L&T Session Four

Through a thick mist our adventurers sail, vision limited to a few scant feet. Vara mysteriously disappears overboard, vanishing into the fog, and the rest of the party chalk it up as some suspicious witchcraft. Then something hits the front of their ship, or rather, their ship hits something. Peering over the edge, Gremond spots a man in a longboat glaring up at him, one of his oars lost in the water when the ship hit him. He is soon aboard, and reveals himself as a rune priest of the north. He carries a spear and a shield and has several curious runes at his belt.

Sturloch orders the anchor dropped while this mist holds. Edward and Sturloch interrogate this new man, Caldwell, who claims to have simply followed his runes to this place in search of four adventurers. He wonders where the fourth (Vara) has gone.

Meanwhile, Gremond lifts the anchor and the ship rockets forth in the windless mist. Edward dives for the helm, but too late. The ship crashes into the shore, snapping the prow in half. It begins to sink and Sturloch does his best to kill Gremond for his stupidity! He becomes even more hateful and the action has started him down a darker path.

The party makes it to shore (save for Vara), where a hail of snake-headed arrows flies from the mist. Sadly, one of the snakes takes Gremond in the throat, and its poison courses through his body in a matter of seconds. "Don't... forget..." He whispers, then falls to the ground -- dead.

Snake-men appear out of the mist and assault the party with bows and poison snake arrows. After a pitched skirmish, the serpents retreat into the city. Caldwell calls upon his runes to heal Edward's wounds. Merians, a race of aquatic humanoids with the lower body of a fish,  appear and beckon the party to the inner city. With them is a dwarf with a budding beard and an enormous pickaxe, who dives fearlessly at the serpent-men.

Caldwell discovers one of the merians to be a serpent-man, shapeshifted! The snake-man is cut down by the merians and they vanish into the streets. The party wanders along the main avenue. They are approached by a skittish girl who asks them to carry some precious pearls for her. Edward and the dwarf are unable to refuse, falling under the spell of their beauty. They take the pearls and the party continues on.

At length they come to a large plaza, in its center, a statue of a merian wielding a trident, its tail broken clean off. Chained to the statue is a ragged looking merian, his energy nearly drained. He warns the party of a Tzeejg sorcerer, and a snake-man with robe, cloak and scepter appears out of the mist. But the adventurers give him a deep wound and he flees into the huge basilica at the northern end of the plaza. They get the chained merian down, who speaks of the Serpent Queen and her reign over the city of Leviatha. The basilica looms before them, and the Tzeejg sorcerer lies within.