(G592 26/04/2025 via Roll20 - JF(GM), KT, AP) YI43

(G592 26/04/2025 via Roll20 - JF(GM), KT, AP) YI43

[In a rare moment, everyone is currently on Yag Island. Fenrir and Reinward are vaguely on the search for treasure in the shallow seas to the east of our island.]


DAY 687(19th Hammer)(January) cont ...

They couldn't sit around drinking free booze all day. Well they could if they wanted to, but their was treasure to be had! Booty to be snatched!

With only a description of a destinctive rock formation they teleported onto Big Elbow Island. Big Elbow was far from big though, being no more than 300 yards long at its longest point and a mere 50 yards wide.

It was a rare above-water-level fragment of the sunken civilisation of Ammathtar. It was just ruins, so the lads were not overly concerned about the history of the place and soon found themselves at a stone doorway at the highest point of the island. There were some fishy looking charms and fetishes about the place as well, made from skulls, sharks teeth, amd shells, woven together with seaweed.
Mostly likely artifacts left there by the sahuagin that inhabitied this part of the shallow sea.

They checked out the rest of the island, but this did not take long. In the end they had their lunch and went back to the door they had found on their first pass.

The door was at the top of some steps. They lead down for some time and the air became cooler as they went below sea level.

Much of this dungeon was half flooded, water ran down the walls, sea moss grew on the floor and feintly glowing fungus lit the rooms. In the first large chamber they came to was a stone golem. It was cracked and moss-grown, leaking salty water, and parts of it were fused with coral and barnacles.

It lumbered to attack and Fenrir blasted at it. It appeared to be immune to magic though so it was left to Reinward to through carefully aimed daggers at its vital joints until all its salty waters had flown out and the golem collapsed.

The next room they came to contained three fonts, each of which contained a jem at the bottom of the water. They talked over the likelyhood of traps for a while, but despite a search none were found.

In the end Reinward shrugged and reached into the first and pulled out a pearl. The next contained an emerald and the next a saphire. Something was going on for sure as he felt waves of magic washing over him, but whatever it was he was resistant to it.

The lads continued into the dungeon. The next room the came to contained a bunch of salty dried out corpses with big long centipede tongues. They attacked and Reinward was paralyzed.

Fenrir stepped back down the corridor to line up a blast, but the wiley morgh (for such they were) slammed the door shut and locked it! Fenrir took a moment to react - he had not expected this - but then blew the door open with his Ring of Knock and went into the room. Reinward was nowhere to be seen! Fenrir blasted away a couple of morghs and entered a side room. He found Reinward - being eaten by a pack of hungry morghs!

Fenrir killed off the morghs and got Reinward back on his feet. He was bleeding from bites all over and was missing his right pointer finger. He was also very annoyed at Fenrir!

Fenrir helped to heal up his friend, but it would take more than standard healing spells to grow back his finger.

After some discussion they teleported back to Yag Island and had Veddic cast Regenerate on Reinward to get his finger to grow back.

After that Reinward stormed off and found somewhere sulk. Fenrir didn't see what all the fuss was about, but I have to say when I heard of this I was on Reinward's side. Fenrir made a mistake - a rookie mistake - and he should have owned it instead of trying to shrug it off. Reinward was getting used
to not being killed off on a regular basis and he had no red bands left on his wrist - his blessing from Ilmater. 


DAY 688(20th Hammer)(January) 

Still, the next day they had made up enough to teleport back into where they had left off in the dungeon.

They moved through rooms full of cloth hangings, banners and tapesteries and were attacked by cloakers and mimics, but these were easily dispatched.

Another chamber had become the lair of a chuul. To quote from one of my books of Monster Lore:

''
A horrible mix of crustacean, insect, and serpent, the chuul is an abomination that lurks submerged  or partially submerged, awaiting intelligent prey to devour. Although amphibious, chuuls are not good  swimmers and actually prefer to be on land or in very shallow water when they attack.  A chuul is about 8 feet long and weighs 650 pounds. 
''

Basically a big nippy bastard, but again the two heroes easily dealt with it. Reinward even cut off one of its claws to give to me later.

There were other corridors in the dungeon but they were all blocked off. The lads looked about and did a bit of digging and searching for secret tunnels but in the end accepted that they had squeezed all the treasure out of this place they were likely to get.

They returned to the island and talked to Jonathan.
'Bit disappointed in the amount of loot,' they said to the seagull. Jonathan was far from an expert on dungeons and loot. He shrugged. 'Sorry to hear that humans. Perhaps they know more places back in Meeflee?'

Back in Meeflee they did indeed know more. They whole shallow sea area east of the village (known locally as 'The Snare') was all that remained on the surface of an  ancient civilisation known as Ammathtar. The people of Meeflee knew of an entrance to the ruins, but the catch was that it was in a rift that was also in a trench settlement of sahuagin.

The lads went back to Yag Island and talked to Sparkledingle, then later went into town and looked up Egnol Galeborn, and elven wizard and historian that had made his home in the pirate port.
He invited them in and made a pot of tea. They asked about the Snare and he told them what he knew:

''
Long ago, about 600 years before the present day, a proud and secretive human civilization thrived on a fertile tropical island about 30 miles across, located near the southern  reaches of what is now the Shining Sea. This land was called Ammathtar ("Blessed Crown" in old Chondathan), and its people were known as the Ammathari.

The Ammathari were master artisans, shipwrights, and scholars, drawing influence from  the ancient Netherese survivors who had migrated south centuries before.  They excelled particularly in sea magic — protective wards, weather control, water-shaping, and the taming of ocean storms.

In 734 DR ("Year of the Splendid Stag"), a great catastrophe struck. According to fragmented records and legend, the Ammathari attempted a grand ritual  to bind the storms of the Shining Sea permanently, ensuring safe trade and prosperity. Instead, something went horribly wrong.
A terrible maelstrom erupted, swallowing the entire island chain. The land was torn  apart and sank beneath the waves within a single day and night. Some say it was Umberlee's wrath at their hubris; others claim abolethic influence or a rift to the Plane of Water was unleashed. Survivors were few — scattered into Calimshan, Tethyr, and among sea elf enclaves along the coast.

Today, divers, sahuagin, and merfolk occasionally find broken mosaics, statues, and enchanted  relics buried among coral reefs and shallow ruins. Stories tell of undead Ammathari guardians, twisted by despair, and terrible creatures drawn to the Pearl Spire’s ruins.
Pirates and smugglers avoid the area, calling it "The Snare" and claiming the dead still whisper from below.
''

Engol also mentioned in passing the Dweller of the Deep, but also another entity known as the Dark Dweller. Apparently there are two.

The lads had met the Dweller of the Deep before so went in search of Jonathan (their local knowledge expert seagull) to see if he could be located.


DAY 689(21st Hammer)(January)

The lads teleported back to Meeflee again to ask about the Dweller. Shansar, the most senior merfolk druid of the settlement talked to them.
'The Dweller does a lot of good in the region,' said the merfolk. 'He keeps us reasonably safe from the sahuagin and gives us scrap metal that we can turn into tools and things.'

His current location was unknown, but the lads helped themselves to a seat at the bar and ordered some ice-cold pina coladas.