We get to town…well, the suburbs, at least. This area is called Breakwater Keep, or maybe just Breakwater. The sign is vague. Either way, it’s a bigger town than anything we’ve been to in a very long time. We need to restock supplies and such.
Handily, there is an active market square, and it seems to be market day. In the square, Gooseneck finds a merchant who can sell him some whale oil as a replacement for the goose grease he used up diving in frigid waters, as well as a flask of fast-burning oil for each of us to replace what was used fighting the trolls.
There are some guards giving us the stink-eye, but we ignore them.
Fathom remembers we need to drop off the Mushroom Queen’s orb around here somewhere. She checks the dagger, but it doesn’t really respond, and Fathom isn’t sure why. She’ll check again later. Pujol sings and dances around, providing a distraction while Fathom is playing with her magic dagger. It works, and Pujol also picks up a couple of copper.
Gooseneck asks the merchant if there’s anyone in town who sells magic equipment. The merchant points us over to the tower, and gives Gooseneck some ale. Fathom is suspicious of the free ale, but the merchant says he gives away pints and people buy it in barrels, so it works out for him.
We go to the old tower we were pointed to and talk to Sharrus, the seller of magic stuff. Inside, it’s definitely a shop, but looks pretty…mundane. Sharrus sits behind a desk and looks bored. She’s a tiefling. She recognizes that we are actual adventurers and that she might be able to make some sales here, and perks up. She asks what kind of things we are interested in.
Sharrus collects a wish list of items from everyone and goes in back to see what she can find. In the meantime, we look around what’s on the shelves and racks out front. It’s all flashy, pretty equipment that looks neat but would not be very useful in a real fight.
We bring out the various monster bits we’ve collected, and start negotiating. When all is said and done, we’ve made a pretty big dent in all the coin we’ve collected, but come out of it pretty well:
- Abran gets a +2 longbow
- Kay gets both a Cloak of Elvenkind and a Cloak of the Bat, at least until someone else can make better use of one or both of those items.
- Gooseneck gets an animated shield
- Corncob gets a ring of waterwalking and a ring of swimming
- Fathom gets a luck stone
- Pujol gets a harp with a variety of magical abilities.
As we finish up, Fathom checks the dagger again, and now it’s leaning toward the coast.
We step out of the shop to go find some dinner. We see a man trying to get into the shop while a couple guards restrain him. The man keeps insisting Sharrus ‘can help’. The guards want him to calm down, but he keeps ranting about giant beasts in Old Town.
We sit him down by the wagons to talk. He says a beast took his cow…well, about 2/3 of the cow, anyway. No footprints, no cow tracks, just a third of a cow left in his field. Based on the description, Pujol thinks a burrowing creature could have done it. Maybe a flying critter, but it would have to have been pretty big. Fathom thinks it was probably a flying beast. The fellow says that there has long been stories of beasts living in the original keep that’s down by the shore; it’s been abandoned for generations.
We tell the guards, they say to let them know if we find anything and they’ll warn the populace.
We head out to the man’s farm, and ask questions along the way. He says the turf near the cow was somewhat torn up, but not a ton, and there were no holes or tunnels. The remaining part of the cow looks like it was bitten or chewed on.
We get to the pasture and look around. The ground does look a little bit torn up, like there was an alternation from above. Fathom thinks the cow might have been dropped from up high. CornCob sees large tooth marks on the cow carcass. The tooth marks are very, very large. Gooseneck sees hoof tracks.
Pujol goes to talk to the two trees in the pasture about what they saw. One says it saw a flying creature dip down and bite the cow. Pujol asks how big the creature was and where it came from and went to; the tree says it went in the direction of the sunset, and was as big as two outhouses. It had ‘shiny bark’ and thorns around its head. It was blue, like the sky, and flew like a bird. The trees had seen it once before, before this house was here. The creature had a snake-like tail.
The second tree was not nearly as chatty, at least not about the creature. It thinks the creature was a giant ground snake and didn’t notice which direction it went. It thinks the outhouse is great, though. Very well built and picturesque.
Bill, the cow owner, tells us more about the old town to the west. It’s said that the dead live there now, though other adventurers have come through and apparently done a pretty good job clearing it out. Bill hasn’t had an issue with his cows getting eaten before. His father built the house he’s living in now, 30 years ago.
We spend the night at Bill’s place and have a lovely dinner. During the night, Fathom checks the dagger again. Of course, it points toward Old Town.
In the morning, we head to Old Town. It’s definitely been abandoned for a long time. On the outskirts, we see a gibbet with a body in it, though the body appears somewhat fresher than the ruins around it.
Abran and I sneak ahead to scout. We come across a central open square in among the ruined buildings. I notice some movement in one of the towers, and we head that way to investigate. Behind us, Fathom checks the dagger again, and it points back the way we came.
The base of the tower expands and the rubble explodes outward as a very large, blue, dragon-like lizard reveals itself.
I guess it was a flying beast that ate the cow.
