Session 14 - Water: Ship Down
16 Flaurmont 1010 - 21 Flaurmont 1010
General Summary
The party takes a short rest, going back on deck, to recover their breath, and take a closer look at the items they found in the half-orc's summoning room. It turns out the cloak is a coveted Cloak of Protection, which Elincia claims. The scrolls are a scroll of protection from poison, and gust of wind.
The party explores the aft room and find nothing of interest in that area, but there is a trap door access to the lower deck/hold. They carefully open this, and drop a lit up pot down to get a feel for what is below. There is clearly water in the hold, but only about 3ft deep on the port side, and much shallower on the starboard side. All the goods that were in the ship are on the port side of the deck, mostly damaged or destroyed over time. Stavos returns to the central area, and opens the alternate hatch, and lowers the rest of the rope down to the storage area below.
The party all descends to the hold and starts to explore, seeking the chest that was described by Aubreck. The entire hold is difficult terrain due to the depth of the water and the flotsam, and in a few minutes of searching, the party is attacked by a pack of 4 undead humanoids. The party whittles down the ghasts, though Seraphina becomes poisoned in the process. Before long she recovers from this condition, and with a few more minutes of searching the hold, the party finds the crate. Opening the crate they find Aubreck's box inside.
Possibly from blood in the water of the hold from their battle with the Ghasts, or perhaps triggered magically by the crate being opened, the ship shudders, and giant tentacles start breaking through into the hold everywhere, battering the ship, and the unlucky party. Tork takes the lead and offers help with carrying the very heavy chest out of the hold. Seraphina, being the strongest, takes the rest of the load. However, with the tentacles smashing every which way, the party finds the process of getting out of the hold surprisingly difficult. To compound things further, in addition to the tentacles flailing about violently, the ship is taking on water very fast, and lists even further to port, the deck now at at least a 30 degree angle, and shaking around.
With being battered regularly, Seraphina and Tork take several turns just to get up to the middle deck of the ship, and the full party is struggling to both stay out of the way, and avoid taking too much damage in the process of the escape. Leofingol, the last one out of the hold, barely gets out before that deck is fully submerged. Their progress on the mid deck is much more successful, but they do find tentacles battering everything on this floor as well.
Elincia escapes to the main deck first, and waves for the Jolly boat, which is already rowing as quickly as possible over to the Emperor of the Waves to recover the party. By the time the full party is on the main deck, even the top deck is half submerged, and the tilt of the deck continues to get worse. The party elects to start swimming away from the ship; thankfully the tentacles seem to be preoccupied with tearing the ship apart rather than pursuing the party, and they are able to get to the jolly boat without further incident.
Having had some time to think about combat situations, upon arrival on the ship, the party has a couple instructions for the captain and crew of the Everlasting Light. First, in their return to Saltmarsh, they should skirt the border between the territories in the hope that the open sea lanes are less likely to encounter pirates. Second, if they should be attacked again like what happened with the Sahuagan, then the crew should fall back to ranged attacks, and allow the party to take the brunt of the attack. We don't want the crew members to be at risk of taking heavy damage, since they are not as well armed or armored as the party.
As the Everlasting Light heads back to Saltmarsh, they continue working on their fishing, and enjoyment of the warmer sun here in the southern waters. However when just a couple days from home, the watching eyes of Blazh in the crow's nest, announces sighting a ship behind them. After some time, it becomes clear that the larger ship is gaining on the Everlasting Light. Not long thereafter, a second ship can be seen, and neither ship appears to be flying colors, not a particularly good sign. Fortunately, another ship, arrives slightly ahead of their current heading, and it is flying "the wheat" indicating a Five Shires navy ship. The captain shifts their heading to intercept, and has Blazh wave the white flag. The Navy ship turns for interception, and as it passes by instructs the ship to lower sails, and the crew complies. Thankfully the hostile ships turn away at this point.
The Hin ship (the Sea Lion) pulls alongside the Everlasting Light, and rapidly their crew boards the Everlasting Light for an inspection. After a thorough investigation of the ship, caaptain Hummock interrogates everyone starting with the captain, and the crew, then one by one through the party. Eventually, apparently at least partially convinced that the ship is what is claimed, Captain Hummock says they will escort the ship back to Saltmarsh. If the Everlasting Light deviates from that course, they will be boarded and arrested. This, it turns out, is the perfect solution, as now they have a free military escort to their desired destination! As they near Saltmarsh, the Sea Lion splits off, and goes back to patrolling, the Everlasting Light safely back in port.
Aubreck and Vertheg come rushing to the docks as the ships docks, clearly excited, and slightly winded. The party invites them aboard, and brings the very heavy chest on deck. Aubreck is clearly ecstatic to see that they are successful and immediately invites them all to dinner at his house, and sends Vertheg off to get a cart. The party escorts the cart back to Aubreck's house, and he brings the chest into the back room to open it (presumably so they can't hear the magic passphrase). Upon opening it he exclaims in delight, and comes back with a bag of 500 platinum, and promises the rest of the payment by next morning. He is clearly turned fully around with this arrival, and the party goes on to do their in town activities while Vertheg arranges dinner and Aubreck deals with the contents of the chest.
The party finds out that Sumadram is back in town, and the political negotiations are well under way with Merfolk, Lizardfolk, Sea Elves, and Locathah in town to negotiate a regional alliance. Already the fishing has started to get back up to healthy levels, and the fishing vessels are going out better armed and able to be successful again. The party finishes dealing with the various in town chores, and returns to Aubreck's home for dinner. Clearly he has spent a bit of his newly restored wealth, as there is a broader range of folks brought in to prepare and serve the private dinner. Aubreck thanks everyone again for their dedicated work, and a wonderful evening is had by all.
Seraphina chooses to stay the night at the temple rather than on board the Everlasting Light. In the morning there is a ruckus as Krag comes running to the temple to inform Wellgar that in the night 10 graves have been dug up, seemingly by hand. Seraphina and Wellgar go to investigate, and Seraphina decides she will reach out to her new friends on the Everlasting Light to help investigate this "Grave Situation"...
Character(s) interacted with
Report Date
03 Apr 2020
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