We deliberate briefly over the dangers of Momen’s student, Aemmin Simserion, who took the Cubic Gate from these ruins, and Momen tells us that we should try to get ahead of whatever his plans are before he causes any more trouble or casualties. We head back into Cherry Mound and talk to a barkeep at the Lean Grape who points us in the direction of the west side of the docks, mentioning that there were a few people who still claimed to be feeling something even after the sense of being watched had dissipated. I pick up a bottle of the house red and we head off to the docks to ask around.
With a good description of Aemmin’s appearance from Momen, T/Rittlin ask their criminal contacts and then move on to chatting with the civilians. An old lady lets us know that she did see someone matching that description, and that he had a strange look in his eyes that gave her the heebie-jeebies. They apparently spoke for a while, and he mentioned that he was visiting from Wrenttague which is out on the west coast. He also said that he was a powerful mage who was collecting “phylactery” in order to gain more power. Phylactery can be used to contain the soul of the user, allowing a powerful wizard to essentially become immortal but at great cost, becoming an undead creature. He unfortunately didn’t say where he was going next.
We report back to the Viscount, confirming our success and telling him about the Elder Brain and its relation to the mind flayers. He rewards us for our troubles with some gold and items and we head back to Cedar Combe to regroup.
Plock flags Momen down and mentions that he received a letter. The letter and accompanying notes are from Nerwhora, which detail some of the magic and control crystals that Momen was curious about. The short and long notes had indeed been sent along in a letter from Giemrayt’s archmage (spider goop guy) long ago, and had been filed under “mad ravings”. Flipping through the newspaper, mention of an unusual storm destroying a merchant fleet catches my eye. Maknok pipes up that he thought it sounded eerily familiar too, and also confirms the theory that the cargo seems to be the target given that none of it turned up in Wapeboro Deep many years ago either. We decide to investigate the storm first given that Aemmin’s ritual will likely take at least a few months to accomplish.
After deciding that, we show Grustelin the Antimatter Rifle and let her examine it. She hazards a guess that the rifle is crafted from material from a different plane - Momen believes it to be from the plane of Limbo. Grustelin believes that unless we can get the necessary materials from the plane of Limbo, we won’t be able to extend the life of the rifle. However, she also thinks that it will simply collapse in on itself at the end of its life and return to the plane of Limbo.
We head off to Knightfare to investigate the storm, Maknok and Rittlin tagging along. Tittlin heads in to see the Viscount to inquire about Katya. Tittlin tells us that the Empress has gotten involved and that Katya is confirmed to be in Fossen, so she seems safe but has not yet been returned.
We prep The Wyvern and set sail for Galegulch, with my father as captain. Tittlin runs his mouth about the wyvern head and Caspar as a gorilla while Maknok inspects the boat and my handiwork. We encounter a lot of debris in the water as we pull up to Galegulch, but, as expected, see no sign of cargo. I observe the currents and navigate us in the direction of where I expect the debris came from, and on the way we encounter even more concentrated debris as well as some shipwreck survivors. They tell us about the surprise storm which supposedly came “from below”, straight out of the sea, and Maknok recalls something similar from our run-in with the storm many years ago. Some crates with foodstuffs are scattered around but nothing of value seems to be left. The halfling that we rescued pipes up and says that it was the “sea spawn” that stole the valuable cargo. They came up from the deep and supposedly took the cargo after the ship had been trashed. The half orc comments that he heard a repeated pinging noise just before the storm struck. 5 pings and then all hell let loose. One more crewmate pipes up, saying that he saw somebody messing with one of the ships in the middle of the night who then ran off. The working theory seems to be that a device of some sort may have been planted on one of the ships which either caused the storm or served as a signal for someone or something else to create the storm.
We decide to head to Wurmrise to investigate around the docks to see if we can learn more about whoever was messing with the boat, picking up a couple more survivors along the way and dropping them all of. Tittlin runs off to tend to some sort of errand while the rest of us head over to the Wild Spiders Bar to speak to some shipwreck survivors who have congregated there, bringing the folks we rescued along with us. The tavern erupts with celebration seeing that their pals are alive, and I introduce our group along with a brief background of mine and my father’s experience with our own storm. After some discussion amongst themselves, they figure out that one of the dockhands, Grad, was the one who ran off the boat. Supposedly he was working on it during the day, but it still seems suspicious that he ran off when found on the boat at night.