Moved by the heroism and nobility of Lord Quin and his august company including Baroness Fung Lee, Sir Budokai and others, the King of New Farrun asks them to consider removing a scourge which haunts his kingdom.
The King explains the Farrun is made of people who have settled on the shores of Menea after fleeing the cataclysm of their homeland. They have spent five generations traveling across the Seas of Certain Death and only making landfall on whatever islands and atolls they discovered.
A year ago, they discovered the mega continent of Erenth and began sailing the Inner Sea. Their first port of call was in a jungled area of Southrun. There the "Mariners from Old" encountered elves of surpassing cruelty and tribes of dark-skinned humans, with who they were forced to make war.
Moving on, they sought relief further up the coast and came to an area rich with wild fruits and much game. They determined to settle down near a lagoon of blackened water, which despite its appearance was good to drink and bathe in. One by one, however, Farruners began to go missing with no clue as to their fate. After repeated attempts to discover their fate, the nomads decide to move on again.
With a greatly reduced host, the "Mariners from Old" finally came to the shores of Menea and found them abandoned save for a freeholder who was determined to move on and who offered them title to all the lands they could see. Taking this to be a sign of their fate, they established New Farrun and began trading across the water with the Provinces, while sending emissaries to the established kingdoms round about, and to the court of the High King in Peakshadow.
Things went well, except that fishermen continued disappearing as they had near the Back Lagoon of Southrun. Since then, the Farruners considered moving farther inland many times, but their Curate has convinced them of the wisdom of settling and awaiting a hero to help them solve their quandary. Given the generosity of Quin Rhal and his demonstrated prowess with a blade, the King believes he is the hero to come.
The King only adds that the people seem to go missing in rain storms. In particularly violent storms they have found fishing huts smashed, bodies squeezed into jelly and raving madmen who remember nothing of the events they saw. The sole lucid witness after all these attacks is a 6 year old girl who drew a picture in the dirt of a bulbous, many tentacled thing.
King Echinom says he holds a particular magic item in a large shell which will allow anyone within twenty feet of it to breathe water as though it is air, and give them complete freedom of movement, as though they are on dry land. He will let the party use it to go into the deep, if necessary. Intrigued, Oghren negotiates the shell as payment for the slaying of the creature. The King quickly agrees.
Most of the rest of the party agrees to help, with the exception of Mourning Elk, Sabretooth, Patrick, and Beleg. Mourning Elk does not believe that the Farruners are all they claim to be and is leary of entering the deep, shell or no. He departs quietly for Heltorun to make contact with whatever Menean nobilty he may encouter and that still remain after the zombie scourge. Sabretooth, seized with the usual melancholy of his nature, continues his weeks long withdrawal into wine. Patrick has been missing for days, but is believed to be prosyletizing the populace according to the assurances of the town Holy Man. Beleg, incredulous that the party would even consider helping the King who just tried them (in his mind unjustly), sits with arms folded and brow furrowed. Mai advances the idea that the party merely ambush and subdue Quin and carry him away unconscious, so that the party is not captive to his lawful tendencies. Quin will return to a more manageable state once he is removed from these people's plights, she claims. No one takes her seriously.
A fortnight passes. The party waits for a storm or reports of the Beast from the Deep. Finally the sky darkens and lightning flashes in the distance. Quin, Oghren and Budokai assemble on the beach, some half mile from the town proper and waits. Mai remains on a grassy hill some safer distance away and watches her brave and foolish friends on the sand. Suddenly, Mai spots something black and bulbous 100 yards into the sea. Unprovoked, but certain it is the beast spoken of, she fires a lightning bolt and watches her friends charging headlong into the water after it. She waits a few minutes and then follows them, flying over the waves and not going into them.
The intrepid sub-mariners quickly find themselves stalked by a bulbous head with twenty foot tentacles. It fights each of them with five grasping and squeezing appendages, while holding a sixth aloft. The sixth is beset with rows of small eyes and horror compounds as these eyes have a strange charming effect on both Budokai and Oghren. Quin is unmoved by the sixth which confronts him, and manages to sever multiple tentacles in his usual fashion. He is unaware that his former friends have turned against him and are apparently now allied with the beast.
Oghren and Budokai attack Quin who realizes the truth in time to flee. Only his awesome strength saves him as he pulls the beast from the deep and is followed by his former friends. Meanwhile, Mai unleashes her magic on the beast which ends up withdrawing, but not before seeming to lock her in an invisible and impenetrable sphere of force. Too late, she realizes that the beast is no senseless killing machine, and may be her arcane match, spell for spell.
Quin drags himself upon the sand pursued but not beaten by his charmed companions. After a brief battle, he subdues both of them and has them tied securely. Mai joins him on the beach in the driving rain as they retreat to the town to do a little more investigating.
Once there, they decide to interview the raving madmen mentioned earlier and find out that there are three who are still alive: a prisoner locked in the town gaol, a butcher who keeps strange hours, and a fisherman that few have seen or heard from since his boat was destroyed many weeks ago. The prisoner proves useless as he only vows to "feed his friend", the butcher they determine is carrying pigs into the deep by night, and they do not manage to make contact with the fisherman. However they do come to suspect the town curate as a person of some evil after he makes a gift of some nightshade to them for its "curative" properties.
The night promises to pass uneasily as the party ponders its fate.
*edited to change Samantha to Patrick 2/18
*edited to change Sabertooth to Sabretooth 2/27
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