Freeport Campaign

Rewards Earned

• Experience Points: 600
• Treasure: None

Vivian chased down the goblins of the FREPRT FYR DPT, but was driven off by the city watch before he could bash ’em. After speaking briefly with a reporter from the Shipping News (the local newspaper), the group helped protect the Dented Helm from being burned down by a group of thugs. The leader of the group got away, but Moth was confident that she could track the fellow down by magically scrying his weapon. The group ended up capturing a few of the attackers and handing them off to the city watch.

Captain Lydon showed up a while after the fight, and talked with group regarding his assassination attempt and the circumstances that likely led to the attack, namely a sizable gambling debt to Finn. He cajoled the party into joining Captain Balama Theron on a potentially lucrative mission to recover a magical item known as the Rain Tiger. They agreed to meet with Theron to discuss the journey.

Rewards Earned

• Experience Points: 400
• Treasure: 5000 sp, 300 gp, exotic spices worth 75 gp, oil of slipperiness, +1 rapier

The party variously watched and participated in Swagfest.

Moth won the Dire Rat Chase by speaking with the target rat and convincing it to come with her back to the starting line. During the pursuit, the party encountered a shapeshifting dwarf (later identified as an aranea) in the abandoned house where they tracked down the rat.

Spike entered a fencing competition, but lost his match.

Rewards Earned

• Experience Points: 500
• Treasure: None to speak of

Messed around in town during the week leading up to Swagfest, one of Freeport’s major holidays. Swagfest commemorates the Great Raid, during which Freeport’s first Sea Lords led the city’s fleet on a three month journey of pillage and plunder 200 years ago. The holiday usually shuts the city down for two days – one to celebrate, and one to recover.

Investigated Enzo’s tailor shop in more detail, discovering a stash of suspicious yellow cloth in a secret compartment in the office. Gor-bob fashioned a nice yellow loincloth for himself, which the party suggested he wear on the outside of his regular clothing. Found no incriminating records of cult activity in the business ledgers, but plenty of handwriting samples for possible later use.
Appraised the value of the Brinewolf at 750 gp, and Enzo’s house at 1500 gp. Also discovered that both the warehouse in the Docks district and the abandoned house in the Eastern District last belonged to one Vandiver Hodgson, who arrived in Freeport 17 years ago and died four years later. Found that the average price for a house in Drac’s End large enough to accommodate the party costs about 4500 gp.

Visited the Indecipherable Scroll once again. This time around, Gor-bob livened up the festivities with his stylish loincloth and a well-placed zone of truth spell, but wisely heeded Wilmina’s admonishments against further spells.

Met Garek, the dwarven proprietor of the Dented Helm, a new drinking establishment in the Docks district. Garek put Vivian to work in exchange for numerous samples of the Helm’s house brews, concocted by Garek himself. Later, as opening day approached, the dwarf mentioned that he’d been visited by thugs representing the Buccaneers, the street gang currently running various questionable activities in the District. Garek enlisted the party’s potential aid in case the gang tried again to extort protection money from the Helm.

Attended the Swagfest opening festivities on the docks. Captain Lydon, a well-known sea dog, addressed the gathered crowds, presumably to gain public support for his bid for a seat on the Captain’s Council. During the Lydon’s speech, the group noted a hooded figured slinking through the crowd toward the back of the stage. A few seconds later, the figure reappeared behind the Captain with a dagger in hand. The group burst into action to try to interrupt the assassination attempt, but could not prevent the assailant from plunging the knife into the Captain’s back. The resulting confusion on stage allowed the figure a few seconds to summon an obscuring mist and plunge into the sea. The Captain’s bodyguards and the City Watch secured the area around the stage, but not before Spike and Vivian split up to pursue the assailant. While they ran along the docks, Moth summoned an alligator and sent it into the water with orders to follow the scent of the fleeing assassin’s blood. A few minutes later, the water 50 yards to the left of the stage roiled briefly and turned red. The alligator returned with the body of a human female clasped in its jaws.

The Captain hovered near the point of death until one of the party members stepped up to heal him, at which point the Watch ushered the party away from the stage for questioning. The Captain, now able to stand, thanked the party and invited the rest of the crowd to enjoy the ten kegs of ale that were due at any moment. After a cursory questioning by the Watch, the party rejoined the crowd and awaited further pronouncements from Captain Lydon.

Rewards Earned

• Experience Points: 100
• Treasure: 50 gp each (from Brother Egil)

Will ventured into the city and brought Brother Egil to investigate the temple under the house. The priest, in turn, left to apprise his superior, High Priest Thuron, of the situation. Several hours later, the High Priest arrived at the house, accompanied by a dozen city guards. The group told Thuron of Milos’s deception and the various cult activities they had witnessed. The priest asked various questions, thanked the party, and quietly suggested that they ‘gather whatever personal belongings may have been dropped during the fight.’ After doing so, the group made their way back up into the city while the guards secured the area.

Later that evening, the party met up at the Indecipherable Scroll. Lucius, still shaken somewhat from his recent captivity, showed up for a couple of drinks, and then retired after thanking the group again for his rescue. Moth introduced Spike and Chow to some female patrons, who seemed genuinely interested in hearing about the group’s exploits. The girls departed, but asked to meet the fellows back in the Scroll on some later evening. Vivian, unimpressed with the elven bard performing onstage, beaned the minstrel with a neighbor’s mug. Within moments, Miss Gertz, the proprietress, immobilized the dwarf and his would-be restrainers with a spell. Smiling, she escorted Vivian outside and informed him that, while she appreciated his criticism, she preferred that he not deliver it in such a manner in her establishment, at least not in the foreseeable future.

The next day, the party split up to take care of various business in town. After investigating Enzo’s house and finding nothing out of the ordinary, Will, Chow, and Spike went to check out the tailor’s shop in Drac’s End. They were met at the door by a pair of older ladies and a slackjawed teenager, apparently employees of the departed businessman. After some discussion regarding Enzo and his rapid departure, one of the ladies, Agnes, agreed to let Spike sit in and observe the business for the day. Spike determined that the ladies were capable seamstresses, and that Agnes seemed to have a knack for the business side of the operation.

Moth spoke to Brother Egil regarding the feasability of a shelter for homeless citizens and abandoned animals. He expressed interest in her plight, and suggested that she contact the Star of the Sea, an aid organization dedicated to helping the widows and orphans of sailors lost at sea. A member or two of the group visited Reed, the caretaker of the Office of Public Records, to ascertain the legal status of the various properties the party has encountered.

Will stopped by to join the Wizard’s Guild.

Gor-bob wandered the town informing people that yellow was good.

Rewards Earned

• Experience Points: 625
• Treasure: 2 candleabras; 2 bronze incense burners; large bronze gong; incense; 515 gp; 9,200 sp; 4 onyx gems (60 gp each); 3 gold rings (25 gp each); key ring; lots of blasphemous books and scrolls; The Book of the Unspeakable One; 2 progress reports on the construction of the Lighthouse of Drac; letter from N’Tal; various mundane weapons
• Unidentified magic items: Ring; potion; shield; halfspear

Stumbled back to the Last Resort and slept through a quiet night. After reporting to Brother Egil the following morning, the group went to the Broken Mug for lunch before investigating the address obtained from the thug leader. Met Vivian, a dwarven mugfighter, at the bar. While in the area, checked out the warehouse wherein the party had previously defeated the yellow-robed cult and their summoned horror. Finding nothing amiss, the group continued to the Black Gull, the seedy tavern at the specified address.

Chow and Spike waited around in the bar for a bit, while the rest of the party arrayed themselves about the surrounding area. Eventually, a nervous fellow wandered into the bar, sat watching the door for several minutes, and abruptly left. The group tracked the guy to a bricked-up house in the Eastern District (Finn’s territory). Moth questioned some people in the area, and discovered that the man, a tailor with a shop in Drac’s End, did not live in the bricked up house. Indeed, the house had stood abandoned for quite a while.

Vivian smashed his way through the house’s locked front door. Finding nothing in the wrecked house, the group continued into the wine cellar. Were surprised by the tailor as he burst from a dark corner and fled up the stairs, but caught him before he got through the front door. He cowered behind Moth and spilled his story with little prompting. Enzo, a low-ranking member of the Brotherhood, had been ordered to hire someone to kill the party after they had angered ‘The Master.’ In exchange for his life, the tailor gave the group the key to his store in Drac’s End, and agreed to board a ship out of Freeport within the day.

With Enzo gone, the party investigated the nine casks in the wine cellar, and discovered that the cask in the northwest corner concealed a stone passage and a staircase leading down. While exploring the halls at the base of the stairs, the party’s first rank fell into a pit trap. They managed to extricate themselves, but not before attracting some unwanted attention. As the rest of the group opened doors to the north and east, a secret door in the west wall of the T-intersection burst open, revealing a squad of strange bipedal creatures with the sinuous necks and long tails of snakes. The serpent people hurled javelins at the party before closing to melee range, but did little damage before being cut down.

The party patched themselves up as necessary and proceeded down the rough-hewn tunnel behind the secret door. The end of the tunnel opened into a larger cavern with a dark pool in the northwest corner and a suspiciously well-crafted wall in the northeast corner. The ‘secret’ door opened into a well-lit temple to the same Unspeakable One whose image graced the other subterranean temple the party had visited. As the party entered the temple, the robed figure at the altar removed his hood and revealed himself as Milos, the priest of Tinel with whom the group had consulted the previous day. He congratulated them for finding the temple, but warned them that the discovery was also their doom. With that, he motioned for his attendants to attack.

The ensuing combat was only marginally complicated by the appearance of a dozen skeletons in the temple, and the party vanquished the followers of the Unspeakable One without much trouble. As Milos slumped to the floor and uttered a string of final gibberish, the group discovered his true identity: the ‘human’ priest was in fact a disguised serpent man. The party let the ramifications of Milos’s deception sink in as they examined the remainder of the temple complex. They found Lucius, the object of their current quest, bound behind the basalt altar in the north end of the temple. After they used healing magic to bring him back to consciousness, he thanked them profusely and promised to tell them his story when they were all safely back in the city.