Breaking the Riverbank

## **Synopsis**

In Chapter 54: Breaking the Riverbank, Erland kept a low profile as he gathered the group's horses and belongings from the shed behind Crespo's tavern.  Given the uncertainty over whether the authorities would be on the hunt after his run-in with Ja Haughten's personal escort, Erland felt it was necessary to avoid any further forays into the 4th precinct proper.

While traveling along the road to the west, he crossed paths with Raz Pugh – who noticed Erland's sickly complexion, the result of a prior "demonstration" of his septic powers.  Raz didn't pry into the cause, and having established a line of trust with our extermination of the Dolgaunts – he was willing to part with a rare kind of antidote he'd acquired from a friend at the Natural Studies Institute: Charcoal & Qhali pellets, familiar to Erland from both Adept Melody and Jillian Kosivo.

A trade was made and Erland pressed on to Bobby Tierney's farm, where an intermission was taking place before the championship round of the Tankard's Cup.  Beezaura made an attempt as a fellow finalist to get the reigning champion, Booraj, to open up about his name – but he was intensely focused on preparing for the race, so our inquiries would have to wait.  Erland had only a few minutes to explain the potential dangers of returning to town before the competitors were called to report to the pitch, and since it would be unquestionably suspicious to abandon the tournament at this point – there was nothing to do but go for the gold.

Doing an excellent job staving off the effects of the alcohol, Beezaura had a leg up on Graven – who was struggling to hit his marks from the get-go.  Unfortunately a couple of missed throws early on gave Booraj a fast lead, and it wasn't until over halfway through the race that the drunkenness began to affect his accuracy.  Both of our representatives made a late surge, but with the reduced number of targets for the finals – it was too little, too late… and Booraj lifted the trophy for the fourth consecutive time.

When the dust settled and Booraj was heading for his horse, Graven stopped him for a more pointed discussion and mentioned the shackled traveler bearing the same name we'd spotted just outside of Urin-Chupa.  That combined with relinquishing the recently-acquired Gentle Void favor was enough to loosen his lips, and we gained a little insight into how the Gentle Void uses civilians to cover their tracks.

Apparently when buying property or signing contracts that may be used for illicit means, the GV uses what they call "shams" – non-affiliated people who lend their name and take the fall for any crimes that come to light.  These shams are either paid handsomely for taking on such a risk, or have volunteered their services to pay off a debt – and "Booraj il-Kravo" was one of the latter.

It wasn't quite a lead – but it was an acknowledgement that Booraj had gotten somehow tied up with the Gentle Void, though from what we knew about his name being used in conjunction with high-profile projects like the Chaki Mountains harvesting yard, it remained to be seen whether as of today he was accessible, imprisoned or even dead.

At Erland's insistence that we leave the city tonight, we reluctantly obliged and set out to get far enough from Tuktu that the roaming Broken Crown patrols wouldn't bother us.  After circling around the 5th and 6th precincts, we headed east and used the cover of the forest to make camp for the evening – giving most of us the chance to sleep off a belly full of ale, and giving Graven that chance to contact Q'usñi (who had no interest in entertaining a conversation about why Booraj's name lingered in Graven's memory).

The following day we covered quite a bit of ground without incident – the forest path was peaceful and the weather was fair, but as we got close enough to the Acqly River's 'North Run' to hear the flow of water, it came with sounds of sputtering and gasping.  Foregoing caution in favor of decisive action, Safira sprinted forward to find a number of Sahuagins who appeared to have capsized a pair of wagons into the river – one lone, visible survivor making a feeble attempt to stay above the surface while the creatures forced him under.

The snap decision to fire an arrow left Graven, Orba and Beezaura scrambling to catch up while the Sahuagins readied their weapons – but it may have saved the drowning man's life as he was able to take a couple of quick breaths while his captor was distracted.  A pair of Coral Smashers put up a formidable fight compared to their lesser kin, and even summoned a shark to aid them – but we gave it everything we had to both fell our enemies and keep the drowning victim alive: channeled divinity, draught jacket cocktails, animus forms and even one node of the healing girdle that Erland had picked up in Mukmu.

With slick, scaled corpses lining the shore and a monk brought back from the brink of death by a last-second healing word – we waited to see what we might learn about the cause of the ambush.

## Trivia

* Natural one count: seven natural ones were rolled in this Chapter. 1 by Riley, and 3 each by Anthony and Matt.