Golden Fire

Our destiny grows ever more convoluted, the workings of Apsu complex and beyond mortal ken. This chapter of my journal begins with that most hackneyed and overused human literary convention: "It was a dark and stormy night"... My band of intrepid adventurers found ourselves assembled on a beach in a storm, investigating a shipwreck, the wreck in question determined by Honor and Markas to be the "One of Seven", a cursed Tirynthian legion ship bearing house Brightstar markings. This ship had drifted from the northeast and had been missing for five years. The crew were all dead, and according to Hagbard, had all died of old age at the same time. The rest of the ship lay partly submerged out in the surf.
Doughty Yberre swam out to the submerged wreckage and dragged out the captain's chest as Hralf attempted to assist, slicing himself on sharp coral. The recovered chest contained a map, a nautical chart, log, shipping manifest and a sum of platinum coins. At this point we decided to enter the wreckage on the beach. Honor checked the door and we entered. My gaze was drawn to a glowing door, so lovely... I am told that I was burned and knocked unconscious at this point by some foul necromantic curse. As I lay charred and unmoving, Hagbard drew upon Torag's power to heal me. My friends investigated the interior, found two sarcophagi, and were attacked by magical poisonous snakes.
When I awoke, the snakes had disappeared. Honor opened the middle door, revealing a corpse on a bed manacled to the floor by chains of silver. The dead man's notebook contained information about a recovered relic and a Mistress Phaedra, and the same symbol branded on the late and unlamented mustachioed half-elf. As we left the wreck and stepped back out onto the beach, we heard a ruckus. The cursed ship's dead crew had risen as undead and attacked the work crew. A fierce battle ensued.
The skeletal warriors attacked. Hralf threw a magic stone, disintegrating one, then I incinerated two more in a blast of Apsu's fire. Hagbard called on Torag's fury to destroy several more undead, and the rest fell in turn to Hralf, Yberre and Hagbard. Hralf found a silvery dragon scale and Yberre dragged the unopened sarcophagus out onto the beach. We opened it and found a perfectly preserved corpse. Hagbard used a divine scroll to ask the corpse, Constance Goodfellow, last surviving heir to the late Emperor Constance Tertius Septimus, some questions. We used the scale to open a magic chest which contained a scroll, a gem-tipped rod, and shattered crystal shards.
We awoke to a red sun and the sight of a south-faring fleet of New Tirythian warships, probably from Tridens. Returning to the church of Torag, we discovered that someone or someones had broken in and slain our captive dark creeper and several acolytes. Rushing to the church of Sarenrae, we found our werewolf to be missing as well. Very troubling. We headed to Brightstar manor, only to find it shrouded in a magical fog. Cautious and concerned, we entered the catacombs through our secret path and entered Brightstar manor's subterranean tunnels from below, feeling our way through the mist-filled halls. A woman's voice echoed through the halls, taunting and cajoling us to continue.
At the top of a flight of stairs, Honor was ambushed by goblins. Yberre kicked in a door, allowing me to kill a goblin with an amazing shot from my longbow. As Hralf killed a goblin dog below, we finished off the stinky little buggers. Wary of the enchanted fog, we went back down the stairs, descending into a room previously undiscovered, a burial chamber partially filled with water. In that room, my spirit swelled with joy, for the lone occupant was a dragon hatchling! An evil black dragon hatchling, spewing and burning us with vitriolic acid, but a dragon nonetheless. Honor dove to the center of the room, striving to clear the room's central drain as the rest of us assailed the beast. I smote the black hatchling with Apsu's claws and shot an arrow into one of its wings, and then, just as it breathed acid mist at Hralf, Honor and myself; Yberre leapt from a high alcove and beheaded the beast with a valiant stroke and a spray of ichor.
As we returned victorious to the manor, we found a wounded and disheveled Brian Brightstar, who had been held captive and tortured by the woman who had introduced herself to us as Alyssa Brightstar. We now know her to be an impostor. Under torture, he had given up the secrets of the house to her. We entrusted him with the sarcophagus containing Constance Goodfellow, and enlisted his help in locating our missing werewolf. And thence to bed, as we must journey to Starshine to meet with Lord Tennyson Brightstar and the esteemed Gaius Wind. I shall sleep well, my faith and devotion to Apsu strengthened by the sight of a dragon and the courage of my companions... -Apsu guide his children, and spread his wings above-