Session 4 - Wailing about Whaling

The party delivered the emerald skull chest to the Cove Keeper, though while it was in their possession they began to hear a heartbeat coming from the chest and when it was opened in their presence it let out a horrific scream. As they left after delivering the chest, they caught sight of the Dread Lord who appeared to have some business with the Cove Keeper.   While at Corsair Cove, the party sold what cargo they had and purchased some fresh cargo to hopefully trade for profit at the next port they found themselves at. Butcher spent some coin to get his boomerang upgraded and Red invested in some sleep darts. The party were told that a good source of information and leads was the bartender, Finch, at a tavern called The Greedy Scoundrel. Meeting with Finch, a number of potential job opportunities were found. The party decided to look into one of the jobs, a merchant looking for someone to investigate disappearances at a whaling station on the island of Vespor.   The merchant was waiting on the isle of Othos, which is near Vespor, so the party set sail for there first. While their the party sold their cargo of tools for a tidy profit thanks to some deception from Serge and some tinkering from Butcher that made the tools look fancier than they were. After this the party met with the merchant who owned the whaling station, Edgar Bowsher. He expalined that he had set up the station on Vespor and left a crew of 12 there to run the station but when he returned to the island, a week prior to the his meeting with the party, the crew had all vanished.   After some negotiating the party struck a deal with Bowsher, 300 GP to discover what had happened to the crew, an additional 300 GP if they could ensure that the island was safe and future crew would be not risk disappearing. On top of this there was an offer of 20 GP for each living member of the crew found, 15 GP for any corpses of the crew that could be recovered and 10GP for the heads of anyone responsible for the disappearance. Upon arriving at Vespor the party sailed a loop around the island to get a lay of the land but the only viewpoints of interest where the whaling station and a standing stone circle on a hill.   Investigating the whaling station several oddities were found. Most of the food was missing and the cooler was devoid of meat. Several bunk beds had been dismantled and the top bunks were missing. A dead whale in the station had a wound that seemed to have healed posthumously. Cutting into this wound uncovered a small black pearl (about the size of a golf ball) that radiated arcane energy.   Red put this pearl into his empty eye socket, though upon doing this he felt sudden unease as if being watched. The pearl also seemed to swallow a minor magic effect that Butcher attempted to cast upon it.   Among a nearby pile of whale bones one was found that had runes carved on it that gave off arcane energy. Inspecting the runes revealed that one was conjuration, one was divination, and one was transmutation. When the pearl got near these runes it gave off a red glow and it implanted a desire in Red to head towards the centre of the island.   The party were ready to start heading that way as the session came to an end.