Pocketwatch Isle Report

General Summary

The crew of the The Paradise Lost make the journey home to Port Sanctuary after dealing with the harrowing spawning rite of the sea hag and her followers. Many of rescue crew of the Wisp suffering from broken bodies and broken minds opt to give up their career on the open ocean and disembark here... including Captain O'Murdah

The captain of the Paradise Lost quits his post, not wanting to carry on any longer with a commission that's left his body so scarred. Rehele Odred immediately starts looking for a replacement. Many of the crew take the opportunity to step up and nominate Kazim to take the command, at least temporarily. Rehele is nervous about letting him take the helm of their only ship but he has performed adequately thus far with managing fund and making alliances. She agrees and then informs them of more bad news.

Linea Gossimere, the halfling mayor from Paradise Point had been sheltering ever since her rescue weeks earlier. A resupply of resources and Manacite was brought in for the Paradise Lost but Linea stole all of it and chartered a ship to take her to a place called Pocketwatch Isle. Figwit, as one of the locals here, was aware of the reputation this mysterious place hold. Stories of a strange ticking noise emanating from the island are common and those passing nearby have spotted all manner of clockwork parts washing up on shore. No one lives there and few were ever willingly get near. It has a strange and off-putting reputation that none have challenged.

The crew sets off for the nearby island to try and get their manacite back. Quickly enough they reach the small island and see its shores crowded with mechanical parts both old and new. They also see large rocky pillars rising out of the waters just south of the island's coast. There's nothing but think jungle clogging Pocketwatch's interior. The crew begin their hunt for Gossimere all the while Coryn's compass begins acting very strangely. The trinket is one he largely forgot about after swiping from Linea Gossimere weeks earlier but all of the sudden its hands being spinning and pointing strangely. They point toward the southern shore, toward the tall rocks.

Using the ship's row boat they travel to the rocks and where Figwit, Jon, and Patches descended below the waters to investigate while Coryn and Kazim stayed above. Those below discovered the tall rocks were actually beautifully constructed pinnacles of some vast, larger structure. Ages exposed to the waters and wind left those peeking above the waves covered in barnacles and old growths. The see something that looks equal parts cathedral and factory resting quietly on the murky floor far below the surface, all of it covered in scattered bits of clockwork machinery. They also spot something that looks like a large vent that occasionally blows out mechanical debris. They swim in hoping to a find a way to breech the sealed structure and succeed while narrowly escaping death at the the hands of the spinning turbines that power the vent.

Inside they find a mechanized temple beyond their wildest imagination with markings that dedicate it to the god Ssambrae ,The Clock Maker. While devoid of life it is not empty of defenders. Beings that look like works of divine art and clockwork engineering assail them at every turn. They duck and dive into various chambers, some filled with debris to be shot out into the ocean, others contain small pillars topped with various off crystaline treasures.

Above, Kazim notices a heavy storm moving in quickly on their position, one of a very unnatural disposition yet dreadfully familiar. Coryn's compass begins shifting between pointing at the structure below and the oncoming storm. They both realize the storm is the same sort that surrounded the massive warship that attacked Point Paradise. The Maelstrom and her captain are on the way. Not willing to waste time both of them scale the pillars till they find an access point and drop into the temple below. They too are quickly assailed by the same defenders the others encountered. It's not long before the two separated crews run into each other and compare notes on what they've found.

The crystaline prisms they've found in several of the rooms seem to contain mana that can be usable in place of Manacite and they snatch several pieces. They also find other magical items on display that they took such as a powerful javelin and a strange golden oil lamp. They also manage to discover where Linea is. She's in the temple's central chamber where a shining key with an amber stone hovers, surrounded by a magical energy. She's preparing to use the stolen manacite to disable the protective aura around the key. Before they can confront her she uses a device to call more of the temple's guardians to slow down the crew from reaching her, all the while she shouts over the chaos.

She apologizes for the duplicity and theft of says that the captain of the Maelstrom, Damien Harkon, wants the compass and the magical keys that it points to. With the compass lost she hoped to appease him by giving him on of the keys; otherwise he would hunt her across all of Tairos. Coryn wasn't aware of what the compass did when he stole it and demands to know more. She tells him briefly of Captain Salavar's Compass and the legend of The Eternity Door.

Linea refuses to cease her attempt at breeching the barrier even when they tell her Harkon is almost here. The crew decide to use some of the crystaline prisms they took earlier to fuel their spells in an effort to break through the machines under Gossimere's control. Instead, they learn the true purpose of this place and the prisms. The mana inside the stone is pulled away and can no longer sustain its function... as a prison. Billowing out of the stones are two very strange creatures, the first billowing out as a cloud of blue smoke that takes a humanoid form that towers above the crew. It is a bellicose thing brimming with elemental power and seething with a desire to unleash destruction upon the temple. It begins pulling water against the walls of the structure and the pressure causes the building to begin to fail. The second creature a swarm of desiccated dust with a fanged skull floating inside. The swarm also takes a human shape and moves toward the crew, hungering for the moisture in their bodies. Gossimere shouts out that this place is a prison for Djinn. Kazim, coming from the region where such stories are plentiful, knows all to well that these elemental demons are nothing but trouble.

The blue djinn cannot be reasoned with and desires only to drown Ssambrae's prison and destroy everyone inside. Walls begin failing and the temple starts flooding. The divine defenders are quickly swept away by the two escaped djinn while crew takes the opportunity to grab Linea, the manacite and the key before fleeing up one of the pinnacles and back to their rowboat.

As they look out on the horizon the storm is nearly upon them and lurking within the eye is the Maelstrom. While they row back to the Paradise Lost with as much haste as possible Kazim hands off some of the items they stole to Patches to examine. She polishes the dusty gold lamp to begin inspecting it and suddenly another cloud of blue smoke pours forth, this one taking the form of a humanoid woman with beautiful blue skin, red hair, and four arms. She looks down and Patches and says "Greetings my master, you have three wishes to make."