Meticulous and Mysterious Missions, Visionary and Vomitous Voyaging, and a Quagmire Quest

**Homecoming:**

* Upon return to Ilbidor harbour, the Wildmane was greeted by Lieutenant Ilyen who collected the items to return to the vault
* She informed the group that Dr T wanted to see them in a couple of days, and (a very pleased) Trimaeus that very evening
* Elyan and Bayul escorted Holly and Dmitri to the Pink Pony and introduced them to Azurial and Denna, where they were offered some temporary work to help them to settle in
* A highly suspicious Narko was also spotted carrying around various plant-growing paraphernalia and a curious Elyan found the centaur's private herb-ery in Rocky’s old room
* Elyan gathered up wayward group members and most people spent the next couple of days purchasing potions and enchantments, and training various skills

**Misson Debrief and Rebrief:**

* Everyone crammed into Dr T’s office and she introduced two completely new individuals, Lysandre and Bel — a lawyer and bookworm, respectively
* Dr T explained that Dr Page had studied the artefacts discovered in Khaldaria: the piece of tablet covered in infernal glyphs and ouroboros imagery relating to the Hells, and damaged spell scrolls and notes
* He had ascertained that they were once used for summoning of something, but the scrolls were too damaged and fragile to glean anything from without ruining them, and most of the tablet was missing.
* Thankfully, the guild had a spell commissioned for them (by the 'Archmagi of the Crimson League') to locate an object that we already have part of — a cast of this by Dr Page returned an image of a heavily landslided mountain in the middle of a swamp; since having been identified as the lone mountain in the Birsack Mires, near the small town of Fishguard
* There were thus to be two parts to the new assignment:
* First, to recover the missing chunk of the tablet from the swampy mountain
* Second, to take the damaged scrolls to Iysgarth for restoration by Professor Merlin Xandar (Professor X), the predecessor to Dr T
* The second part was complicated by the fact that Xandar was a recluse because of an 'incident':
	+ About twenty years ago, he found evidence that the extremely proud and pure lineage of House Garth that dates back to the founder of the Empire may have a fundamental flaw — Ivar Garth himself may have not been a pureblooded Garthian! After Prof X was stripped of his titles and turned into a pariah, so that his work fell into obscurity, he retreated into the life of a recluse
* Finally, as an extra bonus, the group should seek to rekindle the relationship between the Guild and Iysgarthian university, particularly regarding funding — this would help to fill the deficit left since the Trifecta got wind of the events of Cypropa and began conducting an investigation into the Guild’s involvement, halting funding in the interim. Kunai and Tamsin did not miss the opportunity for an ‘I told you so’, while Elyan looked on guiltily.
* Tamsin was handed temporary custody of a 'box of holding’ for transporting the tablet, and Azurial a sending stone for contacting Dr T, and with that, Dr T bade them farewell

**Beyond the horizon:**

* Trimaeus chuntered to himself about Imperial bureaucrats as the loading got underway
* Kunai press ganged a homeless orphan boy, Derrick, into service on the ship, and set him to cleaning off the penguin poo-covered rowboat -- though Breena sighed at the poor boy's plight and simply used some basic magic to do most of the work
* The journey was as follows:
* Week 1: Nothing of note, mostly calm weather
* Week 2: Stormy weather and lots of chunder under the thunder
* Week 3: Lots of whales!! People get involved swimming around the ship using polymorph, wild shape and other water-based shenanigans
* Week 4: More whales! One night, Kunai experienced a particularly vivid dream...
	+ *At first, you see nothing but a light, flickering enchantingly above you. Like a moth, you find yourself totally enthralled, however, as you try to move towards it, your body comes against a tight resistance. You snap your eyes away from the light and, looking down, realise that your entire body is bound tight with ropes and chains that bite so viscously into your scaly hide that in some places they’ve began to draw blood. It’s at this point that you notice the rest of your surroundings. You realise that you’re tied down, spread-eagled, on a cold stone slab, and that you appear to be in some sort of dungeon. It then occurs to you that the room you are in is not silent. No. The air is filled with the sounds of screaming. Not pleasurable screams. But the unmistakeable sounds of someone in great and torturous pain. You tilt your head towards the source of the screams and see a figure tied up in a similar manner to you, their body engulfed in green-purple flames. As you watch, horrified, the figure turns their face towards you, wordless screams echoing from their mouth. You gasp, as you recognise the burning, part-charred face of your old occasional employer, Orkis Ven’Kra. You desperately try to avert your gaze from this horrific scene, but find yourself completely paralysed. You are forced to watch as, with a sickening pop, one of Orkis’s eyes bursts into a ball of liquid, briefly causing the flames licking his face to burn a vibrant shade of electric blue. Orkis’s screams now rise to a deafening crescendo, and you hear him sobbing and begging for death through the noise. Then, with a final shudder, his screams stop, and his body falls still. The flames continue to burn at his still body, the smoke rising towards the ceiling. You watch as this smoke suddenly begins to swirl and morph into shapes. No, not shapes, but faces. Faces that begin laughing and jeering at you, cackling, and giggling maniacally. None of these faces are well defined, but somehow you know that these spectral faces represent the souls of those you have brought to an early death. It’s at this point that you begin to panic. You begin to hyperventilate, your usual stoic nature replaced with a rising sense of uncontrollable terror. You pull and strain at your bonds, trying with all your strength to free yourself. You feel blood drip from your wrists and ankles as the chains cut deep into your flesh. You strain harder and harder until with a crack, one of your wrist’s snaps clean in two. You scream, but continue pulling. Anything is better than being tied here.  As you struggle, you watch completely helpless as the spectres above, each still grinning horribly, each draw a kunai-wit-chain, identical to yours. Suddenly, the nearest spectre dives down from the ceiling and whips their kunai chain deep into your abdomen. You barely have time to gasp before a second spectre whips their chain into your thigh. These attacks are immediately followed by a third, a fourth a fifth, each spectre striking into your body with perfect yet terrible precision. You realise that you are now screaming uncontrollably. Tears stream down your face as dozens of chains continue whipping at you relentlessly, now tearing literal chunks of flesh from your body. You watch as a spectre, larger than the others, swoops down slowly towards you, a larger blood-red kunai chain in hand. With a grotesque smile, this spectre raises its chain and smashes it into your face. Your vision darkens and, with a gasp, you sit bolt upright, now fully awake in your bed, in your cabin. On the Wildmane.*
	+ He immediately sought out Tamsin in the night and asked her what she knew of dream magics — she said that the magic to control dreams certainly exists but could not do it herself, and that it must've been cast by someone that knew him
	+ After a day of looking and feeling exhausted, the lizardman was able to recuperate without any further visions disturbing his rest, but his mind nonetheless troubled
* Week 5: Yet more whales! And this time, whalers from the powerful Iysgarthian whalers' guild out in force. Trimaeus expressed disgust at the industry, while Lynsandre informed everyone that these whalers were acting outside their official waters. Nonetheless, the decision was made to press on and ignore them, with nobody wanting to get on the bad side of the Iysgarthians before they’d even arrived.
* Upon arrival to Iysgarthian waters, the ship was temporarily detained by one of several massive imperial navy vessels, but they were quickly waved on after a little of Azurial’s sweet-talking and Trimaeus presenting the necessary paperwork

**Guardians of the Fish (Or Fishguardian Leviosa!)**

* Upon arrival to the coast, a series of sandbars guarded three shallow estuaries, punctuated by shipwrecks crawling with scavengers — Trimaeus flatly refused to sail any further and the cleaned rowboats were lowered
* They rowed into the central estuary and quickly came across the deeply modest harbour, no more than a series of rickety pontoons into the murky waters.
* They were quickly waved over by a gnarled, one-armed, but friendly-looking Dockmaster named Throden and his enthusiastic nephew, Denzel, who was busy fighting off imaginary pirates.
* The dock master expressed concern about the concept of travelling out in the swamp towards the mountain (the Carrion Cliff) and gave them details on the four or five people in Fishguard who would even remotely dare to do the same — the herbalist's son (Mervin), two fisherwomen (The "Ria Twins"), the old town ranger (Gunter) and the new one (Khiaxi; currently employed by the Chief)
* He also told them there’d been several (17) disappearances in the last month or so, all from the north of the town
* Inland, the air rapidly became extremely humid and insects buzzed over more oppressively as they entered Fishguard proper, taking in its haphazard and rustic construction in amongst the swamplands
* In the herbalist's shop, a variety of funky herbal remedies from the swamp were purchased, including an insect-repellant balm in great quantities. The herbalists son (Mervin) also expressed shock at their planned journey, explaining that he would never go more than a days travel into the swamps (everything has the potential to kill you, must things are actively trying).
* As they departed, next on the to-do list included: Speak to the chief about hiring the ranger, Visit the Sea Dog tavern and speak to the old ranger, explore the quirky (and fishy) Fishguard market as well as the scrap reclamation yard