Session 81

The party gathers their things and heads outside, taking caution to watch for shadows in the darkness. They make their way towards the residential district, but are surprised by a Sahuagin that lunges for Summer. However, Calantha holds up the device, and the Sahuagin grabs its head and writhes around, apparently in pain. Several others try to attack, but are similarly disabled when they get within range of the device's effect. The party continues into the densely packed residential district, where while quickly scanning the alleyways for signs of a threat, Summer sees a dark figure behind some houses and does a double take, seeing its glowing eyes inspecting her. She goes to point the figure out to Dain, and when she looks back, it's gone. So they continue on until they reach a giant, gaping hole in the center of the residential district, with partially collapsed houses lining the rim of the hole. It appears to be about 1,000 ft. in diameter. Despite the dim light reaching the sea floor as the sun begins to rise, they cannot see more than 20 ft. or so down into the trench. Undeterred, the party begins to swim down into the hole.

As the party descends, the water grows noticeably colder and the light fades until it is all but pitch black, save for the light being emitted by Dorin's shield. They continue downward, hearing a distant yawning sound, as if a great structure were shifting beneath the waves. Eventually, they reach the sea floor and the yawning sounds grow louder, changing to a thunderous roar as they feel a water current sweep them to the side and see the Juvenile Kraken appear, lashing out its tentacles at them. Dain charges in while the rest of the party supports him, and they seem to be doing well, until the Kraken begins firing off lightning blasts and releases an inky cloud that blots out their vision all around them. They try to clear the ink, but are only partially successful while it continues to fire off lightning blasts at them. Seeing that they are not particularly effective, the Kraken decides to begin lashing out with its tentacles, grabbing Dain and Dorin, and squeezing them while firing off more lightning blasts at Merrick and Summer. The party takes some bruises, but eventually they put the beast down. They move in to harvest some of the creature's body parts to show to the magistrate of Caphanos as proof of completing their mission, and then begin to search the sea floor for signs of Tryn's tower. It takes about an hour, but they eventually spot a large tower in a divot whose roof seems to have a large gaping hole in it and whose first floor seems to have collapsed entirely. They swim up to the top floor and into the hole.

Entering the tower, the party finds debris from collapsed ceiling rafters everywhere. They proceed into a large walled area that appears to be an inner chamber, and find a kitchen, a bathroom, and finally, the bedroom. In the bedroom, they find not only furniture, but what appears to be the skeletal remains of a Vesperkin that are badly damaged. They look around the room and find that it's mostly junk, but there is a book preserved through the same enchantment as the Enduring Spellbooks previously found. They also find a small object made of Eskite that has wheels on it with lettering. They put these objects into the Bag of Holding and proceed, not finding anything else of use here. They find another room off of the main hallway that appears to be a study, but regrettably find nothing of use there. Proceeding down the stairway to the next floor, they find an identical layout, but upon moving towards the door to the inner chamber, they see familiar runes suggesting magic meant for repelling water.

Entering the room, the party emerges into an air pocket where they find a large room with various furniture, including a couple desks, some storage containers, bookshelves, a table, and some tables which have skeletal remains atop them, as well as two doors. The tables holding up the skeletal remains look eerily similar to the ones the party found in Aubron's tower the previous year, and the cauldrons in between the tables appear to contain a large amount of ancient blood, only having remained liquid for so long due to the quantity of it. Upon one of the desks, they find a letter that appears to be from Valdor addressing Tryn, briefly mentioning Calantha, Nola, and Kira, and discussing some sort of project they were all working on, but Calantha has no real insights about the letter. Dain surmises that the project could be in some way related to the formula he found in Kira's home. Dain uses Detect Magic and locates some scrolls amidst the scattered books on the floor containing necromancy spells and then proceeding into one of the storage rooms, finds a chest containing another Bag of Holding. The party also searches the storage containers, finding a large quantity of bones. Finally, they proceed into the final room, where they are met with the sight of some sort of glowing, solid white doorway.

Throwing caution to the wind, they all move through the gateway, and upon emerging from the other side, Merrick, Summer, and Dorin see the pylon and a large number of bones surrounding it. They turn to Dain and Prenna and notice that their eyes are glowing and they appear in a catatonic state, drooling on themselves. As they turn back around to a clacking sound, they see the bones pull together to form a massive creature made entirely of bones.