From the journal of Namor the Mariner, Bastia:
Nov 10-11: Time kinda got away from us this past week. After drinking away the profits from the last adventure, we realized we still needed to repair the Bill's hull which is gonna cost quite a bit of gold. I gotta find us some work and fast.
Innkeeper is a bust, wants us to club rats for coppers. Morgan thinks this dago on the docks, Oliver, might have some work, so we hit him up. He sends us to the Red Fox, a front for some boss figure named Jimmy Hoffa. Hey if he's payin', whatever.
Jimmy is a union boss. Wants us to convince independent workers on the docks to join the union. Offers decent pay, if nothing world-altering, and we have no other prospects so we take a run at it. We get a list of those that need convincing and off we go.
We take a light touch to start and convince a few to join up, confirm a few others are die-hards, and learn that Jimmy is being investigated by a local patrolman, one SGT Barney Fife (Chris P. Bacon). Ole Fife and I have history, but if he goes sniffin' around the union he's like to disappear. We try to sell the information to Jimmy to let him know he's gotten law enforcement attention but he thinks that we should foot the bribe to run off Fife and threatens that if he goes down we go down with him. He's lost his bloody mind, I'm not payin' for trouble he got himself into.
There's a reason Morgan does the talkin'. I lose my temper and tell Jimmy not only are we not payin' his bribe, we also quit. He can keep his nickels for services rendered and we ain't no part of his little circus. Bye.
Great work, genius, now how do we get paid?
Nov 12: So I may have made an enemy of a local crime boss. Hard to say, I didn't stab him or anything. Either way, might be best to lay low for a while. We head up to the monastery to see if Hollander has any work for us, preferably out of town. He tells us about a potential Sinkhole of Evil that his unit caught wind of at the edge of the Dreadwood to the north. We accept the small incentive he offers to investigate and set sail. We arrive just before dusk and rest onboard after securing a solid landing spot for the next day.
Nov 13: Bright and early we disembark and get to sniffin' around. My dog Davey and I take point and fortunately miss the old tripwire set on the buried foundation of some long-forgotten building. Unfortunately the warlock Artorias doesn't miss it. The giant boulder that springs forth from some overgrown section nearby flattens him and his wardog. Morgan tries to scoop him into a bucket but there just isn't anything left. I make sure we get his gold and that there aren't any ambushers lying in wait.
We poke around and find some treasure stowed away beyond where the boulder was set. Musta been some cache left by elves or bandits or bandit elves. Ours now. Quite a lot of copper but we can't really be picky with how broke we are, so we organize a work detail from the crew and after a while get it back to ship.
Down a member but otherwise unharmed, we decide to continue the search for this sinkhole. We find a strange, crystal clear pool with a winding staircase visible at the bottom. I holler and it echoes back like there's no water and an open space beneath. More magic and our warlock's dead. Great.
We fuck about a while before someone calls back from inside. Maybe we can take him hostage? I toss a grappling hook down and after it appears to land on solid ground, tie off to a tree and descend. A brief pass through water and then I'm in a small chamber with a round stone door. Looks like a tomb. Has some elven scribbles on it, but I can't read it. Neither can Morgan.
We call through the door and a dude named V answers, says he's been trapped for over a month. Takes us a while but we're able to describe the characters on the door to him and he puzzles out there's a lever somewhere nearby. He just doesn't have any light. He fumbles around, finds it, and the door rolls open.
V says he's been reliving the same day over and over since Oct 6, the same day that we relived on MacDonald's farm. The tomb descends beyond this little landing that he's at and he says he's been killed wandering down there a few times. Having secured the bag and likely the target of our search, we "rescue" V since he looks like he probably isn't worth much to take hostage and sail back to Bastia.
Some seals accompany us a ways during the night which I interpret as a good omen. Porcan is with us. This is confirmed when we find a bunch of flotsam en route to town. We pull some aboard and it appears to be trade goods lost at sea. Some poor ship got et by a sea creature or something. We love salvage rights and secure the goods. Praise be to the Sea Lord!
Nov 14: Dock at Bastia. I'm prepared to fight my way onto the dock but there aren't any of Jimmy's goons waiting to thump us or anything. We report to Hollander and get our reward. We also learn that Fife is missing. That's a shame, but I did what I could. V and I plan to set out for Monmurg and move some of these goods. Morgan's gonna hang back.
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