SOTDL CAMPAIGN: DREAMS OF THE DEAD GOD - Sessions 5-7

 ADVENTURE: Expedition to the Island of the Obelisk

After the last adventure, the group has time to pursue personal interests while they wait for the headmaster of the Lyceum to contact them for another mission.  During their downtime, the priest Kirrian Covenant is called back to the Holy Kingdom to aid with the resistance fight against the orc army.  The rest of the group spend time in Edes working on restocking their supplies, practicing new skills and other personal pursuits. The goblin Dir-tay spends much of this time high on lotus petals. 

The next few weeks have an increase in the strange occurrences that have been happening across town.  Rain falling upward, objects reshaping themselves, statues floating, animals exhibiting impossible abilities, and many more disturbing things.  The already stressed people of Edes grow more anxious and begin to believe the town has been cursed, until word from outside shows that these events are occurring elsewhere in the country and beyond.  This does little to alleviate the anxiety.  

The activist group known as the Wakened continue to press the still-absent Autarch Martonius for action to stop the activities of the Dream Merchants, but the office of the Autarch remains silent.  They attempt to march on the autarch's manor, but are rebuffed by his private security force.

Eventually, Headmaster Abraxus summons the team up to his chambers and says that he has a mission for them.  The artifact they collected and brought to him is part of a larger mechanism that he suspects has something to do with the strange occurrences happening around the world.  He has tasked Professor Markus of the Archaeology department with an expedition to find the island that that artifact was found on and to see if there are any more parts to the machine that can be brought back for study.  He wants the group to accompany the professor on the journey and assist him with the recovery of such artifacts. 

The group agrees to the mission and await for the departure date.

A couple of months later, after the group had traveled over the Auroral Ocean aboard the ship hired by the headmaster, following the coordinates given them by the him, they find a region that is rumored to be in a perpetual, unmoving storm.  Professor Markus says the island they seek is in that region, so they sail onward and fight the storm until they find their destination, which is less an island and more a series of rocks jutting out of the ocean, but one has a tall black spire atop it, which is the one they seek.  

The group set forth on a rowboat to a small entrance the spotted and must fight off shrieking eels on the way.  They climb up on the rocks to reach the entrance and find a passageway leading into the stone.  The path leads them to a large chamber that reeks of death, within which they find the remains of what appears to be sailors.  As they search the room they find that some of the remains animate, but do not threaten them.  They also find 2 sailors still alive, but extremely weak and emaciated.  The sailors warn of a priestess that bleeds them regularly and of a demonic fish monster that comes and goes.  The group get the survivors to their boat and move further into the caverns finding another one that had a large garden of black lotus plants.  The strange garden had a gardener that was a Sister of the Blue Hand.  The group are attacked by her and 3 crab demons that were hiding in the garden, and the group manage to kill them all, just barely. 

They find that the Sister was making a brew out of the black lotus flowers, but could not discern what it did, so they took a sample  (or a couple dozen) with them for later analysis.  They sneak further into the caves and find a large one with the arcane machine they sought, but it was guarded by the demon that they were warned about.  They decide to go back to the ship and formulate a plan.

With the aid of Professor Markus, the group return to the island after a good nights rest and begin putting their plan into motion.  Using a barrel of chum from the ship, they create a loud noise to draw the demon into the lotus garden chamber.  There, Ranvir attacks the demon with a bomb he had purchased in Edes and drew the creature out.  Appearing like a hulking, humanoid angler fish, the demon used its dangling light to try and enthrall the PCs.  The heroes had to divert their eyes to fight the monster.  The fight was brutal, but in the end the group destroyed the demon.  

The arcane machine was disassembled and returned to the ship, where the captain was plenty eager to depart from the cursed place.  As the sailed away, the island sunk back into the sea.

The ship returned to Edes and the arcane machine delivered to the Lyceum.  Finding themselves with some downtime, the group pay a visit to their alchemist acquaintance and find her in a stupor, apparently from an injection that was forced upon herby Dream Merchants.  She suspects that they are trying to get everyone hooked on lotus petals by forcing them into the lotus stupor.  The group gives Emma the Alchemist a vial that they took from the lotus garden for analysis.

As they walk through town, they hear a commotion coming from the Autarch’s Manor.  When the go to investigate, they find a man on a podium making inflammatory remarks about the Autarch, trying to incite the townfolk into rioting.  The gathered almost turn on Dir-Taylor, when Munder Boley, leader of the Wakened, appears and diffuses the situation.  He invites the group to lunch and tells them that his people have found the entrance to the Dream Merchant’s lair, and he needs the group to sneak in and kill their clan queen.  The group reluctantly agree with the plan.  They agree to meet the Wakened down by the docks where the hidden entrance is found.