Sail South From Sasserine

[Dantardis]

The messenger travelled the streets of Sasserine, he'd been asked by his mistress to meet various individuals and pass the message on to them. By noon he was finished. In various parts of the city the recipients of the message read its brief details:

"Greetings, and I hope this missive finds you in good health! My name is Lavinia Vanderboren, and I humbly request your attendance at dinner at my estate on Festival Street and Blue Skink Lane tomorrow evening. I think that I can present you with an opportunity uniquely suited to your skills. Please inform the carrier of this letter of your response to this invitation and I hope to be speaking to you soon.

Lavinia Vanderboren."

At the appointed time, several individuals met in the atrium of Vanderboren manor, there was a fighter, a female elven knight, some kind of druid, a male wizard, a hooded male figure, an aventi dressed in wizardly robes and a female warrior.

They were greeted by the Vanderboren's butler and taken through to the dining hall, where they were greeted by Lavinia Vanderboren herself. After the sumptous banquet was over, the talk became more serious. Lavinia spoke first,

"As you may have heard, I recently inherited my parents' estate. Along with this fine house, unfortunately came a fine amount of debt owed the Dawn Council, the harbourmaster, and quite a few guildhalls. It seems my parents, for all their sucess as adventurers, were not skilled at finance as one might expect. If I'm to get these taxes paid I'll need to access my family's vault under Castle Teraknian."
"And that's the problem, you see. The vaults are magically locked-keyed to special signet rings. Both of my parents had these rings, at least, until recently. My mother lost hers a few months ago. She arranged for a replacement, but it won't be done for another month or so, too late for me. Which leaves my father's ring. He never wore it-he had a thing about men wearing jewellery. He kept it hidden somewhere on his ship, the Blue Nixie. The problem there is that the harbourmaster's seized the ship until someone pays for the last four months of mooring. I've paid the fines to the man the harbourmaster's put in charge of my ship, a brute named Soller Vark. Yet when I went to claim my ship, Vark's men wouldn't let me board, claiming that I hadn't yet paid the fines. I spoke to Vark again and he denied ever receiving my payment. My complaints to the harbourmaster have fallen on deaf ears-he's a doddering old fool who trusts his man and won't relent."
"Vark and his men are up to something on my ship, I know it. What I need is to find out exactly what they're up to. Unfortunately Vark's not the type to react well to diplomacy or logic. I need someone who speaks his language...which is where you come in. If you can find out what he's using my ship for, or even better, recover the money I paid him, I'll pay each of you 200 gold in return once I've access to my vault."

At this point the knight, Erin spoke up, "How do you want us to deal with this Vark character when we get near him."

Lavinia smiled grimly, "I would rather you didn't throw the first punch if possible, but if Vark and his men show you force in return to your enquiries then surely they must be up to something." I can tell you that the Blue Nixie is currently anchored in the middle of the estuary, so you will need to hire a rowing boat to get out to it."

 

[Dantardis]

Two hours later and the group were at the docks, arranging the hiring of two rowing boats, to get out to the Blue Nixie. After some haggling they agreed to a price. The group waited until two hours before dawn before setting off. The fighter, Bato and the aventi wizard Nimo muffled the oars of the rowboat to help lessen the noise of the boats as they moved towards the caravel. In the distance they could see the dim torches around the Blue Nixie and see the crew moving around on deck.

Luck seemed to be on their side as the rowboats pulled alongside the caravel. None of the cre appeared to have seen them. The hooded figure, Grey quickly climbed aboard and crept up behind the crew member on the quarterdeck. With one quick hit the thug fell unconscious. At the same moment Nimo uttered some aracane words and suddenly the thug in the crow's nest fell over as the crow's nest became extremely slippery. Meanwhile in the rowboat, Aust, the other wizard in the party cast a spell on himself and his body was surrounded by a glowing nimbus of energy. Nimo, who had climbed aboard the caravel to cast his Grease spell, jumped back over the side and into the water, swimming underneath the draft of the ship and reappearing on the other side of the deck near a surprised thug. Meanwhile a third thug struck Aust severely with a rapier, fortunately the blow was not mortal. Grey loaded his bow and hit one of the thugs near the focs'le of the ship. Bato followed up on the same thug by hitting the thug with his longsword and the thug fell with a screen. Grey shot and killed another thug who had just appeared at the top of the stairs leading below. A fifth thug appeared behind the knight, Erin and hit her severely, the wound being mortal in nature. Fortunately at this point, Morning the dragon shaman, switched her aura to one of healing stabilising her comrade and healing all her allies who had so far taken damage. Another thug struck Grey and drew blood. Seki, the druid, who had moved towards the focs'le of the deck was struck by one of the thugs but this thug was in turn struck by Seki's snake animal companion and fell over. Poison coursed through his veins and he lay still. By this time, another figure, who the group recognised as Soller Vark from Lavinia's description had appeared and attacked Bato with his rapier. Bato clutched at his chest and fell over, blood pouring from his wound. Fortunately Morning's healing aura was still present and Bato stabilised. There was a scream from below and a strange spider-like creature appeared and started to attack. Vark by this time had moved towards Morning to attack and so the creature moved towards Seki and his snake. Fortunately the snake was quicker and managed to attack the creature. Seki followed up with a vicious strike with his staff and the creature was dead. Meanwhile Grey and Morning finished off Vark who fell unconcious under their blows.

Once everything had gone quiet Aust and Erin went below, together with Seki. They found the dead body of one of the thugs, together with a host of caged and very dead exotic and mundane creatures. In a chest to one side Erin found a pouch containing some platinum pieces, a silver ring and a piece of paper which seemed to contain some kind of riddle:

CHIMERA LOOKS TO SUNRISE
CYCLOPS LOOKS TO SUNSET
MEDUSA LOOKS TO SUNRISE
UMBER HULK LOOKS TO SUNSET
BASILISK LOOKS TO SUNRISE.

Not knowing what to make of this Nimo and the others sailed the Blue Nixie bak into the harbour, where they were greeted by Lavinia and the captain of the Watch. The Watch quickly took charge of the prisoners and led them away. Lavinia thanked the group and asked them to accompany her to Castle Terkanian to visit the vault of her parents. Shortly afterwards the Vanderboren carriage appeared on Ancestor Island.

Lavinia led the way, with the group following behind. They found themselves in an atrium with the double doors leading to the vault itself in front of them. Before they could move into the room proper there was a hissing noise and a snake slithered down a pillar. It did not appear to make any move towards Lavinia, who was in the lead, but instead attacked Seki's snake, who was immediately behind her. Bato moved forward and hit the snake that was attacking. CLANGG!!! Although Bato struck a goodly blow his weapon did not appear to have done any damage. Nimo and Erin similarly managed to strike the cobra but again to little effect.

"It's some kind of construct", said Grey, "grapple it". He successfully managed to grapple the cobra. Morning quickly joined the grapple and pinned the cobra to the floor. Erin and Aust, noticing simultaneously that the cobra was making no move towards Lavinia suggested that she order the cobra to return to its guarding place. Lavinia did so and Morning and Grey released the cobra to retun to the top of its pillar.

Moving through the double doors the group found themselves in the vault proper. They found themselves facing a final door with some kind of combination lock. Frecoes on the walls showed various stylised monsters of various kinds. After several random attempts, Erin spoke up:

"Of course, the riddle from the ship's the combination." She pointed out that each of the creatures mentioned had a different number of eyes and the sunrise/sunset part of the riddle referred to either clockwise or anticlockwise. With a couple of clicks she moved the lock in the required combination. The vault opened and the scene that greeted the group was one of disarray, almost all of the chests had been emptied. Finally in one hidden corner, Lavinia discovered a chest which contained somewhere in the region of 20,000 gps, together with a ledger listing all the debts owed to the Vanderborens, together with a journal written in a strange language. Lavinia paid the group and they went off to spend their winnings.

 

[Dantardis]

A few days later, the group received a summons from Lavinia. On their retun to House Vanderboren they were greeted by Lavinia and a human male whom Lavinia introduced as Aubreck. "As I don't have any work for you currently, I wondered if you would consider helping a frined of mine."

Aubreck continued, "You see I am a merchant. Unfortunately I am in something of dire straits. My last cargo vessel, the Emperor of the Waves disappeared about 2 weeks ago. I have recently learned that it has run aground about 3 days sail from here. The ship itself doesn't concern me, it's the cargo that matters, specifically a large metal box inscribed with my seal. If you would be willing to sail out to the Emperor of the Waves for me and retrieve my cargo I would see that you were suitably recompensed for your time."

A few hours later the group were aboard the vessel that would transport them to the stricken merchant vessel. The first day at sea passed uneventfully. During the afternoon of the second day, whilst he was on deck, Grey noticed that there were some shapes readying to climb aboard the ship from all directions. He motioned silently to his companions and they stationed themselves at various corners around the ship. Grey's warning came not a moment too soon as a large number of strange fish and lobster crossed humanoid figures appeared on deck. Two of them headed towards the captain at the wheel whilst the rest headed towards the companions.

Before the creatures could attack the captain, Grey loosed an arrow and one of the creatures fell dead. Meanwhile Aust managed to reach over the porhe vessel, where two of the creatures were still readying to clamber aboard. Muttering a few arcane phrases, he leaned over and a burst of bright colours sprouted from his fingertips. The two creatures appeared stunned and sank to the bottom. On the starboard side of the vessel two of the creatures attacked Erin and Morning, doing some considerable damage. Fortunately Morning's healing aura was still radiating outwards and the wounds quickly started to heal. On the foc'sle another creature swarmed aboard and dodging Seki's snake attacked Seki himself, drawing blood.

Nimo, near the stern of the ship shouted, "I think they're Sahuagin" and shouted at them in Sahuagin. When they didn't respond, he let a bolt of glowing energy fly from his fingers and one of the creatures fell down dead. By this time Seki's snake had attacked the creature which had harmed his master, the creature falling down as posion coursed through its body. Grey launched another arrow at another creature which was trying to leap over the side and it fell backwards into the sea. Finally Seki struck the final creature and it fell. Silence reigned over the ship.

By midday on the third day the Emperor of the Waves came into view, it had become lodged on a set of rocks, protruding from the surface of the ocean. Launching the longboat the group quickly came aboard the stricken vessel and had a look around. There seemed to be a number of strange tracks and Seki examined them. "One seems to be a slithering creature, I'm unsure what it was, the second seemed to be similar to a spider and the final one appeared to be humanoid wearing boots, which was going below into the hold. The group decided to head left,following the slithering track towards the cabin on the left. Using the spears they had taken from the bodies of the fish creatures, they surrounded the doorway, whilst Grey tapped on the door. The next moment the door was burst off its hinges as a huge sized centipede burst through. Although the door was broken, the doorway was still intact, meaning the centipede was squeezing, putting it at a disadvantage, meaning the group could quickly finish it off using their spears. Inside the centipede's cabin they saw a crude altar. Aust had a quick look at the runes and symbols that were all around and recognised them as belonging to Tharzan, a demon lord associated with vermin and insects. They also found a ledger which showed that the Emperor had landed by an island and that the crew had been attacked by large number of orcs.

Leaving the centipede's cabin they headed towards the other cabin. Opening the door they saw a large spider. It nearly managed to poison Aust as he opened the door, but fortunately Seki's snake managed to attack it first. After a mighty spear thrust by Erin which went through the spider and out the other side, all became still.

 

[Generic Strumpet]

(You know, I'm going to tell Erin that you called her an elf, and she'll never forgive you.)

Good stuff, though. I'm glad someone's keeping track of the adventure.

 

[Dantardis]

True, but I couldn't remember the exact name for her race.

 

[Generic Strumpet]

Heh. She's Raptoran, I believe.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Wow, cool ... we just started the campaign, and I'm starting a story hour as well.

Sadly, that means I shouldn't read here or risk spoiling my game.

Best of luck with your campaign!

 

[Dantardis]

INTERLUDE

In the lower depths it waited. That strange fish lay above it but it couldn't go near it at the moment. Some strange voice in its head was telling it to stay away, but it could wait. The fish did not appear to be going anywhere.

 

[Dantardis]

On the Emperor of the Waves the group looked down into the grate leading to the main deck. The floor was covered in a large nest of spiders, and various swarms scuttled about. Bato and Morning lifted the grate, whilst Nimo threw a vial of Alchemist's fire down into the swarms. The first swarm quicky caught fire and dispersed and there was some splash damage to the second swarm. However, the second swarm climed up the ladder and swarmed over Nimo and Erin. They quickly moved out of it's area, Erin, who was nauseated, by gliding off the deck of the ship onto the rocks below. Meanwhile Grey threw a second vial of Alchemist's Fire at the swarm and again it caught fire and quickly dispersed, the remaining spiders scuttling away into the dark recesses of the vessel.
Heading down into the ship the group moved towards the bow of the ship and came to a door which was closed but not locked. From withint they could hear a shuffling sound. Readying their weapons Morning opened the door and was attacked by one of the dead Orcs that lived within. Morning quickly stepped back and closed the door before the zombies could respond. Erin took the time to wedge the door with her longspear and ensured that it was firmly shut.
From the stern of the ship the group heard some chanting and moved quickly towards the stern, after noticing that all of the other cabins and rooms appeared deserted. Bato moved to the door first and opened it. Within he saw a half orc together with a snake. Before he could act, the half orc muttered a few words and threw a feather into the air. As the feather hit the floor near Bato it transformed into a huge sized whip, which attacked and grappled him. Nimo and Aust both tried to cast a spell at the half orc but were unsuccessful. The half orc, in retaliation, tried to cast a spell but fortunately, Grey had readied for this event and shot an arrow at the half orc, disrupting the spell. Bato who was still grappled was being constantly wounded by the whip. MNorning stepped forward to help Bato and changed his aura to one of healing, allowing Bato to stabilise. In retaliation the half orc moved forward and hit Morning with his club. Nimo tried to cast a spell at the half orc but at the last moment the half orc dodged out of the way. However, Aust also cast a spell and the half orc screamed as a ball of acid hit it, burning it horribly. Grey followed up with a hit with one of his arrows and the half orc fell dead.
At this point the half orc's snake moved forward and was hit by Bato, as the whip which had been holding him had dissolved as the half orc died. So mighty was Bato's blow that the snake was cleaved in two.
After pausing to get their breath back the party moved onwards and in the galley, they discovered the grate leading down into the inner hold which appeared to be flooded. At this point the vessel gave a sudden lurch and knocked Erin, Nimo and Bato over. When they had picked themselves up, Bato, Erin, Aust and Nimo jumped down into the inner hold, into water that was knee deep. In the distance they could see a wooden crate and Erin and Bato moved towards it. Before they could move completely towards it, they were surprised by a group of four ghouls which had been hiding in the water. Bato and Erin were both hit and were paralysed and the ghouls moved towards Aust and Nimo. Morning moved down into the hold and managed to kill one of the Ghouls who was moving to attack Nimo. At this point several tentacles appeared to make holes in the side of the ship. Nimo cast a spell at one of the ghouls and it took some damage but kept advancing. Grey, who had sneaked towards Bato without being seen, healed Bato with a wand. Erin who had just recovered from being paralysed was hit by a ghoul and was paralysed again. Grey meanwhile broke the crate and carried off the box within. Bato killed one of the remaining ghouls and the final one was destroyed by Grey who had been using positive energy. The group quickly moved the box out of the hold as the tentacles started to attack the Emperor of the Waves much more frantically.
Getting back aboard their vessel the group saw the Emperor of the Waves sink for the final time beneath the waves as it was attacked by a giant squid. Heading back to Sasserine they returned the box to Aubreck and received their reward. They then headed off into the city to train.

 

[Dantardis]

Some time later the group received a message from Lavinia asking them to return to House Vanderboren. She told them that she was worried about her brother, Vanthus who had been missing for some time. Vanthus had changed in the time he had been away from Sasserine, becoming bitter and twisted in nature. Lavinia believd that Vanthus had fallen in with a crowd of smugglers and theives, and was believed to have a lover called Brissa Santos who lived in the Azure District of the city. Eventually Aust managed to discover that Vanthus did tend to stay in the Azure District.
Whilst in the district a shady figure who introduced himself as Shefton Rosk informed Aust that Vanthus tened to hide out on Parrot Island in the area where there were some smuggler tunnels. Shefton went on to relate that Vanthus regularly hired a boat from a company called "It Still Floats" to row across to Parrot Island.
Hiring a large raft the group sailed across the bay to the island, which appeared deserted. As they landed the raft they were surprised by a group of sand coloured crabs, one being large in size and two that were medium in size. Fortunately Seti's snake managed to attack one of the medium crabs but only did some minor damage. Erin tried to hit the large crab but missed. In retaliation the medium crab hit Erin. On the other side of the raft the large crab hit Morning and grappled her, doing some considerable damage. Seki's snake managed to poison one of the medium crabs, weakening it. Nimo, who was still in the raft, whispered some arcane words and a spray of various colours hit the large crab, but the crab appeared to resist the effects. The large crab, meanwhile managed to strike Seti's snake and killed it. Morning changed her aura to one which produced flame, doing damage to the large crab whilst it was holding her, effectively roasting the large crab as it held her. The final medium sized crab was killed by a mighty blow from Seki.
Shefton led the group across the island to a large trapdoor with a twisted rope hanging down from it, which Shefton stated led down into the smuggler's tunnels below. The group clambered down the rope, taking Shefton down with them. As Aust, who was at the back of the group reached the bottom, he saw a bearded face appear by the trapdoor, whom he recognised as Vanthus.
"Goodbye fools", shouted Vanthus, slamming the trapdoor down. A few seconds later Aust heard the sound of boulders being rolled across the opening, trapping the group inside. From within Grey and the others could hear a shuffling noise. Moving through the tunnels, the group eventually came to a door, which seemed to be the source of the shuffling noise. Grey readied a shot as Nimo opened the door. The room that was revealed showed a hulking group of dead figures that moved toward the group. Aust quickly turned on his turning effect and the dead figures cowered away and moved towards the end of the room. A tenth figure who seemed slightly different to the rest, was also turned and cowered in the room. Through a combination of slashing weapons and positive energy attacks the group quickly destroyed the undead.
In one of the rooms they discovered a chest full of treasure and a dead body who appeared to be carrying a note, which was written in blood and read as follows,

"These bones once be Penkus, so if ye read this, I be dead, laid low by the sick put on me by that foul dead thing! Yet even as me flesh wracks, know t'was not the dead what brought my doom, but one I 'til recently called friend!
Vanthus Vanderboren! Your name fills me with bile! Spineless, treacherous cur! You left us here to die. You left ME here to die, after all what I done t'get ye into th'Lotus! Yer designs on the Lady of the Lotus be clear now, and with meself out th'way...ye doubtless move even now into power, slithering amid my vacancy like a hermit crab in a shell, or a cadaver worm to still-warm flesh. CURSE UPON YE!
To th'one what reads this. If ye have any honor or vengeance in yer soul, know that Vanthus must die. He dwells in the lap o' th'Lotus, below th'Taxidermist's Hall. Seek him there, but 'fore he dies he must ken it were Penkus what undid him and guides yer killing blow.
And if, by some cruel spite of fate, it be ye what reads this, Vanthus, know with certainty I wait for ye in Hell, where I intend t'rival the pit itself in yer torment."