- "Black Wave," K.Flay
After a few minor adventures, the entire crew of Solarr is reunited once again (even though in game terms they were always together).
Following their adventure on Skeleton Key and their attack on the good ship Sivilus, the Feathered Cockerels decide to return to Scag Harbor to sell some plunder. They reason that the warships dispatched by the Merchants' Guild have come and gone by now and that they can safely return to the port town in Solarr - and perhaps exact some vengeance upon Master Zuno and Don Rodrigo, who owes Teach some $$$.
Catching up with the crew
Wielding ancient, blasphemous powers Cake has turned his cabin into an undead temple. He currently commands 2 skeletons, 1 zombie, the Crawling Crawl, and "Devil Doll," his quasit servant. As the ship sails towards Scag Harbor, Cake communes with the enchanted figurehead they retrieved from Skeleton Key. Known only as Radiskull, the cursed figurehead can shoot fireballs... and eat souls. The crew of the ship is uneasy sharing a hull with the undead, but have learned to keep their mouths shut and feelings to themselves.
Captain Teach, meanwhile, quietly obsesses over the Locket of Ilandra, which seems to contain the soul of a magically imprisoned sea elf princess whose beauty is only matched by her angelic voice. As Teach holds the locket close, he can hear Ilandra's faint melody: “I
call the sea / the sea calls to me / I am the sea / I want to be free." It's some full-on Little Mermaid shit.
Teach composes a song to sing to the elf maiden... but fails to break through to her. Still, he feels that the locket will guide him to her, if he continues searching.
While Teach moons over his elf maiden, Titus discovers a note on his person that was stashed there through sleight-of-hand by his former commander, Capt. Sam Avery. The note reads:
"TITUS! Ye son of a bitch. It appears you weren't to blame for the ill luck that has befallen me, and that the curse was inside me all along. In gratitude for your help, I offer ye sponsorship in the Brotherhood of the Sea, that notorious union of pirates who rule the Obari Sea. Find me at me lair: Bitch's Bay, which I have marked on ye map. Share this map with another soul and I'll gut ye like an eel."
Meanwhile, Chaser is plagued by another evil dream of a black wave washing over the earth. He wakes up vomiting sea water. The murder of Gorgon's elf captain unmoored
Chaser’s tenuous grasp on surface world morality, and drinking from the black
pool in the sunken temple has invited a darkness into his soul. Unmoored from his ethical compass, Chase teeters on the edge of darkness - unbeknownst to his colleagues.
Floatsam and jetsam
As Solarr approaches Skag Harbor, the crew realizes something's not right. Plumes of smoke rise into the blue tropical sky, and they spot telltale signs of catastrophe floating on the surface of the sea: wreckage, oil slicks, dead bodies.
Clearly something terrible has happened to Skag Harbor.
They round the bend to behold a tableau of devastation; the sea itself seems to have risen up and claimed most of the town, which now lies in ruins. All the buildings and businesses they had previously visited, all the people they met... gone.
Slipping through the debris-choked harbor in a row boat, the PCs investigate. The Harbormaster's tower at the end of the main pier is intact, so they begin there. They enter the tower and begin ascending, revealing a bird's-eye view of the ruined town. Chaser spots some beach halfling scavengers down below and idly considers casting a fireball down at them - which alarms Capt. Teach. Perhaps his colleague has become corrupted after drinking from the black pool in the Sunken Temple?
There's not time for contemplation, because the Harbormaster's watchdog basilisk attacks the party. Poor Teach fails his first saving throw and is immobilized by the creatures' petrifying gaze. The PCs engage the basilisk, and during the battle Chaser recklessly casts a fireball at the monster.
A blast of flame engulfs the creature - and Capt. Teach.
"Zut alors!" the distraught Chaser cries. Capt. Teach is dead - burned alive by his own friends!
Scag Harbor scavengers
Fortunately, Teach has passed his second saving throw and freed himself from the basilisks' gaze effect. He casts Invisibility upon himself and slips away before the fireball strikes... but Chaser doesn't know that. The sea elf believes that he has incinerated his friend along with the basilisk.
Believing Teach dead, the three remaining PCs search through the rest of the town. Distraught and nearly hallucinogenic with dissociative trauma, Chaser murders a looter without a second thought. As they comb through the wreckage, they discover more dead bodies... Harbgoblins... beach halflings... and Stella, the Harbormaster herself.
Arriving at the nearly ruined Merchants' Guildhouse, the PCs meet Don Rodrigo once again. Wary, he addresses them from the relative safety of a balcony and explains what happened to the town.
Several days ago, Capt. Gore - one of the High Captains of the Brotherhood - arrived at Scag Harbor with his black ship. Rowing ashore with an honor guard, Gore approached the Guildhouse and demanded to speak to Master Zuno. When Zuno appeared on the balcony, Gore demanded that which was rightfully his: the Bowl of Storms.
Zuno claimed that he was tricked by pirates and no longer had the Bowl, which set Capt. Gore into a rage. He gave Zuno one day to produce the Bowl of Storms or face his unearthly wrath.
When a day had come and gone with no Bowl, Gore made good on his threat: an echoing blast of a horn preceded a massive dark wave, which rushed into the harbor and drowned the entire town. Hundreds of lives were lost when the wave struck, and hundreds more in its aftermath.
Chaser thanks Don Rodrigo for the info.... and kills him.
Meanwhile...
Still very much alive, Capt. Teach connects with a bedraggled band of a dozen beach halflings who survived the Black Wave. He guides them to a beach and begins ferrying them to Solarr, which is waiting offshore.
But Teach is not so sure he wants to reunite with his shipmates; he's disturbed by the dark turn events have taken recently and wonders about Chaser's sanity...
In town, our trio check in on Brita, Master Zuno's long-suffering beach halfling servant. They find her hiding in her apartment, shell-shocked. Brita believes that Master Zuno escaped the Black Wave and is hiding in Oddwater on the other side of the island. Brita latches on to Titus for protection and asks to be taken along.
"There's nothing here for me now," she says.
The Temple of the Mariner
Strangely, the only temple in town was spared from the wave's destruction. The Temple of the Mariner is open, so the PCs enter to speak with the head priest, Father Kemba.
[TBH This is where the DM fucked up; in a town that was just destroyed by a tidal wave, there would be tons of sick and injured people that need healing and shelter. The court and the Temple should be full of bedraggled refugees - yet they find Father Kemba chillin' in his Temple as if nothing has happened.]
Father Kemba welcomes them into the temple, which is adorned with carvings and frescoes celebrating the mythic Bronze Age demigod known only as The Mariner. He pulls Chaser aside into an alcove and peers into his eyes.
"Son, you've got The Darkness within you," the old priest says.
He gently urges Chaser to drink from the purifying waters of the fountain in the alcove, and gives him a little handbook: The Five Rules of the Mariner.
Feeling a little lighter, Chaser leaves the Temple with his peers and returns to Solarr, where he is overjoyed to find Capt. Teach alive and well. Their reunion is interrupted by a pair of opportunistic merrow, who ambush the pirates as they unload from the rowboat. The aquatic monsters are quickly dispatched, and the crew is reunited once again.
Next adventure: Port Sapphire - with a pit stop in Oddwater to find Master Zuno.
Captain Teach, meanwhile, quietly obsesses over the Locket of Ilandra, which seems to contain the soul of a magically imprisoned sea elf princess whose beauty is only matched by her angelic voice. As Teach holds the locket close, he can hear Ilandra's faint melody: “I
call the sea / the sea calls to me / I am the sea / I want to be free." It's some full-on Little Mermaid shit. 
