We continue our adventure right where we left off with you four just having stepped off your boat standing on the coast in the sandy little beach of Salt Haven.
Next to you is the Tavern, the Empty Net Tavern, and as I previously stated, it sounds pretty quiet in there. It's not as hustling and bustling as it was the night before.
Because you look and you can see the sun rising over the coastline, over the horizon, over the sea. The sun is coming up and it seems that all the sailors and whatnots have gone to rest.
You four stand in the sand, what do you do?
Yarr, how about we offload the booty from this haul? We'll see what the old man in the tavern has to say.
Fine, fine, whatever we do. Shmee just hates sand. Of course, rough gets everywhere.
Thank you. Very good, very good.
There are large pillars where the Empty Net Tavern kind of sits on top of where the sea is and you can actually tie your small little dinghy to these pillars.
It's kind of where I'm assuming you do tie it off so it doesn't float away. But are you guys taking the barrels and the silk with you just out of the boat right away?
Yes.
Yes. Okay, cool. So I'm assuming you guys are going to kind of like be rolling them up the hill together because they're, yeah, they're fairly large.
He's going to try to roll them up the hill.
He's going to try, right?
I just picture Shmee like running on top of the barrel now trying to like roll it up the ramp.
Like reverse log rolling.
He hits it uphill. He's struggling.
Eventually, after some struggle, was Shmee trying his best to help get them up the hill. I won't make you guys make strength checks on these because then we might be here all fucking day.
But you guys roll them up the hill and around to the Empty Net Tavern. You get up to the porch and again, it's very quiet.
So you guys step up the porch and into the doors of the Empty Net Tavern with your barrels.
Stepping inside, you guys can see that this place is fucking destroyed from the night before.
There are flagons everywhere and fist guts, daggers stuck in the walls.
But standing behind the bar is our dreadlocked pirate friend, Sweeping.
Oy there. We bought some booty here.
Ay, ay, keep it down. Why are you yelling for? Jesus.
You had a wee bit to drink last night, I take it.
Oy, this is salt-tasting after all.
Ay.
What brings you here so early?
Perchance you might want to taste and try some of this brandy we found.
We have four fine barrels of it.
And you see he comes around the bar and he walks over to where you have these barrels.
And he starts inspecting them. He gets all real close to them and he taps on them with his hand, knocks on them, listens to it.
And it's actually kind of awkward how much he's examining these things.
But then he stops and he looks up at you and he's like,
Well, ay now, where did you get these?
Oh, we found these on...
What's the fucking word I want?
Damn it.
Fucking brain fart.
Try again, try again. Found these on the dock?
No, no, fucking no.
Do we want to tell them about them?
No, because we found them in the caves. I was thinking of the fucking...
The name for the fucking people, what they were fucking doing, what they are.
Oh.
The cult?
No, they're not a cult.
They're like smugglers.
Smugglers, thank you. Couldn't think of that fucking word.
Ay, yeah, we came across some smugglers when we were out at that haunted house and we...
We took them off their hands as it were.
Oh, ay. So you did go to the old haunted house there on the hill.
Ay.
And you came back alive then, all four of ye.
Oh, yeah, I mean, we're standing in front of you, so obviously they're alive.
Well, you never know, it is be Salthaven.
Ay, ay, ay.
Spooky. You even took old Shmee with you and he came back alive. Isn't that a god darn shame?
Shmee told you he wouldn't die, Captain.
Shmee kind of like confidently leans against a brandy barrel but kind of misses and then...
And then fucks himself.
Oh, ay, okay, well, we've got much, much to discuss then, but...
You gotta have to tell me what happened and where, well...
If you do what you say be speaking, is there true?
These here barrels are brandy. Well, we gotta get them back in a way.
As you see here, and he points down to the center of the barrel, and we didn't notice before,
it has a large brand on it, and the brand is actually the same brand that the guards of this town wear
on their chest plates, which was SHP, and it has a little knight symbol on it.
And he's like, these here barrels are brandy. These must have been stolen.
And, well, we're gonna have to get them back somewhere,
because, you know, we don't want to be getting in trouble with the council and all that, right?
Well, perchance we just take them back to the council and we say,
Hi, we found these barrels of yours here.
Well, if that's what you want to do, that's how it'll go.
And he kind of stutters a little bit, and he's like,
Well, if you'll be going around the town council, you've got no place here in the Empty Net Tavern.
I'll tell you that much. You gotta pick a side.
Uh, we have picked a side. Where we be on our side?
She'd be true. Well, here, I'll tell you what.
You got four of these barrels here?
Aye.
Well, uh, you know I hate to do it, but I'll buy them from you then for 30 gold.
A piece, of course.
Crew, what you be thinking on that?
And, on top of this, oh yes, your shark friend, I've got some old piles of fish guts I be sweeping.
I'll sell them back to you.
But here's, if you also let me buy these barrels, I'll help you out on the next little bit of a quest,
because you see, these smugglers here, we're gonna have to take them out.
And if you manage to do her, I'll pay you even more.
But I'll only give you the details if you agree with me on this.
Again, Crew, what you think?
You talk amongst yourselves. I'll go back to me sweeping.
As a clarifying question, he only sees that we have four barrels, correct?
Yeah, yes, because the other two barrels would still be in the cave.
Right. No, no, no.
You know, there's a total of eight casts of Randy. We only took six.
Oh, yes.
So there's two more still in the boat and two more in the cave.
So I was just mistaken, and that's cool.
Well, you guys can say you have four, or you could say you have six. That's up to you.
Well, I mean, these are the guards. I don't want to have anything to do with them.
And besides, that's that's that's 180 gold, folks. That's good.
We can buy so many new jackets.
She barely fit in the one you're in right now.
Don't judge me. And he kind of like picks himself up from falling off the brandy barrel before and stuffs himself off a bit.
Trips over the jacket again.
Me, me point being is you have at least two to three jackets of bertha material in there for yourself.
OK, that's very true.
Aye, Captain, we will we will sell you these barrels and we have two more in the boat.
Well, all right. It's you know, you saved me a trip.
I'm going to have to get these round back.
And, you know, all the old sailors and what have you, they're going to be happy to be drinking old brandy instead of grog.
You know, you come around, you come back around tonight and we'll raise a glass for you lads all together.
They're going to be a happy bunch. Yeah.
Hi. Hi. So. Hi.
Come round, come round, gather round, gather round.
He is all, you know, gather round him at the bar and he leans in real close and he's like,
so if it seems that there's some kind of land based operation of this, you know, smuggling ring
and if it seems that you lads have squashed it, then there must be some kind of seagoing vessel
by which this contraband was originally conveyed. Aye.
And it must still be at large.
I'm very fearful that any surviving smugglers could seek to reestablish their operation, you know,
from some other base here. They'll find another place.
And this might ruin old Perry the Pirate's business here at the Empty Net Tavern,
because you see, I'm in the business of trading myself.
Now, maybe not this high risk of contraband, but I do a lot to trade in myself.
It's true. I've seen the captain trade himself a lot of times before.
Yes, Shmee. Yes, he's been around. He knows.
Well, he tell you, he don't know what he knows, but he thinks he knows. Anyways.
He traded himself in the bathroom one time.
Shmee. Shmee, you're not supposed to watch me while I'm in there, you know.
Although I might learn you a trick or two. Anyways.
These surviving smugglers, they're going to be an issue.
So, if we can apprehend this vessel, or at least burn down this vessel,
or poke a hole in her and sink her to the bottom of the old sea,
once and for all, to stop these old smugglers, I will reward ye, all for ye.
Alright. What's a 450 gold?
Aye. That'd be a good price there.
Crew, what do you think?
450?
Aye.
Ugh.
Shmee, I'm very impressed with ye. You even knew how to say 450.
He just said it, Captain.
He rubs his chin and says,
goodbye food, hop like.
And Carwin, you seem to be pretty quiet today.
I don't know, I just...
It's very strange that the...
town is so divided.
Why do you not like the guard, if this is their branding that you like to drink so much?
Well, you see there, Carwin, our town do be divided.
It's ran by a town council, and you see, our town, we built her from the ground up back in the day.
She was abandoned. You know, ye old harbour is what we call her, back before she was rebuilt.
And you know, there was a lot of people in Kingsguard and what have ye, and other kinds of stuff.
They seen how much our fish in town was thriving.
And nearby is a very nice mine, very good materials.
And the council, they moved in a bunch of, well they divided and they moved in a bunch of dwarves,
agreed to let them mine here for more money.
And then the more money brought in, even more guard that they had to put up to stop the thieving.
We used to be a free town, allowed to do what we want to do, and now our whole town is divided.
You've got the traditionalists like me, who want to keep things the way they are.
And you've got the loyalists out there, trying to grow and improve and grow with the king.
There's even word around that there's some secret society trying to put an end to all of it, somewhere here in town.
So, someone like me, I just try to stay away from anything to do with the council.
Although, I do get to sit in on votes sometimes, you know, being one of the leaders of the traditionalists.
But the council's mainly run by the loyalists, and I just, it's not good.
These rules and people putting other people in jail.
For what, streaking? It's not right. If a man wants to be naked, let him be naked.
Aye, that I at least do agree upon.
Aye.
In the end, we must not let the council find out about these smugglers.
If they do, they're gonna, you know, they're gonna swoop it out from under us.
They might even put us all in jail for figuring out that we are now holding their contraband, alright?
We want to get in there, rob these smugglers for everything they got, and put an end to what they have.
Without the council finding out. Or the god.
So, none of you get caught up by the old shiny fuckers, alright?
Don't get thrown in jail, because if you do, the jig is up.
Why are fuckers shiny?
Well, I don't know, help. You know, they're just real old shiny fuckers.
They shine up their armor, like, they're some kind of cool shit.
Help, they spend their gold to look nice, instead of spending it on food like us normal folk.
Oh. Is fuckers race?
Uh, yes, help. The fuckers are the race. The fuckers are the ones in the shiny armor, help.
Fuck them, right? That's why we call them fuckers.
You just, all together, that's right, help.
I like this, this guy here. You got a good one, captain.
Help call them fuckers too.
Yes, help. Together, we call them fuckers.
Yes.
Help eat fuckers?
Well, maybe one day. Not today though, because that'll get you thrown in the brig and then the jig will be up, alright.
Help wait.
Yes.
To eat fuckers.
Yes.
Aye, so, do you know where this boat be for us to be sinking?
Right, so we need a plan. Now, I bet that they don't know yet that their land-based friends are dead.
There's no way for them to know. So we have to act fast.
And there had to be a way that they were communicating with their seabaring friends.
So, I mean, what did you all find there in that house?
Aye, well, it wasn't so much the house that we had to be worrying about, because they were in the caves down below.
Oh.
Unfortunately, unfortunately, one of them did escape.
Oh no, that's not good. How?
He rode a boat away.
I could not drown him in time.
Really?
However...
They really tried.
He did seem to be mighty frightened of what happened. He may not go back to them.
We did kill the leader, and we did kill one of the others.
So I'm assuming you know what this fuckhead looks like, aye?
Yes.
Well, that's good news then.
Because if by my estimations, this vessel must be traveling in from far off in the meat sea, somewhere far.
So even if he did get out and get away without being drowned, if he swim, he was on a boat, what have you.
He's got nowhere to go but back here to Salthaven.
So if we see him here first, we gotta take him out or capture him or something before he can go signaling his friends.
Aye, but also he could be the one that leads us to his friends, if we find him in time.
That's true. Now, I didn't put that one together. I did not. But...
Captain Perry?
Oh, yes?
Would you like a picture of him?
A picture?
I can draw one. I do draw maps, but I can draw his likeness.
Well, that is a nifty trick you got there, if you can pull that one off here.
That's cool. That's real. You could make up some wanted posters.
We could tell all the sailors and everyone here, you know, trade them some good old brandy for this man's head.
Robot Lady's lying. Only wizards can draw.
Oh, you think she's a lion there?
Aye, Shmi. I don't think you should be drawn to such conclusions.
Ah...
Anyways, if you would like...
Lions look like big cat.
Yeah, lions like big cat. That's true.
So if you would like to draw up something that might help us in this venture, help us all, if you would like.
But, back to me first question. What did you find down there in them caves?
Any sign of anything, maybe how they're operating or how they're communicating?
We kind of killed them pretty quick.
Right. That's okay.
Generally use hobgoblins, it seems.
Hmm... Hmm... All right.
Is there a clan of hobgoblins nearby?
No, I don't think so. They must be shipping them in. What else did you find down there?
Well, Shmi found a room full of scary skeletons and Shmi found books. So many books. So many books.
Shmi found goblins and brandy and this cool jacket. And he does like a twirl.
And he kind of like can't keep up with the weight of the jacket. Stumbles.
Well, good for you there, Shmi. You look great in the jacket.
All right. Well, good for you. Hey, you know, I'll buy that jacket from you for a gold piece.
As you kind of cut off what he was saying, you realize he was about to show the inside of his jacket,
and he probably would have had all the gold that he stole from the party.
Oh, shit.
He's like, oh, no, Captain. Jacket is expensive. Shmi like it. It really fits him.
Okay. Well, good for you, Shmi. You wear that jacket out, friend. You know, go buy the tailor.
Maybe he'll cut it down for you.
Yeah. And he kind of like runs the other side of the room. You guys just hear like a shing, shing, shing, shing, shing.
A little bastard.
Right. So you guys didn't find anything of use at all down there in them caves.
We found a few boats there and we have the one boat that we came back on.
And I did find some mighty fancy armor. But.
Hey. You guys did find pieces of paper that had some information on them. Also, a lantern.
Ah, right. The lantern.
The bullseye lantern.
I did find myself a lantern and a nice, long, delicate pipe of river stool and pipe of remembrance.
So we did find a few things there, but the bullseye lantern, I think, might be of some significance, perhaps, to see secret markings, perhaps.
Oh, aye. No. Captain Coxon, think about this for a sec.
Now, if we was way out at sea and we needed a way to communicate with our friends on the land.
If we had a lantern that shot a fucking five hundred foot beam.
That might come in use, perchance. Yeah, as I sit there, it's kind of still scratching my head because I'm a minus one intelligence.
Just I smile and nod like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Aye. Aye. Aye.
The bandits did frequently say, you can't stop us.
You may on the land, but not on the sea. We will prevail. Or you can't stop us. It will grow.
Well, my fucking balls will grow. And he slams his fist on the table and picks up a pint of grog and slams it back.
And he's like, oh, you can't get old Perry on the sea. Even with the smallest of dinghies, I'll sink your ship.
Well, we've got this here lantern. You know, I think it would even through fog, these fuckers shine bright.
Maybe they'd be communicating with it, but how?
Carwin, does those pieces of paper there have any dots and dashes on it by chance?
They do. There's well, she pulls out of her pouch the note that talks about the goblin words of common to Hobgoblin.
This one was what I was referring to with the Hobgoblin.
But then I have this other one that appears to be a code.
And it was in a small wooden box with twelve candles and some flint and steel. True story.
She I'm assuming whenever she holds it out, who takes it?
I, Carwin, let's let's see that piece of paper.
They're going to pull my lantern out, light it up and then flash the lantern on the piece of paper to see if it high or brings out any hidden codes in it.
So whatever you light this lantern up, everyone in the room is almost immediately blinded with how bright this light is.
Like, it's so bright when you shine it on the paper, the paper almost goes hot for a second.
It's like it's like super hot.
The flame on the inside when you light it is super bright and it is very large on the inside.
And then you immediately were burning fucking phosphorus.
Damn it. You know, I don't know what the actual science is, but but then you look at this piece of paper and kind of study it.
Captain, I want you to roll me a investigation check.
That's that's a four.
I've been holding it this whole time.
Yeah, OK, you go ahead, Carwin, you've been holding it this whole time.
Roll me an investigation. Oh, worse, way worse.
Oh, no, I got a whopping two plus one.
Oh, you guys are just standing around these barrels in this tavern staring at this piece of paper going, I mean, I don't know what it is.
I'm going to see if I can fold it into a certain shape and pertance the magical the magic words will pop out of nowhere.
Oh, I origami randomly start folding it, getting frustrated, shaking it.
Oh, that's great. That's cool.
Oh, yeah.
Origami. You're good at that.
I'm out of ideas on this.
Help grabs the piece of paper and starts to sniff it.
Got an 18.
He's the one.
We just roll the campaign.
All right, Jesus.
OK, somebody taking notes.
Help you then relay this information to them. You succeed on this check. And although not much is written on this parchment, you can kind of determine how this system works.
And for some reason, this is just you can maybe explain it to us, but you have experience in this and you know that they were using some form of S.O.S. to be able to communicate with this lantern, shooting it across the sea and long.
So here's one of the patterns.
Long short short short.
Means, is it safe?
Short long short long means everything is safe.
And long long long means ready to unload. Come to the ship.
Right.
So then Perry's like, I. So it seems this arrangement calls for someone to board the ship to flash the first signal.
And maybe someone on the shore replies by flashing a second.
I don't know when or where, but obviously this must be happening at night time and due to the nature of the sun outside currently, it looks like there's not much that can be done now.
Maybe even heading out to sea or up on the hill once the sun falls and signaling, maybe using it to head out there like everything's OK.
And then you head out there and catch them off guard.
You know, well, I do believe that we should head back to the cave system because that does seem where they their operations have been working out of.
So it would be weird, I believe, if there was a wrong position for the light to be struck upon.
Hi. Or maybe even they'd already meet them out there, you know, halfway out at sea to kind of pick up by.
Well, when you were down there, did you like catch them unloading or were they loading up or do you have any idea?
They were already unloaded there, so they were just going off a bit of a rant that nobody could stop them and they were going to take the town by force eventually.
Well, fuck them bastards over Perry's big balls.
That's why we kill them right on the spot.
Great. So you have some gold now. If you manage to take this ship, I'll pay you again.
And I promise the council will never find out about these stolen casks of brandy.
Right. But you've got the day.
I say go into town, maybe buy some things that you may need.
I've got a lot of cleaning here to do myself. Maybe even find yourself a place to take a nap for the day.
You know, there is a real nice inn around the way.
You know, there's a guy over there. He's been there for a while.
Apparently he came from some far off castle party thing.
I don't really know, but he's kind of a half a man.
It's a weird one, but you'll see when you get there if that's where you want to go.
Anyway, there's loads of places in town and you know.
So as Captain Perry was saying, let's be heading into town and get some survival gear.
Perhaps we find some potions because you never know when you're going to need some potions.
Shmi had a bad dream that we didn't have potions and everyone died to skeletons.
Yes, that is a distinct possibility. We must have potions.
Wait, wait, wait. You just want me to show a little leg.
Go in there, be all like, here's Shmi, look how pretty he is and get discounts.
Do you know Melowin too?
No. They don't let me in that store. The lady there, she chases me out with a broom.
Oh, I am sorry for that. That happens to a lot of goblins, I found out.
Shmi peed on her food once.
Oh, that might be why she doesn't like you very much.
We didn't lose internet there for any weird reason. This isn't cut together all strange for some weird reason.
Welcome back from the break everybody.
So as you guys leave though, one of the things that I want to finish off with,
as you guys finish this quest and sell these casks of brandy,
each one of you guys will be getting your first level up of this campaign, which is really cool.
I know you guys already did them beforehand to help save time,
but if you would like to explain any kind of new things that you got or what you went into for your new level for the listeners,
now would be the time to do that, right?
As you guys leave the internet tavern and Perry just stares at you holding his broom, just like, hi.
Yeah, hey Shmi, you're actually multi-class, would you like to go first?
I did, yeah. So Shmi, I started as a level one rogue,
but then looking at level two, I noticed that it had a lot of things going on with it that I already had.
So goblins can disengage and hide as a bonus action, which is pretty well the only thing that level two gave me.
So I said screw it, I put one level into fighter just to kind of help me out this early stages,
expertise in dual sword fighting or dual weapon fighting.
So it'll be a little bit more efficient and yeah, he's got a bit more hit points now, so it's kind of nice,
because we all know he's probably going to get into some danger here.
Yeah, a little bit.
My plan eventually is to make him level three rogue after this level one fighter.
Yeah.
Cool. Captain Coxen, what do you got, man?
Well, I started out with level one monk and I'm staying with level two monk with extra.
Now I have my key points, which I can run into some flurry of blows, patient defense,
step of the wind and just have a nice little extra combination to either disengage dash jump extra far.
Flurry of blows will give me three attacks per round or patient defense,
where I can just take a dodge action as a bonus action on my turn.
That's cool.
You get your key points. Level two is big for monkey.
Oh yeah.
I'm real curious about what Help got though as a second level blood hunter. What do you got?
As a second level blood hunter, Help got to choose a fighting style and Help chose two weapon fighting,
which when you engage two weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.
Nice.
And then he also got to choose a crimson right and I chose right of the storm,
which the extra damage dealt by my right is lightning damage.
Oh, sick. And that totally kind of fits being that you're a shark folk.
Right? That's what I thought.
Yeah. That's tight. Hell yeah.
Last but not least, Carwin, what do you got?
Well, Carwin leveled up in sorcery. So she now has font of magic,
which at the second level, she taps into some sort of deep wellspring of magic within herself.
So I get my sorcery points.
Nice. Deep wellstring of magic.
So I can expend sorcery points for spell slots or the other way around.
Yeah. Hell yeah.
Yeah. And I got an extra spell to learn. So, yay.
Fuck yeah. So like roleplay reasons. Do you have an idea of where this deep well of magic comes from?
Maybe just like some kind of mechanical thing inside of you or is it like your actual mental or brain chip?
I don't know. Do you have like an actual brain in your head? I don't know how that works.
I don't know. I mean, I'm sentient and I'm I don't really know,
but I do know that the higher that she casts, the more she glows blue.
So.
Okay. Well, hey, maybe we'll figure it out as the campaign kind of evolves.
Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
Right. So as you guys are leaving this place, you kind of have some time to wander around the town for the day before your,
you know, before your next big adventure at nighttime.
You guys have a lot of things you can do. And I would just like to spend this time.
You guys have a little bit of gold so you can kind of like experience this town.
You can buy some items if you like. Of course, you could just go to an inn and sleep until nighttime if you also choose.
How much how much gold would do we all get from that last thing that we do?
Hundred and eighty each because we had six barrels on hand.
Not each total.
So we are currently sitting holding a hundred and two hundred and.
Thirty two gold in the pot, plus whatever Schmi has a five finger discounted for himself.
It's squirrel fun. Yeah, I got forty three.
So yeah. And then so yeah, if that breaks down to fifty eight, I'm sitting at one.
I got one hundred gold just for personal use.
If I were to take my share, I don't really think I can get much of that.
So probably a good idea as a party, just get a couple of potions.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And look for gear and chests and shit while we're out.
Help one hundred percent wants to buy a second Triton.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hell, yeah.
We could probably find like some dirty fishermen selling one, though we don't have to go to the fancy weapon shop.
True. And if we if I find a good enough deal, I'm going to probably sell that scale mail off.
Hell, yeah. Oh, I forgot about that.
I'll have to look up now. It's running. I would be.
But I guess I'll just start back over a little bit of context to kind of get you guys going of what you can see in the town as you guys are walking around and stuff
right across the street as you leave the empty net tavern.
There looks like there is some kind of trade kind of post.
There's a sign out front that says the faithful quartermasters of Luz.
And it looks like they are shipping in crates of fish like large crates of fish.
They're bringing them in and they're carrying them back out to the coast and putting them on ships.
But you can see it also looks like there is a bright red female tiefling kind of like on the inside.
And she has like as you guys walk past, she has like a large scroll.
She's kind of like taking notes of everything.
And yeah, she looks she looks like she definitely doesn't belong there, but she's kind of taking notes.
All right. As you guys walk around the corner, you can see there is a another tavern.
It's called the Wicker Goat.
But instead of there being there's a sign that says the Wicker Goat.
But instead of there being sailors and other kinds of stuff there, there is a bunch of like guard and very nicely dressed people on the inside, kind of like eating breakfast and stuff.
As you guys walk over the bridge, there are signs that say the weekly market.
And you can see there are a bunch of different tables out in the kind of like town square here.
From what you can kind of gather is maybe this is something they do kind of like once a week is like a fish market, so to speak.
Fuck. You guys continue around past the market and you can see that there is a there's a few other things.
But eventually something else that kind of catches your eyes.
It looks like there is a blacksmith's forge that has a single anvil with a clear sign of dwarven origins.
And it looks like there's like a little there's a little scroll on the wall and it looks like it has a backlog of orders like 10 miles long of hooks, nails, harpoons, knives, fishing weights and much more.
But you see standing behind the anvil is an elderly dark skinned woman and she kind of banging away at it.
Help will approach the blacksmith.
And she's banging away. King, king, king.
You approach and she kind of looks up at you and you can see underneath her eyes are just like completely like black and like covered in like coal and stuff.
And she looks up. She doesn't say one word. She just keeps banging along.
You make help Trident.
You want me to make you a Trident? Can't you? Oh my gosh.
I'm so stressed. Can't you can't you see this list of things that I have to I have to make?
What do you what do you what do you new here? Who are you?
Is the list a paper list? Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Help grabs the list and then eats it.
It's like super, super long. Like it's like a really long list, like probably about as tall as you. So I figure you grab it and put like you put like a piece of it.
Yeah. In your mouth. And then she is going to like swing out with her fucking her her anvil hammer and like hit you on the head with it and be like, no bad.
I'm going to I'm going to roll to hit.
Oh, no. He only has five hit points.
You guys still haven't rested yet. He can get knocked out.
All right. That's a six. She probably only has like a plus two with this thing. So that's like an eight. Does it hit you? No, an eight doesn't hit.
No, she swings and hits and she when she misses, she's going to like grab it and rip it out of your mouth.
You're like rip it out. And then she's going to look at it.
You totally ate like 10 of my orders. How am I supposed to remember what those were?
You owe me. You owe me, shark man.
Tell them shark eat it.
Well, I guess now that I have to tell all these people and figure out who they were again, you know what? I guess you did free up a couple of spots on my list since I can't do that work for a few days now because they have to re figure it out. So, you know what? Sure.
What would you like?
Hope want Trident.
Okay, a trident. Okay. Well, actually, I have made a few of those. She's like, since you ate half my list and you caused me some issues, I'll make it you a trident for eight gold.
Okay, deal.
All right, but I'm going to have to work on it. So you're going to have to come back around and I don't know, 30 minutes or something. I might have it done.
Help looks to car when it says set timer for 30 minutes.
I cannot believe you.
Help, I will notify you when 30 minutes have passed.
Thank you, car.
You're very welcome. Help there. Would you be looking into buying some Mariner scale mail while we're here?
Well, my name is Mephira.
So please don't call me blacksmith. That's just kind of rude.
Scale mail, though I mostly deal in things for either the dwarves in the mines or for the fishermen. I have no real use for armor.
But there are a few other people that might be interested all around.
So I, you know, I'm not going to be rude to you, even though your friend just ate my fucking list.
But, you know, just just just keep looking.
If you only knew half the trouble this man causes by eating things, we literally have a list.
We must remind him of things he can and cannot eat.
By the way, car when I would you mind to the list?
Thank you. Please add a list to your list of things that he can eat.
Adding paper lists to list of unapproved items.
Jesus. Yeah. There's a woman. Her name is Kaorna. Her name is Kaorna Kester.
She's a human. She runs a tannery where she produces colorful leather and other kinds of stuff.
And she might be interested in some kind of armor. So it's it's just around the corner if you like.
I thank you. And I hand her ten gold to offset Halp's decision to eat the list.
No, she's like, oh, gosh, thank you. Thank you so much. What was your name?
Hi, my name is Cox in the sea.
Would that's kind of what I'm Cox in this?
Yeah, well, if you. OK, I mean, your balls are.
Balls might be cold if you put them in the water in the winter.
It must be a summertime thing. Various centric parents.
A cox and is a position on a boat.
Are you getting me sticking me balls in the ocean for.
You know, you're right. Yeah.
I'm just just just get out of here. I've had enough of this for one day.
Hi. All right, crew, let's be on our way.
Bye, Miss Farah.
As as everybody leaves me kind of turns around to Miss Farah and he like runs up to her and just like
tosses her like a little piece of paper on the inside scribbled like a very shitty attempt at do you like me?
Yes. No. And then he kind of looks at her and like looks at looks that a blushes a bit and then runs away.
And he's like, coming as you run away, she's like me for the last time.
She says she throws it into her.
This isn't the first time you've done that.
So picture definitely not.
There is a green market that is an open piece of land that is a place for selling and buying everything that
fish, salt, nautical or nautical wares.
Yeah. And after you guys pass by that, you do eventually make it to what looks like a place called
Kester's Leather Goods.
It has a sign out front and you can hear on the inside.
It sounds like someone is scraping really loud on pieces of armor.
I'm going to walk in there and just sort of scope the scene out.
Hi there. I've been told that you're the person I need to talk to about potentially selling a piece of
scale mail I found.
And you look to see that there is a female human and she kind of turns.
She's got very nice long red hair and she's wearing very nice kind of like leathers are like white and green.
And she's sitting on this tiny little stool and she's got a knife and she's rubbing it over what looks like a
piece of hide up against the wall.
And all around this building there are little tiny maybe knee high, maybe waist high shelves that run all the
way around.
And they all have like rolls of different colors of silk and leather and cotton and stuff like that.
And then on the far back wall there is actually little pieces of just hanging up clothes like you know like a
top, you know pants and a skirt.
There's even a couple pieces of like leather armor.
And then in the far corner there is what looks like a really nice suit of iron armor that has like some gold
kind of like running through it.
But as you step in and you say that to her she kind of turns and she goes, oh well hello there sailor.
My name is Kiorna Kester.
How can I help you?
You could help me by joining me for a pint of grog after you're off.
Oh shucks you're too much.
No I you know I sorry what can I help you with?
I just said you could join me for a pint of grog after you're off work.
Are you Miss Kiorna?
That's okay.
I am.
I'm Kiorna.
Yes, yes I am.
Alright fine, fine, fine.
I found a nice piece of scale mail I'd like to know if you'd be interested in purchasing from us.
Oh well that sounds nice.
Let me see it.
I'll hand over the scale mail and mention that it is the Mariners scale mail.
Right away she definitely seems interested in acquiring this thing.
And she kind of speaks up and tells you she's like well I do actually I sell and buy and trade hides from exotic creatures that I actually like to craft into expensive leather.
I don't normally buy whole armor. This is kind of out of my woodwork here but I suppose if you let me buy it from you for cheap I could totally take it from you.
Or even still maybe I could trade you in some clothes if you would like.
Hmm per chance, per chance yes.
Now when you say cheap how cheap are you thinking I'm going to be letting this go for?
She's like okay well I could only probably give you 150 for it.
I know you said this is the Mariners armor does that mean something special?
It just gives you some extra special swimming abilities and if you die when you're underwater you float right back up to the surface.
Oh well that's just nifty, that's so nifty. It's a magical one yeah.
You know 150 isn't too bad.
I have heard of a woman in town I don't actually see her very often but she's some kind of a fey.
She's got like red skin and she kind of buys and trades and magical things and she might give you a better price.
Aye I believe we walked past her earlier in the day.
Is she a tiefling?
I think so she's got like a tail.
Yes.
Aye well we'll go talk to her first and if we don't like what she says we'll come back and talk and perhaps discuss a trade for some clothing or something like that.
Hey Carwin what were you thinking about doing with that those bolts of silk that we found?
Did you have any plans for those?
So Carwin's you know in hog heaven in any kind of like fashion anything because of the goblin and the whole influence she had over her.
She has been touching all of these fabrics and feeling their thread counts and all the things so she was kind of distracted when she was talking earlier and oh yes I do like
it's not very practical but I would like a dress eventually.
Oh well hey you know sweetheart I can absolutely make you a dress and I as I said before I kind of buy and trade in exotic creature hides and if you bring them to me I can actually make you one.
Absolutely just for a small fee.
So actually a little bit of game you know kind of meta gaming here.
She will indeed buy hides from you guys.
And she just so you guys know exactly she will pay in gold pieces equal to a hundred times a creature's challenge rating for an intact hide of any beast or monstrosity of a challenge rating of three or higher.
From what I've felt around in her store and looking at the pieces that she has on the mannequins and things like that.
Can I tell that she is hand stitch and she's tailoring these items like they were previously bigger or smaller or something and she's added stuff to them to make them into the pieces that are she's displaying.
Absolutely, yeah, you can kind of tell a lot of it's like hand done but it looks real professional.
Okay.
Thank you Erna.
Oh yes sweetie.
Can you make this jacket and I point to the Schmi's jacket fit him properly.
It's very, very poorly fitting.
Oh well he's just a cute little sweetheart down there.
I'll do that for you if you want me to but only of course if you want me to sweetie.
Take Schmi's jacket for yourself.
Well no, I would have to take it from you for at least an hour, but I would give it back I promise.
Then he kind of like opens it up and you can see him like turns away from the crowd and he's kind of like rummaging a bit and moving stuff around and he takes the jacket off and he hands it up to the lady and he's like okay but don't clean it.
What's it back?
He got all his stains where he wants them.
Okay, sure sweetheart of course.
So if you want me to just do a simple him job it's only going to be 10 gold but I tell you what, if you want like some extra pockets or anything kind of fancy in there, I can totally do something extra for you for an extra 10.
Wait, wait, wait.
Schmi sees what you're saying.
Hang on.
He kind of walks over the captain he's like, Captain, we can get hem jobs for only 10 gold and then a little extra on the side you want to, you know Schmi has been a while since he's had a hem job.
I do know what a hem job is.
Yeah, Captain, come on, you know, the old captain used to give them out in the bathroom sometimes.
I just shake my head.
Aye Schmi, if you want to get a hem job, you go right ahead.
Just don't be disappointed when you find out what it is.
Thanks Captain.
Schmi turns around and goes, one hem job please.
Okay sweetheart, take your jacket off for me.
Alright, Schmi likes where this is going.
Alright, now thank you so much and I'll come back in an hour and your hem job will be done.
Wait.
Okay.
You will be satisfied, I promise.
Schmi confused but trusting.
Turns around and leaves very cold.
In his sack.
So as you are turning around to leave Schmi, I don't know if everyone else wants to leave or if you still want to talk to this woman or whatever, as you're turning around to leave, in walk three guards from the Salt Haven Academy.
They walk in and it's like chingalingalingaling and she looks up and she goes, oh hi guys, thanks, you coming back for your stuff, one second, let me finish up with these customers.
And then they just stand there in the corner, kind of eyeballing you guys.
Halp walks over to the guards and says, hello fuckers.
And while he does that, I want to pickpocket the closest guard.
Oh my gosh.
Okay, well we'll say he's kind of distracting him so go on ahead, roll me a slight of hand with advantage.
And we'll kind of play off that roll in a second.
But first of all, the guard looks back down at you and he goes, yeah, oh 24.
Fuck yeah.
He looks down at you and he's like, sure, fuck face, get out of here.
And then you reach into his pocket and you pull out a piece of paper and on the inside of it, it has like four gold coins.
And as you pull it out, you kind of like read it real quick.
And it's actually some kind of IOU for the tavern.
What was the name of that place? Anybody remember?
The Wicker Goat.
I do.
The Wicker Goat.
It was an IOU for one meal at the Wicker Goat Tavern.
Help walks over to Carwin and says, is fuckers on Duna Egnest?
Yes, it's under a different name, but yes, it's under the name Humanoids.
Would you like me to add fuckers next to it?
Aye lad, you'll have your chance at a later point.
There you go. So, Carwin, is there anything else you want to say to her about dresses or anything before you guys leave?
Kiorna, I think I will have a job for you in a little while, but I wanted to make sure that anything that you remove from his jacket is re-put back on.
He really does love where he puts his stains.
So lots of pockets.
He does love lots and lots of pockets.
Oh, yeah, of course.
I can totally do that.
You've got no worries here.
Thank you so much for helping us today.
All right.
Then a-ching-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling.
You guys kind of walk out.
The guards kind of eyeball you as you walk out.
You hear them kind of walk up and you hear Kiorna say, hey guys, here for usual.
Happy to serve.
And then the door shuts behind you.
Next time on the Grouch Couch Cast, our heroes sell their wares, get brand new stuff, and begin the quest to find and defeat these smugglers.
Thank you so much for joining us, tuning in, and letting us keep you company.
We will see you once again next Friday for the next episode of the Grouch Couch Cast.