Last time on the Adventures of Team BAJA! After the party thrwarted the nefarious Dollmaker’s evil scheme in the town of Rivergreen, the party decided to partake in the festivities of renewed ties between the elves of the Durmista woods and the townsfolk of Rivergreen. The docks were in full service once again, and the party hoped to journey closer to the true destination: the city of Lastil-Taswell. Unfortunately, another force had other plans, with explosive bolts of arcane energy tossed at the halfling Rainer by the mysterious but powerful elf mercenary named “Zee”. The party did their best to combat their lone foe, but it proved to be too much for them. The halfling was kidnapped by Zee who fled via teleportation magic. The party is in pursuit for their small-sized comrade as they sprinted towards the docks under the dark, night sky.

Rainer awakes and finds himself what seems to be the bowels of a ship, iron bars separated into a small wooden corridor. As he regained his senses, he noticed two figures on the other side of the bars, one of them was an elf that was most likely the mercenary “Zee” and another figure that seemed to possess blond hair. The blond had a familiar shape but it was her voice that Rainer instantly recognized. The two notice in the midst of their conversation, the halfling Rainer regain bits of consciousness again.

“Hello Rainer,” the blond-haired woman spoke. As Rainer regained his vision, the blond woman wore a dark cloak with a set of black leather armor, a rapier sat on her hips, along with several sets of daggers as well. She was of modest beauty and was relatively petite but she her most remarkable quality were her purple eyes.

“Cecil,” the halfling responded. Rainer took a quick mental inventory and realized that his belongings were all taken from him, even the emergency provisions in his hidden pockets. Cecil was quite thorough, such was the diligence of the woman who represented a much more mysterious figure. Her presence made Rainer feel unease, the current circumstances would suggest that her employer was displeased with the rogue.

“I believe you know why are you are here, Rainer,” Cecil kept her poise and demeanor, mostly of disappointment and disapproval. She turned back to the elf mercenary, “our business arrangement is completed, you will find your payment in the agreed upon drop location.” The elf nodded at Cecil and exited out the corridor, “good luck, you’ll need it,” she remarked to the halfling.

“So what now? Aren’t you going to ask me where is the gemstone?” The halfling remarked at the woman, Rainer struggled to get himself up but after a few attempts managed it.

“My master simply wants to know where is the gemstone? You were tasked to acquire it and deliver it at the drop off. Instead there was a fake, we simply needed to talk with you,” Cecil informed.

“So you just decided to hire a merc to hunt me down like some animal instead?” Rainer responded bitterly.

“We could not find you, so we had to established a bounty to find and retrieve you,” she countered, “but you can explain it all to master Randor. He has questions of his own for you.”

A hooded figure emerged from the corridor, nearly six feet tall and rather lanky in stature. The figure took slow but precise steps along the deck, the skin on the figure’s hands were stretched and pale to the point of discomfort. The lower half of the figure’s face was equally as lean and malnourished, but that was the only form that Rainer knew of the Timeaus Randor. This time, in the flesh, maybe.

“Hello, Rainer. I was rather disappointed with the outcome of our your previous task, I do not enjoy such deceptions. So I will ask you, do you have the gem?” Timeaus’ voice was raspy and coarse, yet also possessed the sound of a toad caught in his throat. Rainer was not intimidated by the hooded figure, he stood defiantly at his employer.

“Why did you not tell me how powerful or dangerous the gem was? I could not trust you anymore,” the halfling sneered.

“It was on a need to know basis, you did not need to know. Your job was to retrieve the item without incident and place it in the drop off location in one of our designated safe houses. I did not anticipate the gem’s reaction or activation. A minor setback, but I thought you would have the callous to finish the job and retrieve it. I already was lenient on your failure on the retrieval of the dragon mask from a group of adventurers. I would like to continue our deal with more success as opposed to failures.” Timaeus paced around the iron bars of the cell, each word was eloquently placed with perfect rhythm.

Meanwhile…

The rest of Team BAJA, with the aid of a magical dowser, following behind the trail of mysterious elf mercenary in the hopes to rescue their halfling friend. Aydan rides on Brightiron’s shoulder while Arcaelus holds onto Jimmy’s wolf form; the elf Thia remained behind to tend to the wounded civilians in town. Once they arrived at the docks, the group frantically began to search for a ship that might contain their missing Rainer. Arcaelus spotted a ship several hundred yards out of port heading down the river. Jimmy changed his form again into a large octopus, and used its powerful aquatic ability to catch up to the ship with Aydan and Arcaelus wrapped around Jimmy’s tentacles. Brightiron ran in full sprint down the grassy hills along the river banks, the barbarian found a large tree trunk to use as leverage to leap up into the air and land aboard the moving ship. Jimmy managed to grab hold of the ship’s rudder and crawl his way up the side of the ship. Aydan and Arcaelus make their way from the stern side of the ship. The crew on board the ship turn with a mix of confusion upon the team’s arrival, some quickly drew their weapons and lunged at the adventurers.

Will the members of Team BAJA save their friend and comrade, the halfling rogue Rainer? What sort of fate awaits Rainer now that his employer, the mysterious Timeaus Randor has arrived, what does he have in store? Find out next time!

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