The Maelstrom Campaign - Chapter Three

Infiltration and Destabilization

Skaemon, Skye, Jessica, Teleran, & Coil

647 Post Maelstrom

Teleran has his first dream from the moon goddess, Niius, Brother of the Moon.

Teleran is sitting on the edge of a cliff basking in the soft glow of the moon. There is a rushing of wind and a massive dragon flies over Telerans head towards the moon. Its face is very different from a traditional dragon, it appears to be the head of a reptilkin man with some black markings on his face.

The white dragon flies directly into the moon and it cracks and explodes like a dropped egg. The Moon now appears like a solar eclipse, but instead of sunlight coming from behind the moon it appears to be crackling purple energy.

* * *

The party wakes to the sound of someone yelling outside and guards running down the hall, past their room, inside the mansion. Skaemon peaks off the balcony seeing armored wagons and horses outside the mansion blocking off the main entrance. The party exits their room and following the guards running for the main hall.
Arriving in the main hall the find Seion pacing in the main hall. His personal guards have the door braced, but they otherwise look scared and confused. Seion tells the party they’re here to arrest him and Jessica looks out the window seeing a massive burly half giant man leading a small army of city guards. He’s caring a spear with the head of the other council member the group met outside of town, Jess.
Given few other options Seion ultimately lets the city guards inside and they arrest him. The guards are also told to bring the party with. The party almost engages the guards, but their captain, Doyle, convinces them to come with instead. The party follows the guards to the city guard’s citadel near the port. The party is separated from Seion and asked to wait in a questioning room. The guards then leave and interrogate Seion.
After a wait the guard captain, Doyle, returns to the party’s room. The party corroborates Seions story and Doyle lets them go without too much trouble. Realizing that they would still need work Doyle offers to take the party to the palace for the palace guard interviews they are currently holding. Coil and Skaemon take Doyle up on his offer and Doyle sends them with a couple of guards to the palace. On the way they stop at Seions’ mansion and collect their things, the rest of the party does this as well.
Skaemon and Coil arrive at the palace and interview with the proprietor of the city himself. He asks some strange questions and ultimately offers them the palace guard positions for 150 gold a week. They are theen introduced to Donovan who makes sure they are given palace guard uniforms, a black cloak with the city symbol on the back. Similar to the city guard uniforms which is a brown cloak with the symbol. They are given their post and told they start in the morning. They then head back into town to find the rest of the party.
Skye, Jessica, and Teleran find an inn for them to stay at while they are in the city. The party gathers again and decides to perform multiple investigations of the city. Skaemon and Coil return to the palace to rest while the rest remain at the inn.
Skaemon and coil were escorted to their first guard shift guarding the gate where the two guards were found dead recently. The guard that leads them here was also stationed nearby in the same courtyard. After a little while on duty a white dragonborn man exited a nearby forested area and headed for the gate they were guarding. Coil, who was on the outside of the gate, saw him approaching and hailed him to find out why he was here. This made the dragonborn man extremely angry and he demanded to be let in. Upon hearing this the other guard in the courtyard ran over and told Coil and Skaemon to let him in immediately. The guard told them the dragonborn was the proprietor’s friend, Saluun , and that they needed to always let him through the gate. Saluun told the guard to report to his own execution for not telling Skaemon and Coil how to do their job and he went willingly with no further argument.
Saluun passes Skaemon and Coil without another word and heads into the palace. Coil follows him into the palace and Saluun leads him to a room deep in the palace. Saluun closes the door behind himself. Coil peaks through the keyhole and realizes that it’s a bedroom. Coil then returns to his post and the rest of their shift is relatively uneventful.
Skye, Jessica, and Teleran explore the city during the day. While walking the main market stretch, they see the regular citizens of the city trading what appears to be stale older stored foods. A small amount of it even appears as though rotting; due to the city being on lockdown. The people appear to be quite poor in comparison to the wealthy district where Seions mansion was, but not quite poor to the point of being sick or malnourished. However, when they reached the market in the wealthy distract Skye, Jessica, and Teleran noticed that they were still trading fresh foods. The wealthy district was also guarded by the palace guard and not the city guard.
The three of them also swung by the Radanhi Port before returning to the inn and confirm what Skaemon saw the night before, the dockyard on full lockdown with no ships in or out. The dockyard was being locked down by both imperial troops and city guardsman.
The full party gathered at the inn in the evening to discuss their next move. The party decided to try to use their members who were now palace guards to sneak past the blockade of the teleportation circle, but when they got there the city guards were actually fairly hostel towards the palace guards. They told them a license from the Proprietor was required to pass now that the city was on lockdown and they were turned away. They also checked out the imperial guard’s garrison, but nothing seemed amiss. They returned to their sleeping areas for the evening.
Skaemon and Coils next shift was mostly uneventful, but Saluun did show up at the same time today. Coil snuck into Saluun’s room and rummaged through his desk. He found in Saluuns desk information about shipments of food entering the city in the wealthy district secretly.
The same day Jessica and Teleran decide to join the city guard. They are told by Doyle, after speaking with him, that they start late tomorrow night and work the night shift. The day passes for them without much else happening.
That evening however Teleran went searching for anything relating to his moon goddess, Temyr. He found a hidden moon sigil at the local blacksmith and after talking to him found out about some other moon worshipers that hung out secretly at the local temple. The next morning Teleran goes out searching for the people at the temple and finds the people the blacksmith described. They told him about their secret ritual site and told him to meet them there that evening.
Skaemon and Coils next morning shift was also uneventful, but Saluun did show up at the same time again today. They also feel a strange and dark presence trying to affect their mind, but they are unsure of the source. After work they decide to request to be moved to a nightshift and were told they could, but they’d have to work a double the next day.
That night Teleran and Jessica report to their city guard duty. While on duty in the market district they see several civilians headed toward the wealthy part of town. Following them they find a protest happening just outside the wealthy district gate. The palace guards were telling the people to disperse, but when more of the city guard showed up, they backed off.
While this was happening, Skye went off to find more skooma or skooma ingredients. She found a group of shady people behind a tavern that was still open, but they were suspicious of her questioning and bailed. She chased after them, but lost them when they turned down what appeared to be an ally with a dead end.
Upon further examination she found a secret door in the wall that led to a tavern run by a shady dwarf with an eye patch. The tavern was called the Hole in the Wall. Here Skye learned she could hire criminals for a job and buy an assortment of drugs. Including the very dangerous drug of deathsticks. Which you smoke and then eat, not doing it in that order will result in death, but the high is craaaazy.
After their guard duty ends Teleran splits off from Jessica and goes to meet with the worshippers of Temyr at their secret ritual site. They perform a traditional moon ritual together as the moon begins to set. Teleran then speaks with the worshippers about his vision and they believe it to signify the evil in the Proprietors friend, Saluun, or perhaps an omen of something even worse to come.
The next day Skye tries the Deathsticks she bought and gets absolutely blasted. Skaemon and Coils last morning shift is also uneventful, but Saluun did show up at the same time again today. Skaemon and Coil feel the same dark presence affecting their minds during their morning guard shift, but stronger than before.
After Skaemon and Coils first guard shift is over the party, minus Skye, go to the port and check out a tavern. The place turns out to be locked down by the guards in order to keep crime down while the city is on lockdown. They talk to the guards working there and realize they are only getting 5 silver a week while palace guards are making over 100 gold or more. Reasonably this made the guards rather angry and they left the bar they were guarding to go talk to their captain.
That night Skaemon and Coil reported for their new shift inside the palace; now they’re guarding the doors to the throne room overnight. On duty they hear a noise in the throne room, but find it empty. The door in the back of the room, leading to the hallway connecting the throne room to the proprietor’s bedchamber, is open. Skaemon and Coil enter the hallway and see a black clocked figure headed for the bedchamber. They chase after and enter the bedchamber, right behind the cloaked figure, but remarkably finding it empty. There is a secret stairway hidden in the column of the wall that has been left open. They descend the stairs and go deep under the palace hopefully still chasing the black robed figure. They find themselves in a secret hallway that appears to be connected to the prison under the palace.
Skaemon and Coil, following the hallway, enter a room with a stone alter holding a recently sacrificed body. The black robed figure is still nowhere to be seen. There are three braziers in the room. The middle one is already lit. Upon lighting the left and then the right another secret stair in the ground lowers. As soon as both people touch the stairs they start to raise back into place, but they are fast enough to make it down in time revealing a long underground cavern.
Coil carries Skaemon on his shoulders and they make good time travelling in the darkness. After traveling a good long way, they enter a massive underground cavern. There is a large body of water here housing three airships, two standard frigate sized airships and one massive imperial dreadnought. The dreadnought had all the imperial markings removed and appeared to be painted black.
There was also enough land in the cavern, surrounding the water, to house a large military camp. The camp even had buildings carved into the stone at the edges of the cave implying that is had been there for some time and could easily house a large army. They are able to sneak in and get a closer look at the airships and are able to get out unnoticed.
While Skaemon and Coil are headed back they find that they have to do the same brazier puzzle again, middle left then right, to open the stairs which again. Which rise back into place as soon as a second person touches them. Upon reentering the alter room they see the black robed figure again who is cleaning up. They jump them and knock them unconscious. Skaemon polymorphs the black cloaked figure into a puppy and coil carries them out.
Skaemon and Coil ascend the secret stair and exit back into the proprietor’s bedchamber. This time they find the proprietor and Saluun Silverscale in bed, sleeping. Coil wakes them up and says they apprehended this criminal, but the two of them only see a puppy. Skaemon and Coil are kicked out of the room, and told never to enter their sleeping chamber again. As they close the door, they hear the proprietor, Warren, whisper to Saluun “You don’t think they saw the stairs, do you?” After this Coil and Skaemon bring their prisoner back to the Inn the party is staying.
At the same time this is all happening Teleran and Jessica are on their second night of city guard duty. They go to the site where the protests were happening the night before to find an even larger crowd with more on duty city guard here. The city guard have even formed a protective barrier around the citizens. The palace guard have also increased their numbers at the gate, but aren’t trying to disperse the crowd. Teleran and Jessica join the protective circle around the crowd of protesters.
Around the same time Skye heads back to the secret bar, the Hole in the Wall, to recruit some help to rob the food shipment coming into the wealthy district of town. While talking to Rogaar he informs Skye that the incredibly shady looking people in the back of the bar would be willing to help. She talks to the mustache twirling shady dudes and they are willing to help in exchange for the supplies. Skye agrees to the deal and accepts the help of the shady dudes. They tell her to meet them at the gate where the shipment is coming into town.
Skye makes her way across town. When she arrives at the gate to the wealthy district, she finds Jessica and Teleran standing guard around the large protest. Skye tells them she needs to get through the gate and tells them her plan. They quickly agree to help her. Jessica angers one of the guards who fires a crossbow bolt at her. The palace guards making the first move really angers the crowd even further. They begin to angerly surge forward slamming themselves against the gate.
Teleran sneaks away from the crowd while this is all going down and flies over the wall while all of the palace guards are so distracted. He lands over the wall and approaches the gate from inside the wealthy district. He surprise kills a palace guard that is defending the gate on the inside of the wall. Removing the wooden bar from the gate causing it to slam open from the surge of people on the other side. Teleran is luckily able to leap out of the way. Skye enters the city with the crowd, but breaks away and heads for the meeting point with the shady dudes. Teleran and Jessica stay with the crowd to keep the violence to a minimum and protect the crowd from palace guards.
Skye approaches the gate where the shipment is supposed to come through and sees some palace officials waiting. The shady dudes have taken positions on the nearby rooftops. Skye approaches as they open the gate and turns into a werewolf. She surprises the group of unarmed palace officials and tears them apart with her claws.
The shady dudes drop down from the rooftops and take control of the food wagons. One of them charges straight into town headed back to the lower district while Skye follows on the nearby rooftops. The other shady guys take the second wagon and head out of the city in the opposite direction. Skye leaps from the last rooftop to the top of the wall, between the wealthy and lower districts, taking out another guard just as the wagon makes it through the gate. They are both safely into the lower district of town and go their separate ways.
Jessica and Teleran stay with the crowd for the remainder of the night, but as the sun rises the people start to disperse. They take this opportunity to slip back into the lower district of town with the crowd. As the sun rises, they return to the Inn, just behind Coil and Skaemon, Skye quietly slips inside behind them a few moments later...