While drinking at The Tame Salad with their new friend William Dune , The Green Dragon Brotherhood is interrupted by a couple of thugs, who demand Dune give them what he was apparently contracted to find. He tries to talk his way out of it, but Greer the Betrayer just fires a crossbow bolt from the hip, barely missing one of the thugs and kicking off yet another brawl. Shiv Drinkstep draws upon the power of Graxus and beheads one with a single blow, though the black and eldritch energy crackling along his blade seems to touch Greer as well. The rest of the group quickly beats the tar out of the other one, and Cleansing Waters kicks him out the window and sends him on his way.
Not wanting to wait around for the inevitable backup thugs, the party asks Dune if he knows another inn. He does, and he takes them there, sticking to the shadows and using his streetwise skills to avoid the men (all members of The Red) that are already on the prowl for them. They find their way to The Rag and Blade, a dark and damp and nasty place to stay - perfect for the likes of the Brotherhood.
They lay low for a week, healing and hiding and scheming.
Skarrow uses this time to locate a library and do some research on the Spire of Abartu, which is where the party believes Sooney-Crow of No Family is being held.
Greer the Betrayer finds a forger named Balama Dotsk and pays her an enormous sum to begin preparing documents and a lineage that prove he’s the long lost heir to King Uldred. He also spends a little money around town to begin salting the rumor that Uldred’s heir is returning and can be identified by a dagger-shaped birthmark on his neck.
Cleansing Waters hunts up an artificer, who dickers a fair price (100 gold and Waters' weird silver suit taken from the being that fell to the Mysterious Crater). This buys Waters a prosthetic hand that will have a harpoon/grappling hook combination when it’s done in six weeks' time.
Shiv and Dune just lay low.
The plan is to get out of town and make their way into the Suurat Jungle, at which time William Dune will cast a spell that will point them in the general direction of where Sooney-Crow of No Family is being held. On the way, however, they run into a particularly perceptive Shank who sees through Dune’s magical disguise. They party drops him quickly and flees.
Once out of town, Dune casts the spell, detects where they’re headed, and they are off!
Unfortunately, things go sideways very quickly. While Skarrow does an admirable job blazing the trail, Shiv Drinkstep fails to notice they’re blundering into a hydra in a murky, swampy pool. The nine-headed beast attacks, taking several good-size bites out of party members, but Greer the Betrayer poisons it into paralysis, and Cleansing Waters rerdirects the creature’s attacks back into itself. The Brotherhood lives to fight another day…
Which they do, two days later, when once again Shiv Drinkstep is dozing on watch, and the party wakes to projectile leeches falling from the trees! The leeches prove much harder than the hydra, latching themselves onto the party, sucking their blood and draining their life force. The party is all thumbs- Shiv tries to whip a leech into the jungle, but fumbles and launches it at Skarrow, who himself fumbles an attack while trying to save Dune and instead drives his sickle deep into Dune’s chest (after transforming into a water buffalo and rolling around in the fire).
Eventually, the leeches are finished off, but the party is bad shape already, and it’s only been 3 days…
TOTAL TIME ELAPSED: 10 DAYS