Landfall

Life, Relocation

Captured by slavers, over a dozen people from Toril have found themselves washed ashore on a strange island after a shipwreck.

Separately and collectively, you’ve all fallen into the hands of pirate slavers.   Most of you remember it this way: You were walking in the countryside near your homes, strolling home from the tavern after a night’s drinking, walking down to the river to fetch some water, or gone to visit some lass or lad in neighboring village.   And, suddenly, you heard a thrashing in the underbrush around you, and before you could turn you felt a blow to the back of your head, and everything went black.

You faded in and out of consciousness for who knows how long. As you occasionally blinked awake, you slowly became aware that you were in the dark, tiny, stinking hold of a cargo ship of some sort. Your wrists were shackled above your head to the sturdy beams of a narrow bunk. Around you were about 40 other captured people of different humanoid races (not all of which you recognized). Everyone was tightly packed together, and all shackled to similar bunks to your own.   Conscious periods begin to last longer, and some of you noticed that the keys to your shackles were hung from a hook right by the hatch to the deck. While they were only 5 or 6 feet from the lot of you, they might as well have been miles away. The only judge of time you has was that you were fed a revolting gruel by your jailer, Hafkris, a pig-faced half-orc. The gruel came twice a day, and though you barely could choke it down, at least it’s hot and filling.   Though your headache subsided, you still faded in and out for some reason. That alone was disorienting, but even those of you without a seafaring background noticed that the something about the ship didn’t “feel” right. As you started to figure this out for yourself, you noticed on the faces of some of the others that they were coming to this realization as well.

While sorting it out, just as Hafkris was bringing down the pot of gruel for a meal, you heard running back and forth along the deck, then shouting, and then a thunderous crash. Hafkris dropped the pot, splashing your meal on the floor and ran above deck. Shouting, cursing, and what sounded like the cries of battle ensued above you from all hands.   More crashing sounds roared from above. Hafkris threw open the hatch at one point and ran below, unshackled about half the other slaves and roughly shoved them back up the stairs, telling them to man ballistae. Screams and shouts continue, and more crashing and the sounds of splintering wood. At one point, Hafkris returned and took another quarter of the others, shoving them above.

That was yesterday. You haven’t seen any of the pirates or the slaves since then, and you haven’t been fed. The sounds have battle have long ago ceased. Your unsettling feeling about the ship has grown and you realize: you’re not moving. Everything above is deathly silent. No battle, no crashing sounds, no crew moving, just...nothing.   As you’re waited for some sign of life from above deck, the ship groaned as if gripped by something; the boards of the hull almost feel like they’re bowing in. Wide-eyed, you all look to each other, and just as you think it’s the end and you’re to be crushed you feel like...you’re falling.   Random items in the hold float up; buckets of water (and other fluids), ropes, barrels, the upturned pot from gruel, everything slides around. The world spins around you until suddenly, you felt as if a god had slammed his hand down on you. The sounds of a storm were heard from above, water pounding the deck and seeping through cracks. You were rocked back and forth, your arms straining against your shackles until there’s an enormous crash – a grating, grinding noise and horrible shuddering of the ship around you.

When you awoke, there was nothing but the sound of wind and pounding surf. With the silence of your journey thus far, it’s out of place and deafening. You can see a section of rain-pounded beach in the dim light with nothing but open, storm tossed waters and the cliff-face nearby.