View source for What once was lost

[[Category:William]]
'''Adventure:''' What Once was Lost<br>
'''GM:''' [[William]] <br>
'''Season:''' Spring 811wk <br>
'''Night:''' Mondays<br>
'''Location:''' Williams - mostly - see discussion page<br>
'''Level:''' Low
<br>
'''Party:'''<br> 
* [[Menelion]] (Necro) played by [[Kelsie]]
* [[Kyr]] (Namer) played by Jackie Leigh
* [[Henric]] (Mind) played by Chris
* [[Prudence|Prue]] (Water) played by Julia
* [[Lucius]] (E&E) played by Bridget
* [[Asher]] (Ice) played by [[User:Henryb|Henry Bicknell]]
* [[Lyrus]] (Fire) played by Stefan Corr

'''Employer:''' Lord Phineas McPhule, recently married to Lady Kareen DeWinter. A member of the Seagate Friendly Merchants Association.

'''The Adventure:''' Lord Phineas has recently come into posession of the captain's log of HIMS Avenger, one of the famed elven Eagle ships. It was lost at sea about 8000 years ago during an attempted Drow invasion. The invasion fleet was stopped at an inlet the elves renamed Battle Bay. With a little magical assistance he thinks the ship can be found.

Needed. 
# Someone who can speak with the dead. PS Shouting 'Stay dead you bastards' as you hit them does not count.- Tick
# A water mage. - Tick
# Someone who speaks elven really good. - Tick

Rewards
*1000 sp up front for each adventurer.
*10% of all salvage of the Avenger and contents
*1 magic item from the Avenger
*Any loot looted from pirates, bandits, things of the deep, gibbering monstrosities, etc.

= Day One - Beauties and Beasts =

''What do you do if you are so fugly that only your mother thinks you are cute?''<br>
Why, join the Seagate Adventurers Guild of course.

''What do you do if you are so beautiful that sailors don't even haggle a price, they just drop their drawers on seeing you?''<br>
Why, join the Seagate Adventurers Guild of course.

And there you have our party, with Lucius and Kyr (whom kind people would call extremely plain), the mirror botherers Lyrus and Asher, Pru and Henric. Menelion looks ok but the sack of dead cats he carries and periodically snacks on, is enough to make any sensible human run screaming for the hills. He is definitely not the, 'I'm a good guy, honest' type of necromancer. Pretty boy Asher seems the only normal one so far but there is plenty of time for that to change.

== 1st Thaw 811 ==
'''''In which we meet our employer and travel out into the chaotic rift in Confederation (Battle) Bay.'''''

We are introduced to Lord Phineas McPhule, our employer, who is a member of the New Seagate Friendly Merchants Association. Who apparently have ships that are Definitely Not swift, low bottomed or armed and they are definitely not pirates. Pru negotiates for us to take our meals  in the guild house of the New Seagate Friendly Merchants Association, definitely not because the food might be better. (Do you think the cooks read the scribe notes?)

Our employer presented us with a skull which is the ship's log for the 'Avenger' which was sunk in Battle Bay (now called [[Confederation Bay]]). We are to locate and retrieve or salvage the ship. Our payment will be one magic item from the ship each and 10% of the salvage. Our employer showed us the salvage rights which he had obtained from the Duke, so everything is above board and I am sure the elves wont be objecting at all.

Our employer also agreed to give us 30,000sp. He is deposited half of it at the guild.

{{divbox|#ffe||'''Exert from Henric's journal:''' <br/>

Once more assembled for some dangerous guild work I look around and see Kyr, Menelion, Asher and Lyrus who are very fresh guild faces on their first mission as well as Prudence the perpetually wet and Lucius the terminally depressed E&E who is unable to wield the epic weapon he has. Oh how these days of Spring will just fly by! <br/>

Prudence is nominated as party leader as she gets around, Lucius volunteers to be scribe and I will lead the party militarily so we have a full complement of leadership, reference and experience. <br/>

Looking around this party after introductions I see only 2 other pseudo combat capable party members with the rest being obviously risk averse or worse so I decide they need some morale boosting and I remember Sgt Major Tewdor Byron Williams of the [[Carzalan Army]] â€“ Brastor Corps telling me that levity often helps raise morale as you can't laugh and be scared at the same time so I decide I'll keep up the party spirits as much as possible by being an entertaining cheerful dwarf â€“ oh my sister [[Mavric]] would be proud I'm sure.}}


Lyrus spend the night in the library, interpreting coordinates received from the skull, and discovered the last known location of the ship which Pru was able to translate into modern navigation coordinates. Lucius visited the Elven embassy and discovered that Admiral Tanglebone (he gets around apparently) led a fleet of Elvendar elves against the drow invaders and a mighty battle was fought. The historian didn't have any details of the drow ships that were sunk, he declared that many ships drow ships were sunk (1,2, many, maybe) they were lead by a great drow sorcerer, Necromedies, who summoned aspects of Bune and Sier. The Elvendar ships, the Avenger, captained by Alaric, the Dauntless and The Revenge were also sunk in the battle. The Avenger was sunk when it was rammed by the drow ship Pyreraid. Not to worry, I am sure we won't accidentally release any demon summoning undead sorcerers trapped for eons under the sea, only held by one fragile sparkly gold arcane seal. We have much more to worry about in that Pru discovers that there is reputed to be a Kraken living down there. Do you think Krakens sleep? Yes, they are famous for it.

The rest of the party are successfully evangelized by the priest from the Temple of the One Horned God, and they worship with vigor through out the night.

We are quite surprised to discover that we are to meet Three Fingered Bill at the docks, and board Lord Phineas' ship The Kestrel, a swift, low bottomed or previously armed ship. Henric when discovering there are Orcs on the crew tells us that "''we should go for some orcKestral manouevres in the bay.''"
He thinks he's Very Funny.

Once we are taken out into the bay, close to the rift, we scout the area using crystal balls. We discover some Merfolk living below us on the edge of the rift. Further in at 80 miles down there are scary glowing fish, at 100 miles down there was a keep on the side of the rift, further down at 125 miles down there was what possibly is a Kraken. 

We swim straight down with help from Henric and a rock and land in a kelp farm. The Mer farmer who comes to meet us runs away screaming when Pru asks him where the kraken is.
Mer guards came to see us and escorted us into town. Pru, the master negotiator and Pimp bargained for golden caps for us to allow us to breath under water in exchange for a night in the spawning pools from Ash and Menelion. Henrick tells us they are "''sleeping with the fishes''". Pru also traded our toe nails away for five doses of boom fish (which coat your weapons) leaving some of us nervously clutching our essentials wondering what is going to go next. Pru also manages to obtain a cursing item which has 5 charges. The curse, once triggered, will last one minute and cause the target to roll 3x and take the worst outcome. She also gets for us 4 Amulets of luck with 3 charges which once triggered will last one minute and cause the target to take -10 off of their dice rolls.

Menelion is carrying the skull in a basket and talking to it. Henric, proving that he is Very Funny for a dwarf tells Menelion that '''he has a basket case'''. The skull mentions that it recognizes the town and it was taken here from the ship by hobbits and sold to the town's priest. It was stolen from this town by Merfolk and sold. The priest worships the Great White God. (I wonder what that is and if they sacrifice foreigners to it).

Whilst we reposed peacefully, others of the party were hard it work. In the morning we got Ash and Menelion back mostly unharmed. When we asked how the mermaids were Henric replied for them that they were "''slippery when wet''". (oh my aching sides how will I continue through the adventure - argh)


== 2nd Thaw 811 ==
'''In which we achieve a glorious victory against the 'devilfishmen' and carry off their coral.'''<br>
We decided that we would like some more Lucky Coral Charms. The catch is it comes from the area where the 'devil fish men' live. The devil fish men worship the Devourer in the Darkness. I am sure it will be perfectly safe to sashay in and collect our coral and those fine fellows won't mind a bit. It wont alert the kraken to our presence at all.

We observe a bubble of 'gloop' rising up through the water. The villagers tell us that it can be good or evil depending on which 'god' it comes from. In the true adventuring spirit we decide to test it on a party member. The fire mage being the most expendable went first and we were delighted to see Lyrus come through the experiment hale and hearty and extra magical. Once we saw it was only mostly dangerous the rest of the party enthusiastically partook of the 'gloop', except me because I know first hand how dangerous the blood of a god can be. And indeed the blood of this god proved to be far from beneficial to Menellion who was Quite Unwell from it and seemed to have all the magic sucked out from him. Once we had cured him of the poison we were ready to be off.

Henric our cunning military scientist tells us the plan to defeat the devil fish men. "If you find anything stop and kill them." With his further admonishment ringing in our ears of "Don't do anything you shouldn't" we proceed to beat up some devil fish men and retrieve some coral.


We head back to the Mer village with a captured devil fish mage (alive) and some fishy corpses (almost alive after Menellion has finished with them). Henric has a [[performs a truly disgusting organ eating, gore filled ritual on the formerly living devilfishman mage|hearty fish dinner]] before retiring for the night.

We think it might be a good idea to go back to the guild to divinate our dark and slimy ill-gotten gains. Prudence belatedly realizes she is party leader and orders us back to the guild.

The guild tells us the devourer devotee amulet allows the bearer to sense beating hearts and also hand of death at rank 6 where the damage you do you get back as health. You are also identified as a worshiper. As if we didn't already know that it was evil!

Lyrus, the fire mage, meets John Pontamous, the alchemist, and is told there is a potion he can take so he can cast under water. We spend 1000sp on making the potion. We also spend 1200sp on the evil necromancer so he can give the navigation skull a body.

The rest of the party decides to spend their evening worshiping at the temple of the one-horned god.
Asher tells the party, "I've already got my 2 defense but I'll come again."
The party again various amounts of agility from their efforts. Notably Lyrus performed his services in an extremely pleasing way to the god and gained 5 agility.

Lucius and Kyr spend the night, as true warriors should, in a vigil in the chapel of Rafael. They gain +15 def and +2 armor vs evil.


== 3rd Thaw ==
'''In which we smite evil fishmen cultists and procure dubious loots.'''<br>
We arrive back at the Mer village and much to our surprise, it is on fire. Not something you expect to see under water!
Pru bargains for a Narwhale horn that allows us to speak to enchanted creature and some tridents that when you put your blood on them it will do endurance damage to your opponents. Our bargains complete we are ready to go and do for those upstart fishmen who dared to retaliate against the innocent Mer village.

We smash over some devilfishmen. At the fish men's village we discover a temple to The Devourer which has a pit in it with an unspeakable horror inside it. We decide that discretion is the better part of valor and we do not go and poke it. Lucius consecrates the alter in the name of the rightful master of all, [[Raphael]].  We also find a treasure chest which has a nasty tentacled creature inside which we hastily slam the lid back on once we saw see what is inside. From the fishmen we get and amulet that can sense heartbeats and an evil magical crown, 2 amulets of shark teeth, 2 amulets of demon fish, an evil sacrificial dagger and a magically seeking spear which comes back to you, we also find 6 pearls.

Prudence uses a crystal of vision to see what the likely outcome is of her putting the evil crown on, she sees herself leading a vast army, rising from the waters and crushing all the land dwellers.

We again spend the night in the guild, dining at the '''Privately Incorporated Recovery and Termination Enterprise''' guild as Henric has named the friendly merchant association.

== 4th Thaw ==
'''In which plunge into the depths and find a strange undersea city.''' <br>
We decide it is time to go into the rift. Once in the water Lyrus takes his potion and bursts into flames which is not something you see everyday under water. Hendrick advises him "chicks will think he is so hot".

We lash ourselves together and descend into the depths. On our way down the abyss we come across some large doors in the side of the cliff. Henric reads the message carved into the doors 'do not open unless lock is in place'. Figuring, that safety warnings for ordinary citizens, and don't apply to adventurers, we open the doors. We find an abandoned underground dwarven city guarded by 2 huge golems which don't seem to mind us. The city was run Vendrick in the 89th C the golems tell us. The city contains a portal to hell which the dwarves apparently all went through. We spend the night in the city figuring its a nice safe place to stay except for the ghostly sounds being many miles under the ocean and in a deserted dwarven city.


== 5th Thaw ==

'''In which we descend through a strange insane membrane.'''<br>
Prudence and Lyrus feel a strange compulsion to go through the portal during the night. We leave quickly before we are ordered through the portal and our adventures take a sudden turn to the high side.

We continue on down the abyss fortunately we are able to see by the light of Lyrus who is still immolated. We come across a layer of 'green goo' which appears to cover the whole opening and the only way down appears to be through it. Our investigations show us it is like a portal to another plane and by way of dangling Asher as bait we see the chaos creatures that live within it.

Once Menellion has backfired several times ( I would like to request a refund on our necromancer this one is faulty and never goes off) and Asher has fed it a bit, Hendrick manages to bring it to submission with a mental attack. Thankfully for our sanity he doesn't eat this one.

We find a clearish spot and head on through the green goo. Further down we come to where the devourer (squid) and the Sage of the Sea (the Whale) are fighting. We descend past then very cautiously. After that to abyss opens out.  Menellion, who seems to want to eat everything crawling past, discovers that we shouldn't eat the food. After we cure him of poison we sleep the night in bound water.


== 6th Thaw ==

'''In which we explore the sea floor and meet the elves who are destined to fight their battle everyday.'''<br>
We are awakened by chanting and drumming which we find out happens every morning. This morning the undead bound drow are celebrating their victory over the elves. We speak to captain Alaric. The elves don't appear to realize they are dead. They are also various forms of greater undead revenants. We think they are not free to rest until the battle is won.

We scout around the drow ship, it is a huge fortress. Lucius goes to sleep and asks for help from [[Sha'Mez]], (the old elven god of God of Magic, change, cunning and trickery) and has have a dream.
A star falls down from the sky and falls down the abyss and into an open portal. Dark ones (drow) come pouring out.

We decide to find out more information and head back to the surface. On the way up we stay the night in the dwarven city. We ask the golems if anyone ever escaped from the portal. They told us that some hobbits had. (We guess that these might be the ones that stole the skull) and a human went in through the portal to rescue his wife and came out 3 days later with her. She was dead.


== 7th Thaw ==
'''In which Menellion has a cunning plan.'''<br>
We go to the lost elven ship The Brilliance who have apparently forgotten to fight the drow. When we get there we discover that they think they are still heading to the battle and haven't reached it yet. We talk to the Captain and tell him that Admiral Tanglebones has a secret plan to defeat the drow and we have been sent to get [[The Orb of Water Mastery]], which we know is on the boat, to help him with his plan. We convince the Captain to release the orb to us. Prudence and Henric raise the Brilliance up to the shore to release the revenants from their bonds. Upon fulfilling their destiny the revenants disperse, mostly, and the weight of ages falls upon the ship and it disintegrates leaving a pile of elven coins and a goblet that is used for charming. One revenant promised his love that he would come home. He needs to see his love again to be at peace. He agrees to come with us to try to find his love.

Lucius found out that the last Lord Protector was called Lucius, also from [[Ladlaugh]] and he followed [[Kael]] the God of war. Lucius resembles his predecessor, sort of.


== 8th Thaw ==

'''In which lost loves are reunited and Admiral Tanglebones explains how he created a seal over the rift trapping the drow.''' 
<br>
We take to cloud to Ladaugh to drop off the revenant.




= Notes = 

; Merfolk
Farmers of high grade Kelp that is used for ???.    Natural competitors with the devil fish who live across the abyss.    Worship the giant whale summoned by the elves in the great battle of Battlebay. (approx. 8000 years ago)

; Devil Fish
Farmers of high grade oysters that are used for pearls and ???.    Natural competitors with the Merfolk who live across the abyss.   Worship the Kraken summoned by the drow in the great battle of battlebay. (approx. 8000 years ago)

;Dwarves of the Deep
An ancient dwarven civilisation that came to aid the elves during the great war but turned up late or somesuch event.    It appears mostly intact altough completely uninhabited due to an open one way portal through to Hell where it seems they went for whatever reason.  More to come.

= Quips and Quotes =



= Treasure / Loot =

To be added by William

* Also details of new land holdings, titles etc in [[Jurgenmark]]