Session 28: An Invitation Report

General Summary

The party now back in Freeport, 4,000 gp richer after their payment from the Freeport Pilot's Guild and selling their acquired loot. Are spending the evening relaxing within the Bilge Rat. From the doorway multiple Freeport Guardsmen enter, escorting what appears to be a well dressed halfling butler, with a heavily wrinkled face, horn-rimmed glasses, and wiry white hair. He introduces himself as High Chamberlain of the Sealord's Palace Tomas Fleetfoot. He is here to formally invite the party to attend the Lighthouse ball that is to take place on the 6th of Aestum at 8pm. He hands each person in the party an invitation, tells them to come in formal wear. Leave all weapons and armor behind. Then leaves before any of the party can get a proper question in. The party finishes the rest of their meal and heads out to purchase fine clothing for the ball.   That night Hanz receives a vision.  

Transcript of the Vision

Hanz, as you lay to rest for the night. Your rest is not overly pleasant. You can't help but toss and turn as you step into your dreams. Your dream is abnormally crisp. Far crisper then any dream you have ever had before. You can not tell if it is night or day, given you notice no stars, no moon, but it is clearly not day given there is no sun. You can barely make out a few feet in front of you as you stare out into the inky darkness that surrounds you. You can almost taste the air, a taste of copper, the taste of blood. You stand out on the water, the sea? lake? You can not tell for certain but looking down you see the disturbance your feat make standing there. No sounds are present, and whenever you try to shout out, speak, whisper, you are unable to hear your own voice. As the darkness becomes stifling, suffocating, almost unbearable you see light begin to creep up behind you, the sun rising? You can only hope so, spinning around you are met with a large tower. A tower you recognize. The lighthouse that has been the center to all the events that have happened in Freeport. At the top is a bright yellow light, its faint, but it gets brighter and brighter and brighter, as you almost have to cover your eyes, you see movement below you. Creatures of indescribable nature snake their way below you, as the light gets brighter and brighter you feel it almost sear your flesh. You realize you are now in The Docks of Freeport. You see the yellow light hit some Freeportians, they stumble but suddenly one of them jumps the other and begins to pummel him to death. You try to step forward to stop him but something in you is agreeing to this. Something inside you is telling you to join in. Kill everything around you, give in to the madness. Destroy! Murder! Kill! Plunder! As the voices that echo these thoughts grow louder and louder a sudden green wave of light washes over you. You feel a sense of calmness as whatever voices that you were hearing suddenly go silent. You watch the green wave of light wash over the Freeportians and you see them calm down, help each other to their feat, and make merry. You try to find the source of the Green Light that seemed to have saved you. As you turn around a giant green serpent hovers above you, it's mighty fangs the size of a single man, it stares down at you and bares it's fangs and strikes! As you bring up your guard and with an involuntary flinch later you quickly realize you are in one piece, floating within the darkness that now surrounds you, sits a Green Statue of a coiled serpent. You feel a cold prickly sensation in the back of your mind as you hear a deep and commanding voice speak out in a heavy accented tongue of common. "Find me, oh warrior of the gods. Find me in the temple beneath the waves. Find me and you can save them."

  The next morning, Hanz discusses the vision with the rest of the group and after some discussion head off to find Thuron. Given he is a High Priest of Yuan, they are quite confident he must have some answers to this vision. Arriving at Freeport's Temple to Odis, the party tracks down Thuron and Hanz gives in as much detail everything he could remember from the vision. Thuron is quite excited to hear Yuan has spoken to someone given, the old nature god has turned his back on the Vallosan people and their decedents. He keeps asking Hanz questions about the appearance of Yuan. Hanz however manages to get Thuron back on track and he explains the artifact that Hanz saw in his vision was most likely the Jade Serpent of Yuan. He goes and digs out an old book and reads from it, translating it from Vallosan. The book is called The Legend of Niaggo.   After the party hears the tale, Thuron summarizes that the Jade Serpent must be within the old temple located within the Vallosan capital. Coincidently that capital now rest below the waves of the Serpent Teeth, and Freeport itself. Thuron is not sure where the party can find an entrance into the old temple or even The Old City itself if there is anything even left of it. He guides the party to part of the restricted section that generally mentions anything to do with Vallosan ruins, and the like. The party spends the day and the night combing through books, journals, and even notes to see if they can find a lead.   The next morning the party is able to discover something. Burning the midnight oil pays off as they find a journal from a pirate named Black Dog. It talks about how he kept his treasure within a cave nearby Freeport. However he mentions in his journal about a large Jade door that depicts Serpents. The door is quite dangerous however and a pirate named Tom is harmed in someway. Unfortunatly the journal is damaged and has to many blood stains to get much more info out of.   With this lead the party asks around town about Black Dog's Treasure. To find their entrance into the Vallosan ruins they have to find the pirate treasure first. They spend most of the day asking around and luckily they are able to find out that an old pirate named Gareth was once apart of Black Dog's crew the 50 years past when he terrorized the seas. Tracking him down is an easy enough task. They meet an elderly man in his seventies. He has a peg leg and a huge scar across his left eye. He knows full well why they party has come to him and immediately goes into a reminiscence about his days with Black Dog. He tells the party he is old and in need of money. He is willing to sell the information of the cave's entrance for 250 gp. As the party pays up he tells them that the cave is up west of the coastline, sail until they spot two tall stones sticking out of the water. The secret of the caves is they are only accessible at low tide. The party will have to wait until the next morning at 4:30 am to be able to access the caves. They sail out with the crew and set anchor at the location and once low tide arrives they take The Rancor's rowboat in.   Elitessa sails the boat in however she is quickly overwhelmed by the rough currents the pull the rowboat through the narrow passage, as the boat slams into the wall it tosses the entire party overboard and they are carried away into a larger chamber. They notice something shining towards their left on the far beach. Seeing this they make their way over to investigate however they are ambushed by a Tojanida. A crab like creature from the elemental plane of water. It quickly grabs hold of Hanz, and presses the attack. However Hanz and the rest of the party quickly kill it. When the creature dies it dissipates into bubbles and water. They make their way over to the beach just in time for Ganbold to touch the shining object that was in the sand. A glistering saber. As he touches it the party is attacked by an Allip that tells him to let go of the blade. Ganbold responds by attacking the creature with the blade. He feels a severe compulsion to never let the blade go now, on top of that he can't help but feel needs to drink. Drink until he does not remember anything.   The party manages to kill the specter and they party decides to explore further into the cave to look for the door they are in search of. Heading through the northern arm they find a beach head littered with skeletons killed by sprung spike traps. Clearly this beach is dangerous and Hanz strikes forward with a long pole in hand to see if he can spring any traps before they part steps on them. He manages to set a few off. The party spots a hidden door within the rock face and investigate further within, they come face to face with a large wooden door bound in iron. A large lock is built into the center of the door. An inscription on the door reads: "Enter here and face the wrath of Black Dog."