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[Morrow]

From the Journal Of K. Garnham Seeker translated from the Valossan

Lavinia has decided to undertake an expedition to the Isle of Dread.
Apparently her parents founded a colony there some time before their deaths. They were planning on resupplying the colony and bringing in new colonists, but were stopped by Vanthus' treachery.

We've been invited along to assist with violence prevention and to provide an additional ship. It seems that the abandoned ship we left in Kraken's Cove hadn't been claimed after all these months, so we sailed down, laid our claim and brought her back to Sasserine for crewing and some patch-ups. Some of Dexter's carpenter friends came and changed the Sea Wyvern into the Bronze Dragon.

None of us are sailors so a full crew had to be hired.

Our captain is Amella Venaklie. She's a widow and former smuggler. Tough. No-nonsense. Dislikes gnomes. Our navigator is Urol Forol a gnome who has been trying desperately to get the Captain to like him. Urol is a naturalist and has a certain .... musky aroma about him. Neither that nor his attempts to get into her good books have changed the Captain's views. Others include our first mate Augustus Wendt, able seamen Lirith Veldirose, Lyle Underfoot, Skald and Jess Mobley as well as cabin boy Tavey Nesk. Tavey has already developed a fairly strong crush on Maggie.

In addition to ourselves we have ten passengers. The Warren family (Elsa, Arlis and daughter Brianna), the sisters Therese (tailor) and Beatrice (cook) Thoms, Father Feres a cleric of Darmon and a potter named Yelda are soon-to-be colonists.

We are also joined by nobleman Avner Meravanchi, his two servants Chisk and Asper and Avner's ego. There's also a war horse named Thunderstrike taking up space in the hold.

We set out from Sasserine under blue skies and steady winds.
Three days out the Nixie sent word that Lavinia wanted Captain Venaklie, Avner and the Silver Beetles to join her for dinner that evening. That evening the two ships pulled in close to one another and used a tether line to bring us across.

Dinner was an excellent affair all around. I was seated beside Lavinia. She was, if possible, even more radiant than usual.

I sat opposite Tolin from the Jade Ravens. He was amiable enough and we didn't exchange words.

Liamae sat on my other side. I have to admit that I was a bit concerned at first. I had been trying to avoid her since the bullywug affair. After Lorpth was defeated I offered her my cloak and got her upstairs. At the time she seemed a little too grateful for my comfort. I didn't want to take advantage so I kept myself away. Apparently she and Elyosha had an adventure of their own. The two snuck into the bullywug village and came across Lorpth alone in his hut. He was drunk and the two planned to spirit him back to Sasserine and justice when they were interrupted by Lorb Lorb Tub. Reading between the lines it seems that Tub wanted Lorpth's position and was willing to accept a challenge from Liamae on behalf of the drunk, unconscious, Lorpth. Liamae killed him easily and appointed Tub the new leader. One person's revenge is another frog's political assassination. Liamae was in excellent spirits and there was none of the awkwardness I was afraid of.

We also discovered that Keskus had found a new animal companion to take the place of his fallen badger. A dolphin; don't ask me for it's name.

Also of note was the fact that Avner was seated on the opposite end of the table from Lavinia. The captain of the Nixie was directly opposite her and Avner was to his right.

Dinner ended and we made our way back to the Dragon. Dexter took the rope first and went into the drink. The rope had been shot or rigged to fail. Then a mephit flew up into the air. I heard sounds of spell casting going on aboard the Dragon and so imbibed a potion to give me the wherewithal to make the jump between ships.

I landed on deck at the same time that a shark appeared in the water beside Dexter. I looked, but could see no sign of anyone casting or who had just cast, so I went below decks to investigate.

Nothing.

Elyosha dealt with the shark and the mephit didn't stand much of a chance. We either had a turncoat or a stowaway.

The next day we rounded up the most likely turncoats and placed them in Maggie's zone of truth. We did discover that Feres was a con man pretending to be a cleric of Darmon. Apparently things had gotten too hot for him and he was traveling incognito.

We couldn't find a turncoat.

I turned the ship upsidedown and found evidence of someone else living on board. The next day Maggie went through the ship with an invisibility purge and we found our stowaway. Rowyn Keilani. We took her alive and decided to place her in service aboard the ship in lieu of imprisonment.

A few days later we arrived in port and took on supplies,
While taking some shore leave Elyosha, Maggie and I heard a scream from a nearby alley. Investigating the scream we discovered a man being assaulted by what looked like halflings. Elyosha later identified them as Redcaps; evil fey so named because they dipped their hats in the blood of their victims. When they died the flesh quickly burned leaving behind nothing but one tooth. Elyosha has started a necklace with the three we defeated in the alley.

Volk was sent back to the ship to gather Dexter. Elyosha backtracked to the redcaps lair where we fought an older, more powerful redcap.