Session #45: The Charm Against the Iniquitous Nshe

Having purchased from the merchant Han a scroll said to contain a charm against the watery nshe, Arngeir went about attempting to recruit fellow adventurers to accompany him back into the sea caves where he claimed there was a pirate-hoard protected by a nshe in a black pool. As many of the barbarians in the city were engaged in their own business (Durham with his business, the Survivors with their interests), only Dehuhada and Persephone answered Arngeir's call.

They agreed on a bold plan--to take Arngeir's panga into the mouth of the Ocean's Throat itself, hopefully to find the pirates' lair, and attempt to lie their way in under the guise of "lost fishermen". To that end they purchased old ragged clothes from some bemused fishermen, as well as hiring Tanit al Jamila from the Arwah al Safina (hoping that she might be able to charm a guard, by magic or otherwise, and thence assist their plan).

And so around midnight, with the Fortress Moon huge in the sky, the company shoved off from the beach by the Fischmarkt and began rowing north ...

• Dehuhada (fighting-man 2)
  
• Arngeir (fighting-man 2)
• Persephone (fighting-woman 4)
  accompanied by Finbar (renyu) and Tanit al Jamila (magic-user 1)

When the panga crunched up onto the beach the next morning, the great sun's red light shone over a small crew increased by one addition: a man in tattered seaman's trews that did nothing to hide the horrible red acid-burns and boils covering his legs. While Arngeir called for assistance to carry the injured man to the healers at the Confraternity of 'Issa, Persephone and Finbar, Dehuhada and Tanit all offloaded several chests whcih they hauled to the Herm & Stone, where Arngeir leased his private quarters.

At the infirmary of the Confraternity, the man--Galim, as he called himself--begged Arngeir, "Don't forget me and my cut!" to which Arngeir responded, "We saved your life didn't we? But we'll see, once we've counted everything." He proceeded to tell the healers that the man was a lost seaman whom the party had collected during their boat-outing, but who had been attacked by a terrible jellyfish creature that had wrapped its tentacles around Galim's legs. Only Persephone's quick thinking to pour lantern oil over the wounds had washed away the lingering acid and prevented further injury.

Meanwhile, back at the Herm & Stone, Arngeir returned to find his comrades well into counting their haul of coin, and Tanit at the bar flirting with Akin the Beautiful, telling how with her wiles, she charmed the guards and allowed the party to sneak into a pirate-fortress built into the caves. After dealing with the guards in a rather less charming method, the rest of the party went up a secret stair and into a chamber with a great black pool, which rose up in a strange shape and moved as if to attack. But Arngeir produced a scroll for Tanit to read, and the spell thus cast prevented the thing--Arngeir called it a "nshe"--from coming too close.

"And all that treasure is what it was guarding!" Tanit declared, ending her story with a sweeping gesture at the chests of gold, silver, and platinum the party had returned with. And once everything was counted out and she received her share, Tanit took her cut and suggested to Akin that the two go find a more interesting place to drink ...

The Lucre

• 5000 silver dirhams (sp) and 4000 gold dinars (gp)--these coins are of legal Decapolitan mint
• 1000 platinum mithqals (pp); of these, 1 mithqal = 10 dinars, but unfortunately, the mint is foreign, and it will require the services of a money-changer to change these 1000 mithqals into useable coin, at the price of 10% of the total value
• 1175 gp from 19 gems (5@25, 6@50, 2@75, 6@100)

The Learning

• 15675 xp from treasure
• 414 xp from pirates x7 (100 + hp ea.)
• 544 xp from the nshe (500 + hp)
• 167 xp from the "acid jellyfish" (150 + hp)

The Cut

• 1478 gp, 1434 sp to each player-character
  739 gp, 717 sp to Tanit al Jamila
• 5600 xp per player-character
  2800 xp to Tanit al Jamila
• concerning the platinum mithqals, the characters can either split them now, to be changed (or not) by each individual according to their whim, or changed en masse and the gold value then divided out, which would increase every individual cut of gold; either way, a downtime is necessary to seek out and secure the services of a money-changer

As always, play reports, art, etc. concerning the events of the expedition and provided to me to be published to the blog are worth 100 xp to the corresponding player-character.