Riverboat Gambler - Session Six

Roddy and Zigar went back up the mountain to clear out the dungeon. They took the mutants Afex, Mancy and Josh with them. The monsters disappeared into the wilderness almost immediately and when the Gamblers were about half way up the path to the cave they returned with a warning: Cortez' Rangers were waiting by the dungeon entrance. There were twelve rangers with camels and rifles and they were probably waiting for someone to come out of the dungeon so they could shake them down for money. They had no doubt spotted the steam from the Last Round parked down in the river and had likely spotted Roddy and Zigar climbing the hill.

 

The Gamblers retreated down the hill, not sure they could handle twelve professional soldiers for the uncertain reward in the dungeon. Six riders broke off from the group guarding the entrance and pursued them down the slope, maintaining a respectful distance to maximize the effective range of their rifles. Roddy ducked behind a rock pile and the mutants similarly hid while Zigar climbed up on a rock to greet the rangers. The gunmen asked about the cave and the boat. They were chasing a mantis with a colored shell but had lost track of it. Was the cave safe? Zigar, master of tactics, noted that the riflemen were reluctant to get any closer. They knew at least one adventurer was hidden nearby, waiting for them to get within stabbing distance. They said their goodbyes and turned their camels to climb the hill. Two rode backwards and kept their long guns cradled across their knees, strange gems glinting in the twilight. 

Back at the boat, the mutants showed off a trinket they snatched from a distracted ranger: a glowing gem, faceted in a prism shape to focus light. Roddy recognized the device as an optical sight for a firearm, a glowing flaw in the center of the rock showing the point of aim. He did some calculations and got to work designing a sighting system for the ship's main cannon using the stone.

 

By night the cry of a Halfling watchstander woke the Gamblers. Aphono joined Zigar and Roddy to find a pair of enormous otters swimming in the mirrored light of the ship's lantern. The Halfling mage Gregorito Humblehair recognized them as a pair of Dobarchu. These water hounds had a cat's playfulness and love of torturing small prey to death. One of the beasts leaped out of the water and tried to bat the lantern off the pole. Roddy shined a light through the cannon's sighting gem to create a focused beam on the water, which the Dobarchus chased onto the riverbank. They began wrestling and retreated back into the water when a pack of Leucrocottas tried to eat them.

 

 

There was a grain barge tied up at the pier of the mandrake plantation. One of the militia guarding the boat went to get Orgeat while the other, a Gnoll, gnawed a bone and ignored the Gamblers. The Dwarf took receipt of the scalps and listened to the Horned Centaurs as they explained the Gamblers' heroism in slaughtering the one eyed Hogmen. He woke a handful of trusted prisoners to load two mandrakes onto the Last Round while he had a drink with the gamblers. Over mango rum he told them about the Blue Dragon that sometimes overflew the desert. She extorted travelers on the Plain for treasure from dungeons, but never attacked anyone by the river. Roddy thought over the details of the mandrake harvesting operation. The monsters had to be fertilized with the seed of a hanged man, and that was a limiting factor in how many could be grown. He recommended a diet of eggs, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and river oysters. These could be acquired locally and would improve the prisoners' output.

The Last Round followed the tributary back to the main branch of the Hog. They decided not to waste any time putting in at the rock pile village, and to continue upriver toward the Grange Bank. They were as close as they were ever going to get to the desert temple by water but they needed to warn the Cult of Aldrich's plan before walking off in the desert to die.

 

Dawn brought the wild animals of the Plain out of their hiding places. A sounder of warthogs came to drink by the river. The Halflings Tio Bravebelly and Aloysius Humblehair argued about whether they could pick one off with their muskets at this distance. They decided to both target the same one, since a single ball wouldn't do the job. They both hit and both failed to fell the pig. It didn't retreat, just staggered and stared defiantly out across the water (though it probably couldn't see far enough). Zigar tossed his javelin into the river and Aphono mercifully dispatched the pig with an arrow, prompting the rest of its herd to shuffle away when they finally realized they were under attack. The Halflings rowed ashore to retrieve the corpse and the Gamblers enjoyed a breakfast of warthog bacon and offal.

 

 

Further up river the land on the banks turned to rocky hills with a thin layer of sandy soil. A cactus cat crouched atop a cactus as a swarm of ankhegs searched fruitlessly below, unable to detect its vibrations. A pair of trolls hunted a thirty foot sand trapper lizard. They induced it to bite a hooked pole and then piled damage onto it while the barb lodged in its palate prevented it from retreating beneath the earth. One watched the Last Round go by while the other confirmed and butchered the kill.

 

Further up the river still, a group of rat people knelt at the shore to lap up water. They would have made a clean getaway into the hills before the Gamblers spotted them, but three of the rat babies didn't see the necessity of flight and had to be scooped up by the others. The Gamblers went ashore in a longboat to pursue them, confident that Aphono's tracking skills would find their hiding spot. He tracked them to a large rock where one of them emerged to confront the group. Hadn't the adventurers done enough, destroying his home and taking his idol and killing his family? Zigar immediately recognized this as a delaying tactic. Send a single sacrificial victim out to argue while the rest of the gang burrowed to safety. But that was alright with him, because the sacrificial rat provided a wealth of information.

 

The rat people came to the Plain fleeing persecution in so-called civilized lands by people who believed they spread disease and devoured crops. They lived in a temple with snakemen who offered them endless food in exchange for their service as scouts and occasionally sacrificing one of their young. Then an adventurer with a big walking house and a bunch of giants attacked the temple and killed all the snakes. The rats barely escaped. This had all happened yesterday. They came to the river because it was the only source of water in the area. The Gamblers let the rat go free and continued upriver.

 

 

Toward the end of the day, the next encounter came speeding down the river faster than any boat the Gamblers had ever seen. A yacht atop two long blades that hooked into the water, driven by a windmill that spun by itself. The Halflings feared an attack and beat to quarters. The big hydrofoil surged past them faster than the main gun could track, turned with one of the blades sticking out of the water and settled within shouting distance. Harpies with rifles peered down at the Last Round. A man leaped up onto the gunwhale, so shiny white at first he looked like a golem of marble. Then they saw his curly shoes, so like the ones Ishizaka had worn at the Mountain and the Marriage, and realized he was a Genie.

 

Zaheen Durwind was delighted to see a new invention on the Plain. He asked Roddy how it worked and was even more delighted by the explanation. He had his own machine for turning the energy of a magical creature into mechanical work and the second Roddy expressed the slightest interest he whisked the Halfling alchemist onto the deck of his own ship to see. He had a big propeller that he spun using a turbine while in whirlwind form, letting the hydrofoil skate around the river at high speed. His harpies regarded Roddy with disgust and curiosity, cradling strange rifles in their feathery arms. Roddy recognized them as air rifles, charged with compressed air by the Genie. They were accurate, fast firing, deadly and almost silent, though their power fell off as they used up their charges.

The Genie recognized Roddy as the Mad Bomber who blew up the Wild Magic altar at the star fort and the Giantess' conventional forces during the Marriage of Morwenna. He loved the Halfling's lifting charge design for the wedding cake and had incorporated it into his own bounding mines. Roddy said he would happily rip off the Genie's air rifle and turbine concepts if he ever got his own reliable source of wind power.

 

Out of politeness Zaheen joined the Gamblers for coffee aboard the Last Round. His people had practically invented coffee and he wasn't expecting much, but Zigar had a trick up his sleeve. Roddy and he had designed a machine to shoot superheated water from the reactor through concentrated coffee pucks, producing a bitter but flavorful concentrate. His signature drink was the Giant Killer, a turbo strong mocha espresso drink served with a cigar, which the Genie loved. The Halflings were wary of him because the only Genie they had ever met was Ishizaka, who happily sold weapons to the soldiers who destroyed their village. Durwind amused them by conjuring different objects out of wood and base metals.

 

Zigar mentioned that Aldrich had been spotted at the Serpent temple as recently as a day ago. The Genie speculated that the King of the Giants would now search for a sacrifice to Bloodfeast that would convince the Demon God of Sacrifice to make him immortal. He would either go to the Tomb of the Gods, the Lair of the Linnorm or the dungeon under the shield volcano at the southernmost extent of the High Plain. Durwind was confident he could kill Aldrich and claim the bounty before the Gamblers, plus he was only really out here to try out his inventions. And now he had to go, there was something he had to pick up at Potion Addict.

 

By dawn they sailed past a surveyor camp at the edge of the farmland that sprawled a league from the Grange Bank. The river was cut with irrigation ditches as far as the eye could see. Sentries with muskets and cannons kept watch from ancient statues repurposed as watchtowers. The Agronomist, a heavily armed Cult warship, sailed downriver past the Last Round, not stopping for conversation. The Grange Bank itself was an old temple complex refurbished by the Clergy. Several ships were tied up at the pier and the place crawled with fighters and casters from the various military orders sworn to the Goddess. The Pastry Mesa rose out of the heat haze to the south and, as the Gamblers tied up, a flying ship descended from its commanding heights and glided across the desert toward the Bank.

 

Roberts 

 

Nobody challenged the Gamblers as they entered the bank. They had been expected or Jack's reputation preceeded him. In a columned courtyard converted to a dining hall, groups of warriors scarfed lentils and barley while numbers ticked over on an enormous scoreboard mounted high on the wall, decorated with an image of the bread and the sword. A number ticked over and a cheer went up from one of the tables.

The place was run by the Cleric Smaragdino and the Minotaur Alejandra, who stopped arguing to give the Gamblers an audience. The adventurers recapped everything they had encoutnered and everything they knew. The destroyed ship, the destroyed settlements, the disposition of Aldrich's forces, the last place he had been spotted and where he might be headed next. The Cult knew something was up. They got news of the bounty over the Rat King network. Smaragdino had received repeat instructions during his daily Communion with his deity: withdraw the forces hunting pirates in the south and send them to fight a greater threat.

 

Alejandra spread a map over the polished table in the war room and showed the Gamblers what they were up against. There were three possible destinations Aldrich could be headed to, two of wich were south in the High Plain, one was west of an enormous mesa they had passed on the way down. The Giants could go toe to toe with an armed warship and it was unwise to spread their forces too thin.

 

Roddy slipped away from the planning discussion to follow an explosive smell he picked up on the way in. The unmistakable stench of ammonium nitrate fuel oil. He followed the reek to a room full of Shambling Mounds, lying flat on the ground in the sun. The Grain Cult was using them to ferment artificial fertilizer and reduce their dependency on imported guano and explosives both. The possibilities were endless.