COMPLETED: Missing Children in Farronvue

When originally posted in Farronvue 3 children had gone missing and an adventuring party had answered the call. They had thought that whatever took them lived in the Dagger Cove -Devils' Shipyard- and ventured out to reclaim them. After much too long the party never returned and children continued to go missing. Now that 10 children are missing a notice has been sent to Greensward where the party accepts it.
They make their way as quickly as they could to arrive in Farronvue with a day and a half. Upon arriving in Farronvue they are interrupted by a woman, Bridgeete, who realizes that this group of people are adventurers. She has lost a son, Marco: age 7, to the disappearances. Another mother seeing this interaction comes over, Lawraign has lost the most children, losing 3 in total; Desmond: age 5, Clara; age 7, and Clareece: age 11. They are both distraught and plead for them to hurry and get the children back, none seeming to even believe for an instant they may never be coming back.
They continue into town, attached to the town hall is a bounty board which is managed by an old man who looks like he's seen his own share of heartache. Old Thum is the area's Lodge Master he works from a small office within town hall, his heft filling the majority of it. Old Thum gives updates on the bounty, giving the new count for missing children of 13, one of which being the son of a noble woman, Bruce: age 13 son of Lady Dauntarae. She posted a 100GP bounty for the safe return of her son. Old Thum also gives them information on the last group of adventurers to come through here. They, after having spoken with Linda, the only mother of a pair of children where they did not both get taken, journeyed to Dagger Cove from which they have not returned. Upon asking about any further odd occurrences Old Thum remembers about 2 weeks ago Titus, a local fisherman hauling a part fish part squid creature up from the sea, having never seen anything like it they decided to leave it to rot.
Deciding to follow in their footsteps the party goes to see Linda, who is with her daughter Suzy: age 6 on the porch. They try and ask her questions, obviously hurt and trying not to reopen the wounds of the prior weeks she asks Suzy to tell the party about the night her brother was taken. The moon was out in full neither her nor her brother could sleep so they watched out their window. Suddenly her brother had this empty expression on his face and silently left the room. Suzy tried to wake her mother but she could not be roused. When she caught up to Jasper he was taking some woman's hand and getting onto a flying broom, and was gone heading East along the waters. The retelling of the story was clearly a grave ordeal for Linda and she asks hurriedly if there was anything else. They have no further questions so she tries to usher Suzy inside. Suzy pleads with the party to save her brother, and runs in to grab one of his favorite toys a wooden riding horse.
The party doesn't really see much further need to ask around town haivng determined that whatever is taking these children likely is going to be in Dagger Cove -Devils' Shipyard- and strikes at night. As the hour was already getting late they decide to find some horses and go to Dagger Cove to investigate. First going to Jim Bob about where they could scrounge up some horses. He tells them about Gunther a rancher who recently moved here from Triton having some. He apparently trying to win over the widow, Lady Dauntarae, agrees to lend the party the horses. The last horse comes from the War Mother Xanthe, who seeing an fellow Amazon gives it as a mark of honor.
They ride as quickly as safety would allow and arrive at the cliffs overlooking Dagger Cove just before midnight. Setting watches reveals none entering or leaving the cove all night by air or sea. However during Leia's watch she notices an odd light circling in the waters below, however this is missed by Mess who had the next watch. As the sun rises Athelin notices at the base of the cliff a small spit of shoreline. After everyone was up for the day Leia agrees to investigate and wild shapes into a hawk, Mess also sends along 2 of his familiars. On the shoreline lays a broken vessel and a large opening into a dark cave. The 2 familiars make their cautious advance into the inky depths, only after a few feet of intrusion one of the familiars melts into a lump of dissolved flesh. Leia gets out of there while Mess sends his familiar even deeper in trying desperately to figure out what lies within. Before too long a spectral figure with wings and claws advances from the shadows and bites the poor familiar which crunches beneath the force. Leia regroups with the others and they decide they've found the spot and head back to find a boat for a return trip.
In town they convince Jim Bob and his crew to get them out to the spot. The voyage is easy going and they moor the ship just outside of the cove, proceeding in row boats. Two oars men accompany the party, Gerald and Dempsey. Pious convinces Gerald to steer them to a rather large wreck, which he agrees too. While almost there they see the image of a whale in the distance, then suddenly Dempsey lurches the boat full speed ahead into the wreckage. Thankfully the row boat wasn't sufficiently damaged as to sink. It's clear that something was affecting his mind. The whale moves in closer and the party notice a hypnotic array of lights on the creatures head. Figuring it was a light based attack the party obscure Dempsey's eyes, and disembarks.
They scrutinize the portions of the ship still above water and find some decent equipment and loot. However as Araz is wandering the deck a slow voice enters his mind, convincing him to approach the side of the ship. He barely has time to look over before tentacles spring forth grabbing him, a quick rebuttal with thunderwave causes the creature to release him. The party gets ready and engage the creature. After several more blows from both parties the strange creature abandons it's attempts to settle for an easy target, Gerald, before submerging below the waves. Any attempts to follow the creature even with their eyes ends in failure. Only a minute afterward Araz's arm losses it's color and opacity then begins releasing an acid which burns his unchanged skin. He is wary of the water but on Athelin's assessment thinks it's the only way to safely remove the acid. In turns Araz soaks burlap and wipes the effected portion of skin. They sit thinking of what to do next for nearly an hour before deciding they needed to take their last remaining rowboat and make a dash for the strip of land. Working together they just barely manage to escape the grasp of the Aboleth and reach the shore.
Now before the same cave entrance as before they enter into it's dark recesses. Attempting at stealth they enter one by one until by no fault of his own Araz trips alerting the unknown foe within to their presence. Soon a stone skinned, cyclops approaches it's yellow eye the only thing visible and glares at Pious, his skin rotting away from the very look. Arrows pepper the creature and it falls. Then without notice two spectral forms of hairless winged halfmen apparate and attack one each to Araz and Pious. Pious takes a hardy blow but doesn't go down and ripostes with his rapier slaying the creature. The other however bites into Araz leaving him severely wounded only being held up by his Orc endurance. His counterattack is not as successful and he goes down with the next blow. Mess comes to Araz's aid tolling the dead on the last phantasm causing it to disappear. When these creatures disappear a voice rings out from deeper in the cave. With Athelin covering; Mess cures Araz up, just then one of these creatures in the flesh is seen sneaking towards the desperately injured Araz. Athelin and Pious make short work of the poor fool.
With the threat eliminated the Party has a look around. There are 3 exits from this central cavern. To the South extends a series of caverns that seem endless, filled with bats and their droppings. To the East is a smaller chamber on the North wall a small shack without a door, with a lit storm lantern hanging from the rafters. Across from the opening there is a sizable pile of bones, Leia goes to investigate. There is an array of fish and animal bones, as well as some human bones but none small enough to be children's. Pious goes to investigate the shack, at the threshold of the door is a chicken's foot emanating magical energy. Without hesitation or fear Pious rips the chicken foot of the nail that staked it to the house, fiery energy pulses through his hand all the way to his eye but he was otherwise unharmed.
Inside the hut there are clear trappings of someone living here, a fire pit with grill and pot holder, a simple straw bed, a root cellar, but then there are also things completely otherworldly. Bookshelves filled with curio that none had seen before, animal skulls of some impossible creature, runes carved into bone and horn with no coherent sense, books in almost every language on the planet most water damaged and in every other corner some charm or bundle of feathers or bone. The party searches for loot and they find a powerfully charmed broom and a Staff of the Adder. Eager for more the party begins meddling with things better left untouched and curses that the witch had laid trigger wracking the minds of Araz and Leia.
Tempting fate no longer they leave the shack and search the final passage, most strikingly there is a woman fiddling with a lock on one of the numerous cages in this final room. Araz puts her to sleep and they move her to the East chamber for questioning. She is very confused and attempts to justify her actions to the party. After hearing her out the party believes her story about following the last adventuring group and sneaking into the cavern through a low inlet while the witch was out. The party releases Morgaine and head back to help the children. A quick count by Mess reveals there are 14 children in 18 cages, all asleep. They are able to release all the children and Leia transforms into a giant eagle in order to fly them to the ship awaiting them outside the cove.
While Leia is gone, Morgain says one menacing word "Sleep" and Araz falls crumples to the ground. She then reveals her true form a ghastly figure of a woman with lithe gaunt proportions and wicked claws that extend nearly a foot from her hand, confident that she will beat this party so as to continue with her work. Pious rushes in along with Mess' familiars each blow of the rapier seemingly ineffective. The witch is confident in the success of whatever her goal is and splits her focus amongst Pious and the familiars. Mess wakes Araz up and then focuses his attention on the witch, inflicting wounds to great effect. Without a glimmer of doubt the witch continues to rant about the coming of some great power. The rest of the party lays into her, though she is mostly able to shrug off the attacks, still she cries out of the destruction at it's coming. Blow after blow whittle away at the witch and against reason she remains to fight the party nearly felling two of them before finally succumbing to her wounds.
The journey home is a mystery, with the children now waking up they decide to question them. None remember being trapped only the events leading immediately up to their disappearances. Though upon returning home they seemed overjoyed at being reunited with their families as if they knew on some subconscious level how long they had been gone.
Araz still suffering from his wound seeks out a healer of some sort, Jim Bob directs him to a cleric of Gozreh in town.  Buddy, the cleric, inspects Araz's arm believing he may know an appropriate spell to cure it, and fetches some ingredients.  Upon curing the strange affliction he has a moment to inspect the bearer, and recognizes him from his orphanage growing up.  Buddy thought that Araz had died along with Sister Sara and Father Gascoigne in the fire at St. Clawmane Orphanage all those years ago. Shaken by the exchange Araz tries to remove himself from the abbey as soon as possible. 
Lady Dauntarae hosts a huge party for the adventurers and invites the whole town.  They party hard and eat well.