Aldors Journal : Entry 22
To calmer seas….maybe….
Leilon has a checkered past, to put it mildly.
Apparently, during the Spellplague some mage here went mad, which predictably ended in catastrophe. You'd think a place with that kind of history would have learned to keep its guard up, but apparently not. The walls are low, the guards lightly armed, and most of them look dressed more for an afternoon stroll than defending a town.
Ukalis questioned one of the guards about the necromancer, but got nothing useful. He didn't seem to know a damn thing about him. What he did know were old stories about a black dragon - we imagine these stories are about the very real Dracolich we just almost ran into...
With no real leads to chase here, I made the call that we should find the harbormaster. Priority one was securing passage northwest. Priority two was finding somewhere to sleep. And more importantly, I needed to find some way to get word back to Cullen and Melania.
The harbormaster pointed us toward a ship called the Sea Sprite, captained by an older sailor named Galeg. The way he tells it, dispite the Sprite’s good ole days being far behind it, Galeg has been sailing these waters longer than any of us have been alive - good enough for me.
We secured passage for the following morning.
Which left us with an evening to kill.
Naturally, we were told about a tavern called the Buck, supposedly the roughest establishment in town.
That sounded less like a warning and more like a challenge.
When we arrived, though, I wasn't terribly impressed. Everyone seemed friendly enough. I wasn't sure why the harbormaster had talked about the place like it was some sort of local fight club.
Then Ukalis stepped out.
Silly man.
Cade and I did the only reasonable thing and started running up his bar tab.
Most of the sailors continued minding their own business, but eventually a couple of them seemed to finally snap under the weight of too many years riding the dark waves. They bolted out the door, raving about some sea god.
Perfectly normal sailor behavior, I'm sure.
Ukalis eventually came back, mumuring to himself about a mean man and kept saying “bullshit”, wizards, am I right? I left the boys to their drinking and headed over to the nicer of the Taverns in town to get our lodging arranged. the Knight's Goblet was indeed nicer, hinted by the not salty rotting floorboards like the Bucks, and staff that were professional and prompt, not shouting and drowning in dishes. I did find another adventuring party swapping stories. They'd apparently been involved with finding some kind of bronze dragon statue and had been hired by someone named Thalivar for work involving a place called the Ruins of the Tower.
Interesting enough on its own - but not enough for me to try to meddle in.
What really made them memorable was that these idiots were complaining about how much they'd been paid. I'll remember that, and have Thalivar down in my ledger as someone to maybe look into…
Meanwhile, from what I gathered later, the boys had themselves one hell of an evening back at the Buck, singing for the sailors.
Probably best I wasn't there.
North Again
Morning came, and we boarded the Sea Sprite with Galeg and started the journey north.
Somewhere off port, Galeg spotted another vessel in the distance.
A dark ship with two triangular, dark-red sails.
He kept his distance.
Nothing came of it, but I've learned enough by now to know that strange ships appearing on the horizon have a habit of becoming important later, especially if your experienced captain sees them and acts as though he saw a ghost.
Luckily our time at sea was fairly calm, and Neverwinter came back into view.
Home. Or at least something that's starting to resemble one.
We caught up with Melania and Cullen, and for now we've decided to put Theran in the rearview.
For the moment.
We've got people watching. If anything starts moving on that front, hopefully we'll know before it becomes our problem again.
Of course, Cullen’s list of burdens grew while we were away. There's apparently a slaver faction operating nearby, and he thinks it's worth investigating.
And that's probably where we're headed next.
But first, we've got some business to take care of.
We met with our old friend/partner Carion about getting the shop properly supplied again. Goods are moving, we're restocking, and he's supposed to send us a few candidates who might be able to run the place while we're off doing what we apparently do best:
Finding trouble somewhere else.
For once, I'd like to get the shop running properly, make a little coin, and have something resembling stability before charging off after slavers, necromancers, dragons, mad sailors, mysterious ships, or whatever other catastrophe decides it needs our attention.
Although, knowing us...
We'll probably get restless, or broke, and be back on the road as always….
We will see you all again soon, in the ever expanding and infinitely complex MAZE…
