Taking the Slaves to Crushbone

The party meets their contact in Ellirion and escorts some slaves to Crushbone. They ambush and kill Chokehold before quickly teleporting out back to Kelethin, where they have a brief encounter with Kalarian. Roswyn and Ellie grapple with the moral cost of assisting slave traders.

December 5th

Early the next morning, a suspicious Yarver attempts to scry on their contact Alistair. Unfortunately, his attempt fails. Being the earliest to rise, Yarver instead heads to everyone's rooms to wake them for their new adventure. As they ponder their next steps, Carlos wonders why the captain of the guard, Zanros Silverspot, has not bothered him since he got to town. The party gathers their things in the morning before heading to the docks to meet Alistair in the early afternoon.   When the party meets with Alistair, he requests payment for their journey. Carlos hands over the chest of gold the elves left him as payment. When he removed some of the gold, he suffered the effects of the Geas curse. Shortly after, they board the ship along with several crewmembers and a dozen less-than-willing passengers and set sail into the ocean.   The party chats on the ship as it sets sail. Before it gets too late, Carlos heads to the captain's quarters to speak with Alistair. Carlos does his best to turn Alistair to their cause against the Orcs and for the elves, but Alistair makes it very clear he is a man out for himself and his crew. If Faydwer becomes unwelcoming, he'll head back to Antonica.  

December 6th

The next day the party just sits around the boat killing time. It is mostly uneventful until Yarver decides to try scrying once more, this time on an unexpected target: Sarowyn. Yarver successfully scries on the party's old friend and sees him sitting in a human-style tavern with his friends. They talk of fairly mundane things: their plans for the day and what they need to do before they head further west across the continent of, presumably, Antonica. He looks a bit homesick, but ultimately happy with his friends as they converse.  

December 7th

Late in the afternoon, the ship begins to turn back in toward Faydwer. They enter a bay that has a large, flat, desolate piece of land, but there is no port. Suddenly, the ship banks towards one of the mountainous ridges along the coast, and the party seas a hidden cave large enough to fit the ship. Alistair steers the ship into the cavern that leads to a hidden river. After about 20 minutes of near pitch-black sea travel, the party enters a huge open cavern with a hidden port in it. All around them they see dozens of Crushbone Orcs.   In the 20 minutes before the party arrives at port, they brainstorm numerous plans of distraction from summoning alligators to illusory barrels to jumping overboard. Luckily Yarver prepared a water breathing spell and casts it on the party in the likely event they end up in the water.   They ultimately decide on jumping overboard before they are seen and walking at the bottom of the water to the shore where they have an illusory hiding spot. The party carefully sneaks from the shore to a warehouse full of crates to further strategize. They climb some boxes in the back and Roswyn uses a javelin to whittle through the wooden walls to make a peephole to spy on the events across the shore. They watch as Alistair unloads slaves from his ship and hands them off to the Orcs. There is also a Dark Elf working with the Orcs, just as Maesyn mentioned.   The party works up a plan to wade through the water once more to ambush the Dark Elf and Orc commander, Chokehold. Yarver is going to begin channeling his teleportation spell to the Kelethin Rings while the party attempts to kill the Orcs quickly before teleporting out. Carlos will animate several boxes around the Orcs while the rest of the party engages the Orcs. During the successful ambush, the party manages to kill Chokehold, though his body disappears like Bonefire's did, but the Dark Elf escapes after going invisible. Just before they escape with Yarver's teleportation spell, they see an enormous boulder hurdling toward them. In the last instant before they leave, they catch site of the infamous Emperor Crush, and Yarver's Iksar skull trinket began to chatter, signaling the presence of undead.   An instant later, they are in the familiar spot of the Faydark Rings in Greater Faydark. The party regroups and reflects on their choices. Roswyn and Ellie are upset that they aided in selling people as slaves to the Orcs. Roswyn also comments on the greater problem of the entire city of Ellirion. Carlos debates the necessity of the systems in the city as the elves would do more harm than good. Tired, the party decides to rest near the rings for the night before continuing to Kelethin in the morning.   In the middle of the night, during Ellie's watch, Kalarian suddenly appears in the rings. The party happily greets him and catches him up on their exploits. Yarver asks if Kalarian would be willing to teleport him to the druid rings in Misty Thicket so he can attune with it. Kalarian happily agrees and takes them there and back.