Session 37 - Sail to Safari
18 Klarmont 1010 - 20 Klarmont 1010
General Summary
The guards grab the fleeing thug, and start asking questions. The thug claims that Tork, Stavos, and Leo jumped him and his friends. Tork says the opposite of course, explaining that the thugs attacked him and two other captains of Saltmarsh. The guards, recognizing the thug as a pickpocket that has been hauled in multiple times, has less reputation than the guy that helps out at the orphanage. The guards haul off the thug, and send for Eliander, Sergeant Kasot and another guard heading with Tork to where Stavos and Leo are checking over the unconscious thug and the three dead ones. One of the dead men has a piece of paper, along with more gold than the others combined, and was likely the leader of this unruly pack. The note just says, "Body and soul." This doesn't mean anything to Leo, but when he shows it to Kastor, he says that the Iron Ring's motto is " We own you, body and soul". Leo conjectures that perhaps their disruption of the Black Eagle Barony has made the party a target.
Kastor asks what happened here, and the party describes the situation starting with the note from Tomas asking Tork to join him for a drink at The Squeaky Rudder. Tork, Stavos, Leo and the guards go over to the Squeaky Rudder to see if Tomas is there. They do not see him, but do see the doorman from the boxing match. They ask after Tomas, and one of the girls says that he is up the hall in her room. He had mentioned that a friend was expected, and asked her to be on the lookout. Tork asks her to lead the way, and they go to her room. Tork tries the door, and it is unlocked. Entering, they find Tomas sitting in a chair with his throat slit ear to ear. The guard says he's going to get the girl again, and asks them not to touch anything. They look around the room, noticing that the window is unlocked but, as instructed, do not touch anything. Eliander and the girl come back, she screams (seemingly in genuine shock), but when asked if the window was locked she explains that she always leaves it locked because they are on the first floor. The guard takes her back to the bar. Around this time Eliander has arrived, and he searches the room as well; no further evidence of the attacker is found.
They close down the establishment for the night, instructing that no one else may leave. Eliander and the party check outside the window and find signs of footfalls below it, but they quickly become untraceable. Eliander asks what the party has planned, they explain that they were headed off to Safari Island, but if Eliander needs them to stick around they can. He waves this off, and asks how long they plan to be gone. With ~two days travel each way, and an unknown time on the island, it might be a couple weeks. Eliander says this is fine, they can depart as planned, and if the town guard learns anything in the meantime, the party will be updated when they get back to Saltmarsh.
With that, they return to the ship and report back to Seraphina and Elincia, who were not expecting them to look roughed up when they returned. They make a full report, and plan for their morning departure.
Day one of their trip to Safari island is nearly uneventful, except that unfortunately one of the crew slips and drops an oil lamp in the storage area, starting a fire that spreads frightfully quickly. The party jumps into action helping with the bucket brigade, while Leo uses control flames. They eventually get everything back under control, but not before a few minor burns. There are some scoldings, and reminders of the importance of fire safety at sea, but at least nothing major was affected.
Day two of their trip brings them in sight of land, and as they work their way around the Eastern spur of the island (near Sinbada Tower) they find themselves in a sudden and unexpectedly foggy area, with conditions not likely to cause fog. Captain Kazimir immediately puts the crew into action yelling "Possible Kal-Muru". The crew seems to know what to do, but the party is less clear. Stavos, an experience sailor, knows that these are some sort of air elemental, also known as "ship's bane." Elincia and Leo go to the bow to try to understand what is happening, and Elincia tries out the wind fan to see if she can dissipate the fog ahead of them. However, the fog closes back in and they quickly find themselves in pea soup conditions, only able to see just over five feet. Most of the crew has been able to get below decks, but the captain, Augustus, Blazh, Bosun Savin, and all of the party are on deck when combat breaks out.
The crew below decks is busy sealing up the ship to prevent intrusions below, but the party finds the top deck swarmed by a very large number of these wispy Kal-Muru. The party and crew are unfortunately spread across a large area of the deck with the captain and Stavos on the aft deck, Leo, Elincia and Tork on the foredeck, and Seraphina, the Bosun, Augustus, and Blazh on the main deck. This combined with the very short visibility basically breaks it down into three sub-battles. Elincia, thinking quickly, places a Bear Spirit Totem to cover the main and foredecks, protecting most of the crew and the party, hoping the Captain and Stavos are able to take care of themselves. Tork is able to dismantle one of the wispy creatures in his first attack, and Leo attempts to take several out with a level four Shatter spell; however, while it deals some damage to three of them, it doesn't seem nearly as effective as it should. Stavos and the captain are severely outnumbered on the aft deck, and the captain takes a lot more hits than ideal. In the main deck portion of the battle, Augustus and Blazh get hit pretty hard in the first round of combat, likely losing most if not all of the benefit of the Bear Totem.
It feels like if things don't turn quickly, the party may lose half the crew. One of the wispy creatures slides through the grate to the hold, and Tadpole can be heard below decks shouting in pain. The poor visibility is definitely an issue for coordination and, to make matters worse, the combatants in the fog begin to be confused and disoriented. Thankfully, Elincia is able to summon eight wolves to help both with attacking and absorbing damage, especially on the main deck where the crew is absorbing far too much of the damage and at real risk of being overpowered.
Seraphina quickly dispatches two of the shatter-damaged Kal-Muru on the starboard side. Tork finishes off the two at the foredeck starboard side, and Stavos is making progress with two on the aft deck when the captain, confused by the effects of the magical fog, falls overboard off the aft rail! If they don't do something soon, they may lose the captain!
The Quartermaster and First mate emerge to help Augustus and Blazh on the main port-side fight, and the wolves sweep the remaining Kal-Maru into a rout. As the fog pulls back Stavos jumps overboard to find the captain, the first mate takes command and begins turning the ship about for search and rescue. Leo sends Flametalon to help find the captain and mark him with the light spell. Seraphina immediately runs belowdecks to check on Tadpole, who has been greviously wounded, but she is able to successfully stabilize him. Tork and the Quartermaster work to lower the jolly boat, and in the end the crew is all intact, and safely back on board.
With the fog passed, the captain and mate (with an assist from Seraphina's Orb of Direction) get the ship back on course and soon they are approaching the small city of Kobos. There are beaches and bungalows along the coast, and people out enjoying the fair weather. Clearly the Kal-Maru are not a factor at the beach!
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Report Date
15 Jan 2021
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