Somewhere in the ocean, aboard the Joyful Damnation

No one ever listens to me when I tell them we shouldn't trust shady people who are probably cultists, and yet.
 
I was absolutely right about them being dangerous, and although nothing went terribly wrong for us in the end, I still wish we hadn't agreed to take them on in the first place. Or that we had dumped them overboard after the first night of weird chanting and summoning.
 
It's.... a really long story, and I don't want to recount all five of those strange as hell days, but in essence, we hosted a bachelor party. With food, entertainment, drinks... and an accidental god summoning ritual. Apparently, what we did was exactly what the cultists, who kept calling themselves the Lads, needed to summon their undead deer god. They did a lot of late-night chanting and we spent a long time trying to figure out what that was about, only to suddenly get confronted with their ritual.
 
Aside from everything being really strange and also having to be hosts on our new ship, which went... decently well? The food was pretty good, and I got to cook in an actual kitchen again - not quite the same as being on land, but so much closer than a campfire! Glow cooked quite a bit as well, which isn't something I knew she could do, but she's good at it, even if her dishes the first night weren't much of a success.
 
There was a lot of drinking to go with it. We drank quite a bit to celebrate, we got the Lads really drunk on mimosas to try (and mostly fail) to pry information out of them, and everyone had a lot of coffee on those nights that we were all taking extra watches so there was always two people up in case the chanting and the creepy eyeball thing started happening again.
 
Radiance gave Iltiari the apology baguettes, which Iltiari accepted, and she hasn't called them an it since. So hopefully that enmity is over. They did bond over the sea shanties, which are extremely catchy. I keep hearing those two humming it.
 
On the subject of our new ship, I don't like it as much as I hoped I would. Radiance and Zsoana adore the sea and the ship, and Nabith's apparently a very quick learner - she picked it up like she's been doing it all her life. Iltiari.... went from totally hopeless to competent, which is weird, but also not, for them? Hail and Damiel and I? We all learned we get horribly seasick.
 
It was terrible. Why do people insist on making boats and going out to sea so badly? Why do they want to have unsteady footing and choppy waves and constantly feel like they're sloshing around in a wooden container? The sea is worse than the forest, and I thought I would never hate any environment more than I hate the forest. I want to go back to the plains, where the land isn't covered in fucking trees and there's actual dirt.
 
Damiel made some potion that made the seasickness go away, thankfully, which made it bearable even if I still wish we could be somewhere else. I don't know how he managed to figure it out while also being seasick.... being docked was better than being out on the ocean, but the rocking motion still reminded me of how bad it was out there. I'm glad he was able to figure it out, though.
 
Hail's luckier than the rest of us - she was fine the next day, without any potion to help. She's not bad at sailing either, now that she's able to take a few steps from the rail.
 
Also, apparently I've given Damiel a petname now? I was just trying to tease him about having to be awake for the early morning watch, but I think the joke went over his head. He thought me calling him 'sunshine' was some kind of nickname, so then I had to explain that it was more of a petname, and then apparently he didn't understand what that meant until I explained it, though Elvish has a close enough word that he got the idea.
 
As weird as that interaction was, he didn't have any objections to me using it? He's definitely not sunny in his demeanor, but that makes it better, honestly. And he does have blonde hair.
 
...I think I might just keep calling him sunshine. It's kind of cute.
 
The Lads, who Iltiari threw into the void, wanted us to take them south, which was conveniently where the Cult of Daimos told us we could find Tazra. The nearest port to us is a very ominously named Necropolis-on-sea, so I'm more than a little worried about what we're going to find there when we stop to resupply. It's might just be a perfectly normal little town aside from a necromancer problem that we'll need to clean up, but... I've been feeling unsettled about it ever since we interrupted the Lads' ritual. If they wanted to go there, something dangerous must be going on.