Aboard The Providence
The Providence is attacked at night by a coordinated group of aquatic monsters. The monsters use the cover of a storm to kill most of the crew on the weather deck and then sneak into the lower decks, at which point they are engaged by the party, Asakura and Knut. Jaana joins the fight soon after Knut calls for her.
The defenders push the monsters back to the weather deck. Ruby is on the weather deck defending the blindfolded man.
A massive hydra-type monster emerges from the waves and starts attacking the entire ship with its bulk. The lesser monsters retreat into the sea. During the battle with the hydra, the party is attacked by invisible flying enemies that fire bolts of frost onto the weather deck. In the middle of the chaotic encounter, the blindfolded man touches Walter and Faylin, both of whom then can see the invisible floating monsters, which turn out to be the heads of the hydra.
The party fights off the hydra until it too retreats into the sea.
They find the late captain Ashbraid in the captain's quarters and discover that he was poisoned before the monster attack.
The noblewoman that the captain was talking with is also found dead in her cabin, along with her maid. The noblewoman had sacrificed her own maid in a blood magic ritual and then took her own life. The blood magic was used to empower some kind of communication spell. There are also drawn pictures of Ricky in the room.
The acting captain Therkildsen allows Asakura to investigate this room thoroughly after Asakura produces some documents about herself.
The next day the ship holds a funeral to honor the fallen. Late captain Ashbraid is given a burial at sea, as requested in his will.
Kaneko approaches the party with Asakura and tells them that he was impressed with the level of skill displayed by the party. Kaneko invites the party to meet with him in Jinhou at night. To do this, the party needs to take a room at the Emberglow Lodge inn, where they will be contacted by someone.
In Jinhou
In the evening, the ship arrives to Jinhou. Kuroda sends a messenger hawk towards the city before the ship makes landfall.
Due to the murder on the ship, the Jinhou harbor police collects basic information from most of the passengers. However, the police let Kaneko, Kuroda and Asakura go without asking them any questions. Jaana and Knut are also allowed to leave after the police realizes who she is. Same goes for Ruby and the blindfolded man, after Ruby provides some documents to the police.
The party heads off to the Emberglow Lodge inn and rent a room for the night. After the party rests for a bit, the proprietor arrives to hand them a sealed letter, which tells them to arrive to warehouse 33 in the south harbor in one hour.
At warehouse 33
The party arrives to warehouse 33 at the hour but nobody is welcoming them and there's a smell of blood emanating from within. They break into the warehouse to find the beheaded bodies of Asakura and Kuroda, along with a blood magic ritual circle.
The party investigates the scene and finds a Xinguan man named Xiong Li hiding in one of the crates. The man assures the party that he's simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and had nothing to do with the murders. He did, however, witness what happened.
According to Xiong Li, three people first walked inside, they investigated the area and then met with three other people. The first group of people attacked the second group, beheaded two of them, kidnapped the third one and then conducted a blood magic ritual to teleport away, leaving only Xiong Li at the site.
As the party is wondering what to do next, the giants arrive, being also invited to the warehouse by Kaneko. Knut is about to enrage after seeing the party surrounding the headless body of his crush Asakura, but Ricky calms him down.
Everyone investigates the area further. Knut notices that Asakura and Kuroda were heading towards the exit as they were assassinated, meaning that they were attacked from behind after their meeting had concluded, implying that they were betrayed by someone within their circle of trust. Knowing that Asakura and Kuroda are affiliated with the police, he thinks the party should not report the incident to the police about what happened because there's a chance that Jinhou police may be compromised. Knut vows to avenge Asakura's death.
Faylin tries to tap into the residual emotion of Asakura's corpse and sees an image of a man, associated with feelings of surprise and hatred.
Xiong Li reveals that he has no place to stay for the night and would like to follow the party to their lodgings. The party agrees.
The party, now including Xiong Li, and the giants leave the scene and agree to meet tomorrow to discuss their next steps. The giants head off to their own inn.
Next morning
Party meets with the giants on the Gunpowder Bridge. Jaana reveals that she's Jotunheim royalty and a voidtouched shapeshifter and that Knut is her bodyguard. Kaneko's plan was to invite Jaana and Knut to Eigo to win the Tournament of the Warrior Spirit to throw a wrench into the plans of some kind of conspiracy that intends to plunge Eigo into chaos.
Jaana believes in Kaneko and tells that she intends to follow through with the original plan, even if Kaneko is currently missing. She asks the party to join her and Knut and compete in the tournament. The party agrees, but they still want to spend time looking for Kaneko.
Looking for Kaneko
The party searches for witnesses who may have seen the other group that arrived to warehouse 33. They find a local drunkard named Akechi and bribe him with a bottle of wine to share his account. Akechi says the he saw a group of 3 people wearing cloaks walk towards the warehouse. They all took great care to hide their faces, but Akechi could tell that one of them was female and that she smelled of mud and dirt, even though it hadn't been raining.
The party pursues their other lead, Kuroda's messenger hawk, which was sent to inform the party about the meeting. After hours of searching and searching for witnesses, they piece together roughly where the messenger hawk originated from and where it returned to; a densely-built area in the slums.
After more searching, the party finds the slum apartment with the messenger hawk inside, sitting inside her cage. They knock on the door, but there's no answer. They discuss with local kids who reveal that a deaf girl named Saki lives in the apartment.
Party gets the attention of Saki through the window and show that they know Kaneko, Asakura and Kuroda, she lets them inside the apartment. They don't find more useful clues inside the apartment; only remains of burned documents in the fireplace.
Saki may know more about the trio that she lets on, but she refuses to believe that Kuroda is dead and keeps touching her single earring. She demands proof of Kuroda's demise before she will reveal any more information. Faylin offers to show Saki the emotions that she tapped into in the warehouse and Saki agrees, knowing the risk that with this kind of magic something may always go wrong.
Saki's trance
Something indeed goes wrong during the ritual and Saki begins to speak with the voices of people present in the warehouse during the time of the kidnapping while the party's head is filled with visions of shadowy people. Saki then passes out and doesn't awake.
Party goes looking for more information in the docks, but they are interrupted when they see a police flare that rises above Noble Rise. Sensing that something bad has happened with Saki, they rush to Saki's apartment and find it empty, with the door being blasted out of the doorframe into the street. Eyewitnesses present state that they saw Saki rush towards Noble Rise with a shovel in hand, followed by the giants who were unable to stop her.
Party follows the trail of the giants towards Noble Rise and are met with a police blockade. The area has been cordoned off for a police operation. They sneak inside the area and find the giants, along with a seemingly sleepwalking Saki being surrounded by police. Saki is slamming the shovel against the pavement, trying to dig through the ground. The police keep shouting at Saki to stop and Jaana is trying to shout at the police that Saki can't hear them.
Party decides that they need to intervene fast or the police will use lethal force against Saki. When they touch her, she pushes them away with a wind spell, revealing that Saki has now become voidtouched. They switch approach and try to talk with her. Eventually they succeed and Saki passes out again. While the police are disorganized, Knut and Jaana disguise Saki as a giant baby and together with the party they transport her to Emberglow Lodge.
Next morning
During breakfast, Jaana suddenly realizes that Saki can actually divine the location of Kuroda's head, because Kuroda's head was missing from the warehouse. She reasons that Kuroda's head must have gone through the blood magic-powered portal. The entranced Saki was trying to reach Kuroda by digging her way to him, meaning that the kidnapper's hideout is underneath Noble Rise.
Knowing that they would have to enter the Jinhou sewer to find their way into the undergound, the giants admit that they are too big for the operation and stay behind to watch over still-unconscious Saki. Xiong Li uses his connections to help the giants smuggle Saki out of the Emberglow Lodge inn into another safehouse. The party heads off to the sewers.
Into the underground hideout
The party disguises themselves as service workers and sneak their way into Jinhou sewers. They eventually find a recently-carved passage in the sewer wall that leads towards the area above which Saki was digging. They follow the passage until Arista gets a premonition of something dangerous being in front of them. The party stops to strategize when Faylin and Walter see a strange ethereal phantasm sneak up on them. The rest of the party cannot see the creature.
TBC