Replacing Power & Authority

Yet another day in Forcalish.
 
Cassandra, who usually sleeps in, was the one to collect everyone. We were tired and depressed, but still had to press on:

Everyone needs amulets of proof against detection and location

We need to find out if the Sister Isles has a teleportation circle we can access

Then we need to find him and his Lonesome Vessel

Other than Rohrouk being his typical stick-in-the-mud, we all agreed. The lizardfolk lord believed we were taking advantage of his nobility and his wealth. Cassandra made it very clear this was a group purchase, split amongst us. Some, like Brom, have no coin. Yet each (other than the lord) offered what they had and agreed to earn or pay off the rest.
 
"I don't trust you, Cassandra."
"That's the problem with you."
 
Between Cassandra and Eragon, the two found three amulets from different vendors. Mischievously, they pitted the store owners against one another to lower the prices. All told, the three will run us about a thousand gold pieces (~925gp).
 
It was then that Fathom reappeared from his night out, and dropped the coin without hesitation. "Fathom is... loaded."
While out, Fathom did hear of a rare sighting: a dragon, which has not been heard of in at least a hundred years. And a black dragon at that, seen near Kemariki and Cytos.
 
With the amulets, the wizards sought next the teleportation circle to the Sister Isles. Ioun, the Goddess of Knowing and Magic, is most connected, and Her temples usually contain one. On Forcalish, the Iounian temple was headed by Paren, a halfling who though in charge is a bit difficult. Cassandra handled him well enough, convincing Paren to connect us with High Priestess Sohla. Almost immediately she superseded Sohla: "Paren, please don't bother the Fatecarvers anymore."
 
We all gathered at the temple, and without ceremony Sohla sent us to the Sister Isles.
 
 

The Arcane Academy of the Sisters

 
The room in the academy was bricked and unremarkable. Cassandra produced her map, and between her guiding hand and Eragon's waterbreathing we were prepared for whatever lay for us at his ship.
 
We passed through the nearby city; Brom was unusually quiet during the trip, letting out a sigh of relief as we left civilization. We sighted the sea once more, and to the shock of any onlookers simply walked into the sea. There was apprehension as we reached the continental shelf, but everyone floated down to the bottom of the sea safely enough.
 
 

The Lonesome Vessel

It was an hour or so before we -- Brom -- saw it: the Lonesome Vessel. It never occurred to the group that his ship was a shipwreck, originally named The Adelaide. She was split into three pieces, with the sternmost fallen to the ocean floor and the other two stuck in rocky spires. A giant trench separated the middle and stern portions.
 
First, the captain's quarters. Traditionally next to the bowsprit, Cassandra used clairvoyance to search for... well.. anything. Among the rubble was a ruined painting and an iron chest, presumably locked. Here and there scraps of paper and waterlogged books floated mid-air (mid-water). Deeming it safe, Everyone except Rohrouk entered the ship to access the cabin. Cassandra ritual-casted detect magic; outside "on deck" lights began to float out of the trench between the broken ship. Shouting, Brom and Fathom returned to Rohrouk to see what was going on.
 
A humanoid form emerged from the trench. A ghost, in a sailor's coat with a ragged skeletal arm and something like a captain's hat. It spoke in a hollow voice: "Some things are better left to rot." All around us, from seemingly everywhere, more and more bloated corpses entered view.
 
From inside the cabin, Eragon cast animate objects on a pouch of coins he spilled into the water. The money swarmed to his defense, and like a school of barracuda ripped the nearest undead to pieces.
 
Fathom: "Eragon did you do that?"
Eragon, horrified: "I think so."
 
Several of the undead fired with crossbows... underwater. Whatever had animated allowed them to fight as well. One narrowly hit Eragon in the neck with a lucky shot; quick timing on his part and Cassandra's manipulation of the weave saved our wizard's life. Seconds later she pulled again, as a zombie narrowly took Brom's head off.
 
Brom confronted the ghostly captain who was of few words. The warlock called his dead allies to help, threatening the ghost with a return to the underworld. But the captain summoned its own eldritch force, blinding Brom and sapping the life from each Fatecarver.
 
Eragon leapt to Brom's defense. Rather, his coinage did; the metal bits zipped through the water to threaten the ghastly captain. Cassandra followed up. banishing the captain to the shadow realm. "Coin Emperor" Eragon cleaned up the rest of the undead.
 
When the ghost returned, we all jumped to action... too quickly. It was able to blind everyone, swimming a bit out of our blind reaches as it tried to take us with him. But once again Eragon saved the day, his coin army dispatching the ghost captain before it could dispatch us.
 
 

Dead man's treasure

We collected ourselves. Rohrouk was desperate for air and swam upwards to the surface. For the rest of us, we gathered around the ship's chest. Cassandra's detect magic determined that something inside the chest was magical, but not the chest itself.
 
Cassandra consulted Thelonius. But she reported he had nothing to say; everyone but Cassandra looked to open the chest then. With apprehension, Cassandra looked on as Fathom cracked open the lid. The bottom of the chest, after sifting through wrecked debris, contained a featureless book that seemed to survive the wet corrosion. Through identify, Cassandra understood the book as a container and not something to just be read (a horcrux): "Magic of fate and creation and death." Usage, of course, is through reading. With no discussion, Cass locked it into the extradimensional chest.
 
 

Beware the depths

Brom convinced Fathom to come with him to explore the trench. It was impossibly deep, and the two got lost at least once.
 
The bottom holds more wreckage, more of the ship.
And an uncountable number of bodies, all bloated and swollen. When we approached, their eyes began to glow, and all in attendance looked at Brom. "Let's go Fathom," and they returned to The Adelaide.
 
On the surface, Brom commanded the sea to take them to shore.