Episode 33

You guys finished your research on what you could find in the archives of Basalt about the sunken valley. From there you met Archmage Laurent in Mr. Press’ office where you were told that the second ship was found up the coast and they made sure it would never make landfall and that nothing aboard would either.

After that, the group went to the lyceum and teleported to the same humble town of Eswil. You got directions from a man selling fruit out of a makeshift stall. You made your way to "the Drunken Ape" and met with Mr. Flastin, your local contact with the Mobius Fleet.

During the meeting, Anthos uncovered that Mr. Flastin was in a disguise and *not* a middle age man but small, light-pink-skinned amphibious creature with alien-like frills coming from the back of his head. After questioning his motives you found that he disguised himself to appear more normal to clients and people in general.

After receiving instructions and a little bit of history of the lotus - called the immortal lotus because it does not die once it blooms and the petals regrow even when plucked or cut off. We were also told that the petals smell sweet, like candy, and would be tempting to eat, but they are poisonous. We were also told, several times, not to remove the plant from its stem or not only would the plant die and rot immediately, but the harvested petals would too.

Mr. Flastin agreed to provide a stagecoach after noticing the elephant in the room, and realizing horses wouldn't work here. K took the reins, doing an expert job of guiding the horses out of town and towards the mountains. Past the mountains would be the Sunken Valley. The trip was serene with a gentle ride down the road, until Seipora saw ahead that there were figures hiding in the tall grass.

The figures ambushed the group, revealing themselves to be armored and needling wielding cultists wearing face-plates with 3 pairs of eyes. K was immediately knocked unconscious and panic broke out as he fell off the coach. Lily jumped through the stagecoach window to K and dimension doored ahead with his unconscious body. Their attackers completely ignored the rest of the group, and ran towards Lily and K. Seipora followed, dimension dooring with Ripi to bring K back from unconsciousness. With the cultists closing in, Lily dragged K back into the stagecoach.

Two cultists jumped into the cart, which turned into a knife fight in a phonebooth as Lily, Hathi, K, and two cultists started fighting inside the coach. Vegzet managed to take control of K and almost escaped but Anthos managed to knock him unconscious, giving K another chance to take back control...with help from the appearance of a golden ankh.

The group managed to rally, even with Vegzet taking control and almost fleeing with K’s body, and killed all of the cultists. During the fight, several pieces of information were overheard, and we learned that the group was called the Conclave of Ebony Wings and they'd been sent to retrieve the Vessel.

The group decided to take the bodies with them and move as far as possible towards the mountains before making camp. Once there, we planned to have Hathi invoke Speak With the Dead, allowing us to question the dead cultists for more information. Also, a decision had to be made whether we planned to continue the lotus job, or abandon it and risk losing reputation as a group and the company, potentially ruining our relationship with Anskar Finnigund and his mobula fleet.

Once we finally started to set up camp, K and Anthos decided to get into it *again*, this time over Anthos killing the final cultist.