The Maelstrom

Clifford sent a task force of adventurers to investigate the chaos at the cliffside. The team were dispatched with great haste to board one of the only ships left in the harbor, an old retired pirate vessel named the Black Daschund. The captain and his crew, well motivated by a hefty bag of platinum coins, were happy to offer up their boat to the reefs if it came to it, as they had already committed to leaving the life aquatic behind. The crew managed the choppy waters and soon found themselves at the edge of the wreckage. Cornelius spotted unusual reefs and other salt-water species in the river below, with many of them floating along the surface of the water, killed by the sheer forces ravaging the area. Curious merfolk swam to the surface and established contact. The merfolk soon learned of the truth of their plight, transplanted from their home plane onto another planet and another land, their society and city fractured beneath them. The party offered to help with the search and rescue efforts of the residents of Halimar and soon found themselves fighting off Sahuagin raiders. Cornelius, Myrrh, Ion and Ghost Hunter made significant contributions to the rescue efforts and left a very strong impression on the Merfolk. The party followed back the Sahuagin raiders to an underwater cave created from collapsed rubble and found it to be a spawning pool for Sahuagin and sharks. They attacked and defeated the Sahuagin, but the guerilla war in the collapsed underwater cities is only just beginning. Additionally on this day, (Continued from Kythorn 1) The man rescued in the previous anonymous note adventure provided information to attempt to prevent a major act of terrorism in Reamsburg. At the Royal Gryphoness a bomb plot was planned. Interviewing him revealed some details, enough to guide some efforts. Misho attempted to speak with a body from the warehouse fight, the dead were very unhelpful. The girls had a girls’ morning out, drinking mimosas, getting lost on the way to the bathroom, making hairpins, and peeping windows. drag marks from something heavy were detected into one of the rooms justifying the peeping. After some discussion Blood Hunter decided that they must be vampires due to the heavy box, and blood sacrifice and went to investigate. Forcing someone to attempt to open rooms, and disturbing a little old lady who yelled at him for interrupting his sleep. Then he forced his way into the main bad guys’ room initiating combat. Misho and Bloodhunter initiated things, and Misho yelled for evacuation. The rest of the party scrambled to catch up. Avah smashed in through a window and began attempting to defuse the bomb, but the stress got to her. Once the bomb reached a certain fevered pitch the bad guys ran giving her the chance to disarm. The outer main explosive was defused, but the casing for the inner proved too tough to get through. And the polymorph bomb went off transforming half the party and half the living enemies, causing chaos in the streets. After some infighting between an owl and a tiger, a rager and an elk the polymorph rune was disrupted returning anyone who survived to normal. Finally, tasked by their ever charismatic captain, a party ventured forth to a small hamlet. Where they immediately scared and befuddled the locals. The ever diligent sleuths followed the wagon tracks into the fields alongside a peaceful tributary that fed into the Ashaba. Before long the crew can just barely make out voices, nearly drowned out by the sound of a waterfall. A tactical approach was taken, and then immediately thrown to the wayside by Hroth and his extreme disdain for being shot at. A small amount of sleuthing later and who would have guessed? A cave behind the waterfall? A few stalagmite lightning rods later and Seres awakens the figures surrounding the lodestone. But with their end in sight, surely two figures composed of solidified air would be of no threat to these mighty adventurers. Then the goop started pouring out! A long, goopy, and elemental fueled battle later. The lodestone has been successfully bagged! Mission accomplished.

The party prepared to fight back against the encroaching underdark critters by dismantling their means to the surface. The tunnels. They proceeded down and dispatched 3 illithids while another escaped. They fell victim to the arcane wards and traps which removed the party’s incoming buffs. They proceeded deeper without hesitation to fight off the purple worms, however as the fight went on the worms got bigger and bigger as they realized they only found the babies at the start. They fought well but ultimately made their escape, returning to base, whereupon leaving Sebastian managed to kill two of the adolescent worms making the final kill count 4 wormlings and 2 adolescent worms.

Doge Clifford Blythe gathers a number of reputable B.A.S.E. agents in the lobby at BASE to brief them on a rather important diplomatic mission regarding Halimar. The diplomatic situation is in jeopardy, with Dragon’s Reach originating Sea Elves sending a shipment of goods upriver; alongside a diplomatic contingent intent on signing a treaty with Halimar, to draw them away from Driftriver influence. Heavily implying that they could take several avenues to solve the problems; Clifford throws 100,000 GP in Cormyrian Bank Money Order Slips at the party, to allow them to spend funds as required; with stipulations that sub-contracted missions cost a certain allocation of their funds. This in mind, the party has their funding set, on top of their own assurances of payment; as they’re asked to secure Commander Mitek’s favor after some… unfortunate happenstance with his fellow royal retainers’ deaths. Set to the primary task of securing Halimar with appropriate building materials, food, and medicinal goods; the party is quickly convinced by Pahhu to head west; to Lake Sember, and to the aquatic elves residing there, and the city they inhabit, to see if they’d trade with Driftriver. This seems agreeable to much of the party; and with a simple teleportation spell from Pahhu, they arrive at a smaller lake, a half day’s walk from Lake Sember. Meeting a somewhat familiar dryad, Pahhu gathers a little information on the current goings-on, and with Ma’ik, leads the party northbound. Soon arriving near the latter side of dusk; the party encounters an unlikely pair of wood elves fishing in a rowboat, making their way off the lake, and beginning to steer clear of the strangers. After flagging them down and some tense, if polite chatter; the pair, Elandorr Nerilar (disguised as a woman, actually a guy) and Elidyr Sylceran (A male elf), invite the party to camp with them, as the directions they’ll need to the aquatic elven city, Hyaline, won’t be any good until the next morning. Finding out from the pair that the city is closed, and has been for a few years; roughly as long as Driftriver has existed, it’d seem. This has caused some poverty to spread among Semberholme, and the regions surrounding Lake Sember. Barely subsisting, and seeming outcast from their clan, the party does convince the couple to confide their hopes and dreams. Elidyr confides that he and Elandorr hoped to wed, in Myth Drannor, but lacked the means to safely reach the fabled city. Ma’ik, struck by a discordant feeling of past heartache and friends lost, nearly wordlessly produces fifty platinum pieces, handing it to the couple and insisting they take it, citing “old memories and old friends”, before disappearing to brood for much of the rest of the evening. As the shared meal and conversations wrap up, Salazar goes to experiment with some magic at the bank of Lake Sember, before deciding the better of it and retiring to bed. The next morning finds a sunny day; with the party having roughly just that day left for them to plan and find a solution to the Halimar supply problem. Following direction from their new wood elven friends, the party applies water breathing and dives beneath the gentle waves of Lake Sember, winding from shimmering coral to shimmering coral; finally alighting on a lit welcoming platform, in front of a rather... Closed city. A heavily armed contingent swims from the gate, where the party meets Captain Adrel of the Hyaline City’s Guard. She recounts the circumstances of the city’s closing and the difficulties faced by the residents after such a long lockdown. With their problems varied, but mostly to do with Mistrisen creatures making their way into Lake Sember; Salazar promises direct aid, and requests directions; before the party shares a meal with the Captain and speeds off to handle some of the existing threats to the city under the lake. Defeating in short order both a pack of devilish sharks and their brethren and a massive Hydra with its handlers; the party returns to Hyaline to report success in their missions; the intention to send a team after the great Sea Serpent they were unable to find in their time they had to them. Accepting this, Captain Adrel arranges a meeting with one of the five that sits on Hyaline’s ruling council; Lord Laeroth Maglynn. As the lordship sits down to negotiate the needs and desires of the people of Halimar, Sophia and Salazar collaborate on an estimate of quantities; and then start to hammer out terms of delivery. While barges are proposed, they would take a tenday to arrive, when fourteen days remained before the arrival of the Dragon’s Reach supply caravan from the east. Finding this unacceptable, and the need for security rather costly onto their coin; the party allocates twenty thousand for hiring a capable team to hunt down the Sea Serpent; while they negotiate with their remaining coin. Salazar comes up with the idea to ‘Gate’ the barges with Sophia’s help, able to send a dozen a day through to Halimar directly with their combined efforts. With the estimated supplies, it’d take ten days to send all the barges, and they set to work nearly immediately. Rushing to the diplomatic meeting the next day, via some teleportation and swift boat travel; the party manages to arrive to watch the opening exchanges between Commander Mitek and the Sea Elven delegation leader; Darshee Dorwenys. As Darshee works to secure an alliance with Mitek, the party interrupts, indicating that Driftriver is more than amply able to serve their needs, and has already begun delivery of supplies. Nearly in disbelief, Mitek has his aide, a mage, cast scrying over Halimar… to see, lo and behold, barges already being unloaded and material being taken into Halimar. With the breakdown of the simple reason for the negotiations, Darshee swears revenge on B.A.S.E. and reveals herself an arcanist as she teleports her contingent away. Mission accomplished, and relations salvaged into cautiously optimistic territory with the folk of Halimar and their ‘apparent’ leader in Commander Mitek, the party is asked to make good the one fatal mistake B.A.S.E. has made. Retrieve his fellow royal retainers, dead or alive; for they are sorely needed in these difficult times. As the party agrees to help, the mission comes to a close.   Finally, on this day, Scouts reported that an Underdark swamp had some form of unrest going on. Agents were sent to investigate why the invading forces were interested down there. A bullywog appears to be living down there and may or may not be a part of it. The bullywogs were guarding a temple with a sarcophagus, but the sarcophagus was entirely empty, maybe the body is somewhere else. They went over and harassed the orcs who appear to be a part of the invading force. After capturing their wizard, and defeating both the orc host and the zombies invading the orcs, they learned that the orcs were attempting to gain the assistance of a "Bad-ass" necromancer living in the swamps. An extra large skeleton snake. As things wrapped up, the party made plans to return to find the necromancer.

Chaos in the inner city! Forces from the Underdark are invading the streets of Driftriver. Lumos has commissioned a team to go behind enemy lines in an attempt to find out what it is that is commanding this army to attack Driftriver and to find out why they are so interested in taking the citizens of Driftriver. The party has made its way into the tunnels and found all manner of horrors within, continuing to fight, the party, after taking 10 minutes to catch their breath, made their way deeper into the tunnels to find mind flayer controlled creatures and constructs guarding a pathway to a mine shaft. The party was able to find out that the mine shaft was in the same direction of B.A.S.E HQ. The party stopped the construct that was digging the tunnel and found another digging what seemed like a channel towards the Ashaba. The mech digging under water was also dealt with. What could all of this mean? Where is the lost B.A.S.E agent ViVi? What will happen next time in the underdark? Questions swirling as they reported back to HQ. Additionally, B.A.S.E. Agents are hurriedly gathered together to quickly react to a Sahuagin attack upon the daily Gated in Barges from Hyaline. Handed off to Diplomatic Corps Zug Zugger in the fore, they’re teleported to Lahaina Docks, where a barge is off-shore being assailed beside the Black Dachshund. However, there is a battle group of Sahuagin rushing the Thaumaturgy Police Department guards that were mobilizing on shore. With a mighty effort; the party rallies and drives back the shore attack, saving all the guards, save one that loses an arm. Rallying around Diplo. Corps Zug Zugger, the party accompanies him as he teleports them onto the Black Dachshund and they collectively push back the second wave of foes. Rushing to save the second barge that’s drifting into the shore; the party horn-teleports there and with a mighty, rapid effort, stops the barge cold; handing it back to the New Halimar Merfolk, and going to drink to their victory together, once they’d reported their success in at HQ.

A party, hijacked by Zug Zugger, went to Hyssop Home for a great meal knowing no more than they had a mission. Clifford came to Hyssop Home to retrieve his delinquent employees and immediately sent them off on the Black Daschshund to investigate reports from the Merfolk of Halimar of Sahuagin cooperating with landwalkers downriver. The landwalkers in question were a cult of kraken worshipers. (See: The Dark Cove, a previous game.) The party descended into the caves of the kraken cult and encountered a number of powerful Sahuagins, seemingly the elite of the remaining Sahuagin. They find that this deep temple has a number of machines and altars which operate on blood. When the cult is found they sacrifice themselves to feed their blood to the temple. The party then overcame a puzzle resembling a ship's heel and unlocked the vault below, RELEASING THE KRAKEN. A deep sea battle erupted in the icy deaths, hot spells sparked through the water with deadly arcing lightning searing many on both sides. At last, the Kraken got torn asunder, and the group cleared through the temple clearing Sahuagin broods and the remnants of the cult. On the way back the Black Daschshund succumbed to Battle Damage? And the heroic ship sank to the floor of the Ashaba. The captain swears to open a tavern on the docks with the insurance money and his restitution from BASE and will name it the Black Daschshund Bar and Grille.

(Continued from Kythorn 6) A party went to clear out the worms, the party flushed out the worms via filling the tunnels with smoke. Sadly the worms took 40-50 civilian casualties and did roughly 50,000 gold pieces in damages to the town before they were successfully defeated by the B.A.S.E. agents, who then reported in their success to HQ. Further on this day, Margot invited her new acquaintances to celebrate her marriage with her at a local tavern. Jihalvan, Shalai, and Saphi arrive and after a few awkward introductions, it’s straight to the drinking contest. Alessandra, not being able to resist a party, easily wins the drinking contest. Jihalvan passes out and Shalai gets the brilliant idea to drop him into the fountain out front. Little did the party-goers know, this was the catalyst to an all out free for all. Margot had the brilliant idea to have a water balloon fight. So Alessandra takes off and comes back with a bag full of balloons. The tension is palpable as Alessandra passes out water balloons. The exact moment that everyone gets all of their armaments Lila takes off and nails Margot in the head with a balloon. This was the first mistake. The free for all breaks out and everything is going well. That is until Lila starts to cheat by casting Darkness on herself. Soon everyone is cheating by whipping out their spells. All are disqualified save Saphi, the single character that refrained from cheating. After an exhausting battle, Jihalvan heads home while everyone else heads inside to warm their bodies with the fire and their souls with a heart to heart. After a few revelations and personal discoveries, Saphi agrees to a ceremony of atonement and a ceremony of dedication to Selune. With friends made and new doors opened, the party dozes off to the heat of the fireplace.   Additionally, The crew of the Odyssey meets up in their warehouse to discuss what to do next. As they begin their interrogation intimidation, a shot rings out as their informant collapses. A vicious battle ensues, Bix takes a nap, Gineye narrowly avoids the cold abyss of death. Meanwhile, Geraldo is flinging insults left and right. Eventually, the party starts to pull ahead, so the assassins grab what they believe to be the lodestone. Little do they know Dalgan has some big brain IQ and already swapped the lodestone out with a fake. The party managed to apprehend two assailants, who were promptly suggested to give the party vital information. Soon the crew arrives at a spelljammer docked in Tinkerton. But things were quiet… too quiet. After making their way through the empty ship and feeling some very strange magical effects, the party manages to trick their way past the airlock. After a quick scouting mission they decide their best course of action is to charge in. After a long and grueling fight nearly ending with the loss of the crew they barely pull out ahead. After some quick searching they find their prize. After a bit of magical problem solving, they all escape with their quarry.   Finally, After a very noisy complaint from Karen about way too much noise down below, the party went through the caves, discovered a chicken murdering roper, and continued deeper chasing hammering/blasting noises. Deeper down they found a gang of rifle and grenade launcher goblins, fully equipped with metal gear, due to assistance of a self-isolating iron dragon. They took the goblins back to the surface to teach them to soundproof their establishment and give them tons of free food as a reward for being able to negotiate with the party instead of forcing a fight.

Lumos has requested a new group of friends and agents to take up his venture into the Underdark to find the lost trainee ViVi. After some investigations, they discovered that; Your princess is in another tunnel. The group after communing with Jergal realized that ViVi was down the other path and headed off to get her encountering a few more horrors along the way. After reviving the dead adventurer, Ma'ik went to investigate what was potentially a lair for a strange type of dragon. There he found many hatched dragon eggs. After reporting in and getting paid, the group headed their separate ways for a well deserved rest... for now

A mysterious letter arrives at BASE, commissioning a party to go and clear out an “Abandoned” estate. A short carriage ride with a grump driver later and the party arrives at the base of the mountain estate. After some exploring, bushwhacking, and sightseeing the party stumbles upon a shining coin that speaks to them. It wants them to save the lady of the house. After some experimentation, the party learns that the coin is the end all be all to petrification defense. After curing a fellow adventuring party and a few nobles of their petrification the group makes their way to the hilltop mansion. Upon arriving they show their lack of ill intent and talk to Philomela. Over the course of the conversation, the party convinces her that they mean no harm and talk her into touching the coin. A few loud screams later and Philomela reverts to her human form, free from her curse. But what’s this! The possessive demon lord appears and is enraged by what they did to his precious prize. A brutal battle ensued, Oweh was slain, the demon was slain. Philo revived Oweh, it was a mess. But the party stood strong and together they got down the mountain with the lady of the estate in tow.