Embedded Files
The Stranger Doubles
The team was recruited into service by Overseer Linde to investigate a missing party of foragers. The three foragers had left that morning to harvest planeshards from a nearby site of planar coral, but had not returned as expected. The party was to determine the fate of the foragers, and recover the valuable planeshards if possible.
The night before the mission, Charity took respite in her personal quarters, before heading to the armory car for a quick training session. There she was approached by one of the smiths, a mousy Dwarven woman named Estley. Having heard Charity was one of the clan members being sent to search for the foragers, Estley asked that the tiefling look out for her brother, Dunbar, who had been part of the foraging party. Charity kindly agreed to help.
Overseer Linde
Kona made his usual rounds prowling along the engine’s roofs, while Immeral spent time meditating on his increasingly distant connection to the forest, hoping to reconnect by magically recreating aspects of his natural home within his quarters. Both of them met up in the mess hall where Kona urged Immeral to break out his cache of “magical spices” to enliven their meal of raw fish.
Meanwhile, Dacien reflected alone in the garden car, only to be rudely interrupted by two ruffians looking to haze the clan newbie. Instead, the imposing adventurer cowed the two, before teaching them a lesson in dueling. The night ended with Dacien handing the bullies over to sanctuary security to cool off in the brig.
As morning broke, the team made their way toward the foraging site. Halfway there, the team encountered a wounded dwarf calling for help in a clearing. He identified himself as Dunbar, and explained that his party had been ambushed while at the foraging site. He had fled quickly and didn’t get a clear look at the monstrous attackers.
Immeral applied his medical knowledge to treat the dwarf’s wounds, noticing some oddities in the dwarf’s morphology. Dunbar suggested he return to Lanternwurm, but the party decided the safest thing would be to bring the dwarf along with them to keep an eye on him while they investigated the foraging site.
They soon arrived at the foraging site, a rocky area near a large lake with a few spires of crystalline coral sprouting out of the ground. Hidden in the underbrush by Immeral’s magic, they observed a group of strange, four-legged, spiny, reptilian creatures wandering the site, along with a human kneeling over the comatose forms of what appeared to be the three missing foragers. Strangely, the human appeared to be the exact double of one of the unconscious bodies.
Things took a horrific turn as the human suddenly transformed, his skin splitting apart and flesh reconfiguring into a blue-skinned, squid-like humanoid creature.
As the party decided what to do about the shapeshifter, they realized that Dunbar had managed to slip away from them unnoticed. Faced with problems on two fronts, they decided to recover the foragers and planeshards before chasing after the suspicious dwarf.
Charging out of hiding, the party engaged the creatures in battle. Charity, Dacien, and Kona traded melee blows with the shapeshifting brute and his minions, while Immeral summoned the power of the moon to burn them in a bright beam of light. The adventurers emerged victorious. Quickly, the party decided to split, with Kona and Immeral using their great speed to chase after Dunbar, and Charity and Dacien staying to check on the foragers and planeshards.
Dacien determined that the forager were indeed alive, but affected by some kind of toxin. Troublingly, one of the foragers was an exact double of Dunbar, signalling a fight for Kona and Immeral once they caught up with the escaped ‘Dunbar.’ Drawing on the strength of the Caliber, Dacien healed Dunbar and drew out the toxin. After conferring with the dwarf and recovering the nearby pack of planeshards that the team had mined, Charity and Dacien started making their way back to Lanternwurm, carrying the other two unconscious foragers with them. While the two had time together, Dacien made an uncharacteristic request of Charity. Having heard of her artistic ability, he asked the tiefling for a painting, recreated from an old portrait of a noble woman he carried with him.
Meanwhile, Kona and Immeral finally caught up with ‘Dunbar,’ who immediately revealed itself as another monstrous double. The two subdued the creature, with Immeral once again bringing down the wrath of the moonlight upon his enemies. They, too, made their way back to the sanctuary engine, carrying the corpse of the shapeshifter for Lanternwurm’s medical division to investigate.
Back home, Dunbar and Estley were happily reunited and thanked Charity with a gift of a magical shield. The party debriefed with Linde, sharing the details of the troubling encounter. The overseer expressed concern over the discovery of these stranger doubles. Intelligent, devious, and dangerous. What if there were more of them out there? Why did they want to infiltrate Lanternwurm?
Loot
Sentinel Shield. This is a circular shield, etched with clean, geometric patterns in the dwarven style. While holding this shield, you have advantage on initiative rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks.
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