The next day, Sarlac discovered that the magic user's guild in a neighboring city would pay a good price for the magic user books they've discovered, the money for which they would need to use to train anyways. Before they leave, the town council advises them that they suspect that there must be a seagoing vessel that is part of this smuggling operation as well, and would like to count on their assistance if they should be able to spot it. They suspect that the smugglers are operating on nights of the new moon, the last one being barely a week ago and the next one not for three more weeks. This gives them plenty of time to train, they figure, so the following day they spend most of their day on the road walking to Seaton, the neighboring city.
Seaton was a metropolis, with a population of roughly 25,000 people. It was a walled city, and virtually every amenity imaginable could be found there, including mages guilds, fighters guilds, a thieve's guild, and several temples.
Sarlac was able to negotiate a fair price for the magic books, and the party went their various ways to train. Tullus used the opportunity to buy himself some nice equipment, as well as a squire and some horses. After training, the party decided to use some excess cash to buy things for themselves. They quickly discovered, however, that most of the money that they gave to Tullus would quickly get given to the church. Although they had no particular grievance against the church that would make them want to not be charitable, they realized that the only way Tullus was likely to have enough money to train when he needed is if the party took over most of his finances, and doled out the cash on an as-needed basis.
After everybody had trained, which took 2 weeks, everybody headed back to Saltmarsh. The trip by horse took only a couple of hours, instead of most of the day as walking to Seaton had. The town council at Saltmarsh advised the party that they had not seen anything yet, but encouraged the party to camp out near the house with the two guards they had posted to see if they could see anything. The first night was unevenful, although the moon was barely a sliver.
The next night, however, there was no moon at all... and while they were out watching in the middle of the night, they saw some flashing coming from the water. The light was coming what they could now see was a ship out at sea, only just barely visible because of some lighting that is being used aboard it. They would probably not have even seen the vessel if it had not been for the bright flashing light that they had just seen. Tristan recognized the pattern, however, and realized it matched the code on the parchment they had found in the house, and using their own lantern, they endeavored to respond as they understood the code to work. Another pattern of flashing lights followed which completed their pattern, and then they waited.
About 30 minutes later, they saw a small boat being rowed up to the cave by one man. The party hid, and the man brought his boat up to the shore, anchored it and called out for Sanbalet. The party quickly jumped out with bows pointed his head telling him to surrender. The man grudgingly did so and with some effort the party was able to extract some rudimentary information about who is on the ship. The party realized that if they go as they are, they would be unlikely to be able to bluff their way aboard, and so they concluded that it might be wisest to approach the vessel from a distance around its bow and come at it from the other side, perhaps to take them by surprise.
Trina volunteered to use her levitation ability to carry herself and Sarlac up to the main deck and quietly attach some grappling hooks for the rest of the party, while Etna climbed the anchor chain.
[to be continued]...
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