4760 Abadius 11th Illmarsh, Ustalav (Eric armor day 92/100)

The pcs spot an old man trying, and failing, to sail a large boat on his own. Gregor decides to intervene to prevent the ship from ramming the wharf. Gregor teleported to the old man's ship and muscled the sail around. The ship crashed into the sand instead of the wharf. Gregor, and quickly thereafter the other pcs, were soon introduced to the inventor Horace Croon. Horace seemed a little confused but he showed the pcs his experiment submersible and admitted that he was a member of the Pathfinder society.

Horace Croon invited the pcs to his house for lunch. On the way the pcs met a madwoman by the name of Serena (for the 2nd time). The pcs decide to head to the local temple of Gozreh, The Recondite Order of the Indomitable Sea, to have Serena's madness cured. At the small temple of Gozreh, known as Hall of the Recondite Order of the Indomitable Sea, the pcs are told to go away. However Erick will not take no for an answer and he bangs the door until the priests let him in with Serena. The rest of the pcs continue on to Horace's for lunch.

 

The under priests slowly guide Erick deep into the temple. When the priests open the last door they attack. Behind the last door is a chuul from the Dark Tapestry.

 

Before Erick can be pushed into the last room, he dropped Serena and ran. The chuul was bound to the room and could neither escape nor reach out of the room, sadly for Serena in panic she kicked at the creature allowing her leg to be grabbed. Erick was still prevented from escaping the temple and surrounded by nine under priests. A long battle ensued wherein Erick hacked at the priests when he wasn't paralyzed by hold person spells.

 

 Fortunately for Eric, his heavy armor was able to prevent most serious damage from the priests' ceremonial daggers. Just as the battle was winding down, in Erick's favor, the pcs appeared and ganged up on the few surviving priests. Then one of the vicar priests awoke and joined the battle. The combined might of the pcs quickly overwhelm the priests. After killing the last priest the pcs begin searching the temple for treasure.

 



As the pcs loot the temple the screams of pain and sounds of combat attracts the attention of the villagers of Illmarsh. Neighboring villagers send their children to summon those farther away and eventually a small mob forms. Then Gregor looked out the window and while he couldn't see the mob he could hear it. The pcs ducked into the hidden back room and after a brief discussion Rigby decided that he would use an illusion to pretend to be a priest. However even with the illusion he was about a foot too short. Furthermore their were other priests' corpses nearby including the corpse of the priest he was disguised as. Rigby slammed the broken door and sprinted for the secret room. Once Rigby was inside the pcs simply remained silent. The villagers piled into the temple but could not discern where the Rigby-priest went.

The villagers mistakenly take think that the priests were slain by a doppelganger. After some time the villagers figured out the outside of the temple was bigger than the inside but were unable to locate the secret room much less the way in. The pcs created a false earthquake and the villagers gave up their search and ran away in fear. The villagers did pull out the dead priests with a grappling hook but then left leaving only two men on guard, one per entrance. The pcs wait a few hours during which they debate Glade's idea of using the water breathing spell to swim up the underground tunnel. At first they decide to give Glade's idea a try but then after checking the water temperature they decide against it. Instead Glade and Rigby sneak outside and trick the guards into helping them by taking them to Mayor Early Greedle. This both gets them out of them out the temple and gave them additional information about the goings on in Illmarsh. Eventually the pcs head back to Horace Croon's house and rest for the night.