C1A4 Sidequest 2: Primewater in Deepwater

Aboard the Emerald of the Sea during Gellan Primewater's gala, Barrister Alemen, Beldroth, Durik Ironhide, Seraphiel, Theros Bronzewood, and Shardona Lightbright entered disguised as working staff with a clear aim. Find incriminating proof to justify an arrest and find Kes Bickle to break the cipher on Primewater’s private financial ledger.

In the hold, Beldroth quietly neutralized a porter, bound and hid him, and stole his outfit, tightening the group’s cover.

Barrister’s eavesdropping then produced the first hard lead, a report that Primewater’s manor goods were already packed aboard, an armory lay below decks, and Primewater’s secured quarters held a mysterious “guest” waiting for him.

Once the party regrouped in the kitchen, they split to recon both targets at once.

Beldroth tailed Brackus to the cargo hold and confirmed a trapdoor and stairs down to the armory sub-level, while Barrister and Theros carried drinks upstairs and located Primewater’s suite behind guards. Seraphiel’s search for Kes Bickle produced no usable lead on the party deck, so the group committed to stealth and distraction.

Barrister and Seraphiel sparked a deliberate brawl among the guests, and Theros pulled the stair guards into the chaos.

With the way cleared, Shardona surged up and used magic to drop Primewater’s door guards unconscious, opening the suite without a direct fight. Inside, the “guest” was not found, but a manacle setup at a desk suggested someone had recently been restrained there.

In that same window, Beldroth killed Shardona and threw her body out a window into the sea, concealing the death before rejoining the others as the operation pivoted decisively toward the armory.

With Eliander Fireborn  now shadowing the group and pressing them to secure evidence for an arrest, they spent their dust of disappearance and turned the whole party invisible.

They slipped past four guards on the stairs and entered Primewater’s brightly lit vault and armory while Primewater and Brackus Hall stood near two rolled carpets shaped like they held bodies.

Theros kicked one carpet open and revealed a battered captive, Kes Bickle. Primewater and Brackus treated the man as cargo to be rolled back up until they reached their destination, confirming the kidnapping and raising the stakes from suspicion to immediate rescue.

As the second carpet was opened, Eliander’s cried out to Primewater, telling him he was under arrest, and the moment tipped into open violence.

The unrolled second bundle revealed a bound and gagged Beldroth, exposing that a second figure had been wearing his face and moving among them. The vault fight collapsed into smoke, fire, and shifting loyalties.

Theros and Seraphiel hammered Brackus Hull from concealment, and Primewater drew a flaming sword, raised an alarm, then released a bottle that poured thick smoke through the treasure room and began to outline the “invisible” intruders.

The impostor Beldroth turned fully hostile and tore into Barrister, badly wounding him.

Barrister answered by hurling Greek fire into the smoke, setting Primewater ablaze and forcing him into a panicked retreat.

Amid the confusion, the real Beldroth was cut free and immediately drove a killing blow through Brackus Hall, swinging momentum away from Primewater’s enforcer.
Outside the vault, guards pressed in, threatening to seal the party in. Durk went to hold the door.

Theros dragged Bickle out of the center of the melee and healed him to full strength, then steadied Fireborn with a potion so he could stay in the fight as Primewater, burning, tried to flee.

The battle’s final turns played out near a door and porthole as the smoke thinned into mist and the impostor’s form slipped in and out of clarity. The party recognized the enemy as a doppelganger and battered it as it overcommitted and stumbled through counterattacks.

Primewater, badly wounded, rolled onto his back and surrendered to Fireborn’s demand for justice, but when Barrister moved to restrain him, Primewater thrashed and died in the hold from accumulated injuries before any questioning could happen.

With Primewater dead, Fireborn and the others refocused on the doppelganger, but it broke for a porthole and escaped into the sea. Just before diving, it flashed the face associated with Hino the Fell Bladed in a taunting gesture, then vanished below the surface, leaving that threat unresolved.

In the aftermath, the party tried to salvage an evidence case through Bickle, only to discover his tongue had been cut out, leaving him unable to speak and undermining any straightforward plan for testimony.

They bound him for transport and agreed to take him back to Saltmarsh for healing at by Welgar Brinehanded at the  Temple of Procan hoping to restore his ability to communicate and turn him into a living witness.

Primewater’s hoard was revealed in full, with enormous coin reserves and multiple magic items, including a flaming sword and protective gear, but       the group deferred a detailed division.

The operation ended with Primewater dead, Brackus Hall slain, the mute Bickle in the party’s custody, Shardona lost, and Doppleganger still at large in the waters beyond the ship. The party sets out to return to Saltmarsh proper.

Beyond a secret basement door in the Primewater mansion, Durik, Beldroth, Theros, Barrister, and Seraphiel pressed north toward the glowing dweomerd  doorway that barred the vault approach.

Beldroth found no mundane traps, confirming the threat was magical. Shadonna verified the protections with detect magic, identifying a wizard lock and an alarm ward.

The party tried to blunt the risk of drawing attention by stuffing nearby furnishings to dampen sound, then Shadonna spent a knock scroll. The breach hit like a hammer.

The door blew off its hinges and skidded deeper into the hallway, yet no response came, and the party took the silence as a narrow win.

In the dark corridor beyond, Seraphiel and Durik led the march until a loose pile of rags stirred and rose into a small flesh golem-like guardian.

Shadonna opened with wand fire, but the construct closed fast and smashed Seraphiel to the ground, knocking him unconscious and sending his scimitar clattering away.

Beldroth dragged Seraphiel out of reach while Theros rushed in with emergency healing to bring him back to consciousness.

Durik grappled and checked the golem’s movement long enough for the others to regroup, Barrister retrieved Seraphiel’s scimitar, and Theros’ spiritual hammer began battering the guardian with sustained force.The golem eventually broke free and hammered Durik, but the party held, tested holy water to no effect, and Shadonna finished the construct with a final wand strike.

With Seraphiel patched up, Shadonna swept the next stretch with a detect magic wand and picked out a single trapped stone in the floor.

The group skirted it, then cleared the next doorway and entered a finely appointed room marked by drag tracks and the absence of most of its chests.

When Beldroth moved to open one of the remaining chests, the ambush sprung.A nearby rug animated, wrapped around him, and began to smother him as two decorative suits of armor clanked to life and advanced.The chest room battle turned lethal when the rug constricted hard enough to drop Beldroth into a dying state.Barrister answered with a torch, smashing and igniting the rug until it released him, and Theros used a healing scroll to keep Beldroth from slipping away.

The animated armors pressed Durik and Barrister with heavy blows, while the rug, briefly pinned by Shadonna’s web spell, burned hotter as the webbing caught fire.

Even after it freed itself and rolled into Theros, it failed to fully smother him, and the party finally found an opening when Shadonna cast invisibility on Seraphiel.Seraphiel used the advantage to carve apart two animated armors in quick succession, stripping the defenders down to the burning rug. Coordinated strikes and the ongoing flames finished it, leaving only ash and glittering dust where it had tried to suffocate them.

With the vault secured, the party turned back to the chests and claimed their largest haul to date, including a sealed business ledger written in cipher.

Its handwriting matched Kes Bikel’s, shifting the night’s success from simple theft to actionable evidence, and Seraphiel took custody of the ledger.

The group distributed several key finds, with a +2 longbow set aside for Beldroth, arrows of undead slaying for Seraphiel, and a throwing dagger for Barrister, while Theros held valuables intended for trade.

Late in the evening they extracted from the vault and sought help at the Temple of Procan, where they donated art objects and gems for healing. Theros also secured a +1 footman’s mace for a major donation, addressing the hard lesson that mundane steel had been failing them.

By 10:00, with six to eight hours left before dawn, the party committed to resting and recovering before making Captain "Nails" Nelson's boat, and attempting to crash Gellan Primewater's gala, hopefully finding Kes Bickle, deciphering the ledger, and bringing Primewater to justice.

Gellan Primewater's manor in Saltmarsh churned with a chaotic move-out as afternoon slid toward night, porters and carts working under armed supervision.

With the Emerald of the Sea gala ship set to depart at dawn, Barrister, Beldroth, Seraphiel, Durik, and Theros pushed their plan to secure evidence for Eliander Fireborn that could justify a lawful arrest of Gelin Primewater.

Brackus Hull, Primewater’s majordomo, drove the operation with strict instructions to clear the manor before midnight, turning the job into a race against a visible timer.

The party split cleanly: Barrister entered as a porter with Seraphiel moving unseen, Beldroth climbed to the second floor from outside, and Durik and Theros held an exterior rendezvous while keeping contact with Eliander.

Inside, the ground floor was stripped, the upstairs stairs held by two armed men, and the cellar stairs left open.

Seraphiel drifted through kitchen and dining traffic under invisibility and laid the groundwork for a distraction.

Barrister kept his cover by doing visible work and moving furnishings as ordered.

Upstairs, Beldroth slipped through a window after a noisy misstep cost him a lockpick, then pushed deeper into Primewater’s rooms.

He disarmed a deadly poison needle trap on a wave-carved door, only to trigger a secondary pigment-like gas that coated him in dust and threatened his stealth.

Even so, he gathered small silver valuables and continued searching, while outside Aliander made his position brutally clear: Primewater had to be taken alive, and any harm to him would void the deal and make the party criminals.

As night closed in and pressure mounted, Seraphiel ignited a small kitchen fire with oil on the stove, and the manor’s activity snapped into panic.

Two guards rushed to contain it, and the commotion spilled into a brawl among workers that held attention where the party needed it.

Seraphiel used the opening to get upstairs, where a squalid, cell-like scribe room with multiple locks stood out amid the luxury.

Papers inside tied to “Kes Bickle” and accounting-like scrawls, along with a hidden note and a threatening message about the Azure Sea, pointed to a larger operation and a paper trail being hurriedly gathered for the Emerald of the Sea.

Brakus dismissed Barrister from service with a token payment and let slip that someone named Nails controlled the timing for meeting at the boat, while heavy footsteps upstairs signaled a guard beginning active checks, forcing Beldroth to escape back out the window route with what he had.

The night turn revealed the strongest lead in the cellar.

Seraphiel found it cleared like an emptied wine store, but with unusually clean floors and drag marks converging toward a specific wall, suggesting a concealed route or door.

The group reconvened at their house to compare notes, then connected Beldroth’s most important find from Primewater’s desk: a pen-sized steel rod hidden magnetically beneath it.

When Seraphiel returned to test it, the rod pulled toward the cellar wall as if it belonged there, confirming a concealed lock that could not be operated alone.

A second infiltration team formed, Beldroth, Durik, and Seraphiel moving under concealment while Barrister and Theros stayed outside as backup.

At the wall, Durik recognized the mechanism as deep-dwelling dwarf or svirfneblin magnetism-based technology, not ordinary arcane trickery, implying specialized craft and a deliberate hidden line of movement within the manor.

Working the lock became a fight of its own.

Beldroth tried to manipulate the magnetic key without directly touching the mechanism, and the lock’s internal “gears” resisted with sudden force, twisting hard enough to injure his wrists.

He pushed through repeated jolts, learning the mechanism by pain, and on the next careful attempt the door finally unfolded in triangular segments.

Beyond lay an unlit but lush antechamber with desks and chairs and, looming to the north, a massive set of finely wrought double doors that read as a true vault entrance.

Durik and Seraphiel recognized signs of Captain Xendros's glyphs and wards, confirming they had reached Primewater’s protected holdings and that whatever lay beyond was likely both dangerous and incriminating.

Rather than breach the inner doors in haste, the party chose to pause and plan a quieter, tighter approach, including stripping Theros’s noisy armor and using a bag of holding to move gear silently, leaving the vault proper as the next imminent escalation before dawn’s deadline.

Dawn found Seraphiel, Theros Bronzewood, Durik Ironhide, and Barrister Alemen  back in their Saltmarsh home with roughly forty eight hours left before Gellan Primewater gala on his pleasure craft.

With their earlier attempt to secure vault plans at the Carpenter’s Guild having failed, they refocused on gathering proof that Primewater was a threat, or clearing him if the suspicions did not hold up.

The investigation leads were practical and time-bound: rumors at the Empty Net tavern, business records at Primewater Shipping through Lott Sanskrin, and magical ward knowledge through Captain Xendros.

The possibility of a professional killer in Primewater’s orbit, Hino the Fellbladed, sharpened the sense that this investigation could turn violent if they were noticed.

At the Empty Net, Durik Ironhide leaned on his reputation, paid for drinks, and bought information out of Kreb Shenker. The payoff mattered.

Kreb tied the  Sea Dragon and its captain, Captain "Nails" Nelson, to hiring for Primewater’s gala operation.

When Durik Ironhide drew the room’s attention with a round for the house, Theros Bronzewood spotted a table of newcomers who were watchful rather than celebratory.

Pressed and paid, one of them confirmed Nails was contracting both security and porter work, and that part of the job involved picking up goods from Primewater’s manor.

That detail turned the gala from a hard target into an employment-based infiltration route, one that could plausibly put the party inside both the manor’s logistics and the gala itself without forcing a break-in. The party used the remaining daylight to push the paper trail at Primewater Shipping.

While Theros Bronzewood held Lott Sanskrin in a conversation, using the ploy of a possible business deal, Barrister Alemenquietly read an open ledger and the others scanned posted lists.

The ship list included an entry abbreviated “SG” marked impounded, consistent with the Sea Ghost from a prior smuggler incident.

In the ledger, Barrister Alemenfound recurring payouts tied to “Kreb/Empty Net” for “damages,” and large outgoing payments to a new name, Kes Bickel.

When Seraphiel name-dropped the Sea Ghost, Lott’s involuntary glance toward the ship list gave him away.

He grew evasive, tried to reframe talk toward other vessels, and then abruptly ended the meeting while probing for where the party was staying.

Theros Bronzewood withdrew without giving a location, but they left knowing they had likely raised suspicion inside Primewater’s organization.

Late afternoon and night turned into preparation and consolidation.

In Captain Xendros incense-lit shop, the party kept their questions indirect and instead bought tools that matched the kind of defenses they now expected.

Captain Xendros offered a scroll of knock and high-cost concealment options, and his descriptions of layered, trapped, and lethal protections made it clear that any vault-style target would punish a crude approach.

The party pooled money and valuables, including a ruby, and purchased a scroll of knock and a scroll of invisibility.

Xendros also identified Durik's rose-colored vial as a potion of neutralize poison, a small but timely safeguard given the risks implied by talk of wards and traps.

As evening deepened, the party took the infiltration route they had uncovered and went to the docks.

At the Sea Dragon, Captain "Nails" Nelson tested applicants and ultimately hired Durik and Barrister. Durik took a security role and Barrister took porter duties, both tied to the Primewater event.

The job came with a clear timetable.

Porter work at the manor was set for tomorrow, and guard duty tied to sailing and the gala followed the day after, with a required dawn arrival and required guard uniforms.

With legitimate access in hand, they ended the night at the Temple of Procan in Welgar Brinehanded's quarters, getting a feel on where Welgar stood on the schism within Saltmarsh Town Council and Gellan Primewater more specifically.

Welgar refused to choose a faction, admitted the temple took Primewater’s coin for healing, and noted Primewater’s crews often arrived with suspicious, weapon-like injuries.

He also warned against trusting Xendros and implied the shopkeeper answered to something darker. Before they left, an additional unsettling detail surfaced.

Brackus Hull had once personally collected the bodies of dead Primewater sailors rather than allowing the temple’s usual burial at sea.

Welgar Brinehanded left the party with the following ominous advice "Be careful, you are in dangerous waters"

By the time the plan was restated, the shape of the next steps was fixed: use manor access tomorrow to look for incriminating evidence, be ready for the ship at dawn the following day, and keep eyes open for named dangers and unknown players around Primewater’s circle, all while the wider pressures of the Lizardmen envoy and the growing Sahuagin threat continued to close in.

In Saltmarsh that afternoon, Eliander Fireborn pressed Barrister, Beldroth, Seraphiel, Durik, and Theros to determine whether Councilman Gellan Primewater posed a threat to the town, offering a 3,000 gp reward for proof either way while they waited for lizard men envoys to arrive for alliance talks. The party chose to build a case through interviews and local contacts, aiming to understand Primewater’s reach before committing to action. At Anders Solomor's manor, Anders brushed aside rumors and defended Primewater as a mentor, but he also mentioned a private gala on Primewater’s pleasure craft, announced only the day before and already pulling in extra staffing and resources. The rushed yacht party became a time-sensitive angle for access and surveillance.

They then sought a harder assessment from Manistrad Copperlocks, who openly despised Primewater and laid out his leverage in Saltmarsh through timber pricing and shipbuilding ties. Copperlocks also framed Primewater’s politics as potentially obstructive to King Skotti of Keoland’s agenda, sharpening the party’s suspicion that Primewater might undermine the town’s security priorities.

With those motives in mind, the group moved into quieter channels at Winston Goodwort's shop, where Beldroth paid for information and learned Primewater had a private vault installed in his manor. Goodword added that the job had been built in secrecy by splitting work across multiple outfits, with the Carpenters Guild involved and imported dwarves handling masonry, leaving no single set of hands with the full plan. That lead pushed the investigation into a covert track. The party accepted Goodword’s offer of Dust of Disappearance, pooled their resources to buy it, and treated it as the key tool for a future vault intrusion intended to secure evidence. Along with the purchase came a warning that Primewater had recently upgraded his security, including a dangerous new bodyguard, Hino the Fell-Bladed, which raised the cost of any direct confrontation. With Primewater’s yacht party now two days out, the group leaned into the idea of using the gala as cover for a vault strike, but first they needed more concrete information about the vault’s construction and defenses.

Late in the day they approached the Carpenters Guild in the dock and Downcliff area, where Theros pressed the guild leader, Unknown about Primewater-related work. Jillar’s visible anxiety and evasiveness confirmed there was something worth hiding, and while Theros maintained a cover story by commissioning a proposal for a vault-like room, Beldroth quietly assessed the guild’s layout and determined the main door lock would be easy to pick later. Seraphiel also drew out a separate lead on magical protections, and Jillar pointed them toward Captain Xendros as someone who could arrange warding work. By nightfall, the party committed to a break-in at the guild to find records and plans tied to Primewater’s estate, with Beldroth handling entry, Theros searching inside, and the others watching the street and signaling danger. Under cover of night, Seraphiel took a rooftop lookout while Beldroth picked the guild door and slipped inside with Theros. The search turned up a key ledger entry, a coded reference to “Primewater Estate-V” and “payment tended” linked to a name, Brackus Hull, giving the party their first concrete personal lead connected to Primewater’s estate work. They could not confidently match any blueprints to a specific Primewater vault plan, and they chose to withdraw before pushing their luck.

Their timing tightened when a four-man town guard patrol approached, responding to a reported scraping sound, then began to eye the guild door as if it sat ajar. The escape hinged on misdirection and improvised coordination. Barrister played drunk in the street to slow the patrol’s focus, and when the guards started to move toward the entrance anyway, Seraphiel shattered an unlit oil vial on the cobblestones to pull them away with a loud impact. Communication faltered at first, then the group settled on clearer signals, with Barrister signaling from the street and Seraphiel whistling an Elvish cue from the rooftop. Theros took it as the moment to move and ushered Beldroth out into the night, and the pair slipped into an alley without being spotted, though they left the guild door open enough that the break-in might soon be discovered. Seraphiel withdrew from the rooftop and the party regrouped afterward with clear possible  next steps:

Follow up on Brackus Hole, consult Welgar Brinehanded,  investigate the Shipping Company linked to Primewater,  Discuss the "Vault Security" with Xendros,  visit the Empty Net and see if any of the unsavory patrons have anything interesting to add, and continue planning around Primewater’s tightened defenses and the looming yacht gala window.