Stop off in Pentastadion

For the next few days, we sailed around just off the coast of Ilyria. Agnesia and his crew of a dozen or so salty dogs gave Elvis, Chris, Hans and me a crash course on how to sail the vessel. We decided on a name for the ship. We’re calling her The Hairy Tentacle.

During some down time we researched through the numerous journal notes from the treasure chest and the effort may have paid off. Whoever wrote it made mention of some treasure that’s located on or near a place called “The Crown Rock”. We then checked all the small map pieces and as luck would have it, one of them showed some sort of island that had the words “Crown Rock” on it and an arrow pointing to an “X”. We can’t get too excited yet, but it looks like we could be on to something.

We asked Agnesia if he knew where this island was located and when we showed him our large map detailing the Sea of Dreams, he was quite interested in it. The map that he uses for his navigational purposes is newer than ours, but oddly it’s not as detailed. How could our much older map be more complete then his? We both found that to be very strange. Regardless, he is familiar with the area where the island is located so we plan to head there after a quick stop in Pentastadion to finish up some business in the city.

The short trip eastward went smoothly and once we docked, the crew was quite eager to find the closest watering hole to whet their whistles – *very* eager. We all hunkered down at The Kit and Caboodle for a good long night of drinking. The place was a cesspool of creeps and other undesirables. Elvis was kind enough to buy the first round for everyone and long into the night we lost track of time, beer, and brawls. As the place was closing down, Chris noticed a group of shady characters staring at him but they left the place before we did. He then recalled that he owed some money to a mobster named Kron for a loan he took once during a night of reckless partying. That was some time ago and apparently Kron hasn’t forgotten about it.

We left the bar well expecting a confrontation with the thugs and they didn’t let us down. A good number of them approached us on the docks and quickly surrounded us. They told us that Kron was “out of the picture” and that someone by the name of “the lord” wants payment of 1000 gold pieces. Chris argued that he only owed Kron 500 gp’s, but was told that the lord paid off his debt to Kron. We took that to mean that they killed Kron and are coming after Chris to collect the money owed (at a significant mark up). We obviously didn’t have that much on us, so these kind gentlemen were nice enough to escort us back to the Hairy Tentacle to get it. Along the way, I was close to casting a charm person spell on the head goon, but thought the wiser because even if it did work, we probably couldn’t handle the rest of the thugs. There were just too many of them.

En route to our ship, we asked the men about their boss. They were surprised that we’d never heard of “the lord of the shaded fifth”. Apparently he’s a big time boss who controls a large section of the city and bullies in on the smaller mobsters (since they usually don’t have enough muscle). I can only assume that he has connections with a Thieves’ Guild and ties to the black market in Pentastadion. We eventually got to our ship and paid the men the money. Probably better that way. We can think of it as an investment incase we ever decide we want to take any work from this lord person or sell him some questionable merchandise we happen to find. We tried to rest for the remainder of the night but were constantly bothered when crew members staggered back from who knows where at all hours of the morning. I thought it best if we don’t ask them any details of where they were or whom they were with. Sometimes things like that are best kept quiet.

The next morning I needed to run some errands in town before we set sail. I went to the blacksmith to pick up the bone armour that I commissioned him to make for me. I’ve been very anxious to get it and let me tell you, it was worth the wait. It’s quite exquisite yet very creepy to think that this outer shell I’ll be wearing as protection was once living bone from various creatures. The breastplate is made from the rib cage of some large animal and the helmet is the skull from some massive humanoid. When I put the helmet on, the upper jaw comes down just above my eyes and gives quite a menacing look. It turned out exactly how I hoped it would.

Next, I went to quickly visit the alchemist Drosis but it turned out to take longer than I expected. I sold him a few of the strange items I’ve collected recently and he was kind enough to teach me some interesting concoctions with some of the other weird and mysterious matters I’ve acquired throughout my adventuring.  Once that was done, we picked up some supplies, food, water, fishing gear, etc. for the journey south. We were finally able to weigh anchor sometime around noon and head towards Crown Rock for more adventures!