Quest Report #3: Deepwater Caverns

General Summary

28 Tartarus Fall
It was easy enough to find the Sahuagin cave considering that Quostor was with us, and he had been the one to find the cave in the first place. He had found a bit of infrastructure in the bay nearby, apparently there are more Sahuagin occupying it along with a shrine of sorts. It took us the better part of the day to arrive at the caves maw before we proceeded in, Vulthak taking the lead down the cavern. Eventually the cavern opened up, and a small river of rushing water spilt the floor in two. After a fair bit of shenanigans, as well as finding a mace that electrocuted Vulthak, we were able to make it over the river with the help of Quostor carrying a few of us across. He ended up diving into the river to explore another path, the madman, while the rest of us investigated the rest of the large cavern. Kaylessa ended up splitting off from the rest of the group for a moment, and to insure that she was safe I joined her. We ended up finding a small enclave in one of the back walls of the cave that contained a fair bit of treasure. We decided to take the two magic items for ourselves, I ended up with a beautiful longbow from the loot, but as we made contact with the treasure in the center of the room, rocks fell and blocked the entrance to the room. Luckily the rest of out group found us quite quickly, and with a bit of struggle we were able to open the entrance and split the rest of the treasure evenly amongst ourselves. 
Moving to the upper portion of the cavern, we located the path to the rest of the caves, though it was seemingly completely filled with water. We tied a rope to Vulthak's waist and he scouted ahead into the submerged tunnel, and when he found that it opened up to a larger cavern, he returned and each of us made our way through. The cavern was filled with shallow water for the most part, along with a temple of ruined stone. It was quite beautiful despite the fact it had been greatly damaged at some point. Making our way around, we entered into the temple through a mostly broken wall (that we broke further) after Vulthak heard chanting coming from the top of the stairs at the far end of the cavern. We ended up being jumped by some of the Sahuagin, including one that seemed to be the priest. We managed to fight them off, but in an odd turn of events a large, shark-like creature breached the water, taking the priest (who had another one of those idols on his belt) and escaping into temple beyond. Deciding to investigate the temple further, we found an alter with places for three of the sea god idols. On further investigation, we were able to hear Quostor whistling, and we were able to see him through a crack in the wall. We ended up looking around and finding a weaker wall to break in order for him to join us in the main cavern. Quostor managed to find a golden trident during his investigations through the rest of the tunnels, and when we returned to the alter we discovered that it fit in a small slot within the alter. We also found a note written in goblin within this area of the temple. 
Knowing that we needed the shark creature to return with the priest so that we could get the idol off of him, we set a trap so that we could lure it back and trap it. Kaylessa and I waded further into the water and ended up stumbling across the shark creature, accidentally awaking it from it's seeming slumber though we were rescued by Quostor who distracted it while we made our way to solid ground. We managed to trap and then kill the shark creature, getting the idol from the priest before returning to the alter and completing the "ritual". After completing the ritual, a stone with glowing green runes written in Sylvan, they read as follows: "Blessed of the life seed." 
We discovered that the stone was hollow, and decided to break it to see if there was something inside of it. A quickly jotted note is written above this note in ink that seems more recent then the rest of the test reading: "This was a mistake, do not do this again." before the older text resumes.
Upon Quostor and Vulthak shattering the stone, green light flooded forth from within it, and the next thing I knew Stavros, Quostor and I were knocked unconscious by either the blast, or the light. This same blast also destroyed Cups enchanted crossbow. Once we awoke, we made our way through an exit that had been revealed, crossing over the deeper parts of the water with a tight-rope like mechanic that I set up. (It should be noted that it took Kaylessa six times to cross it, eventually Quostor simply carried her across.) Finally exiting the caverns, we made our way back to the guildhall and reported the the guildmaster who then reprimanded us for destroying the stone instead of bringing it back for investigation, though all in all, our quest was successful...
- Callias Thaig

Report Date

01 Sep 2020