Skip to content

Chapter 3 - Session 3

The Road to Old Port: Graveyard Secrets and Ruined Spires

Part 1 video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Ivo9RQ5Tc

Part 2 video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEKvRIG86bo

Events and Actions

The party, accompanied by Salter and Batu Batu, disembarked from the "Amada" at a small fishing village on Zylos to begin their overland journey to Old Port, a landing party of eight ferried ashore in the ship's boat; two sailors rowed them in and returned it to the ship, with a semaphore signal arranged to recall it and a fallback rendezvous off the coast at dawn on the fourth day. At the village, Knowles's Islander crew, though presented as fishermen mending nets and coiling rope, kept muskets casually within reach as the party approached. They spoke with Freeman Knowles, a freed Islander running the settlement whose polished speech struck the party as unusual — enough that they privately wondered if he had once served as an agent of the South. Knowles confirmed the path to Old Port, warned that the place was abandoned and might attract undesirables like smugglers, and — after eyeing their rifles — remarked that they looked capable of handling whatever the road might throw at them, "except maybe that sickly one." He also pointed them to a clean, safe spring roughly five hours down the trail and, in exchange for the bottle of rum they left with him as thanks, wished them well on their journey.

The trek involved crossing varied terrain. Knick Nab's recurring illness flared up, causing significant fatigue; at the spring, he began chewing on a piece of medicinal root, which brought temporary relief. Some hours further along the trail, Werner realized the party was being followed; Noddy sent Pocket, his seagull familiar, to investigate and confirmed it was only a young Islander girl. When Knick Nab offered her a silver piece — after she had first refused a proffered water skin — she took the coin, spoke a single word in Islander, and ran off; Batu Batu translated the word as a request for something sweet, leading the party to guess she was after cane sugar, a trade good associated with the islands.

As dusk fell short of Old Port, the party made camp for the night in a sheltered, wooded hollow. By nightfall the medicinal root's effect had worn off, and Knick Nab's fatigue and discomfort returned. Noddy spotted a distant glow along the coast, like a giant fire or a lighthouse, too far off to identify. That evening, Cosimo cast "Item Feel" on his Medallion, learning its purpose is "Detection." The next morning was clear and bright, and the party continued toward Old Port.

Approaching Old Port, the party debated whether to sneak up on the watchtower or simply approach in the open, a question Knick Nab settled — after chewing another dose of medicinal root to steady himself — by stepping straight out onto the road; the rest followed, walking up openly. Watching through Pocket, Noddy saw the sentry duck out of sight, then a warning shot cracked out and the man was spotted fleeing through the tower's base door and down the path toward the town, presumably to alert whoever else was there. Investigating the tower afterward, they found only a few basic supplies left behind — a water skin, a haunch of roast meat, and a spent, still-smoking musket — evidence the sentry had been camped there a while.

Scrambling for cover from the shot, several of the party stumbled through a field of low stone slabs hidden in the undergrowth near the tower; Mani took a closer look and identified it as an old graveyard. He felt drawn to one grave, inscribed "Chronicler Willem" — the same unusual pull he recalled feeling toward the black stone on Totem Isle two years before. Upon excavating it with Salter's trenching tool, helped by Knick Nab and Batu Batu, they found skeletal remains, the rotted remnants of a wooden coffin, and a small, sharp shard of black, sparkly stone; Riu checked it over for anything hazardous before Mani pocketed it. Noddy attuned to the shard and confirmed it held real power, though a subsequent attempt by Cosimo to channel that power did not succeed. Batu Batu pointed out a copper, beak-shaped button fixed to another grave's footstone; examining it, the party identified it as a plague marker, and many graves from the year KS3 22 were found similarly marked, including possibly Chronicler Willem's, though his marker may simply have fallen away.

Before entering the ruined town, the party agreed on a cover story to use if confronted: rather than reveal their naval mission, they would claim to be searching the church for information about Werner's grandfather, who had passed through decades earlier on the ill-fated voyage that preceded the Great Change, taking care not to emphasize his noble blood for fear of being held for ransom. They then moved toward the main ruins of Old Port, identifying a large, dilapidated church carved into the cliff face — the only structure still standing amid the wreckage — with one of its two towers collapsed entirely; recalling that a similar cliffside church in the Capital had concealed extensive dungeons beneath it, they made straight for it. Using his illusion magic, Cosimo concealed their approach in stages, casting a series of illusory domes to mask their advance from two watching guards — one on the church's balcony, another crouched behind rubble below it — while Pocket scouted ahead. Cosimo also wrapped the party in a Sphere of Silence to muffle their footsteps as they crept up a makeshift staircase toward the church. Near the top, as Cosimo poked his head through the last illusory dome, he came face to face with a third guard hidden just beneath the stairs, who spotted him in the same instant.

NPCs & Creatures

  • Salter
  • Batu Batu
  • Pocket (Noddy's seagull familiar)
  • Freeman Knowles (freed Islander who runs the fishing village)
  • Young Islander girl
  • Unnamed man in the watchtower at Old Port
  • Three unnamed guards at the ruined church in Old Port

Locations

  • Fishing village on Zylos (unnamed) — a handful of mud-and-stick huts clustered around a well-built jetty
  • Path to Old Port, Zylos — an old, overgrown trail, roughly a day's hike over wooded, rising terrain
  • A freshwater spring along the path to Old Port
  • Watchtower overlooking the approach to Old Port
  • Graveyard at the entrance to Old Port, Zylos
  • Ruined Church in Old Port, Zylos — carved into the cliff face, with a grand columned facade and two towers, one fully collapsed; comparable in scale to Newport's church, though smaller than the Capital's cathedral

Conflicts

  • A warning shot was fired from the watchtower at Old Port as the party approached, and the sentry fled toward the town rather than engage.
  • The party disagreed over how to approach the watchtower guard — sneaking versus announcing themselves — until Knick Nab settled the question by stepping into the open.
  • Knick Nab struggled with a recurring debilitating illness.
  • The party debated whether to wait for the two church guards to grow complacent or press forward immediately, weighing the advantage of watching them relax against the risk of being caught between the church and the wider ruins if reinforcements appeared.
  • The party prepared for a potential confrontation with armed guards at the ruined church as the session ended.

Learnings and Discussions

  • Freeman Knowles confirmed the path to Old Port and described it as abandoned, potentially attracting undesirable people like smugglers, and of no current tactical value; his polished manner struck the party as unusual for an Islander in his position. He explained that a freed Islander is customarily known as "Freeman" followed by the name of whoever freed him — Knowles's own name meant nothing to the party.
  • Cosimo's Medallion has the purpose of "Detection."
  • The graves at Old Port's cemetery are laid out in the fashion of the Divinity of Two, with a headstone marking birth and a footstone marking death. Mani identified the recurring "KS3" inscription as referring to the reign of King Sebastian III, dating many of the graves to around forty years ago — consistent with the timing of the Great Change.
  • Noting how many graves shared the same death year, the party debated whether the cemetery held one mass-casualty event or two — plague, and possibly something else, such as an execution — and resolved to dig up further graves and examine Chronicler Willem's remains more closely on their way back through.
  • The black stone shard found in Chronicler Willem's grave is similar in appearance to the material of the Totem on Totem Isle, emanates a sense of power, and was confirmed by Noddy's Attunement to hold real power, though Cosimo could not yet draw on it.
  • The party discussed whether Knick Nab's worsening illness might be tied to the Medallions and his two years' separation from the group, noting that previous separations of half a day or so had never produced anything close to this reaction.
  • Riu's knowledge of medicine turned up how plague is handled aboard Northern ships: the sick are isolated and the vessel barred from port until it's clear who will live, the dead are collected by masked handlers wary of dangerous fumes, and their graves are marked as a standing warning not to disturb them — cold comfort for a party that had just finished digging one up. Those who had directly handled Chronicler Willem's remains (Mani, Knick Nab, Salter, and Batu Batu) took the news better than most, reasoning that a forty-year-old plague victim was unlikely to still be contagious.
  • The party settled on a cover story for Old Port: that they were searching the church for information about Werner's grandfather, who had stopped there decades earlier before his fatal voyage west, while agreeing to downplay his noble blood so as not to invite a ransom demand.
  • The party strategized their approach to the watchtower and, later, the ruined church.

Items Gained

  • A small shard of black, sparkly stone (recovered by Mani from Chronicler Willem's grave).

Items Lost

  • One silver piece (given by Knick Nab to the young Islander girl).
  • Two pieces of medicinal root (consumed by Knick Nab).
  • One bottle of rum (left with Freeman Knowles as thanks for his help).