THURSDAY, JUNE 25TH - KINGDOM OF KESHANAR: SESSION 11 & 12 RECAP
Bek told the party all he remembered. He had been sent by Ulrik to the city of Aureen to collect a debt owed to his employer. He had booked passage on a river boat that hauled freight to make the trip to the distant city and had been on the Tefnut River for more than a week when their craft was attacked by some sort of fishmen, humanoid shaped creatures that attacked with a ferocity the likes of which he had never seen. The crew was slaughtered or drug overboard to disappear beneath the river's waters. Bek had fought, even managing to slay one of the creatures, before a barrel containing some sort of oil caught fire and exploded and he blacked out.
Captain Grell questioned Bek, gathering all of the details he could on the monsters that had attacked the vessel. Concerned for his own ship and crew, he doubled the watch and enlisted the party to help. The precautions saved them as that night, these strange fish men climbed over the gunwales of the ship and attacked. The party led the counterattack, slaying their attackers and sending them back over the side into the waters. The fight was fierce, their assailants vicious, but with the crew fighting for their very lives and with the aid of the party’s magic, they defeated their foes. The crew did suffer a loss, Zora, the first mate, lay dead near the ships wheel where she had fought to prevent the ship being run aground.
The next morning the crew held a ceremony to say goodbye to their comrade and set her body to rest in the embrace of the river’s depths.
Several days later they arrived in the city of Aureen, the siblings made their goodbyes and accompanied Bek ashore. He enlisted the group’s help in his task, telling them that the debt he had to collect was substantial, and that he had been promised ten percent of the amount for securing the money. They planned how they would collect the coin from a Stoddar Grieshem, a Sha’Kheti who led the White Manes, a criminal organization that operated out of the Lavender Oasis, a gambling house near the ocean port. The plan was simple, Bek and Zafira would find a way to get in front of Stoddar, demand the money, and if things went as Bek suspected, they would take it by force. Khephri and Kharu would be their back up, waiting close by in the gambling house coming in at the first sign of trouble. As is always the case with the best laid plans, this one went wrong almost immediately.
Bek used Ulrik’s name to get led to a back room where they found Stoddar behind a large wooden desk watching his employees counting coin brought back from the front. Two Ren-Khepri, scarab-like humanoids stood watch nearby. Pleasantries were made, but things quickly took a turn when Bek told their host why they were there. Mention of the debt saw Stoddar’s mood go from one of feigned hospitality to cold thinly veiled anger. Bek read the turn, but decided to press the point, telling the criminal that if the debt was not paid, in full, and immediately, that he would have little choice, but to resort to force. This statement made the Ren-Khepri lift their halberds, brandishing them in the direction of Bek and his companion. Zafira lifted her hands and began chanting a spell.
The fight was on! The scarab men, alerted by the aggressive turn in the conversation, were quicker than our heroes. One of them landing a devastating strike on Bek, severing an artery in his left leg and sending him to the ground hard, unconscious and bleeding out. The other missed Zafira with its halberd, but positioned itself between the sorceress and its employer. The follower of Khonsu unleashed thunderwave, the brutal force hitting one of the Ren-Khepri took the full brunt of the arcane energy, being pushed back away from where it loomed over the fallen Rogue, the other having braced itself took less damage.
Khephri and Kharu heard the commotion and taking that as their queue, rushed into the back room, pursued by the two guards they had run past. The fight was quick and brutal, leaving Kharu and Bek down, Zafira grappled by one of the guards, and Khephri having to sheath her sword and surrender or watch them kill her sister.
Stoddar questioned to two sisters, asking them what they knew and why they had attacked him in his own establishment. Zafira took the lead, telling the crime lord that they barely knew Bek, and had made an error in judgement in offering to assist him, hoping to make a little coin by helping him collect on the debt. In the end Zafira used her persuasion to convince Stoddar to release them, but they must leave Bek in his “care” and they were to leave the city by morning. The siblings agreed.
They made their way back to the port, looking for the ship that Arislene had said would be waiting for them, The Calm Seas, captained by an Ardella Thorne. They found the ship easily enough, a large two masted vessel, larger than any they had seen before. A Tabaxi, who identified herself as first mate of the vessel saw them eyeing the ship and asked what they wanted. Six Mark was her name and the siblings told her they were told to seek out the vessel in Aureen and that passage had been purchased for them to be taken out to sea. Six Mark went back aboard, and after several minutes came back to tell them the ship leaves at first light and to be there prior to departure or they would be left behind.
The party purchased rooms in a nearby inn, had a meal, and made preparations to leave the next morning. Their night was quiet and before they knew it the sun began to rise. The three made their way to the ship, were introduced to the captain, a beautiful flame haired half elf, with a strange tattoo that ran down the left side of her face. They were told to stay out of the way of the crew, but otherwise they could move about the ship as they chose with the exception of the captain and crew quarters.
They were at sea for several days, being fortunate enough to avoid getting sea sick, experienced their first storm on the ocean, and seeing many strange fish and birds. On their fifth day they began to see plankton in vast amounts, and it was then that the lookout called “man overboard”. The siblings looked over the port gunwale where the sailor indicated and saw signs of debris and eerily similar to their recent meeting with Bek, a figure clinging to a barrel bobbing on the surface of the water. The crew moved quickly to bring the man aboard, the law of the sea one of them muttered when Kharu asked why they were going to such efforts.
When they brought the man aboard, he attacked the nearest sailor, his face and limbs withered, rotting, and covered in barnacles and crawling sealife. Another crew member shouted a warning, her voice filled with horror, as more of these undead of the sea scrambled up over the railing to attack.
The siblings joined the crew in the defense of the ship. These waterlogged zombies were dangerous, but against three adventurers and a well led crew, the battle quickly became one sided. A few of the crew took minor wounds, Khephri a bruise or two, but they destroyed the undead and sent their carcasses back into the cold water’s embrace.
The next day the lookout spotted what appeared to be the wrecks of ships floating off the starboard bow, surrounded by what appeared to be another huge bloom of algae. The siblings moved over to the railing where they could see the prows, masts, and hulls of ships, most of them covered in barnacles and algae, and all showing damage. Captain Thorne spun the wheel hard to port taking them away from and around the field of broken ships thinking it best to avoid any trouble.
That afternoon Six Marks gave a shout of warning pointing astern. A wave approached, heralding something beneath the waves coming up behind them. A great shadow passed to their port side and beneath them, displacing a great amount of seawater. Its body was oval in shape, as long as the ship itself, but it quickly vanished, much to the relief of the crew.
The next morning they arrived at the area marked on their sea chart by Arislene as being the area where the island had sunk. The time had come to bring out the Shield of Set and use it to lead them to the Spear. They boarded a dingy, rowed by two of the crew, and moved away from The Calm Seas and drew the Shield out of their bag of holding. The empty eye of the skull that adorned the shield flared to life, twin beams of red light lancing forth and striking the water, pointing the way down into the depths.
The siblings took their potions of water breathing and dove into the ocean, thinking it best to get on with it rather than to overthink things. They sank beneath the waves, passing exotic looking fish, spotting a dolphin swimming toward the surface. They then swam down, making speed toward the ocean floor. The light faded as they moved away from the surface, descending into darkness the red beams of the Shield stabbing ever downward.
It was Khephri that felt it first. A swell of water, pushed ahead of something vast. In the near darkness the three could see that monstrous shape of the oval shaped creature swimming above them. They could make out enormous flippers, a wide head that turned to regard them, or perhaps it was drawn to the light of the Shield. It moved up and away from them and the siblings collectively breathed a sigh of relief.
They soon found the ocean’s floor and found a giant crevice, a large wound in the floor of the ocean. Some catastrophic force had ripped the area apart, and the light from the Shield pointed down into it. So, the three stepped off the edge and dropped down into total darkness. The light of the Shield showed jagged rock, but soon they saw signs of worked stone, even what appeared to be a statue covered in coral.
After what seemed an eternity they found the bottom of the trench and there they found the shattered remains of a dark stone ziggurat. They found a large crack in one of the stones and squeezed their way inside. They found strange transparent, blind fish inside, swimming through a corridor. They found tunnels and followed the light of the Shield, eventually coming to a large chamber that appeared to be some sort of temple. An altar rested on a dais at one end, large, alien looking glyphs carved into the dark stone of the floor. They spent some time studying the runes, but could not make out what they meant, Kharu unable to read them with the ability granted by his patron. They appeared to convey a thought or circumstance rather than words as they were accustomed to in their own language.
They moved to the altar and found another strange symbol, vaguely shaped like a stick figure. The stone of the altar was stained with some dark substance that made the stone almost black in comparison to the stone around it. The glyph was carved into the stone, and while investigating the altar, they discovered a knife made of some strange, dark, lightweight bone. Before they could stop her, Zafira slashed her palm and held it out toward the altar. Blood oozed from the wound, almost swam toward the glyph which began to glow with a warm red light.
It was at that moment that the Shield went dark and the room behind them brightened with a strange green light. They turned to see the runes on the floor glow and slowly rising from the stones came ghostly images of twisted beings, part fish, part humanoid who moved to attack.
The fight was quick, the siblings each taking wounds and using magic to defeat their foes. It was over before they knew it and they discussed taking a short rest. They finally decided against it, using Khephri’s healing pool and potions of healing they had brought to cure their wounds. They wanted to rest, but they knew that doing so would waste the precious time the potions of water breathing gave them.
The spectral remains of the apparitions flowed toward the altar, merging with the red glyph, which turned blue. It shimmered, flared, then faded as a portal of water appeared above the altar, glowing with a light that beckoned them. Zafira reached back, taking the hands of her siblings, and pulled them into the portal behind her.
When they passed through they found themselves in complete darkness. Kharu reached into his pouch to pull out a Sol stone, its white light flaring out to show them standing on what appeared to be a silt covered floor. They moved forward, their passage stirring up the silt into a cloud that floated up exposing a field of bones, thousands of bones. They recoiled in horror, looking about them.
That is when the voice entered their minds, a deep rumbling voice that sounded like the roar of the waves.
“After so long I am sent my tribute,”.
That is where we will leave off for now. Stay tuned for our next session so that we can see what happens next. Who is this mysterious being? What does it want? Come back to The Maze next time to find out!
