Game-Summaries:5/12/2018 Recollections

Recollections by Dereth

After a strange adventure a few weeks earlier, I decide to join Jeroy, Pearl, Rezik, and Amon to investigate octopus pirates. This request comes from Captain Jenny Harkens, who we found deep in her cups at a local sailor's tavern. It is not my place to judge, and held any critiques of her decorum. A good thing, too. She had posted weeks ago that she needed help and the Magistery only sent us. I understand her frustration. Her story goes that after being ransacked by the heretic Captain Jarzon of The Inheritor, the octopus pirates took several of her crew including her lover, Red. Over the two weeks to arrive at Kraken's Landing, Captain Harkens confides in us that she only cares for Red Bertram's rescue and will pay The Eternal Order handsomely.

Rezik's reconnaissance reveals an alarm bell and several uniformed pirates carousing on duty. No wonder they crew for an honorless pirate in Jarzon. Jeroy seems to do a passable job of disguising us as pirates for our approach, but after casting the bones, Viviene tells me that we will meet woe without a stealthy approach. I silence the area, Rezik fireballs the area (wizards are quite the allies!) and Pearl shows how savage a druid can be. I see Jeroy enter the cave alone and rush in to support him, trusting in Viviene's guidance.

Shattering the alarm bell, a second group of uniformed pirates see Jeroy and ready an assault upon us. Dropping the silencing, I advise Jeroy to retreat. He does so as I fend off several attacks. I retreat to the mouth of the cave, and see what Rezik, Amon, and Pearl were struggling with outside. An oozing mass of mouths, eyes, and tentacles had taken form from what was, we had assumed, a leper tattooed with the octopus symbol of Jarzon's crew. This Babbling Horror had just been defeated as I demanded a surrender from the remaining pirates. In response to an honorable offer of safe passage from battle, the gutless pirates doubled down on their heresy by claiming that "The chosen of Shar-Ngolyeth do not surrender" to the likes of us. Perhaps the Babbling Horror was a denizen of this wretched outsider this pirate cult worshiped.

Using the power of her staff, Pearl erects a wall of thorns and isolates many of the pirates. Having discussed our plan of attack too loudly left two to strike down in a separate room where I met a ghost of a victim. Charissa was a lingerer, but I did not wish her ire and left the fresh water until later. One of the more skilled warriors, Price, asked for a parlay and I honored my promise. She proved a valuable asset as we discovered Red, Harkens' crew, and Jarzon performing a dark ritual. Rezik incapacitated the whole group (we need more wizards!) and Price warned me away from the other former crew. I don't know why I trusted her, but I decided to save the man Jarzon was about to kill. Although Jarzon had just been killed, he mindlessly slit the throat of the hostage and summoned the being he truly worshiped: not an octopus, but a Kraken.

The battle with the baby Kraken is a blurry series of prayers, spells, attacks, darkness, and yelling. I was knocked out twice and had to listen to Rezik, Amon, Pearl, and Jeroy tell me what happened. Apparently, I performed well for a neophyte apprentice. Thankfully, my trust in the Lady of the Lake is well founded. Blessing the freshwater pool, everyone healed themselves and Price claimed The Inheritor for herself after letting us know she owes us a favor. There's something to be said for keeping your word. A grandiose painting of The Great Awakening adorned Jarzon's quarters on board, making clear his cult had nefarious intentions and an invasion from The Outside is upon us. Scrawled all over the captain's quarters is something in a tongue similar to Draconic, but not enough to understand. Amon seemed to understand much more than he wished, but I trust him to share whatever darkness haunts him when he can reconcile his past choices with his current noble path. A speedy trip back to Solace, financial compensation, and the promise of one favor owed, and Captain Jenny Harkens saw us off.

The Grandmaster Aetheres, Kamorr himself heard our debrief. We found him wandering the halls and confirmed many of my beliefs that the Cult of the Kraken is misguided for believing the "above" races taunted The Kraken's awakening so long ago. Grandmaster Aetheres told us that it was the death of Selune, god of the moon, that woke The Kraken. It would take hundreds of master clerics the revive The Kraken, but serving his spawn may be a more sneaky way to achieve their goal. Umberlee, the Sea Queen, got her Divine Spark from somewhere, but it is not known which deity was lost to allow her access to such power. Could the Silence of Lolth be similar to Selune's death? Kamorr did not have a comforting denial of our suspicion. This will not be the last we see from the "Sea Queen".

I asked Grandmaster Aetheres for advice on our upcoming excursion to the Underdark. He advised us not to be afraid of spiders, bring anti-poisons, anti-toxins, light, and as many Kwik-aids as possible.

Recollections by Jeroy

Pearl, Rezik, Amon, and Dereth, and I gathered for the quest regarding octopus pirates that were terrorizing sailors in the bay. Before we set off Amon's staff of whithering spoke to him that it knew the former owner of Pearl's staff of the woodlands, but that it did not want to tell us any more than that. We looked at each other, agreed that nothing weird had just occurred or needed to be discussed further and made our way down to the docks. Our mission had been posted by a sea captain, Jenny Harken who's ship was docked at the waterfront. We prepared our equipment and headed down at dawn.

We were clearly not sailors and the looks we were given by the dock hands made that abundantly clear. We could feel their stares and hear their thoughts of "what the #$&@ are they doing here?" Finding the nearest sailor we asked directly, "there is talk that Captain Harken's ship has being attacked by pirates, we have come to help - what do you know of this?" He responded that she would be at the local pub, "The Passing Wind" which drew a snicker from Dereth. "Her ship has no crew" he said "I heard they were all taken, the poor bastards." We thanked him and headed to The Passing Wind to find Harken.

She was stilling at a table alone, slumped down, with her shoulders rolled forward. I would have thought she were mostly asleep if it were not for the bottle of half-empty grog she held and the stench of her breath. She was drunk, in the most sorrowful manner. She took no pleasure in her consumption but hoped she would find something to smile about at the bottom of the bottle. Dereth spoke with her: "Are you Captain Harken? We came about the job you posted." "Finally, I posted that ages ago. What took you so long?" She shot back with a some serious side eye. "We appologize for the delay, but we are here now to help." Dereth says with noble conviction. She tells of us of how her ship, the Second Best was attacked by the Inheritor under the command of Captain Jarzen. "He's a monster" she tells us. "He attacks your boat and captures anyone he can grab only to sacrifice them to his dark god. He refers to that god as 'the one that lurks beneath.' Those that aren't sacrificed are enslaved into his cult." It all sounded properly terrible but she offered us 150 gold each, plus 150 gold for each of her crew we could save, and encouraged us to ransack the Inheritor for all the gold and weapons we could find so I was ready for an adventure (edventure?). However, there were two wrinkles: first, since the boat had no crew - we would have to crew the ship, and secondly that she wanted us to be sure to bring back her first mate above all else. "His name is Red, you'll know him when you see him because of his beard" she said. When we pressed why he must be saved over all else she replied "we're in love." We agreed to the terms and as we made our way to the boat we finally asked "where is it that we are sailing?" She replied coldly "Kraken's Landing."

We arrived after a few week's travel and made our way to the beach. In the distance we saw a small entrance (antrance?) to a cave and could hear the sounds of sailors enjoying (anjoying?) themselves - music, dancing, laughing, a breaking bottle. They were standing guard in only the loosest of terms. Rezik sent his familar ahead to scout it out - he says 4 scrabby pirates, 2 pirates in leather armor, and one large red man covered in boils and splotches guard the entrance in a small chamber behind the opening sleeping, and behind them is a bell. "He sounds gross" I say to Rezik. He nods emphatically, "yes he is very gross." We gather together to approach silently using magic. Once close enough Rezik casts silence focused on the bell. The sounds of the party fall deafly silent, a silence that is far too suspicious. The pirates know we are here and the battle begins.

One of the pirates wakes the gross one as our group moves in for the battle. Pearl and I (me?) move to the cave, Amon casts eldritch blast, Dereth casts guiding bolt. The pirates are hurt but not deterred. The gross one charges out of the cave in a rage carrying a great axe. Pearl swings her mighty staff of the woodlands for massive damage, Rezik casts fireball into the cave killing 4 pirates where they stand, and I enter a Barbarian Rage and swing with all my strength into the gross one. His boils burst with puss and blood. He is now even more gross. Both pirates in leather armor attack pearl slashing her 3 times. The gross one enters a rage and swings at me twice but I manage to dodge both attacks, I laugh mercilessly into his boiled covered face saying to him "You think you can kill me? you think you can hurt me? Your rage is pathetic! I am the rage! DO YOU HEAR ME?!? I AM THE RAGE!" And as I laugh maniacally he is killed by Pearl and her mighty staff of the woodlands. The battle is won but I fear more is ahead so to avoid losing my rage I charge into the cave to slice the bell in half within the area of silence. I charge in with all my might and deliver a strong by silent blow cleaving the bell in two. I pound my chest and scream to the heavens in utter silence. I do 5 air squats. Feeling satisfied I look deeper into the cave to see 6 pirates staring at me in a puzzling way. I realize they had no idea what was going on outside and witnessed a stranger charge into a room, attack a bell, and celebrate like he won the world series. It's an awkward moment.

Dereth charges beside me and casts one of his spells only to be responded to with a crossbow bolt. Two more pirates join them dressed in splint mail and brandishing long-swords. I see behind us that the gross one has become a very gross thing. Amon, Rezik, and Pearl turn to battle it and I charge out of the cave, "get our we will be surrounded!" I yell to Dereth. I slash into the monster cutting off several mouths as the ground around it turns to a sticky, gooey mess. Dereth has been surrounded in the cave but manages to barge his way through to safety. The gross goo tries to attack me but misses, as I start to laugh at it again it spits in my face a blinding acid that hits Pearl and me (I?). Amon, Pearl, and I attack the gross goo killing it finally.

The pirates have hunkered down in the cave so we plan a trap. Pearl attempts to lure them to the mouth of the cave but they don't take the bait so Rezik casts invisibility on his familiar and sends it into the cave to do some reconnaissance. He sees there are 8 pirates but he also finds a prison/torture room with 4 crew members and Red, beyond that room is another beach with an alter and the ship Inheritor. We plan another trap. Pearl will cast wall of thorns across the portion of the cave with the pirates as we sneak by to rescue the crew and bring them to safety. As she casts it two had moved past where it would be missing our trap, catching one within in, and trapping the last 3 on the other side. We battle the two that escaped in another chamber of the cave with a small pool of water. One is dispatched swiftly by Pearl. As Dereth battles the pirate he sees a young girl calmly wading her hand through the water - but not causing ripples.

She looks at Dereth with hollow eyes and translucent skin saying softly "why have you come?" "We see to rescue the crew of the Second Wind' Dereth responds and asks "what is your name?" She responds quietly "Charissa" We all back out slowly and figure we will come back to this later. Suddenly we hear "Parley!" from over the thorns. The familiar sees that one of the pirates has killed its former comrades and wants to surrender. We negotiate the pirate to drop their arms. She says her name is Price and that she doesn't like what Jarzen is up to and would like to help us stop him. With Price by our side we make our way to through the prison to the Alter where we see Jarzen holding a crew member captive in the water with a knife at his throat, 5 bandits, and 5 Acolytes. Dereth prepares a blast for one of the bandits but Price stops him "Kill the Acolytes first, the Bandits will not be a problem." He follows her guidance and also casts a spiritual blade. Rezik follows with hypnotic gaze stopping all of them. The battle seems it will be simple but Jarzen, in a trance slowly slits the throat of the crew member. Pearl turns to me and says "That can't be good"

We systematically dispatch the Acolytes as Price wakes up the bandits. Rezik launches a mighty fireball at Jarzen killing him. We feel the battle had been won when suddenly tentacles come out of the water and a small kraken comes up onto the alter engulfing the body of Jarzen. We throw everything we have at the monster, eldritch blast, toll the dead, spiritual weapons, paleo gardeners, magic missiles, and flaming spheres. They seem to do little damage. The kraken uses its tentacles to attack each of us one by one killing the bandits. We fight back with all our might when suddenly it releases a putrid blast of darkness on us. We are blinded and left slashing in chaos. I become grappled by the tentacles and hurt badly, Price fights with all her might, and Dereth goes down. I rush over and give him a kwik-aid but we are both promptly knocked unconscious by the Kraken. But as he falls Dereth commands his spiritual blades to make one last attack, killing the beast. Red, the crew that survived, Dereth and I are revived. We quickly search the ship for valuable and find in the captains chamber a painting of the great awakening. The kraken in the image feels as if it is staring at us, and knows what we have done. I feel uneasy, do 10 pushups, and feel better. Price claims the ship as hers and we return to the Second Wind. Harken and Red are re-united in a powerful and tearful embrace, and quickly run below deck together after a quick order from Harken "Sail east, this will only take 5 minutes." Rezik looks at me and says "they're going to do it twice?" I laugh and say "only if they take a three minute break". We sail back to Solace all much richer.