Pirates of Bloodspur Bay

Kismet's Summary: See also: Pirates of Bloodspur Bay - Part 2 Short version:
 * We found a land route through a cave to get to Bloodspur Bay.  Cave begins north of Bolkin mining town, north of harbor town Ardoch.
 * Captain Warlin works in the Ardoch harbor.
 * On the other side of the cave, we found something that might be interesting to investigate later, a skeletal warrior that seems to be patrolling in a many miles long loop.
 * There is also another half of the cave that we did not explore, might be interesting.
 * We captured and interrogated some pirates


 * We now know where Bloodspur Bay is.
 * There are apparently several pirate towns, 4 that we know of in addition to Bloodspur Bay.
 * Their leader is Raven Bloodfist .  Which is apparently not a girl’s name.
 * The pirates are raising chromatic dragons of many different colors to fight for them, 6 wyrmlings that we know of in addition to Scalebrine, who is much bigger.
 * Source of dragon eggs is unknown.
 * We brought two captured pirates back to Ardoch.  They might reveal more intel later.

Long version:  You probably don’t want to put in the effort to read this.

Roi put a posting on the noticeboard asking for adventurers to help with the piracy problems plaguing some of the outlying towns. The Pirates of Bloodspur Bay have been raiding smaller villages as well as attacking ships out at sea. Every ship that has been sent to try to deal with this problem has been sunk by those lowlife sea-rats, but word had reached Travencall of a possible land route that had opened up. There was a hefty reward for anyone that could find a way through the mountains and gather intel on the pirates; the better the intel the higher the pay. Lennart, Roi, and I joined up to take on the challenge. Waiting for us at the guild was a fourth person looking to take on some pirates, and I’m still in shock over who it was. Karen, my cousin Karen, who I would have sworn to you has been dead these past 5 years was just standing there, nonchalant as can be. When I ran up to her and called her name, she looked at me like I was a mad thing. She… she doesn’t remember me at all, she doesn’t remember our family at all. She says she doesn’t remember anything since she was found 5 years ago, she doesn’t even remember the wreck… She’s being called “Sam” now. Apparently she’s been living with a fishing family out in Ardoch. She still acts like Karen though, every bit as keen eyed, protective, and wicked with a bow as she was back home. Regardless, my family life isn’t really relevant to the actual job we had to do. We headed to Ardock, helping out a dwarf whose wagon got stuck in the mud on the way. Turns out he was delivering mining supplies and we got two packs of dynamite for our troubles. Captain Warland in Ardoch gave us the details of the possible passageway through the mountains. Some miners broke into a cave that had a breeze blowing through it, indicating that there must be a way out somewhere. Most of them got killed by demon spiders for their troubles, unfortunately. Passing through the cave ourselves we ran into those same beasts, meter wide spiders that exude clouds of magical darkness. Fortunately, they’re pretty frail once you manage to hit one in the gloom. Lennart collected the corpses to study later, maybe 8 or so in all.

Deep in the cave we found an extremely corroded metal grate blocking off a small passageway. Everything up until that point had been natural, but this path was clearly man made. Roi broke through the grate letting us into a cell block, with the skeletal remains of prisoners still slumped in the corners. Farther ahead the route opened up into an ancient arena, with decrepit stands all around and a pit full of bones in the center. This is when Karen- I mean, Sam, nearly got killed by ghosts. The encounter was not easy to shrug off, I used my most powerful spells and several of our party were left weakened by the touch of the spirits. It was as though the strength had just been leached out of them. Fortunately, we found an exit to the cave just past the arena. It had taken more than a day to get through that route, and I was happy to be able to see sunlight again. As we exited we could see forest as far as the eye could look in every direction. We camped for the night not too far from the exit to the cave. I was still a bit too on edge to sleep easily, so I took first watch. While I was keeping lookout I saw an armored skeletal warrior, bones gleaming in the moonlight, lurching through the trees. It wasn’t walking towards us, so I let it pass without contest. In the morning, we followed its tracks for awhile trying to see where it had come from. The tracks looped back eventually, and the path looked like it had been travelled many times. It almost looked like the skeleton was set to patrol, and had just been maintaining that route indefinitely.

We stopped following the tracks and instead headed east to the coast. We followed the shore north and found evidence of a recently moved tent city, burnt out campfires and such. We eventually found an inlet that we suspect is the entrance to Blood Spur Bay and turned in that direction. As we searched, we came across a young blue dragon in a clearing. We spread out and tried to sneak up on it, a good plan, right? Instead, I stumbled over a branch, crashed into a bush, and basically just announced “Please fry me dragon, I bet I’m delicious.”  The wretched thing opened its mouth and damn near electrocuted me! I have never felt anything hurt so bad, I don’t know how I didn’t die. Guess someone was watching over me. Kar- Sam probably saved my life. She drew her bow and fired two arrows at the wyrmling. They first was a glancing blow that just skipped off its scales, but it certainly got the lizard’s attention. It turned towards Sam and opened its mouth to attack her just as the second arrow arrived. The arrow went into the creature’s open mouth, struck it dead center in the back of its throat, and pushed right through until it was sticking out through the other side. The wyrmling dropped instantly, taken down by a single arrow. It was the cleanest shot I’ve ever seen.

Lennart healed me up a bit just as a group of pirates burst into the clearing. Apparently they were looking for the wyrmling. One of them got so freaked out by the sight of a dragon killed by a single wound that he just turned and fled right there. Of the remainder, Sam killed another with a well placed arrow through the eye, I broiled a few, and Lennart and Roi captured two more.

We brought the two prisoners to a nearby cave to interrogate them, and some clever work by Lennart scared one of them enough to spill his guts. There are apparently several pirate towns, we got some intel as to their locations, and their leader is named Raven… something. More concerning is that apparently this one blue wyrmling wasn’t a one off novelty, the pirates are raising dragons to fight for them. Not just blue either, many different colors. The pirate didn’t know where Raven was getting the eggs delivered from, but they show up and are hatched and trained by the pirates. If something isn’t done, this could be disastrous. We gagged the two prisoners and headed back to Ardoch, pretty uneventfully. We turned them in to the guard, hopefully in time they’ll reveal more information that can help us against the pirates. Besides, we get paid based on how good our intel is, and live informants should be very valuable. Karen is going to stay in Ardoch and keep in the loop on that; she’ll let us know if there is new intel to follow up on.

I think I’m going to make an effort to go out and visit her from time to time; she may not remember me, but she’s still family.