Pearly Whites

In the Kingdom of the Sharks

Managaratha fades out; Stella and Scout fade in. We’re still underwater. Fortunately the water breathing is still up.

The water starts getting colder, probably because we were here as companions of Managaratha. Nesh’s sword turns into the Buccaneer’s Blade, and he has some reputation, which stops the water from getting colder.

We discuss our current plan, or lack thereof. What can we do for the King of the Sharks? Well, we seem to have lost our Red mage.

Stella tires of our dithering, and brings down the Hammer of 13 successes and 10 DI. Sharks are not actually anything that needs Fixing, they’re just inconvenient for us at present. Ideas for sending the Sharks elsewhere are decent, but we’re unlikely to have the EPs to pull off at present, so we’d need help. The small problem that could be fixed, potentially, is the dissension between Lani and Tia. There’s not an easy solution, as long as he remains King Shark and she remains Princess Crab; while there are things that might fix that, we don’t have a lot of angles on that. That could be ameliorated if Torsin was discredited, and the Goddess thinks that Torsin’s influence from Goblins is the highest on the list. Also there's the Kraken, but it's probably too big for us.

(Torsin is Lani's nephew, and in line to the throne after Tia).

Also, our Polite Merfolk is about to expire.

We go and talk to Tia - she's heard of goblins, and Torsin is visiting a lot, but he doesn't live here, and she doesn't know who he talks to when he's not here. Also she is surprised the Buccaneer doesn't have a petition. Well, perhaps the Buccaneer can petition to hunt goblins.

Does she know about the Kraken? It's not in the kingdom, but kraken territory is over there.

Vidan will learn mer overnight if Tia will teach him. That work. Vidan learns 6 levels of Mer overnight.

[Dragon 13]

We go to petition the King in the morning, accompanied by sharks.. Nesh apologies for his interpreter, and that we are here on a mission from the Gods, and ask for permission to hunt Goblins in and around his lands.

Nesh and Vidan are quite charismatic, but they’re limited by Int/Mer, so they only get 7 successes. The King is happy to grant us 3 days to pursue the alleged intrusion into his lands, and he expects a report. We are escorted out of the throne room by sharks.

Outside the palace, the sharks don’t seem to attack us.

Goblin Hunting

We go to Torsin’s house. It’s an actual house with doors; we think that’s probably it. (The Kingdom is generically magic

Vidan asks his aid in getting the kingdom's aid against our joint enemy, the slith. He’s willing to talk about that, and we go in. He acknowledges that Slith are bad, but seems most interested when Vidan calls him the likely Heir.

They discuss the kingdoms and their Heirs. Mab’s heir is Venin, but he’s married. Fahl could marry.

Scout thinks there’s some Green magic in the back room. Gale can't hear anything, but does a bit of swim-foolery while Scout sneaks out. There's some seaweed next to his bed that has a green sigil on it - it matches one of the sigils on the plant spewing the amnesia-mist in Middlesea. It's some sort of communication spell. One wild spell later - the other end is off near where Middlesea (the spirit) is, in that Spiritbreaker Fortress.

Unclaimed perfect pearls are unclaimed, that's okay. He has suggestions where we might look.

Gale (and Vidan, when she remembers she doesn't speak Mer) eavesdrop. It's some other language that Vidan doesn't know, so he casts a Witnessing miracle and memorizes it perfectly. It's a woman speaking Goblin. It's a siren, Vidan thinks.

People are offering to potentially help him become king if he helps them go after the Slith. The goblin says well, maybe that's a reasonable plan given the failure of the other one to marry Tia off, but tell me more about them. He describes us reasonably well. Hmm. Well, working with them would be interesting, certainly. I'm not sure I recommend it - the last major political plan they were involved in, involved the death of King Olison. Try not to make them any promises. Probably the best thing they could do for you is go kill the Kraken, so see if you can get them to do that. We wonder if that's actually "go get them eaten by the Kraken".

Kraken are known to be in the Broken Seas - Vidan is sure there are broken Kraken and not confident there are unBroken ones. Hard to be sure.

Stella decides to indulge in her pyromania and do some experimentation with lighting fires underwater. Creating a campfire (Creation) makes the campfire appear, but it goes out immediately. Lighting a forge with a fireball spell (Forge) that does both damage and sets things on fire (difficulty 10 for a 7 hex 2x damage per successes plus Burning).

Talking to the King Again

Nesh makes a plan for talking to the King, and we see him that afternoon.

Nesh and Vidan team up again to tell the King about Thorsin. The persuasion is not as big as before, but Vidan’s Witnessing is enough to convince him to send us to destroy it with a squad of Sharks.

He sends a squad of sharks to help us destroy it. Thorsin doesn’t think he should resist when there’s a squad of sharks. The sharks eat it. No siren sharks are produced in the process.

The party goes up to the surface for reasons I forget.

In the distance there's a boat. It flies the flag of the Maharani. It has Lisatera on it. She did not get His Highness out - there's too much divine stuff going on, so she's going to get a priest. While we were mucking around in there, she could have some conversations. That was while we were talking to Mage Alexa. We warn her about the Avatar of the Breaker - the orc in the middle, fighting the paladin of Rush.

She calls Suvatra, the person we have the seagull feather from. Vidan introduces himself and says we have a feather - she does a double take. Vidan is suddenly wearing Navere's holy robes (it's a Navere thing), and that clearly convinces her of something.

She agrees that alliance is good, having people go there would be better but if we break the feather she can call, once. She does not speak directly for Her Majesty but can make a call when someone who can is available to discuss things.

Suvatra says she will let Her Majesty know that there will be Ambassadors coming, and will make arrangements. She asks for our names, and we tell her plus that we are known as the Middlesea Free Rangers (™).

Vidan notes that she takes note of Vidan’s name, particularly. She terminates the call.

Pearl Hunting

We ask Lisetera for help hunting Perfect Pearls. She thinks that underwater is inconvenient, but when Gale offers to deal with that, she says okay. The nearest one is two miles that way, in a chest. The boat sails off. Diomarche explains there are cataurs. His boyfriend, Lisatera wonders? Gale is totally shipping them now.

Lisetera sends a mer-Lisetera with us to go pearl-hunting. We swim for a while and find a shipwreck. We proceed, and combat begins!

The ship has been sunk for many years, it seems to have stuff growing on it.

Ghosts!

The ghosts appear, attempting to possess the people who walk onto the ship. They need to be hit with magic or enchanted weapons, and they do attacks with no resistance (except for Nesh). Diomarche charges through a bunch of them, and with the power of Rush, they are banished. One of the ghosts tries to possess Gale, but is punted by Stella. The ghosts seem to be 9 hit mooks, so the fighters manage to get rid of a bunch of them. Diomarche heads belowdecks to look for treasure, which causes him to be attacked by another ghost. He breaks through the door, which causes environmental splinters. Nesh and Scout head belowdecks to help, but Nesh sends them away because he can handle the ghosts. Diomarche and Scout go to check out the Captain’s room; Diomarche gets stuck in the debris, but Scout gets in. Scout gets rid of one ghost and loots for three rounds. As this is going on, we notice there is Blood in the Water, so now we’re on the clock before the Sharks arrive.

We clear up the last of the ghosts and loot the treasure chest belowdecks, and escape!

At the very end, Nesh considers the Buccaneer– he remembers that he was one of The Lady’s seconds in the last Comet.

Loot

• +7 EPs
• +9 SPs

Belowdecks:

1 Loot worth of random stuff + 1 Perfect Pearl

Capt. Chamber:

• 1 Loot of Gold
• 2 necklaces from the Time of the Lord and the Lady. 4 successes of Appraisal says they’re worth more for historical value than for their pure gold/gems value. Might be worth something to one of the Mages that was looking for something (Nimra).
• Scrolls in Melmani - orders to the ship directing the captain to carry the treasure to somewhere in Orange. Army logistics orders, so this was some kind of military vessel of some kind. The loot is to fund the Lady’s army on the mainland. There is a map to a hidden stash of stuff in Orange somewhere.