Fish Paste

Bomilcar's narrative

Sanbalet, the Priest of Straasha who was smuggling arms to a mysterious tribe of Lizard folk, leads us across southwestern Shazaar to meet them. We pass through a rather empty region bordering the Marshes of the Mist before going a little way into the marshes proper. We follow an old but still useable trackway to what was an abandoned fort, presumably built at one point by the new nation of Shazaar to keep an eye on the area. Now forgotten, it has been turned into a refuge by the Lizardmen; Destiny still thinks they are a devolved remnant on the once-mighty Hsaal, the 'Doomed Folk' of legend. The trip is mostly uneventful, the only threats coming from the rather unpleasant local wildlife. At one point a large constrictor snake grabs Sir Blanque's leg, but a combination of weapons slashes and then Destiny's water elemental persuades it to let go and slink off into the distance.

For some reason the cover of the second of these three linked adventures shows a Sahuagin rather than a Lizardman.

We are met by a guard patrol of the Lizard people; their sergeant makes the Sign of the Waters, which is returned by Sanbalet. Seeming satisfied, they take us to their leader. He and his advisors speak Common Tongue; an especially interesting aged councillor even has Low Melnibonean. We hold a Council of War.

Apparently, Elmo and his team have not returned from a preliminary scouting expedition to the former lair of the Lizardmen, a craggy island that is connected to the mainland by a causeway. This is the beginning of the Serpent's Teeth proper, but the Lizard King tells us how to approach from the landward side, after a few days more along the trackways. He thinks the devil fish men (he calls them "Sahuagin") won't be expecting an assault from that direction. "We fled from their surprise attack almost a year ago now," he says. "They came up through the low level cave that is always under water, the main entrance to our home. The best time to hit them is at low tide during the day; they don't like full sunlight." The main problem is their number - the King thinks there are well over a hundred warriors, lead by a dignitary with the title of 'baron' and a high priestess with her acolytes.

After a long discussion, we come up with the following plan. I say "we", but it was really Jorthan, Sanbalet and the Lizardmen. Jorthan's training in strategy is beginning to pay dividends. We will all return to Saltmarsh to pick up the Sea Ghost, which will sail back to Aflitain. There we will be joined by our warship, together with its crew of Pikarayd fighters. Both ships will come to the secret location of the Sahuagin colony, which apparently can be reached from the sea - it's not so far into the Serpents Teeth as to be massively dangerous. Our group will drop off by boat along with Sanbalet beforehand, and come across the causeway. The presence of the ships will attract an attack by the Sahuagin, and we will hit them from behind. The ships will be careful to look as though they are not well crewed, and the presence of so many warriors will be a nasty surprise when they reveal themselves. In the meantime, we will head for the leadership and take them out in a commando raid. According to the Lizardmen, the Sahuagin lord usually stays behind to direct the fighting from a command post. If we can kill or incapacitate him and take out the priestesses, desecrating their temple to Pyaray in the meantime, the rest of the creatures will flee.

Low tide is the best time to attack; there are three levels to the place, the lowest of which is always under water. The middle level should be dry at low tide, while the topmost level - which is reached by the causeway - is always dry. Sanbalet says that Elmo's party was well equipped with items from the Temple of Straasha to help them underwater if needed; if it turns out that we do need to go submerged at one point, these will really help. I'm not especially happy about this bit; I don't like water. Give me a nice dry desert any day.

The Lizardmen provide us with a rough map of their former colony site, although they warn us that some things may have been changed to suit the Sahuagin in the last year. We then head off to collect our resources and put the plan into action. Fortunately, nothing of any note happens during the return trip, and we gather our assets and return by the sea route. Our commando group puts ashore in a boat at the point where the trackway leads from the Marshes of the Mist along the coastline.


On arrival at the causeway, we wait until the appointed time and start to move across, trying to be as quiet as we can. We know that the Sahuagin will not be especially alert, but there's no point in taking any chances. The path widens out to a substantial ledge in front of a huge pair of double doors set into the cliff. Made of stone, one has a viewing slit that seems to be covered on the inside by a metal flap of some kind. Sanbalet reckons these are barred on the inside, and prays to Straasha for aid. We hear a thud as the bar falls out and the doors open for us, and then charge into the complex.

We find ourselves in quite a large guardroom. The only other exit is a short corridor leading further into the island's interior; it is blocked by a large portcullis. Destiny orders a fire elemental to flare up, confusing the Sahuagin still further. There are five of them on duty here, and it doesn't take us long to incapacitate or kill them. Sanbalet has been praying to Straasha all the while, and we see another half dozen or so of the nasty fish men struggling in the room beyond the portcullis against some sort of strong net that has ensnared them all after appearing from thin air. "I'm all out of miracles now, I'm afraid," he says as Sir Blanque and Marion force the portcullis upwards after a hard struggle. It's just as well Sanbalet did the prayer thing, though, because it turns out that the Sahuagin had rigged a large net of their own as a trap on the ceiling directly above the portcullis entrance; if they had the chance to release that, we could have been in real trouble.

We ignore the struggling fishies, who seem to be cursing and swearing at us. At least, that's what I assume they are doing - it's certainly what I would be feeling in their situation. This second guard chamber has three exits, and we take the leftmost one, following it deeper and deeper into the complex. The place is eerily empty, which is just as well, because we find several sets of officers' quarters and a very large barracks. The Lizard King was right - there must be at least a hundred of the Sahuagin; our crews will have a hard time on their hands if we don't get a move on and do our bit. He was also right about the work ethic of these creatures; the whole place has been faced and dressed with stone, whereas it seems from our map that it was rough hewn when the lizard men left. If we do succeed, at least they'll have a nicer home.

We find another guardroom, this time facing inwards to a long slave pen, which is also empty. Jorthan, though, swears he saw something moving in there, even in the gloom [critical success on a See roll], and sure enough we find Elmo, the old Priest of Straasha. He is almost dead, and has obviously been tortured, so we use the last of our healing resources, a particularly potent healing liquid we found in the Auquhol Estate all those months ago. This saves his life and restores him to consciousness. His group was trapped and taken prisoner, and added to the small slave gang of various unlucky adventurers the Sahuagin have been using as interior decorators. He also tells us about a secret compartment in a newly added area just up ahead of us. He is in no fit state to fight anything, so Sanbalet offers to take the old man outside as we proceed.

We pass a large set of doors from which digging and tapping noises can be heard, and which also will be the location of the stairs down to the middle level according to our Lizardmen map. We go for the secret place first, though. It's just as well that we found the old priest, because there's no way we would ever have come across this well hidden place on our own. It's even protected by a nasty runic glyph thing that only Destiny and Sir Blanque can see. Destiny sets it off from a safe distance with a shot from her bone bow, and we find the gear of Elmo's party. I find a superb suit of full plate mail that  fits me perfectly, and is so well made that it doesn't cramp my style. This will be much better than my old set of wooden desert armour, although of course I'll still keep that for shipboard travel. Destiny gets a cloak and ring that give her full ability to function underwater when combined, and Jorthan gets a new shield. There are some other bits and pieces, which Destiny adds to the research list.

We reckon that we have by now reached the far end of the island, and return to the doorway that leads to the stairs. We charge in and take a group of Sahuagin by surprise; Destiny repeats her trick with the fire elemental. There are six guards and two overseers with whips forcing a group of ten exhausted slaves to dig. We simply overwhelm the opposition; Sir Blanque is particularly surprised and rather taken aback by how effective his Virtuous sword is against these creatures [a Critical hit saw one of them lose a leg at the knee]. One of the overseers throws its whip down as a sign of surrender, at which point the slaves jump on it and literally tear it apart with their bare hands. Nasty. They explain that the Sahuagin have been slowly working them to death; they then eat their prisoners.

Our sudden assault means that the way down to the next level of the fortress is now clear, and none of the opposition has so far escaped us to raise the alarm...

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