Pearls Before Rime - RPLOG
Participants
Date
10/1/480
Log
It is cool and breezy by Serenfall lake, and the water is blue and calm. Standing by the shore, conspicuous in the absence of his employer, is a tall, tending toward plump, Grizzly bear. "Over here!" he calls, seeing being making their way around the lake, "Are you the Freeswords here for Mister Widestripe's job?"
A small cat makes his way over to the bear, having to cover a small distance that seperates the two of them. He is wearing a simple white robe with golden thread embroidery that is depicting a dying tree with it's leaves fall off, in his right hand is held a staff that is reminiscent of a shepards crook. "Greetings, my good man. Indeed I am. The message was a bit vague on what Amar needed. I assume you got more information on what is needed?"
Lucca clunks along in her ornate, if ill-fitting, dark steel armour. She follows Kastovin closely as she's still not familiar with the area. Lucca is carrying a large steel shield and having a large flail on her waist. The young bear seems excited to be doing a job, especially for a friend. "Oh hi Gavin!". Feeling her excitement isn't to professional she puts on a more professional look, or at least tries to.
The grizzly bear seems relieved that he at least recognizes the Freeswords who answered the ad. "Hello, Mister Kastovin, Miss Lucca," he says, nodding to each of them, "Mister Widestripe is very sorry that he could not be here. He has a prior engagement." The words sound a little foreign to Gavin's tongue, like something long rehearsed. "We're supposed to be getting some special shell fish for him," he explains, leading the way to the water's edge. The lake here is very clear and drops away from the shore steeply. In the depths, beds of some kind of mollusk are visible. "Some of them have pearls inside," Gavin explains, "Most of 'em aren't worth much, but some of them are special, so Mister Widestripe wants us to gather as many as we can. Problem is, there are some nasty fish down there too. You guys up to it?"
Kastovin eyes the water, up to Gavin and then to Lucca. "I can surely try. My thick coat absorbs a lot of water, so I may sink like a brick. I knew I've been meaning to get a hair cut..." He strips off his robe be undoing the gold rope that ties it together. His robe falls to the ground in a heavy thud, showing that under it he is wearing some rather loose fitting cotton pants and a thick leather chest plate. He does not wear anything else up top. He rummages though his robe and pulls out a small rod of some sort that's tipped with a crystal, he tucks it into the back of his pants. "There we go..." He smiles at Gavin "I think I am set."
Lucca seems annoyed that she'll have to lose the armour and starts taking it off carefully after leaving a large peice of cloth on the ground to lay it on. "I can swim, I also fairly sure that fish will be more afraid of bear than bear of fish." She is wearing some basic navy coloured clothing underneath, putting both the shield and weapon down to, making a few fists and stretching her arms.
"Wait for me! Wait for meeeeeee!" A small salamander runs up to the group, panting tiredly. Zuri felt like he had sprinted all the way from Firmament! Too many cream cakes and not enough physical exercise, most likely. The little guy stops next to Lucca and Kast, slumping down as he catches his breath. He shakes his head, straightens up again, and puts on his brightest smile. "Howdy folks! What are we stabbing today?" He looks at Lucca, who is currently putting his weapons down. "We are.. not stabbing things today. Huh.."
Gavin explains the mission once more for Zuri's benefit. "Just keep your eyes open," he advises Lucca, "There are all kinds of things down there, and Rime Lamprey aren't scared of beings. Ever since that Temple rose up out of the lake, you never know exactly what might be in the deep water." The grizzly steps back from the water. "I don't really swim well," he admits, "So I'll keep a watch out from the shore. We just need a couple of the unusual pearls, so as soon as we have those, I got your pay."
Kastovin pats Zuri on the back with a big grin "There, there! Get your breath, you will need it." For all of his bravado, there is an unmistakible gleam of fear in his eyes whenever he looks over to the lake, but he looks back to Lucca with a gleam of hope! "If I start to sink and struggle, someone try pulling me up, please." He walks to the waters edge, dipping a toe in and shivering "Gah! It's cold!"
Lucca notices Kastovin's concern "Uh, why not you help keep eyes on water with Gavin at first, would rather you not put self in danger if it is unneeded." she looks over Zuri "Ah, you seem well suit for this diving, you catch breath and we swim together!" she moves closer to the waters edge, waiting for Zuri to get ready and will enter when he does.
Zuri nodnodnods at all the words being spoken, smiling brightly as Gavin explains this is going to be a swim. "Woo, swimming! I love that. I swear, those water folk guys back when I did my test had -no- idea what they were on about. I was born to swim!" He smiles brightly at Kast. "Don't worry, you'll be fine!" The small 'mander takes off his armor and shrugs out of the undertunic. "Okay, I'm ready!" He walks up to Lucca and nods.
Gavin takes up a spot on the shore and picks up a crossbow in one hand and a fine, mesh net in the other. "You can just drop pearls into this as you come up," he says, "Good luck!"
Kastovin waves a hand at Lucca "And let you guys have all the fun? As if!" And with this, he takes some steps back and does a dead sprint for the water, jumping and doing a cannonball into it. He does not come back up for a few seconds, but once he does come back up he starts to cough slightly "phew... It's not so bad once you get in here!" He calls to the other two still at the waters edge.
Lucca chuckles "If I do that, there be no water left." she slowly wades in then starts swimming when deep enough "I go down for a look." She takes a deep breath and submerges in search for clams, not too concerned about any threats as she's sure she can shrug it off.
Zuri grins wide on seeing Kastovin dive in. "Last one in is a-" He pauses, watching Lucca enter the water. "-uh.. last one in is the king of Sweetwater!" He dives in, plunging and emerging after a few seconds, a few yards away. He looks around, looks at himself, looks around again, pouts. "Well, that didn't work, still not the king of Sweetwater. Ah well." He giggles and dives in after Lucca.
The water of Serenefall lake, while it does not grant kingship or hippo-ness, is cold and very clear. Sunlight filters down to the lakebed nearly thirty feet down where the clam beds are, and there is certainly no shortage of the dinner plate sized mollusks down there.
Kastovin takes in a deep breath and dives in after them, regretting not having a spell of waterbreathing ready for this, even though he knew they were going to a lake. In spite of his claims of not being the best in the water, he swims like a fish, using his tail as a rudder to help direct him down to the clams. He tries to pick one up, but finds it's rooted in it's place, so me motions for someone to help him out.
Lucca doesn't notice Kastovin's attempt to get attention as she is preoccupied pulling as some shells of her own, currently holding one in her teeth and wrestling with another.
Zuri follows the others down, but as they separate to each of their individual clam quests, he looks around for one of his own. He swims to a clam protruding from the soft mucky lakebed and observes it carefully. He reaches for the dagger currently tucked into his belt, and gently slides the blade into the tiny opening on the 'corner' of the clam's mouth. A quick wiggle to make room ,and a wrench of his blade to pivot the clam open, and he's looking at the clam's gooey insides. He pokes the daggertip into the middle of the clam's soft flesh, feeling around for a bit of resistance and... AHA! He pushes the blade in and flicks the tip, extracting a tiny pearl into his hand. His mission complete, he kicks off the bottom and swims back up, leaving the clam to re-close.
The polar bear was lucky and strong to be able to tear a clam away from the stones they are firmly rooted to, but the second is less accomadating. Poor Kastovin has no luck with his mollusk and is forced to surface.
Up top, Gavin is waiting with his net, which he holds out for Zuri to drop his pearl into. "Great job!" he cheers, "It's not one of the special ones, but it's still a freshwater pearl, right?" He looks a little confused as Lucca hauls an entire clam to the surface. "Oh! Oh! Gee," he exclaims, shaking his head, "I shoulda been more specific. You don't gotta bring up the whole clam! just check 'em for pearls! The really special ones are kinda flattened and more pink than white." The grizzly sets his net aside and takes the clam anyway as the shell opens itself a bit and the mollusk inside starts to peek out. "We can have this one for lunch," he says with a grin.
Kastovin slightly struggles to get the the surface, but he manages to get there. He makes his way over the the beach of the lake, floping wetly onto it. "Gaaah. Why do they need to be stuck down there?" With a sigh, he stands and shakes himself, shedding the water as best as he could from his fur, but he still drips. Walking over to his robe, he digs though it and goes "Come on, don't tell me I did not bring..." He looks though his final pocket and pulls something out from it a flat bit of metal, not really sharp enough to do damage, but can slide into stuff. "Aha! Found it!" And with this, he dives back into the water.
Lucca looks confused "Oh, we always just pull them up first then open later. Okay." Pulling a dagger from her boot, which is a little akward while tredding water, she dives down again to have another go at that stubborn clam.
Zuri giggles. "Yea, a lot easier if you just open them down there. I-" He pauses as the other two each pull their respective bladed instruments and dive back in, and follows close behind them. He swims far out and then down into the water, looking for another one to open. No success yet..
The cold water is clear, and the large clams are not hard to spot, bunched together in little colonies as they are. The trick is finding one that has a pearl at all, let alone one of these special pearls that Amar seems to be after.
Zuri does not have much luck, prying open a pair of mollusks to find nothing inside but the fleshy psuedopod that lives there.
Lucca is no more fortunate in her choices of clam so far, but she does notice something moving toward the trio through the water. It doesn't look very big.
Kastovin, on the other hand, strikes proverbial gold on his first try! Slipping his knife into a shell and prying it open reveals a large, flattened, pink pearl about the size of a thumb to the first knuckle!
Kastovin glubs a glub of excitement! But doing so causes some of his air to escape. Panicing, he quickly grabs his pearl and swims back to the surface, gasping for breath. He swims back over to the bear and drops the pear into the net "Th...There!" He gasps and flops onto his back. "Give me a second and I will head back down there..."
Lucca swims up to block whatever it is from the other two, planning to grab it if it looks hostile, grabbing her knife in her teeth for now
Zuri surfaces up for air, looking at the shore with an annoyed huff. "Hey, I didn't find anything! Did you guys.. " He blinks, looking at Kastovin and clapping. "Hey, you got one of those! One score for you!" He recoups his breath, then dives back down to look again.
"You sure you are okay, Mister Kastovin?" Gavin asks, looking in concern at the soaked cat, "You know, we could probably build a fire or something up here, if you wanted to take a break from the water."
The approaching creature is some sort of long, undulating eel and the water grows noticeably colder as it approaches. It is not overly large, but its grotesque, sucking maw is filled with hundreds of jagged teeth, it does not take long for it to close the distance to Lucca, speeding up as it zeroes in on the warm body in the water!
Zuri's speed and skill pay off on this third dive! His clam gives up a large pearl, a beautiful, snowy white orb. Not quite what the group is looking for, but a lovely pearl anyway.
Kastovin shakes his head "No, I'm good! I got a job to to!" He stands up, when a large gust of wind comes and blows over him, drying him slightly. Shaking more, he runs and dives back into the water! This time, he would look and see Lucca confronting some sort of creature. The cat swims over to the bear, giving a thumbs up.
Lucca braces for the attack, hoping to grab it around the head, using claws to dig in against the slippery skin before it can bite her. If not, she can always grab it while it bites her.
Zuri surfaces with the pearl, hosting it victoriously "Aha!" He doesn't seem much bothered it's not the -right- pearl, it's nice and shiny! He swims to shore, deposits his find, and then turns to look at his friends, waiting for them to surface. "Hm.. where is everyone?"
Gavin collects Zuri's pearl and puts it with the others. "Mister Kastovin just dove again, but I am a little worried about Miss Lucca, she has been down there for a while now," he says with a frown.
And she has. Lucca is starting to feel the burn of holding her breath for so long and it does not become any easier as the eel thing slips through her fingers and latches onto her exposed shoulder. Sudden cold leeches into her body at the grotesque thing's touch!
Kastovin pulls the metal rod from the back of his pants. His colors go from a calm cyan glow to a deep chrimson as he switches on the mathemagical tool, a spool of fire comes off of it, substained by the crystal at the tip of the rod. He motions for Lucca to let go and to swim back up as she has been down here for quite a while. At this, he whips at the eel with his fire whip.
Lucca nods at Kastovin as they gesture for her to surface and does so, giving up her focus on the eel, trying to shake it off.
Lucca bursts out of the water, grabbing the knife from her teeth as she takes in a deep, audible breath. Backing up a little to look down at the conflict "There is eel thing!"
Zuri finaolly realizes what's happening. He nods at Gavin. "Stay here, I'll go in!" The small salamander takes a running start and dives straight in, drawing his dagger as he swims towards Lucca and the eel-thing attacking her.
A fire whip, while a useful and fearsome weapon, was not really meant for underwater use. The hissing, bubbling line of steam moves slower than Kastovin no doubt intends it to and misses completely as Lucca scrambles for the surface, though it does manage to take some of the chill off the water that the creature brought with it.
Lucca manages to dig her claws into the slippery side of the creature and tear it from her shoulder, though lances of frigid pain still shoot through her as the monster leaves some of its jagged, icy teeth in her flesh!
Gavin has jumped to his feet, and he is fumbling with his crossbow. "Where is it?" he cries, looking futilely in the water, rather than seeing the thing on the surface, momentarily lashing around in Lucca's hands before it slips away from her now numb fingers.
Kastovin turns off his whip and scrambles his way over to the beach. Crawling up it, he calls out "Everyone! Out of the water! I will try something!" Air rises up around him for a minute, drying himself off from the water. He makes his way over to the stuff he dropped, and he picks up his hooked staff. With a happy sigh, having that tool back in his hands on dry land, he stands on the beach.
Lucca tries swimming to the shore but she is clearly not in full control of her injured arm as it seems to be doing less wok. The bear looks a little groggy, but surely not from such a minor wound unless...
Zuri was about to stab a thing, but there's no thing to stab. The creature wriggles away, his companions leave, and Kastovin calls for them to leave the water, so.. he swims, hard! To the shore! Rolls over into safety as quickly as possible!
Gavin helps to haul Lucca ashore, though only a little blood trickles from the strange, circular wound, the edges are rimed with frost.
As Zuri hauls himself from the water, it becomes clear that that little tiff has called the attention of other creatures of the lake, and now, where only one lamprey was swimming, five or six circle the places where Lucca apparently left traces of blood.
Kastovin sees that everyone is clear of the water and this causes him to smile "Alright..." He takes his staff in both hands and points to the sky right above where the creatures are causing ripples in the water. It's quiet, nothing is happening, then a sound rings up that anyone would know right away, the sound of arcing electricity. Off of the cat streams of energy shoot off, licking the air around him. It rises up the staff in greater and greater speed, going up and down back to his body. The fur that is exposed starts to stand on end.
Lucca claws herself away from the water and rolls onto her back, pulling her tunic away from the bite "This does not feel right...". Her arm on the injured side is held against her body as if injured as it feels numb from the cold.
Zuri crawls on his back away from the lake as the powerful manifestation of electricity begins. He wiggles back like that until finally standing up a few feet away from the lake. "Wuh.. that was close!" He watches the sparky lightshow, before looking over at Lucca with a quirked brow. "Are you okay? Owie, that looks like a bad ouchie."
Having failed to find an appropriate target, Gavin sets his crossbow aside and hurries over to where Lucca is lying. "Shoot!" he says, "I knew I should have built a fire!" Beyond that, however, the grizzly seems rather out of his depth.
Kastovin's lightning jumps and sparks, trailing along the surface of the water. The lake is far, far too large for his electric storm, however impressive to do much in the way of actual damage, but by the speed with which the lazily circling lamprey turn tail for deeper, safer waters, it definitely did its job.
Kastovin huffs as his lightning goes forth, shocking the water. He throws down the staff and rolls around on the ground, discharging all the static in his fur. "Come on, clear off!" He says as tiny bolts of energy shoot off onto the ground. Once his fur is no longer standing on end, he goes over to where Lucca is. He looks at where the bear was bitten. "Hmm..." He says, looking at the frost that has gotten in the wound. "It's not that cold out here... Are those things cold?" He says looking at Lucca. He goes over to his robe and pulls out a small case and returns to Lucca, clicking it open. Inside is some basic field medical supplies. He starts tending to the wound, cleaning it up and dressing it.
Lucca grimaces and moans as the wound feels so cold it burns and withes a little while lying there being treated on. Never having really experienced any sort of pain, not to meniton pain like this she seems rather incapacitated by it.
Zuri dashes over to Lucca as she groans in pain. The small salamander looks over the wound, biting his lip. "Urf.. that wound looks weird. I wish Rokaroin were here.." He looks over at Kastovin. "I don't know what's wrong with this wound, but the dressing should help." He looks at Lucca. "How does it feel?"
Gavin, for all of his worrying and social ineptitude, is not one to hesitate. "Do what you can for her," he says, "I'll get some wood for a fire. Rime lamprey freeze their prey!" He hurries off away from the lake in search of suitable wood for a fire.
The shards of ice in Lucca's wound are beginning to melt, but the edges of the circular wound are worryingly blackened. Kastovin's medical training tells him that it is frostbite, of all things.
Kastovin looks at the wound we renewed worry. He dresses it as well as he can and waits for Gavin to returm with some wood so that he can create a fire. "Alright, you two stay here. Zuri, my kit is there if you need it for anything. I will look for some more pearls really fast. I would not worry about it too bad, has it's not really bleeding, yet..." And with this, he dives back into the water, slim bit of metal in hand.
Lucca still seems to be struggling with the pain, even if the ice is melting "It was cold, now it feel like burning... What happened to me?"
Zuri shakes his head. "I.. I don't know. I've never been bitted by one of those eels.." He looks up at Kastovin and nods, then looks back at Lucca, analyzing the wound. "Well, it's not any sort of serious bleeding or anything. Let's keep you warm and fed with liquids until we can get you back into Firmament I think."
It does not take long for Gavin to return with a healthy stack of kindling and a couple of thicker branches. "Just a minute," he says, fumbling in his gear for his tinderbox, "We'll get a good fire going, that should help."
Kastovin's search does not turn up anything but a couple of healthy clams.
Kastovin surfaces with clams in his arms, flopping around like a clueless fish to get back to land. Once he makes it back, he stores the clams on the beach and goes over to the wood pile, saying to Gavin "Don't worry about that.." He says, taking some wood shavings, or if none could be found he'd make some, and sets them alight with some very basic math. It would not be long before a good fire was going. Now he turns back to Lucca with a smile, saying "By now it should be starting to burn. that's your body registering something damaged you, because before your nerves were too much in shock to do anything." He turns to Gavin and says "I don't suppose you brought any sort of cooking pot with you, did you? I could really use some really warm water. I know I could cast some fire into the lake and collect it there, but that's not really clean."
Lucca seems more reassured by Kastovin's words and settles down some, inching closer to the newly formed fire, breathing easier. "I am sorry to make fuss, I got surprised."
Zuri sits close to Lucca, looking at her with some concern. As Kastovin approaches he smiles softly, but returns his gaze to Lucca. "Yea.. how many more of these pearls do we need? We may have to get Lucca out of here." He wiggles his snout, then reaches for his discarded jacket to retrieve a small case full of soul gems. "Well, I do have some of my other soul gems here, I could do a little swappy swap and fix us up with some warmth or something."
Gavin looks between Kastovin and Zuri, as the two of them ask him questions. "I have a little pan for frying clams," he admits, producing it from his pack, "Figured we could do lunch after you were all done diving. And the lake is about the cleanest water in Sweetwater. I mean, it IS the Sweetwater." He points toward the nearby falls, "Comes outta the ground right there." He gives a worried look at Lucca, whose wound has finally started to bleed at a slow ooze now that the frost and ice are melting. "Mister Widestripe will probably just have to settle for what you found," he says, "He'll be real happy that you found one of the pink ones he was looking for. I got your pay right here."
Kastovin smiles and nods "Thank you, Gavin. I wish I could've found some more pearls down there..." He turns to zuri "Are you going to give the normal pearls to Amar or are you going to keep them yourself?" He gathers all the clams into a pile next to the group. He redresses and wiggles slightly, feeling the warmth of his robes. "Much better..." He says to himself as he walks back over.
Lucca trying not to use injured arm, she parcels up the armour and hefts it over one shoulder, getting ready to leave "We can always try again another time if Amar want more pink pearls... well, I don't know if I build for this, maybe I do something else.". She starts walking back to town.
Zuri nods at Gavin, smiling slightly. "We can always try again later is Mister Amar needs-" He pauses, looking at Lucca and grinning. "Jinx!" He collects his things, puts his jacket back on, and looks over at Kastovin. "I'll keep the normal pearls to sell. We can split the profit maybe?" With that he starts walking back towards Firmament, taking point.
Gavin waves goodbye to the trio as they go and starts to pack up himself. A good bit of work. Too bad they had not found more pearls, though.
