Beholder Group - "Plans, Plans and more Plans" - Sessions 20, 21, 22, The Eye of Kronos

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Sessions 20, 21 and 22 have been combined, as they consisted primarily of planning!

Not too much 'flavour text' in this post, it's captured primarily as a reminder of what was found out and the key events....

Session 20
5th Mar 2020, 7:45 – 11:30pm
CORRECTED In-game timeline: Start of session, 1489DR, Eleint 15th. End of session, Eleint 18th

Summary of Session
The group have just finished the Gauntlet Run. They spend the next few days talking to Brighton to find out a bit more about the island, and also manage to train up in some pirating skills – using a grappling hook, climbing a rope, scaling wooden structures etc.
They return to the pirate village and try to make themselves useful. Devon gets a job at The Bar, Drogan helps out Midge in the gym, Dwarrow works in the hospital and Alwaith walks around, invisible, trying to suss out the place a bit more.
Alwaith visits the Dragon Turtle to talk to it and finds out about how they are controlled

Session 21
12th Mar 2020, 7:45 – 11:30pm
In-game timeline: Start of session, 1489DR, Eleint 18th. End of session, Eleint 19th

Summary of session
After fixing themselves up with jobs / scouting, they all discover a bit more information, by discretely asking around and Alwaith by mapping stuff out. They reconvene in the hostel and compare information and notes and start to form a better picture of the island and how it is run. Drogan visits the dragon turtle and follows it chains up to a control room that seems to contain at least 4 sahuagin guards. Alwaith manages to set off an alarm by opening a door, and lots of pirates come running, and a sahuagin guard appears at the other side of it. Alwaith and Drogan manage to bluff their way out of the situation.
The group eventually discuss their plans with Bryn and Brighton. Bryn manages to get 4 pirates on board with the plan, with 2 others as possibilities only. He also manages to get a message to Hawkeye in the cells to let her know that plans are afoot to release her and the other prisoners, and that she should be ready for action. They also discover a secret corridor leading out of the brothel.
The group find out that a raid ship is due in, with more booty, in a couple of days, that there is a blood moon in a couple of days too, when the Sahuagin often make a bloody sacrifice, that Drow-Bree is setting sail again in 4 days, and that a slavers galley ship is coming to take the remaining prisoners away in 5 days.
The group spend a bit more time scouting out the island and formulating a plan.

Session 21
26th Mar 2020, 8:00 – 11:30 (Roll20 session)
In-game timeline: Start of session, 1489DR, Eleint 19th. End of session, Eleint 20th

Summary of session
Plan firmed up, they set it in motion. After watching the raid ship arrive, offload, then set sail again, they, along with Brighton, manage to get hold of some weapons and armour for the prisoners and store it in the secret corridor from the brothel. Greyfingers, one of the on-side pirates with some skill in herbalism, along with Dwarrowsteel, concoct a slow-acting poison and Devon brews up some decent Goblin-Brew type ale, and adds the poison to half the batch. They arrange for the on-side pirate guard to be on duty in the cells that evening.
In the evening, Devon and greyfingers serve up the decent Goblin Brew and get the pirates keen to drink some more. Leaving Greyfingers to serve up the poisoned batch to as many as possible (she thinks they may get about 10 or so poisoned), the party take some decent ale and food down to the guard captain outside the cells. The ruse works, he is unsuspecting, and they manage to dispatch him in a single round, quickly and quietly. They grab his keys and unlock the cells, getting Hawkeye and the on-side guard to lead the prisoners to the secret entrance to the brothel and get armed and armoured, with instructions to fight their way out to the docks and out to the distant ship and try to take that ship, then wait for the party to join them. Bryn and Brighton would help out, meaning there should be about 20 or so rebels rushing to the boat.
The party, after some debate, decide to use the password to get the door open, and Alwait, in the disguise of the guard captain, would try to lure the sahuagin guard out. This doesn’t work, however, the sahuagin is completely disinterested in the guard’s problems. Luckily Dwarrow manages to beat the sahuagin’s initiatve though, and just about manages to stop the sahuagin from closing the door, allowing Devon to leap in and take out the sahuagin.
The group storm through the door to be faced by a sahuagin commander, and two more rushing up from the distance. Hits from a raging and reckless Drogan, and a critical hit from Dwarrow, weaken the first sahuagin, who does manage to get a hit on Drogan before Devon takes him out. All this before the other two sahuagin commanders reach them. 
Seeing the efficiency with which they dispatched the previous two shark-heads, one of the commanders leaps into the pool and swims off, while the other tries to fend off the attacks, managing to score another hit on Drogan, but being taken down by hits from the whole party, going down with a final attack from Devon.
With the battles all being over very quickly so far, the group press on, nervous at what the escaped sahuagin would bring upon them, and from where. Devon quickly scouts out the next room, seeing a large cavern with 3 tunnels leading north. Dwarrow detects a ruby in one of the northern areas, but as they all group together in the main room, Dwarrow trips and causes a loud crashing sound and his armour clatters on the hard ground.
The group look on as hags appear, one from each of the three tunnels leading north. Luckily they appear staggered in time, allowing attacks to land before being overwhelmed.
The fight doesn’t last long, and the hags proved a little easier than expected, but this was due to some useful saves against some of the more powerful spells of the hags, plus some initial resistance (good saves) against the frightening hideousness of the witches. Dwarrow manages to cast silence in the area where two of the hags are, and Devon brings one down with Hideous Laughter. This allowed the group to focus on the first hag. Despite becoming frightened at the sight of the others appearing, Alwaith and Drogan manage to lay in on the first and as a group they bring her down, breaking the coven. 
The Death Glares from the other two hags didn’t seem to be working on this group (more useful saves!) and the team focussed on the middle hag, with the ruby headband. This allowed the other hag to escape into the pool, but the group bring down Kell Gotra, with the ruby – Alwaith slicing her head clean off as she tries to flee back into her room, after not being able to negotiate due to being in a silence spell, and with the group having cut off her escape into the pool or the rest of the island.
With one hag escaped, the party are nervous about spending too much time here, but, despite that, they spend a bit of time checking out each of the hag’s rooms, and Drogan has a quick look around the main cavern, taking the ruby and other items from the two dead hags, and, having worked out that the smoke rising from the cauldron bubbling over the fire in the centre of the room is probably what is feeding the mist around the island, he kicks the cauldron over and spills its contents, stopping more magical smoke from joining the mist outside.
The hags were dispatched quickly, though it has now been a little while since the sahuagin escaped, followed by a hag. The party need to decide whether to search the area further, or to try to escape before too much of the island is alerted.