Marpenoth 2

(2.4.2024)

As Eldara dragged Casmos back to the inn, he was still tempted by the pull of the depths of the oceans.

The next morning, as Gigi, Mir and Lyra, who had shared one room, woke up they found Mir transformed. They changed color to green-purple, their gender to female-ish, their name to Caefaera and their whole mannerisms to.. flamboyant. She explained that the events of the past day had taken their toll on Mir, so he had gone to rest, and now Caefaera had taken over. As we learned over breakfast, apparently four personalities, connected to the four seasons, share this body and come out in turn. Mir’s last turn was fifty years! They share one memory and seem to be on good terms with each other. And: Mir reacted so strongly the day before to being abandoned by Casmos because they had been abandoned by their people in the Feywild before.

Eldara and Casmos had shared the other room and Eldara was watching over the sleeping Casmos, apparently feeling very protective. When Birdy woke up, the discussed it’s desire to follow the Moonmaiden into the sea. And eventually, Eldara was the first to apologize for releasing the Marrow.

As we finished our breakfast, the captain entered the inn and ushered us to the boat. Casmos became first mate and off we went! The island, roughly 1 kilometer across, was covered in grasslands and in the distance: A single dilapidated mansion. We came up with a (not very good) plan to hide Gigi in an empty barrel from the ship and pose as ale couriers from the village. At the house, we ran into two cultists that guarded the entrance and Lyra once again tried to charm them with another spell that failed. Luckily, we could gain entrance by our natural persuasiveness and soon found ourselves pretending to be aspiring cultists who really want to meet the leader and join this group. (Gigi gets out of the barrel, gets discovered and gets sold as “water gnome”. These cultists are not the sharpest tools in the shed).

Intro Korfel Astaroth – a broad, tall figure with a beard like tentacles. He explained his worldview that he was to assume control of all the oceans to rid them of pirates. We found out in our questioning, that pirates had taken his woman away at some point in the past, which made him become what he was now.

He was open to let us join the cult and invited us to stay for a ritual in the evening. Later we talked to one of his minions, who claimed he was shipwrecked by pirates and rescued by Korfel. However, he could not remember who his friends or family were, so something weird was going on here.

Lyra was eager to search the library of the house and found an interesting book “Elementary spells for Beginners – a Workbook” that she points out to Gigi who gets the hint immediately. With a little distraction of the minion, the book wandered in Gigi’s pocket.
Speaking of Gigi: She immediately had an aversion to swearing an oath to Korfel, claiming she was married before and does not want to make these kinds of promises anymore.

Anyways, we decided that our chaperone must go and while Lyra was feeding him Gigi’s cookies, Caefaera moved in to knock him out with her glaive.

(23.02.2024)

Korfel’s Island
A knock on the library door! We quickly threw the unconscious body of our watcher out the window (luckily we were on the first floor). Korfel wanted to talk to Casmos – alone. Casmos, however, took Eldara as protector with them. As it turned out Korfel knew about Casmos connection to the ocean, knew the Marrow that attacked us and wanted to have Casmos crown or recruit Casmos as special member of his cult. We learned that the ritual this evening would be to summon a kraken, but we were very unsure whether Korfel would be able to control it.

The rest of the group meanwhile explored the mansion. Next to the library there was a reading room that apparently used to belong to a wizard. Lyra found some parchment as well as traces that the wizard was called Isaac and of the transmutation school, working with or for Korfel.
Casmos, now back at the library, immediately had a Tarot reading to look for guidance:

Present	Obstacle	Possible Outcome
The Moon	The Devil Reversed	Strength Reversed

This three-card spread paints an ominous picture. The upcoming summoning seems shrouded in deception, possibly an attempt to break free from unseen bonds that could go awry. A lack of discipline or restraint may cause the ritual to veer into uncontrolled chaos and danger. Casmos advised great caution and preparing for the worst based on these portents. (Full reading here!)

We decided that Korfel must go before the ritual would take place and the island would be swarming with cultists. We took out the second guard and locked them in the outhouse, then searched the house and found two purple cultists’ robes in the shared bedroom of the two minions.

As we stepped out, we saw two ships anchored closeby and Korfel walking towards the place of the ritual. Time was of the essence! Casmos quickly casted “Waterbreathing” on us an we ran to intercept Korfel before he could reach his destination and possible unite with some allies. We walked a couple of steps alongside him, then Lyra cast Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, dropping him to the ground.
As we lay into the villain rolling on the ground (or rather – hacked up the ground around him), Casmos stole his bag with the ritual equipment and book, transformed into a Korfel-lookalike and took off.
Korfel got up again, and landed two thunderous attacks on Lyra, who went down, and down again. Luckily, Eldara was there to save her and Gigi spared her healing potion.
Finally, Caefaera put her glaive through his throat, killing him.
There we were, with Korfel’s body devoured by his own spell, an alive Korfel double standing closeby and in the distance, around 10 minutes out, we saw around 15 cultists approaching.

Quotes:
- Lyra (casting Tasha’s..): “Your followers at the house are in cahoots with the pirates! They both like booty!”
- Casmos looking into Korfels bag: “Kraken for dummies”, candles, stones… BBEG stands for Basic Bitch Evil Guy
- Korfel Casts “Frightened”. Casmos: Joke’s on you, I’m already frightened!”

The Ritual

The cultists were only a couple minutes away, so we quickly decided on a plan based on deception. With Casmos continuing to pretend to be Korfel, we met them on the field and saw that they had brought three braziers with water elementals just like the one we freed in the Beasanport temple.

Casmos/Korfel said he made an error and they had to go back to the temple where the Leylines converge. They also had to bring his “tea master”, aka Casmos.

While Casmos went back to the mansion to transform back and go to the cultists’ ships as himself, the rest of the group followed the cultists there and “entertained” them with a horrible song about the KRAKEN.

Casmos, bringing a paper with cryptic instructions – that he wrote himself – instructed the crews of the ships to release the water elementals wherevery the water was deepest on the way back, as a “lure” for the kraken. The cultists, not quite the physicists, tried to measure the depth of the ocean with a rope (without a sink weight). Not that it mattered. Lyra created some illusions of low rumbling to make it seem like the kraken was actually attracted by the bait.