Beneath the Waves

Disaster / Destruction

A druidic couple discovers a new ally and the dark truth beneath the waves.

As the communities of Shets'doma and Varisians mingled and developed, the merchant families continued to grow. Some found the presence of the Shets'doma to be an opportunity to swell their numbers while others felt the need to remain pure in the ways of the Sea Gypsy. Marriages between the two groups became more common with the couples choosing to live their lives on the land or boat, creating new items or traveling between settlements, carving new faces onto homes, or adopting scarves of a family. These couple's children could be half-elven or human and so the Sea Gypsy became not a race but a group of people, connected together by the sea and the desire to travel.   One such couple following the ways of nature began to not only explore above the water but beneath it. Umbeto Zoggeler and Cosette Lamolle explored the many atolls and coasts of the Isle together. They brought back many samples of the flora beneath the waves to the temple of Giudarno, the home of the druidic order. The pair used their strong connection to the water domain and their wild shape ability to explore deeper and further into the seas of the Isle. They discovered a number of huge forests of kelp and mapped out the edges of the giant reefs. One such adventure brought them into contact with an Alu'Tel'Quessir  hunting party. Fortunately, they had chosen the form of dolphins, friends to the Alu'Tel'Quessir. They were invited to visit Sumitavian at the center of the reef to discuss what was occurring on the surface. The Alu'Tel'Quessir had become curious about the Sea Gypsy, having had the Islands to themselves for many years. They had noticed more and more hulls moving above them. The druids helped the Sea elves to see that the Sea Gypsy cared for the sea, its inhabitants and that they posed no long term danger to the elven cities beneath the sea. They returned to the families with a new ally and stories of the beautiful buildings the Alu'Tel'Quessir had grown from the coral and carved within the volcanic tunnels of the undersea island.The Sea Gypsy assumed that the Alu'Tel'Quessir would continue to live their lives separate from them but within a week ambassadors from Sumitavian were seeking a meeting with the leaders of the Isle, bringing with them a tale of terror and destruction. Beneath the waves the skirmishes between the Alu'Tel'Quessir and the Sahuagin (Sea Devils) had suddenly escalated. The Sea devils began to pour out of the depths and into the Alu'Tel'Quessir's reefs. They wanted their druid friends to travel deep into the Alphatian Sea to find out why these scaly creatures were attacking their homes in such huge numbers. The couple saw this as an opportunity to help their new allies and explore deeper than any Sea Gypsy had been before. They traveled into the inky blackness of the deep sea with a group of young sea elves, and discovered an old evil many thought banished.   In the dark valleys and desolate plains of the sea floor of Alphatia, the Darkness had been at work finding allies among the strange beings of this world. The Kraken forced deep beneath the waves by the whales (avatars and aspects of Denev) had been plotting their revenge since the formation of the islands. These ancient creatures, many powerful in magic, had made deals with the malignant force of Darkness gaining power and ultimate control over the deep sea. The Kraken had made use of the Ixitichatil (a race of manta rays) that shared their love of destruction to enslave tribes of Sahuagin and Deep Sea Elves, constructing giant temples to the Darkness across the sea floor. These temples were part of a ritual to drag the islands beneath the waves bringing destruction, resources and slaves to this dark kingdom. The druids and Alu'Tel'Quessir observed all of this on a number of explorations into the depths enlisting the aid of the Dwarves to create diving bells to help them travel. After many skirmishes and battles they discovered the Sahuagin, wicked to the core, had been drawn to the depths by the Darkness only to be ultimately betrayed Sekolah, hearing their pleas, had helped many of them escape with his own shark aspects. The Sahuagin had decided that if they could not have the depths they would establish their nation in the shallow waters and remove the Alu'Tel'Quessir that was also causing strange mutations within their population.   The Varisian druids finding no help from the Sahuagin and little from the embattled Alu'Tel'Quessir, sought allies across the Isle. They sought out the many heroes of the age but could find little support when they describe the need to travel deep beneath the waves and the need to use strange devices and spells. The pair sought even further afield eventually travelling to the plane of water were they discovered and allied with the merfolk, arriving back in the Isle in time to stop the ritual and thwart the Kraken. While defeated they could not destroy all of these giant beings and so the Kraken and their Ixiticihatil allies disappeared into the dark canyons beyond the edge of the Alphatian Sea to plot and plan for the future.