The Seapoint Lighting and the Balinor Chronicles: You Only Strike Once
Introducing the Seapoint Lightning of 2191:
Rebo, 6th level halfling thief, played by Joel
Captain Pittsford, 6th level human captain, played by Kyle
Spike, 5th level dwarven cleric of Clangeddin, played by Joel
Francine, 5th level human woodsman, played by Jay
Frankfort, 5th level human cleric of Chelsea, played by Jay
Astoria, 4th level human mage, played by Kyle
And the Killer B’s:
Balinor, 9th level Northerner fighter, 86 hp, played by Joel
Albee, 7th level human monk of Nevron, 42 hp, NPC
Anselm, 6th level human cleric of Nevron, 30 hp, NPC
Bodkin, 1st level dwarven fighter, 12 hp, played by Katherine
Morhion, 1st level Northerner cleric of Nevron, 10 hp, henchman
In 2161, the bard Amortician, also known as Morty, disappeared, along with his entire party, while adventuring in western Lendore Isle…
In 2173, a party called the Seapoint Lightning formed, from an initial adventure with the Restenford Defenders. Their motto: the Lightning Never Strike Twice. Most of them never had the chance to. The survivors (none of them original party members) became deputies of Seapoint, a city of 500 people on the west coast of Lendore Isle. For years they battled the Westpoint pirates. In March of 2178, the party annihilated a small base in a cave complex, and discovered a magical door that could not be opened.
Over many years, the party gained experience and battled the pirates, culminating in a year long series of raids on their base in caves on the coast. In March 2190, the party attacked the Old Bay, but the pirates were waiting, and four of the six members of the Lightning were killed, the rest in retreat. After recovering, the party launched a more prepared assault, and the fight was on. After sallying back and forth, the party finally broke the backbone of the resistance with the death of one of the major captains, and finally cleared the base in February 2191. The party then rested, until the morning of May 1st, when Captain Lofton knocked on their door…
Captain Lofton was the head of City Watch. He’d encountered a puzzle that seemed bizarre enough to require the services of the local adventuring party.
It seemed that the Loment family (Willet and Tara, children Neil and Farna) had vanished overnight. The door on their house remained locked from the inside, and no one had seen them leave. That morning a merchant had come for work he had commissioned from the tailor, Willet, and he had found no one there, and had banged on the door, and eventually alerted the Watch.
The party followed the Captain up to the house and began an investigation. The house was searched from top to bottom, revealing a few hidden valuables, but no secret exits. The chimney was too small to have escaped from. Furthermore, if the family had fled voluntarily, it was odd that they hadn’t taken their coats, since it was raining heavily in an unusually extended rainy season.
It seemed impossible that the family had gotten out by any conventional means. All windows and doors were locked from the inside, and there were no other reasonable exits. Furthermore, Francine picked up tracks heading from Willet’s bed to the center of the room, where they vanished.
We were confused by this, until Captain Lofton figured it out. We looked up from the spot were the tracks ended, spying a lantern hanging from the ceiling.
Apparently our man Loment had gotten out of bed, moved to the lamp to light it, and simply disappeared. And the rest of his family hadn’t even gotten out of bed.
This was indeed strange. We asked neighbors if they’d heard anything suspicious that evening, and they noted that the merchant had come by fairly late in the evening, and argued with the tailor and left. That was the last time the tailor and his family had been seen. The cobbler’s son also claimed that Tara Loment was a witch (in full scathing yokel detail).
The only other tailor in town that could conceivably be competition for Loment was named Sarah. At this point, the party split up—Rebo and Frankfort went to find the merchant, Spike and Astoria went to see Sarah, and Captain Pittsford and Francine went to see Lorianne, the local druidess, as the Loments were druidic.
Lorianne said that they had been followers for 16 years, regularly visiting her grove, but they hadn’t struck her as unusual in behavior. She agreed to query the animals in the area regarding the previous evening.
Frankfort found the merchant’s guards at an inn in town. They were clearly drunk, and surly, but yielded almost no helpful information. Rebo was left to follow them while Frankfort rejoined the party.
Spike and Astoria went to the other tailor, Sarah. There, much to everyone’s surprise, they found the merchant. He was quite rude and arrogant, believing that his report of the crime was sufficient and that he was losing money by the very delay. Astoria pointed out that Sarah was still mending his cloak, so we wouldn’t even be taking up his time. To this he responded something on the order of, “I could be using this time to contemplate new business propositions.” When Astoria pointed out that he was the last person to have seen the Loments alive, and should cooperate and answer our questions to help establish the true criminal, he scoffed, but grudgingly agreed to talk to us.
We learned that he had planned to leave yesterday, but needed the tailor to mend his cloak. He took it to Loment and became incensed when he hadn’t finished it by nightfall. This wasn’t particularly surprising given his general tendency to become angry at anything, Spike observed to himself. The merchant was told it would be ready by morning, so he arrived at the shop and failed to get an answer. After the door was broken down, and the place was searched, he took his cloak back and brought it to Sarah so that he could leave as soon as possible.
The party reconvened and began to search the neighborhood.
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