Summary
After returning to Opal from their ocean adventure, Anna tells the party she is retiring from adventuring and returning to the Ladysforest. But before she goes, she agrees to make some magic items that she had discussed with the party. She makes a ring for Eroe that casts Blur once a day. The party wanders the markets of Opal, Raidne spots a camel and a parrot. Pancho searches the cloth merchants and has some fine new clothes made from silks from overseas.
Raidne has decided she needs more fighting skills and returns to Lyonya for training as a ranger. Before she leaves, she buys some red dragon hide to have mad into quivers for herself and Hudora and will enchant them with Flame Arrow. The party will travel to Foss and meet her there in about seven weeks. She leaves her horse with them and shapeshifts into a eagle and flies off. Raidne flies all the way to Lyonya, stoppingover at towns and inns along the way or camping in woods if needed. One day Harper gets a message passed along with a Sending spell from the Torre priests they helped. Prolonged questioning of the Liartian warrior they captured produced a name of a possible contact in Foss, a man named Tamar. In Lyonya, Raidne finds a crafter to make the quivers and then enchants them.
The party leaves Opal and partway along, Anna says goodbye and heads off to the north. Raidne flies south from Lyonya and meets the party in Foss. Knowing that they are looking for Liartians whose ceremonies include ritual torture and sacrifice, they ask around for missing persons or bodies that have turned up. Suspecting the Liartians are selling slaves overseas, they focus on the dock areas. Hudora tries to talk to the local thieves' guild, but they are very closed and they fine her 200gold and tell her to get out of town by sundown tomorrow. The rest of the party hears stories of Liartian style victims turning up, but also of an increase in disappearances and victims found who were tortured with many fine cuts and bled slowly to death. They search the waterfront and find two large ocean going ships, one from the Marches and another from Quashmarra across the Inner Sea. Harper tells them the people of the Marches fight her homeland of Pargun, which is ruled by Liartian supporters, so it's unlikely to be them. But, worship of Liart came from the south originally, so the Quashmarran ship is a good bet. Eroe wanders that way looking things over and find part of the dock is designed to drop down as a ramp, maybe there's a connection to the catacombs under the city allowing slaves to be smuggled aboard. the party decides to get rooms in a cheap dockside inn nearby and spy on the ship. Hudora climbs to the inn's roof to watch the ship with her spyglass. The ship's crew lights lanterns as night falls and many head ashore for leave and the ship is quiet. But while Hudora is watching, she hears what sounds like thunder coming from below ground and maybe muffled shouts and the steel on steel of swordplay. She climbs back inside to warn the party and they head outside. Hudora finds a manhole cover and the party descend into the sewers and catacombs beneath Foss.
They find a door with light coming underneath it and voices talking on the other side. Raidne turns into a mouse and squeezes underneath to spy. She finds a chamber with six people in assorted dark, rough clothing, but not as uniform as would be expected from a gang or thieves. They are standing around talking and serving casual guard duty, several dead men-at-arms in Liartian colors are in the room. From the next room she hears chanting and an eerie flute playing. The next room has a group of commoners who have been roughed up, they look like Liartian kidnap victims. They are guarded by two more of the intruders. The prisoners are chanting "As we were freed, so shall Tharizdun be freed" and kneeling facing a wall painted with a symbol of the Cult of the Unchained and other bizarre and alien symbols. Raidne can also hear the cries of someone being tortured in the next room where the fluting is coming from.
Raidne returns to the party and tells them a group of cultists attacked the Liartians and describes what she saw. Pancho warns Eroe that many if not all of the cultists may be warlocks. The party prepares and opens the door and in rapid succession Harper delivers a Flame Strike, Hudora a Shatter spell killing two of the six and Raidne steps up with a Thunderwave and kills the last four. They move inside and Pancho and Hudora snipe at the two cultists overseeing the prisoners. One shoots Eldritch Blasts and the other drops a Hunger of Hadar spell on the party, filling the entryway with darkness and grasping acid tentacles. Eroe hurls darts at one and Hudora finishes them with her crossbow. Harper charges through the darkness and drops the other warlock with two cuts of her sword. They move the frightened prisoners out, Pancho calms them and gets them moving up the ladder to the surface.
The party advances, Harper and Eroe leading the way. They follow the disturbing sounds and find even more disturbing sights. In a large chamber, two of the cultists are torturing a Liartian who has been stripped of his armor while four more cultists watch. More dead Liartians are on the floor. The fluting comes from a horrific monster, a floating mass of writhing tentacles blowing on a flute-like instrument carved from bone. Hudora and Harper repeat their attacks, but these foes are made of stronger stuff. One of the leaders casts Evard's Black Tentacles amongst the party, slowing their moves. The other tries Dominate Person on Eroe and fails. Harper shoots an Acid Arrow from her bow at the floating creature, it casts Confusion on the party, and most of them shake it off, but Pancho is paralyzed. The lesser cultists attack with Hex spells and Eldritch Blasts. Raidne tries to cast Wall of Fire and one of the cultist leaders stops her with a Counterspell, the other attacks them with a Blight spell. The floating creature moves closer, playing it's flute. Pancho shakes off his confusion and slips free from the spell tentacles. He unslings his Doss Lute and begins to play, countering the monster's discordant song. It charges forward to attack him, but Raidne succeeds with a Wall of Fire and entraps it. Before it can break free, she hits it with Earth Binding and keeps it from escaping and it is destroyed. Hudora continues to snipe at enemies forom the back, Eroe and Pancho trade sword blows with the cultists. Harper heals the party with Mass Healing Word. Hudora drops two cultists, Pancho and Eroe finish two more and break throught to face the leaders. One of them turns and finishes off the Liartian prisoner with an Eldtritch Blast, Eroe and Raidne finish the leaders. Harper checks the Liartian, but he is dead beyond any healing. They move deeper into the complex and find the Liartian temple and living quarters. The temple's prison cells have been opened, there are a few dead prisoners. The cultists have desecrated Liart's altar with their own unholy writings, Harper burns them with Sacred Flame. When they return to the entrance, they hear noise and an a group of city guard storm in from the sewer entrance. the escpaed prisoners encountered the city watch, who called for reinforcements. The city guard detains them until officers arrive, but Harper and Pancho are able to talk their way out of being arrested and promise to show up for questioning in the morning. When they emerge from the sewers, a heavy and unnatural fog has fallen on the dockside district. Raidne is convinced its possibly magicvcal, but no one feels any evil or threat in the fog. A light approaches them and they see a man in typical sailor garb holding a lantern approaches them. He greets them by name, speaking common with an odd accent, and says his captain asks if they would join him aboard their ship for dinner, he has a proposition for them. They agree and follow the sailor and they see he is dressed in sailor style clothes, but made of the finest silk and linen rather than crude canvas or homespun. He has a great deal of exquisite gold jewelry and his lantern is a work of art in itself. He leads them to a large ocean going ship that was not in port earlier. It is made of a dark grey wood that Raidne doesn't recognize. They are led to a dining room in the ship's stern, the sailors they pass speak a foreign language none of them understand and are a mix of different ethnicities.
The table is set with a king's ransom in fine china, tableware and crystal goblets; the room is decorated to match. Sailors bring bowls of citrus scented soapy water to wash off the grit of battle and fine towels. Once they are seated, sailors serve them fish, vegetables and bread, none of which they recognize but all of it is delicious. As the sailors pour wine, the door at the rear opens and a man in a captain's uniform appears. He is tall and slender, pale skinned. He does not appear quite human, nor half-elven or elven. And as he steps to the table, they realize he is blind. He thanks them for coming and jouins them in eating and makes no converation until after a dessert of small red berries that taste of cinnamon are served. He gives no name, but explains that like them, he is battling an alien evil. His ship travels on a sea between worlds and priests who worship a god of destruction have established an outpost on an island in the sea. Their presence threatens the safety of others who travel the sea and may lead to a danger to their world. He understands they have made a promise to the local law to appear in the morning, but he needs their help and his ship sails tonight. He offers them each the equivalent of 500 gold coins in gems or a magic item. The mission will take three to four days, including sailing time. Afterwards he will return them to this world, although they may be returned to another location of their choosing. The party agrees and departs ashore to retrieve their horses. Harper is a little reluctant since they agreed to speak to the city guard in the morning, but evil needs to be faced. They return and the horses are brought down to the ship's hold and the ship leaves the dock and heads down river. When the fog clears a little while later, they are on an open ocean with no land in sight and the sky is filled with strange constellations. They are shown to bunks below and get some rest.
Silly Quotes and Smart Remarks
Discussing what animals Raidne can shapeshift into, and giant crabs were mentioned
Jack "I just want you to change into a crab in battle so I can yell 'pincer maneuver' "
And Raidne saw a camel in a market in Opal
Brittany "Don't be so dromedramatic"
Trying to decide what to do
Stacy "Anna would tell you to do it with fire"
Jack "Yes, the thief taking advice from the arsonist"
The party thinks the Liartians may be in the catacombs and sewers under the city
Brittany(?) "Liartians are lawyers; they live in the sue-ers"
They find a manhole cover near where they heard spells underground
Brittany "Should we knock?"
Long discussion of the Wonder-Twins shapeshifting powers from the old Justice League cartoon
Jack "Tax collector; form of W-2"
Jim groans
Jack, holding up a chip "Here, I'll just hand it to you"
Raidne turns into a mouse to sneak under a door in the sewers
Jack "She would be better as a turtle"
Jim "She's not a ninja"
Brittany "Where's the pizza?"
Jim "We ate it"
Harper heals the party
Jack "We need to stop harping on this"
