As we breathed a sigh of relief that the fight was over, there sat a small shiny orb in the fading ashes of the demon. It looked to be the size of a pearl, but made of glass, and containing a darkness within. I attempted to pick it up, but a terrible evil struck me to my very soul. One of the others wrapped it in burlap, and levitated it so we didn't have to touch it again.
Back at the cave, we spoke with Seridan. The pearl wouldn't enter the cave at all, and he could only guess that it was the source of corruption in the village. We chanced fate, and used a dose of the well water on it, which caused a great explosion. None of us were fatally injured from the blast, and it seemed the pearl was cleansed of it's evil, leaving only a silvery light inside it.
The next morning, we headed back to Phlan. We spoke to the council, and told them what happened and collected our pay. We also told them that we would accept the job to investigate what happened to the sea elves. For this job, they loaned us equipment that would allow us to breath and function underwater. But before that, we went to visit Ohlo. He studied the pearl, and told us that it contained pure magic, capable of restoring spent spells to a person. However, once it was used up, it would be gone forever.
We boarded the Sea Nymph, helmed by Captain Asgarad, and made our way to the drop off location, arriving there after a day. The captain said he would wait for 20 days before heading back, so we needed to be finished within that time.
Over the side we went. After some walking, we ran into a patrol of sea elves. Their captain's name is Ureatair. They seemed very on edge. They escorted us to Mishral. There, we met the king, and we explained that Phlan was concerned about the lack of communication with Mishral. The Sea Elf King apologized, and said that the merfolk of Ardfinham had kicked their ambassador out, and started preparing for war. While things had never been good between them, they kept a relative peace. But with this development, the sea elves have been constantly on guard. We told the king we would help any way we could, mainly, by talking to the merfolk ourselves.
With that, we went to Ardfinham. Along the way, we encountered a patrol, of merfolk this time. These guys were extremely agitated, and on the verge of attacking us the entire time. This patrol's captain, Dageron, talked to us, and we explained what were were there to do. They would only allow us to come with them if we surrendered our weapons first, so that's what we did.
In Ardfinham, we were held briefly in a hut until the king would see us. Our audience with the king, Kierl, didn't go as we hoped however. He was convinced that the sea elves had kidnapped his son, and they were lying if they didn't know why tensions were raised. His ranting continued for a bit, and he eventually sent us away.
We were kept until a guard took us to see the kings advisr, a siren named Annelsie. She was concerned that the king was going to do something that couldn't be undone with the sea elves, and he wasn't like this. Maybe something was controlling or influencing him. She released us and gave us our gear asking us to find the son.
Kethys communed with nature, and divined that the answers we seek were to the south, away from the sea elf village. We made our way until we came across a few sea elves fighting some troll liek creatures called Scrags. With Najila banishing one, we quickly made short work of the others. We thought their healing ability would present a problem, but Caedmon's magic solved that for us. Searching around, we found a note, one that claimed the scrags were responsible for the kidnapping, and demanding a ransom. The sea elves left alive pointed us to the scrag nest, so we decided to head there, and see if the son was actually there.