The Imminent Doom
The Imminent Doom is a period in Arath starting in 1521. It is mainly marked by the war between the biggest realms the Democracy of Cahemelle, the Dwarven Republic, the Thanate Empire, the Orcish Diarchy and the Draconian League.
In the centre of this period of war an unlikely group finds its way together. These are the stories of this groups adventures. Though if you want to read what else unfolded during the time and what they might have kick started in other places of Arath then you might want to read the Backstory of The Imminent Doom.
The Fall of Marymar
The party meets aftermath of a contested landing between elves and dwarves. Not having many other options they band together and head out eastwards towards Marymar. There they meet the local Govenor and decide to help him out by collecting taxes in the surrounding villages. Not having the best impressions of the Govenor they stole his treasours and head out further east wards across the wide planis.
In those plains they find a cave inhabitated by a hag, that trubbled them in their dreams. After a short scuffle they then found her cursed treasoure and a ship in a magical bottle. During the following night a headless character finds them and explains that this is the Devilsfall and he would be loyal to the one who found it. In a quick pace they head towards the shore to test this new mans words.
While traversing the plains they saw that some sort of earth ball rise up into the air and then drop down causing a large dust cloud. With their new ship the party decided to investigate the event. They find nothing where Marymar was last and decided to head further west to the next fishing village, where they are told that Marymar is no more.
Wanting to figure out the extension of the damage they head out into the wilds the reach the lumberjack village at the southern forest, which they find almost abandond. After some time and arguing the party decided to head further into the dust cloud only to find a wizard in the deep crator who conjures up a Zombie Beholder.
The fight was tough and resulted in the death of Alloro.
Rebellion in Goblin Town
An Excursion to the Hells
Heading for New Shores
How nice Darfin must have it right now, sitting comfortably and quiet in the library. I imagine him drinking some tea, probably with that brackish goblin water. - Oratos
Darfin learns about how the Stoneaxes clan ruled over this valley, the gold they found and the great cataclysm that happened 1000 years ago. Unlike the other Dwarven Kingdoms the Stoneaxes did not participate in the republic and held their isolation policies until the fall of the kingdom 200 years ago, when it was overwhelmed by the force of the goblins and the destructive power of a dragon.
Heavily breathing Strennun, Miss Nelson and I return to the cave where we scheduled to meet up with the rebels. After returning to the large room, we find some of the rebels fighting the devils who have now defeated the hobgoblins. After things turn sour for the rebels, Miss Nelson and Strennun help the remaining slaves with cover fire to escape the cave. Not many make it, but as a last resort Miss Nelson collapses the cave with a loud thunder. At the basecamp Darfin finds Rigalis flying while his two brutes hold the rope that secures him to the ground.
We meet up with Darfin to take the shorter route through the mountain, where we find kobolds carrying the remains of what Darfin describes as the remains of the spider queen. After trading the Kobolds some of our rations for a part of the spider queen we continue our way through the mountain. We take a short rest while Darfin inspects the spider queen’s limb. Sitting atop his chest Darfin makes several observations: There was a magical liquid inside the limb that seems to be responsible for the transformation forced by transmutation magic, but the magic was vanishing quickly.
Meanwhile Strennun has a mythical experience in which he is submerged, following a twinkle at the bottom of the sea. The twinkle is coming from a glass panel that protects a grave from the water, a dwarven tombstone that has weird crystallizations around it.
After resting we are informed that the kobolds want to claim the dragon’s gold because we found it in their mountain. Miss Nelson challenges the leader of the Kobolds to a duel and the Kobolds accept. After missing the first punch I try to demoralize the Kobold’s leader but weave more magic than expected into my insult and instantly knock out the Kobold. The Kobolds call me out for foul game and start tossing stones at me. It was not my smooth tongue getting me out of this situation but Miss Nelsons pragmatic thinking. A lighting-ball later we run out of the cave. The Kobolds are shadowing us but we arrive at the Devilsfall without further incidents.
Jack welcomes us. There was a mutiny because of food shortages and the halflings called Baldar lost his hand for it. Jack was also able to make major reconstructions to the ship's interior. The captains quarters now have a wooden vitrine filled with booze and even a distillery, Strennuns room now has a pool and an exit through the ships wall, Darfins room has several shelves, a dissecting table and his mysterious chest. And mine has a desk and a whetstone. After setting sail, I commission wooden trainings weapons from Jack and announce a tournament for the hole that Wiscas left. We also learn from Darfins bird that Strennuns vision was real and the dwarven grave really has crystallized.
The tournament proceeds and we have several contenders:
- A tiny fat gnome with patchy hair wearing a sailor suit.
- A hairy dwarf wearing shorts, a shield and having half of this beard missing.
- A red dragonborn showing off a goatee wearing a chest belt.
- A human with curly hair, moustache, well dressed and "French".
The Dragonborn wins and we have our new combat officer: Ninmar.
The next morning, we reach the river triangle and fog makes it hard to navigate. A female voice ensnares anyone hearing it, and people start jumping the ship. After seeing miss Nelson jump into the water, Strennun calls me and Darfin. We resist the call and Strennun saves the people while I steer the ship. Darfin flies towards the voice and returns after silencing it for good.
Following the river, we see corpses walking on the east coast. Shortly after we arrive in Durnkuldir.
A new friend??
Overnight, Darfin asks Jack to throw his ominous closed crate overboard he has kept a secret from the whole crew.
After the thing with the ugly mermaids and the other creepy undeds we made our way up the river Bland. I went out for a morning swim and saw that they are building a big bridge over the river. That river is at least three shiplengs wide and it looks like dey want to make it at least one shiphight high! Captain Nelson blows her horn to make the ship go faster and the dwarven city blows their horn to say that dey hear us. Shortly after de bridge, two smaller boats are coming abord our ship. Dey say deyre of clan Oak-Flayer and ask if deres anything on the ship that's not supposed to get into the city. I dunno if ded people who are not ded fall under dat category, so I just say nothing. After de dwarves leave, we go to the port of de dwarven city wit the complicated name (Durnkuldir) and de portmaster tries to scam money out of us like dey always do. I thought that was only with pirates but apparently dats also wit normal ships. Oratos tries to reason wit the portmaster but in the end he still pays 80 GP for four days. That means.... a lot of gold per day!
The city of Durnkuldir consists of three rings:
- Outermost ring: Markets and trading
- Middle ring: Industry and manufacturing
- Innermost ring: Residential area of the nobles
(Additionally, there's the port and the slums for the non-nobility 'residential area')
In dese four days we stay here, Kylin tells Jack to stock up de ship and deyre also trying to get more people to join the crew. But also, we need to get a package for som important dwarf we met in the city under de mountain (Greybeard).
Firstly, we go to the 'Lusty Maiden' to get a drink and mebbe find some men to join de crew. There we find somebody we didn't expect: The pale elf who wanted us to steal de red sunstone! ([Belari Tolval|Belari]]). He sits in a table with a dwarf who's about as wide as he or she?? is tall! Apparently, it's a woman and she introduces herself as Kella the Square. Turns out Belari and Kella are up to join de crew, but Oratos wants to fight Kella to see how good she can fight. Dat should be fun! I find some people to bet because deres no way dis dwarf can beat our Oratos! ...
Okey so dis dwarf beat the shit out of Oratos and I lost 15 silver coins! She didn't even need de wooden sord Oratos gave to her! just straight up slapped the hell out of him!
Kylin didn't even get to see dis fight because she was outside wit the barmaid who sliped him a note when we were ordering out drinks. De note was in dwarven so I had to read it to her and it said 'are you the one Greybeard sent? meet me outside in 15min'. Outside she gives him anoter note - of course in dwarven again! - wit an address and to go there at 8pm. I cannot really read the address because reading is not my strongest thing - but swimming is!. Luckily Kella wants to join de crew so she can read the note and tell Kylin the address.
It was only lunchtime then, so we went shopping. Darfin tries to get a good robe but it's too expensive for him, so he gets the second-best one that's only about half the price. I get helth potions and captain Nelson too. Kella gets a hammer and Oratos gets some nice shortswords because he somehow doesn't want to use his rely big sword he always carries around with him.
In de evening we go to the address and Kylin knocks, but nobody opens. We read de note again and Kella sais that you have to knock in a special pattern for them to open. Kylin knocks in that pattern, and someone looks out to look at you and den opens a lot of locks before letting us in.
We get lead into a common room with some chairs and one big chair with a probably important dwarf in it. He tells us something about a lost package from the brother of Greybeard that we should get back. Dude with the package is in the inner circle and we get payd for bringing it back. To get us in more easier, Darfin gets some fancy democrats robe with the Democracys insignias on em. Probably fake but it might get us in the inner circle so who cares.
Apparently, the guy is called Wernan Axethain and is some high up in the northern army. Also, there are fifteen guards posted around the house so sneking in could be difficult. But anyway, details are a bit woozi because someone gave me a mug and I thought it was beer and necked it. But it was Whisky and I got wasted instead.
Back on the ship, Darfin wants us to tell something about some weird experiment he has done. Apparently if you die while on the ship, you die (big surprise...) but if you die on the ship, you get unded. He tried that with some animals or so and now wants to do the same with persons to see if they com back to life.
Kella and I go to the local thieves guild to maybe find someone to take this hard job off us (Editor's Note: Misunderstanding, they were sent out to gather information on the house and Wernan that might make the job easier). We find them in some underground cave and thers a shady half-elf that says he do it for 900GP. Thats a lot of money. We say that we meet at the rugged inn later to discuss details. We go back to the crew and tell the news. Apparently I have not understod that correctly and we only needed to get information. We meet up at the inn and tell the guy we are not interested. Kylin gives me 20GP to give to him 'for his troubles'. Guy wants more and I have to pay him another 20GP from my own money. Asshole.
Meanwhile, Darfin lets his familiar case the house. It's a nice house with five stories and surrounded by a garden, which is regularly patrolled by guards. The second and third floor also have balconies, which have their own posted guard. The garden provides a lot of cover due to a multitude of shrubberies in the gardens.
Afterwards, the rest of the group checks out the inner circle themselves. Naturally they get held up at the gate and Oratos tries to defuse the situation by asking for restaurant recommendations and then excusing himself to eat there. In the end, Darfin uses his fake robes to get the guards to let them in under the pretence that the others of the group would really love to take a look at the citadel. There's a lot of guards from the city-guard patrolling the entirety of the inner circle and you could get additionally, private security for your house if you think you need it, but it's mostly net needed anyway. Darfin talks to some people in a little park and finds out theat the Orcs are currently marching again, so the northern army has moved out to meet them. As our guy is the general of said northern army, he's out as well - as are most of the residents in the inner circle. Either to get to safety pre-emptively or because they're marching with the northern army. Mokhed Mindbuckler, a very eager dwarf and scribe for the nobility of the city, also invites Darfin to a gala-dinner at the citadel at the end of this week.
Meanwhile, Oratos is enjoying a nice dinner and looking for a new chef for the ship. Sadly, all the 'good' chefs don't want to work in a ship-kitchen, but he gets a recommendation to look for Rashesh, as he might be interested in the Gig.
After we meet on the ship again, the others tell of what they saw in the inner circle. We decide to try and get in through the sewers. Belari and I will go and try and find a way. We go into the sewers and almost get lost sometimes but find a way and an exit that exits right next to the house. Then we go back and almost get lost again but Belari uses Breadcrumbs or something to help us keep track. Smart idea.
And who are you?
The second morning in Durnkuldir we wake up to Strennun leaving for important business. He did no tell us where he went, nor why and for how long. As we plan on spending the next days in crowded areas around the city I believe it is best to come up with a safe word for occasional confusions with Rakshasas and other impostors. As a group we come up with a question and answer system, pretty clever thing: The first person asks: "How is the dwarf?" and the second person answers with "round". This is a reference to Kella, who is pretty square. On the other note I really hope the captain and the other crewmembers are right with their judgment to trust them into the inner circle.
We enjoy our breakfast which our new chef Rashesh cooked for us with the spiciest spices in the known world. I remind the crew that we talked about bringing dead people on the ship, and some low life humanoid to kill aboard. The still seem to agree with those ideas, so hopefully we can arrange something during the break in.
Suddenly we hear a loud commotion on the upper decks. The captain asks Ninmar, the new combat officer, to bring her the loudest two. They talk about monsters in the sewers and if they exist or not. Hopefully there is something magical going on, I will be pretty disappointed if not. By the advice of Orof the captain punishes them by taking them with us on our mission into the mansion of general Wernan Axethain. I loudly exclaim that I find it to be a bad Idea, but get ignored nonetheless.
Sometime later we enter the sewers lead by Belari, who more or less remembers the way he took with Strennun the day before to exit directly into the generals estate. I magically make the noses of the punished guys smell like flowers so I don’t have to hear them complain all the time. Guided by Kylins and my light we make it through the long and twisted channels of the sewers.
Halfway through we encounter some tentacles in the walls, which attack us straight away. Out of the walls comes a monster made out entirely of biodegradable material. Something like a plant, but not really. Sadly it gets blasted away before I can really have a look at it. The remains however do not seem to be magical or mutated at all, so if this creature was magical at all its magic died with it. I guess we should be on the lookout for similar creatures further into the sewers.
After we gather ourself again we send the scared to death, already punished enough crewmembers back and continue further into the sewers. Finally we arrive at some ropes which Strennun and Belari left behind the day before, to climb up into the estate. We exit through an entrance in the gardens, and do our best to sneak into the estate without being noticed. As I exist as the last one I cannot make out anyone else, they seem to be hiding well enough for not even me noticing them. As a distraction I cast the illusion of a greased pig running around through the gardens.
I see the others sneaking towards the door, and decide to do the same. We all get inside, and Kella kills the first guard we meet without hesitation. Orof seems to be disguised as a gardener of the estate. We make our way downstairs into the cellars. The other crewmates kill another three guards with excessive force, and Belari picks open a massive stone door in our way. Behind it is a staircase which we descend quickly as it sounds like more guards are arriving behind us.
We arrive in a small chamber full of books, with a dwarf in a wheelchair named Ozmock in the center. Seems like the package we are taking back with us is another living being. He asks us to take as many of the books as we can with us, which I can totally understand. I try to search the books for the ones which seem to be the most important of them all, as Kylin get Orof which stayed behind to hold the door as long as he can. We leave with Ozmock and some of his books through a secret door, which leads us through a different part of the sewers than we went through just some minutes before. Orof leaves the rake he used to disguise himself with behind, and funnily enough we hear one of the guards stepping on it.
In the outer circle we leave the sewers again, and split up to finish the mission. Orof and I push Ozmock back to the ship, as the rest fetches the punished crewmembers from the other entrance to meet back at the ship. Sadly during the whole mission, we forgot to follow our experiment with the ship, which means we need to find some other humanoids to bring back to the ship to experiment with.
A devilish surprise
After bringing back the ekhem... "package" to the ship we gathered on the top deck to discuss the next steps. All of a sudden, a silhouette emerged from the water and jumped onboard. It was Strennun! Wet and fishy as always. When we were busy with them dwarves, he went (swam?) around taking care of turtle hunters. I wonder where he found them as I have not seen any turtles around. While Oratos went to prepare some "statements", we went under the deck together with Ozmock to see our new rooms. Khela got a very nice room she seemed to like and then we went to my new room where absolutely nothing happened and I was not scared of a monkey.
Some time later, Darfin continued rambling about his experiments and finding low level humanoids to experiment on. While finding low humanoids shouldn't be a problem - what with all the dwarves in the city - we were distracted by a misterious figure that introduced itself as Shomal. He wished to join our crew so we let him tag along. We went through a round of introductions on our way to a tavern. Since we grew tired of the Lusty Maid, we decided to give another one a try and ended up approaching the Mermaid's Flair. The new tavern however seemed to be in the middle of a brawl as indicated by all the furniture being thrown out of the window, so Captain advised we continue our search. The only person happy with the outcome was Strennun, who intercepted a fine chair and promptly took it with him.
During our journey through the port we passed places with names such as the Naughty Nymph, the Captain's Daughter, the Busty Barmaid or the Hole Drillers (must be a mining supplies shop) and ended up in the Rustic Meat - an ordinary-looking port tavern, which, unlike the others, stood up to its name. After a round of ale - or, in Darfin's case, a cup of tea - Shomal and Khela engaged in a friendly fight that ended up in a decisive win for her. We asked the barmaid about the rumours and the news about the brake-in to the Axethane's house were indeed the talk of the town. We convinced the barmaid that the burglars were actually humans and gave her fake descriptions. Before we went back to the ship, Shomal explained that he is chased by a Fiend, which adds another enemy following our crew with malicious intents. At least the what's-left-of-the-drow-guild that swore to find me seem to have lost my trail...
Next morning on the ship, yet another new visitor arrived. He wore a purple dress, had a long tail and introduced himself as an acquirer of certain goods - later I was told his name is Salarus. He also offered Darfin a scroll of waterbreathing demanding an outraging sum of two-and-a-half thousand gold pieces for it! And the Captain agreed! After a rather uneventful day spent on shopping and wandering around the city, we finally set sail.
The journey started off with a storm. Half of the crew fell overboard and the raging sea almost claimed me and Khela! Luckily Strennun rushed to save us. After another foggy day, we noticed a ship ahead of us. Its flag showed the human empire colours and it started slowly changing the course to avoid us. Strennun grabbed an axe and jumped overboard to scout the ship and, after a considerable amount of time, returned without the axe. The ship proceeded to sink and our Captain agreed to shelter its crew - we even got Strennun to go back to the soon-to-be wreck and salvage some barrels. Two more days passed without much happening - although the Captain seemed a bit more weary than usual.
On the ninth night, just as I was expecting that nothing bad would happen, we were woken up by a huge racket coming from the Captain's room. As it turned out, the devils appeared on the deck and the Captain was stabbed with a dagger in her sleep! I wonder how they made it past the keen eyes of our night watch. Khela was first on the deck and, before the bearded devils knew it, started slapping. As I made it to the deck, I saw the Captain flying high above, casting her spells. Others also kept their distance and hurled magic projectiles at the intruders - with the obvious exception of our slapping monk, who was hard at work in the front line. "Who are you?! What do you want from us?!" the crew members shouted in many languages, some of them I never heard before, yet no answer came. We quickly dispatched the foes but as the last one dropped on the wooden deck, they rose again! It must have been the ship's curse keeping them alive!
We started the battle anew, soon seeing how the devils loose their strength. I kept shooting arrows, I saw Strennun and Shomal casting their projectiles. One of the devils was incapacitated by the Captain. "Drown them!" shouted Darfin as he cast the water breathing spell on us. He grabbed the immobilized beast and dragged it underwater. Khela caught the remaining two - by now either dead again or dying - and jumped into the water, holding them tight, shrieking "fish me out!". Strennun jumped after them to drag the beasts to the seabed. As the deck emptied out, I followed the Captain to he room to calm my nerves - she took a bottle of fine whisky and offered me a glass. A moment later, Shalom and Khela joined. Khela needed healing very badly and I was amazed how the Captain simply poured a healing potion into her drink and got her into shape.
A moment later, the rest of the crewmembers joined us, telling us that the devils are gone for good. We decided to get some rest but I could not get much sleep the entire night. The sun is rising so hopefully we investigate the unexpected visit during the day...
The ass-kicking from Hell
Okay listen up losers because shit went down.
As we were cleaning ourselves up after the battle and figuring out what THE HELL just happened, something new had to come up of course. I was lying on the floor of the Captain’s office and holding on to my healing whiskey for dear life as I heard Oratos calling everyone from the lower deck that Ozmock disappeared. Super weird. Belari and Kylin went to the lower deck to help him out and I barely crawled behind them (not my proudest moment, I admit). Darfin’s room, where Ozmock should be, was messy, full of books fallen off shelves. In the middle, there was Ozmock’s empty wheelchair.
Darfin also showed up, all wet from drowning the devils and covered in seaweed, and he got immediately pissed about the books being messy. He’s supposed to be so smart and all but somehow, he couldn’t explain how Ozmock could have disappeared from his room. Apparently, Steve and Jason (aka The Two Idiots) were responsible for him but turns out they were napping. Like I said – idiots. While going through the mess in Darfin’s room, we found a mysterious scroll in a language that none of us knew or even ever saw. Some books were also missing – the ones that Darfin and Ozmock went through last while doing their research. Belari also noticed weird burnt markings on the walls and the ceiling, forming a huge ring. Darfin didn’t detect any magic left in the room, but at least from the notes scattered around the floor he found out that Ozmock’s research was mostly focused on jumping to other planes. All in all, there were more questions than answers, so we summoned Salarus – maybe he could help us decode the scroll at least. Based on the night’s events, we also decided to reorganize the crew. From now on there will be teams specialized in different tasks: sails, shifts, helping in the kitchen and cleaning. The last one will go to The Two Idiots with hope that they’ll do the least damage there. We also finally noticed that Shomal and Strennun were nowhere to be found. Whoops.
In the morning, Belari came up to the deck and saw our ship looking like a casino full of tieflings playing games and gambling. He woke up Kylin and everyone assembled on deck to meet Salarus. Creepy as he was, he turned out quite helpful. The scroll was an order to kidnap Ozmock, not a ransom note like we suspected. The order came from Sinbar – an ambitious warlord from the first layer of the Nine Hells. He apparently somehow survived 20 years in the Nine Hells already, so that’s hella impressive (HELLa - get it?). Salarus offered to help us get to Sinbar (that is, to ACTUAL HELL) and, more importantly, back to the ship in one piece. The deal was: we pay 900 GP per person and for that we get a 3-day-long trip to hell. After 3 days exactly, we either show up in the predetermined spot to be taken back to our ship, or we’re on our own. Sounded super dangerous, I was hyped.
First though, we did some extra research and asked a million questions. Turns out that time in the Nine Hells passes differently than here – having stayed in Nine Hells for 3 days, we’d be back to the ship only 3 hours after we had left. Sinbar had a team of about 60 people. Why he kidnapped Ozmock was unclear – it may have been a trap. In the meantime, we also discovered that Shomal was there all along – he can shapeshift and right now he looked exactly like Jack! Really cool, I gotta admit. If I could shapeshift, I would make myself a little bit more evenly square. Strennun was still missing but we all assumed he was just still in the water - once he gets in, he’s impossible to drag out.
And so, we got ready and formed a plan. We had to choose to either find and attack the transport moving Ozmock to Sinbar’s camp, or to ambush the camp directly. We went with the second option and boy, were we wrong.
We arrived in a field of knee-high grass, totally not what I imagined the Nine Hells to be. In the distance we could see 2 massive groups charging at each other to battle, which was awesome. We started walking away from the sun, in the direction of Sinbar’s camp. Getting there took us the rest of the day and when we arrived by the camp, it was night and we started investigating. The camp was build right next to a huge stone wall. The other 3 sides of the camp were protected by a palisade. We decided to burn out a hole in the palisade, right by the stone wall and sneak through it. Inside, there was a row of small buildings going all around the camp by the palisade. In the middle of the camp we saw 3 huge Blue Dudes that were keeping watch. On the stone wall there was an opening into a cave of some sort.
Darfin and Shomal became invisible and started investigating the houses but didn’t find Ozmock in any of them. Just some of Sinbar’s people, unaware of our presence. At first, we tried to be all sneaky about this ambush and carefully headed along the stone wall towards the cave opening. Unfortunately, one of the Blue Dudes noticed us, so I obviously started slappin’ like there's no tomorrow. Darfin immediately joined with his spells, and I heard Belari’s arrows flying by my ear. I heard some teleport cracks and I saw Shomal and Kylin appearing in the cave opening. I think I also saw Oratos still trying to sneak into the cave thanks to the commotion. The Blue Dudes were proper opponents and I won’t lie, we were getting our asses kicked big time. They were hitting us with those massive rays of cold and were wounding many of us at once. We managed to kill one Blue Dude but that wasn’t enough. As much shooting, slapping and casting as we did, we couldn’t stand a chance. We were slowly backing into the cave opening, only to be wiped unconscious by one last cold blow.
Just before I blacked out, I saw Oratos, Belari and Shomal lying on the ground beside me. They were so beat up I don’t think they’ll come out of this alive. Kylin was wounded and lying just behind me, I think.
I saw a blurry shape of Darfin still standing and screaming “Come at meeeee” but I think the remaining Blue Dudes vanished?
Maybe I’m hallucinating.
I just gotta close my eyes for just one second.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF:
Oratos, my favorite sparing buddy
Belari, who was not at all afraid of the monkey
Shomal, who was very handsome, no matter what shape he took
Blue Devils, Bushes and Ambushes
Strennun while trying to enter the Devilsfall from below, sees the keel of another ship close by. Leaving a trail of puddles, he walks up to the main deck where he is greeted by a nervous crew and one of the great captains (Teolgrog) steering the ship. Skipping any unnecessary detail, Teolgrog explains what is about to happen.
The others are in hell and we will get them out of there.
One of the Goaliths surrounding Teolgrog grabs Jason, holds him against the helm and slits his throat. Teolgrog grabs the bloody wheel and spins it left and right, causing the ship to roll from side to side.
after one last roll Strennuns lungs fill with water one pleasant feeling
Darfin, resting in the forest near the devil camp hears a loud crackling followed by thunder.
The Devilsfall shoots out of the water in the small pond next to the Devil's camp. Jack and some undead crewmates jump off the ship and Teolgrog with his guards follow by boat. Strennun, faster than anyone jumps off the boat and runs towards the Devil camp's gate.
In The forrest, the survivors recovered at a rate only possible in this place, and the decision is made to check out the thunder. Coming out of the woods the party spots the devilsfall which is taking up almost the whole pond. They also spot Strennun near the gate who is now running towards the group. Ozmock's whereabouts are still unknown so leaving is not an option. Votes are cast and raiding the camp (Jack, Strennun, Kylinn) wins over setting up an ambush (Square, Darfin)
Before any buildings are burnt down, Strennung turns invisible and scouts out the camp. Using all his fingers he counts 30 devils and zero Ozmocks. With this knowledge Strennun changes his vote to ambush.
During my last hunt I broke the shaft of my spear so all I got left is my trusty shield. The road outside the forest is leading to a camp so maybe I can catch some lone wanderer and get a new weapon. I tie the shield to my back, push the wolf hide down my face and look for a good ambush spot.
A long time goes by until I see something moving in the distance, I silently swear as I spot multiple creatures. Just one of them getting away might mean trouble so I slow down my breath, and try to let them pass. The group is lead by a blue devil, quiet short compared to those I've seen before and lacking the horns. Following the devil are a humand and a dwarf. They stop and the devil throws something at my bush, has it spotted me? I resist throwing it back, maybe it was just a fluke. IMRID AMRAD URSUL, the devil is approaching me. As the devil grabs into my bush I pull it in and try to disable it. It's weak but just when I feel like I can subdue it, something bright pierces my skin, and the tall human attacks me with magic. After I lost hold of the devil the human seems willing to talk, but the devil still keeps hitting me. I'm not good with words but not having seen anything non-demonic and even willing to talk, I try my best. Apparently they know a way out of here, but for an insane price. Nevertheless I offer my service expecting to work for a long time. The dwarf is still skeptical of my skills. At least I will get to see my home again.
*bullying occurs, additional waterskin is aquired*
My first assignment will be to help in an ambush on some devil slavers, nice. We ended the battle without major resistance and having saved a young dwarf and an orcish woman called Brovara. The group has some scary fighter and even the orc killed some devils. Afte the fight I lead them to the battlegrounds where they claim their "exit" is located. It's far so we spend one more night in the forrest, hopefully my last night in these lands. The hill near the battlegrounds indeed has changed, there is now a colorful tent looking like it doesn't belong here. A Devil awaits us and pleasantries are exchanged, I try to keep to myself.
Debt to Salarus: 2700 GP
When we leave the tent we arrive on a ship. After being introduced to the important people, Jack and Square organise a tournament and with tournament I mean, a fight between Brovara and me. The winner gets to fight Square. We both get wooden weapons and a circle forms around us. Comfortably dodging all attacks of Brovara who is unsuccessfully hiding behind her shield. I get in some hits, but then she tells me to surrender, and so I do. I'm confused but won't protest. Square instead of fighting just Brovara, tries to punch both of us but with some weird open handed attacks but fails miserably. Later I'm lead to a room and the elf asks me to participate in some magical ritual. Brovara and I will be asked questions to prove that we are not some devil followers.
Some gained insight ..
Brovara: Hates Orcs for theirs frequent raids on her homelands. Protected her people from evil and local orc raiders had tales about her. She was part of an order that she left over disagreements of it being to passive. She also got a book from the monastery.
Roftag: Seeing off my parents after leaving my village. Delivering packages for the academy. The crater where the academy is located. Loud explosions in the background.
The Breaking of the Council
Of Talking Chairs, Slapping Squares and Crunchy Lizard Lairs
Question: What subject do you avoid talking about?
- Brovara: Family
- Square: What happens in the mines
- Roftag: Politics
- Strennun: His period of inservitude
- Kylinn: Family
While we are sailing in the foggy sea, our dude in the crow‘s nest shouts out that there is another ship. Soon after we hear the horn they use to tell us that they are where they are. Because we can still not see them, the Captain sends me out to investigate. I swom over to the other ship and am surprised. The ship is entirely made out of metal! it is also very big! Has a lot of oars and also a big ram that they probably use to ram other ships. When I watch into the ship, I see dwarves rowing. I swim back to the Captain and tell her what I saw. The Captain decides to also blow the horn to confirm our existence.
The dwarves are part of Greybeard's crew and the Captain of their ship, Throngel, comes on our ship to steer it into the hideout. I try to stay with the other ship to see if they do something fucky. But our ship is much faster and we soon leave them behind. When we leave them behind, I return to our ship and tell the Captain.
In the hideout we meet Greybeard, who gladly takes Ozmock in and shows him his library. Apparently Ozmock doesn‘t even know him? He also takes Darfin with him. We then go to eat dinner with him. The Captain also gets 4 Health Potions and an antidote for petrification from him. Square then also gets gloves of slapping from him. Roff cries for some reason (he tells Square that. this whole athmosphere with ale, laughter and meat reminds him of home, of better times.).
Greybeard then asks us to check out a vineyard that he bought where people disappeared. Even though he cried, Greybeard offers Rof a free pick of weapon from his smithy, so he and Bro bugger off. I spend a beautiful night in the hideout‘s hot springs. (Meanwhile, Kylinn goes back to the ship and unsuccessfully tries to reach Salarus) It‘s been a long time since I slept that good!! The next day we set off to the vineyard. When we get there, there are a lot of beautiful statues but Square says that they‘re weird because the stone is very young in some and very old in others. They were also dragged here. We check out the house and the door locks behind us. Weird. We check out a room and the door also slams shut behind us.
Brovara punches through a window but it is not a window but just an illusion. I check if the chair in the corner is also an illusion by lightly stabbing it with my rapier. It comes to life and yells at me for doing that. It‘s called Sulla and it‘s an asshole. I also punch through the ‚window‘ but not like Brovara. I get grabbed by a ghostly hand and pulled out of the window! The person grabbing me is a ghostly woman who tries to enter me??. The window I got pulled through suddenly moves away. I sprint towards the window and jump back into the room. The ghost follows me and also jumps into the room. Then it possesses Rof. Square then beats the ghost out of Rof again, but also beats Rof by doing so. Then she also beats the ghost out of the ghost. Meanwhile, Bro takes Sulla, the talking chair and tries to throw it out of the window but it keeps hanging on and bites Bro! Bro then gets pulled out of the Window as well - with the chair. Square jumps after them and grabs the chair. She absolutely YEETS the chair behind her further into the void and Bro and Square run back to the room.
I try to open door but it‘s still locked. I look through the keyhole and something looks back?! I stab the eye with my rapier and the whole room shakes, the wardrobe opens and we get thrown into a cave that opens behind the wardrobe.
We walk around in the cave down there and get attacked by two basiliks. We easily kill them - even before I got a hit in! That one time when I took out my anger on the dead beast, it fell on me and almost squished me to death! We also take some venom of the beasts because Darfin would probably kill us if we didn‘t. We also take some Basilisk-eggs with us.
When we get back out of the cave, the chair that Square is there. It must have climbed back into the window. It keeps arguing with me and the others because we don‘t want to take it with us. It claims that it was a Godlike creature once and even says that it knows my old one! If this is true and it tells the turtle that I have treated the chair badly I am very afraid! In the end we lock it in the room and I put Gertrude - my other trusty (non-talking!!) chair under the door-handle so the annoying thing is trapped. We then explore the rest of the house. There is a kitchen with a lot of mold and two - non-talking - stools. There is also a library with two armchairs that also don‘t talk. But the talking chair yelled from the other room when I stabbed it. We ask it if it is a hive-mind and it says no. The last room is an empty room with broken stairs to the upstairs. Brovara helps Rof and Kylinn up and they say that it‘s just storage.
Square really wants to take the chair with her for whatever reason. We argue some more and then in the end Square takes it with her. The chair claims that it was transformed to the chair by adventurers some… a long time ago (roughly 1300 years). I can‘t even blame them, I would have done the same.
The chair also says that the house is haunted by the daughter of the owner of the vineyard that owned the thing before greybeard bought it. That owner used the basilisks to turn competitors to stone before he died as well. The daughter then dragged all the unwelcome visitors that were turned to stone into the street before the house to tell all other potential visitors to fuck off… charming. Kylinn nukes the house to be sure that nothing cursed stays behind - we‘re taking the only cursed item with us.
Back at Greybeard‘s, we get a dinner again and Kylinn asks for a new, additional ship. Greybeard says he might be able to get one but not right now. After another night in the heavenly hot springs we get on the boat and just leave a skeleton-crew behind for the potential new ship. Kylinn goes with Greybeard to some boring council meeting and we‘re waiting for Darfin to get his ass out of the library so we can leave.
High Treason?
"This library is majestic", I think to myself, as I hear a familiar voice from behind. "Professor, we should move the ship to Mighttown", Jack says. "I haven't even started reading the good stuff yet, and they already want to leave? I don't even remember how long I've been in here...". "You're the next in line after Captain Nelson in seniority, as the first mate sadly passed away." he says. I do not like this, as responsibility might interfere with my research, so we compromise to meet up with the rest of the officers outside.
We all agree on letting Jack leave with the crew to Mighttown in the shadows of the night, while we travel there by foot the next day. Brovara tells me about some books he got for me, and a magical talking chair they found. I follow her onto the ship to get the books, which sadly turn out to be worthless fiction and a travelling guide to the Darnach Islet. We all meet up at Squares room to have a look at the magic chair they were talking about. Strangely there is no chair to be found, but a bed that radiates transmutation magic. The bed tells us that it is an elder who is over ten thousand years old. It tells me that it survived the Cataclysm and has many stories to tell about it. Sadly it gets offended by the others' stupid questions, and stops talking to us.
In that moment Jack comes around yelling orders at Brovara and Rof to start working the ship. As we still have a lot of traumata to go through as a group, I tell him that they will join us by foot on the way to Mighttown. As we leave the ship I tell the others abouts the talking furniture study room at the University for Health and Destruction in Alse Edhil, where I did my professorship. I invite them all to join me for a tour of the university if we ever go there, which hopefully we can sometime in the future. Someone proposed that we could bring the elder chair there, but I remind them that we should be in good spirits with the elder. If it is released by us or some other influence, we should not be on the list of its enemies. As I go to sleep I skim through the travel guide as my bedtime reading.
The next day we meet at the great hall with Greybeard's relatives, namely his brother TODO and Ozmock. Rof eats a lot of cheese, and even asks for more to take on the journey. Ozmock asks me about the books I was given, but I have to disappoint him because they are worthless for our research. I left them in my room, if he wants to read them. I announce our departure and we leave for our trek.
On the way to Mighttown I tell the others about the importance of announcing one's departure, as they were all confused about the formality. Rof tells me that in dwarven culture you just stay until you get kicked out, which is a new and interesting concept for me. But what if you must leave? Hmmm… I talk with Strennun about his family and he tells me about his father's business, and that he left because he didn't want to take the business over. He's not a numbers guy, therefore he doesn't see himself leading a business. I tell him that he can employ someone to do the numbers, and just do the managing himself, but he seems to not be confident in his own abilities.
As we get closer to Mighttown more and more carts with injured people cross our way, looking like they are fleeing from something. Rof asks a limping injured dwarf what's happening, and he tells us that Hogan's and Ondas' people united to fight with Teolgrag's people in the middle of Mighttown, which is strictly against the councils rules. Yet we don't really know who started the fighting. I release my hawk, and see many people fighting around the town hall, as well as people trying to storm the Devilsfall. We try to discuss a plan on what to do now, as Square announces that Kylin made her first mate. I'm disappointed that I wasn't askes, but also relieved that the burden is not on me anymore. She asks me if we both want to be ½ mate, but I decline her offer thankfully.
We enter the city on Square's command and try to fight our way to the town hall. On the way there a strange voice whispers "come here" from the dark, but as we have other things to do we ignore it. Strennun steps on a magic landmine, and almost gets ripped into pieces by it. To continue safely I try to detect other mines on our way. Strennun gets stopped by a saber around the corner. "Who are you aligned with?" they ask us, and we tell them "with Captain Nelson". The people around the corner tell us that they are with Teolgrag and that the others started the fight. Teolgrog arrived with his whole armada, which is pretty provocative, so we don't know who is really to blame here. Anyways they show us a safe path to get to the townhall through private houses and over roofs.
As we exit to the street again shambling mound appears out of the blue, and we destroy it with ease. We pass some barricades and hear the strange voice again. It turns out to be a combat healer, aligned with Teolgrag who heals us before we continue any further. Arriving at the town hall we see some people defending the main entrance, while others are attacking it in great numbers.
Might we finally get out of this Town?
I hate splitting up with my team. We really should have stayed together in the first place. And yet, as we approached the town square of Mighttown, Strennun and Kella stayed behind. I didn't catch why, had to pay attention instead. Moments later, I found myself alone with Darfin and Roftag, staring at the town hall. There was a barricade built in front of it. A couple of brutes roaming around. Kylin was trapped inside the building.
We went with a smart plan. First, break into a house. Despite my kicking, the door wouldn't budge. Luckily, Roftag pried it open, and we got in. The owners must have left in a hurry... Second, find something that goes on a barricade. Me and Rof grabbed a table, Darfin found a tiny chair. I admit the old elf is not too keen on real, muscle work. Third, pretend to be one of Hogan's oafs. We walked out with the furniture and moved towards the blockade. It could have worked but we botched it.
On our way to the barricade the pirates started shouting at us. They ordered us to stop. Suddenly, I heard springs or other mechanisms and Darfin got launched into the air! Those buggers trapped the entire square! The impact threw me and Roftag on the floor. The guards were as confused as we were. One of them picked me up. Rof continued dragging the table, Darfin moved towards the guards muttering something. They've caught on to our ruse. As one of them shot at us, I noticed Darfin's fingers starting to glow. I reached for my old, reliable Morningstar and Roftag grabbed the table firmly, poised for a swing...
As I later learned, Kylin did not fare much better. She attended the Council of the Captains. Nasty buggers, some of them captain. Especially Hogan and Ondas, whose thugs were demolishing the defenseless city... So, Kylin arrived with Greybeard. They entered via a long tunnel leading from the hideout. She said the atmosphere was tense. Whispers, angry looks, captains checking their journals. Then, an unexpected guest entered. It was Wormtongue - a nasty, sneaky chap. He offers to form an alliance. He wants to rob ships, steal booty, and raid innocent people. Captain rejected the offer straight away - a good call. The rest wanted to think about it. She talked with Ondas, the annoying brute. She also approached Tavia - new scar on her face - and advised to ignore the Wormtongue. The Council voted and the votes are split. Hogan declared a war among the captains - a BAD call. Kylin smells a trap and proceeds to the main entrance. Just in time too...
Outside of the town hall, things looked rough. As I smashed one of the guards, he burst into flames. Moments later, a fire elemental appeared in his place. In the distance, I heard a shriek. Darfin held a palm to a guards's face, hands blazing with power. The guard did not stand a chance. Next to me, Roftag swung a table into another guard, smashing him to the ground. The eyes on the wolf's head he was wearing seemed to gleam. Then, we were engulfed by fire - another trap, I guess. Darfin ran away, I ran towards the fountain, Rof fell on the cobblestones. I jumped into the fountain and tried to extinguish his pelt. The elemental chased after us and dealed a crushing blow to Rof. And then, suddenly, silence.
I've seen everyone moving, SEEN them shouting, but the sound was... gone. There was no time to dwell on that. I grabbed the elemental and dived into a fountain with him. The water changed into vapour. it should have sizzled but it... didn't. I saw fiery rays hurled at the guards - they came from Darfin's hands. Then I noticed the town hall doors swung open. It was Kylin! She started flying, seemed to be dodging something. Then she cast spell after spell, almost blinding me with the intensity. The dying guards were tossed around, crashing into the building. Back in the square's center I parried and deflected everything they threw at me. Not the first time my shield saved my ass. Wish Kella was here, she would have loved the brawl. Two more spells from Darfin and the guards were gone. One of them fled. May he live to tell a tale about our crew!
I picked up Rof - maybe there was still hope for him. Darfin said he read about a temple in the trade district in the traveller's guide. Good that he actually reads books. The streets seemed deserted and fights in the distance quieter. We navigated the city with no issues. The temple was gigantic, with a steep roof. There were two statues in front. I did not recognize them, probably local gods. We were almost let in by an elf. Almost, because Kylin was not. The elf said she would desecrate the holy ground. Reminded me of my monastery, 'desecration' and 'holy' were words used to excuse many otherwise stupid actions. The master of the temple said Rof is dead. He demanded an incredible amount of money. Twenty-five thousand gold. Of course, we didn't have that with us. Darfin bargained and managed to increase the price to thirty thousand gold. AND he agreed! Hope he knows what he's doing. The resurrection ritual began, Darfin made for the ship to fetch the money. The chanting was... eerie and soothing. I decided to stay and rest at the temple.
Kylin and Darfin soon came back with the money. All shook up. They were met on the ship by Salarus. The ship was full of his servants. He protected the ship during our adventure in the city. Was a good idea for the captain to summon him. Not everything went as planned though. Jason, dubbed one of the bubbling idiots, lost his life. Pity, I started to like him... Captain and the old elf brought the money with them. Thousands of gold! I dare not ask where they found it or if it was real. The ritual ended soon, and we saw Rof. He was alive! He is charred, burnt and blistered and I have killed orcs who looked less ugly. But he is back with us, the lucky bastard. Darfin started arguing with one of the elves. Something about theory, nothing I'd care about, so I just took Rof to the Devilsfall.
Back on the ship, Salarus demanded 1200 gold for the protection fee. Sly little devil. The captain made a request to see the creator of the ship. Salarus was more than happy to fulfil the wish and demanded another 1500 gold pieces to find out! Wherever the money comes from, I hope it never runs out. Darfin offered us all some damn good tea. As we drank it, we were reminded about the little girl, who we promised to bring to safety. I hope at least Square and Strennun remembered about her...
Getting Ballast
Soooo this is a tale of how we lied to a kid saying we’d come back for it. And then turned out we didn’t really lie and we actually came back for it, argh.
So anyway, the Captain and Rof insisted that we go and we did. Took us like 20 minutes of *trying* to walk stealthily (as in: most of us were actually stealthy and Brovara and the Captain did their best). The way there was kinda tricky because of all the traps we had to avoid – luckily Strennun was leading, and he managed to notice most of them (except for one time when he got distracted and got tossed back, hilarious). Rof dodged one more trap, Darfin tried tapping cobblestones with his staff and that also worked pretty well. We had to climb over a barricade, avoided a tentacle monster, yada yada yada... We finally reached the house where we left the kid. It was probably scared and would hide somewhere if it heard any noise, so Strennun brilliantly kicked open the door extra loudly so it’s EASIER to find it. With a bit of a hustle, we found the little fucker (still wouldn’t tell us its name) and started wondering what to do with it. After a small debate we chose to take the kid to the ship rather than to the church. Luckily, the way back was uneventful (except for finding some loser to slap for no reason, that was fun).
When we got to the ship, it turned out that the way out of the city by water was blocked and that our rudder was broken, so we couldn’t sail out right away. Strennun took a swim to maybe steal some other ship’s rudder. Instead, he discovered that underwater there’s a whole bunch of humanoids all around him. He tried to distract them with noise but got caught by the ankle by *something* instead – he got out but there was no stealing the rudder. We’d have to wait 2 days to fix it, so we kept ourselves busy.
The Captain wrote to other captains in the log. She asked Teolgrag and Tavia for any news on the water blockade and asked Greybeard how we can help in the city. Darfin went looking for Sulla on the lower deck and Rof and Strennun had a sweet, slightly awkward conversation (“You’re just half devil”) where they decided on cease-fire. I myself figured that the kid (which we named Mighty Ballast btw) may not be as much of a waste of space as I thought. I decided to teach it how to fight and I gotta say, it’s a quick learner. At some point we even used Steve as a moving target. Best. Idea. Ever.
During the night nothing happened. I wondered if Darfin was successful at finding Sulla. Maybe he found him in his cabin and they talked all night? Maybe Sulla told him how he was a war god on the defending side of a huge war long, long ago? That his brother was killed and Sulla himself was one of the first to die? And maybe he said he had some unfinished business with our gods and wants revenge? Maybe Sulla gave Darfin a quest to find his old temple, which is so old that cannot be found on any existing map? Maybe he told him of tales that are so old and so horrid that no man can or will talk about it and only some oldest elves can remember these events? Who knows, or maybe he just snored all night over some book. The next day he just told us he couldn’t find Sulla.
In the morning the crew had a training session to learn that if someone dies, their body has to be brought on board asap. Nimar makes a pretty good instructor, he even threw someone overboard for practice. This also opened a whole debate if everyone even wants to be brought back so Darfin and Captain had a looong discussion and finally decided to make a survey among the crew if they prefer to die-die or become-a-zombie-die.
The Captain got the responses from other captains: Teolgrag seemed concerned about the water blockade. Tavia wrote “knock-knock”, so we responded with “Who’s there?”. This joke better have a killer punchline. I feel like we’ve been waiting for her response for like a month. Most importantly, Greybeard asked us for help. He said he needed us to find the people that are hiding in the many buildings in the city. This meant one thing: FIGHT!
We went to the city and decided to lure the fuckers out of the buildings by creating an illusion of Hogan calling them to battle. This worked perfectly and we lured out around 17 people. With the Captain’s thunders, my slaps, Rof throwing pebbles and Brovara slicing through people like butter, we quickly ended up with a neat pile of corpses in somebody’s carrot garden.
And we thought that would be all – and then a corpse fell through some building’s window. Strennun attacked whoever was inside and Brovara entered to investigate. She found a soon-to-be corpse on the ground. They whispered “Controool” and died. A very random ending to a very random day. And we still haven’t finished Tavia’s joke.
Light the way
The fight was fought quick and effectively. To our flank Rof and I spot a platoon of Greybeards men making their way to our battlefield. One of their scouts mention that there is a metallic beast running rampage in the Trade district, which has killed quite a few dwarves. I decided to offer our help in dealing with the beast after we have cought our breaths here. During our small rest Kella and Brovara finished what will surely become a tourist attraction; the Corpse Garden.
Tavia: Knock, Knock
Me: Whos there?
After the rest we make our way to the Trade district. There we find a bunch of people building up a barricade and lead by Lieutenant Greg who seems to be quite over his head and can not give us any hints on what this beast is. Turns out though it was a mechanical bull that made kebabs out of dwarves on a weekday and petrified unfortunates on the weekends. During the fight Kella got hit by the petrifying gas and got turned to stone. Luckily I had a potion of antipetrification on me and could reverse the effect immediately. We carve up the body, extract a phial of the gas and manage to sever the head of the torso. The head will either be a fine decoration on my wall or a nice device to break through hulls of Hogans ships.
On our way back we head by a Boxing school to pick up some items for Kella and Ballast. Additianally we made two further detors to the blacksmith and the armorer. After some brief shopping we finally make it back to the ship.
Tavia: Misses
Me: Misses who?
Once on the ship I find Salurus has paid us a visit while we were gone and delivered on my request. On my table lies a small bean with a note from Salurus. With this vision I had a weird vision. First I felt like I was suddenly drowning, to suddenly see the whole continent surrounded by 6 figures. One of the I recognize as Milin. That weird bard that the horny gnome was on about a couple of months ago. Another was just a guy with a musket. Then a Goliath with two clubs, similar to the clubs from Teolgrugs guards. Then a human with a long-sword, a woman in an elegant dress and long red hair and finally the Fairy like bitch that killed 3 of my men. I wish I could have killed her right there. But the vision changed to show me these figures fighting large creatures. The fight concludes with a Turtle like creature fleeing into the sea while another hides in the mountains. Then a new fight breaks out. But this one is between men, dwarves, elves and other races. This war was accompanied by a voice saying: "See what they have done. See what they created. Help me destroy them. Liberate them off this world that is suffering. Will you be my Champion?".
As the Fairy bitch is anyway going to die I feel what is there to loose. I accept the offer. In that moment I get the feeling of being buried alive. I fight against it. I dig and dig and dig. And then break the surface, to find myself in a graveyard with a bunch of candles. I go through looking at the individual graves. I find Porofs grave and Alluros, both with a warm lit candle. Then I find Jasons grave, Orofs grave and a bunch of others that I recognize. All cold. No light. No candle. The voice comes again:"Guide these people."
I wake up and look around. I am back in my office. Next to me on the floor lies Darfin for some reason and some chalk runes. I check that he is alive and wake him. As soon as he stirs he starts screaming in panic until he calms down. Once he has calmed down from his nightmare I call in a meeting to discuss the matters I saw. Maybe someone knows something of these gods that Milin and the others belong to. And maybe Strennun can help us with his knowledge on giant turtles. Darfin explains how the gods can be split in the old and the new gods. This probably means that the new gods overthrew the old gods letting some random children to take over.
Throughout the conversation Darfin and the others offer their opinions to help us find a plan. The discussion went on about the chair and Dafin voicing his suspicion that the chair could be and old god. I dont know if Darfin was still suffering from his Nightmare but he suddenly turns some advice into an attack, claiming its ridiculous that women and I could be a captain. Thats the first time I had to call my trusted friends and council in order. I call Darfin to stay after the meeting, to give him a chance to explain his wording. He still seemed off.
After dismissing him I go out on deck to cool of and to enjoy the morning sea breeze. I look down at my log book to read:
Tavia: Ms. Breakthrough
which was accompanied by a crash of wood splintering afar and a bunch of confused men screaming.
The Blockade
Trying to help with the blockade, the devilsfall approaches one of the ships. Everyone does what they do best so fights start up everywhere. Square enters the enemy ship with a superhero landing, Darfin cuts off half their crew with a huge line of flames and the captains blows up everyone in a large circle. Darfin climbs up the mast to rain down spells from the crowsnest and Square gets quickly surrounded and as is tradition, so does Brovara. After almost falling between the boats I manage to climb up their railing and start tossing people overboard where they meet Strennun. The captain directly goes for their head and attacks their leader. Unseen by everyone Darfin seems to struggle with arrows raining down on him from several enemy archers. Eventually the arrows overwhelm him and he drops only our captains notices this and with a loud bang teleports over to help. Meanwhile I notice Square drop to the floor and not getting up. I try my best waking her up but the best I manage is to stop the bleeding. After unsuccessfully trying to make darfin gulp down the potion, Kylin proclaims: "Well, he's dead". Surrounded and having to watch over Square I scream for help. Kylinn descends upon the enemy survivors and unsurvives them. Brovara carges the last one standing and with a loud crunch compresses him agains my shields. Before anyone can even consider taking over the ship, it starts to sink .. STREEEENNNUUUN. Darfin gets up.
Back on the ship the captains makes a quick count: 3 crew members died in action, 3 people from mighttown and 1 hogan deserter joined the crew
The hogan deserter who caused some protest from Brovara is and Orc called Kra'vash and is carrying some instrument with strings.
Square returns to her room and gets greeted by a slap. Brovara asks Darfin about the fight, but the doesn't seem to remember and feels normal. Brovara also tells Jack to improve the crowsnest to protect from arrows.
After leaving the blockade behind, Kylinn invites Darfin for tea. When she enters the captains room there is a stench of tabaco in the air and a rakshasa sitting on a chair. The rakshasa refuses to share his name and introduces himself as Grand Master. He tells his price for leaving, hinting that he didn't come alone. Knowing the condition of the crew Kylinn makes a counter offer, adding 1000 gold pieces on top of the 2500 gold pieces, if the rakshasa would get rid of someone for her each month. Half of the sum shall be paid at the beginning and half of it at the end of each month. The Rakshasa steps through a gate and only leaves a paper. Darfin worrying asks the captain "How is the Dwarf?". "Spherical" Kylinn responds.
The party is gathered and everyone is informed about the rakshasas. Orders are given and the dead bodies of crewmates are brough on deck: Orof, Shamal, Belari, Jason and three others. A seaburial is called. The dead bodies are put on rafts, arrows are distributed and everyone becomes quiet. Rashesh misses his best curry fan and Steve mournes over the loss of Jason. Kylin gives some encouraging words and on her mark Strennun pushes the floats away from the ship. Fire The rafts start burning und slowly fade into the distance. Kylin finds Steve grieving under deck. He seems obsessed about revenge and Kylinn's words don't seem to reach him. After being handed a bucket of alcohol I ask Brovara on advice how to protect the other crewmembers "use the fact they ignore you to your advantage" is all I get. Afterwards I seek out Square and Darfin to apologize; Square for the wakeup slap and Darfin for doubting his judgement on Sulla.
Brovara asks Kylinn about darfin. "Darfin is still Darfin" is Kylinn's response. When the sun is gone Darfin creates some fireworks to finish the day. "Goodbye Kur'vash" - Brovara
When everyone is either sleeping or passed out from the drinking Square sends Balast on a mission. Sneak into the captains room, reach into her bag, pull out the logbook and draw the following into it.
The mission was a success, but Balast forgot to put the logbook back into the bag.
Strennun goes Swimming
So we're still on the way to this Elven island somewhere down south-south-east. Can't see shit tho because there's thick fog all around. Not even I can see anything and usually I don't have any problem seeing through all kinds of stuff. Weird...
Anyway, i scout out the area underwater, but can't see shit either. When I get back, somebody yells something about a whirlpool and everybody loses their minds. The ship is on the verge of falling in and the Captain doesn't seem to know if she should steer in or out of the thing. I, for myself, know what I'll be doing, I'm gonna jump in and see what's on the other side. I mean, what's the worst that can happen right??
Strennun yeets himself into the building whirlpool, just as Kylinn manages to get a hold of the ship and slowly but surely steer it out of the pool. She does so by jamming her sword into a gap of the steering wheel and with some help from another crew-member and Square.
Meanwhile, Rof saw Strennun jump overboard, but thought that this act of sheer stupidity was not done voluntarily (Because who in their right minds would even THINK of doing such a thing?? What he failed to consider is that Strennun is not even remotely close to being in his right mind...) and made it his mission to go save him. He rappelled himself down the side of the ship into the whirlpool - where Strennun more less happily goes merry-round. He manages to catch him, but gets socked in the face by Strennun and lets him be before getting pulled up to the ship again by Square.
So I get pulled down and over and down and over and down and over and... you get the picture. At some point I get spit out somewhere underwater?
It's pitch-black but I can still see some stuff and can also breathe underwater, so I go and see what's up and also where's up. I swim and swim and swim... and get to the sea-floor. I turn around and swim and swim and swim... and get to some weird structure? Metal? I think? I go along it and get to some pillars that go all the way down to the sea-floor and frame a passage. I continue until I get out of the passage and am in open water.
Meanwhile, Strennun's absence has been noticed on the Devil's Fall and Square is up and ready to replace him with a (more less) trained dolphin - The idea is not met with a lot of enthusiasm. Kylinn excuses herself to the Captain's Quarter and lights a candle for Strennun.
So I'm in the water, I don't know where, I don't know why and I don't really know how. I reach out to the dragon-turtle but get ignored for some reason. Maybe I offended it somehow?? But wait! There's a faint light in the distance! I swim towards it and when I reach it, a huge mouth opens with teeth as big as my forearm! I get the fuck out of there and swim up and up and up and up.... for more than an hour. Gotta dodge some big sharks on the way up but I make it. It's open water and I have no idea where I am. Probably not too far off where I jumped into that whirlpool. So if my kalkulatins are correct, this Elven island should be somewhere South-South-East. Gotta reach it at some point I suppose, and I'm faster than the ship anyway, so let's go. I reach out to the dragon-turtle again, but only silence. Welp, swimming in silence it is then.
On the Devli's Fall, Darfin adds the newly 'discovered' whirlpool to the map while Square is trying to teach Ballast how to swim. This is accomplished by rappelling her down the side of the ship (that's moving at 50 knots at the time) and waterboarding her until she starts paddling, before pulling her up shortly before she drowns.
To let off some steam, Ballast goes off to slap Rof, who's had enough and escalates this issue to the Captain. A stern discussion is had and Ballast is sent off to scrub the deck with Rof and will not be allowed to slap any more people. Furthermore, she will be spending half-days with other members of the crew to learn useful skills:
- Rashesh: Cooking
- Darfin: Reading / Writing / Speaking
- Jack: Carpenting / Handiwork
- Brovara: Religion / Morality
- Rof: Humility / Survival
- Kylinn: Leadership
- Kurwash: Music and Arts
While Kylinn and Square are having this discussion, Rof is under deck and gets jumped by crew-members that are planning a mutiny, because he doesn't want to be part of this mutiny. A tussle ensues and Kylinn, Darfin and Square are on scene. The mutineers attempt to frame Rof of starting the mutiny and the Captain is inclined to believe them. The leadership retreats to the Captain's quarters and Square manages to persuade her that this mutiny couldn't have been started by Rof because why would he? He promptly gets promoted to First Mate (Square's role so far) and Square gets delegated to 'Chief Slappening Officer', meaning she'll be responsible for training and security of the crew.
The crew-members who instigated the mutiny are being thrown onto the skiff with rations for three days (not enough to reach the shore) and sent out to sea. One of the mutineers - Rushk'all - hides and grovels in front of the captain and gets sent to the brig instead, where he will be overturned to the authorities in the next port.
Meanwhile, Darfin finally gets to talk with Sulla. He can convince them to agree to a talk with the rest of the leadership - but Sulla only agrees under the condition that they're tied together, so Sulla can't be thrown overboard. They also know that Death itself sent Kylinn that strange vision of the Gods fighting against other Gods that she had some nights ago.
