We wake up the next morning, most of us at The Borderlands, and the elves at Phandyth’s Chalice. Maruviel and Vedasi speak with the elf maid and talk to her about their homeland.
Jean hears back from DeSalvo that we are invited for dinner at the palace. Many of us get new clothes and get cleaned up as would be appropriate for a fancy event like this. We come to the palace and they ask to take our weapons. We agree and head inside.
Giovanni himself is a well built older man with salt and pepper hair. He talks like he is straight out of Brooklyn and is quite casual. He asks Jean to explain who we are and seems to have no patience for pleasantries. He certainly doesn’t seem to like Hauptner or Sasha. He is surprised to learn that we were able to get into the keep to the north and that we made it through the mountains, but is concerned that any trade route may be another method for Sasha to come through to his lands. Brokk agrees that we must find a way to secure it.
Jean mentions that Sasha wants the chaos items we have, and Giovanni’s ears perk up when we talk about that. He asks us for the flat truth if we have them or not — Tobruk says that we know where they are but they are safe from Sasha for now. Giovanni reveals that Sasha is a chaos cultist who has a bunch of followers of Slanesh.
About 20 years ago, he was working with Hauptner and was tasked with attacking a stronghold of a group that had a chaos item but refused, and the two parted ways. Hauptner is in it because he is enamored with her — originally he wasn’t aligned with chaos but eventually he became corrupted as well.
Giovanni says that he can’t fight against both Sasha and Hauptner by himself, and he hasn’t been able to get anyone’s attention from home. He has always had a code of honor, and some people have flocked to that banner, but he doesn’t have that many people in his employ.
Giovanni says that there is lots of opportunity for dwarves in the region. He has his own copper mine and is willing to share that wealth with those who help him out.
We agree that we can talk to the dwarves and the elves to help. Jean says that he will get a message back to Duke Adalhard and let him know about the situation and perhaps his countrymen can help as well.
Suddenly we hear the loud booming of distant cannons. Someone bursts into the room and lets Giovanni know that the harbor is under attack. He excuses himself and says he must take care of this situation. We volunteer to help and he thanks us.
We go back to the hotel and grab our gear, then head down to the docks. We hear someone calling that there are dark elf corsairs attacking the city. We see them coming up the docks. The elves in our party are offended by the mere appearance of these abominations. So far they have been attacking the town guards, but they kill them quickly and move toward us.
We are able to take care of them, and we see down the other docks that the we had the highest concentration of them here, and the guards have taken care of the others. The remaining dark elves on the boats in the bay turn and flee.
Checking on the dead dark elves, who call themselves Druchii, we see that they have sea dragon scale armor, which is known to degrade quickly if it isn’t oiled with a slime that the elves use. They also have some good quality scimitars.