Session 2 - Maybe finding pirate treasure

The pirate captain who tried to buy his freedom by giving away the location of a treasure map turned out to be lying, but fair play I guess as he wasn't freed either.

However, Llewellyn, as one of the seemingly rare non-corrupt members of the Mariners Guild, had a lead on some other pirate treasure. He couldn't go after it himself due to being a member of the guild but was happy to subtly aid others in doing so. He'd heard talk around the guild that a stash of booty obtained from a recent and quite bloody raid, currently too hot to shift, was being hidden in a old temple south of Venac off the coast road,

On investigating further he found the temple was the site of a reasonably well known adventure by Robashda and the Enlightened Blades. The temple was an ancient shrine to a per-covenant earth god, abandoned for at least the 1400 years the covenant had existed and desecrated centuries ago by servants of Our Masters (the draconic pantheon). At some point in the last decade a lich called Grumpsh the Unholy had come to occupy the place, and had started causing trouble when his undead minions occasionally leaked out into the countryside. Three years ago, in 1409, the Enlightened Blades slew the lich, and knowing of this Llewellyn was able to buy Robashda's map to the now abandoned place, which he sold as a keep-sake.

Llewellyn offered his companions from the Strogellan the map and introduced them to two other likely pirate hunters he'd met; Gabriel Manson, a Yellow Speaker on a holy quest with a penchant for hugs, and William Freeman, a buff looking man with a Darian accent who seemed keen not to speak about his past. Keen to get rid of some of the skum of the seas and claim some ill-gotten treasure in the process, the group took the map and headed off south down the coast road.

It was a two day walk to the temple and at evening on the first day the group noticed on a couple of occasions figures watching them from the cliffs above the road. Finding this suspicious they went to investigate and ended up being attacked by two monkey goblins. The party managed to capture both and they admitted that they were bandits scouting out the party as potential targets for their larger group. The party engaged in a long discussion about what was best to do to them until Inkvald convinced the majority that the best course of action was to kill them and hide their bodies. He did that and it was brutal...

The nest day the group reached the entrance to the temple, a few miles off the road in a jungle valley, without further incident. The main entrance was filled with a swarm of bats and a couple of dire bats but Tristan set fire to some of the guano lining the room and the smoke caused them to flee. There were some giant centipedes living in the guano but the party dealt with them with little problem.

After the scuffle with the creepy wildlife a young human man appeared in the passage leading out of the bat's chamber and told the party to go away because they were in danger. This was weird because the deep guano covering the floor made it clear no one had been through recently. The man said his name was Jarrod and he was Robashda's squire. He claimed to be on guard for the Enlightened Blades, who were apparently in the temple right now. He thought it was still 1409.

Concluding he was probably a ghost Lucian walked towards him, Jarrod threatened him with his sword, Lucian reached out to take it and Jarrod struck him on the arm. There was no wound but the blow seemed to drain Lucian of his life force, nearly killing him. The party pointed out that the sword didn't cause an injury, and showed him Robashda's map, which he couldn't physically touch, and he realised he was a ghost.

The party then passed through the room Jarrod was haunting and found the a large central chamber, ringed with a crumbling balcony 80' high. The stairway down had long since rotted away so the party needed to use rope to get down. Unfortunately giant spiders on the underside of the balcony made climbing down treacherous, however with a combination of climbing and rope assisted jumping the party made it down. Jarrod remained atop the balcony and seemed to vanish once the entire party had left.

The first party member to reach the ground (Lucian) was attacked by metal snake skeleton. He eventually destroyed it and a vague phantasm like force appeared to pick up the smashed pieces and take them to a nearby room. The room was set up like a neatly arranged arcane laboratory, except everything was broken. The phantasm appeared to be an unseen servant spell, blindly following its command to keep the lab clean despite it having been abandoned for years. One thing that appeared to be working was a large stone cupboard covered in runes of crafting. The unseen servant placed the snake inside and it began to hum. The party eventually opened it (it was magically locked) and found the snake partly repaired. Lucian removed the snake and wore it around his neck.

The party explored the large chamber some more and found a stairway from which the sound of the ocean could be heard, leading down to a channel that appeared to lead in from the sea. They could hear voices coming from there. The party cautiously headed down the steps and saw and human, a dwarf and a goblin, who seemed surprised to see them. The dwarf aggressively questioned what they were doing there. Gabriel said they were lost, but the dwarf didn't believe it, noting that the party would have had to somehow be 'lost' past Jarrod and the other hazards they'd passed. Gabriel then admitted they'd come to kill pirates and the dwarf attacked...