Day 32-33: The Temple of Geryon

The party docks at North Porttown. The harbor guard allows them to sleep in their boat until morning. Upon awakening, the party meets a group of five adventurers preparing to sail their ship, the Dauntless, to Bload on behalf of the High King of Tar-Eng, to slay a vampire lord. They do not hold the Adventurer's Guild of Guffin in high esteem, but one of them mentions seeing a halfling matching Drimmo's description coming out of the Mermaid's Tail inn earlier.

But as it turns out, the part has no need to go searching for Drimmo, he comes to the marina and finds them. He explains their purpose: a tiny island thirty miles from North Porttown used to be home to a temple of Poseidon, but it has been long abandoned, and a band of devil-worshippers have claimed it for their own dark purposes, funding their cult activities through piracy. The Guild has a policy of stamping out devil-worship as a community service, so the party is to sail to the island, wipe out the cult, and destroy the idol of Geryon, the archdevil believed to be venerated there. Drimmo wants to leave immediately, but Taniya insists on renting a room at the nearby Squid & Quadrant inn for a few hours to freshen up.

They leave around midday, and Drimmo and Gnaurm are soon seasick. However, they endure no random encounters at sea, and reach the island, scouting it in advance with Eryn's owl familiar, Talon.

Upon landing, the party is attacked by four giant crabs. They are easily slain, but tear apart Grabathor's net in the melee. After that, the party explores a shipwreck nearby. On the partially-flooded lower deck, a giant sea spider emerges from the cargo hold and attacks the party, but it too quickly falls. Donning the Necklace of Adaptation, Hinonk salvages various treasures from the sea spider's lair

Talon does further reconaissance of the temple, and with Drimmo's help, the party hatches a plan to burn the wooden shacks built alongside the temple platform as a distraction, and get inside while the cultists are dealing with the fire. Hidden in magical darkness, Drimmo enthusiastically starts three fires, and the party makes for the main temple entrance.

 

Despite the fire, the entrance remains well guarded. The party fights numerous koalinths and other cultists, and two polearm-wielding ogres tasked with guarding the temple doors. Once inside, they are confronted by the High Priest of Geryon, Snarkhos the Elder, and his kuo-toa assistant. Taniya beheads the priest with Daemonrazor, and his followers soon fall as well.

 

Searching the main hall of the temple, the party finds an altar on a metal grate. Laid upon the altar, cut open, is a dead mermaid. Taniya removes her from the altar, intending to bury her at sea later. They barricade the main temple doors, and although some tentative knocking his heard, the cultists outside do not make any heroic effort to enter the temple. The party searches the inner sanctum, finds it empty, then rests for a while.

 

Hinonk picks the storeroom lock, and the party enters. Drimmo is asked to check a treasure chest for traps, and when his searching acumen is challenged, he opens the chest, which was, of course, still trapped. A cloud of magical gas polymorphs him into a large ocean fish. Filling a barrel with their Decanter of Endless Water, the party places him inside for the time being, so he can breathe. Taniya is struck by a second gas trap, weakening her for a time.

 

Searching the other rooms, the party finds keys in the high priest's quarters and a copper tub in the kuo-toa's room, into which they move Drimmo. In another room they find potions and stairs going down. They descend, and behind one of the doors downstairs they hear rattling and tapping sounds. Inside they find a captive, Cymerick Blavask, a cleric and fellow Guild member, who has been imprisoned there for a long time, waiting to be sacrificed. He carries with him the bones he believes to be those of his friend Tomran.
 

 

The party proceeds through a tunnel, fighting a huge black snake, then enters the room under the drainage grate under the idol, the floor caked and soaked with blood, some of which runs through parallel channels under the wall of an adjoining room. The party opens the door to this room to find the channels draining into a small pool, in the middle of which stands the idol of Geryon. They cautiously put a rope around the idol and pull it over. While doing so, the room grows noticeably colder. Unbeknownst to them, a bone devil was summoned when the idol's guardian, the snake, was killed. Invisibly, the devil casts Wall of Ice on the tunnel, sealing off the party's only exit. He then casts an illusion of a red abishai devil, which the party attempts to fight. When they dispel the illusion, the bone devil reveals himself and casts Fear, causing fully half the party to flee in terror: Eryn, Grabathor, and Cymerick. After a long fight, in which Taniya is nearly killed and the bone devil tries and fails to Gate in another of his kind, Cymerick lands a killing blow and the devil's corporeal body is destroyed.

 

An earthquake follows, which the party speculates may be a response from Poseidon himself, revealing a hidden door to a treasure chamber. The party finds the original idol of Poseidon among the riches inside, and after resting and melting the wall of ice, restores it to its proper place.

 

Though columns have collapsed upstairs, crushing the bloody altar, the mermaid's body is unharmed. The party goes outside and finds four kobolds huddled in the courtyard, abandoned by the rest of their cult, who fled in the longboats tied up under the north cliffs. The party explores the outbuildings, finding electrum coins and buried horse and dolphin skulls, but nothing of real value.

 

The party sets sail, burying the mermaid and Tomran at sea. Grabathor makes an executive decision to release Drimmo into the water as well, and he swims away, most likely never to be seen again.
After sailing for a few hours the party encounters the Dauntless, floating empty in the sea. There is blood in the water sloshing around the bottom of the boat, but no other clues as to what may have happened to its owners. The party sails it back to Fyneport, sells their own, smaller boat, and returns home to Guffin.

 

Accounting:

All party members (excluding Cymerick) gain 3,774 XP.

All party members (including Cymerick) also gain 3,853 XP.

Taniya spends 2 GP on a room and gains a 25 XP bonus.

Grabathor pickpockets Drimmo's money pouch while he's seasick, gaining 36 GP, 8 SP, and 50 XP.

 

Eryn and Grabathor each receive 50 GP for the sale of Not Drimmo's Slavers.

Hinonk gains 100 XP for exercising his thieving skills.

 
The party loots 1,331 GP, 589 SP, a beryl ring worth 150 GP, 5 large pearls worth 100 GP each, a gold chalice worth 400 GP, a golden fish-shaped platter worth 200 GP, 3 gold chains worth 300 GP each,  a spearhead +1, a scroll of Lightning Bolt, a scroll of Fly, some quills, ink, and vellum, a potion of water breathing, a potion of gaseous form, a Trident +1 of Fish Command, 8 Haferan electrum coins, and the sailboat Dauntless.

Taniya loots a turtleshell buckler shield +1, Gauntlets of Swimming and Climbing, a coral necklace worth 200 GP (which she places on the mermaid before burying her at sea), a potion of healing, 2 coral bracelets worth 150 GP each, and a coral diadem worth 400 GP.

Cymerick loots a bronze footman's mace +2 with a trilobite-shaped head, and a suit of scale mail armor +1.

Hinonk loots a cypress-wood Wand of Illusion with 45 charges, a sawtoothed coral dagger +2, and sealskin leather armor +2.

 

Eryn loots a Bag of Holding, a potion of healing, and a Cloak of the Manta Ray (also of Protection +1).

Grabathor loses his net and loots a potion of healing and a bronze harpoon +2.