Ardak’s cottage is about to become a nexus for fractured adventuring parties, grieving and avenging relatives, compatriots, and apologists.
Haerelben, cleric of Sehanine, and Theridan, druid, worked together out of Triboar to investigate elemental evil in the Dessarin Valley. A freak methane explosion and subsequent manticore devouring of the other party members find the two convalescing in Ardak’s living room.
Through a second Elven portal step Meega, Barrin, and Simon just returning from the disaster at Sacred Stone Monastery. The two remnants share their experiences and are surprised to learn they have been unknowingly working in parallel to reveal the elemental evil.
A knock at the the door precedes an Elven ranger. He’s from Silverrock, and that’s the truth no matter what his crazy brother Rollen told you. Theren Meliamne is slow to trust and ready to accost anyone who says otherwise. He has been working at Summit Hall, destination of the missing Mirabar delegation.
On Meliamne’s heels follow two paladin knights, Dame Ushien Stormbanner, leader of the Knights of Samular, and her associate, Sir Moestyn Van Foedinvensaaaal. They offer their condolences and an explanation that the terror of Mountain Keep, Renwick Caradoon, was a vaunted member of their own Knights of Samular until tricked into drinking a potion a hundred years ago that turned him into the cranky lich who went on to cloud kill Ardak’s B Team. Aware of his own ironic and mutually exclusive existence as a lich paladin, Renwick labors to reverse the potion’s effects. A medallion of the Knights of Samular, featuring the scales of justice, is given to Meega by the knights to perhaps ease future encounters.
An honor guard of Anvilbacks arrive to mourn Argyle and return his body to Moradin Temple.
Blameless, living in secrecy on the lam for many years, would have been surprised to see his parents arrive, but no impossible task exceeds Ardak’s resourcefulness. The pain of Blameless’s demise is dulled by the knowledge that he found noble work with good friends.
Frug Salvage, of the prestigious Ransom & Salvage disaster recovery enterprise, arrives with his coin-walking cohort Jingles, each wearing goggles and a finely crafted grey coats. They are followed by a cadre of Greycoat operatives bearing three shrouded remains, those of Rollen, Argyle, and Blameless, along with a bag of some recovered possessions. Those present realize there are suddenly three stone tables that were there all along and the bodies are placed upon them.
Ardak retrieves Rollen’s clockwork fish from the bag and hands it to Theren.
****
Theren finds himself in another place and time, remembering a different childhood. Catching his reflection, he discovers he does not appear as himself.
“Why am I not me?”
“Of course you are you, Fledin Milamne. Now go pick those grapes!”
As Fledin, Theren intimately knows the forests and vineyards of his childhood in Thel’Usarin. He recalls how he constructed that clockwork fish and aspired to be a clockmaker, how his mother made the glass encasement for the fish, how he witnessed the terrible fiery conflagration from the sky that destroyed his home and town, how he hid in the forest returning to find only the clockwork fish remaining in the destruction.
****
Theren, holding the clockwork fish, has inexplicably stopped muttering about how crazy his brother was for remembering his childhood 4500 years ago. Next out of the bag is a glass rod, which Ardak holds out as Allana appears on the floor. “You have very strong allies,” intones Ardak. Blameless’s Helm of Defense goes to hornless Haerelben, the Lord of Lance Rock’s Wand of Magic Missiles to Simon, and the Helm of Identify to Allana.
The funeral service begins with a hymn from the Anvilbacks and ends with the departure of the mourners with their individual charges. Theren directs the Spellguard to be responsible for Rollen’s disposition as long as it is far removed from the influence of Quartermaster Schmeck.
The ceremonies concluded, Ardak asks of the reformed party, “Where do we go from here?” One person already knows the answer with certainty; Barrin declares he can’t take this any more and departs with a mic drop. Consensus from the others is that the Sacred Stone Monastery, aka Mountain Keep, and the newly discovered air elemental temple are both too hot to attempt again right away so Rivergard Keep is selected as a reasonable place to begin anew. Simon suggests the folding boat as a convenient conveyance, but Theren must stop giving him the stinkeye if he wants to join. Theren reluctantly accepts Simon’s condition since, as a wood elf, he floats but only downstream.
Days later, the party sails down to Rivergard Keep, a recently repaired fortress on the water. A white banner with blue gauntlett, presumably the sigil of its occupants, flies overhead. Theren knows from his time at Summit Hall that the party may anticipate one Jolliver Grimjaw to be in command of this self-appointed guardian force. Rivergard offers a sheltered anchorage, but a chain cordones entry. Hailed by the chain guard, Allana explains that the boat was attacked by bandits and damaged or something, and certainly we have some money on us. Out of concern for these pigeons, the chain is lowered and the boat docks within the keep where the party is met by three sessy guards, “Welcome to Rivergard, heh heh heh.”
The adventurers are introduced to Jolliver Grimjaw in his combination great hall office and dining room. His desk is piled high with papers. When queried, Simon, the impromptu trade leader, explains that the boat was attacked and damaged by river bandits. Haerelben’s clerical perception upon the stack of papers informs him that the river bandits Grimjaw’s organization claims to combat are its own marauding members. Theridan enticingly details that the stolen cargo is a chest full of magical items and suddenly the group has a place to stay until the boat can be repaired and the crew healed at the reasonable sum of 100 gp for each single replaceable item. Simon accepts some sewer water ale to celebrate the new relationship.
The sessy escorts show the party to their barracks for the evening where they find only two unclaimed bunks. The less-than-ideal situation gets worse when several shifts of two guards are posted to monitor their nocturnal activities. Simon excuses himself to fold up the boat while Theren involves himself in a fisticuffs contest. Meega and Allana and several men and women of the keep turn in while Simon goes to work on the two guards, relating numerous and detailed anecdotes regarding his grandchildren. Despite the relentless attack on their endurance, the guards manage to remain vertically vigilant. Theren advocates for some preemptive defensive violence, but Simon’s cat familiar offers an opportunity to look around non-murderously.
Cat Simon finds the northeast corner chapel where three folks reside under a strangely improvised symbol of an X with adjoined lower limbs. A look at the north tower reveals some Bugbears overseeing a bunch of dead animals. The Great Hall and adjoining balcony are unoccupied and, in Grimjaw’s stack of papers, Cat finds a fresh report of a chest of magical items stolen by a new, unknown rival banditry. There is also a voluminous and detailed account of the actions of Ardak’s B Team. Cat peers through several windows and finds Grimjaw’s quarters are empty. In fact, Grimjaw is nowhere to be seen although a fresh trail of his scent disappears at the wall behind his desk. Cat sees a library with one shelf recently dedicated to some new personal volumes regarding the subject of water, presumably owned by the leaking Genasi bunking there. Cat finds a few rooms of unremarkable purpose: storerooms, guard room, slave quarters, and that kind of thing. In the southwest corner of the keep, Cat locates the land-facing two-story gatehouse barred from the inside. Nothing particularly actionable, elemental-wise, is found unless one happens to think all petty bandits deserve a swift and risky death.
The next morning, Haerelben and Theren walk to the chapel for morning dedication to Sehanine, a slight ruse to gain entry to the only remotely religious site observed by Cat Simon. Arriving, they learn service is already in progress by a Genasi priestess attended by two very ambivalent guardsmen. An exceedingly happy priestess by the name of Drosnin explains, using numerous water-based puns and metaphors, that The Crushing Wave is a growing, waterborne phenomenon on the flow. Haerelben and Theren soak up the gushing for a couple of hours before excusing themselves, citing a prior commitment to Sehanine.
Meanwhile the rest of the group has made their way to the great hall for breakfast and bluster from Grimjaw who, in between beating a servant for bringing sausage to a ham meal and assigning the questionable honorific “Captain Idiot” to Simon, subtly hints that the fellowship have already overstayed their welcome.
Exiting the great hall, the party meet up with Theren and Haerelben and exchange notes. The suspicious religious activity in the chapel leads Simon to hatch a cunning plan to join the Crushing Wave. Drosnin, completely ecstatic when Simon “drinks” the ceremonial bowl of elemental water using minor illusion, becomes convinced that Simon is properly indoctrinated into the Crushing Wave. They plot in stage whisper to sacrifice the other party members except unsuitable Meega. Simon begins fake-tying up the party and confiscating their weapons for the walk to the temple.
Drosnin departs to get some extra guard action while the party slip their bonds and subdue the two chapel guards, one critted out by Theridan and the other pinned to the back of a door through his eye socket by Theren’s crossbow bolt while Meega holds him from leaving. Drosnin returns and, witnessing Simon’s betrayal, casts a sleet storm inside the chapel. Allana commands her to approach to prevent her departure and Theren liquidates her.
Simon steps out of the chapel while the mess inside is rearranged and meets the two summoned guards about to enter. Simon persuades them the job is done, the prisoners have already been removed. Clearly the guards don’t really want to believe him, but are faced with a sufficiently persuasive argument and are forced to leave.