The heroes start the session at the fishing boat they’ve chartered. They agree with Paco that they will pay a total of 3,200 gp for the whole trip to Zoqoi. The heroes don’t have the money now but they plan to rob pirates and check job boards on the ports they plan to dock at.
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Paco informs them their next stop will be Skeldharbor where they will stop for two days to properly repair the ship damaged by the black dragon Xul’gath.
In the afternoon Nemo spots another moment where Augur, Pietro’s cat, hisses at the ship’s rail. Nemo inspects the area but finds nothing.
That night Jinu and Nemo talk. Jinu is worried about Nemo’s future now that he’s being chased by Asmodeus, the Lord of and the Nine Hells, and Graz’zt, the Abyss prince of pleasure. Jinu shares warns him that Asmodeus will try to get to him through words and contracts, and Graz’zt, through pleasure and temptation. Nemo is more worried about collateral damage to Jinu and the rest of the party.
Sometime during the next day the party comes across a small boat where a halfling appears to be fishing. When asked, he informs them that he’s actually waiting for a siren he’s in love with to come back to him. Ike first confuses the sires with the naked young women that were dancing at the beach close to the Wicked Whiskey Wharf, but his friends correct the mistake.
That night Ike hears again the demonic voice in his head. Ike asks the voice how to become complete and full again, and the voice tells him again to, essentially, eat Nemo’s heart once the voice gives Ike a special dagger. When Ike later tries to persuade Nemo that it’s a good idea to do that, Nemo tries to explain to his puppet friend that no, that it won’t work, and that replacing Ike’s heart with Little Sebastian (the party’s donikey)’s heart won’t work either.
That night when Nemo tries again to contact the soul inside of him via meditation exercises recommended by Jinu, the voice finally speaks back and reveals that she’s the sister of Tiamat, and that the ancient black dragon that the party believes has just been awaked, is called Ganaram. The entity doesn’t reveal why a demon lord or a devil lord are behind him or how she got into the book from which Nemo accidentally released her.
After a pit stop at a nearby forest to get supplies, the party arrives at Skeldharbor two days later.
While Paco and his crew get supplies and help to fix the ship’s damaged hull,the party goes to the inn to find a job to pay Paco. They hear rumors of a black dragon flying north, damaged fishing boats, a festival coming soon, someone trying to marry the daughter of a famous goliath, Krariak, who owns the brothel at the Wicked Whiskey Wharf, and an accident that recently happened to Lennie, a little boy that the town’s guardmaster adopted some time ago. There is a reward for helping with Lennie and for the fishing boats and the party decides to first go with the little boy’s job.
They meet Sister Helka at the temple of Valkur where the buffed up assassin nun is finishing a workout. She tells them that Lennie disappeared three days ago and was found a day after that in the forest, not talking and traumatized. When Nemo and Brand go see him, the boy screams at the paladin until he’s taken out. Then Nemo, via a series of yes and no questions where the boy answers with slight head movements, gathers that two people, one of them a paladin, did some sort of ritual in an abandoned chapel.
During early evening, the party heads to the abandoned chapel.
When they arrive to derelict but still beautiful white walled chapel dedicated to Valkur, they scout the area but find no one there. Very carefully, they pick locks and get Lyra, in black cat form, into the chapel. They find scorched paper, lots of dust and nature encroaching the building, and indications of a recent ritual with sigils that remind them of the pentagram that Gray, their paladin friend who abandoned them weeks ago, left the day he disappeared. There are also black stairs going down to a second floor, of stairs covered in magical darkness that seductively grabs at their hands and arms when they touch it. Nemo decides to go inside.
After he crosses the darkness, he gets teleported to a large cavern with a cliff behind him, and a large room carved into black stone starts. In the room, he sees an empty pedestal and an insectoid creature resting against it. And beyond them, he sees the beginning of a second room, obscured by a granite decorative stone with an inscription in it. A deep, rumbling sound of a large, mechanical nature seems to be coming through the floor.
The creature standing next to the pedestal notices Nemo and combat begins. Soto miraculously shows up first through the veil of darkness and attacks the hardy monster. The rest of the party follows and when it’s the monster’s turn, it releases a poisonous cloud of gas.
The next turn, Soto and Brand suffer massive damage with Brand falling unconscious. Nemo takes him out of the cloud and, the next turn, Soto manages to grapple the dangerous insect, move it to the cliff, and throw it there where a smashing an squishing sound seconds later tells them they don’t have to worry about it anymore.
The heroes move to the next room, where Nemo discovers a trap consisting of six pressure plates that would probably have burnt them alive judging by the 6 scorched corpses that someone has left hanging on the walls. The heroes skirt the trap and reach the stairs at the end.
The session ends as the heroes reach the second level of the dungeon where the mechanical noise is stronger.