The Characters
Doctor Pendleton Torst, a sinister surgeon and anatomist
Dalton Thayer, an explorer who collects rare specimens
Countess Catarina Redmoore, a young and mysterious widow
Events
After the previous adventure, the characters had in their possession a signal lantern and a book of signals with which they could direct the Church's smuggling ship as it cruised the coast near Lachryma. At Belle Silvra's suggestion, they plotted to board the ship to find information on what the Church was planning. Before setting off, the group commandeered a group of cultists to accompany them, and Pendleton acquired a few bombs.
After disguising themselves with the Churchmen's cloaks they had discovered in the "haunted house," they signaled to the ship, indicating that it should drop anchor and await their approach. They rowed out to the ship in two boats and claimed that they had come for more crates of weapons, bibles, and food for the safehouse. After being shown the stores held in the ship's hold, they were left alone as the sailors went to fetch more hands to load the items onto their boats.
The group used this time to explore. Dalton and Pendleton entered a room at the aft of the ship, finding themselves in the bosun's cabin. Although they were initially startled by the screech of the bosun's parrot, they were even more startled to discover that the bosun's cabin was connected to a makeshift brig and that the brig held a prisoner in a ragged cloak. The prisoner was one of the fish-folk; when asked what crime they had committed, the fish-person replied, "I am the crime" (1). The fishman assumed that they were members of the Church, since they were still disguised, and they chose not to blow their cover by revealing the true reason they were aboard the ship.
Catarina explored the first mate's cabin, which had a small table bolted to the ship's floor. Upon the table were several books charting sea routes and detailing maritime law. As she flipped through the books, a slip of paper fell out. The paper was filled with the repetition of a single phrase: "I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set him free" (2).
When they emerged from the hold to find the captain waiting for them. They were surprised to find that the captain of the boat was none other than Vanessa Laurant, who had been the captain of the Dawnskimmer the last time they saw her (3). After the Dawnskimmer's destruction at the hands of the "sea goddess," Captain Laurant had thrown her lot in with the Church. Catarina's persuasive quick talking deceived the captain into thinking that the group really were agents of the Church.
Pressed for information about the Church's plans, Captain Laurant told them that they had previously had the Church's "secret weapon," which she referred to as the Ultimatum, onboard the ship, but that its presence had begun to have a deleterious effect on the crew's sanity (4). For safety's sake, they had deposited the Ultimatum as a leper colony called the Monastery of Pont de Rais on Ulminster Isle (5). When the Church was ready to unleash the weapon on the heretics of Lachryma, the Ultimatum would be retrieved from its hiding place and brought to the wayward town.
Thanking the captain for the supplies, the group and their cultist henchmen departed, but not before Pendleton had a chance to stash a bomb that blew up the Churchmen's ship as the group rowed back to shore (6). They gave instructions for the cult members to patrol the beach and slit the throats of any survivors of the blast who managed to swim to shore, a task the cult members seemed to particularly relish (7).
To be continued...
Notes
(1) - What the fishman meant by this is that his very existence as a fishman is considered a crime in the eyes of the Church.
(2) - "I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set him free" is quote ascribed to Michaelangelo. I snagged it from the Lovecraft Investigations podcast, which I've been listening to lately. The reason why I used it will become apparent in the second half of this write-up!
(3) - Pendleton knew that Captain Laurant had survived the sinking of the Dawnskimmer because he saw her on the streets of Lachryma as he left town after the first adventure.
(4) - The "deleterious effects" were largely madness-related, as evidenced by the papers they found indicating that the sailors were compelled to write "I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set him free" over and over again in frantic, frenzied handwriting. However, it was pretty clear that Captain Laurant was not telling them the entire truth here.
(5) - Catarina's player correctly intuited that I had John Carpenter's The Fog in mind here.
(6) - I hadn't anticipated the ship being bombed, but it actually sets up something I'd like to weave in later. In a way, this game is becoming the origin story for a villain in Krevborna that I hadn't planned on, but it's all fitting together perfectly.
(7) - It was at this point that I was sure that I am running one of those "evil campaigns."