Cursed Cove
The pirates of the Lhazaar Principalities are a strange breed. Some tout themselves as noble do-gooders, working to maintain order. Others still eagerly embrace the reputation of dread pirates. From the outside looking in, it’s difficult to know, but most from the Five will say there’s no heroes here. Not, at least, until the Guild got involved.
Captain Jenny Harken of the Seadragons purports to be one of the former types of pirates, and in her request for aid to Guildmembers Dhor, Bellerophon d’Vadalis, Tetsuya Kawaguchi, Vil, and Quiero of Shadow’s Fall told a dread tale of the latter kind: Cloudreavers, pillagers and plunderers, had kidnapped some of her crew. It was rare for them to take prisoners of any kind, but perhaps worst of all (to the Captain), they’d taken her erstwhile lover - Red Bertram. Fearing for the safety of the crew, Harken and the party made all haste to get to where they were imprisoned.
The Captain proved well informed, able to provide the party with a map showing potential routes and enemies they might face while approaching the pirate hideout, but our intrepid bushwackers chose an alternate route - scaling the craggy cliffs to the north of the island in a feat of derring-do and unerring machismo, headily ignoring the advice of the captain. Easy paths were not for them, no, only the thrill of overcoming nature’s boundaries.
Such bravado and brashness carried them well through the jungle and into the not-so-welcoming arms of the pirates guarding the hideout, starting a lightning assault that erupted from the jungle and through the poor miscreants outside in a swathe of blades and blood. Quick thinking led them to shattering the alarm bell with a thunderous crack of magic, and quick blades prevented them from falling as one of the dead rapscallions transmogrified into a horrifying aberration of gibbering mouths.
Of course, our men were not fools. Well aware that the noise they had made would have alerted any nearby, they clung to the walls of the cave as they entered in an attempt at stealth - but they were soon faced with two choices: to the north, a strange pale woman playing in the water, and to the south, the light of a fire. Knowing well enough to leave strange women in suspicious circumstances alone, the party moved to the fire.
The fire presented another band of brutes, swords drawn and ready for battle. All except for one, who seemed a bit more unsure, who had her sword yet sheathed, a woman named Price. Clearly never passing up a chance to chat up a woman, Bel and Vil stealthily moved over to her side and convinced her to keep her sword sheathed while the party made short work of the rest, her compatriots disappearing into a void of inky blackness and writhing milky tentacles, or being cut down by the more martial minded members of the group.
A mutiny was discussed with the spared woman, a closet full of party goblins in kegs was discovered (making Vil tremendously drunk), a chest found, and more importantly the party moved on to the next room, making short work of some men guarding prisoners: some of Harken’s crew, to be sure.
But, with time running out to stop a ritual that Price warned them of, our heroes rushed into the next room and things were clearly out of hand from the jump: four of Harken’s crew already lay dead in the water, and it seemed Red Bertram was next. In the midst of the chaos, Price is able to convince some to turn traitor, but it comes too late to prevent the Housemarked from being cut down in a flurry of blades.
The party is swiftly joined by another adventurer from the Guild, a woman named Lucina sent as a runner by Harken to warn them of the ritual, and while she is obviously too late to do that, she joins in the battle as backup.
Badly bloodied, it seems the party is on the verge of killing the captain of the Cloudreavers when a tentacle rises from the depths and captures him, dragging him into the cold waters below. The ritual was stopped, yes, but at significant cost. The Captain’s dagger revealed his god to be the Lurker in Shadow, and nervous eyes went to the water - perhaps, the tentacle…?
With any luck the destruction of this unexpected cult’s practice had died with their captured Captain. Little record was found of the coven’s ritual, and to hope against hope, the technical knowledge of the bandit’s unknown goal will remain as obscure as the reach of their intentions. The threat of piracy remains a way to gain hold of those less wholesome resources to the purpose of manifesting such frightening things. What horror might have been unleashed on the high seas without the Guild’s intervention?
Regardless, down a man from the Guild but up several from Harken’s crew, our party returned hollowly victorious to the ship of the Seadragons, pockets weighed down with gold, and hearts weighed down with sorrow. There was still a creature lurking below the waves, but peace in the Principalities would hold. For now.