of poisened drinks and glory

by Jarl Skalder

We woke up at the Foul Flask Inn, everything was decidedly a lot quieter than yesterday night's rowdiness. Seems like the denizens of the Lantern Wharf sleep their way through the day. After shaking off the fog in our heads we head out of the stinking inn and into the stinking mist outside. At this point a simple plan was made - Ahmok and Cyrellion where to try and procure a boat, the rest of us try to find out about Rasmussen and the Mescal shipment. Once we get the boat we can go find the lost city or beat a hasty retreat after we do a raid on the Mescal.

As expected its very difficult to get any sort of straight deal here, everything is either taken by brute force, stolen or bet - even simple information. At the wharf the T'skrang and elven companion had a look around an area called 'The Deck' a designated challenge arena, where a bear fight was being organised. Two large ships named the Maildance and the Tarien are berthed here along with dozens of different sized sea craft -most of which are either not sturdy enough for the Swamps or too expensive.

In the meantime asking around for Rasmussen was harder than expected as the foul folk here wanted that information themselves. After much moving around the different Inns, I had a close shave with a rough dwarf by the nickname of 'Leasher' who wanted the crystal armor and shield off my skin. He proposed an odd bet - a poison drinking competition - I put in the armor and shield and he puts in his finely crafted axes. Clearly the guy had hell of a lot more toughness than my puny spellcasting ass, and I backed off - only to meet him pretty soon again. As fate would have it Ahmok and Cyrellion had found a sloop that fitted our requirements but who's captain was not around - asking where he might be it was none other than Leasher. Once the whole group was in the Inn we challenged Leasher again - Ahmok courageously took the bet - and a bet was struck. The stakes were heavy indeed; my crystal armor and shield and the Cockerel sword and anything on Ahmok's person against Leasher's ship and whatever was on his person including the axes.

With much pomp Leasher declared the time of the bet on The Deck and kept drinking. We learnt that the poison involved was four Hemlock and one Padendra drink - both lethal. For the first time Leasher's lack of fear and nonchalance was making us quite nervous - especially Ahmok - who had the most to loose. Wisely Ahmok bought a potion to annul the effects of one poisoned drink and fortitude against any others for a few hours. Obviously this was cheating but we had good reason to suspect that Leasher's magical tattoos would somehow grant him a lot of defence and possibly immunity to poisons. We also learnt he had played this quite a few times before against gullible first timers.

The Drinking hour arrived and the 2 contestants faced off - the deadly game began - The Deck was packed with hollering pirates and ruffians placing 3:1 bets against our lizard companion. After the first drink - to which he was immune - was gulped down; Ahmok immediately realised how tough this was going to be as the second drink sent him to the floor. Already crying victory Leasher was taken back when a visibly distraught Ahmok clawed his way up the chair and sat down again. The crowd was wild; the only impassive figure was Rasmussen himself - sitting on a makeshift 'throne'. The third drink was lifted and gulped, cracks where appearing in Leasher's mental strength and the drink had the better of him and floored him... but there was still fight in him and he came back up. Ahmok soon joined him on the ground; but probably calling upon the Divines for strength he came up again. Fourth drink, and this time Leasher was facing the prospect of a defeat as Ahmok drank the poison without batting an eye; belching out a toxic nauseating belch in Leasher's face. Drinking his fourth cup Leasher eats the floor again - and after quite some time regains his composure, one eye bloodshot. Fifth drink, and this time both contestants had obviously bitten more than they could chew and both hit the deck; Ahmok in paralyses and Leasher convulsing. With his last reserves of strength Ahmok crawls back up, hovering close to unconsciousness; Leasher fights strongly for quite some time but doesn't rise.... Ahmok had won!!! The crowd goes wild, we quickly pick up Leasher's possessions before others get it in the commotion and we head away from The Deck and back to the Foul Flask to put the visible very sick Ahmok into a bed.

After checking on out newly acquired skiff, divvied up the silvers Leasher had on him, and made sure Ahmok had recovered (which he certainly had judging from the sounds from his bunk, seems like some guy named Chani had bet on Ahmok to win and tripled a sizeable amount of money and paid Ahmok a personal massage from a sultry T'Skrang female) we where discussing our next move - Ivor took matters in his own hand and left off to talk to Rasmussen on his own. He managed to get an audience and learnt the auction time was the following night at the Wealthy Thief Inn (Rasmussen's own Inn).

We were making plans on how we should act - mostly we were thinking of burning the Wealthy Thief Inn down and hope the Mescal was being kept there, we even rented a room at the Wealthy Thief to have a good place to start the fire from. In the meantime a paper was slid under our door - by the time we opened no one was around. The paper just said 'The Deck at Dawn'. Thinking our cover was blown, or maybe a tipster was going to meet us with some clue, we all went to the meeting point - only to be ambushed by windlings led by the windling thief we had scorned a few days before. Damn good for nothing windlings.