After slaying a white dragon that had been terrorising the town of Port Kepler, the newly formed 'Dragon-slaying Sub-committee' of Arts and Crafts Inc. (at this stage encompassing the entire company) returned to town to have a celebratory banquet.
A few days later, Port Kepler began its festivals to celebrate the Summer Solstice. While all was well, and everyone was having a good time, suddenly a strange thing happened. The large tides that usually pressed up against the sea walls came in, but then retreated - and did not stop retreating. Finally, while the townspeople worried, the retreat stopped, but 100m back from the usual sea level, exposing a large stretch of the sea floor. Among the things revealed was the base of a rock that used to sit out in the harbour - turning out to not be a rock, but be the spire of a building covered by the waves. It appears that the tower has a faint purple glow visible at night.
The festival is now over, but the water has not returned, and the townsfolk are getting concerned, and the sailors, who can no longer use their grounded ships, are getting angry.
We begin in the town centre, where Mayor Garrett is having difficulty calming a large mass of angry sailors. Arts and Crafts Inc. (minus Artin, as he was busy 'getting to know' the bartender of the Prancing Elf ;P) enter the scene, as well as Isandra the cleric and Calis the druid. The sailors are shouting and looking very angry, and the Mayor is starting to look very distressed. Galileo, the paladin of Pelor, tries an intimidate check - if I remember right, it was a natural 20 - and shouts "SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!" brandishing his sword. The sailors take notice and quiet down, moving to the side for a bit.
The mayor thanked Galileo, and then asked the party for their help discovering what was going on with the water disappearing, as it won't be long before people start to riot. They managed to slay a dragon, so they have some reputation as being able to get things done. Hearing the mayor's request, both Isandra and Calis approach the group. Isandra, being a cleric of Corellon, is greatly interested in collecting art that may have been inspired by her god, or that she may put in a gallery that she is dedicating to Corellon himself. As such, she has great interests in exploring the revealed building on the sea floor, hoping that there may be some previously undiscovered artwork in there. She offers her services as a healer to the group, and is readily accepted as a new member of Arts and Crafts Inc. Calis, the druid, offers his services as a controller and a nature specialist - two traits no one else so far in the party has (I can't remember his reason for wanting to come, but it was pretty clever, haha.), so he too is readily accepted into the group.
Arts and Crafts Inc. proceed to the building, after purchasing some javelins and missiles for missile weapons. Two floors of the building are exposed, and it is decided to clear out the top room and work down from there. They all climb up to the exposed balcony, and bust into the room. Inside were some halflings, looting the building. They're prepared for us, as we were very noisy when climbing up due to the paladin's plate armour, and consequential lack of stealth. However, it did not take long for the aggressive halflings to be dispatched. We found a journal entry from a person that used to live in the tower, during a time in which the water had receded, implying that the receding was a repeated event, and a painting of the building, revealing its structure. Calis found a telescope, but discarded it, finding it boring, but Temperence caught it before it smashed and took it for herself.
We then proceeded down the stairs, trying to be stealthy this time - and succeeding, despite the paladin. After surprising the sahaugins below (aquatic creatures that use tridents), the team quickly dispatched them without too much trouble. The usefulness of Balazar's Chaotic bolt, which could hit multiple opponents was quickly found out, after he killed about 5 minions in a single turn.
We took a short rest to heal up, and also get food for ourselves in real life, then continued down the stairs. We tried again to get the benefit of surprise for this round, but were simply too noisy - however, once we flung the door open, all we could see was a pitch black room, with a small lit area where our torch lit through the doorway. In this area, there was a single, large rat. We walked out confidently to kill the pest, when we fell through parts of the floor - and were attacked by whole swarms of rats, and bats that flew out of the darkness. It required the breaking of one of our sunrods to expose where the creatures were, but once we could see them, it did not take long to take control of the battle.
This floor was actually below the ground we figured out by looking at the painting and what we knew from outside. It also looks a bit like a donut, so if we went one way we could just keep going and end up back where we were. The stairs also continued down another level. We elected to head towards what looked like a clean room, rather than the rubble-covered path.
I'll just brush over the next bit, as I want to catch up to where we actually are faster - we took an extended rest, then we completed a skill challenge regarding moons and stars and statues fairly well, assisting each other very well. From that room we also acquired the recipe and ingredients for five blastpatches, and a mechanical bird. Temperence, as the artificer, took them all into her care, and brought the mechanical bird to life. We each took a blast patch each, 3 fire, and a cold and a shock. We then cleared some ghosts and spectres from a storeroom and small temple to Pelor, and Isandra acquired a new holy Symbol of Life.
The final room we stumbled upon looked like an infirmary. Getting bored, Calis ran to the far side of the room, which caused all of the skeletons in the hospital beds to come to life - leaving most of the team protected behind Galileo, but Calis surrounded by a hoard of the undead. Galileo and Isandra rushed in to the room, immediately beginning to throw around radiant-powered spells, killing zombies left, right and centre. However, both Calis and Galileo had a zombie grab onto them and refuse to let go. While this just caused combat disadvantage for them both, Calis then had to take on three other tougher zombies by himself, while in tiger form. Isandra used Turn Undead, which damaged a lot of zombies that had closed in, and pushed the remainder away, but unfortunately the zombie holding Galileo both survived and made a strength check to continue holding on to him - resulting in the paladin being dragged with the zombie, which happened to be pushed onto a bed. So while Galileo is trying to kill the zombie that was holding him from behind on a bed (suss image anyone?), the rest of us were trying to make our way over to Calis to help him get free of the zombies around him. Suddenly, another spectre came out from behind one of the hospital curtains, and proceeded to attack us. However, by this point, Calis was free and closer to us, Galileo had killed the zombie attached to him, and Balazar unleashed his daily power, dazzling ray. Calis then finished off the spectre by laying his fire blastpatch on the ground, and using Storm Spike to forcefully drag it over the patch.
We explored the final room on the floor we were on, which was a pool of stagnant water on the ground, and a large trapdoor with a chain hanging off it in the ceiling. After a few perception checks, once again Calis became impatient - and climbed the chain, and set fire to the trapdoor. It immediately fell apart, releasing a sudden heavy flow of salt water from the gap in the ceiling, pushing the druid to the side. The whole group then heard a large roar that Balazar identified as definitely coming from a dragon.
It was decided to take an extended rest at this point, as we had used out action points and daily powers, and were ready to go home.