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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Morrow" data-source="post: 3702281" data-attributes="member: 301">The island of Haven is a largely independent protectorate of the Empire of Thonia.  While the imperial senate appoints the Lord Mayor, he rules with the cooperation of a group of local lords and influencial families.The Lord Mayor rules from Cauldron, the island's one city and only port.  Cauldron is built inside the bowl of a dormant volcano which rises out of the sea at Haven's southern tip.  Before the volcano became dormant, sometime long before humans came to the island, a massive eruption opened up a hole in the side of the mountain, opening the central bowl to the sea.  The bowl is now something of a large bay, enclosed on all sides except for a single deep channel that leads to the sea.  The city of Cauldron is built on the inside of the volcanic cone, growing away from the docks on the bays edge all the way to the richest estates along the rim of the bowl.*  *  *  *  *When the Albers arrived in port several days ago Bronson went to visit his family and report to Cauldron’s temple of Aster.  The rest of the party set about locating Arias Soderheim.  By the time Bronson had returned, having secured accommodations for himself (at the family home) and the party (at the best inn in Cauldron, courtesy of his father), and bearing an invitation to dinner the following night, his companions had much news to share:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lord Mayor Antonius negotiated an agreement with several pirates operating near Haven.  The island government ignores the pirate’s presence in port and in return the pirates leave Haven shipping unmolested.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Soderheim presented himself as a special envoy sent by Freeport.  He has met on several occasions with Lord Mayor Antonius.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Soderheim is staying at the estate of Lady Thifirane Rhiavadi</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rhiavadi is rumored to have made her fortune funding pirates.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rhiavadi is a close ally of Lord Mayor Antionius.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Kraken’s Claw, Morgan Bauman’s ship, is in port.</li> </ul>The party enjoyed dinner with Bronson’s family.  They were clearly delighted to have their wayward son home.  Nate and Sully managed to arrange to sell the booty from the Darkmaiden’s Dance to Bronson’s brother.The next day Bronson scryed on Arias Soderheim.  He saw Soderheim speaking with a woman, who he presumed to be Lady Rhiavadi, and a large man dressed in pirate garb named Wyther.  The trio were discussing an upcoming meeting.  They expected good attendance, although one pirate, a slaver named Cuttleblack, had returned their envoy’s head in a box.  Wyther assured the nervous Soderheim that his information would ensure the cooperation of the other pirates and he would have his revenge.  Before the scrying ended Soderheim left for a secure location where he would wait for the conclusion of the meeting.Nate had heard of Captain Wyther.  A formidable pirate in his own right, he was also a high ranking member of the Crimson Fleet, a powerful pirating organization which operates in the waters surrounding Atlantis and the contested seas between Thonia and Atlantis.  Their territory has steadily moved west, and some in Freeport fear an eventual confrontation.Nate, Tavaari, and Jack located a trio of sailors from the Kraken’s Claw.  They captured the crewmen and snuck aboard the claw disguised as members of her crew.  They managed to evesdrop on a conversation in the Captain’s cabin, hearing Baumann instruct her first mate, Shantar Froese, about a meeting he was to attend with Captain Wyther.  The trio followed Froese and his bodyguard Rebecca, who had last encountered when they broke up Baumann’s hideout at the Smoking Dragon Club in Freeport.  Jack went to warn the rest of the party while Nate and Jack followed Froese to his destination, all the way across the city to the estate of Thifirane Rhiavadi. *    *    *    *    *The party made a multi-pronged assault on the Rhiavadi estate.  Nate, Jack, and Bill bluffed their way inside claiming to have been invited to the meeting.  They waited in the front hall and a guard went to check with Lady Rhiavadi.  At the same time Tavaari scaled the mansion wall to enter through a second story window.  Things began to go wrong when Nate, Jack, and Bill attempted to quickly kill the remaining guards.  The guards, though surprised, proved to be much more able than expected, and one managed to sound an alarm.Bronson, hearing the disturbance inside, dimension doored himself, Queg, Sully, and Marcus blindly into the mansion, arriving in the kitchens.  They quickly intimidated the kitchen staff.  Bronson headed for the front of the mansion to assist there, while the others made their way to the second floor via a servants staircase.  Luckily, the servants staircase put them right across the hall from an entrance to the main ballroom where the meeting was taking place.  They could easily hear the commotion inside as the guards warned Lady Rhiavadi and her guests of the intruders.Sully immediately drew her falchion, kicked open the doors to the ballroom, and looked inside.  She saw:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A pair of cadaverously thin babau demons barring their way into the hall.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A woman in an elaborate gown who could only be Lady Rhiavadi standing at the back of the hall and casting a spell.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Beside Lady Rhiavadi stood a large stone and wood construct that Marcus identified as a shield guardian.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Captain Wyther, wielding a bastard sword and dagger, both rimmed with frost.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Shantar Froese, drawing his bow as he turned to face the intruders, with Rebecca at his side.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A rotund half-elf wearing a breastplate and bearing a bastard sword.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A lightly armored halfling carrying a rapier.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A fat ugly tiefling in ruby studded robes, casting a spell</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A hag, her claws clattering as she cast her own spell, with a large lion at her side.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A pale woman in a tattered black cloak lurking in the corner.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And a hill giant, guarding the open doors at the other end of the hall, through which a trio of guards were visible guarding the front stairs.</li> </ul>Sully and Bill entered the hall, and immediately engaged the babau demons guarding the door.  Bill’s attention was quickly drawn away as he was attacked by a large man in pirate garb that he recognized as Captain Wyther.  The formidable pirate attacked, his bastard sword and dagger a whirlwind of steel.  Bill’s rapier danced, forming a veritable wall of steel as he attempted to shield himself from the heavy blows, but his resistance was fading fast as Wyther’s heavy blows crashed through his defenses to rend flesh and shatter bone.Marcus took in the foes arrayed before him.  The shield guardian moved to block Rhiavadi from view, but Marcus was faster.  He cast, and watched his baleful polymorph take hold.  The Rhiavadi’s body twisted and shrank, leaving only a small newt where she had stood a moment before.  Marcus had little time to savor his victory.  The hag cast a spell and a ray of gray energy sprung from her clawed hands to strike him full in the chest.  He felt his movements slow as his body was slowly petrified, heeding the call of stone.Queg stepped into view, firing a volley of flaming arrows at the hag.  A moment later the massive lion at her side leapt at the skeletal half-orc, knocking him to the ground under a whirlwind of fangs, claws, and fur.The halfling and the tiefling cast spells, and quickly faded into invisibility.  From where the halfling had stood a voice was raised in song, bolstering her fellow combatants will to fight.The guards moved to engage Bronson, Nate, and Jack as they advanced up the main staircase.  Bronson cast giant vermin to send several giant spiders into the fray and then activated his magical cloak to allow him to spider climb up the wall and over the heads of the guards.  Nate fired his pistols while Jack joined the spiders, his blade weaving and dancing before him.Tavaari, invisible crept onto the landing behind the guards.  He regarded them silently for a moment and then slipped past toward the open doorway into the ballroom.  He cast a spell and became visible as a fireball bloomed amidst the combatants.  The halfling’s song abruptly ended in a cry of agony.  Frosse collapsed, his form a scorched ruin.  The guards, nearly within arms reach, did not even notice as Tavaari faded once more into invisibility, Bronson’s spiders occupied their attention.Sully, supported by Marcus’ spells, soon dispatched the pair of demons.  In her eagerness to dispatch them and come to Bill’s defense she hardly noticed that the stick slime coating the babau’s bodies ate away at her enchanted sword like acid, rendering the once beautiful blade pitted and scarred.  She spun to plant her self between her lover and Captain Wyther.Bronson entered the room, creeping along the wall like a spider.  He climbed out of the reach of the hill giant guarding the door and cast a spell, calling down a column of divine flame into the center of the melee.Rebecca, the large woman warrior the party remembered from their first battle with Morgan Bauman, rushed out the door to bolster the guards facing Nate and Jack.The hag cast a spell, and proceeded to call lightning down on Bill (who easily dodged), and then Sully and Marcus.  Marcus responded with spells of his own, calling up an ice storm which encompassed much of the battlefield.  The cloaked woman in the corner watched the melee grimly, she nodded once, seeming to come to a decision.  A moment later the woman’s form was shifting and shrinking, and was rapidly replaced by a squeaking swarm of rats.  Her cloak floated away and took on a large incorporeal form.  Bronson, watching the melee, recognized the creature as a dread wraith, a highly dangerous form of undead.  Before Bronson, or anyone else could act, the dread wraith passed through a wall and disappeared.  At the same time the rats, as if of one mind, streamed for the exit, around the giant’s massive feet, in between the guards and Bronson’s large spiders, past Nate and Jack, out of sight.Bronson turned his attention to the hill giant, casting an inflict critical wounds spell, and reaching out wrack its immense form with negative energy.Sully’s battle with Captain Wyther initially seemed a stalemate, but unexpectedly she landed a stunning sequence of telling blows which sent the pirate crashing to the floor.  As his lifesblood flowed freely out the great rents in his armor Wyther looked up at Sully.  He grinned, showing teeth stained with blood.  "Cloned," he said, before the light went out of his eyes.Sully cursed and turned to meet the raging half-elf who had been struggling to pick his way across the crowded battlefield to reach her, the shield guardian falling in step behind him.  Bill, seeing Sully hard pressed, ignored his own injuries and stepped to her side.  Marcus, his own movements sluggish as his body slowly transmuted to stone, continued raining down magic on his opponents.However, with Captain Wyther’s death the tide had turned.  The guards who had barred Nate and Jack’s passage for so long finally broke and ran, slipping passed the duo and their giant insect cohorts to run down the stairs and out of the mansion.  The half-elf quickly fell beneath Sully’s blade, and Queg finally throttled the life out of the great cat with which he had wrestled the whole battle.The woman warrior Rebecca, seeing the way the wind was blowing, laid down her sword and surrendered.  The hag, perhaps coming to a similar conclusion, suddenly shifted to take on the form of the great bat.  She flew toward the skylight.  However, before she could crash through to safety Tavaari reappeared from invisibility, his volley of scorching rays reducing the great bat to a flaming husk which crashed back to the floor.  Finally, the shield guardian and the hill giant fell, leaving the battlefield clear.A couple detect magics and five minutes later the party rushed out the front door, stuffing the magic paraphernalia of their fallen foes and any valuable looking furnishings they saw on their way out into various backpacks, bags, and haversacks.  Marcus, who apparently had avoided the worst of the hag’s petrifying magic, had returned to normal.  He had to rush back inside to collect the newt-wizard, but soon enough the party was making their way through the silent midnight streets and back to the docks.</blockquote>

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