Forgive me if the ink runs a bit on these few pages, I have relocated residencies for the time being, but that such story is far in the future of these writings. For now though, Let us return to Calimshan.
The Hightown of Menshaka was filled with humans, demi-humans such as elves or half-elves were rare, and tieflings, gnomes, and the such were treated as slaves.
Cruelly, as well, I might add.
This posed a problem for the lot of us, of course, since we had a tiefling, a gnome, and a halfling among our numbers.
After a flash of inspiration, we began our disguises. My face had acquired numerous scars since my wanted poster went up, and Ace had aged considerably, so we could forge temporary identities during our stay. Kade was small enough that he could pass as my son, while Mellik and Noclu would pose as my slaves, Ace was a family friend. Thus, the noble house of Le Rouge was birthed, and I, Davon Le Rouge, headed towards the bank to get a small loan of a platinum piece.
We needed the money for our rooms at the inn in Hightown, where Bron was working on the same glass he always was, just behind a different counter.
He directed us in varying directions. We could go towards the Gauntlet and bet on some matches, we could look for various jobs that other Hightown nobles might have for us, or, Virian Flax had heard of our entry and would be waiting for us in the same hot springs that Timestaff had earlier told Ace would help rejuvenate his skin to before he touched that accursed gemstone.
Needing money more than anything else, we first went to The Gauntlet and bet on a match. A lizardfolk, Thrax I believe his name was, fought against two lions that had been brought south from the north, and while the battle was close, Thrax, the man we had put most of our coins on (save for Noclu, who had been acting more and more contrary to the party since entering Hightown), emerged victorious. Thanks to the platinum loan, our payoff was plenty, and after purchasing some Thrax souvenirs for Kade at the Gauntlet's gift shop, we headed back into Hightown.
Our next stop would be the hot springs.
As we entered, however, both Ace and Mellik felt, as they expressed to us, an overwhelming urge to sink to the bottom of the large pool in the center of the springs.
We cautioned them against it, and I stripped down and headed into the spring where Virian Flax was waiting for us. He explained that we needed to find a way into the castle, and that they were looking for staff. I can't remember why we decided not to apply for cleaning staff, but whatever the reason was at the time, I felt it was a good one, and Virian instead suggested we become popular enough in town to be invited to the castle for any number of special events, which we as a group found much more complementary to our current strategy of pretending to be of a noble family.
As we prepared to leave the hot springs, Ace and Mellik's urges once again surfaced to try and overtake them. Ace was lucky, and recognized the urge for what it was. He retreated from the springs immediately.
Mellik, however, was not so blessed, as he rushed into the large pool, sinking to the bottom.
As he sat in the depths of the large spring, it came out of his mouth. Small, at first, but it grew quickly, and ever larger, until a new aboleth emerged from the water. Mellik was knocked out cold, and was helpless as this new aboleth repeated what its parent had done to poor Mellik, keeping him, for lack of a better explanation, pregnant with the next generation of aboleth.
I dove in after my friend as I urged Virian to exit the springs immediately. We all assured him as I came back up with Mellik, narrowly avoiding the aboleth myself, that we would find a way to stop if from claiming anyone else as a vessel.
As Ace and Kade dragged Mellik away from the spring building, and Noclu wandered off to a store on his own, as he had been doing since we entered Hightown , I put up a sign in front of the springs. I did not want to let them know exactly what was going on in there, but I also wanted to make sure those who would trust a sign on the door would stay away, so I wrote down that the springs were closed for a private party.
We then...left
We were not powerful enough to take on an aboleth who could fell Mellik, our beefiest fighter, with a single hit.
We then started our third endeavor in Hightown, finding a way to gain popularity.
It seemed that there was no shortage of nobles looking to embarrass their rivals or rise up in social standing, which was why when we found a request to embarrass a certain carriage driver, we gladly took the job.
If I remember correctly, the driver's name was Chaz, a bespectacled and neurotic man, and altogether an absolute pain in the ass to interact with. It was hard enough to get him to agree to give us a carriage ride for myself and Kade (Noclu would be hiding through use of magic and would cast Unseen Servant to steal this driver's coin purse, taking out all money except a few copper pieces). The plan was that when we arrived at our destination, I would hand a platinum piece to Chaz and ask for change, during which his coin purse would reveal him to have no money, something the citizenry of Hightown found to be one of the most embarrassing misfortunes anyone in Menshaka could suffer. Our destination was the town square, a nice and crowded are with many witnesses so as to maximize this driver's embarrassment.
I can't remember exactly what went wrong, but for whatever reason, Noclu did not enter the cart with us, and left for the town square instead. Thankfully, a recovered Mellik was able to warn both Kade and myself in time, and he rounded up Ace and Noclu at the destination just before we arrived thanks to some stalling from Kade and Myself, delaying the ride from leaving for about a minute.
As we reached our destination and left the car, Noclu cast his Unseen Servant spell, but the driver was now paying attention to his coin pouch, instead of the road, since we had stopped moving. Thinking fast on his feet, Mellik attempted to once again use his Thaumaturgy to mimic a bulette's call, but perhaps he was too exhausted from the hot spring scare earlier, for the noise was barely audible even to me, who was standing right where the sound was supposed to come from. It was then that Ace had his own idea for a distraction.
He grabbed the nearest noble lady by her wrist, spun her towards him, and embraced her in a kiss. Needless to say, everyone was surprised, most of all the lady, who gave Ace a powerful slap on the cheek before storming off. Regardless, he had succeeded in his distraction attempt, and Noclu's Unseen Servant finished just in time and disappeared right as Chaz turned back to us to receive his payment.
I handed him my platinum piece, and stated that surely a Hightown citizen would have change for a platinum. As he opened his coin pouch, Kade and I began t make a mockery of the few copper pieces left in the bag.
Confused, Chaz announced that there had to have been some mistake, but neither Kade nor I let up in our faux disgust, eventually refusing to pay this man who was "clearly a Lowtown thief who had gotten lucky in entering the city." We returned to the inn laughing, knowing that now this driver's embarrassment was the talk of the town (which subsequently pushed our bounties out of view of the public eye, allowing us to be more confident when exploring the area). The days passed by, and it was not long before, as Virian Flax had foreseen, we were invited to the Czar's castle, in order to watch "The Running of the Slaves", but that is its own story.
