On His Majesty’s Secret Surface

Splashing Around

Vidan is still faded out. We decide we will go look for other Merfolk kings. There is some discussion about cataurs and centaurs, and Diomarche tells the tale of how the cataurs in the boat could be considered his cousin, because back in the Comets of yore, the cataurs came over the mountains into Jabar and they un-Broke. Were Repaired? The terminology is perhaps confusing.

Managaratha thinks there might be a few more castles to the west, so we head off that way. We sail for a day or so, and then [Dragon 8] Managaratha sends up a clairvoy point to see what he can see, but he’s not very successful. He drives around the clairvoy point and finds a more populated area, so we decide it’s a good place to go see if we can find a castle nearby.

Gayle gives us some Free Action and Breathe Water, and we swim down and find a house with some merfolk. One comes out and points a trident at us, asking us what we want.

We say we’re hoping to go to the court, to help fight the slith. Unless they want to fight the slith? No, we should go talk to the king.

The fast way is "swim that way", but we’ll probably run into the mephits (which Managaratha explains are water elementals). The slow way is go that way until you find the giant clam, and then switch to north for three leagues, and then come back this way.

How many mephits? A lot, they’re a problem.

We swim to the giant clam, while Managaratha steers clairvoy around until he finds the water is boiling. So maybe they’re steam mephits. There also seem to be lava mephits.

Gale recalls that mephits are Broken elementals, they tend to be pairs of elements.

The clam is about the size of room, although flatter. Managaratha determines it has a quite large pearl, so we try to think about how to get the loot. Lacking a better plan, Scout casts a Speak to Animals spell, and chats with the clam, but it doesn’t seem to want much, and he’s not very persuasive. Nesh thinks it’s rude to attack the clam now that we’ve talked to it, so we wander off, with Gale grumbling about failing at being a pirate.

We travel a while to the castle, passing more habitations on the way. The castle is quite large, and Managaratha casts Rangers Talk Polite Mer. Nesh talks to the guards about wanting to see the King to fight the slith, but once they’re told it’s Managaratha, they say oh sure come on in.

There are lots of fish swimming around; we get to the Throne Room. There is a Mer with a crown on the throne. There seems to be a line of fish waiting to talk to the King. Huh. There is no obvious organization.

Scout looks around— everything here is Magical, but not spells, and not even Blue. It’s more coordinated than miscellaneous elf magic. It’s like the Queen under the Mountain with her Dwarves around her, and it would probably look like Magic for the room to be Hers.

The King talks to the fish, sometimes in schools, but not in Mer– except for one. That fish wants to know how long it will be before the seaweed won’t be destroyed by the mephits. “Soon”, says the King.

King Tabe greets Managaratha, welcoming him. Managaratha says we’re here to fight the slith. Oh good, the slith are a problem. His forces are tied up elsewhere. We offer to scout the mephits, which the King thinks would be helpful.

King Fahl is asleep. “Oh yes, he’s tied up.” “Well, I don’t know about tied up, but he’s asleep.” He’s the one the witch got.

King Lani is busy with his shark breeding, Queen Mag they talk to occasionally, but the King doesn’t have a daughter, and she mostly seems to be looking for a marriage alliance.

Is there something we can help with? Scouting the mephits would help. If there’s a way in that doesn’t require going through air, that would be useful.

We get a map; the mephits are mostly south of the castle, with a big X for “don’t go here”. The map also has the Giant Clam, a coral bed to the NE, there are arrows to Queen Mag’s lands, Lani’s lands NW, and King Fahl’s land to the east.

In the castle, there's a guy who is planning to go and wrestle an octopus tomorrow. He doesn’t need help, but if we wanted to watch and tell people how awesome he is, that would be good.

Managaratha thinks about Elemental Planes and Elementals.

We take Gayle’s boat back to the other boat. Managartha clairvoys down, it looks like there’s a place that is not water, mostly steam. No merfolk, no fish, no plants. The ground under that area is mostly lava rather than earth. There don’t seem to be obvious mephits. There do seem to be some kind of caves? if that’s what they’re called in the lava.

More clairvoy, looks like in the steam there’s a largeish cavern with air in it. Managaratha contemplates how this happens, it’s probably some kind of magic, to keep the ocean out? If it was just natural the King could probably deal with it if it’s in his realm.

Stella asks the Goddess what needs fixing here. There’s some defenses, but 13 successes 9 DI is enough to get past the 5 successes defense.

The underwater Broken lands (where the Slith live) are not as Broken as the Broken Lands. Underwater doesn’t have so coherent a Broken area. The cavern is an attempt to make a Broken underwater Kingdom; that should be stopped. There is something at the center of it that is making that happen. The thing at the center is probably not sentient, but is something that a Broken priest or a powerful goblin made. It needs to be sanctified away, preferably; physical destruction would make it easier to sanctify. It would take most of Stella’s DI for a day to sanctify it, it’s a powerful miracle. It might explode if we physically blow it up, though. The mephits are more like guardians.

Poking around via clairvoy during the night, Managaratha and Nesh find a glowing ruby in the center of a cavern with a squad of lava mephits standing around it. There doesn’t seem to be smoke, so there may not be air there.

[Dragon 9]

Gayle thinks a bubble of clean air is probably good for breathing, but we might want cold air, to prevent heat issues.

Thinking of spells that could help: A generic Resist Environmental Heat is probably easier than Resist Fire Damage, unless it’s a Vast amount of heat. That’s probably difficulty 8. Walking on Lava would probably help.

Nesh puts everything together into a plan.

• 6 successes Resist Environmental Heat.
• 3 successes 1 awryage Walk on Lava.
• Weapons are iced for 5 hits.
• Sotto Voce.
• 4 hours of Flying through Air.

We teleport! But it doesn’t get us all the way there. Huh. That’s weird. Managaratha thinks that maybe the Broken Landedness is in a different coordinate system. Thinking more, it seems like there are more hexes in each hex? Hmm. Managaratha thinks more. Scout thinks there is definitely Magic fighting the DI, in a realm-fighting-realm way that Middlesea thinks is familiar. Managaratha clairvoys more, and thinks his clairvoy points are also bigger than usual. Huh. Well, we go down below the steam and into the hole.

We enter a big cavern filled with lava and mephits, with a gem in the center, with four mephits around the ruby in the center.

Gayle casts Battle Diagnostics, which starts the combat. Diomarche picks up Nesh and charges into the center of the room. Nesh chops a mephit, which takes 5 hits, and he ignores the “melt the weapon” schtick.

Managaratha teleports Stella to Diomarche, and she Sanctifies the gem. It works! The gem dissipates and the lava starts to vanish again. We flee again (courtesy Managaratha) and clairvoy as the steam bubble collapses.

We return to the castle, where there is a party in the throne room. A cute merman dances with Gayle. Even the fish are dancing! There is some concern about eating what’s offered– are fish friends or food? Apparently fish on the table are food. Okay then.

What other mer kings might be interested in coordination against the slith? Don't ask Fahl, because he's asleep. Mag is plausibly interestable. Lani would need convincing that it was not going to get all his sharks killed.

Scout asks after the Sea Witch; he’ll trade spells to do things like give you legs, or the voice of an angel, for weird prices. Sounds kind of like a sluagh to Scout.

Other things we learn:

• Clams don’t really want anything
• Managaratha helped move the Mer from the ancient homelands to the West of the main continent, two comets ago, to help fight the slith.
• The Tridents are good fighting weapons, but they also mostly seem to be part of the Armory, rather than items? Creation says they stop existing if you went too far away from the castle.
• The merfolk use the tridents as thrown weapons. They also use nets, and electric eels.

Other Kingdoms

[Dragon 10]

We decide to go talk to King Lani. There are definitely more sharks here, if not lots of merfolk. As we get close, however, Managaratha finds a note in his pocket, saying “Maybe do this one last.” Huh. Well, we decide to go talk to Queen Mag, and look for perfect pearls on the way.

We do some pearl harvesting. We collect about 5 pearls that are large and round. One of them might qualify as perfect. Throwing some Essence or some Red at it would help, but it’s plausible.

We get to Queen Mag’s court, and Managaratha goes in to talk to her, casting Sotto Voce. She has heard of him, and he is hoping to get the Kingdoms to work together to fight the slith.

The Queen frowns. “That is a… subject which is unlikely to receive a warm reception at this time.” And one of the guys’ swimming around faces lights up a bit. Managaratha says that the war with the Slith is coming, albeit perhaps not to this particular kingdom. She appreciates the information, but does not have immediate interest in his proposal.

Managaratha is dismissed, so goes to take a nap. The mer who looked interested finds him. “Are you from Berana?” “Oh. Um… I have been through Berana, yes. Have they been in touch?” “Yes! Perhaps you can convince Mother to let Prince Quentin out of the dungeon for allying with Berana. I would appreciate Prince Quentin being freed.”

He clarifies - Tia doesn’t want to be married either. Venin is Mag’s son. Quentin was prince of the old king of Berana! Oh. Right, him! Tia is the daughter of King Lani.

Okay, that’s probably why we want to deal with Lani last.

Loot

• +5 Pearls, one Plausibly Perfect
• +8 EPs
• +8 SPs