After a quick meeting with the village's leader, our party realized they were indeed in the Purple Rocks. The island they had landed on was Utherall, and the other Trisk. Trisk was the location of the massive Kraken headquarters, but they also maintained fortresses on Utherall.
"They take almost all we have," he told them, "but if we refuse their demands, they drag away our children to be slaves. I don't know if you can defeat them, but anything you can do to hinder them can only make our lives better."
It didn't take the party long to explore the small island. Of note was a small lighthouse, and two small forts occupied with heavily armed Kraken members. Men who were clearly pirates were manning the lighthouse and attacked on sight. Being as that was, Augustar surmised that these men were planning to use it to guide their evil allies, and thus he doused it.
Out a side door and behind one of the fortresses was a small dock. Tied to it was a simple, weather-worn boat. It looked old, but serviceable, with three sets of oars. From here, our adventurers could see the imposing Kraken headquarters clearly. Whitecaps formed in the wind over the strait, above which the island of Trisk had been carved into a massive, horrid kraken facade. Now was not the time for fear or intimidation though, as our brave crew readied the oars.
On the Kraken foot soldiers they had discovered two notes written in what appeared to be code. Putting their heads together, the group was confident they knew where their target was, and headed directly for it. They had no desire to risk their lives by infiltrating the giant fortress. The dock was their target. Chode spotted it, and pointed it out to the rest of the party. "There's a ship," he said, "Red sails, big "M" on it. Does that mean anything to anyone?"
"Yes," answered Lady Deschanel, "No doubt it is a ship of Manshoon, the lord of Zhentil Keep. Such is his hubris that he plasters his insignia on everything."
"Quickly!" Augustar said, "We must reach the pearl before it makes it to the pier. I do not wish to fight a ship full of marines as well."
They knew their target, the statuette they sought lie in a "small chest carved from the pearl of a great oyster, in a small room carved from the rock of a great mountain, which is itself made small by the greatness of the sea." Thus they had been told by the wizard Amanitas.
They made their way as stealthily as possible down the sheer, rocky slope of the island. Throwing open the first door they could find, they were treated to a bit of a surprise!
"Close formation!" yelled Augustar, his brilliant sword drawn.
There was a small army of Krakens gaurding the chest, heavily armored and wielding long pikes. They formed tight lines, trying to spear our heroes from a distance. Well placed spell slinging opened up holes in their lines, and Augustar lopped the ends of of the offending pole-arms with his sword of stonecutting. In the aftermath, Chode rushed forward to open the chest, surrounded by the other party members. Gingerly he undid the buckles on the chest's leather strap, and slid off the shimmering pearl lid.
They were all relieved to see that the statuette was inside the chest, and appeared to be undamaged. After they had suitably admired their quarry, Augustar broke the silence, "Great work, now let's get out of here before that ship realizes their booty has been waylaid."
The Kraken guards on Utherall yield two notes which can be decoded to get a hint. It's a pretty good puzzle. Unfortunately, I had spoiled it a bit. Every now and then I'll check a clue book to see certain things. For instance, I checked to see if there was something I might be missing in the Neverwinter side-quest, since none of the NPCs acknowledged I had completed it. My will power wasn't good enough, and I glanced ahead at the next area, and managed to partially spoil the code. I've done this sort of thing a number of times. I have yet to the learn my lesson!
Even having the jist of what it was getting it, it still took me some time to decode, so I decided I'd post them here so you, the reader, can try your hand at it.
The odd message of the kraken 1:
css al a i gad. csl te o cre suhet te t i tk wl gad te traee i. dc te t dw do suh te truh vut is fo tkn b wl sau te.
The odd message of the kraken 2:
ot l t t ur. ate h f onr otws h o t ae il urs h hetnd f. ok h o on or ot h hog al t rm ae e il tte h.
No comments:
Post a Comment