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The Darkwood at Mudjaw Beach
A Salvage Job Along Profit's Flow
The river widens into a sluggish backwater where mud, reeds, and tangled cypress roots break the shoreline into narrow channels. Six darkwood boles drift near the center of the reach, each bearing the blue double-slash Captain Sella described.
At first the water seems still. Then one of the logs shifts against the current, and something dark moves beneath it.
Mudjaw Beach is where Captain Sella Varn's lost timber finally came to rest. The party's immediate task depends on what they learned from Sella at the Gilded Ledger Tavern.
Do not repeat Sella's investigation or contraband challenge here. That conversation has already happened at the Gilded Ledger.
Begin this scene using whichever objective the party left Macridi with.
Recover the Six Boles
The party believes this is an ordinary salvage job. Sella asked for all six marked darkwood boles, and recovering them will earn the promised Transport Point.
- Objective: Recover all six marked darkwood boles.
- What the Party Knows: Sella was unusually specific about the number, size, and markings of the timber, but she did not explain why.
Recover the Hollowed Bole
The party knows Sella does not actually care about most of the lost timber. One bole is hollow and contains a sealed copper cylinder holding unregistered Cedar Court amber.
- Objective: Recover only the hollowed bole and return it intact to Sella.
- Identification: It bears the same blue double-slash as the others but rides slightly higher in the water.
- Other Timber: The remaining five boles no longer matter to Sella.
Three reefclaws have claimed the flooded timber as part of their hunting territory. The party does not necessarily begin in combat; how they deal with the creatures depends on their approach to recovering the cargo.
Getting the Darkwood
Run Getting the Darkwood for the complete tactical encounter, including the three reefclaws, battlefield terrain, detection, distraction, stealth, timber recovery, and combat procedures.
The important difference is established before that encounter begins: parties who know Sella's secret need only recover one lighter hollowed bole, making a quiet extraction possible. Parties still working from her public story must deal with the much more difficult task of recovering the entire shipment.
Completing the objective Sella actually assigned the party earns 1 Transport Point.
If she admitted the truth at the Gilded Ledger, the hollowed bole alone satisfies the bargain. She does not later demand the other five.