Duldar Coppergrip
A smith from Castleinn who received a vision from Moradin. He is on a quest of improvement of both his skills and himself.
View Character Profile
Children
Bloody Pirates
Waking up form a good night sleep, I pack my things and get ready for the trip. Yesterday we decided to travel to Donner Keep, which means we’ll be traveling some distance by sea. I’d rather keep my feet on sturdy ground, but this is a necessary evil.
Once everybody is ready, we head out in search of a ship that can take us to Dasgoul, our first stop on the trip. After some searching, we find a ship called ‘The Second Best’. Valstrax is able to book us passage, and we might even make some money doing it! The ship captain is worried about the pirate rumours going around. So, since Valstrax is a registered adventurer, she figured we could protect the ship during the voyage. If we do a good job, we’ll earn enough money for the trip and then some!
When we get on board, we introduce ourselves to the captain and her first mate. Their own names are Jenny Harken and Red Bertram. The ship is manned by thirty people, and while on the trip we’re expected to carry our own weight. Shouldn’t be too difficult.
A little while out of the harbour of Slowbel, we all start to find our spots on the ship. Skrik is being the lookout in the crow’s nest. I think he’s doing the job with a bit too much excitement, since he’s pointing out everything he sees. Much to the annoyance of the crew. Janey is helping the crew with her mage hand as much as possible. Voron decided to hide under one of the stairs on deck so that he could avoid seeing the sea as much as possible. Valstrax is staying out of the way of the crew by hanging on his new ‘hammock’ rope. I tried to find a job below deck but, to no luck. Shortly after that I started to feel sick, so I spent most of my time hanging over the railing.
Later that day some creatures are spotted in the water to the port side of the ship. They start to climb onto the ship. I can’t see them yet since I’m still hanging over the railing on the starboard side. The others are able to take care of them quite well though, most of the creatures get hit right back into the water when their heads pop up above the railing. The one that did make it up onto the deck, ran right into the grasp of Valstrax. Which didn’t end well for it. Suddenly I notice another creature on my side of the ship. It was able to get onto the deck really quickly, probably because of its much bulkier form than the others. I tried to hold him in place with the powers granted to me, but it was able to break free. The others arrived soon after to do some serious damage, I tried to get a hit in but I’m just too sick. The creature jumps into the water but I’m able to hit him with a spell just before it disappears. His corpse floats back to the surface. Janey is able to tie a rope around one of its feet using her mage hand. We pull the creature back on board to have a better look. Their tools seem primitive, they were probably hunting for food. Valstrax has already started butchering the two that lie on the deck. As always, he plans on cooking them into a dish. Speaking about food, back to the railing I go.
It’s getting dark and I’m still hanging over the railing, will this ever end? Skrik shows up with a bowl of stew and smells absolutely delicious, I’ve got to try it! It tastes absolutely amazing! Skrik tells me Valstrax made this from the creatures we killed earlier. They were humanoid, but this tastes so good! I guess this isn’t the worst thing... At least my stomach seems to be calming down, I think I can get some sleep but I’ll bring a bucket with me just in case. I say good night to Voron under the stairs and Valstrax on his rope. When I get to the bunkbeds, I see Janey and Skrik reading in two of the beds. I had hoped to get some work done for the dagger, but I’m just too tired.
In the morning, my sea sickness seems to have finally cleared! I get up to get breakfast with the rest. It’s good to get some solid food in me again, but Skrik seemed to have a little accident during breakfast. He almost chocked on something, luckily Valstrax was able to save him. His technique was a little unorthodox though. He put his whole hand down Skrik’s thought get the piece out, that must’ve hurt! We get back to helping the crew however we can. I decide to scrub the deck. It’s only reasonable seeing as I was so sick yesterday.
Later that day, a ship is spotted on the horizon. It seems to be heading towards us! It could just be a coincidence but a little later it just seems to get closer. Janey decides to shoot off some spells to tell the other ship to back off, but it doesn’t seem to work, they’re still towards us. We decide this is too suspicious and we prepare to shoot at them. The ship has two weapons on it, a ballista and a mangonel. The mangonel has the longest range, so it will have to do for now. Skrik will be aiming and shooting the mangonel while I will be loading it. The quartermaster will help us operate it.
The wind is acting very strange, it seems to be changing direction every few minutes. I hope that doesn’t mean there’s a storm coming, I don’t see anything on the horizon at least. The other ship doesn’t seem to be impacted by the wind at all, there’s something strange about that ship.
Eventually the ship gets into range and we start shooting boulders at it, the other ship returns fire. Skrik comes up with a great idea, we could coat the boulder in oil and light it while it flies to the other ship, that should do quite some damage! Hopefully their sails will catch fire so that we can escape. We get a direct hit with a flaming boulder on the sails, but they don’t light up. These sails must be enhanced by some kind of magic, that would explain why it can sail while ignoring the wind. We try to escape from the ship, but the wind just isn’t in our favour. The pirate ship slowly comes closer and closer. Valstrax starts shooting the ballista as soon as they get into range of it. At this range we can also see that the ship also has a mangonel and ballista, we should really destroy those before they do too much damage. Voron pops up and casts a spell on the pirate ship’s deck, spawning a lot of thorns, that should make it more difficult for them. Janey also shoots off some spells once they’re in range, but most of the time the ship is just too far away. We’re able to destroy their mangonel and bridge, so they can’t steer anymore. Sadly, they’re able to destroy our bridge too, it seems we’re not getting away. The ship is now only 120 feet away from us and closing, looks like we’re about the boarded!
Buzzing bees, crawling spiders and a boat trip
With our mission clear, we headed on our way. We had to retrieve one jug of honey and two jug of spider webs. We were told we could find bee hives in the forest south of town. The spider webs could be found south west in caves. We decided to go get the honey first, as it was on the way to the caves anyway.
Along the way we talked about our age. Not surprisingly, I’m the oldest of the group. Though, to my surprise Skrik is only three years old and his name was actually the place where he was born. I love Castleinn, but I wouldn’t want to be called that, besides, it would get confusing.
When we got into the forest, Skrik started looking for bees with the help of Voron. They followed the bees at a flower patch back to their hive. The hive was big and should contain more than enough honey to fill a jug, the only problem was getting it out. Voron wanted to try and convince the bees in giving us the honey, I don’t think they understood him since nothing happened except a bit more buzzing. We decided to only take a piece of the hive so that they would still have enough honey to survive. Voron wanted to be the first to try and cut a piece of the hive, the bees seemed more relaxed around him. The hive turned out to be sturdier than we thought, Voron’s hit didn’t go trough. Valstrax decided to give it a go, the bees were calmer around Voron, but enough hits on the hive will set them off no matter who was hitting it. Valstrax’s hit slit right through the bottom part of the hive and it fell to the ground. The bees weren’t very happy with their home being damaged, three swarms of bees appeared out of the hive and started to attack us. Since Voron and Valstrax were closest to the hive, the bees swarmed around them. They were swatting them quite well, but getting stung less is a good thing, so we helped them as best we could. I thought of using my hammer to swat some, but there was a chance I’d hit Valstrax or Voron instead. I decided to use the powers that were granted to me to me to deal direct damage to the bees, but they didn’t seem very impacted by it. Meanwhile Janey was charring bees by shooting firebolts and Skrik was incredibly accurate with his darts, killing multiple bees per dart. During the battle, I saw Valstrax touch his amulet, it seemed to fill him with power. Eventually the bees were dead and we filled the jug with of honey. There was still some left, so we decided to take some for ourselves in an empty waterskin.
Next we had to get spiderweb, which could be found in the caves south west. We hiked that direction until the forest gave way to a rocky slope. Skrik was able to find a promising cave entrance and we all entered it. There weren’t many webs at the entrance of the cave so we went in deeper. The cave split in two tunnels; the left tunnel didn’t seem to have any spiderwebs but the right one had a thick layer. Skrik didn’t trust the left tunnel, Janey decided to place Miri on watch, just in case. Avoiding the left tunnel, we snuck over to the right one. We started collecting spiderwebs, using some sticks we took with us from outside. Skrik noticed movements in the darkness further down the tunnel, we made ready for a fight. Two large spiders appeared and tried to web us, but we were ready for them and avoided it. Janey created an orb of fire in between the two spiders, the air around it seemed incredibly hot. These weren’t the only spiders who had noticed our intrusion, from the left an even larger spider with two heads and huge fangs moved towards us. On the cave wall to besides it, we could also see swarms of spiders heading towards us. Valstrax, Voron and I were keeping the spiders from moving further into our part of the tunnel while Janey and Skrik shot at them from range. Janey started hitting the orb she created into the nearest spiders, burning any who touched it. I summoned a spiritual warhammer to help us in battle, this one would be able to reach the spiders further in the cave without getting stuck in the webs. When the swarms of spiders started crawling all over Valstrax, Voron and I, Skrik ran up to me and stabbed the last two spiders on me before they could crawl into my beard. After a fierce battle, all the spiders lay dead. No more spiders were coming from the tunnels so we finished collecting the two jugs worth of spiderweb. Skrik investigated the spider corpses to see if he could get anything of worth from them. He was able to harvest their fangs and some of their venom sacks.
Having collected the honey and webs, we traveled back to town. It was starting to get dark when we got there so we hurried back to The Sickly Respite to deliver the materials. Skrik told us he was going to try and sell the spider components while we collected the reward. We received 50 gold for the honey and 50 gold for the spiderweb. When we stepped out of the building Skrik was back, he couldn’t sell the fangs but wondered if any of us could make a weapon out of them. I told him I would try, once we had some time to spare.
Later, while we were having dinner, Skrik told us how his home was destroyed. He told us some shadowy figure attacked his home town and was able to disintegrate the anyone with ease, but for some reason he didn’t kill Skrik. The survivors cast him out after that, they said he brought bad luck. I sure hope that shadowy figure doesn’t show up while we’re around.
After finishing our food, Janey pointed out that Skrik still had a lot of web in his fur, and that he should take a bath. Skrik asked if she could help him with that, and I didn’t know Tieflings could become that red! Being so embarrassed, she refused. Later though, Skrik made a bit of a scene when he came back after his bath, completely naked. The bar roared in laughter, but Janey was all red again. After that, we got some rest.
After we had breakfast, I showed Skrik how my crossbow worked. He was thinking of getting his own. Since he was helping us out, I told him he could lend it from me, as I wasn’t really using it. He gave me some darts in return.
After that we got everyone on the boat to Slowbell. I was an impressed by the ship, it a ballista and a catapult. I would’ve loved to take a close look, but the captain made it very clear that we were not to touch anything, he had crew for that. The crossing went very smooth, not much happened. Valstrax did seem to have some difficulty getting traction on the deck, he was wrapped around a mast for most of the trip.
Finally, we arrived in Slowbell, but it was getting dark. The elf brothers offered to pay our stay at the local inn called the Marsh Inn. Tomorrow we’ll talk to their uncle and complete the caravan mission. I hope we’ll find some useful information in town too, maybe even something about these weird weapons.
Comments