Spring Break

an adventure starring Crud Jr. and The Corinthian.
Tweet length description: Crud Jr and The Corinthian stroll down to the beach for some sand castles, sun, and... seaweed hags? Join our heroes in a mystery under the sea. 
Characters:
* Waterfront: a small restaurant in the park at Niqamui Public Beach. It’s a front (ha ha), a cover for illegal smuggling activities.
* Luco Suligoi: overweight blue skinned tiefling chef behind the counter at the Waterfront, a small restaurant. Saw a g-g-g-g-ghost, the Seaweed Hag, walk across the lawn from out of the ocean the night before the adventurers went to the beach. 
* Samir Henrich: looks human, has receding black curly hair. Owner of the small restaurant, Waterfront. Without Luco’s knowledge, Henrich runs the restaurant, Waterfront, as a cover for Henrich’s illegal smuggling activities. Samir gaslit Luco into downplaying the importance of the Seaweed Hag ghost Luco saw. 
* Kit Prigozhin: smuggler who was on the boat with the cargo. The boat went down, the smuggler swam ashore. This startled Luco, who was at work a bit late cleaning up and saw Seaweed Hag (Kit Prigozhin) exit the water (a mistake that wasn’t supposed to happen, whoops). Kit had been supposed to unload their cargo after Luco went home, but couldn’t stay on the ship late enough because the ship took on water and sank. Kit didn’t know the restaurant would be staffed and walked to it, only to turn away after seeing Luco (whoopsies). 
* Jennifer Lelievre: Black female agent who is looking for the downed ship. They knew a shipment was supposed to happen and were going to arrest the smuggler. However, the cargo (evidence) never reached its destination. It’s somewhere off shore. Lelieve was also outside last night, and saw the smuggler exit the water but dripping wet and without their cargo. Emphasize that it’s odd that she’s here alone.
* Jia Dorsey and Satou Kansai: a young avian (bird-person) couple out enjoying the park today. They are sharing an ice cappuccino. Emphasize that the ice floats on the surface of the iced cappuccino.
Setting Descriptions: 
Guild Hall: You are all in the Firebreathing Kittens guild hall. The guild is a large building with a bar, a sitting area with wooden tables and chairs, and a wall with a corkboard and job fliers posted. It is spring time. Gusts of wind blow the winter chill from the air. Soaring in the sky from vast distances, the air carries the smell of ocean salt. A seagull calls outside. This would be a good day to spend on the beach.
Niqamui Public Beach: The road ends at an expansive lawn area. A small building serving as a train stop is located next to a carriage parking lot. There are paths, benches, ornamental trees, playgrounds for children, and exercise equipment for adults. A delicious smell wafts from a small restaurant. The ocean is downhill. A fence separates the manicured lawn from tall grasses. Sloping downhill to the shore, walkways through tall grass lead to bright white sand. Even from this distance you can read the large rectangular white signs: “No Swimming”. Below the letters, a stick figure person horizontal in water is centered inside a red circle with a diagonal red line. From this distance, you can see what look like little islands floating, as brown seaweed mats the surface of the water. 
Waterfront description: The Waterfront restauarant and cafe is longer than it is wide, paralleling the shore. Its construction cleverly maximizes its patrons views of the ocean. The kitchen occupies the back wall furthest from the water. Tables and chairs fill the indoor space, and the guests have seated themselves to face the tall floor to ceiling glass walls. Similarly, your view is unobstructed by any dividers, and you can see right into the kitchen as an overweight cook looks down at his work, focused, not interested in the glorious view he would have if he looked up. His hands busilly chop fresh fruit, then he lifts the fruit salad onto a plate and passes it through for a waiter to take to a table. A waitress walks past him to get to the milk frotherto make a cappuccino. There are menus on each of the tables. (when they ask, it is a seat yourself style restauarant.)
Menu: Today’s special, everything is one gold each: Whole watermelon, iced cappuccino, whole pizza with your choice of topping. And then in a second column: volleyball, beach towel, folding umbrella, bucket with sand castle mold and shovel. The restauarant can offer faux-crab and faux-human, it serves all the races. The beach towel has the word “Waterfront” in fantasy swirly text on it. You can pick up the non-food items from the chef when you’re ready to go. Whatever activity they choose, Jennifer Lelievre was trying to buy it at the same time and they have a meet-cute where they both reach their hands out to get the, for example, watermelon. Or perhaps she’s alone on the exercise equipment outside. 
Waterfront clue: talk to the chef, Luco, to learn he saw a ghost last night as he was cleaning and closing up, the last one out of the Waterfront. You’re in a guild? Oh man, I could’ve used some strong guild members here last night! Have you heard of the local ghost, the Seaweed Hag? She emerges from the ocean with water dripping from her long seaweed hair, with her dead cold wet skin. She slowly shuffles across the sand emerging from the ocean, getting closer, and closer. It’s said that if she looks into your eyes, you can’t move! She gets closer, and closer, and closer, and then! (dramatic pause). (If they ask, say, and then you die.) Luco saw someone exit the water as he was cleaning up and closing the small restaurant last night after dark. Their long seaweed hair dripped ocean water as they slooowly walked across the lawn. The Seaweed Hag stopped, and turned, and stared silently at Luco, not saying a word for a long, terrifying moment. Then it kept walking. Luco had thought he was alone, so it spooked him, and he thought it was a ghost that has been seen around here, the Seaweed Hag. He almost wasn’t going to come in today, but then he thought of how Samir Henrich, the owner of the Waterfront, would laugh if he let a ghost stop him from coming in. Luco doesn’t want Samir to think less of him, so he came in and hasn’t told anyone about it yet, but it’s been weighing on him. Thank you, adventurers! Saying it out loud, he realizes how crazy it sounds. He must have just been mistaken. 
If they walk down to the water: 
You look out at the ocean. Blue sky. Blue ocean. Bright sunlight. This is a beautiful day. Perception check? The highest roler only: sees a flash of light in the water. Then it’s gone. Then you see a flash of light in the water. Then it’s gone. 
(Don’t say the words coral reef until after describing it) Coral Reef: The bottom had previously been sandy and forested with macroalgae. As you progress further out following the flash of light, here and there is a rock or two. Now there is a cluster of rocks. Then several cluster of rocks. As the bottom drops off, you lose sight of the rocks in the distance. Do you swim closer to them? (The reefs are 120 feet down. Ask them how close they get. Sight distance is a maximum of 60 feet due to particles in the water, and for characters without darkvision it’s dim light at a depth of 600 feet). 
As they get within 60 feet of the coral reef: The particles floating in the water limit your range of vision to sixty feet. At the edge of your vision you see rocks. But the rocks here are different. They are spiky balls of pink, yellow, white, orange, purple, and neon green. Flat orange plates are stacked on top of one another on the left of one rock mound. In the distance it’s blue, blue blue for as far as you can see (which for your reference is sixty feet). At the top of the rock mound, a pink rock resembling tree branches spreads its stems from a central point. Colorful red, yellow, and blue fish swim in and out of the rocks. Multiple vertically striped black and white fish school together. 
As they get within 30 feet of the coral reef: Perception check? Everyone above 15 sees holes in the coral reef beneath them. The highest perception person sees a large green circle with a black center. (this is an eel eye; eel attack) 
First arc of battle: interior jaws, drag down toward hole. End part one and take a break when the first person gets bitten and dragged into the eel’s mouth by its interior jaws. 
Second arc of battle: electric stun, slowly sink toward hole. 
Shipwreck: Light. Darkness. Light. Darkness. You have been following this pulse through the depths for what feels like a very long time. It’s quiet down here. You are alone with your thoughts and the vast empty blue. Light. Darkness. Light. Darkness. Time passes. You keep swimming, reaching out and pulling the nothingness to you. Surrounded by nothing. Light. Darkness. The light gradually grows stronger. You’re not sure when it happened. The light resolves into a distinct shape. It is a beacon on the top of a mast. The pulses occur when the rotation aligns the open part of the magical lanter with your direction. The mast rises above a precariously angled vessel. Laying on its side, the ship rests on the bottom. There is a dark hole in the middle of the deck, and there are open window gaps on the ship’s sides. 
If they go in the hole in the middle of the deck: There is a hallway before you. Wooden floors, walls, and ceilings look pristine and deathly still in the water. In the silence, you hear your own heart beat. You realize how much light there was outside only after entering. Four doors line this hallway; two each on the left and right. 
If they go in a window: put them in room 1. 
Room 1 on the right closer to deck entrance stairs: Papers rest on the floor. Books lie on the floor and some are still in their bookshelves. A hammock hangs in a corner. There is not any sign of underwater growth, such as corals or tube worms. 
If they try to read a book: the paper is still intact, although it rips easily if they touch it.
Room 2 on the left closer to deck entrance stairs: Cafe (coffee bean shipwreck room): Inside the ship, the rooms are still. Untouched, they look how you assume they’d look above water. Opening the door to this large room on the left, brown water flows out. Do you enter? (If yes: constitution saving throw DC 12. Everyone who fails gets hasted, ha ha. (Use the spell haste.) If no one fails, the lowest roll fails, so they don’t miss out on the fun.) There are wooden crates stacked on top of one another, some tilted to odd angles by the angle of the ship. They fill this space so there is very little room to move. You can swim under and around the boxes if you’d like. 
There are 200 crates each worth 100 gold. 
What’s in the box? Once they get a crate open or figure out the description of coffee bean tinted brown water: coffee beans worth 20,000 gold.
Room 3 on the right further from deck entrance stairs: Fancy meats storage room and also octopus combat. The walls are covered in octopus eggs. 
Room 4 on the left further from deck entrance stairs: Treasure room. This closet sized room has items strewn all over it. It’s very tilted and equipment is all over what is now the ground. Perception or Investigation check DC 16: You find: a magical mahogany guitar with vines carved into it that over time will teach its player to have nimbler fingers (+2 performance and +2 slight of hand while attuned, and if attuned for five levels the effect remains even if the item is unequipped as long as it is carried), a light blue cloak that caps falling damage to 30 max damage, a tiny armor set for a snake that would halve the bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage it takes, and a multicolor braided cloth strap that because it distracts people who look at the wearer, when worn in the hair gives +2 insight. 
Shipwreck’s puzzle: how to get the coffee beans to the surface.
As our heroes get the coffee beans to the surface: (Possible solutions include freezing the crates to get them to float, or using shape water to make a current to get the crates out, or hiring a salvage vessel). The surface is covered in a floating brown seaweed. You heads are covered in seaweed as they surface. It looks like you have long hair, ha ha! This reminds you of the seaweed hag Luco saw. “Whee-woo, Wee-woo! A siren wails. A boat pulls up to your seaweed covered heads. A familiar face appears over the side of the boat. Jennifer Lelievre is there. She flashes a badge and says, “You’re importing coffee, I see. That will be a 10% import tax.”
Eel (fighting five is very hard for four level seven adventurers)
Huge beast, Unaligned.
Armor Class 12 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points 90 (12d12+12) (or 180 if fighting one, which is difficult for two level 7 adventurers)
Speed Swim 60 ft.
STR 19 (+4)
DEX 10 (+0)
CON 13 (+1)
INT 3 (-4)
WIS 12 (+1)
CHA 7 (-2)
Skills Perception +3
Senses Blindsight 120 Ft., passive Perception 13
Challenge 3 (700 XP)
Pressure	Sensing. The dolphin can't use its blindsight	while deafened.
Keen Senses.	The dolphin has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on	hearing,	pressure sensing, etc non-sight based detection.
Actions: Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one	target. Hit: 19(5d6 + 4) piercing damage.
Giant Octopus 
Large beast, Unaligned
(currently	statt’d so 1	would be a ‘hard’ fight. For fighting 1: Eight hits with +9 to	hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 8(2d6 + 5)
Armor Class 11
Hit Points 52 (8d10+8)
Speed 10 ft., swim 60 ft.
STR 17 (+3)
DEX 13 (+1)
CON 13 (+1)
INT 17	(+3)
WIS 10 (+0)
CHA 4 (-3)
Skills Perception +4, Stealth +5
Senses Darkvision 60 Ft., passive Perception 14
Challenge 1 (200 XP)
Hold Breath. While out of water, the octopus can hold its breath for 1 hour.
Underwater Camouflage. The octopus has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made while underwater.
Water Breathing. The octopus can breathe only underwater.
Actions
Tentacles. Eight Melee Weapon Attacks: +9 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target per tentacle. Hit: 8(2d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a creature, it is grappled (escape DC 16). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and the octopus can't use its tentacles on another target.
Ink Cloud (Recharges after a Short or Long Rest). A 20-foot-radius cloud of ink extends all around the octopus if it is underwater. The area is heavily obscured for 1 minute, although a significant current can disperse the ink. After releasing the ink, the octopus can use the Dash action as a bonus action.
Category:Episodes