In their search for the storm giant king Hekaton, the Albatross Company travels to Yartar and rejoins the gambling ship the Grand Dame where Kane meets an old friend. Together, the heroes find clues regarding the whereabouts of the king which lead them hundred of miles from the Sword Coast all the way to the Trackless Sea.
Player Characters: Adrik, Casaba, Gregory, Kane, Sister Mary, Tarancha
1.
For the second time since their adventure began, the heroes of the Albatross Company boarded the Grand Dame. Tarancha and Gregory joined the rowers in the lower deck. The rest of the party went to the gambling hall in the main deck. Adrik would perform once more as an entertainer. Sister Mary would serve as the resident doctor aboard the ship. And Kane would disguise himself as one of the wealthy guests.
In the gambling hall, Kane was surprised to meet an old friend. It was Casaba the goblin bard! The last time they had met was in the land of Barovia, but Kane had not seen his former companion since they had departed from that land through the mists.
Adrik was less pleased to see that a goblin had taken his place aboard the ship! Casaba was singing a song about the adventures that he and Kane along with their other companions had undertaken in a dark and distant land. Lord Khaspere and his guests were enthralled by his song and hardly paid any attention to Adrik. Not one to be so easily upstage, the halfling enjoyed the friendly competition and performed songs of his own.
As the evening drew on and the patrons enjoyed the music of the two bards, Sister Mary went around the ship and discreetly asked those aboard if any of them had experienced any headaches. She recalled that Lord Khaspere had suffered from strange migraines, and she had sensed a dark and terrible presence inside his mind. She was glad to know that none of the other patrons suffered from his condition.
Meanwhile, Gregory tried to inquire about the Kraken Society among the rowers in the lower deck. Adrik had told him of the dark rumors he heard regarding Lord Khaspere’s association with that strange and sinister group. But the crew were either unaware of such a connection or too afraid of its implications to even speak to Gregory.
2.
On the following evening, when the rowers had a brief rest and the guests enjoyed their dinner, the heroes gathered in an empty storage room to share what they had learned. As they discussed what to do next, Kane remembered Lord Khaspere Drylund’s peculiar tastes and appetites. He slipped into his most seductive attire, hoping to seduce the nobleman and gain some information from him while he was off guard. Kane disappeared into the upper deck to meet Lord Drylund. The two of them met in the Dance Hall where Kane would treat him to a private performance.
Meanwhile, Casaba used his magic to scry upon Lord Drylund’s chamber. The gaudy room was covered with purple velvet curtains and all manner of expensive but tacky decorations. The center of the room was occupied by a large table with an aquarium for Lord Khaspere’s pet octopus and a pile of blank parchment. Beneath the table, there was a small locked chest.
Gregory, Adrik and Sister Mary snuck into Lord Drylund’s chamber. After Adrik used his bardic magic to engulf the room in silence, Gregory broke open the locked chest with his warhammer. They found only a small key, used to open the miniature dead man’s chest in the aquarium where a small fortune in gold and gemstones was stored. To hide the evidence of their deeds, the dwarf and halfling threw the pieces of the broken chest over the side of the ship.
Meanwhile, Sister Mary found a parchment with a strange drawing that seemed to have been scrawled, either by a disturbed child or a man who was sleep walking during a feverish dream. It depicted a chimeric fusion of a gigantic squid and a seafaring vessel. While Sister Mary pondered this riddle, a hideous scream was heard from the dance hall that echoed through the entire ship.
3.
The heroes rushed to the dance hall and found Lord Drylund dead. His body was seated in a chair with chains binding his limbs.
“Kane! What were you doing in here?” the heroes demanded.
“Nothing, I swear! We were just talking!”
Kane explained that the nobleman had suddenly died while providing him with valuable information. He had posed Lord Drylund’s body to look like he had died of overexertion which delivered a fatal blow to his frail heart.
Sister Mary proceeded to examine Lord Drylund’s body. Through her keen insight and medical expertise, she determined that an outside force had sent a powerful psychic shockwave that had destroyed his mind.
Kane also told his companions what he had learned from the nobleman shortly before his death. The tiefling had convinced Lord Drylund that he was the only one who understood him, and had manipulated him into revealing more than he had intended.
Kane learned that the Kraken Society served a powerful being known as Slarkrethel and had captured the storm giant king Hekaton who was being held in a place called Morkoth. When Lord Drylund had mentioned those final details, that was when he bled from his nose and suffered a sudden seizure, causing him to fall dead on the spot.
The heroes compared Kane’s information with the drawing found in Lord Drylund’s chamber. They determined that the Morkoth must be some sort of seafaring vessel, and that King Hekaton must be on board.
4.
Having found the information they were seeking, the heroes reported Lord Drylund’s death to the captain of the ship, giving Kane’s false explanation for the tragic event. Captain Nelvin Storn, being well aware of the conservative nature of Yartar high society, did not want rumors of Lord Drylund’s untimely death under unusual circumstances to sully the reputations of the Grand Dame, her captain and her crew. He agreed to return to Yartar so that Lord Drylund’s death could be investigated as a death by natural causes, and to allow the Albatross Company to depart without further involvement in the situation.
The heroes contacted Vajra Blackstaff and told her all that they had learned. The Blackstaff commanded Tarancha to return with her companions to the Grey Hands in order to be debriefed, using the Harpers’ teleportation circle in Yartar to travel to Waterdeep in haste.
As the Grand Dame disembarked and Lord Drylund’s remains were delivered to his estate, nobody on the ship had noticed that Lord Drylund’s pet octopus was missing from its aquarium, nor did anyone wonder why the goblin bard Casaba was picking small bits of seafood from his teeth when there was no seafood on the menu.
5.
In the city of Waterdeep, the heroes met the Blackstaff in the office of the Grey Hands. Using the information provided by the Albatross Company, the Blackstaff had determined that the Morkoth was a scry-proof vessel that was plying the waters of the Trackless Sea. Tarancha and her companions would need a ship of their own in order to track down the Morkoth, now that they no longer had their airship.
Several weeks earlier, Tarancha had traveled to Bargewright Inn while guarding Shalvus Martholio, an agent of the Zhentarim. As a result, she had gained favor with the Black Network, and now she was would put it to good use.
Tarancha discreetly contacted the Black Network and acquired passage on a sailing ship called the Lost Cause. Its captain was a tiefling named Drashk who seemed more interested in striking a business deal with a storm giant king that saving the Sword Coast.
6.
The Lost Cause traveled for two weeks to the Trackless Sea. After five more days of circling the Purple Rocks in stormy weather, the heroes finally caught sight of the Morkoth. It was just as strange a vessel as they had imagined, for it was indeed shaped like a giant squid.
Casaba used his bardic arts to scry inside the hull of the Morkoth. There within the main deck, he saw a mighty storm giant king, bound by chains and frozen in stasis as if time had ceased. The king was guarded by robed figures wearing emblems that resembled a many tentacled sea monster – the mark of the Kraken Society.
The heroes had finally found King Hekaton! They could not lose him now. Swiftly, the Lost Cause sailed beside the Morkoth. Tarancha and the Zhentarim mercenaries prepared to cast lines so that the heroes could board the vessel.
Yet the Morkoth was not without defenses. The cultists of the Kraken Society that manned the ship turned their ballista toward the Lost Cause and opened fire, and a school of merrow that were swimming in secret alongside the Morkoth threw their harpoons at the Zhentarim crew. Several mercenaries were killed by the volley, but Tarancha remained unscathed. Having thrown and secured her grappling hook upon the Morkoth, she pulled with all her might until the two vessels were brought together.
Adrik used a new incantation that he had learned to transform himself into a mighty oceanic creature and dove into the water to confront the merrow. The rest of the Albatross Company boarded the Morkoth. A fierce battle ensued aboard the ship as the heroes fought their way into the main deck. There, they faced the captain of the Morkoth, a ferocious half orc, and the master of the ship, an insane archmage and servant of the Kraken Society who commanded powerful magic. But the heroes emerged victorious and the crew of the Morkoth and their merrow allies were all slain or put to flight.
7.
Having secured the Morkoth, the heroes broke the chains upon the storm giant king. King Hekaton rose up, but he appeared to be confused and enraged.
“What small folk treachery is this?” the king bellowed in a furious voice. “Who would dare to betray King Hekaton after promising to lead me to the slayers of my beloved queen? I shall crush them beneath my heels!”
King Hekaton began to gather up the broken chains to use them as weapons against his imagined opponents. Kane used his magic of persuasion to calm the king and convince him that the adventurers were not his foes.
“King Hekaton, we were sent by your daughter Serissa to save you. We are not your enemies!”
The king fell under the tiefling’s spell and was swayed by his words. He listened as the heroes told of all that they had gone through in their quest to find him, of his elder daughters’ betrayal, of Iymrith’s true identity and her plot to bring ruin to the giants and all the lands of the Sword Coast.
“Iymrith, my queen and I had trusted you… The blue dragon will pay dearly for her evil deeds!”
The heroes used a sending message to contact Queen Serissa and inform her of King Hekaton’s location. Since the Morkoth was scry-proof, Tarancha bade the heroes to return to the Lost Cause which could be more easily located by the storm giants of Maelstrom.
It was none too soon, for shortly after the Lost Cause disengaged and began to depart, great waves overtook the Morkoth as the immense tentacles of a kraken rose up from the water. Thus did the heroes gain a glimpse of the terrible kraken known as Slarkrethel. The magic that had veiled the Morkoth from unwanted eyes also allowed the mighty kraken to find it unerringly. As the Lost Cause sailed away, the arms of the kraken shattered the Morkoth and dragged the remains of the ill-fated vessel to the bottom of the Trackless Sea.
Adventure Name
Storm King’s Thunder
Chapter 11. The Grand Dame
Session #12
Rewards
4 Achievement Points
4 Treasure Points
10 Downtime Days
1 Renown
Level-Up Gold
Level gained: 2nd-4th – 75 gp
Level gained: 5th-10th – 150 gp