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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 2984988" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter Forty, “Wrap-up”, August 10, 1018, 5:00 A.M.The group in the Southpoint Cave is woken up, finding that the storm has greatly diminished.   It will continue to rain for the rest of this day, however the winds die down more with each passing hour.  At Southpoint Island, all except Lannon and Fiona SeaCastle get into the bags of holding, and they then fly back to the city on her Carpet of Flying.  The parties regroup, and discuss what has transpired.   The city itself survived with the only thing of significance being flooding in the eastern half of the city, with the several inches of rain now covering the roads and first floors of the buildings.  This water has begun to recede, assisted by more “Lower Water” spells by the clerics.Those who can fly investigate the remainder of the Island to survey the damage left by the storm.  The non-combatants left at the school, and the school buildings themselves, made it through the storm relatively unscathed, the only real damage being to the basement of the main house which is now flooded with five feet of water.   Houses belonging to Aradyn, Blip, Fiona and Mark also made it through the storm with minimal damage (a few broken windows and some sections of roofing that need to be replaced).  The oceanfront Silas family home is no more, having been washed over the cliff and into the sea.   Blake’s hobbit hole had been flooded out of existence, with mudslides from the mountain having filled it in.   The caves of Freyland and Milo also show water and mud damage.  Araby's cabin has also been flattened.The town itself suffered the worst damage, with the homes of fifteen of the crew being completely flattened, eight more homes washed off of their foundations (two floating in the harbor), and the remaining ten homes heavily damaged.  The harbor has overflowed, with about eighteen inches of water now covering the streets of the town.  One of the two docks was destroyed.  The front third of the inn and the main room of the tavern had collapsed, but the kitchen, Jerry’s quarters, and back two-thirds of the inn appear to be relatively undamaged.  Deciding they need to get Dennismore, Jerry and Vallessa back, the group manages to use Invisibility, Levitate and Illusion spells to simulate a while flare.   This convinces Barthrock that his team has won, and he agrees to release his three prisoners after the party agrees to let his team exit the mountain without being assaulted or followed.   Narg also requires his group to agree to never return to their Island again.  Taking the bodies of their two fallen comrades, the five members of his team depart through the main tunnel.The group of Alton, Isaiah, Mojo, Narg and Serita lead an aerial assault on the observation tower, catching its occupants by surprise.   The find in the uppermost room three people they recognize as those who had first attacked the school, and then later held the hostages at the Silas family home.  Of these, the mage leader, Valerie, is still unconscious from the SeaCastle adventurer’s assault on the church.  Another in the room is the fighter Donovan, immobilized due to the bullet wounds to his leg,.  The third is the enemy monk.  Donovan mouths off to the group, which proves to be fatal as Serita is “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore”.  Before anyone can stop her, she decapitates him with her scimitar.   The monk immediately surrenders. At noon, six ships sail into the harbor from Thenossia, led by Queen Jennifer. She meets with the party, and offers the assistance of her forces as needed.   The party is appreciative, and has her troops help search the woods for any more enemies.   They find a group of a dozen hobgoblins a mile south of the church.  None of these hobgoblins survive the subsequent battle with these mercenaries.Mid-afternoon, another six ships arrive, these being Jawlt Naval Ships, led by the Naval leader Waller.   Waller immediately meets with the party.  Once he establishes that every-thing is under control, Waller orders four of these six ships to set sail for Farnsburg, to assist with the cleanup there, as that was where the hurricane eventually made landfall.  (Note: the efforts of the “weather team” reduced the category-five storm to a category-three.  During the hundred mile-trek across the ocean to Farnsburg, it intensified back up to a category-four, but was still a far weaker storm than it would have been without their intervention.)  Waller tells the party that prior to hitting the anti-magic barrier, a mage messenger teleported to his ship, informing him of the storm’s impact at Farnsburg.  The Jawlt army leader Tenbar decided to return with the mage to Farnsburg, and Waller redirected two of his eight ships to sail there as well.  Since Farnsburg had had advanced notice that the storm was coming, the mages present at that town were able to cast Control Weather spells, to protect the large crowds of people who had gathered there for the annual Farnburg Fair, scheduled to begin that week.   There was no loss of life as a result, although the town itself was heavily damaged.   At Tenbar’s suggestion, the current year’s Fair has now been redesigned, so that rather than athletic competition, the eight-person teams will now compete to see who can do the most to “rebuild the town” during the next two weeks.The two prisoners from the tower, as well as the human and six bugbears from the cave tunnel, are turned over to Waller.  He has them placed under guard in the brig of his flagship, the Jawlt Naval Ship Jawltorn.  He says that the two captured in the tower will be held accountable for the damage to the Ukko church, since their presence there was what prompted Aurora to fireball it, and that these enemies will make restitution.  Aurora is thrilled by this news, commenting to Torvald "I love it, I get to burn down a Lawful Good church, everybody knows I did it, and yet somebody else gets blamed.  We should do this more often."Sailing on Waller’s other vessel, the Jawlt Naval Ship Celib-Itil, the party surveys the northern coast to check out the status of their other two ships.   They find the Grand Enigma has weathered the storm in its protected inlet (the group deciding to rename this ship the Shining Star).   The Molly III (soon to be renamed the Golden Sun) has also survived the storm.  However, the group is troubled to find that the Molly III has been very recently readied for sailing, with dozens of hobgoblin tracks around it.   They decide to follow these tracks.The tracks lead south to Crystul’s cabin.   The party arrives, to find the forty-three members of the Gold Team, who they had negotiated with the previous morning.  The party angrily confronts the people about their intention to steal the group’s ship, feeling that such deception nullifies their truce.  The leader, the cleric Barry, tactfully explains that the ship was only going to be borrowed to bring them to the outer island to meet Morgarth.   The group does not believe him, until after a “Detect Lie” spell confirms that these were indeed his intentions.   A “Know Alignment” spell reveals both Barry and Kenneth to be Lawful Neutral, but the thief, bugbears and hobgoblins to be evil.  The group discusses accompanying them to meet Morgarth, which Barry adamantly refuses, as it would be obvious he and his team were setting up Morgarth for an ambush.   Barry again reminds them of the truce negotiated the previous day, and argues that their planning to borrow but not harm the ship should not nullify it.After a short debate, the group decides to turn the forty-one evil aligned creatures over to Waller and the Jawlt Military.  They reluctantly agree to Barry’s suggestion that he and Kenneth be allowed to just “walk away now” on their own, without the gold wands and tracking device, and take their chances about finding a way on their own to meet with Morgarth.   The two agree to never again take any offensive action against the party, and to take a neutral position if present when the party attacks Morgarth.  The two quickly disappear into the woods.  Luekia feels that letting them go is a mistake.Aurora tells the Silver Moon party how much assistance their ship’s Second Mate Hans was with her group, and that he is always welcome to join them as a member of their party.   They thank her, but add that now that the group owns three ships, he is likely to be getting a promotion.   All three Silver Moon mates (Fritz, Hans and Lloyd), after talking to the crew, bring up the suggestion that instead of the party continuing to pay them every month, in lieu of payment they would like to have one the merchant ships to hire out for cargo runs.   The group’s two principal business people, Luekia and Jerry, immediately begin to negotiate terms for this proposed arrangement, to be finalized after Jacob returns.  August 11, 1018, 12:00 NoonA group comprised primarily of the highest-level characters (Aradyn, Cassie, Furynick, Isaiah, Kharole, Lannon, Mark, Mojo, Narg, Serita, Timothy and Vincenzo) sets up an ambush at the known place on Southpoint Island, but Morgarth never arrives.   Two enemies that do arrive to be picked up by him are the human fighter Craig and half-orc fighter Martt (previously encountered on the Molly III, also the two that rode out the storm in Lannon's front hallway).  The group captures them, and turns them over to the Jawlt military, after first stripping them of all possessions.Waller offers to keep his two Jawlt Naval Ships and their troops at the Island until the return of the group’s own warship, the Silver Moon.   He also volunteers a dozen of his most experienced sailors to accompany Aurora back to the Isle of Cleese, to assist Jacob and the seven crew-members with him to sail back the Silver Moon.   Waller also points out to the party that the Jawlt Naval ships Fransburg, Gelorynth, Georgetown and Jawltorn each use the coastal communities that they are named for as their home port, and offers the same for the Jawlt Naval Ship Celib-Itil, if the party so chooses.   Using a combination of “reduce” spells and her group’s bag of holding, Aurora teleports away with the dozen Jawlt sailors.  “Twelve sailors for one female mage,” comments Jerry, “Who does she think she is…Kharole?”   The other five SeaCastle Adventurers decide to remain on the Island until Aurora returns, with Billy Bob, Flashis, Razou and Torvald offering to help Jerry with fixing the tavern.  Fiona SeaCastle offers to help her counterpart.  Mojo and Narg decide that they will wait outside of the destroyed tavern for Jerry to “Nail together three boards, consider the place open, and get us each a drink.”Determining that the “threat” has now passed, Queen Jennifer releases the five ships that she had commandeered, letting them return to Thenossia (four to Halla, one to Grammel).   The mercenary troops who she hired are issued pay vouchers, and most choose to return on the ships to Thenossia, although after a generous offer and appeal from Jerry, eighty-two sign on for hire as construction workers to help rebuild the town.   Also departing with the Thenossian ships are the pair of Adrianna and Kruk, who decide that the coastal city of Halla sounds like an interesting place to visit.   Jennifer decides to remain at the Island for at least a few more days with her personal warship, Thenossia’s Pride, anticipating that either Lord Kindor or Lord Aldorn will arrive soon with news as to what they found out in Zalpar.One ship that does arrive this afternoon is a boat that Da’Bears (the Silver Moon’s lower-level spin off team) had chartered to take them to the annual Farnsburg Fair.   Dani had insisted upon the “detour” to Silver Moon Island, after hearing that a hurricane had hit it, wanting to check on the status of both her mother Vallessa and her friends at the school.   Dani, Bitsey and Troyan decide to stick around for a while with the Silver Moon. After concluding that those on the island are pretty much intact, and hearing that the Farnsburg Fair will soon begin, Opal Silversteel (who as a past “Mayor” is slated to be an “Honorary Judge” at the Fair) insists that her group head out to the competition.   With those remaining behind, they are short one spot for their eight-man team, so Kale volunteers to accompany them, having had past experience with athletic competitions.   Immy senses that he may have over-stayed his welcome with the Silver Moon, with several party members still suspecting that he is in league with Morgarth, so as a friend and past employer of Da’Bears (Module 97 “Immy and the Three Stooges”) he also chooses to head off with them on their boat.    End of “Retake the Island”.   Readers comments are welcomed and appreciated!</blockquote>

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