Chapter 2: Discovery

This is the second arc of the Four Keeps campaign. This arc has five total episodes. Characters are level 2.

VOD: Discovery Part 1
Upload Date: Aug 22, 2018

Plot Summary:
In the Zesty Anchor, Gwen takes it upon herself to find companions for her friends for the night. Caelum declines. He is not interested. He's not ready. Cori declines. She's in autumn form. In her words, "wrong season." Blake declines. He is not interested.

Gwen has an impromptu drinking contest with a red dragonborn. STEN FIZZENO's messenger arrives and presents the catnap research to Cori. Gwen spends the evening with the messenger dwarf.

It is the night of the full moon. Caelum retreats to his room. He props up his shield on his lap, and reads to it out of a book. While he's reading, he falls into a trance. Caelum awakens on a plateau that is unfamiliar to him. He's standing outside large doors marked with the eyes and stars of Selune. He opens the doors with the keys; his trinkets; five old elf fingers and half a brick. He just barely takes a few steps in. Caelum notices that there are black feathers behind him. He exits the library.

Blake reveals some backstory:  He was raised by bloodhunters, who were mostly human and not kind to him. He had one friend, Ilne, a half-elf. Gwen volunteers "Do we have to kill them all?"

Next quest: Fish Men Must Pay!!!

The party ventures out of Shroudport to a small fishing village just a short walk away. It is a truly tiny village. The man who posted the job explains that he had been dealing with sea elves, who had capsized his fishing boat. Twice. He offers a total of 150gp, half now half later, to put a stop to it. Doing his would require that the party take a boat out on the water to the area where the fisherman’s boats went down, Echoshore Cave. The man's son, a half elf, offers to let them use his rowboat to access the caves where the sea elves were seen.

They set out for Echoshore Cave. On the journey, Cori changes seasons to Spring. Pink Cori!

VOD: Discovery Part 2
Upload Date: Aug 29, 2018

Plot Summary:
Into Echoshore Cave:  They discover lots of water, and a few lost crates containing moldy hay and four ceremonial daggers. They are visited by sea elves, who attempt to set their rowboat adrift. They attempt to communicate to the sea elves, who speak neither Elvish nor Sylvan but Aquan, which none of the party speak. The party pantomimes "take us to your leader," and fails insight checks when the sea elves beckon them into the water. The party enters the water. Neither Gwen nor Caelum know how to swim.

Combat! There are sharks! The Four Keeps do not like sharks. The party managed to slay two opponents, but one got away, and they could not give chase. In the aftermath: Cori perceived the sahuagin as a sea-elf, and from her perspective, being nearly murdered by a fellow elf shifts her towards Winter. She snaps out of it when Caelum heals her. They crawl out of the water and attempt to rest. Gwen and Caelum are on watch. As Caelum watches, he is taken by surprise as a harpoon goes through his chest, from the sahuagin who fled the fight.

More combat! The sahuagin brought friends. In the water, the shark takes Caelum down to 0HP. First unconsciousness of the campaign. RJ promptly rolls a Nat 1 on his death save. Cori dumps her 10HP of Lay on Hands, saving him.

After combat they decapitate their slain enemy. In its pockets they find a ceremonial dagger and an ornate yet tarnished silver chalice set with green and red gems around the rim.

The party attempts to rest. Caelum consumes some of the Stonedrop ale spiked with catnap and passes out. Meanwhile, Blake sulks- he feels he is weak, useless. He wants power. He is willing to make a deal with a patron to get it.

VOD: Discovery Part 3
Upload Date: Sept 6, 2018

Plot Summary:
While on watch, Blake asks Cori about Archfey- he is seeking a patron, one who can give him power. Cori shares what information she has. Meanwhile, Gwen manually sews the hole in Caelum's leathers shut, with suture thread and square knots.

While asleep, Caelum dreams. He finds himself on that plateau again, but this time, he falls through spacetime and emerges in a circle of acolytes in robes, reading books. He is invited to take his place among them. Just as he does, and opens a book, he is caught in a spray of raven feathers.

Upon arising, Gwen and Caelum try to cook bacon and fail, burning it. They eventually report back to the fisherman, and get paid 125gp of the promised 150gp, since one of the fish people got away.

(fast play back to Shroudport)

Meet Jingle! A kenku rogue, an old friend of Gwen's. Jingle's twin brother Jangle has been kidnapped by goons wearing paper mache masks. The party recognizes these as the same people who tried to rob the Zesty Anchor. They work for Curdle, the Big Cheese. A gnome mob boss.

The party enthusiastically undertakes to rescue Jangle. They descend into the sewers and navigate the maze to infiltrate Curdle's lair. They suck at stealth, and get caught, which escalates into violence. Combat!

Things start to go poorly for Curdle. He escapes Cori's grapple. Skavex Slaughterhouse arrives on the scene flanked by guards. Curdle turns invisible and flees.

VOD: Discovery Part 4
Upload Date: Sept 12, 2018

Plot Summary:
Skavex arrests the party and marches them through the streets of Shroudport. Mugwort catches sight of Caelum, the poor boy, in trouble with the law only a few days after setting out on his own.

Skavex leads them to the guard house. He asks them each to step into a zone of truth voluntarily and asks them a few questions. He asks where each of them are from, and what happened. Why do they leave behind a trail of corpses? He seems to take a special interest in Blake,  presumably because he is a dragonborn, but doesn't press further.

Skavex offers them a way to clear their debt to the city: take on a quest - they must investigate whatever is tunneling unauthorized in the sewers, and put a stop to it. They agree, since they don’t have much of a choice in the matter. But they are not happy about it. The job will begin the next morning.

For the moment, the party returns to the Zesty Anchor. They meet the night shift manager, a black tabaxi called Swift as the Ten Winds. He ends every sentence he says with "-nya." Swift was one of Fang’s original adventuring party, and spends time adventuring still. He just returned from a trip to the Isles of Ellestria, whence he acquired spices.

This is the shopping episode.

The party ventures into a small red tent with a levitating sign which reads Things that Make You Say Wow in neon. The “Wow” is flashing. This shop is bigger on the inside. Inside, they meet the proprietor, Orillo Threadtwister, whose entrance into the showroom is suitably dramatic- he emerges from a portal between two statues. Gwen asks about the frog. The frog is Orillo’s familiar, Sigmund. Gwen gives the proprietor 5gp if he can do something that makes her say, “wow.” He walks behind the desk as if he were walking down a flight of stairs, and is gone. The frog, Sigmund, croaks, and as it does, its mouth opens way too wide, and a hand comes out of it holding a potion. Obviously discomfited by the proprietor’s demeanor, the party makes their purchases quickly and exits. Caelum gets a wand of healing word. Blake gets healing potions

They then go to Blood, Bath, and Beyond, where Blake gets a heavy crossbow.

Later, Caelum identifies the blood chalice. This silver chalice: if the user fills the cup partway with their blood, they get a portent. Similar to a divination wizard's portent. When you finish a long rest, roll 1d20. You can replace any attack roll, ability check, or saving throw with this number Back at the Zesty Anchor, Blake has plushies! A werewolf and an owlbear, but no Tiamat. As they go to rest, Caelum asks Cori about trancing. Cori trances. Instead of a memory from a past life, she sees Caelum almost die from the merrow spear. Cori observes Caelum talking to his shield. This warps into a memory of Cypress. Caelum trances. He once again arrives on the plateau outside the Library of Selune. It's unlocked. There are ravens. This time he enters. Caelum finds a book teaching him how to swim.

Before dawn, as elves are early risers, Caelum talks to Cori about his trance. When they all wake, they eat breakfast together before their quest.

VOD: Discovery Part 5
Upload Date: Sept 19, 2018

Plot Summary:
The guard captain Skavex sends the party into the sewers to investigate. Skavex does not accompany them. They meet an NPC guard at the entrance to the sewers. Gwen shares her beer with them. The party descends into the sewers. The entrance is full of jagged edges of wood that look like a toothy maw. The environment looks too chaotic to have been built that way.

Cori pops off a divine sense- she gets a strong impression of fey. While exploring the sewers, they spot several clusters of what looks like bubbles or foam, and webs hanging around the area. Cori thinks she sees an ice-blue cape whoosh around a corner. She sprints after it, thinking it may be Cypress, but hesitates just enough to not lose sight of the party.

The party navigates its way through the maze of tunnels that have spontaneously appeared beneath the sewers. As they do, Caelum gets separated from the group. He hears a voice from his past that he recognizes and fears.

Blake, Gwen, and Cori continue through the maze, trying to find Caelum. Blake gets a sense of undead (from his bloodhunter traits). It is a shadow, that disappears when Cori smites it.

Caelum pokes around the webs and foamy stuff that bears an eerie resemblance to egg sacks.

Cori's holy symbol leads her to warm spots in her environment. She has a religious moment. By following the warm spots, she manages to get the party’s bearings in the maze.

Caelum finds the gnome Curdle, the Big Cheese within the foamy bubbles. He is being transformed into a meenlock.

Blake, Gwen, and Cori fight a meenlock. As the meenlock dies, the wooden tunnels collapse and rearrange themselves to become sewers once again, instead of a fey lair.

Cori grabs the head of the meenlock, as proof. They escape quickly, and and pushed by the wooden boards rearranging themselves. They return to the guard house. They show the decapitated head as proof of the meenlock's existence, and hand over Curdle, the Big Cheese.

Relevant NPCs

 * Amaris, the spirit that emerges from Caelum's shield on nights of the full moon.
 * Swift as the Ten Winds. Tabaxi rogue. Night manager at the Zesty Anchor
 * Silver Quill. When Caelum sleeps, he dreams of monks
 * Orillo Threadtwister. Proprietor of Things that Make You Say Wow.

Guests

 * Jingle. Kenku rogue. An old friend of Gwen's. Played by @veryrandombutterfly