The village of Neraisle was not one of those trouble-plagued places; its baliff is decent, the knight who is its lord just wish to survive through the current chaotic state of the kingdom and the people are decent and hardworking. That is, until a fisherman caught a fish with a sparkling sapphire inside. That fish came from a small, yet rather deep lake at the edge of the village, and is really steeped in local folklore (such as that when the water level drops when the moon is full, you are able to see a tunnel which leads into a faerie realm…and so on). No matter, with the finding of that sapphire, people become curious, diving into the lake to see what is under the surface. They found treasures and this is when curiosity becomes greed…
- And with greed comes all sort of troubles. The knight who is the lord of the village find that he has to post guards by the lake as some of the villagers, harboring thoughts of getting rich quickly, began to dive into the lake to retrieve treasures. Some returned with their prize but are missing the next day; many more went missing. Yet despite that, the villagers are still eager to find treasures within the lake. Some may say that their enthusiasm is a bit…uncanny.
- A group of scholars come to the lake when some ancient stone engravings, retrieved from the lake, came to their attention. They believe that the lake used to house a temple built on its surface and they wish to investigate more. However, this upsets the knight as the scholars wish to take the lake under their charge, under the royal academy. Yet as this by the order of the King, the knight has no choice but to accept…few days later, a few of the scholar’s aide are found murdered. Naturally, the scholars accuse the knight; yet when the knight himself was found drowned in the lake a few days later…with an ancient gold coin clenched in his fist…the mystery deepens…
- Some who have dived into the lake has returned with claims of a crawl-space in the side of the cliff, leading deeper in. Many began to fish in the area, lowering nets and such. The activity at the surface of the lake has been detected by an aquatic race living deeper down – it could be kappas, deep ones or merfolk. They have decided to put an end to the meddling and that the solution is: to raze the entire village so that those humans would leave them alone. If the adventurers could deter the villagers from disturbing the lake all would be fine – but there’s a group of other adventurers, hell-bent on divining the secrets of the lake, and they are not giving up that easily.
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