EooD Session 7: Sailing Into Oblivion, Pt. 1
General Summary
11/1/900
The party spent a few more days at The Laughing Gnoll, purchasing last-minute items before their voyage out into the Arrayas Ocean to confront an undead band of ghosts haunting ships passing through the region. Cig helped the party find a boat that would take them into the dangerous waters, the only downside being that the ship was part of the Silver Beak's pirate fleet. The party had already run into a few of the Silver Beak's kenku cutthroats on its way into Qilthani, but the ship's first mate Guang Chirp hadn't yet made the connection that the party was responsible for the death of several kenku fighters.
One morning at the end of fall the party woke up and made its way down to the city's docks to prepare for a voyage towards the unknown. Decarabia Goldeneye brewed a terrible pot of coffee before they headed out, encouraging them to stay in one place and make a life of their own in a city like Qilthani rather than risk their lives on a daily basis as adventurers. Everybody appreciated the coffee, especially Cedar who'd never tasted anything like it before in her life.
On board the ship the party staked out free rooms and introduced themselves to the dozen other crew members aboard The Partridge. While Cig set up traps and detection tools around the room, he pulled open a drawer and found a male fairy passed out next to a bottle of Joseph Daniels, muttering about ghosts and monsters killing everybody. Cig eventually pieced together that this was Zephyr Luthar, the lone survivor of the party's previous naval encounter. According to reports, Zephyr had spent the past month in Rel-Odar processing the trauma of seeing every ally die before his very eyes.
The voyage out into the Arrayas Ocean was uneventful, the party training and preparing for whatever undead creatures they'd come across out at sea. Kirby taught the kenkus some old sea shanties that they imitated to perfection, and Kipp bonded with one of the sailors named Xiang Wingding during the voyage. Wingding talked about how kenkus had lost their ability to fly hundreds of years ago, so Kipp tried to emulate the experience by picking kenkus up and 'flying' them around the top deck of the ship. Even first mate Chirp was convinced to give it a try with Kirby's urging, bonding with Kipp after the pleasant experience. Damon frowned on all of the interactions, bearing in mind that this was the same group of thieves that the party had fought just a few weeks earlier.
11/3/900
Finally, the party made it into deep waters hundreds of miles away from the coasts of Rakka. One evening First Mate Chirp awoke the adventurers, warning them that a blue/green fog was moving towards the ship outside.
Sure enough, a strange-colored mist was making its way towards The Partridge in rapid time with the vague outline of a wrecked elven ship a few thousand feet away. The party readied itself for the encroaching fog, Cig hiding beside a liferaft while Damon crouched a few feet into the staircases descending into the ship's lower levels. Before long, a pair of ghosts appeared warning how Rakkan ships must pay for their negligence during the Sunken God's reign of terror several years ago.
A fight ensued, Damon landing many devastating blows with his devilishly enchanted glaive. One ghost still managed to move forward onto the deck of the ship, dropping its spectral appearance and revealing to the party its horrifying visage from when its was massacred by the Sunken God's sahuagin horde. Some like Kirby managed to avoid eye contact with horrendous ghost, but Kipp, Damon, and Zephyr all looked dead into the eyes of ghost and aged twenty years in a matter of seconds from the horror of this ghost's true form. A couple more well-placed blows banished this ghost from the material plane, but there was still one more ghost to deal with aboard the ship.
Cig fought back against the monster as it moved on deck, but he was powerless to stop the surviving fragments of this ghost from possessing Cedar and using the druid's powers against her fellow party members. Kipp and Kirby tried to expel the ghost from Cedar's body, but their charms and spells seemed to have little effect on the ghost's psyche. An 'Eldritch Blast' from Zephyr pushed Cedar off the side of the ship, and after a few moments of debate the party decided the only way to exorcise the ghost would be by knocking their fey healer unconscious. Cedar fell like a sack of bricks into the icy waters of the Arrayas Ocean after another attack hit its mark, Damon leaping in a few moments later to rescue her from certain death. The ghost's spectral form disappeared after being expelled from Cedar's body, granting the party time to regroup and recover from the horrifying encounter.
By the time Damon and Cedar made it back on board The Partridge, the elven ghost ship was only a few hundred feet away and looming over the kenku vessel. Fearing the worst, the party made its final preparations before boarding the ghost ship and laying whatever souls they found aboard to rest.
Character(s) interacted with
- Director Astara Hadad - Head of Rakka's Heroes
- Decarabia Goldeneye - Owner/manger of The Laughing Gnoll tavern in Qilthani
- Guang Chirp - First Mate aboard the Silver Beak vessel The Partridge
- Xiang Wingding - Sailor aboard the Silver Beak vessel The Partridge, spending most days manning the view from the crow's nest.
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