Too Much Money

The low elf, Berrian, found an interesting-looking bottle belowdecks. Before I could stop him, he opened it. There was a gout of flame and I expected the worst, but in fact all that came out was a warrior in old-fashioned plate armour. She seemed friendly enough, apart from a little smoke that seemed to perpetually rise from the joints in her armour, which was a little offputting at first. I thought I detected the slight smell of sulphur when I was close to her, but that might just have been my imagination. We questioned her, found out her name was Joan Gearhart, and that she thought the year was some four hundred and more years before the present day. I assume that she had been imprisoned in that flask at that time, the way it is reported that some Genies are, and she was freed when Berrian opened it.

After this minor bit of excitement, Captain Caine commandeered the privateer vessel and the stricken ship slowly sank. He worked out a deal with Captain Jimmy to borrow some of his crew and make the ship seaworthy. There was a small problem of a large hole in the hull below decks, which I offered to magically repair as soon as I had finished my dissection of the giant octopus. Caine, however, wanted to get underway as quickly as possible, and so I was forced to temporarily abandon my scientific pursuit and head below.

In the hold, I encountered someone who appeared to be trying to stow away. It looked like he had climbed in through the octopus hole, and quite likely had nefarious intentions. I didn't recognise him, so I attempted to restrain him with a magical web before informing the Captain about the interloper. He dodged out of the way, and I didn't try a second time as he appeared to have no violent intentions.

I accompanied Caine, Buff and the... person... who had popped out of the bottle... belowdecks where we confronted the newcomer. Caine asked him his business on the ship. He introduced himself as Ilyich, he definitely had a past on the wrong side of the law, and he was on the ship looking for a particular jewelled bottle - apparently the one that our new companion had come from. Since the goal of his contract was now unobtainable, he wanted to get as far from his previous employers as possible, so Caine offered him a job, with my own stipulation that he keep his hands out of legitimate pockets, and he readily agreed.

By this time I had already lost interest in the conversation and proceeded to mend the ship's hull so that I could get back to the octopus on deck. The dissection was worth it - it had a fascinating anatomy. I also found a small gold nugget in the creature's stomach, as well as being able to harvest a small amount of its ink.

Finally we were able to set sail, and the rest of the voyage proceeded fairly uneventfully. But as we approached Calimshan, we realised that the approach to the Shining Sea was blocked by a large number of ships.

I performed some aerial reconnaissance, and found out that the blockading ships flew the colours of Halruaa, Lapaliiya and Tashalar, with many ships milling about on our side of the line. For some reason the navies of those three governments weren't letting anyone into the Shining Sea.

There was a little discussion about whether we should just try to run the blockade, but our vessel was not a fast vessel, and as I pointed out the blockade was being maintained by ships of the navies of Halruaa, Lapaliiya and Tashalar, it was decided instead to put ashore at Memnon, and make our way across the desert to Calimport.

Memnon was not a large city, made all the more squalid by hundreds of sailors who had come to the same decision we had. We split up and tried to find out more about the blockade. Myself, I went to the library. Predictably enough, the librarian did not have a great deal of information about the blockade, but he did have a very interesting book for sale that documented the genealogies of certain Halruaan families between 650DR and 800DR. I couldn't resist buying it, since I had plenty of money to buy it with - the "spoils" of our piracy having been divided between us. I was interested to see whether the Gearhart family was mentioned at all. It was a very large book, so I lugged it about with me until I could get back to the tavern where we were all meeting. After all, I already had two quite large books in my backpack.

After that, I decided to make a visit to a gemcutter to exchange my coin for something a little more manageable. I didn't get a great value exchange, but I did pick up a number of very nice gemstones - some chalcedony, citrine and onyx, and some small pieces of moonstone, agate and malachite. I also picked up a large pearl, which is required for a ritual that I might want to perform some day, a fine piece of amber, and a large cabochon-cut tourmaline. All fit neatly into a small pouch and don't weigh me down like coins do.

Having had the chance to compare notes back at the tavern, it seemed that there were basically two prevailing opinions on the reason for the blockade, and the second was merely that the first was wrong. The first opinion was that the Yuan-ti of Chult were making war, as they often did, but it seemed that the blockade was an overreaction to such an event. I'm sure that it will become more clear once we reach Calimport.

At one point Caine got up to relieve himself. I didn't notice because I was studying the book I had bought, but apparently he was gone for quite a long time. When I looked up, the tavern had emptied except for a few people, whose attention was all on us. Of course, a fight ensued.

I tried not to get too involved. Buff (in his usual flamboyant style) and the new guy Ilyich seemed perfectly capable of dealing with the problem on their own. It appeared that a pair of thugs had ambushed Caine outside the tavern, and when they brought him in they realised that perhaps their gang had bitten off more than they could chew.

When it was all over, and Caine had recovered, we searched the bodies and found that the thugs had been sent by the gemcutter I had visited earlier, to relieve me of "too much money". The nerve. I decided that we would pay a visit to the gemcutter, a fellow known as the Shark.

Fortunately I was able to resolve the situation without having to resort to violence, though I was prepared for that. I think it was clear to the Shark that he wasn't dealing with a rich fool, and that I and my friends could certainly take care of ourselves. I don't think we'll be hearing from him again.