Session 25 - Fishy Plans
7 Yarthmont 1010 - 17 Yarthmont 1010
General Summary
They party recounts their tale of the contents of the Sahuagin lair to Captain Hummock, and while he seems unhappy that they were unable to get any information about the top layer of the lair, he accepted their rationale. They head back to Saltmarsh with their guests Borgas and Kysh, where they make a full report to the alliance council, as well as their interest in supporting the alliance in the assault.
The council informs them that it will be several days before they are needed, so the party decides to do a few errands around town, as well as their normal stop by Winston's to see what new items he has found. Seraphina orders the ring of swimming, but there are a couple new magic items he has gotten access to. First, a magic 50 ft. rope that can be cut, and then with the command word repaired to normal. In addition to it's obviously beneficial magic attributes, it is lighter than a standard hemp rope. Second, there are a couple new magical staves. The first is a staff that can make bird calls as an action, and the second can create flowers. Elincia decides to buy the birdcall staff, which can be available the next morning.
The party elects to use the downtime to go investigate the "lobster booty" that Shern informed them of. They have Captain Kazimir prepare the Everlasting light for a short journey. The next morning, they pick up Elincia's new staff at Winston's and then set sail. Elincia is able to test out her new staff on Totoro, the ship cat, who seems to at first mistrust his ears, but eventually falls fully into the trap, and is pouncing on imaginary birds in no time. This delights the party, and complements their fishing activities to pass the time at sea. They arrive in the vicinity of where Stavos' vision from Shern should be, and in relatively short order, he recognizes some landmark features.
His instincts seem to be working well, as they quickly find the ring of rocks that Shern showed him. They approach, and find the chest, which has gold spilling from it, as well as what looks to be a rapier partially extending out of the chest, which has chains wrapped around it. Seraphina strikes the chains with Shatterspike, and it is "freed." The chest spills open, and gold coins fall into the sand. Stavos of course, immediately checks out the sword, which is a beautifully crafted rapier, a clear upgrade over his current weapon. The rest of the party helps gather the coins back into the chest, but as they are doing so, a shadow passes over them, and a giant two-headed shark, that looks to be the one Leo saw in the Sahuagin temple being fed baby Sahuagin, sweeps in and looks to have spotted them.
The party strikes first, but this shark seems to be able to react to every action, and has devastating attacks. Not only can it strike hard and fast, but some of its attacks seem to hit the entire party. In the first response, Leo's crab familiar is killed. The party is a damage dealing machine thankfully, and with the help of Elincia's bear totem, they are able to avoid any critical damage. Amazingly enough, despite taking a big bite out of Leo, this creature did not try to swallow him. The party is happy to have defeated this monstrosity that they may have had to deal with in a more dangerous situation within the lair.
They decide to take the shark corpse back to Saltmarsh as a prize, as well as the treasure of course, which they divide up. They show the council (and for that matter the whole town) the giant shark they defeated, but nobody has any suggestions of what to do with it, so the party hires a painter to depict the giant shark with the party so that they can hang up this memory within the Everlasting Light. They ask the crew if anyone is interested in some sharkskin rain slickers or boots, and 5 crew members request rain slickers, and Captain Kazimir requests a pair of boots. The party negotiates the manufacture of these with Keorna Kester, and she gives them a net of 100g after paying for the slickers and boots, as a significant amount of sharkskin is left over for her crafts.
With that, the party awaits the council's decision on their strategy for the assault on the Sahuagin. A couple days later, the council summons them, and informs them of their general plan. The council would like the party to initiate the attack, by penetrating the above water northern entrance, and creating a way in. They also want the party to create enough of a ruckus that troops are pulled back from the main gate. The land forces, including the humans, Lizardfolk, and a strike force from the Hin, will follow upon their signal in through the above ground entrance.
Meanwhile, the main assault by the assembled underwater forces made up of the now expanded Locathah contingent, Sea Elves, and some Tritons will be broken down into two parts. A small group will penetrate the lair from the secret entrance the party used, once the alarm has been raised above water, and presumably reinforcements are called in from the main gate, the full assault on the gate will be made. The Hin will provide some potions to help - Invisibility and Gaseous Form.
The party agrees, and in a few days they are all gathered at the camp, where they meet their Hin counterpart, a very colorful Black Jack Everbrand, who doesn't seem to think much of them, though it seems likely that this is how he interacts with everyone. Presumably, he and his team are quite good at "what they do" or nobody would put up with Black Jack. Anyhow, he clearly explains that the party will get up to two hours to get things started before Black Jack and his team of 12 will come, followed by the humans and lizardfolk, and get them out of trouble, and if they F' this up he'll personally feed their leftover bits to the Sahuagin and the sharks.
To see how the invasion turns out, we'll have to wait for the next session...
Character(s) interacted with
Report Date
31 Jul 2020
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