The Vanishing

Part I

The party met with Blank to have get the briefing on their mission. Afterwards, they went on to make preparations, but before they left, they requested for Blank to allow them to have a Heroes Feast within his office. Remembering the time where Alagos and his party had their Heroes Feast right in front of the entrance of the guild hall, blocking access to it, Blank agreed, wanting to avoid history repeating itself. Bailey, unable to resist the smell of nice food, tried to get the party to feed her. In order to ensure their safety, Richter Hawthorne asked the assistance of Avery and she came in to cast a few spells for the party, but didn't leave without casting and releasing concentration on the haste  spell repetitively just to annoy Richter Hawthorne.

The party then made its way to the docks and dove under the water to reach the entrance of the half-submerged cave underneath Hawthorne. They swam to the portal the the elemental plane of water located at the opposite side of the entrance, at the bottom of the cave and entered it. Upon entering it, they immediately recognized the spectacular coral palace of Sultan Khazad that was described to them previously. They announced themselves, gave their weapons to the guards of the palace and were escorted to the sultan.

As was requested of them, the party members talked about their mission to the Sultan and inquired about what the Sultan wanted them to do. They also proposed an alliance on the behalf of the Hawthorne Guild, as was asked by Blank. The alliance suggested that the Hawthorne Guild would be available to assist the Sultan for any matters requiring adventurers at a discounted price. In exchange, the Sultan would maintain the portal open for the guild members to have an easy access to the Elemental Plane of Water, and build a small outpost nearby. The members within the outpost would also assist with the security of the portal and of the Sultan's palace. Luckily, Richter Hawthorne 's diplomatic behavior outshined Nanashi's rudeness and the Sultan seemed willing to consider the deal if the party was successful in completing the part of their mission that was relevant to him: recover his stolen artifact as well as his subjects that had been taken away from him. Prior to their departure, one of the Sultan's subject explained a special ritual to the party. This ritual was meant to disrupt abjuration magic, and would disrupt the magical barrier blocking their entrance to the strange island floating within the half-submerged cave underneath Hawthorne, thus allowing them to enter.

The party swam back to the half-submerged cave and swam up to the spherical pearly barrier that contained the strange island. It was almost completely impossible to see the island because of the eerie sphere of pearly white matter surrounding it, blocking unwanted access and harm. Strange tendrils of magic seemed to form from the white pearly matter and extended to the ceiling of the cave above, which is the ground underneath Hawthorne. Nanashi, Silial Drakh and Ephemer each used their own magical power and abilities to successfully complete the ritual and disrupted the barrier enough to pass through it.

After passing through the pearly barrier, they found themselves in a lush jungle. The sun beamed down upon their faces as they gazed about their surroundings, a few clouds providing some occasional shade. The temperature was warm and comfortable. This place would feel like they were on a vacation in an astounding place if it wasn’t from that eerie, pervasive sensation that they were being watched. The party elected to move stealthily through the jungle and to use high ground to scout ahead. Silial Drakh cast the spell pass without a trace and soon noticed that her spell was causing everyone other than her in the area to become poisoned. Luckily for the party, their heroes feast prevented them from suffering any ill effect. After thinking back on the ritual as well as the strange effects to magic, the party realized the Weave had been disrupted in the area because of the ritual.

They would have to deal with the following magical disruptions within a one-mile radius of the disrupted area:

• All teleportation magic is limited to a range of 50 feet. Any attempt to exceed that range causes a magical surge that inflicts 21 (6d6) force damage on the character(s) attempting to teleport, and deposits them at a random within the 50 feet. A successful DC 13 Charisma saving throw negates the damage, but not the teleportation misfire.
• Concentration is more difficult to maintain. Any saving throws made maintain concentration are made with disadvantage.
• Casting abjuration spells or scrying magic may result in erratic and unusual effects
• Invisibility effects are limited to a duration of 1d6 minutes; roll secretly when cast or activated.

While scouting, the party found a group of spellcasters attempting to do some sort of ritual, but seemingly having trouble with it. All of them were clad with pink and purple attires covered with small, expensive looking crystals. After a long moment of hesitation, the party elected to go talk with them. The group of spellcasters are very welcoming and give them the following information:

• They are residents here and have lived here their whole life.
• They believe this place to be the most amazing place and that no other place would be better.
• The ''Shard Master'' is in charge of this place.
• This place goes by the name of Amalgon.
  
• They live with the rest of their faction that goes by the name of ''The Shard''
• There are sometimes newcomers that are summoned here by the will of the Shard Master who has bestowed upon them the blessing of living in this perfect place.
  
• They warn the party against ''The Rebels'', they say the Rebels are trying to overthrow the Shard Master and feed lies to everyone else.
• The Rebels lies include the following: there are other worlds that are better than this place, they are prisoner here and are kept here at the will of the Shard Master who doesn't look out for them, but instead just collects them for his own pleasure.
• They say that the Rebels are lying, because this place is better than any other place that could exist and the Shard Master is a benevolent entity that has created a perfect world for them to live in and the Shard Master should be respected and worshiped as a god.
• Most of the Rebels are newcomers that have recently arrived in this place, but they have converted some who have lived here their whole life, which is increasingly worrying.
• The Rebels must be stopped.

Silial agreed to have a make-over and was covered in crystals by the group of spellcasters. Richter and Ephemer each took a crystal, and found them to be mundane after studying them. Nanashi refused to take a crystal. Hiding their suspicions about the group of spellcasters, the party  members agreed to follow them to their faction.

They were brought what seemed to be like a large village divided in three sections. They were brought to a section with a lot of buildings nearby a lake. The spellcasters led them down the lake into an underwater building made almost entirely of nacre and crystal, in the shape of a cantharus shell. They brought them to Crystal, priestess of the Shard.

After a brief discussion, the priestess warned them again against the Rebels, and invited them to the celebration  of the Shard Master that would take place later in the evening. She invited the party to help with preparations. The party agreed. Nanashi and Richter Hawthorne helped with the cooking, and Ephemer and Silial Drakh helped with the decoration. Nanashi considered trying to poison the food, but didn't have any means to do so.

The party attended the celebration and toward the end of the dinner, Crystal, the priestess of the Shard, made her way to the front to introduce the beginning of the celebrations and worship. Midway through her speech, Nanashi drank a potion of mind control (humanoid) and was able to control her (as per the dominate person spell). He had her change completely what she was saying, and told the attendees that the Shard Master had spoken to her and that he wanted them to come together with the ''Rebels'' so that they could be free.

The attendance was a bit confused by these new revelations, but Nanashi was able, with his words spoken through the priestess, to convince almost all of the attendees to accept this new revelation, which was the complete opposite of what they always believed in and what their ancestors had taught them. Six members of the Shard were strongly against the priestess and decided to leave, upset and suspicious. They tried to look around the temple to see if the priestess had been captured and impersonated, but couldn't find anything. Subtly, Richter Hawthorne left the celebration and followed them by walking through the walls. However, he miscalculated his steps and found himself appearing right in front of the group who was surprised to see him. Knowing Richter Hawthorne was a newcomer, they tried to tell him that what the priestess was saying was nonsense. After a brief discussion with Richter, the group became convinced they only had one thing to do: find where the Shard Master was and ask if what the priestess said was true. To their knowledge, the only place where they could figure out where the Shard Master resided was in the library. There were a variety of places where they were forbidden to go, so it was likely one of these places, but they didn't know exactly which one. So they went to the library and Richter Hawthorne followed them. They entered the library in a rush, and Ricther locked all windows and doors behind them, then returned to his party. The library was about 20 min away from the temple, so he was separated from the party for some time. In the meantime, Nanashi continued talking through the priestess and was able to convince her that his words spoken to her, were the words of the Shard Master, so that once the potion effect would wear off, she would still believe she shared the Shard Master's will.


The party then reconvened and decided to go to the library together while the priestess continued celebrating the newfound ''epiphany''. At the library, they heard knocking and cries near the front door. Richter Hawthorne unlocked the door and saw a woman, dressed like a librarian, completely frightened. She told them she heard screams and sounds of fighting upstairs and that when she went to check, some people were fighting and killing each other, and she left because she didn't want to get killed; she didn't know how to fight. She was trying to escape, but every window and doors were locked and she was terrified, but now relieved that some people were able to lock the door. She told the party she suspected the Rebels were responsible for this and to be careful. She left the building to get to a safer place after telling the party to handle this situation however they wanted, but to be mindful of the books. The party made their way on the 2nd floor and saw a gruesome scene. Eight bodies lay dead on the floor, blood gushing everywhere. A ninth man was laying by a bookshelf, barely alive, holding his side to prevent blood from pouring out of a large wound. Nanashi went to him and used a healer's kit to help stop the bleeding and Ephemer used his lay on hand ability to partially heal him. After a brief discussion, the party discovered the man was ''Crush'' the one they knew to be the ''leader of the Rebels'' from previous conversation with the Shards. He explained to them that he and his two companions sneaked into the library so that they could find the specific location of the Shard Master so that they could overthrow him. They knew the Shard was supposed to have a celebration tonight, so they didn't expect the library to be occupied, all they had to do was avoid being noticed by the librarian. To their surprise, at some point during their investigation in the library, a group of 6 members of the Shard came in and saw them. They accused them of ''turning'' the priestess away from the Shard Master and started attacking Crush's group. Crush and his companions defended themselves as good as they could, but it was a difficult fight since they were outnumbered. Crush ended up being the only survivor.

The party gave a quick search around the room, and Richter Hawthorne used his special eyes and, with the help of Crush telling them where he had searched, found a folded note that seemed to indicate a possible location for the Shard Master. Afterwards, not wanting to wait for more Shard members to arrive since the librarian would probably warn her people, the party hurriedly followed Crush to the Rebel's camp. At the camp, the party recognized a man that they frequently saw from a distance in Hawthorne, and although they didn't know his name, they knew him to be a resident. Alongside him was Joshua Favreaux, the guild secretary who was supposed to be gone on vacation. Favreaux told them that as soon as he left, he traveled through the outskirts and thought himself to be lost, until he found himself there. Realizing that their mission was consistent with the goals of the so-called Rebels, they decided to ally and go seek the Shard Master. Nanashi also relayed to the Rebels that he had converted the priestess of the Shard to believe that they had to ally with the Rebels and become free. The group discussed their plan while taking a short rest to allow Crush to mend his wounds.


The party then made preparations and navigates through the island. They realized that the island had illusion magic all around it, and that the world was also actually shifting as they were traveling. This made it really hard to navigate, but they ended up finding a tunnel they believed would led them to the core, thus to the master of this island. This led them through a winding and shifting tunnels full of corals and crystals and eventually to a cave with three large crystals and a pile of treasures. The creature, a Morkoth, showed up and a fight ensued. The party was in a very gruesome position and the Morkoth suggested to make a deal, he would let them live and leave, but they had to never come back here again and give him some magical items for his collection. They accepted the proposal and the Morkoth also agreed to release the other prisoners that were ''rebelling'' as well. The party having caused a lot of chaos, and the Morkoth knowing it would not be long before the whole guild would chase it down, he preferred to find a peaceful solution where he could just go on with is -forever ongoing- collecting of creatures and objects. The party was sent back with the 'rebels' in the cave underneath Hawthorne, outside of the Island, and the Island disappeared, the Morkoth guiding it to some other place, never to be seen again ( for now.) Two dead bodies (rebels) were later on brought to the hospital for future resurrection. The Sultan was pleased at his servants being brought back and agreed to hold up his deal of the bargain since the Hawthorne Adventurers helped him out. Thus, the guild now has a close access to a portal leading to the Plane of Elemental Water.

- - -
DM: Kathy

Players:

The party followed up investigating the water elementals and the strange portal underneath Hawthorne. They learned these elementals were sent to protect the portal and were led by Brooke the Swift and Aukai the Wanderer through the portal. The portal led to the Plane of Elemental Water, near a grandiose palace decorated of coral and shells. There, they were introduce to Sultan Rezzo the Marvelous and Alm was elected to be the voice of the party. The Sultan took quite a liking to Alm (and his boot-licking abilities) and shared some information with the party. The Sultan was sending his servants to investigate the strange ''island'' that had appeared some time ago on the other side of the portal near his palace that led to the Prime Material Plane. The entity living on that island was responsible for the disappearance of some of his servants as well as an artifact of sentimental value to the Sultan.

The Sultan made a deal with the party (who did so on the behalf of the Hawthorne Guild, and was later officially approved  by the Guild) that if the Hawthorne Guild was able to bring back his servants and artifact, and to rid him of this entity, he would allow them safe travel through the portal and give the adventurers a temporary place to rest when adventuring in the plane of Elemental Water. He would also make the Hawthorne Guild his first choice if he ever needed an adventuring group.

The party went on and investigated the island, it actually looked like a pearly white sphere with a tendril that attached on the ''ceiling' of the cave underneath Hawthorne. The party deducted that this tendril allowed the entity to have an influence on the city that it may otherwise not have if it wasn't for the tendril. The sphere was completely 'covered' with abjuration magic, and it seemed like the entity residing there had the ability to know who came in and out the island, and also controlled who came in and out of the island.

DM: Kathy

Players:

@Inkworks as Alm (13)
@Barton as Odom (13)
@my2.718 as Raymin (10)
@TinyOctopus as Relia Mallas (13)
@Bradley as Leonard Volitov (13)

It began with the goblin Caw going around Hawthorne dragging adventurers together for an adventure by the docks. Viandra and Locheid were collected first, who proceeded to play dragonchess while waiting for the others to arrive. Dorian was recruited by Sarah and Bailey, as were Alta and Arthis who happened to be sparring at the Colosseum at the time.

Once gathered in the guild hall, Caw explained the mission. There has been a series of disappearances, presumed kidnappings, with no evidence left behind. They thought they have an idea of the possible culprits - 'fish people, not the blue fish people, but literal fish people'. They went after them, but these turned out not to have the missing people. These fish people were in the sewers, which a previous party drove them out of, but there was an opening to the ocean, which is where we are to go investigate now. Caw's magic would help us with this (water breathing). When asked for when they went missing, Sarah said that it seemed very random, with no clear target group, pattern, or reasoning. Same thing with the items that have gone missing, though they did seem to have value. Dorian was part of the previous mission into the sewers, which apparently involved a tentacle monster (and maybe Kuo Toa if I heard correctly?). The reason the party is being called up about this now is because they've recently found an ocean cave that seems promising. There was a survey done when this location was chosen for Hawthorne, but this cave was apparently not discovered then. Sarah also stressed that this is a scouting mission, and that we should head back if we find something too much for us to handle. Most of our characters assured her that they would be fiiiine. They also all assured Caw that they could swim so that if they drowned it would not be Caw's fault. With all that settled, the party set out towards the harbor.
At the harbor they met Gurthang, who pointed them towards the cave, less than a block away from the docks. So the party went in (Caw shapechanged into a killer whale) and swam towards the cave. Scattered around the cave entrance were a bunch of rocks. Curious was that they were spread outwards from the cave, as if burst outwards from the cave. The cave was also pretty dark, but Locheid cast a light cantrip and most of the others had darkvision of some description. Swimming through, it seemed that our 'entrance' was dug out by some creature, while the rest is more natural. The caverns were completely filled with water, from floor to ceiling, and contained some bio-luminescent algae.

In the first cavern, the party saw a body. It appeared to be one of the guards. Close inspection by Alta and Viandra revealed that the guard died from drowning. There was also a bruise that Dorian thought to recognise as a Kuo Toa pincer staff - but it wasn't quite the same. The wound on the guard was some kind of very uniform ring.

One cavern on, there was another body, not a guard this time. The man was wearing a hat, like a stereotypical wizard's hat, except with a shark fin where the point of the hat would normally be. Dorian wanted to take it, but Alta convinced him to put it back. In terms of injuries, there was visibly more bruising on this one, but it wasn't clear to the PCs what the cause of death was. There were some of those circular bruises here, but also other ones. Looked like something grabbed and squeezed him in several different spots. When the party went to move on, Dorian quickly swiped the shark fin hat without being noticed doing so by the others.
As the party entered the next cavern over (nothing that seemed of interest in it) Locheid being in the back noticed water moving behind the party, going down towards the tunnel they came from. Then, down a tunnel that was skipped over earlier, the party could see what appeared to be living water, only detectable by being a slightly different colour than the rest of the water and moving around and whatnot. An elemental. the party moved to go after it, but it was already ahead of them. That is to say, moved up close to them and moving to attack.

The creature began by engulfing Alta and Arthis. As the party focused on slaying this elemental, Dorian sensed another nearby, which soon attacked Viandra with a powerful attack that left a bruised very similar to the ones we saw on the bodies… Locheid, casting see invisibility, saw that there were 2 of them besides the one that initially attacked us. After a few rounds the bulk of the party got a handle on the water elemental and one of the water weirds, but Dorian was separated by some distance and stuck with the second water weird. After the first water weird was defeated and the rest of the party tried to get over to the other, Dorian had to frantically apply some magical ointments to himself to keep from dying. A hasted Arthis got there in time to pull it out while Locheid threw spells at it, but the water weird was very persistent in trying to squeeze the life out of Dorian. Just before it could do that however, an opportunity attack did it in. The caverns were quiet then.
After the fight, the party took some time to catch their breath and drink healing potions… though it was more 'inhaling healing potions through their water breathing spell gills'. They then went into the cavern they initially saw the water elemental in. This particular cavern was odd. There were glowing glyphs visible on the walls along a tunnel leading deeper in, like cave drawings. Along the ground, coins were visible in various locations, trailing towards the tunnel onward. The party carefully proceeded down this tunnel of glyphs and coins. It led them to a large cavern which was not fully filled with water: there was a pocket of air at the top, as well as an island (they could not see the top of it from their underwater viewpoint). More troubling was at the side of the cavern: what appeared to be a maelstrom, sideways, planted against the wall. The swirl of water appeared as if going through the wall, but nothing could be seen beyond the point of the wall itself. Around it, four water elementals could be seen and a fifth one emerging from the swirl. The glowing sigils continued all around the cave wall. While looking at it, a sixth elemental came out. Conclusion: an open conduit to the elemental plane of water.

As the party was moving to escape, the water elementals spotted them and followed. The party grabbed the two bodies they knew of and swam to the tunnel exit as fast as they could. At the exit, CawWhale was waiting. Some could grab on in various places and the slowest swimmers were swallowed up in the whale's mouth (just the mouth; not down the gullet). And so they were taken back to the harbour. The elementals did not follow.


DM: Joker

Players
1. @Dawn as Viandra Vernire (8)
2. @Mo1eculeMan as Alta (5)
3. @Greenjuice as Arthis (leonin) (5)
4. @Panda as Dorian (4)
5. @The Starchy One as Locheid (10)

The party, with the request of a pair of guards suffering from some deep insomnia troubles, decide to take the shift for them and join up to investigate the recent robbery and break-in of a shop in the Trade District called the "Silent Night". They looked at the evidence presented and spoke to some of the witnesses, finding out that a small group of Kuo-Toa were hiding out in the sewers after stealing from the shops they have plundered. As for the disappearances, unfortunately the Kuo-Toa were not involved. After a grueling battle, the party managed to take back the items that were stolen, as well as some spoils of their own. They head back to clean up after taking a dive into refuse... some resolved to get some rehab for the incident.

DM: Toria

Players:
@G E N E as Mahim (3)
@Raph as Uvuut Edrin (3)
@Lexi as Irene Myrna (3)
@Panda as Dorian (3)
@Autonym as Mee (3)
@CJ  as Linguine (3)

The party visited the Slippery Weasel and inspected Larry Brumbles room. After inspecting the tavern and speaking to the patrons and a couple guards they visited the cottage of Barry Rumsfeld to inspect his office that was broken into. With the evidence in hand the party returned to the Slippery Weasel to confront Eak the "cook" of the Slippery Weasel. As the fight broke out the patrons along with the tavern owner Billy Grayson fled the area. The party subdued Eak and learned from him that he didn't mean to break anything or hurt anyone and he was forced to do things by Billy Grayson. The party found Billy and confronted him and some thugs and freed Eak's sister and found Larry and Barry's stolen items. The thieves have been turned over to the watch though items are still going missing and not all reported items have been found despite scouring the thugs hideout and thorough interrogation.


DM: Loric

Players:
@Shauny as Nathair (3)
@Giggle as Vavara (3)
@BeachBumBiker as Ore Underearth (4)
@Autonym as Mee (3)
@Tshun zhu as Tshun zhu