Freeport Campaign

Rewards Earned

• Experience Points: 300
• Treasure: Coastal ship Henrietta (renamed Sea Skate)

After a few minutes of consideration, Will decided to send Nicodemus to swim back to Freeport with a note to High Priest Thuron and Brother Egil requesting any assistance they could offer the sole conscious survivor of the Lighthouse assault. While the rat swam, Will moved his friends’ bodies to the secret room on the second floor that concealed the stairs into the upper part of the Lighthouse. He sat quietly for a while, but his curiosity eventually got the better of him, so he wandered to the windows overlooking the harbor. He noticed that, while two of the Sea Lord cutters still appeared to be patrolling, the other two were drifting aimlessly in the water.

When Nicodemus finally arrived at the Scriptorium, Thuron and Egil acted on Will’s note immediately, making themselves invisible and splashing into the harbor. A few minutes later, Will heard a hushed noise below him. The priests quickly dropped their invisibility and revived Gor-bob. The group then loaded up the bodies of the remaining party members and the female thief, and swam carefully back to town.

Will paid handsomely for discreet rickshaws back to the Temple. When the party was safely stashed away, Thuron procured a scroll and began conversing with the dead party members. Vivian seemed irritated to be interrupted from his drinking in the Great Beyond, and declined the offer to be raised from the dead. Chow and Spike, on the other hand, were quite glad to hear Thuron’s voice. The High Priest sent Egil to fetch Father Peg-Leg Peligro from the Church of Harrimast, in hopes of raising the fallen party members.

Peg-Leg showed up a while later and informed Will and Gor-bob that he did not have the ability to raise the dead currently, but that he would be willing to do so as soon as he had rested enough to entreat Harrimast on the group’s behalf. He warned them that the two spells would require expensive diamonds to complete, and suggested they talk to Dirwin Nimblefingers, Captain’s Council member and leader of the Jewelers and Gemcutters Guild. With that, he thanked the group for their service to the city and headed back to his church to rest.

While waiting for the priest to return, Gor-bob slept and Will began dispatching notes to the group’s various contacts in the city. Husani was first to respond. He and Will discussed the group’s arrangement with the sage regarding the remaining Valossan artifacts recovered from the lizard man village. Husani informed the mage that, given time, he could probably net the party 30,000 gold pieces for the lot. Will, anxious to get his friends raised and leave the city for a while, settled for a lesser immediate payment to help offset the cost of the diamond components for Peg-Leg’s clerical magic. Husani left to procure half the funds, with a promise to have the other half within a couple of days.

Lady Elise Grosette showed up with Dirwin a couple of hours later. The Council members listened with great interest to Will’s tale, and expressed very guarded thanks for solving the problem of what to do with Milton Drac. Lady Grosette warned Will that Boss Tillinghast, the current chief of the Sea Lord’s Guard, would probably do his best to fulfill the arrest warrants that Drac had signed for the party, but also told him that she would try to deflect such attention as much as she could.
Dirwin verified that he had a cache of diamonds earmarked for clerical use, and would be more than willing to part with a couple of the stones. He agreed to accept partial payment from Husani on the group’s behalf later in the week, on the condition that the party would eventually investigate the crystal Drac had used in the Lighthouse. Will tentatively accepted the arrangement for the party. That settled, the Council members departed.

Husani came back by to drop off his first payment, and agreed to send the remainder to Dirwin Nimblefingers as soon as it was ready. Dirwin himself dropped off the two requested diamonds and wished the party luck.

Balama showed up at some point during the evening to let Will know that she was indeed still interested in pursuing the Rain Tiger in Rana Mor, and that she would see to it that the Blue Heron would be ready to sail by dawn.

At around 3 or 4 in the morning, Father Peligro dragged himself back to the Scriptorium, looking rather haggard. With a minimum of fuss, he prepared an area for Spike and Chow, and began casting. Chow was the first to return, choking and gasping, to the world of the living, followed by Spike a few minutes later. Exhausted, Peg-Leg stumbled back to the Church of Harrimast. Will and Gor-bob informed their compatriots about the end of the Lighthouse fight and the subsequent wheeling and dealing back in town, and Vivian’s posthumous decision to remain deceased. The group agreed that staying in Freeport under the current circumstances was a bad idea, and that Balama’s offer to sail to Rana Mor was the most appealling course of action for the moment.

Balama came back by with Hurm and Terez, her First Mate and cabin boy. After a brief discussion with the group, she sent Hurm to rouse the crew and Terez to fetch some personal effects from the party’s house. Terez returned shortly with the required materials, and with news that the house had been ransacked, presumably by the Sea Lord’s Guard. Further convinced that leaving was the best course of action, the group took what rest they could while waiting for Hurm to return, and Will and Spike composed notes to Maria and Carmina explaining their sudden absence.

During their wait, Thuron asked the party to join him and Brother Egil in the catacombs beneath the Scriptorium. Once the group was assembled, the High Priest announced that we was going on a lengthy pilgrimage, and surprised Egil by naming him acting High Priest for the duration of the sabbatical. Thuron asked the party if they would be willing to escort him to the ruined city where Ssvalish, the ghostly serpent man priest, dwelt. They agreed after a quick discussion with Balama, and congratulated Egil on his sudden promotion. Soon after, Hurm returned in the pre-dawn gray and informed his captain that her ship was ready to sail.

Watching carefully over their shoulders, the party followed Balama, Hurm, Terez, and Thuron to the docks and boarded the Blue Heron. As soon as they had stowed their equipment, Spike and Chow set to work with the rest of the crew in preparing the ship to sail. The ship made good time in the offshore dawn breeze, and Balama maneuvered expertly past the treacherous sandbars a mile or so from the city.

The day-and-a-half journey to the swampy lizard man island was uneventful. Balama shared the information she had gathered about Rana Mor, the surrounding area, and the Rangka people who built the temple some 700 years ago. Will and Thuron discussed the artifacts the group had recovered from the sunken Temple of Yig, including the Jade Serpent. Will requested that he be allowed to study the Jade Serpent to determine whether he could use it, to which Thuron agreed, at least for the time being. Spike and Chow assisted the crew of Balama’s small sloop, the Starchaser, and Gor-bob pondered the mysteries of Pawgma.

When the group arrived at the island, they were met by a strange sight: another sloop, seemingly anchored and abandoned near the mouth of the river leading inland. Balama approached carefully, and the party rowed up to the boat to verify that it was indeed empty. Expecting an ambush, the party quickly boarded the sloop, which they now saw was named Henrietta. All they found on board were several days’ rations moldering in the galley, and a few extra weapons and other supplies in the hold. The group made sure the ship was securely anchored and headed back to the Blue Heron to help prepare the ship’s boat for the journey to the lizard man village.

The party managed to avoid the hazards that had plagued them on their previous trip, and soon found themselves back in the ruined city, escorted by a squad of lizard men to the temple. Ssvalish welcomed the group, and was pleased to meet Thuron, especially when he assumed his natural serpent man form and introduced himself as K’Stallo. The two priests thanked the group for bringing them together, and immediately launched into a discussion in Valossan, leaving the party to find their way back out.

The group conversed briefly with the lizard folk villagers, and guessed from the stack of treasure maps identical to the one that had led them here, as well as the triangular captain’s hat and other accoutrement adorning certain of the lizard folk, that the crew of the Henrietta had probably met a bad end. The party bid the priests and the villagers farewell, and boarded the rowboat for the uneventful return to the Blue Heron. On the way back, the party discussed the fate of the Henrietta with Balama. She agreed that the abandoned sloop was unlikely to be reclaimed by its original crew, and asked the party if they’d like to take over the ship. Spike agreed immediately.

When she and the group were safely aboard the Blue Heron, Balama ordered all the ships secured for the night. When that work was done, the party set to renaming the prize vessel. After a few minutes’ discussion, the party settled on Sea Skate, and helped some of the more superstitious sailors scrape off and replace the former name.

The party spent the next three quiet days familiarizing themselves with their new vessel, and eventually pulled up in the small merchant village of Coral Bay. Balama secured supplies and lodging for the group, and gave orders to her crew for the next couple of weeks. The group rested up that night in preparation for the 130-mile trek ahead.

The next morning, they boarded the Starchaser with Balama, Hurm, and Terez, and set off up the broad Ran Pe river. The wind sent them steadily upstream for a couple of hours, until a strange bank of fog appeared out of nowhere and brought them up short. Balama ordered the sails drawn up to slow the ship’s progress, and steered carefully through the fog. After a few tense minutes, the ship passed through the fog bank unharmed. As they emerged, a streak of lightning blasted into the river near the ship, and a voice boomed from the riverbank, asking what the party was doing there. The group answered, and after a few minutes of negotation about their intentions further up the river, they saw a pair of figures emerge from the jungle. One of the figures changed shapes several times as he approached the ship, but he eventually clambered aboard and introduced himself as Edo Brushback, caretaker of the jungles in this area. He agreed to accompany the party to Rana Mor, along with his gorilla companion, BB (Back-breaker).