Episode 20: The Inferno

The dangers continue to mount at the bottom of the sea as the team comes face to face with the creature that captured the Inferno Warden and rules the deep. Who - or what - is Yan Mo, and will the team be able to survive his arrival?

### **DM/GM Intro**

*It started as a simple dungeon run…*

*But it has gotten quite a bit more dangerous.  Our team didn’t realize what they had found when they first stumbled upon the Secret Keeper’s Amulet.  But in the weeks since they emerged from the abandoned dragon’s lair with it in hand, they’ve seen the chaos and power it brings to their lives.  The amulet is a magical relic that bridges the gap between realities and allows you, the watchers of the time stream, to influence the world of Ain with your forces of good and evil.*

*It also seems to be a key that unlocks secret memories hidden away in the minds of the Wardens, the towering giants who have stood watch over the realms of Ain for generations.  Lately, however, those Wardens have gone missing. An order of Wizards known as The Natural Order has been attempting to track down the location of each of the Wardens, with operatives dispatched across the world trying to piece together clues.  With their help, our team first found the Storm Warden, an electrical titan that was being used to power the mechanical creations of a mad scientist named Ertinfert. After the team freed the Storm Warden from his prison, they were able to use the amulet to live through the Warden’s memory.  They were transported into the bodies of five Heroes of the Aureate Age to witness how those heroes gave up their lives to be transformed into the Wardens, and how they used that power to emerge triumphant in the final battle of the War of Ideas.*

*Since witnessing that vision, our team has been on the trail of the other Wardens, trying to find as much information as they could from a time lost to history.  They visited the Nightstone Library in Terlis to consult one of the few books that survived from before the War, only to see it snatched away by a gang of thieves.*

*They learned that the resort Island of Bingle, Lily Dumblestuck’s childhood home, was connected to the location of a Warden.  Bodies were being taken from Bingle’s shores - the dead and living alike - and dragged under water. After the team liberated the island from its oppressors and made the world aware Bingle was safe again, they journeyed out to sea to find out who - or what - was holding the Warden captive.*

*With the help of a wizard of the Natural Order named Claudiette, they sank a ship, staying sheltered inside a pocket of magical air as it plummeted to the bottom of the ocean.  Using James’ Gift of the Depths, the team left Claudiette inside the broken husk of the ship and ventured out into the water to find.. this. The Inferno Warden, grappled and restrained by a terrible tentacled monster, while a small group of prisoners labored inside an enormous bubble situated on the sea floor - taking the harvested bodies and body parts, loading them into smaller bubbles, and feeding them into a cavern carved into the continental shelf.*

*Identifying the prisoners as Lily’s own mother and sisters, the team approached cautiously. First, they investigated the shipwreck beyond the back of the bubble, discovering an all too familiar looking trident, and a strange connection to the Dragonborn empire of the Shaxen Gao. Then they made contact with Margrit Dumblestuck, who warned them about the creatures subjugating her and the other slaves at the sea floor.  Horrible hybrid creatures that didn’t seem to belong at these uninhabitable depths. The team began to systematically take down the monsters, luring a vicious Sharkman to a quick and quiet demise, and attempting the same with a prowling sea chimera. But a failed stealth check belied their plans, and battle broke out.*

*Uggo attempted to trigger the still captive Inferno Warden’s memory with the amulet, to no avail.  Lily instructed her mother to stay safe and out of harm’s way. Fahima used her invisibility and the amulet’s power to disarm one of the sea creatures and pull it inside the air bubble. Siv, having nearly one-shotted two of the monsters by himself, remained hidden and ready to pounce behind bioluminescent kelp. And James felt the full brunt of the Warden’s predicament as a single tentacle slammed into him, knocking him unconscious and into the bubble, crashing to the ground.  As he pulled back from the brink of death, he turned and unleashed his Hunger of Hadar directly on top of the Cephalopod that sits, feeding on the Warden’s heat energy.*

*As we ended last week, the team, already battered and baffled by the challenge before them, saw a new enemy arrive on the scene.  A strange, blue-green Dragonborn warrior riding a colossal sea serpent emerged out of the briney darkness, as Margrit Dumblestuck, rushing to the aid of the team inside the bubble, pointed past them and exclaimed, “Yan Mo returns.”*