Something on the Wind Adventure 1 Session 4
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The battle with the mushroom creature began and ended in just a few seconds. Pale Maw's puppet hit hard, but the party hit harder. Cutting through its fungal hide, then through Ilira's skeleton, the party struck into the heart of the creature, killing it. Once destroyed, all of the fungus disappeared from the room, and the icy floor immediately began to melt. Acantha inspected the Anvil and learned that it was a powerful Fury artifact, probably the source of Ilira's powerful smithing ability. But something else, some power belonging to the Pale Maw, inhabited the anvil and "hatched" out of it, manifesting as the mind-controlling, corpse animating mushroom.
The party returned to town to discover that the villagers had just won a battle with infected wolves and bears. The battle was going badly for the villagers, but they dropped dead, apparently in response to the destruction of the mother mushroom. The party learned that the fungal infection had been completely destroyed, even the farmer Guilford was restored, much to Terrick's delight. The party then consulted Aspazia, as promised, and she took particular interest in what Acantha described about the anvil. Aspazia then explained the plot of the campaign!
She said some kind of Fury power, probably this "Pale Maw" Acantha described, was riding the wind. It "hatched" out of the ancient Fury artifact, and would probably do so again. Unfortunately the wind blew south, across the Jeweled Sea and over the Isles of Splendor. She explained that many foolish and greedy pirate kings and merchant princes have collected treasures and buried them in the Isles - all possible tools for the thing on the wind. Gellardia intuitively asked if there were any mythic treasure that were known to be a set, perhaps a set of three. Aspazia pondered and replied that yes, she was certain there was a treasure coveted by the three pirate kings that won it. Instead of letting any one of them keep it, they chose to break it in three pieces, so that none would have it and all would have it. But Aspazia didn't recall more than that.
The party also checked on the Telar, and found that it was returned to health. It was able to stay awake long enough for a conversation, where it explained that the fungus was indeed the source of its illness. The Telar believed that the fungus sprouted from Ilira's anvil, using the Fury power of the anvil to grow. Something about the power of the creature was able to animate the corpses of Ilira and her honor guard. Some of those corpses broke out of the tomb and wandered into the wilderness, infecting the wildlife, which then went on to infect the land and attack the villagers. It explained that if left unchecked, the infection could have spread far and wide, becoming a terrible curse on the land.
The party decided they would go to the libraries of Bellaverdis, on the nearby isle of Valdessa, to research the matter. Sailing to Valdessa, the party met Martann, a fixer known to recruit adventurers for the kinds of work that require their unique skills. He said to look him up in The Near Miss tavern when they made port.
Even with the sizable discount offered to a lady of the Viridian Court, entrance to the private libraries of Bellaverdis would be extremely expensive, so the party decided to check with Martann for work. They learned of four opportunities (noting that it was not five, as the Stygians implied):
- Brynja, a homeless, stinky, toothless old man outside of the bar asked the party for help finding a lost treasure, before being shooed away by the barkeep for bothering the customers. The party followed and asked for more details, and the pirate said that the treasure was once his, buried on an island that moves. To find the island, the party would have to steal a magical compass, which one belonged to Brynja himself, until he lost it in a game of chance. Once recovered, the compass would lead the party to untold teasures. Acantha also noticed that the man had an air of enchantment about him, but nothing like she had ever seen before.
- In the bar, Nyx spotted Kiera, a well-known agent of a lesser house. Nyx didn't know what Kiera was up to, but knew that if Kiera was in a bar, some kind of social intrigue was close at hand.
- Martann was also present and offered two jobs. The first was to help a man "reverse heist" a golden statue into the collection of a local merchant.
- Martann's second job was to help a woman break her brother out of prison, or prove his innocence. Anything that would spare his unjust sentence for murder.
After considering their options, the party couldn't help but feel a strange curiosity about Brynja's tale. They doubted it could all be true, but they wanted to see how much of it was, so they went outside to deliver the good news to Brynja. He cackled with glee and said he would meet the party with more details the next day at a specific address.