27. Gains and Losses

* Party discuss what to do with the panacea and about their relationship with Driscoll going forwards
	+ Several members of the group are concerned the Rumidians might hear about a big sale of panacea.
	+ Since there is no record of anyone ever successfully cultivating panacea, they ultimately decide to take it all with them and sell it in the Bisquay early season, likely taking a loss on the money they make but gaining the benefit of discretion in the sale.
	+ Malak mentions his distrust of Driscoll, pointing out that it was never clear that the party would have been able to escape Tortuga in the event Driscoll's contingency plan (to let whoever Shandy sent to the island have their way) kicked in. The triton thinks that maybe the party were used as sacrificial pawns. He also points out that Driscoll and Co. haven't been very forthcoming with information that might have been useful to the party, such as the fact that Shandy is a vampire.
* Quinn chimes into the discussion to point out a few things:
	+ While the group are, of course, free to decide what they want to do, they should consider the fact that Shandy will never forgive them for killing her baby dragons.
	+ Quinn doesn't know Shandy to have ever forgiven a grudge, and dragons have always been the woman's favourites. Quinn fears that even Clwyd and Cormorant, the newcomers of the group, might well be guilty by association at this point, having been seen so closely tied to the group on Tortuga.
	+ If they leave Driscoll's crews, the party may well find themselves facing the wrath of a pirate lord on their own.
	+ Also, for what it's worth, Quinn thinks Driscoll really was counting on the party. Consider how much he's invested in them: 12,000 gold for weregilds in Bisquay; the folding boat, worth upwards of 5000 gold; a portable hole, worth upwards of 8000 gold; plus the pay for their involvement in the gambit (2000 gold, plus all the dragons' horde they found and were told to keep, plus a spyglass worth around 1000 gold); and the 600 gold he paid Badger to get Starth's necklace back during the captains' meeting.
* The party picks the panacea.
	+ This is a laborious process, taking over an hour in total. When they're finished, they've filled the portable hole up to 3/4 of its capacity, removing everything that was in it and leaving most of the cheap stuff behind.
	+ Halfway through the picking process, they are interrupted by a rot troll that emerges from the river and attacks them when it sees they are taking the panacea in huge numbers.
	+ The party successfully kill the troll while hardly damaging any of the panacea at all!
* Clwyd and Malak decide to swim up the brackish river to investigate where the troll came from and see if there's a faster way out the subterranean cave.
	+ They travel for about 8 minutes, 6 of which were fully underwater (though both had a means of breathing underwater so they were fine). They emerged in a plunge pool somewhere in the swamp, near a large, dead tree.
	+ Investigating the tree, it turned out to be hollow on the inside. Another troll was inside, this one visibly more withered and rotten than the one the group had already killed.
	+ Inside the tree room were also stacks and stacks of crates, boxes, and chests with faded merchant logos on them - tonnes of old trade goods the trolls seemed to have collected over a long period of time.
* Clwyd decides to sneak into the hollow tree with the sleeping rot troll inside and rummage through the boxes.
	+ She finds a small chest with lots of valuable saffron in it, but wakes the troll up in the process.
	+ Both Clwyd and Malak try to flee. Clwyd initially carries the chest with her, but drops it when the troll's attacks and necrotic aura drop her. The goblin also starts a fire in the troll tree house.
	+ Malak uses his healing magic to stop Clwyd dying, then takes a huge hit from the troll as he sacrifices his own body to shield Clwyd while he pulls her out the way.
	+ Malak is soon dropped when subjected to the troll's savage attacks and rancid aura.
	+ Clwyd heals Malak with her healing draught and he shouts for her to run. She listens.
	+ Malak falls to the troll's attacks again, and then it chases after Clwyd but the goblin is too fast in the water thanks to her magical augmentations.
	+ Malak bleeds out in the swamp.
* Clwyd returns to the group, roughly 30 minutes after she and Malak first left, and tells them what happened. She says that Malak might well have died saving her.
	+ Pyt, Cormorant, Clark and Quinn swim up the river to try and save Malak.
	+ Clwyd gave Pyt her cap of water breathing, so the bard was fine, but Cormorant and Clark both almost drown in the underwater section of the swim. They are saved by the cap of water breathing being forced onto their heads by Pyt and then Jackson, respectively.
	+ Pyt and Cormorant are faster in the water than Clark and Quinn. That pair arrive first and see the tree fully ablaze and the troll trying to eat Malak but struggling with his armour.
	+ The duo kill the troll.
	+ Clark and Quinn arrive a few minutes later.
* Malak is dead.
	+ Clark goes into a rage, smashing up plants and trees in the swamp, screaming that he 'gave up so much.'
	+ When he's calmed down he tries to concentrate and picture the room he was in before, the last time Malak died, and asks if there's anything they can do. He gets no response.
	+ Quinn asks the group whether they trust Driscoll and believe in his cause. She asks this because she knows that the druids of the Verdant Groves have miraculous power and they might be able to help here. While the druids usually hate outsiders of any kind, they are indebted to Driscoll - specifically to the debt of three favours. The first two favours are already used up, but the third remains and might be used to save Malak. However, this would be a kingly gift indeed, as valuable as these favours are. It would likely require the party forgetting all doubts they have and serving Driscoll in earnest from then on.
	+ Cormorant, Clark, and Pyt ultimately decide that Malak was so unhappy being brought back last time that he'd probably hate being brought back again.
* Back on *the Fortunate Fool*, Quinn has her crew hurry back to Bisquay as fast as they can, 'full canvas!'
	+ Quinn gives the party the captain's quarters to use. The group try to sleep, exhausted as they are after a day of fighting and the loss of Malak, but it's only early afternoon, and in any case they're far too restless to sleep.
	+ They get a lot of booze in and decide play a card-and-drinking game with Quinn that she says has always served as the initiation to her crew. She had planned on playing it with them once their first expedition was over, but didn't know if it was appropriate in light of everything that had happened. They agree that they'd prefer anything to keep them busy on the journey back.
	+ The game: The loser of a card draw tells a story, the nature of which is based on the suit of the card drawn, while the listeners try and drink themselves blind. Simple. The suits and type of story to be told are: love for hearts, pain for clubs, loss for spades, and gain for diamonds.
	+ **Pyt tells a story of loss**: he was briefly in a bardic college, but he didn't like it much. He learned the drum and the lyre, but could never get the hang of the viol - he managed to learn it eventually though. Much later, he lost his memories, all of them from a certain period of his life. He's slowly got some of them back, but there are still gaps, and he's still relearning how to play the viol.
	+ **Clark drunkenly tells a story of love**: he was an unruly kid in his youth, not grateful or kind to the one person dear to him. Then he left home and he hasn't been back since. For the past two years, he'd been sailing and saving his money, hoping to return home and apologise to the one person he loves, his mum. He gave up the chance to ever see her again to bring Malak back the last time. That was the price he had to pay, and now he feels it was for nothing.
	+ **Pyt tells a story of love**: After college, he met a comely half-elf gal by the name of Riss. She liked playing pranks and tricks on people too, so they got along. She taught him the viol, though she always remained the superior of the two with the instrument. One day, one of their schemes involved Pyt stealing a gemstone from a market stall - he doesn't even remember what type of stone it was now, or what he did with it. Later, the shop keeper showed up at the couple's home, and Pyt heard him mock Riss to death with a rhyming couplet. Pyt killed the guy, but Riss was still dead, that is, until she wasn't. A god of death or some such powerful thing brought her back, saying her death was hilarious and that she should keep going, and maybe try killing some others in funny ways. Riss's tricks and pranks quickly got more malicious. Then one day, she just left. Pyt hasn't seen her since.
	+ **Quinn tells a story of gain**: back when she was working as one of Shandy's hunters in the wider reaches of the world, she, her close friend, and a couple others who still remain on her crew were under the captainship of some upitty, torturous sadist in Shandy's hierarchy. Their boat came across a merchant vessel with only a small escort, and the raid began. The fight turned out a little fiercer than initially expected, and many of the sadist's crew were slain. Quinn and her friends took the opportunity to kill their captain and those loyal to him, as well as seizing the merchant ship and its escort vessels. The merchant ship became the Fortunate Fool, Quinn was made captain to replace her now-dead tormentor because of her role in securing such a great haul from the raid, and now only her closest allies were left among the crew. It was a great moment for all of them.
* *The Fool* arrives in Bisquay the next day, and Quinn and her lot quickly get to work tracking down a merchant shady enough to take some extra coin to keep their mouth shut, but scrupulous enough to hold to their word when they do so.
	+ All the panacea is sold for 2200 platinum pieces.
	+ The party pay off their weregild.
	+ They give Quinn and her crew 500 platinum for their involvement in the expedition. Quinn shows her gratitude while also remaining quite stoic.
	+ This leaves the group with 1200 platinum, the equivalent of 12,000 gold.
* The party honours Malak.
	+ With *sending*, Clark contacts Minerva, the triton from Ingela's crew, the only other triton he knows, to learn about triton burial rites. Minerva has a few ideas about how city triton would go about things, but is more familiar with the practices of shoal triton, who bury their dead in underwater caves.
	+ The group agrees that Malak deserves more than a token burial in the style of a differing people to his own.
	+ Clark preserves Malak's body with his *gentle repose* spell.
	+ They spend a fair amount of time pouring over what they know, researching, speaking to Minerva - who is chatty, but also busy fleeing the Proprietor with her crew - and extrapolating, to find Malak's home. What they eventually conclude is that it's in the uncharted expanse of water that the islands within the domain of the Rumidian Western Margrave ring around.
	+ Quinn is happy to sail *the Fool* there, feeling as much obligation and responsibility as the remaining members of the party do, since, ultimately, she was the one that suggested exploring the unknown islands of Driscoll's territory. She leaves a couple of her guys in Bisquay, as before, to keep up their watch for any signs of Shandy's forces approaching the wine island.
	+ The group sails up the the Merchant Strait, skirting along the side of the Chelonii Atoll, only occasionally stopping long enough to resupply. The narrow of the Strait had completely thawed out by this time, letting them through to the waters of the New World claimed by the Western Margrave.
	+ In ostensibly Rumidian territory, the Fortunate Fool doesn't waste any time. They dove into the uncharted waters, only to immediately face off against obscenely treacherous currents, likely conjured by the many magics that protect the city of Amphitrite.
	+ It takes the full skill of all of Quinn's sailors and herself, augmented by Clark and Cormorant, just to keep the Fool afloat. They're eventually washed to a beachhead. And several triton are waiting for them there.
	+ Somehow, the triton knew what had happened.
	+ A male in military dress, much like what Malak wore, steps forward. In broken common, he simply states, 'you've brought him.' Wilfred replies in Aquan, confirming, 'we brought him home.' The triton raises two fingers to his lips in what must be a sign of gratitude. The triton take Malak's body and say they'll guide the visitors away. The currents don't bother them as they leave.
	+ Clwyd keeps Midwinter, the sword that she had trapped infernal ice magic within that had originally belonged to Malak.
* *The Fortunate Fool* sails back to Bisquay.
	+ They arrive back on the wine island just after Winter's End, around a month since the day they first arrived in the swamp.
	+ The trading season is kicking into full swing.
	+ Six weeks pass, and just like that, the day of the Spring Equinox arrives.