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An imposing human, clad head to toe in red and leaning against a wicked-looking scythe, enters the room just moments before the meeting is scheduled to start. He takes a seat and says gruffly to those near him, "They call me the Red Reverend," before turning to face the venture-captain. He listens impatiently to the mission, his face falling as he realizes he is likely going to have to babysit again before it's all over.
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A slender, less imposing human in somewhat neglected wizard's robes enters behind the priest. He's holding a book in one hand and reading as he walks, so it's no surprise that he walks into the doorframe on the way in. "Oh! Pardon m--no, not a person. Whew!" He returns to the book, then stops and looks up. "Oh! Mission briefing! Yes! Salvio Perovsky, present!"
The Red Reverend is given a location where there is a planar gate to the plane of water. He is told that his passage through the gate and to the city of Vialesk is being provided for by a Pathfinder agent named Zahra who wants a team to investigate suspected sabotage.
Each of the rest of you also get a message or a short briefing saying much the same thing. You first meet each other for this mission on the plane of water.
When you get to the other side of the planar gate, you are greeted by a gillman coachman who shows you the way to the carriage. This carriage is drawn by a giant turtle and has a bubble of magically replenishing air encases the carriage, allowing your group to survive the journey through the boundless sea.
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"The Plane of Water? How exciting!" Hoisting his pack, Goldur stretches his old dwarven bones and gets moving.
"I suppose we'll be traveling together for a while, eh?" he says to the others. Goldur's hair and beard are more grey than blond these days, and while his stout figure indicates great strength in his youth, those days are long past him. "Goldur Twinthunders, at your service."
True to his name, he carries a pair of dwarven hammers at his belt but is otherwise only lightly armed and armored.
The carriage ride is uneventful. You had plenty of time to exchange greetings along the way.
A broad coral structure dozens of stories tall emerges from the boundless sea. A steady stream of submersibles dock and depart, while dockworkers unload goods and carry them to carefully protected glass tunnels. Water mephits swim and flit about, surveying the new arrivals. The turtle-drawn carriage swims up to one of the tunnels. As the carriage's bubble of air meets the tunnel's mouth, fresh air flows into the carriage, carrying with it the smell of fish.
Within the glass passage, an elf with teal hair, webbed fingers, and gills stares out at the sea. As the turtles come to a stop, she raises her pale blue hands in an unfamiliar greeting. A golden wayfinder is secured tightly to her wrist, and a pair of long coral daggers is strapped to her back.
“So, she actually did it,” the elf comments, tilting her head and giving a small smirk. “I had heard Zahra was threatening to summon agents to investigate what happened, but I thought it might merely be bluster to save face. Still, whatever cause has brought you here, you are welcome in our city.”
“I am Lileone Blacktide, and I wish you luck, but I warn you that there is no culprit for you to find beyond Zahra herself.”
You haven’t even been told what you are to investigate and already someone is saying there is nothing to investigate? So much for a straightforward mission.
“A week ago, Zahra set out on an expedition towards a sea of jellyfish known as the Lambent Bloom. She believed she had made an incredible discovery: the remnants of one of the lost elemental lord Lysianassa's servants, which might still hold a fragment of Lysianassa's power. I was skeptical of her claims, but I joined her. If there was any chance she was correct, I thought it was worth investigating.”
With a pained expression, she says “I should have thought better of it.”
“Not two days into our journey, Zahra steered our caravan too close to a patch of the Carmine Scourge, a poisonous red algae that drifts through the plane on the tides. They say it blooms in places where the elemental lord Kelizandri has passed, and it certainly shares his hunger. It sprung upon our caravan as if drawn by a magnet, sending everything into chaos and killing most of our precious whale sharks. Several members of our expedition are still violently ill, and I only survived myself because I was scouting when the incident occurred. Worse yet, though we managed to escape, the algae clung to us as we fled back to Vialesk. It broke off and settled among the coral reefs, and now the reefs have begun to die.”
Shaking her head, she continues.
“Zahra has managed to convince herself some great conspiracy is to blame, rather than her poor navigation decisions and her inability to listen to anyone else. I have no doubt she truly believes she's innocent; she has always been stubborn and arrogant, and it has always led her into trouble. The Society may have overlooked her errors in the past due to her superb mind and her talent for damage control, but this time, I will not allow them to slide. I warned her that the waters ahead didn't seem right to me, but she couldn't be troubled to listen. She has no excuse for the damage she has done and I will see to it that she is held accountable for her negligence.”
Looking directly at Salvio, she challenges him. “I look forward to your attempts to prove me wrong.”
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Goldur listens calmly while Lileone explains their current situation. "I have found," he says warmly, "that if a situation can be explained by someone's carelessness... it probably was. Still, I hope you don't mind if we, erm, rule out some alternatives."
"Lovely to meet you, by the way, my lass. Lileone, was it? Please call me Goldur, since... well, that's me!"
Lileone Nods her agreement with the statement about carelessness.
She gives a small nod of the head and replies “Nice to meet you as well, Goldur. I do wish you well on your investigation, but fear it is a fool’s errand.”
She thinks a moment, then passes three potions of water breathing to distribute amongst the group. “It is likely at some point you will need to go someplace without air while in the city. Here, take these to help you.”
With a gesture towards her own wayfinder she acknowledges “Pathfinders don’t have to agree with each other, but we do need to cooperate!”
Looking towards Galandir, she says “You should talk to Zahra. She has been looking into that already.”
She gives the group directions to Zahra’s abode. Fortunately it is in the part of the city with air.
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Salvio's gaze briefly intensifies as he focuses on the problem at hand. "From an organizational perspective, even if this is a failure on her part the latent condition that potentiated the error was that her superiors in the Society didn't recognize her weaknesses and either compensate for them or not give her assignments where those weaknesses would have a significant chance of leading to adverse outcomes. The Powers know I don't get sent out without a minder. How were you planning to address that?"
“Seems it is solved. Those higher ups have assigned you to determine what happened. Since you are strangers, you can request my help, but by your own logic it isn’t my issue to solve.”
“I was a scout for the disastrous mission. Heard some outsiders were coming in to investigate and wanted a look at you.”
Having satisfied her curiosity for now, Lileone bids you goodbye and leaves.
As you would expect from a scout, her directions were accurate. You have no trouble finding Zahra’s house within the air-district of Vialesk.
Meeting Zahra, it is obvious that the recent events have upset her greatly as she has difficulty keeping her thoughts organized and keeping signs of anger off her face. She wishes you to investigate the failure of her last expedition.
All the on-site evidence has been lost to the tides and the algae, but she firmly believes the disaster was due to foul play. Zahra is trying to track down the expedition members who have left the city and is searching for any external forces that could have attacked the caravan.
She gives your group a list of the survivors that remain in Vialesk, and she urges you to investigate the people on that list.
She highly recommends you be subtle, in case there was a saboteur among the previous adventurers.
Although she does not believe that she is directly responsible for the damage to the reefs, she still wishes to do whatever she can to stop it. She explains, “Many of the expedition suppliers and survivors are associated with larger organizations, and such resources could be pooled together to save the reef. I will warn you not to employ any expedition traitors in this task.”
It is clear she also hopes you can recruit this help as you investigate what happened.
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The human rapidly reads Zahra's list and considers. "I, I suppose we'd better investigate. The whale sharks and the submersibles seem like the places to start. Goldur and--" He gives the Red Reverend a quizzical look. "Who calls you that, and what would you like us to call you? Starting with 'the' seems a little impersonal. Wait, that's probably not important. Anyway, you seem like you'll be good at talking our way into places, and I'm pretty good at figuring things out once we get there. Except for healing. I haven't studied much medicine."
Nodding, Zahra says “Exactly!” when Galandir mentions the Carmine Scourge. She seems pleased that the group is taking this seriously.
Zahra thinks for a moment, then says “I guess the most obvious would be anyone opposed to Lysianassa. You know Lysianassa? She is one of the lost elemental lords. I organized the expedition to pursue rumors of the shell from a giant nautilus called Riam the Unyielding, which was claimed to be a holy site until a few centuries back.”
“There would also be all the usual suspects since I am a Pathfinder. Aspis Consortium, Torch, Thurl, a few others that the society has angered. None of those seem likely to me, but I would have never anticipated Thurl’s betrayal in the first place.”
“I admit, motive is something I have been puzzled by myself.”
Salvio isn’t familiar with this exact type of algae but knows that there are algae that react to iron, magnetic forces, changes in temperature, and other such external conditions. Given what he knows, he has no reason to doubt what he has been told about this particular algae.
Given the time that has passed, he also sees little hope of any evidence remaining at the site. Although there is no moon, he knows that there are tides and streams within the plane of water and stagnant water is rare and often hazardous.
He knows that sharks are used by multiple aquatic races. The main thing such handlers have to deal with is when there is blood in the water.
Corals are a major source of resources for the aquatic races and although the ones on the plane of water are slightly different, they would still be important to the ecosystem of an area. Salvio has sat through at least one lecture where someone expounded about the differences, but none of them were important enough to stick in his head.
“What I have pieced together is that Lysianassa gifted her breath to a servant, a giant nautilus called Riam the Unyielding, who was sent to govern the seas in her absence. But Riam was lost, blast it all, due to Kelizandri's witless brine dragons—when they mortally wounded Riam, it dove into the Lambent Bloom and it could not be retrieved.”
She then curses Kelizandri and their brine dragons.
Salvio recognizes Kelizandri as the name of the evil elemental lord who helped imprison Lysianassa.
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"Servants of Kelizandri could be behind this, then. To prevent us from finding the shell of Riam.
Some brine dragons were servants of Kelizandri, but not necessarily all, right? I ask because you mentioned a brine dragon named Razethka the Scarred. You trusted Razethka enough to provide supplies to the caravan. I'm hoping your trust was warranted. I don't relish the idea of facing a dragon."
Smiling, she says “Dragons are as individualistic as elves, humans, or many of the other races. As I wrote in those papers” as she gestures to the notes she gave the group “I don’t know of any motive for Razethka to sabotage the expedition.”
Zahra provides you with directions to Honoke's home, Razethka's pool, Tsomo's offices, and Yuka's workshop.
It takes you about an hour to reach Honoke’s home. When you arrive, you find Honoke swimming in a submerged enclosure, dragging whale sharks through the water. Neither the elderly ocean giant nor the sharks look to be in good health.
The giant barely even gives a grunt acknowledging your presence. His focus is obviously on the sharks he is maneuvering.
It looks to Goldur as if the sharks are too weak to swim fast enough to pass water through their gills. The giant is making sure they keep moving enough to be able to breathe. They would suffocate without his constant effort.
Konoke looks tired and his skin is discolored in some areas. It looks like he was exposed to something.
While many of you are still discussing the best way to heal the sharks, Galadir grabs some herbs that he had once heard helped fish and uses them on the sharks. It energizes them enough that they start swimming on their own, to Honoke’s relief.
Calmed down now that he believes his sharks will survive without his constant attention, he is willing to tell you what he observed.
He remembers hearing a rhythmic clanging in the distance, half an hour before the caravan encountered the algae bloom. He also felt the tide change direction towards the caravan soon after the sound. He has no explanation for either of these events,
Xaun notices a pattern of notches down one of the whale shark's fins.