Taking longer than expected to get her muscles up and moving, Ethlehyn eventually limps over to join the others.

"My apologies for the late start.  I trust I've missed quite a bit already."  Quieter, she asks, "None of you would be responsible for that missing knife, would you?" and looks a bit saddened to find out none of you are.

Also in a hushed voice, she provides an update on her magics.  "I was able to prepare some new spells for today.  I can cast everything you've seen before, plus I have a spell that can put people to sleep - though I wouldn't count on it subduing more than one or two hobgoblins at a time.  I also have a spell that can create obscuring mists that could give us some cover or conceal something we don't want the guards to see.  It isn't perfect, and they will know I've cast a spell, so if we decide to try something we need to make it count."

Marrin looks to make sure no one is close enough to hear and quietly explains what Ula has found.

"Thoughts? Knowing it exists is valuable, but I think we need to find it to see how we can use it. Plus just getting out doesn't get us off this island."

Ethlehyn chuckles under her breath.  "I should have trusted my gut.  Saltwater means those pools connect to the sea.  It's the most obvious path out."  She frowns.  "But someone needs to explore it and find said path.  And I don't have any spells that can help them in that regard."

"You raise a good point," she whispers, in response to Marrin.  "I don't fancy living the rest of my days in the hills of this island, eating rats and waging guerrilla campaigns against these Hargrove bastards.  Getting out of this pen is just a piece of the escape."

Marrin nods along and whispers back,

"Based on what Ula and Avaria described is going on here, I feel confident I and maybe Jan could infiltrate their operations. If the tunnel can be transversed in both directions we could start making preparations before the proper escape. Biggest issue is we know dung all about sailing."

Avaria listens in to the plans, trying to let everything sink in.  She looks on with obvious admiration when Ethlehyn explains the spells she is now able to accomplish.  

"Think there would be anyway to find the Quartermaster?  From the sounds of it he was led away in chains as well, and we saw the Rose Marie still docked in the harbor area with the rest of the boats, so I would imagine he'd be in this area somewhere?  Maybe our new friend Dodds might be able to direct us to him if we take the fall he was mentioning?  In the meantime if we need to do some scouting underwater, I'm willing to give that a shot."

Marrin shrugs.

"We could look for him but I don't even know where we'd begin. Maybe on the ship? So far as scouting goes maybe our resident Dwarven tunnel expert can decide?"

Ula says, “Let me take a look… Hmm… Anyone asks, and I’m a Cleric of Istishia praying to my god, right?…”, and with a deep breath she steps off the edge into the pool in the centre of the room and is gone under the surface…

Marrin watches Ula jump in before looking back to Ava,

"I guess she has it. Who wants to come and see if the goblin's information the hobs is accurate?"

If Jan and/or Avaria come with her, Marrin heads towards the goblin chamber. At the entrance she pauses and looks for Jisthelek. On making eye contact with him she will gesture to the hobgoblin chamber. If Jisthelek doesn't seem concerned/stop her she will continue to Hobtown and, after adjusting her appearance to look human, will attempt to attract the attention of Festan Elf-Cleaver, or someone that she can talk to get Festan - without entering their chamber. She will take the time to count the number of hobs there and take in their situation.

Ula in the pool:

As Ula jumps into the water, she discovers that even the little light from the grates above barely penetrate the surface. But she can thank her parents for the gift of being able to still make out a watery gray and black tableau.

She moves around the rough pool, finding rocky outcroppings and little else.

Given how often she’s swum in the rough waters off of Spandeliyon, Ula knows she can hold her breath for about 3 minutes. She’s able to search a fair bit in that time but as she’s found nothing near the surface, she pops her head out, takes another breath and dives as deep as she can to finish exploring.

Strength (Athletics) Check – DC 10 – to get to the bottom of the pool. And a second Perception Roll please.

Hobtown Tour Group:

As Marrin leads the way out of your cavern and through the goblin cave, she catches sight of Jisthelek sitting with his feet in the pool of water in the center of the cave. Water drips over his extensive tattoos as she shakes his head, water drops flying off of his short black hair.

When Marrin makes eye contact with him, he smiles and gives her a little salute. When she gestures at the entrance to the hobgoblin area, he shrugs but then touches one of his fingers to his own pointed goblin ear and raises an eyebrow at Marrin. Has he noticed the change in her ears?

Looking into the cavern to the south, but not moving further, Marrin is immediately aware that this cavern is 'better' than the other two she's seen. There are sleeping platforms, almost bed like, carved out of the walls along the edges of the cavern. Several flat top rocks serve as tables and there is no sign of dirt or sand on the floor. The weathered stone is almost clean.

Several hobgoblins can be seen, paired up, and wrestling in the middle of the cavern. When one gets a good hold, or pins another, they break and start again. One large bugbear can be seen across the cavern, acting like what appears to be a sentry at the other cave entrance.

In the middle of the hobgoblin pairs (you count 4 pairs of wrestlers), stands a very tall, stiff-backed, exceptionally muscled, but heavily scarred hobgoblin, his arms folded across his chest. He occasionally barks out orders to the wrestlers. When he does, they quickly change their stances and attempt different holds.

You finally realize that if there's a bugbear guard on the other entrance, there might be a sentry here too. Before you can look around, a large bugbear steps in front of the group of you and glowers down at you.

"What you want?" Big Bugbear One asks. 

While the others busy themselves, Ethel seeks out Geffroi.  

"I hope you didn't find the first night in our new accomodations too disagreeable."

"Have you had any interesting conversations with our fellow prisoners?"

Ula… Strength (athletics): 11 … Perception: 8 

Ethel:

Geffroi flinches at first when he hears a voice directed towards him, but he relaxes when he looks up and sees Ethel.

“I wish I could say I’ve slept in worse places, but I can’t,” Geffroi says. “That I’m still alive is positive.”

He frowns a little when asked about anything he’s discussed with the other prisoners.

“They seem almost delusional. The number of times I’ve heard about ghosts roaming the caverns or magic weapons buried in the arena is disturbing. But one thing I’ve heard is that the food and water supplies are anything but regular. Keeping some reserve provisions is a good idea if you can manage it.”

Ula:

Ula is just able to power down into the pool. The concentration of salt is almost too high to let her reach the bottom, but her dense muscles and dwarven bones finally let her touch bottom. After a quick scan, Ula really doesn’t see much, but does feel the slight tug of a current.

((How far through her breath is she roughly?))

(Approx half way - say a minute and a half left - with it only taking a couple of seconds to push up and get to the surface - she can make another perception check if she wants to keep looking)

Ula takes a further look around, whilst keeping mindful of the time it would take to get back to fresh air…

Perception: 14 

Marrin smiles at Jisthelek's ear touching and makes a little sparkling shower around her hand and points at her own ear and wiggles her fingers.

To the hob,

"Hello there! We're new here and would like to speak with Festan about our shared situation. Does he have a moment?"

Avaria walks with Marrin to through the goblin area, keeping her eyes peeled for what is going on in the adjacent cave... specifically looking for weapons or anything else of interest after what Ula had mentioned earlier.

Perception  6

As they get to the entrance of hobtown, Avaria is taken aback by the change of accommodations this group has.  They are even keeping themselves entertained.  She wonders if they even would want to try and escape?  The leader looks pretty content with his role, even by this short amount of time observing.  

As Bug bear one stands in front of them, Avaria crosses her arms and stares back at him as Marrin speaks jovially with him.

Ula the Mermaid:

Ula pulls herself along the bottom of the pool of water, finding rough crevasses to hook her strong fingers into. She manages to find what might be one part of the current she feels; an opening barely enough to fit her hand into. Just as she's about to run out of air, she finds a matching opening on the other side of the pool, on the western side, closest to the goblin cave. This opening is about the same size as the other. While both are small, there is a fair amount of pressure so water moves between them quickly. With the last bits of oxygen seeping out of her lungs, Ula pushes off hard from the bottom and races upwards.

As she breaks the surface of the water, she wonders if that underwater current might have had something to do with why her attempts to change the salt water to fresh water didn't last long.

Hammerdasher claps his hands together when he sees Ula break the surface.

"That's two too many baths in twenty-four hours lass," Hammerdasher says. "You're going to wash the dwarf right out of you. You'll be thinking you're a sea elf before long."

Hobtown Tour Group:

Avaria doesn't notice anything that looks like a weapon as she passes through the goblin caves, but maybe that's because the goblins, while not seeming hostile towards the visitors, do seem to be secretive and move to their nooks and behind stones with ease at the first sign of newcomers. All she sees is what Marrin did; Jisthelek dripping wet at the edge of the pool in the middle of the room, water running over his collection of tattoos.

The bugbear guard doesn't look back at Festan when Marrin asks for an audience. All he gives is a relatively hostile "No."

The heavily muscled and scarred hobgoblin in the center of all the wrestling looks up to see what the bugbear is doing but he turns away after only a moment.

As he shifts his stance, Marrin and Avaria now notice, that this cavern also has a long pool of water as well.

After the rejection of the bugbear, Avaria turns on her heel and heads for Jisthelek with a playful smile on her face.  She sits down next to him and looks in the pool of water he is sitting at.  She pauses a moment, then looks to the dripping wet goblin.

"So, what's your reason for going swimming?  Something interesting in there?"