With Tylorre dead and Arvos tending to his burial, the rest of us return to the bar. Lazra comps us some drinks, and we make the best of things. I take this opportunity to talk to people about a place I remember seeing in old journal entries: Tyar-Besil. Lazra thinks it could be by that Stone Monastery that we had such great fun in, others think it’s by the Slumbering Hills and Kled.

So, in short, everyone’s talking out of their asses and nobody knows. Something tells me that Sister Paxatus might know. Or, at least, not just pull something outta her ass. Sisters are good like that.

So, that’s a dead-end for the moment, we come up with a plan. Kinda. We go see the Sister for info first, then “Mayor” Cocoton, then head to Silver Springs, and eventually head to the Wickerman Festival.

So, the Sister has information that at least feels informed and valid. Or more valid. Whatever. She says that while Tyar-Besil may be a myth, she haas heard more rumblings about underground activity – Earth Cultists. She also say, pretty confidently, that Tyar-Besil is most likely underneath Tyr.

Well, now I feel dumb. My Ancient Dwarven is pretty rusty, but at this point I’d wager that Besil means something like “beneath” or “under” or something stupid-goddamned-obvious like that.

So, to the Mayor. This guy, I really like. I mean, I liked him before, but then he gave each of us an inix, mine is named Fluffy:

Yeah. Cool guy. So, we have mounts and a ton of water. Decide to sell off a bunch, keeping 20 gallons for the trip to Silver Springs. One thing we buy with our new loot? HEALING POTIONS! Six of em, at 50g each. After the proceeds from the water sale, we’re on the hook for 145g for them ( assuming we don’t have enough group money – Leo was out and we didn’t have a record – well have to pay that with a 10% surcharge if we don’t ). Healing potions are always worth it, especially if your healer pops in and out of existence (*ahem* Paul).

The trip to Silver Springs was thankfully quite unremarkable. Except that partway there, in the middle of the path, was a stronghold called Summit Hall. Just before it though, is the thoroughly desiccated corpse of a warrior. I scavenge a glaive and attach it to Fluffy while Kary’klii does some recon overhead. He sees a number of other dead bodies that all seem to radiate from the stronghold – which itself seems to have the black aura of necro-defiling magic.

Noooooooooooooope. Nope nope nope. Well, maybe another time. Just not right now, when we’re far from full strength.

Further past the stronghold, passing through a ravine, we’re attacked by four ankhegs! I don’t know who was navigating, but someone messed up.

They did.

The battle was short – they spit acid and grabbed Ghirgaz, but were no match for The Umbertaker™ – I smote one in but a few seconds, then killed the big one that Ghirgaz had hurt, and finally death the killing blow to the third that had my friend in its mandibles. The fourth must have been the smart one – it tucked tail and burrowed away pretty quickly. They killed one our Kary’klii can fly, so we really only lost a pack animal.

Silver Springs – quite the odd place – water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink. It’s all salty. We find a place to board our mounts for 5sp a day, while we go explore. We come across a “water taxi” place called scUber (I couldn’t not resist adding that here). Our “driver” is a slave named Slozar (which apparently just means “37”), and he takes us to see the Mayor – Jolly Grimjaw – an oddly contradictory name, if I must say so myself. Who will he send us to? Sunny McDarkface? Come on.

I will say this for the Mayor – he’s got some nice digs – it’s carved from the very rock face:

This is apparently the Hall of Servitudes – I’m guessing it’s “Slavery Central” – and we have a little chat with Rokka. He’s still out of it on account of his late teacher, but we assure him that we won’t sell him and any talk of that is only for deception and information gathering.

Well, we’re stopped by a few guards before we can enter, saying we need a number. A number? Really? Fine, whatever, screw this place. This place is dumb. We make our way to the administrative office, and when it’s our turn (double screw this place), we get questioned by some piss-ant whose boss isn’t even paying attention. We ask for a meeting with the mayor, and when asked why, we say we have a message from Cocoton (do we???). The assistant’s eyes get wide, and whips himself when he repeats that name to us.

Makes me want to get him to say it as much as possible. Like, right meow.

We get our number, AND and armed escort back to those big gates and enter.

There. Is. Metal. Everywhere.

It’s really magnificent. We enter a shaded courtyard with trees(!), and sitting towards the back is a large man with the jaw of a shark. I don’t mean that as a metaphor, like he had a chiseled jaw or something, or even that he held in his hand a shark’s jaw, but somehow his jaw had been replaced with the jaw of a shark. It’s pretty intense.

I wonder – does he have to eat carefully? I bet biting your tongue would be just about lethal. But, you could probably make a fortune off the Tooth Fairy.

Anyways, the meeting doesn’t go well. That was probably predictable. In the end, thanks to some quick thinking, I manage to buy our exit/freedom with Reszur. I’ll miss that dagger, but that for all of our lives seemed like a pretty easy trade.

We’re not doing super well in this town, so decide to mine a local slave bar for information, and Slozar leads us to one. It’s pretty much a wash, and before we bail to a Merchant’s bar, we notice that while most of the water is still, it seems to have a slight current under the bar. Odd, I think? This is all kinda new to me. At this Merchant’s bar, apparently Rokka’s “kind” isn’t allowed here, which he really doesn’t seem to mind and just kinda rolls with it. We see three adventurers and decide to buy them some drinks, swaps stories, and see what we can find out about Garr Shatterkeel. Preferably subtly.

Apparently there’s a skiff captain named Quandril who is looking to recruit crew, about half a day North of here. He has some sort of sand sled that’s been modified to go over water? That’s crazy. Then again, this whole damn town is crazy. His first mate, a halfling (ugh, halflings) named Pike, is in town every few days. We should keep an eye out for the Water Cult symbol (), which if I recall, was all over Jolly’s robes.

Session Date: 08/18/16 Prior Journal XP: 250, Session XP: 700, Total XP: 10,393