As the group approaches The Sandship, they begin to hear the common sounds of a small town carrying about its daily business. The sounds give a sense of familiarity to this unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar land. Perhaps because they knew this was a place of safety; perhaps it was due to the harrowing journey thus far making it seem that they’d not been to civilization in much longer than it truly had been; perhaps it was simply Tyrone’s presence that put them at ease and knowing they would be welcomed rather than treated as complete strangers. Regardless, they feel comfortable enough to hit the ground running.
Tyrone suggested they get some new clothes, so they began at the general store. While here, they get some fine-looking clothes and hit a few of the other shops to pick up an assortment of gear and wares – and to sell some of the things they’d come across in the labyrinth.
As they make the rounds, they find that the shop owners are quite fond of Tyrone and are willing to strike some deals with them.
General Store: Breton Sernat; male age 60; bald with slight limp with his left leg; harmless-seeming
Armor Shop: Myna Inmain; female age 35; oblong birthmark on her upper left arm with tattoos of scorpions around it; quiet and respectful
Weapon Shop: Bander Brewlan; male age 35; exceptionally beautiful with braided hair and a long bear, also braided into two strands, which he keeps slung over each shoulder; charismatic and arrogant
Blacksmith: Don Corser; male age 45; whitish tan skin with darker splotches all over his face; lawful and fair
After visiting each of these shops, the group fragments a bit.
Burton sneaks off to the gem cutter for an appraisal of some jewelry.
Shadowsilver went back into the armor shop after leaving the shop with the others, just moments earlier, to see about getting his dragon hide made into armor. It turns out that it requires a decent level of skill so the armor smith declined for the full task, but agreed to clean it up so it would be ready for a higher-skilled armor smith. This involved cleaning up some of the cuts and removing any of the fleshy areas that would be decomposing soon.
All this time, Tyrone is somewhat patiently waiting for them to finish up so they could treat with Lord Martell. Finally, the time comes, and they head into the keep that is The Sandship.
As they enter the courtyard of this very coldly functional keep, they see a large wooden door that is wide open with a dais in the rear of the room. The keep seems lightly fortified with guards, but seemingly unsecure for its size, even with it being on the smaller side, as far as keeps go.
There are three men in the room, standing in front of the dais.
Tyrone begins the conversation:
TRYONE: Lord Martell it is good to see you again. I come with friends.
MORS: Tyrone good to see you too! Any friends of Tyrone are welcome here at The Sandship. As you probably already know, I am Mors Martell. I’d like you to meet Maester Tavion Crooler and my right-hand man, Tirius Granes. If you please, introduce yourselves?
The Unlikely Assembly then takes their turns introducing themselves and the usual pleasantries are made all around.
MORS: It is good to meet you all.
TYRONE: Lord Martell, I come with tidings, both good and bad. The good news is that my friends here have successfully retrieved the Tear of Life and it is back in my possession.
MORS: I am very glad to hear that. I’m sure you all have quite a tale to tell from that experience. So, what is the bad news?
TYRONE: Andrea is still out there with the Amulet. I fear she is unlikely to stop her quest at combining the Tear’s power with that of Lightbringer’s. If I may impose, we would be in great peril if we did not strike now to prevent that event from occurring.
MORS: Hmmm…. Well, we’ve seen what she can do. But on the other hand, I’ve hardly the manpower to stop her. I just had to send all but my last guards to the Marches upon request from Yronwood.
TYRONE: My Lord, I have some thoughts on these matters. Perhaps a private conversation would be in order, if you please? But before that, I really brought my friends here for that other matter you mentioned earlier this week. I did not share any detail, but since this group appears to be a departure from the norm, I thought it might be good to make the introduction. I also believe that Andrea may still be behind it.
Martell looks at Tyrone with a deadpan expression.
MORS: Please if you will all excuse us, I need to speak with Tyrone privately for a few moments.
As you exit the hall, the large wooden door closes behind you. Straining to hear the conversation, you only hear muffled sounds and intermittently raised voices. Then a loud dull smack, as you would expect a staff’s hilt pounding solid stone might sound. Then back to conversational tones. After a moment of silence, the door opens.
MORS: Friends, if you would please come back in.
The group re-enters the hall.
MORS: It seems we’ve got two issues to deal with and one issue might be influencing the other. Andrea must be stopped, there is no doubt. If she finds an audience there’s no telling what may happen. So that is the higher priority. However, without men to take her on, we are at a serious disadvantage to her.
The second is a little more nuanced and requires some background knowledge. You see, I am not content with remaining a lesser lord in this region. I am the first house encountered along the Narrow Sea in the Dornish region and our location demands greater stature. Admittedly, my pride comes into play here as well, I am not ashamed to admit.
In order to gain status and begin my peaceful rise, I tasked Tyrone with developing a wonder of the world; an oasis just outside our walls; a garden in the desert — a Water Garden.
Progress has been consistent and we are making great strides in its completion, but it seems that about six months ago, coinciding with when the Tear was stolen, the Greenblood’s flow greatly diminished and is reducing progress to nil. This is also impacting the ability of ships to sail upriver and to some of the towns more inland, which obviously reduces the importance of my port, and is actively working against my goals. If ships find other routes that are good enough, they may never come back here even if the Greenblood does flow as it once had.
Now that it seems we have the Tear once again, and the Greenblood still does not flow, there is something else preventing its flow. I agree with Tyrone that the timing is to much a coincidence for it not to be related to Andrea, and so we must heed caution.
Finding Andrea must be our priority. I will be sending some of my last men after her and then we will deal with the Greenblood issue afterwards. If Andrea is behind it, perhaps we kill two scorpions with one arrow.
So, this brings me to you lot. I will not impose this task upon you, but I would ask if you are willing to go with my men to find her and bring her back here. Or at the very least, the retrieve the Amulet of Lightbringer.
Tyrone claims he can locate her, but he needs a few days. So if you would be willing to stick around town for a couple of days, and then take on this quest, I can certainly make it worth your while.
Immediately Burton interjects, saying that he felt a bit slighted with his last rewards for retrieving the Prized Tear, and does not want to have this happen again. He asks about what sorts of rewards this dangerous task might be worth.
MORS: First, you will be forever a friend of House Martell. This may not sound like much now, but as my House gains stature, that will get you in many doors and make life much easier for a traveling band of adventurers such as yourselves.
Martell sees that Burton is clearly not impressed.
MORS: Of course there will be gold in it as well. The amount of gold will depends on the results you achieve. Additionally, your room and board will be covered by me while you are in town these next few days and I will supply you with provisions and horses for the road ahead, wherever it may lead.
I do add a word of warning: DO NOT cause violence among my people. If you do, there will be consequences.
Tholannan is clearly aligned with finding and bringing Andrea to justice, if for no other reason than to prevent the “other side” (meaning the Valyrians back in Essos) from stealing the power of Water Magic from his people.
The rest of the group agrees that it is probably in their best interests to see this through and Mors Martell bids his thanks. He suggests they go see Salna Skinner at the local inn about accommodations and dismisses them from the chamber.
The Assembly then leave the keep and go to the tavern, which is attached to the inn. Here they meet the owner of the tavern.
Tavern: Miltar Vaele; male age 60; clumsy older with only one tooth left in his mouth; very quiet and speaks in a whisper
They take a seat at a table and have a few drinks while spending the time talking about their future endeavor. After some time, they are interrupted by some commotion one table over. There were a group of 3 men harassing a bar wench, grabbing at her where they pleased and pulling at her to join them for a “bit of the ol’ in and out”.
Qhortho, having just about enough of this, stands up and suggests to them that they leave. He ‘places’ his arakh on their table. The gesture comes across as he’d hoped; they reacted as if he had undone his britches and flopped out his large Qhortho Qhok on the table. It is then made apparent that the one in the middle is the ring-leader when the men at either side stand up in response to Qhortho’s threat. They refuse to leave and tell him to mind his own business.
Their displeasure was brought to a head when the two closest to him made to grab Qhortho’s arms. Qhortho deftly stops the men with two strikes: the first was directed to the man on his right and he was overcome with the power of suggestion to descend to earth from the broadside of Qhortho’s blade. The second was really a follow-up of the same move, the arakh rebounding from the first man’s head, the blade coming in contact with the second man’s throat.
“You were leaving?” Qhortho repeated with an unexpected air of serenity. His calmness barely concealed the animalistic rage that boiled within, ready to be unleashed at the slightest provocation. Obviously sensing this was not a fight they worth having at the moment, the men left the tavern and there was much rejoicing.
After another couple of drinks, the group went to the inn and found that each had their own room. For the first time since boarding the ship, they were now alone with their thoughts.
The next morning, the group mostly splits up and has their own private adventures:
Burton:
Burton took to wandering the streets looking for some easy marks. After only a few moments, he is swarmed by children who he clearly recognizes as pickpockets. He pushes his way through them unscathed, then comes back disguised as a child.
He convinces them to give a share of their coin if he helps target some good marks. Burton distracts the fish monger by the docks and the children steal some coin. They run down the street and refuse to give him his share. Burton convinces them that it is a wiser move to give up the coin and they agree to it.
Burton also convinces them that he should take the lead. They run into the brothel and before they are chased out, Burton causes a distraction and sneaks into one of the wealthier rooms at the corner and hides under the bed.
Many hours pass before someone enters the room with a couple of the establishment’s employees. When they disrobe, Burton lifts a coin pouch from the patron’s garb and sneaks out of the room, making himself appear as the patron himself as he approaches the head of the house. The man is asking for payment for services and as Burton looks in the pouch, he realizes that the patron was going to swindle the house – it’s filled of iron coins! He tosses the pouch to the man and scurries off.
He soon hears some raised voices and when he looks back, sees the patron getting thrown out of the brothel. Burton then heads toward the tavern.
Qarzdaq and Tholannan:
As they are heading down the main street away from The Sandship, they come across a fortune teller. She looks them up and down and asks if they would like to know their future and their destiny. They’re not convinced she has any merit, but she assures them that she is the “best fortune teller ’round these parts.” They are still unconvinced but willing to give it a try since they’ve seen so many things in the past week that have shaken all that they’ve known. She tells them it will be 5 gold a piece, which they successfully negotiate down to 3 gold each by dropping Tyrone’s name a couple of times.
She invites them in and looks them over more carefully. Clearly she sees them as an unlikely pair. She closes her eyes, and describes her vision:
I see a setting sun over a dune… I see images of fire in a steady rain, and… the rain… it is falling upwards now… it is catching on fire?
Her head twitches a bit as if she’s looking at a picture on another wall. Eyes still closed, and even tighter than before.
I see darkness and a spear… it is thrown through the darkness and the spear pierces a sun that is rising over the flat desert. The pierced sun speeds up to reach the noon-time sky… I see…
She then opens her eyes and has a look of terror about her.
GET OUT! NOW!
She pushes them out the door and slams it behind them, locking it immediately then slamming the shutters.
Completely baffled, the two look at each other like WTF. As they do, one of the shutters opens and 6 gold is thrown out, landing in the street, with the shutter slamming once again.
After picking up and dividing their refund, they decide to head towards Tyrone’s temple to tell him of what they experienced.
When they arrive, Tyrone is in a meditative channeling state. Qarzdaq decides this is important enough to interrupt him and does so – then asks about what the vision may have meant. Tyrone, groggy and irritated by the interruption, responds aggressively towards Qarzdaq, questioning his motives with the interruption. Clearly taken aback by Tyrone’s response, they leave the temple without any real answers and head back towards town.
Once they arrive, they each go their own ways.
Qarzdaq:
Qarzdaq heads back to the tavern and happens upon one of the local nobles, Lord Wendell. It is apparent that he has been drinking for some time when Qarzdaq pulls up a stool next to him at the bar. Lord Wendell is describing his journey south 30 years ago, through The Reach.
“… I had to leave because I found myself on a losing side of a dispute among houses. House Bulwer is always making these claims to Bors the Breaker.” His voice crescendos, “but there’s no fucking way they are connected! The commoner blood that runs in the veins of the Bulwers cannot possibly be that of Bors the Breaker!”
The tavern owner stops him right there, and in his normally low whisper-like voice abnormally conveying a strength of tone, “Lord Wendell, we’ll have none of that political talk in here!” Wendell settles down.
Moments later, a young servant-looking boy storms into the bar and approaches Wendell, and says there is an urgent matter that needs tending.
Wendell stands up with his drink, takes another swig, then slams it down on the bar and sloppily says that he’ll be back to finish that. He then stumbles out the door, but still entirely under his own control.
Qarzdaq, still sitting at the bar, minding his own business, sees a thin plain-clothed man walk up to the bar and move his hand near Wendell’s drink. After replaying what he saw over the next few seconds, he realized that the man dropped something into Lord Wendell’s drink.
Just then, Wendell comes back in, “Since when is a couple of rats in the cellar an urgent matter??” He takes his seat and goes to take a sip of his drink.
Qarzdaq, wanting to limit his involvement, but still not wanting Wendell to drink whatever was dropped into his beverage, raises his cup, makes a toast, then slams into Wendell, spilling both drinks all over. Qarzdaq apologizes and says the next round is on him.
Wendell, annoyed at this clumsiness, shows his irritation but lets it go knowing that the next round is already covered. The barkeep pours the next drinks into their same cups. As Wendell raises his cup, Qarzdaq stops him and says that he thinks someone put something in his drink. As he says this, the plain-clothed man at the table who was near Wendell’s drink, gets up to walk out of the tavern in a very casual and normal fashion.
Qarzdaq points out that it was that man and the guy begins to flee. Qarzdaq trips him with Mage Hand and the man falls. Qarzdaq jumps on his back, pinning him to the ground with one knee in the small of his back. At this point, Qarzdaq notices that the man has three vials on his belt with differently colored liquids, one clear, one green, and one red. He’s also got two high-quality daggers in sheathes.
Qarzdaq begins questioning him and says that he has no desire to get deeply involved, but he wants to know what was going on here. The man says that he will agree to walk outside very calmly but otherwise, he remains silent.
As they get outside, the man turns around slowly as Qarzdaq asks again about his intentions.
The man says that he has no issue with him and that he’s just doing a job, but refuses to reveal any details. He then backflips and pulls his daggers. He says “you should leave now — this has no involvement with you.”
Qarzdaq responds to the threat by launching Scorching Ray – the man is hit full force with it, but seems only mildly injured.
The plain-clothed man then attacks with his daggers and as he does, Qarzdaq shields against the blows, preventing one of them from hitting its mark. The second, however, hits and Qarzdaq is badly hurt.
Qarzdaq then attacks with Chromatic Orb, his most powerful of spells, and the man appears to take a lot of damage, but still seems healthy enough to continue the fight.
The man responds with his daggers again and brings Qarzdaq within a few inches of death. The man then says “You can still disengage from this battle, my job has nothing to do with you.”
Qarzdaq drops his guard and the man takes off down the road, disappearing behind some buildings
Qarzdaq, with his body beaten and ego bruised, approaches the bar and asks Wendell why someone might be after his life. Wendell either doesn’t know or refuses to let on that he knows, but offers Qarzdaq 100 gold for saving his life, Qarzdaq refuses it and decides it’s time for a long rest in his room at the inn. Wendell agrees with the premise and leaves the tavern.
Tholannan:
Tholannan decides it’s a bit too early for him to start drinking and so takes the time to walk the loop of the main road. There are no incidents until he reaches the docks, where he is harassed by a bandit captain on a ship, closely resembling the character named Bluto from a seamen’s fable.
“Well, look at this ‘fancy’ folk! Didja make a wrong turn gal?”
Tholannan retorts with a minor threat, which the bandit captain attempts to escalate. Tholannan decides to look the other way and disengage. The Bandit drops the harassment as Tholannan gets outside of earshot. Tholannan then continues along the road loop and makes his way to the tavern.
Qhortho:
Qhortho wants to take care of personal matters and so begins his day by approaching the blacksmith to have a gold-plated horse token designed and crafted, leaving sockets in the eyes for gems.
After several hours, he goes retrieves the horse token and brings it to the gem cutter to have him set obsidian gems into the eyes of the horse. He then has the same treatment applied to the eyes of the dragon on his arakh’s hilt.
Qhortho then heads to the Sandship to commune with the horses, finding one in particular to his liking, forming a deep spiritual bond.
Qhortho then heads back to the tavern.
Shadowsilver:
Shadowsilver starts her day down a side street from the main road and climbs on the roof of a nearby apartment building. Viewing from above, she sees a swarm of children approach and crowd around Burton followed by some commotion and then sees the children all run off down the street together. In the middle of the commotion, Shadowsilver loses sight of where Burton went. Whatever, he’ll be fine… not my problem!
She makes her way towards the estates, not seeing much of a mark anyplace else. Her first target is the middle estate, surrounded by an 8-ft wall. Scouting it for a few moments, she notices that no one appears to be on the second floor. She climbs down off the roof and scales the wall around the estate. She makes her way to the building and climbs the coarse stone wall to the second floor where she is able to flip the latch and open the window, gaining entry to an office with a large desk inside.
After realizing that no one is around to hear her, she searches the room finding a key and a pouch of gold with a note that reads “For your services”.
She then sneaks out the door into the hallway and finds herself in a parlor room. Quickly finding the jewelry that is in plain view and stashed in drawers, she steals it all.
She then heads back into the hallway, and finds the master bedroom. As she searches around, she notices a panel in the back of a closet. She touches it and realizes it can be pushed in slightly. She does so and it recedes then slides to the left. Inside is a small door with a keyhole. When she tries her newly acquired key, it fits. She then opens this miniature hidden door and finds, then proceeds to take, an even larger pouch of coins than she found with the key. This time the pouch is accompanied with a note that reads “For services fully rendered”. She leaves the note, with the key inside the paneled compartment then closes the panel and works her way out the same way she entered.
She successfully leaves the estate and heads back to the rooftops across the street where she started.
Scoping out the next estate to the left, at the corner, she sees a clearly drunk man headed towards that house. She can make out that the man entered the estate with no issue and made his way upstairs. She decides to wait a bit, roughly 20 minutes, to give him time to fall asleep. Then she can sneak inside and see what he’s got in store for her!
As she was about to climb down the building, she sees another figure creeping along the street between the estate’s wall and the building where Shadowsilver was positioning. He was right below Shadowsilver now and clearly headed towards the estate that she was scouting. What the hell, she was here first! This is her mark!
The man notices Shadowsilver. He makes eye contact with her and holds it for a few seconds. He then breaks it and deftly scales the estate’s wall.
Shadowsilver intends to follow him, but maintains a safe following distance as to not be noticed.
As the shadowy figure enters the estate on the second floor, similar to what Shadowsilver did with the estate next-door, she climbs down the apartment building, scales the outer wall of the estate and scales the estate’s wall to make entry to the second floor window, just as the previous fellow had.
She gets inside just in time to see the man enter what she makes out to be the master bedroom. The room where she entered was completely empty, as if it had never been furnished. She leaves this room and heads across the hall. This one is empty also! What is going on here??
Finding this quite odd, she decides it would be best to lay low in this room and wait for the other guy to leave.
So, hidden behind the closed door, she wait until she hears someone sneaking past the door, with the quiet footsteps getting farther away until no longer heard.
Shadowsilver then heads to the master bedroom and sees a man lying in a big, overstuffed bed with bright white linens. A bright red stream flows from through the stark white sheets and she can see the man has had his throat cut. Knowing this is not something she wants to be involved with, she then leaves the estate the same way she came.
When she finally reaches the ground, she is knocked out cold.
Coming to just a minute later, and hearing voices coming from around the corner, she scales the outer wall of the estate and decides it’s time to head back to the tavern.
At the tavern:
Tholannan arrives at the tavern first, and enters as he sees a drunk man staggering down the street. Inside are two other tables with fancier-dressed patrons. He strikes up conversation with the people at the closest of the tables.
They tell Tholannan that they have been plagued with riff-raff as of late throughout the town, making it less and less safe to venture out. Tholannan finds the same story from the other patrons and from the Miltar, the tavern owner.
Qhortho and Burton soon enter and join Tholannan. Tholannan relays the information to Qhortho and Burton and they decide that there may be a way to provide some aid – and Burton adds “and some profit!”
They ask Miltar would entertain them requesting permission from Lord Martell to do something about this. Miltar eagerly agrees.
The three of them head to The Sandship and ask for Mors Martell’s presence, which is hastily granted. After a rather short conversation, Mors agrees to give the group rights to be the law and order inside the tavern only. He agreed to pay them a small fee of 10g per day each, for providing this service – as long as no further incidents occur.
They head back to the tavern, informing the locals that they had authority to be the law within this establishment.
Soon after, Shadowsilver joins them and they begin to swap stories of the day. They drink for a bit longer then head to their rooms for some much-needed rest.
For the entire day’s worth of endeavors, each of you learning more about yourselves and the world around you, you each earn 300XP.