Day 1
The first day was fairly uneventful, as the party moved northeast in search of some floating lights.
Night 1
The first night was uneventful for the first half, but we were woken by the sound of rushing water. When investigated, we found a perfectly circular puddle of water that did not move at all. When I tossed a copper piece into it, nothing happened, but when Gorstag’s zombie, Friend, flopped into it, a masked water elemental arose from it, killing Friend. Zak found himself rather unhelpful, trying to hit water with a longsword. After a grueling fight in which Piper went unconscious, she managed to get healed up by Rael’s turret and kill off the elemental. The mask it was wearing was the visage of a filthy illithid. This draws concerning parallels to the robe and skull that I found on my last adventure. I am nervous that the terrible aberrations have a colony on this island that I have begun to call home.
Day 2
We continued northeast and discovered a hole in the cliffside. I marked it on the map. When the tide went down, we walked over there, me carrying Vestrivan due to his fear of water. The hole was surrounded by teeth like outcroppings, and covered by an opaque, shimmering barrier that we stepped through. When we entered the cave, we were confronted by six orcs, a dwarf, and a human, all covered in tentacle tattoos, hauling stones or praying at altars. We spoke with the dwarf, and learned that the cultists at the other temple previously explored by Vestrivan were trying to break “Zethoth” out of a prison. The ones in this cave, lead by one named Dereth, were there trying to “summon his his spawn”. Fish creatures, crab creatures, squid creatures, etc. One agreed to give us a tour. The shrines were composed of a series of tentacles surrounding a singular eye, carved into the wall. We observed a ritual chamber in which a large croup of cultists was sacrificing their members to a whirlpool in the middle. Despite my dislike of running from conflict, reason prevailed and we ran out, and hid. Later, after hearing a LOT of screaming, two dire wolf sized squids, baby blue and pastel pink, swam into the ocean. A large, tentacle-mouthed, chitin-plated monster emerged behind them. We decided to retreat and report our findings to the town. On our trek back, we came across two very very very large boars, which we tried to kill. I had a ROUGH time of it, getting gored to unconsciousness not once, but TWICE. I really owe Piper for the save there–goodberries aren’t the cheapest of ways to save a teammate. After that, thankfully, we made it back to town without more issues.