Wix Pindle is the head cook on the biggest of the Cook Barges. He collects rent there for the Grell family, and he also cooks Rush on the side and keeps that money for himself. To hide it from the Grells, he set up a small lab on shore. It is in an old pump shed at the north end of Outfall, under the giant waste pipe.
Three weeks ago his men dug a drain from the shed to dump the lab's waste into an old stone tank under the shore. Nobody told him the tank feeds the village well. Now the well is yellow and smells of burned sugar, and children who drank from it cough blood. Wix learned this a week ago. He has not stopped, because moving the lab would cost him a month of sales.
His hired men wear green coats like Grell family guards, so anyone who sees them blames the Grells. Nadia Poole followed the new pipe halfway and saw them. She thinks the Grell family is behind it.
Nadia Poole is the village healer. She wants the well clean and the sick children treated. She has no money to pay.
Wix Pindle wants his side trade kept secret from the Grell family. He would rather pay than fight.
The cook in the shed is a tired Syndicate chemist who works for Wix. He will name Wix to save himself.
The player characters are the Ingeborg crew, a family salvage crew. Bjarte Sollund owns the tug and owes the Grell family dock rent. Ruben Lowry is a street surgeon who has been treating the sick children for free. Mette Sollund, Bjarte's adopted daughter and Ruben's wife, grew up in a Rush lab and knows the burned-sugar smell. Agathe Rolle is the family's old Pellin healer. They live on the Ingeborg, a salvage tug tied up near the village. The player runs one of them. The GM runs the other three as companions.
Nell Tidwell, a village girl who runs messages to the Cook Barges, Jonas Pyle, a salvage buyer, and Albin Skeat, a crab egg buyer, are NPCs now. Nell's grandmother is one of the sick.
The well (Outfall). The water is yellow and smells of burned sugar. A DC 13 Wisdom (Medicine) or Intelligence (Nature) check shows it is Rush waste and crystal dust, not rot. Mette Sollund knows it at once. Nadia Poole has six sick children and three old people in her shack. A DC 13 Intelligence (Investigation) check under the boardwalk finds a new clay pipe, half buried in the sludge, running north along the shore. Nadia says she followed it halfway and saw Grell guards.
The shore path (Sludge Sea). The pipe runs 20 minutes north through the shallows. Halfway, 2 Sludge Crab and 2 Snapjaw guard a nest of shiny scrap beside the pipe. A DC 14 Wisdom (Animal Handling) check, or a piece of shiny salvage thrown wide, draws them away, and Agathe Rolle can speak with them. Otherwise they attack. The longer way along the boardwalk avoids the crab, but a lookout on the shed roof spots the crew unless they pass a group DC 14 Dexterity (Stealth) check.
The pump shed (Outfall). The shed stands at the foot of the waste pipe, at the north end of the village. By day, inside are Wix's foreman (Riot Boss), 3 Rush Brute, 4 Syndicate Enforcer and 6 Syndicate Knifemen in green coats, 2 Tunnel Mastiff and 1 Syndicate Chemist at a cooking table. At night only the foreman, 2 Syndicate Knifemen and the chemist stay, and a quiet crew can close the valve without a big fight. A DC 13 Intelligence (Investigation) check finds the cook's sales book. It lists every batch sold, the buyer and the money paid to Wix, with no share for the Grells. A crate of crystal dust sits under the table. The drain joins the pipe at a rusted valve. Closing it takes a wrench and a DC 13 Strength (Athletics) check. Breaking the valve shut takes 10 minutes. The hired men Will Run when half of them drop. The cook gives up if he is hurt or cornered, and names Wix Pindle.
The barges (Cook Barges). Nell Tidwell can get aboard as a runner. Others need a reason, such as selling crystal dust. Wix Pindle has 8 barge guards (Syndicate Enforcers) and 3 Rush Brutes, and more Grell guards come from the next barges every round. A fight here is far too much even for this crew, and the barges are his ground. Shown the sales book, Wix offers 60 Crowns to forget it. A DC 15 Charisma (Intimidation or Persuasion) check makes him pay for the well instead. That means 10 barrels of clean water from Keelhouse, a new well pipe and 30 Crowns to Nadia for medicine. If the crew threatens to send the book to the Grell family, Wix pays anything asked. Then he plans to have the crew hurt within a month.
Healing (Outfall). The well stays bad for 10 days after the drain is closed. A barrel of clean water from Keelhouse costs 5 Crowns and serves the village for a day. Draining the well faster takes 4 hours and a DC 14 Intelligence check with Tinker Tools to rig a pump from salvage. With the Ingeborg's winch pumps, Bjarte Sollund can do it in 2 hours. Each sick person recovers with an Antitoxin or a Lamp Cleanse spell. Without help, one sick person in four gets worse each week.
Encounter math. Four level 8 characters. Low 4,000, Moderate 6,800 and High 8,400 XP. The shore path is 4,500 XP (Low). The pump shed by day is 8,150 XP (High), and by night it is 1,750 XP. The barges are far above High.
1042-04-17. Villagers carry rain water from the roofs. Two more children fall sick.
1042-04-20. Nadia Poole follows the pipe alone. Wix's men beat her and break her staff.
1042-04-22. The oldest net fisher in the village dies.
1042-04-25. Wix moves his lab to a wreck in the Hull Fields. The drain stays open.
1042-05-10. The well is still yellow. A third of the village leaves for Keelhouse.
Good. The drain is closed, the sick get medicine and clean water, and Wix pays for the well.
Mixed. The drain is closed, but nobody pays. Or the Grell family learns of Wix's side trade and burns the shed, and the village gets the blame.
Bad. The drain stays open and the well stays poisoned.
The village collects 9 Crowns in Bits and gives it to the crew.
Nadia Poole gives each character a Potion of Healing from her roof garden and treats them for free from now on.
The shed's cash box holds 135 Crowns.
The crate of crystal dust sells for 120 Crowns at the Hanging Market or the Weigh Yard. The Cook Barges will learn who sold it.
The Stolen Helm Parts Recovery gig at the Weigh Yard, through a buyer Jonas Pyle knows.
Heroic Inspiration for bringing clean water to the village before 1042-04-22.
Wix remembers. A month later, two men in green coats ask the Weigh Yard about the crew.
The Grell family. If the sales book reaches the Grells, they send a collector to the barges. He wants to meet whoever found it, and he pays well for silence.
The Stitch House. Two of Nadia's patients went to the Stitch House in the Tip Ridges for cheap treatment last month. Neither came back.