((Sorry all, I was away for weekend and forgot to let you all know!!))

Thom would rush over to the pool once he sees what he thinks is the water creatures defeat after Derendil's fury. "My prince!! My prince! Are you ok?? You did it! You saved us all!"

Thom hopes his words will somewhat calm him down and then Thom tries to pinpoint again where the S's and commander Stena and everyone else went. 

He also glances over at Lia "Madam Lia, I think it's done for, yeah?! Did you see where the others went? Here help me calm down the Prince here!"

"Jimjar! Help me calm down this guy, yeah?!"

Galingal keeps his gaze on Derendil's eyes and face while Thom tries to calm the big guy, wondering if the time has finally come. It had seemed inevitable that something like this might happen.

Derendil snarls and leaps out of the pool, water flying from his matted fur as he snatches Thom off his feet with one arm, the other drawing back to slash the half-elf, when Thom can see reason creep back into the quaggoth's furious eyes, as he lowers him down and begins sobbing, clinging to Thom in an enveloping hug. Thom tries not to think too much about what is in the water as he's held in the Prince's soggy, sobbing embrace.

"NOOO MY PRINCE!!!!"

Then...

"Uhh... there there my Prince. It's ok now. You done good!! Now, let's go find the others, get to the temple and get you dried off, yeah?"

phew... that was a close one

He winks at Lia and then tries to lead the wet quaggoth towards wherever the S's and commander Stena went. 

"Jimjar, make sure all is good here then come along yeah? Hey, betcha 10 gold we don't see that water thingy again while we're here, yeah? Old Prince here really did a number on it!"

Could Thom grab any of the arrows he shot? Would the standard rule apply here? What are the other KT's and other onlookers doing now that this all went down? Just really looking to make sure there are no other potentially hostile situations as we leave this area.

Galingal relaxes when he sees the change in Derendil. He watches the quaggoth and Thom for a few moments. Maybe not today, but he'll lose control again and might not get it back, Galingal thinks to himself.

He then looks around for Ploopp. 

Once he spots the KT, Galingal will gesture to Lia and Thom to meet him there. Then he waves over Jimjar and Lex as well.

"We'll have to trust that Shuushar is leading Stena and Sarith to safety," Galingal says. "I think it's best we get there quickly ourselves."

He glances at Ploopp again.

"Are you ready to go now?"

Lia relaxes as soon as Derendil is no longer a threat. She heaves a sigh of relief and tries the gather everyone and hasten towards Ploopp’s temple for safety. Hoping too that Stena and the others find their way there too.

((Arrows and bolts not easily recoverable, they largely passed through the elemental, and are now lodged somewhere in the KT dwellings on the other side of the square. A thorough search may turn them up, but seems party is wanting to move on? Roll a 1d4-1 and you can recover that many quickly.))

"You're on!", Jimjar says instinctively, then winces at the bad bet he just made.

Ploopp doesn't understand Galingal, but Jimjar translates, and then back to the group that Ploopp is. There doesn't seem to be anyone nearby to praise the Sea Mother to, other than a very angry KT who seems to be searching for something.

He calls out to the party, and Jimjar translates. "He's looking for his slave... a drow child." The deep gnome calls back to the KT with a shake of his head, and the fellow curses and storms off.

Ploopp leads you all onward towards the shrine of the Sea Mother.

Stena, you and Sarith follow Shuushar towards the Sea Mother's shrine, arriving there before the rest of the party is able to hopefully extricate themselves from the encounter with the elemental. Shuushar halts the group, and indicates that it is more guarded than before... and that he's likely not the one to be able to talk his way past the guards ringing the shrine.

"Wait for the others, should we? Or can tell them guests of the Archpriest we are."

((Cool! Thom recovers 1 arrows))

Thom says to Jimjar "Right then!" and he extends his hand for a shake. "Let's hope we make it out of here so you can pay me, yeah?" Thom refers to 'here' with his hands, implying that he can't wait to get out of the underdark. 

Thom is ignoring anything he hears about the child. For whatever reason, he isn't wanting to fuss with any of that and will proceed to the shrine of the Sea Mother. 

They see the 3 S's upon arrival?

((Giving Stena a beat to decide what to do there first.))

Stena will shake her head at the suggestion to wait.

"We're here at Ploop's request. Let's go introduce ourselves and you can explain that while we wait."

She'll start heading over to the guards.

A nine-foot-tall statue stands here. Its body is roughly carved from some kind of wood in the shape of a humanoid female, its head and forearms formed from the severed head and claws of a giant albino crayfish. These parts are lashed on with strands of gut, and emit an overpowering stench of rotting shellfish. Shells, brightly colored stones, mushrooms, and rotting fish are piled at the statue’s feet and strung in garlands around its neck. Four stern kuo-toa slowly circle the statue, alert and on guard, while a few others mill about, gazing up at the statue and bowing repeatedly while chanting.

The guards allow you to approach, though one eyes Shuushar suspiciously.

Another steps forward, "Come to give offering? Great Sea Mother!", he waves his hand at the shrine and the pile of refuse at its base. As you watch, one of the KTs regurgitates a chunky meal onto the pile, to the apparent approval of the other worshipers.

Stena's eye twitches at the demonstration of reverence and the entire disgusting mess of a god the 'statue' represents. She keeps her tone tight, trying not to breathe too heavily from her nose.

"We are meeting High Priest Ploopp, he asked us to come here."

"Ah, yes! You give offering now!", he bobs his head up and down.

Shuushar steps forward, a few of the followers bristling at the heretic approaching, but he pulls a ball of dirty twine from a pocket of his goblin trousers, and places it on the shrine. The surrounding KTs seem to approve.

"Doesn't have to be anything good. They call her a scavenger goddess.", your KT traveling companion mutters as he steps back with you. Sarith nods and pats his pockets, pulling out a crab leg wrapped in fungus he'd taken from the platter at the Beer Room, and places it at the shrine among the other refuse.

Stena's jaw muscles tighten but after a moment she digs around in her pockets and pulls out a fletching feather that fell off an hour. As she gingerly places the feather she mutters in dwarven,

"Moradin forgive me for this and save me from this city of lunatics."

Satisfied with the offerings provided, the guards usher you into what seems like a nearby pen filled with other KT worshipers, but you realize that it is the remnants of one of the ramshackle buildings, building materials having been used elsewhere until just a low wall remains. There is a raised platform on the end nearest the shrine, such that anyone standing on it and speaking to the gathered crowds would have the effigy of the Sea Mother rising behind them. 

It is there that the S's remain, doing their best to keep themselves apart from the others when Ploopp leads the others to the shrine. You are able to join up once again, though Buppido hasn't made his way there yet. There is an excited buzz as he mounts the platform and gets a chance to do the proclamation that he hadn't an audience for after the Prince was released from the water elemental. The general gist as you gather it, either on your own or via translation, is that the false cult has stirred up the Darklake, to the point that even the water itself is rising in protest, but that the Sea Mother cast a group of Underdark and surface refuse-- he gestures at your party-- at his feet, and that you aided in delivering the innocents from the elemental. You get the sense that 'refuse' doesn't have the same negative connotation you might expect, and Shuushar helps explain that it is received in more of a 'useful things lost but that haven't found their place yet' way.

The KTs near you have a change in demeanor, many of them pushing forward to lay finned hands on the soggy, bedraggled robe of the mighty Derendil (Ploopp makes no mention of his Princely status), who seems a bit off put by the physical contact, his breathing getting more rapid as he casts wide eyes at Thom. Some of them press bits of broken shell, scraps of cloth or other such 'valuables' into your hands, or tuck them into your pockets. 

Before the touching gets too out of hand, Ploopp calls out to them, praising the Sea Mother followers for remaining true to the one true god, and says that his guests are in need of rest and recuperation after their trials. 

He gestures for you to follow, and leads you to a nearby large hovel, gesturing for you to enter. Inside  you find it dry, warm, and with plenty of space for you to stretch out and rest.

Lia is glad to be swept along, with the others, and ushered towards Ploopp’s temple, very much on her last legs. She tries to produce the warm glow she sometimes can, or heal herself, but there’s nothing left…

When the party stop to make an offering at the disgusting shrine, she rummages in her pack for something suitable. She finds something wet… and black... in her inventory. For some reason she thinks of it as being called ‘madness, level 1’… She recoils from it a little, then presses her eyes closed and shakes her head. When she opens her eyes again, it’s not there… <Shame>, she thinks <That would have made a fitting offering!…>.

She rummages again, and this time finds a… rabbit’s tooth!… A strange thing to have in her pack! She has a faint recollection of someone with a rabbit for a head, and remembers bashing it’s brains in to retrieve the tooth from its rotted skull… but that doesn’t sound right..  and it doesn’t sound like her at all!

Either way, she’s glad to be rid of it. She flings it into a pile of sick, on top of a heap of shells, under the putrid statue.

When she’s lead through to the hovel, she simply crawls on her hands and knees into a corner and collapses.

Ploopp has some attendants bring water for washing, and some extra blankets, which mostly seem to be discarded garments stitched together into a blanket shape. They're reasonably clean though, and dry. He tugs a curtain closed on the area, and wishes you a good rest before retreating to his study.

Thom would've also tried to not breathe through his nose as the group approaches the shrine. Back when offerings were being provided, Thom heeds Shuushar's advice and grabs the flint shard he got way back in the prison and presents it. "Er... this is my pet rock. Now it's yours mate! Or, rather now it's the great Sea Mother's!"

Once in the shrine, much like Lia, Thom would collapse once he gathers some blankets. He wouldn't worry about washing as he's probably too tired. 

Galingal does his best to avoid contact with the KT but won’t push anyone away.

Once the group are alone in the hovel and he sees some of the others fall down exhausted, he settles himself near the curtain door, taking the first watch. They may be guests but in a town on the brink of civil war there are bound to be spies on both sides and they might be a tempting target.

If the others all sleep through, he’ll trade off with Sarith as the two of them will need the least recovery time.

Stena's grinds her teeth when the KTs try to touch her and give her garbage. She'll not thank them and try to put Derendil and the others between them and herself.

In the room she'll say, quietly, to Galingal,

"Wake meh for meh watch. Don't hesitate to wake meh before if anything happens. These creatures are unpredictable."

She gives gives the party a glance as she says 'these creatures' but returns it to Galingal.

"Don't let your guard down just because whatever was said about being guests."

She'll find a spot away from the cloth door and with her back to the wall before sitting heavily on the ragged blankets. She'll absently place a hand on Eldeth's hammer as she whispers a quiet prayer to Moradin.

After a few minutes she'll lay and try to rest.