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14 Fierdos 1120 Daybreak
In the days following their disturbing encounter below (Down the Rabbit Hole) the heroes sought to assuage their lingering discomfort by staying busy. Mrs. Wilkins took off in search of her old friend Betty, who had sold the bordello to "Randall Stevens" and then, apparently, vanished. The rest of the group spent considerable time at the Adventurers' Guild interviewing rogues with an eye to adding a stealth specialist to the party. After several days of interviews and deliberations they chose Melian, a sea kin spellthief with local ties and a well documented history. He accepted their offer of membership and and joined the Chimera crew on the evening of 5 Fierdos. The first sign of trouble came when Quinn failed to join the group for Melian's initial briefing. The party filled him in on recent events without Quinn and thought little of it until the next morning. Then they read in the Marhaven Crier that a suspect had been apprehended and was being questioned in connection with the so-called Daybreak pirates. It was commonly believed in Marhaven that the Daybreak pirates were heroes gone bad, specifically the adventuring group Quinn, Strontium and Aria had left. Outside of the Chimera group nobody knew that most of those people had died at the party's hands in a combat deep below the city. A visit to the Justice Building confirmed the group's suspicions: the suspect in custody was Quinn, and she was being questioned by the dreaded inquisitor Laen Morogue. The group arranged a meeting with Riley Hanal-Rian, the most influential contact they had in Marhaven. They explained to him that Quinn had left that other group several weeks before and that at least three of the accused adventurers were, in fact, dead. Riley told the group that Quinn had been totally uncooperative so far, which was hardening suspicion against her, but that he would talk to Lord Mayor Ander and try to secure her release. Two hours later Quinn was in Riley's office, released under his supervision and responsibility. Riley's advice to the party, which they hardly needed, was that the best way to clear Quinn would be to find and bring in the Daybreak pirates. They began by gathering information about the Daybreak attacks. All of the ships were hit in the Northern Basin, an area of deep water though which the major northern shipping lanes pass. There was no apparent pattern to the type of ship or cargo taken except that none of the victim ships was particularly fast or well armed. The Chimera headed for the basin with only the seven heroes on board. Strontium used the unseen crew spell to provide the necessary manpower to sail the ship, knowing that pirates tend to seek out ships that appear undermanned and therefore easily taken. They took turns at the pilot's station and made a point of being unarmored and carrying no visible weapons above deck. The first couple of days were uneventful. A few trading and commercial vessels passed at hailing distance and exchanged pleasantries with the party. On the second day they spotted a Fell Armada cutter in the distance but the red-sailed ship turned south and avoided any engagement. It was not until the third day at sea that the party spotted a cog approaching from the west. It was surprisingly quick for its class and, from a distance, appeared to be manned by five adventurer types. Quinn and Melian put on their armor and took to the water to get a closer look at the ship and make the Chimera appear that much more undermanned. Aria readied her crossbow but kept it out of sight on the deck. Caenus, also in his armor, waited on the forward ladder just out of sight and ready to jump into a fray if one developed. Strontium took the wheel and Audas crouched on deck with his cloak drawn around him to conceal his armor. As the oncoming ship closed to within 500 feet the party was able to get a good look at the crew on deck. Three looked extremely familiar: from that distance they looked eerily like Uiq, Pendrul and W'Illot. Another resembled Quinn but her sharkskin halter and short skirt seemed designed for an entirely different profession. The fifth figure on the cog was unfamiliar to most of the party, though Quinn recognized her look as an imitation of the wu jen Tolisa Darius. Strontium's hail brought a series of friendly waves and calls in response. However, when the cog closed to 100 feet, the scantily-clad Quinn lookalike waved her arms and a swirling ball of wind appeared over the wheelhouse of the Chimera. Strontium ducked to avoid being pushed off the bow of the ship and responded with a chain missile aimed at the cluster of people on the cog's deck. Aria and Caenus fired ranged weapons at the approaching ship in support and all pretense was done. The strong retort from the Chimera prompted second thoughts from the imposters; the cog veered away and tried to escape by steering directly into the wind, using a magic everfull sail to permit it full speed in a direction normally impossible for a wind-powered ship. Strontium and his unseen crew turned to follow, using his Quall's feather token to generate a strong wind and allow the brig to give chase. With the aid of the feather token to overcome the mild natural winds the Chimera easily closed the distance between the ships. The cog's pilot fired arrows from a shortbow and the Quinn imposter continued trying to knock Strontium off the deck with her capricious zephyr, but Strontium kept his footing and maintained course. He even managed another chain missile while steering the ship. At the same time Aria and Caenus returned fire with their crossbow and longbow, and Audas employed his eldritch spear against the posers on the cog, which they could now clearly see carried the name Daybreak. As the Chimera's bow came within touching distance of the cog's stern Strontium veered to starboard and overtook from the side. Quinn had Baelavin use his superior speed to pull her abreast of the ship and Melian swam rapidly to the port side hoping to catch some targets unaware. The Uiq and Pendrul lookalikes jumped to the bow of the Chimera immediately and attacked Aria and Audas while the fake W'Illot fired arrows in support. Tolisa's imposter tried to impress Strontium with an empowered magic missile but Strontium chose to focus on the fighters who had boarded instead. The fake W'Illot was the first to go down thanks to concentrated attacks from Aria, Caenus and Audas. Quinn made her presence felt with an arc of lightning between the two enemy spellcasters while Melian struggled to get a grip on the side of the cog and Caenus advanced to help on the bow. The lightning shock seemed to prompt a change of strategy in Quinn's wanton-looking counterpart. She dismissed the capricious zephyr and assaulted Strontium with a lightning bolt from her palm. The Tolisa double covered her by sending a scorching ray at Quinn. On the bow, the Uiq and Pendrul stand-ins fought with annoying effectiveness against Aria and Caenus after Audas backflipped out of the way of "Uiq's" bastard sword. Melian on his third try managed to get a climbing hold on the cog and ascended to the ship's deck. He tried a thrown dagger sneak attack against the Tolisa double but missed wide. Caenus swung his spiked chain at the Pendrul lookalike but found her frustratingly difficult to hit. Strontium's magic missiles had no problem making contact, though, and eventually brought her down. It was at this point that Strontium reminded the party that they needed at least one live captive. That would not be Quinn's immodest double; she fell to an eldritch blast from Audas right after she lobbed an orb of cold at Strontium. Quinn and Aria heard Strontium's advice and heeded it. Quinn tossed a net over the false Uiq, and while he struggled to get out of it Aria hit him with a nonlethal blow that knocked him off balance and over the side. She jumped after him and subdued him with a flurry of nonlethal strikes. At this point only the false Tolisa remained. Facing an entire party, even with most of her spell capacity still available, she readily surrendered. A search of the ship answered some of the heroes' questions. In the false Quinn's room they found a wizard's spellbook and gear; apparently the scanty armor was an attempt to minimize its negative impact on arcane spellcasting gestures. The fake Pendrul had been wearing a glamered chain shirt to fake some of Pendrul's attire while providing protection in combat. The hold was empty, but Melian's careful search turned up a hidden cache of gems that the pirates had held back from their bosses. Two of the best prizes were in plain sight: an everfull sail and a crystal ball enchanted with the detect ship spell. Aria produced an elixir of truth she had bought in Marhaven and they used it to force some detailed answers out of the Uiq imposter. He and his cohorts had been hired, he grudgingly admitted, by a gnome named Garrick. Their looks and battle tactics had been coached by Garrick, who wanted the pirates to deliberately mimic those of a group of Garrick's enemies. The ship was empty because they routinely returned to a drop point on the Moonlands coast to unload stolen cargo and funds and receive their cut. There had been no double for the missing party's last member, Merkator of Holle, because Garrick himself sometimes played that role. The party already had the location of the drop point thanks to the charts they had found in the captain's cabin. They secured the magic sail and the crystal ball aboard the Chimera and towed the false Daybreak, their captives, and the bodies of the slain back to Marhaven. Returning to Marhaven with the captured Daybreak in tow garnered the party a lot of attention at the docks. Quinn's name was cleared along with those of the rest of the missing group, though it did not help to answer the question of what really had happened to her former companions Tolisa and Merkator. Riley agreed to undertake selling the cog on behalf of the party after establishing that it was not the same Daybreak that had been sold to the missing group by the widow Bulrick. That left the party free to seek out Garrick at the pirates' drop point.
They put down anchor about a quarter mile away from the underwater entrance of the drop point. Thanks to a cloak of the manta ray and gills of Hamachi that they had taken from the captured pirates everyone in the party had the means to breathe and move about in the water, so they swam the rest of the distance to the target area. At the spot indicated on the charts the group found a tunnel entrance about 50 feet below the surface. It led down and away several hundred feet, then angled upward and ended in an air-filled cavern. Quinn and Melian surveyed the space but found nothing but signs of crates and bags being set down and dragged through the soft dirt. The cavern was clearly natural but the exit through which the drag marks went was just as obviously man made. The party entered the tunnel and noted that it was about 60 feet long. The walls were flat sheets of steel and the floor very soft, sandy soil. At the end was a huge steel double door. Melian moved forward with an eye toward examining the door but his movement was stopped when the party's front line reached the middle of the tunnel. There was a slight click sound and the top third of the side walls dropped down on hidden hinges, dumping massive amounts of water on the group from, apparently, hidden troughs on either side. The water mixed with the loose soil and formed a three-foot deep layer of mud soft enough that the party sank to their hips in the stuff. As they took stock of the situation a pair of smaller doors opened above them on the now-exposed ledge and through each a large, brutal-looking humanoid -- a skullcrusher ogre -- entered the space. They picked up huge longspears and prepared to stab at the heroes from the safety of their ledge 10 feet above. Strontium thought fast, retrieved the wand of fly they had recovered from the caves below Marhaven (Down the Rabbit Hole), and used a charge on Caenus, who was within easy reach. Caenus entered a rage and flew up to the ledge to engage the first ogre. The force of his attack caused the ogre to lose his balance and fall face-first into the mud at Quinn's and Aria's feet. They and Audas responded by attacking the beast where it lay. Melian cast true strike and then accepted a fly from the wand as well, which enabled him to rise to the second ogre's level and take a flanking position opposite Caenus, who had crossed the passage to engage the other beast. Caenus took multiple heavy hits but held his ground while those on the ground killed the first ogre. The second ogre dished out punishment to Caenus and Melian both, but not before Melian delivered a staggering sneak attack with his trident. A blast of force from Strontium and a couple of eldritch blasts from Audas provided enough support to finish killing it. The steel doors, which could only be opened from the other side, were suddenly no longer a barrier. Those on the ledge dropped down climbing ropes and in a minute the whole party was out of the muck. Aria led the way but stopped short when a huge rock went crashing into the side of the opening as she appeared in it. Beyond the opening was a large storage room and, from her glance, two more of the skullcrusher ogres. Melian floated across the passage to the other opening and drew some rock fire but this allowed his companions to act. Audas and Strontium released an eldritch blast and a chain missile to weaken the opposition. The whole group carefully watched the missiles arc to an unseen third target -- Garrick was definitely hiding in the room somewhere. Those near the entrance felt a confusion spell coming on but shook off the effects. Aria dropped down to engage an ogre as Quinn cast another arc of lightning between the two of them. One ogre was staggered by the strike and the other stood smoldering for a moment. The damage from the spell was such that Audas and Aria easily took out the brutes. Garrick, from the cover of a stack of crates, tried a mass whelm that left Melian floating unconsious in the air. Strontium and Quinn surrounded the gnome and Caenus moved to block his only escape route, a ladder the led up toward the surface. When the gnome's rainbow pattern failed to affect anyone in the room he knew he was beaten and surrendered. A thorough search of the storage chamber and the low stone building that hid the escape hatch turned up a large amount of valuable cargo and goods. Chief among the booty was a set of crystal goblets bearing the seal of the Church of Belain; the group recalled hearing that they had been taken from the Lammasu, a ship carrying Church officials to a conference in Nessen, and would bring a healthy reward. They also confiscated Garrick's magic rapier, chain shirt and hand crossbow. None in the party could use the small-sized gear but it would bring a good price if posted for sale at the Adventurers' Guild. A little intimidation from the tandem of Caenus and Strontium got Garrick to explain himself. He was, it turned out, a freelancer. He had put together a highly successful scam by disguising a theurgeme as a ghost ship and a common pirate crew as undead, and with that setup had made himself a tidy sum in stolen goods and valuables. The actual Daybreak crew, including Quinn at the time, had put an end to that enterprise and taken his ship with its six-figure value in the process. Determined to maintain his income and avenge the loss, Garrick had stolen a cog and outfitted it to look like the Daybreak, even giving it the same name. He had hired a new crew and coached them in how to look and act like his enemies based on his own observations of their appearance, fighting styles and preferences. Ultimately he hoped that the actual heroes would either be arrested for his crimes or goaded into coming after Garrick again, this time to be defeated and humiliated. In a way this was bad news for the party. Garrick had no connection with aberrations, the Servants of the Beast Below, or anything related to their main focus. He was even unaware that the heroes he sought to discredit were already dead or missing. So while they had cleared Quinn's name, they were no closer to learning how W'Illot, Uiq and Pendrul had ended up in that cavern below the city or what had become of their other companions.
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