Chapter 2 Finale: Looking into the eyes of a Sea of Chaos.

General Summary

The party started the session within the sea of Chaos as Sahuagin and water elementals laid siege to the Mistwalker. The party soon found themselves struggling against the monsters as a storm surged and raged, the water elementals, being composed of magic, were resistant to non-magical weapons and so were difficult for the party to defeat.
Notably, the monsters would not openly try to attack Olympia and instead kept trying to grapple and drag her into the sea of chaos, though they were unsuccessful in every attempt to do so.
The tide started to turn for the party eventually, with Kodo removing multiple Sahuagin and Gwydion nearly completely incapacitating a water elemental throughout the combat whilst Baralas used call lightning to rapidly wear down the elementals.
The party were starting to take damage due to the elemental's attacks and it's ability to restrain and 'drown' those that come into contact with it. Particularly damaging Baralas in the fight.
With Olympia and Baralas on healing and survival duty whilst the rest of the party continued to fight, Mimsi re-entered the fray after protecting Maria Cartwright and it seemed that victory was assured.
At that point, there was a peal of thunder and lightning, to which 3 individuals appeared, all looking like average humans with the same eyes as Olympia. One of them was far off on an island and seemingly orchestrating the storm whilst the other two stood at the starboard of the ship. They introduced themselves as Selene and Arty and made it clear they were here for Olympia. The party went into sass mode and Arty responded by casting fireball.
Mimsi, Thordak, Kodo and Gwydion recognised this new threat and all went to engage the siblings. What followed was an epic degree of bad luck as Kodo missed half of his attacks, Gwydion's firearm misfired, Mimsi missed all of her attacks and Thordak only hit once. In response to this, Arty used a high level hold person and paralysed both Mimsi and Thordak before Selene focused on killing the goblin monk, almost succeeding with Mimsi barely still standing.
Whilst Gwydion had to fix his gun and hide, Arty continually traced the gunslinger after Gwydion double critical failed on a stealth check to hide. Kodo was left to contend with Selene in melee combat, as he started to overcome her Kodo noticed that every time he hit Selene Arty was also taking damage as though they were linked together. He also realised that Selene was off a similar biology to Olympia, when he cut into her she bled in TINY quantities and hits didn't register fully on her.
Eventually, Kodo critically hit Selene and she responded with an angry hellish rebuke that brought Kodo to 1 hp.
To follow this up Baralas rained down another lightning bolt on the siblings and annihilated Selene, making her head explode, revealing constructed silken gears in her head before she crumbled into dust. Arty responded by angrily launching a fireball at Gwydion, Baralas and Olympia, knocking Baralas unconscious.
At this point the ship was near total destruction and was rapidly beginning to sink as the sea seemed to have been manually tearing apart the boards of the boat. It also seemed that the sea of chaos was a finite thing that was rapidly losing power as the eyes started to close and fade away, at which point Kodo asked a fading Arty Why they were targeting the party and Arty replied that the party were obstacles, he wanted Olympia isolated from them and was frustrated that he'd failed, at that point Arty faded away and Mimsi+Thordak were finally able to overcome the paralysis effect he had on them.
The ship fell and the still-conscious party looked across the Mistwalker to see:

• Archania pulled her black dagger and threw it at Gwydion, knocking him unconscious and making him fall into the sea.
• Baralas, unconscious and bleeding out, fell into the sea as well. Thordak dove down after him as the eyes were closing.
• Lyren was bleeding out, stabbed by a sahuagin and drowned by water elementals, his final mask was crumbled and broken.
• Horror was dead at the wheel of the Mistwalker whilst the other crew and mercenaries were either dead or missing.

Kodo grabbed Mimsi and dragged her to Lyren, whom Kodo stabilised as the mage was on the cusp of death (2 failed death saving throws). At this point, the party realised they had row boats on the mistwalker and Mimsi and Olympia lowered them to stow on.
Kodo, Mimsi, Olympia and Lyren were damaged, demoralised and hurt... but they were alive.
Thordak dove after Baralas and immediately found himself submerged in the chaos. As the eyes, mirroring Thordak's, turned to stare at him and asked the Half-Orc the Cursed Question. Thordak managed to stay resolute against the eyes, closing his own eyes and refusing to listen, he focused on a prayer to Pelor and wasn't left corrupted by the Chaos.
Thordak did not find Baralas as the druid bled out in the sea and, with a final goodbye to his found family, fell into an eternal slumber.
The party looked out across the wreckage of the Mistwalker and saw a cave in the distance, the cave Lyren was aiming to reach with the ship. At that moment, Pawcaw flew out from the Mistwalker and gave Kodo a note, a goodbye letter from Baralas, calling the party his 'family' and saying that he had no regrets joining them as well as entrusting Pawcaw to Kodo.
The session ended, with the party in the centre of the ocean, looking for their remaining members. And so, as chapter 2 comes to an end, Persicorum level up (now level 6) and we start Chapter 3: Kindling.

Missions/Quests Completed

• The party successfully escorted Lyren Killian to the Cave of Longing, a secret route into the Mammoth Peaks. 

Character(s) interacted with

• Lyren Killian: The tiefling mage was caught in a fight between some sahuagin and water elementals. He managed to survive the fight, by the skin of his teeth, as Kodo bandaged the boy and stabilised him. Lyren was left in the rowboat, unconscious, but breathing.
• Selene: Selene emerged on the Mistwalker, summoned by the sea of chaos halfway through the fight. She took active joy in attempting to kill Olympia's allys... specifically calling Mimsi a sacrifice and attacking the paralysed goblin. She wielded a strange, flowing silk blade and notably seemed disinterested in the fight until Kodo entered the fray and started to seriously damage her at which point she angrily used a hellish rebuke on the Firbolg. After a long fight, Baralas managed to finish off Selene with a bolt of lightning, revealing that Selene was made of silk gears as she crumbled into dust.
• Arty: Arty emerged on the ship alongside Selene and showed himself to be a powerful spellcaster, making use of several fireball spells, a lightning bolt and a 5th level hold person in an attempt to incapacitate the party's key melee threats. Arty saw Gwydion as his quarry and focused on the gunslinger, nearly killing him before fading away. Arty is the sibling that used a fireball to kill Baralas before admitting to Kodo that he wants to isolate Olympia by killing her party allies.
• Selma: The third sibling, Selma was orchestrating the storm from a distance and was cackling maniacally, it seems she was the silent sister referred to by Helmed Crown Layla's diary entry's. She howled like an animal when she started to fade away from the sea of chaos.
• Archania: Mostly protected the Mistwalker during the fight but, as the storm raged and the ship began to sink, she took her chance and dishonorably attacked Gwydion, who was knocked unconscious by the impact, with her dagger before disappearing into the sea of chaos.
• Maria Cartwright: Mimsi spent the start of the fight defending Cartwright from water elementals before rejoining Persicorum. As the ship sank, Cartwright was nowhere to be seen.

Notes

The fate of Baralas was known as Pa'qua gave the druids final message to the party. The current location and condition of Thordak and Gwydion are currently unknown to Olympia, Kodo, Mimsi, Pa'qua and Lyren.

Report Date

14 Nov 2020

Primary Location

Umala