a couple of Magic Missiles and kills it before it can bite anyone, ending the fight.
Through the small maze of tunnels we find a very nicely appointed little cave lair and immediately set about looting the place. One of the corpses (there seems to have been quite a fight here) gives up a magicked rapier with a griffon design, a magic ring of some kind and a darkwood buckler that almost convinces Pick to give up dual wielding.
Captain Harvis Javell
In the next cave eastward we can hear a fight still going on when we approach, so we form up and send Pick ahead to scout it. When he returns we move in to attack the mutant pirates from behind and help the pirate woman in there, hoping we can get some info from her in the process.
As the six mutated pirates attack the woman behind the overturned table, Ruby steps in and plinks two Magic Missiles into one of the creatures. Ferra moves in and swings her chain at another one of them, missing. Pick then takes position beside her with Harrak following up and moving in on one of the critters from behind. He levels a blow that drops it dead, dodges the death bite and makes his Reflex save against the acid goo splatter.
Now that they're aware of us, two of the remaining five (those waiting their turn to try to gnaw on the pirate woman) spin around to jump on us. The same critter Ruby Magic Missiled comes after Ferra and though Harrak's AOO misses, hers lands and drops the critter dead. It's death bite misses and Ferra, Harrak and Pick all make their Reflex save against the dissolving critter. The mutie pirate critter closest to Harrak attacks and lands a pretty hard blow on the poor dwarf. Ruby plunks 2 Magic Missiles into it and Ferra follows up with a swing of her chain to drop it dead. Its death bites misses Harrak. Pick then gets bold and charges one of the remaining three attacking the pirate lady...but misses, his off-hand attack missing as well. The pirate lady attacks one of those on her and drops it dead with four (!) blows from rapier and dagger. Harrak then finally gets to attack something and moves in on the unwounded mutant pirate. Its AOO hits him hard though and he's in trouble now, even missing his attack in the process.
In the next round the two remaining mutated pirates stay on the pirate lady, so we're free to attack from their flank. Ruby plunks two Magic Missiles into the one Harrak is facing and Ferra steps up to attack the one in front of Pick (dropping it with one hit). Pick goes after the remaining critter and lands a solid blow, then the pirate lady finishes it off in a flurry of blows from both weapons.
When the fight's over the pirate woman demands our names and business, which we go ahead and give her. When she hears Vanthus mentioned she flies off the handle a bit and we don't have any trouble getting information from her after that (at least once we make it clear we haven't any idea what the heck is going on with all the mutated creatures ourselves). Getting the lowdown on the black pearl and it's effect when cracked open (and apparently when blood is spilled on it as well), we show her the shards we found which she identifies as the remains of the pearl in question. Harrak uses Lesser Restoration to cure her of the disease she contracted from the mutant creature bites. Still, we aren't able to get any information out of her concerning whoever she was supposed to deliver the black pearl to and we decide we aren't quite up to forcing the matter.
Vanthus, on the other hand, she has a lot to say about and we learn she's sent an assassin of hers ahead to the Vanderborn estate to kill him and his whole family. When Ruby makes her Diplomacy check, with the rest of us aiding her, Javell actually apologizes for the trouble heading Lavinia's way and advises us to move quickly to intervene. She even sends a note along ordering her assassin to abandon his mission for us.
With that Javell has nothing else she's willing to offer and makes to leave. Since we can't figure any way to stop her we consider just tackling her and tying her up but we're in bad enough shape to make that perhaps not a great idea (she was making four attacks per round in the previous fight, after all). We let her go and quickly check the surrounding area for loot before heading out again, cramming everything we can in Ruby's bag of holding.
Krenshars and Vanthus' Mutant Girlfriend
Back in the cave we passed on the way we find two krenshars chained to the wall, both mutated from the black pearl effect. Though Pick was sneaking about, one of them spots him and charges for him though he's just outside the range of its chain. Once we established how far the two critters can reach, we send Ruby up alone to plink at them with her crossbow. When one of them attempts to scare her she makes her save and spends the next few minutes pin-cushioning the two critters. We don't find anything of interest in the room so it turns out to be a bit of a waste.
In the last cave we find what we assume is Vanthus' erstwhile girlfriend (she seems to think Pick is her "love", anyway, and she had a locket with Vanthus' portrait in it). She heads right for Pick, seeming to want to nibble on him a bit, so we let her have it when she ambles into threat range. Everyone misses terribly and only Ruby manages to land a hit, with Magic Missiles naturally. Fortunately Mrs. Mutant Girlfriend misses her attack on Pick and we lay into her. Pick moves to her flank across from Harrak and actually gets hit hard with her AOO for his trouble but he lands both hits with his picks so it was worth it in the end. Ferra attacks with her chain immediately after and drops the mutant woman. Everyone makes their Reflex save against the acid splatter and her death bite misses Pick.
With that we gather up the loot we’ve cached, head outside, hike back to the ship waiting for us, then sail back to Sasserine to report to Lavinia.