Driftmount

The Party: Kona, Dacien, Gash, Mordai

It had been a week since the first encounter with the shapeshifting creatures. During this downtime, the party caught up with a few activities aboard Lanternwurm.

Dacien received his painting from Charity, a fine reproduction of his portrait of a mysterious woman, which he displayed in his room in respect. He also advised Linde on safety precautions under the threat of the shapeshifters, and worked with the quartermaster, Khonshu, to develop plans that might allow him to drive his pistol with planeshards rather than with his limited supply of ember.

Kona returned to his watch duties aboard the rooftops, somehow feeling safer out in the open air away from the world of planar technology and alien creatures.

Mordai decided to extend his influence aboard the train by making his services known to a low-level gangboss named Gruwald who led a group of thugs known aboard the train as The Thorns. Gruwald was eager to see how they might help each other.

Gash pummelled his fellow travellers in the unsanctioned fighting matches held late at night in the training car. He proved out his reputation, winning all of his bouts and coming away with 200gp in winnings.

However, Driftmount was also a severely insular community, mistrustful of strangers. The party would have to be delicate in how to approach them. Hence, Linde recruited Mordai onto the mission for his persuasive abilities, and Gash because, well, they seemed like a package deal.

Linde decided they would go without her, claiming that her presence would only complicate things. Kona sensed strained personal feelings about Driftmount on Linde’s part, but didn’t push on it, reflecting on his own complicated relationship with home. Linde provided the group with a token that should at least get their foot in the door, a wooden mask that resembled an elven face with a half-moon engraved on the forehead, as well as a sending stone if they needed to communicate with her during the mission.

The party agreed and were given two leads. First, Leila’s home might hold some clues to her disappearance. Second, Marshe suspected an elf named Hawkin might have connections to the splinter faction of elves. Hawkin had recently been troubled by his wife’s death at the hands of outsiders and Marshe worried he might be a sympathetic recruitment target.

The party split up. Mordai and Gash headed to the Training Glade, where Hawkin served as a trainer for younger elves. They arrived during a training session of elves practicing judo-like maneuvers against each other. After unsuccessfully opening conversation with a standoffish Hawkin, Mordai suggested a little sparring match between Gash and Hawkin’s best trainee.

Meanwhile, Kona and Dacien sought out Leila’s home in the Market Glade. On the way, Dacien took note of an elven craftsmen repairing a planar crystal mechanism with materials that might help with his own project. Kona observed some odd-looking pigs among the livestock, with slick, inky black skin. Vendors offered bites of the odd pig meat, which Kona turned down, wary of the elves’ close connection with planar creatures.

Leila’s house was locked shut, but the pair found a window in the back that seemed to have been broken into. Kona artfully dove in through the opening to investigate, but found the house empty. Dacien noted tracks around the house that seemed to indicate that the beastmaster had kept a large hooved animal, but it was now missing. The two searched the house and noticed that the larder was well-stocked; it didn’t seem like the beastmaster had expected to be gone. Further searching revealed signs of a struggle. The beastmaster had been abducted.

The party met back up to share notes and confer with Marshe before deciding to seek out the cave hideout. The Overseer hoped to avoid loss of life, but understood that this splinter faction was stirring up trouble that might threaten the whole community. He recognized the party would have to do what they must to stop them.

A couple of hours later, the party arrived at a cave opening guarded by a few elves. Unphased, Gash and Dacien charged ahead to challenge the guards, while Kona and Mordai took a stealthier approach. Gash quickly knocked one out with his maul, while a second was incapacitated by shots from Dacien’s pistol and Mordai’s crossbow.

Panicked, the final guard called out to the cave and teleported away. In response, a black great boar wrapped in writhing, black tendrils of inky fluid emerged from the entrance, a monstrous cousin to the smaller planar pigs that Kona had seen earlier. Undeterred, Gash charged and struck a blow, but the strange boar teleported in a similar fashion to the elves, suddenly reappearing outside the cave, and gored Dacien in a brutal charge. The whole party turned their weapons to the boar, but it was Mordai’s crossbow shot, enhanced by the tearing of his psychic blades, that finally took the boar down.

Meanwhile, Dacien and Gash remained watching the situation at the portal. Dacien snuck in for a closer look, but Gash, getting impatient, decided to charge the elves. Once again, the half-orc beat down his foes. Kona and Mordai returned to aid him. Dacien, however, felt his dark memories of the Shadowfell urging him towards the portal. Unable to resist, he dove through.

As the orb began to twist and buckle, Dacien put his final effort into a powerful strike, braiding together power from both his faith and his tortured memories of the Shadowfell, and dispersed the creature in an explosion of black droplets that sank back into the earth. A shiny black pearl lay where the entity fell, which Dacien picked up for later study.

Leila, regaining her senses, advised that they leave this alternate plane before more dangers emerged. As they returned through the portal, she explained that the rebel elves had forced her into the portal because they thought she could capture the black orb for them. They had underestimated its danger. Leila proposed they go back to Marshe and let him send a group to deal with the portal and any rebel elves that survived.

Back in Driftmount, the party debriefed with Marshe who was thankful to the party for saving Leila. As promised, the beastmaster took some time to examine the remains of the shapeshifting creature that they had brought with them.

Driftmount had indeed observed these creatures, which they referred to as Strangers. Like Lanternwurm had discovered, they had innate shapeshifting abilities and also seemed to be aquatic in nature. Reports from Driftmount scouts seem to indicate that the Strangers were seeking out sanctuary engines as a means to travel back to the sister plane. They abducted people and subdued them with some kind of toxin so that they could take an imprint of their victim’s recent memories. Best as they could tell, the Strangers seemed to be based somewhere around Ghostwind Cove, a bleak, misty region that used to hold a human fishing settlement.

Leila and Marshe noted that Lanternwurm could do what they will with the knowledge, but Driftmount had already lost people in scouting the Strangers, and would be pulling back to shore up their own defenses. Nonetheless, Marshe showed new respect for the party and made an offering of precious gems in thanks.

As Mordai used the sending stone to report back to Linde for pickup, Marshe recounted the argument that led to Linde leaving Driftmount. She had disagreed with her father’s isolationist stance and left to use her abilities to offer sanctuary to any who needed it. And while he didn’t seem quite ready to reconnect with his estranged daughter yet, some words from Dacien prompted him to reflect on whether they had stood apart long enough.