Exploring the town of Sorgusa
The adventure began with a flashback to a new character, Elzy, a half-elf who had arrived in Sorgusa about a year or so before. The story of his arrival has morphed into a legendary story of him riding up to the dock on a dolphin who then swam away shortly afterwards to rejoin their pod in what could only be described as a farewell dance. Like all legends, there is some truth in this story.
Elzy, like most half-elves, left the community where they grew up to find a family that wanted them. Even as a young boy, he preferred the company of animals, and would run away for weeks at a time living off the land, as feral as the animals he preferred to spend time with. He eventually found his home aboard a sailing vessel by the name of Naglefar, ran by woman from a Morganian Isles. She was both feared and revered. Anyone who crossed her did not live long enough to repeat the mistake, but her crew trusted her completely. They believed that her Talisman of Jyloc protected them as well. Her First Mate was an Heasirretyn Elf, who was old even for an Elf. He had lived long enough to see the Three Kingdoms crumble and become the world the Humans now know. When the crew took Elzy on, the First Mate took a liking to this young half-elf. Over the next five or six years, he taught Elzy how to fight with a rapier and main-gauche. These training sessions were one of the few moments in Elzy’s life that he felt peace and the demons could rest. After sailing on the Naglefar, the ship was finally outmatched by a storm that ripped the ship apart. Elzy remembers seeing a man and woman, shaped from the clouds, both with tridents in the storm laughing. There are no other known survivors. A curious dolphin found Elzy nearly dead from dehydration and blood loss, who took a liking to this half-elf and allowed them to ride them. He was brought as close to the shore as the dolphin could, with the waves doing the rest of the work to bring Elzy to the beach. He woke with an old pirate captain cleaning his wounds and slowly getting water down his throat. Bjarke said that he recognized the tattoo on his arm, given to all crew of the Naglefar. Also sensing the magic within Elzy, the Innkeeper of the Ivory Oyster, took him in. For the past year, has been trying to teach him what he knows to control and the use his magical abilities. Elzy has a strong affinity for all animals and about four months ago, came across a hawk nest that had been abandoned. Inside was an egg about to hatch. Learning to train Harvee, has been a challenge, but Elzy is rarely without him.
The others were still in the room with the statue and the now defeated skeletons. They were tired and currently had no way to get out of the temple. Adarte, meanwhile, had gotten some other townsfolk to come. When the Heroes began wandering back to the entrance, a couple of them had rigged up some ropes and made their way down.
The first was Hor’gh, the owner of the General Store. Grace had learned of a bit of his backstory over the years. Hor’gh was an old dwarf that couldn’t fight any more in the Dwarven-Orc Wars. All of his children were dead and just couldn’t live in the Shyrorn Mountains anymore. He had moved to many places over the last decade, but arrived in Sorgusa a few years ago. After realizing that the General Store had been empty for a couple of seasons, he found something he could do. He was welcomed by the community, both because of his friendly nature and that many goods, like flour or sugar, were hard to come by, and now there was someone who could manage regular shipments. Being part of a community, has helped his internal pain, but the memories have not been forgotten completely.
The second was Olavar, who was one of the many fisherman of the town and whose family has been in Sorgusa for a few generations. Eldaria’s brother has often gone out fishing with Olavar, and knows him as a very good person. He is in his 30s, married with two young kids who love to run around the beach looking for treasures. Others that came when Adarte called were Bjarke, who’s days of spelunking are long over, but rigged the ropes to carry people down, Ester, one of the local women that help caretake the Shrine and perhaps made the sandwiches, and Elzy, who took one look down into the hole and backed away.
Rules Break Out:
Knowledge about the townsfolk was a good use of Area Knowledge skills, but in the case of Grace the use of Merchant as a knowledge skill. Elzy has Claustrophobia and failed his roll, badly.
Sylas refused to leave the lacquered table behind and carried it above his head down the hallway back to floor that caved in and started this adventure. Hor’ge did help get it pulled up to the top, since although Sylas is strong, he’s not 10’ tall. Adarte was very interested in what they found, as they sat around the new table, eating sandwiches and talking. Nothing the Heroes took was of any real spiritual significance and just wasn’t important enough for Adarte to care about. The books and scrolls, those were what he was interested in. There were legends and stories that Farlun had a daughter who swam and communicated with marine animals. In one story, he remembered the name Mylari. He muttered something about needing to find a carpenter, because he needs steps made to get down to look at that which remains in the library.
Once they get out, a couple of days passed without incident. Enough time passed that Eldaria’s and Grace’s wounds healed. But the Heroes had some business to attend to. Sylas had three ancient maces to see if they worth much, so with Eldaria in toe, one afternoon visited Kelvara, the Lord’s (and town’s) blacksmith. Sylas has spent much of his time in the past year in half in the service of Lord Mourava, with Kelvara, learning how to make weapons. A few months ago, Kelvara made Sylas a unique pauldron for his armor. Kelvara is the only other half-elf in Sorgusa, having come into Lord Mourava’s service about 8 years ago. She has been treated very well by the Lord and ensures the Lord’s family and his continent of the Tempore Guard are well equipped. Though many things could be sold at the General Store, Sylas knew that Kelvara was a much better option. She took one look at the three maces and noticed their fine quality. She was more interested in studying their craftsmanship, than reselling them. Eldaria was like a kid in a candy store, going around the smithy looking and picking up nearly everything. She did see some very nice arrowheads that could be fletched.
Kelvara was very good at crafting metal weapons and armor, but often made swords simply as art for the good of her soul. The majority of her works were basic wares for the General Store, with the Lord gets a cut of the profits, like pots, pans, tools, and horseshoes. She also made fishing hooks for Carina at Net & Gear.
Rules Break Out:
I am using the buying and selling rules in Dungeon Fantasy 2, which makes the Knight able to get more money out the weapons than would be anyone else in the party as Sylas has Comfortable Wealth (60% of sellable value). RAW allow a Reaction Roll to increase the Wealth level for selling by one. In the town of Sorgusa, the Heroes will automatically have this. The three weapons were sold for $120 each or ($360 total). Kelvara will also repair any of Sylas’ weapons for free, and his friends at a steep discount.
Meanwhile, Grace had become very intrigued by the coins they found underneath the statue of the Fishing Goddess. She spent some time showing them to Bjarke, who recognized them with a look of someone who had seen them before, but not necessarily knowing their history. There were too many people in the Inn at the time, but perhaps another time Grace could learn that story. But Bjarke did mentioned that he had seen Jaycen come into town early in the day, and was sure he would be back at the Ivory Oyster around dinner time. And like clockwork, as the first plates of baked fish with herbs came out on plates from the kitchen, Jaycen walked through the door. Grace had knew who he was, though perhaps had not had the opportunity to interact with him much, as Jaycen was mostly known as a gem merchant. Jaycen, as usual, was dressed garishly and unsurprisingly hails from Farallon to the east. Grace was able to find out that these coins were from before the Western Kingdom split asunder. Jaycen just knows of the legend of two brothers becoming rivals due to the machinations of some dark sorcerer that broke this part of Elandorr into Parduk and Tempore with the neutral ground between them. But on these coins is minted the second to last ruler of the Western Kingdom. To a collector, one might be able to get a little bit more with them, but for the most part, they are worth no more than any other Florin. Grace then remembered that she had found a bag of Aquamarine gems. Showing them to Jaycen, she could see that his eyes light up when he saw them. Being the socialite that Grace is, was able to coax more out of Jaycen than perhaps he intended. These gems were created by a now long dead, but famous gem crafter known as Fanel. But Fanel was in fact, Jaycen’s great, great, great, great grandfather, and showed Grace the Emerald crafted with the same insignia.
Rules Break Out:
Used the opportunity to teach Reaction Rolls, which Grace made successfully. This allowed her to gain the extra bit of information on the gems, which got her $156 for the entire bag.
The next morning, the Heroes began to go around their normal business when they see a merchant cog start to come in the bay to dock. The town started getting salted fish barrels rolled out of warehouses. From the keep came the Tempore Guards led by Slyas.
The World of Lycretia 