Sessions 11-13
The party delved deeper into the mine, descending down some stairs. There, the mine ended and opened into a cave. Inside there was a ravine about 80 feet deep and 20 feet across. A minotaur guarded the corpse of a man clasping the missing crown the party was searching for. After a harrowing fight with the minotaur, Harriet leaped across the chasm and retrieved the crown.
They decided to search a little further and found the corpse of someone belonging to the Church of the Fellow Sun. A note on the body bemoaned the stupidity of the mission he was on. Around the corner, they found a stone door with the church's symbol etched on it in charcoal. Inside, they found two women huddling together, topless. They claimed to be lost and had removed their shirts to make torches, but Randy's character saw through the ruse and revealed them to be hags. The party killed them, then retrieved church funds also found in the room. Both hags had pet rats that disintegrated when the hags died.
The party then left the mine; outside they found the weather had cleared a little, and the sun shined briefly for the first time in over a week. As they headed back to town, the rain resumed. After returning the crown and claiming their reward, they spoke to the ship captain needing repairs and handed over the gold. She got the repairs started immediately and the party then had 5 days of downtime.
The first day they spent shopping. On the second day, they decided to pursue a job posted in the inn - the find the "Knife Point" gang. After a rather violent and chaotic incident in a pub where the gang was supposed to hang out, they were pointed to the building the gang called home. Lorenzo's character tried scouting around the building, but was spotted. A fight broke out, and in the chaos, a child found in the home run amok out of fear - getting in the way and nearly getting himself killed.
One of the gang members was beheaded and shortly after the fight wrapped up. The kid stopped at the beheaded corpse and the party learned it was his father. The party confirmed it was indeed the gang's hide out and discovered that the kid's father was beating him. They took the child to the town council and turned him over to them.
The following day the party tracked down an ettin who had been causing trouble in the town. Its name was Gronk and Lurk. One head seemed more intelligent than the other and wished to leave the area of the town. The other appeared to have suffered head trauma and had no thoughts other than violence. They managed to convince the smarter one to leave, but he needed his other head put out of commission. The party tried to put the second head to sleep, but failed and ultimately was forced to kill the ettin.
On the fifth day, the party spent a little more time relaxing, but did take a few minutes to investigate the story of a local fisherman who claimed to hear screeching and wailing coming from out on the sea itself. Some members of the party were able to hear the same voice, but had no means to investigate further. Meanwhile, Cat's character caroused and found himself in trouble with the law after winning a suspicious amount of gold from a high-ranking city official. Although his character did nothing illegal, the city official had enough clout to get the character arrested. Cat's character resisted and slipped away.
After that, the ship was repaired and the party was ready to sail on to Germulus.
Session 14
At the start of the session, we jumped back to the second characters in Mare Nostrum to catch up with events happening there, starting 3 days after the main party had left.
On the first day, a seer visited the town asking for sanctuary at the company's headquarters. In exchange, he would tell their future. The seer was a Abarimon, an unusual creature with backward facing feet, trained from birth at divination. The party agreed and the Abarimon foretold the following:
- I see an attack. There are soldiers in the weeds. There is death all around. They bear a headless eagle.
- I see a book. I see compatriots of yours searching for this book, though they do not yet know what they are searching for.
- I see a hut in the mountains. In it, I see a woman full of hatred and purpose bearing a staff and rat. I see her fail.
- I see a towering library, reaching to the skies. The library is burning. There is a great anger from above. I see you try to save this library.
- I see a great man with the head of a bull. He guards a lost crown.
- I see that which I seek refuge from. The waters rise to drown the world. No.. not the world. A place. A heart.. it is nearby. They will need your help.
- I see the doom of the world upon us... not in days… but soon.. Months? Weeks? Some day in our lifetime. A towering figure whose face blots out the sun. Its visage is etched in rage and wreathed in laurels. It carries a trident and with it, fire and apocalypse.
After that he saw no more and laid down to rest.
Later that day, soldiers from Tumulta arrived under a flag of peace. They demanded an apology for the dead Tumulta soldiers they blame on Mare Nostrum, an oath to never again lay hands on them, and gold in tribute. The party managed to convince them that a joint oath of peace was better for all, and that the attacks they had made on Tumulta soldiers was justified. Surprisingly, the Tumulta soldiers agreed. After camping outside of town one night, they left the following day with no further incident.
The next day, Mike and Diego's characters were out on an early patrol and spotted a ship having trouble in rough waters near reefs. They quickly commandeered a local fishing ship, summoned the rest of the party to help and then sailed out to rescue them. Out of 10 crew, they managed to save 4, including the princess they'd rescued before. The princess relayed the following:
- She had boarded a small ship re-purposed for fishing a day after she was returned to Mare Nostrum and the owner agreed to take her to Scélan, where should could board passage on a larger ship bound for the empire.
- Sea travel around Scélan has become almost impossible and the ship was blown miles off-coarse. They tried to return to the closest land they spotted when they struck the rocks.
- The ocean storm is far worse near Scélan. The captain could not even get close, as the skies turned black; lightning strikes were ceaseless; and the waves were reaching 20 feet or more.
- She wonders about the conditions on the island and other low-lying areas.
The party agreed they couldn't leave town to do anything more about this, but did begin work on trenches to funnel water away from Mare Nostrum, which has started to experience a build up of water from the endless rain.
Back to the main characters:
The party began their sea journey to Germulus. Toward the end of the first day, they encountered a hag at sea and fought with it. Diego's character tossed a net at it to entangle it, while Randy leapt to the rock the hag was perched on. The spell casters aboard launched volleys and volleys of magic missiles, killing the hag. As it fell, Diego yanked it aboard, as it was still entangled in the net.
On its body, written in a language no one understood (until two comprehend languages were cast) was a ritual scroll on how to perform surgery on rats. The scroll wasn't clear what the purpose was, although Cat was able to catch a rat on the ship and perform the surgery on it with mixed success. As he tried interacting with the rat after the surgery, the skies went pitch black, and a lightning bolt crashed down from the sky, scorching Cat and incinerating the rat.
Later that night, Diego read a chapter of his book and discovered a related article detailing a known ritual used in conjunction with rats to control weather. The party then realized all the hags they've encountered have had rats and concluded there must be many more hags through the land, all probably controlling the weather and creating these storms that have been ever-present for the past few weeks.
While on the ship, in limited downtime, Cat's character did some light carousing again and inadvertently made an enemy of one of the crew, who he thinks might be out to kill him.
And with that, the ship reached Germulus where we will pick up next time.