The party attracted a crew of all women sailors and left the port of Sphant bound for the lizard folk colony. Knowing only that there was a handsome reward for the return of books bound for Seminary, and with the faith that they would return shortly, they set sail for a two day voyage on calm seas.
The voyage itself was uneventful. During the trip, the sailors helped show the party how to jib the rigs, jiggle the mainline, and swab the deck. The hired crew performed admirably, following the directions of the young teenage girl-prophet and her Holy Company: a moniker for Siegride and the rest of the party who're emblazoned with similar dwarven artifacts. The sailors, citizens Sphant, naturally bore a superstitious and religious bent about them, and found the girls leadership, commanding presence, and vision - not to mention an uncanny understanding of weather patterns and storms - as something divine inspired.
The girl prophet instructed the crew to weigh anchor just north of the colony's island some quarter-mile away from shore where rocks had claimed half a dozen ships over the decades; their husks were seen as ominous shadows in the moonlight. In the morning on the 14th of first harvest, the party boarded two small rowboats and cautiously approached the dangerous rocks where the Gentle Current had run aground.
The party could feel the intensity of the current building as it closed in on the rocks, and they felt their ships being pulled into that place. They saw the vessel leaning over some 40° in bad shape; it's masts were broken and it's sails were ripped and fluttering carelessly in the wind.
As they approached, the party started to take notice of dorsal fins cresting along the top of the sea line. Soon, it was obvious that the party was rowing through shark infested waters and that the sharks were becoming increasingly interested in their presence.
Just then, bursting from the sea, a massive great white shark with a rider - a Merrow Prince (Merfolk who, by legend, have been twisted by evil and demonic forces, who plunder the treasure of ships and feed off of the flesh their crews) commanded the party to return their vessel, or they would most assuredly die. Rising from the ocean depths were the Prince's hunting party: five other Merrow's armed with harpoons and wickedly Long claws.
Siegride summoned the force of her deity and created a localized storm that would yield to her command. She also cast water walk on the entire party so that they might walk the surface of the seas. But she waited and did not strike. She waited to vet out the intentions of the prince as the party began to row away.
Surrounded by a school of sharks and the Merrow, some members of the party thought it was prudent to begin rowing backwards, and to-in fact-return to the ship. The little row boats drifted in their turn to point their bows back toward the anchored Sea Wyvern.
However, one member of the party - Ma'yah - The rash young magic user-was not duly impressed with the idle threats of a demonic Merfolk prince mounted atop a great white shark commanding her to leave an area of the sea that he controlled. No. She prepared a spell and her mind that would release a bevy of magical arrows into the prince on her command.
Her companion, the tiny pseudo dragon named Dru, in seeing what she was doing, flew over and landed on her lap. He looked up at her with big, sad, pleading eyes… as if attempting to say, "I want to live… please don't... Whatever you're planning…" but the little dragon did not deter her.
On the end of second round, as the Merrow were encouraging the party to start rowing away at harpoon-point, the party struck first: Ma'yah cast Magic Missile on the prince and the seas exploded into chaos.
First, the prince fell off of his mount and the great white shark torpedoed for the boat that Ma'yah was on. It opened it's keeping maw and tore a chuck out of the boat. As it tried to return to the safety of the sea, it incurred attacks of opportunity that allowed the party to beset massive damage against it. Bad plan, noted the shark.
Meanwhile, other Merrow surfaced and brandished their harpoons and claws and teeth, setting themselves upon the party. All of this would've been fairly normal fare for the Merrow hunting party until, of course, the Dwarves and Humans started walking on water to attack them. They weren't prepared for that. Standard operating procedure is for the demonic Merfolk where to use their harpoons to stab and grapple a victim and pull them into the depths of the icy water, allowing them to drown and become fish food. Not today. It would appear that some divine intervention allowed the surfaced dwellers to walk upon the water as if it was the land itself, and the ensuing battle was very confusing.
Ma'yah was attacked with prejudice by a smaller reef shark that lunged out of the water, bit her, and dragged her with a STR check into the water! Again, let's check standard operating procedure's for a shark. Bite victim. Check. Victim Bleeds. Check. Lock jaw, preventing victim from escaping. Check. Maybe shake the victim a bit, right and left, check. Then plunge deep into the watery depths to drown the victim.
Everything seemed to be going according to standard operating procedure for the shark and her blood tasted rather nice, as such was the perks of the job, except that Ma'yah had water walk cast on her and was effectively a super buoyant mass of human flesh that raced to the surface at 60 feet per round. The shark, nose downward and dragging his victim into the sea, suddenly found himself swimming against the magical forces of the universe, its prey weirdly pulling him back towards the surface, whereas its body was thrust backwards and out of the water in a display of unintentional acrobatics that threw the shark into the air and, consequently, it let go of Ma'yah. She went spilling onto the surface of the ocean like it was a wet tile floor.
The party engaged the Merrow on their own turf, walking on water, shooting, stabbing, casting spells. Llewelyn cast a hypnotic pattern that affected three reef sharks who ended up swimming around in circles aimlessly ... The PC's duked it out with the Merrow's in hand to hand, and the aquatic hunters got in a few good licks, but were no match for lightning bolts hurled from the sky, sharpshooting Rangers, and, stabby halflings.
Ma'yah, prone on the water, struggling to get up, suddenly was the target of severe aggression (probably for her attacking the prince): a dark shadow appeared in the water underneath her and the massive jaws of the great white shark opened and snatched her, ferociously ripping at her, and drug her down into a watery doom.
Revisiting standard operating procedures for sharks: bite, bleed, shake, drown. Every shark learns that in school. That's what's supposed to happen, it's how one gets ahead in life, and the massive great white had a lot of power in its tail and attempted to take Ma'yah into the cold darkness, swimming 30' then sixty feet down. Ma'yah attempted to stab the monster with her dagger but couldn't penetrate its hide. Things looked mighty bad for her. still, it couldn't best the carnal forces of magic as its momentum slowed, and it's prey's body thrust the enormous fish backward through the water to suddenly burst forth to the surface - tail first - and into the air, where both Ma'yah and the great white were hurled some five feet above the ocean to crash back into the water (for the shark) and on to the surface of the water (for the divinely tweaked Ma'yah). Once there, she was attacked by a Merrow and rendered unconscious and dying.
Meanwhile, the prince - realizing his peril - thought that a direct confrontation with these land lubbers was the wrong way to go, and he opted for something epic. Both he and his shark mount moved at the same initiative at the top of the round, so he disengaged the party allowing him to sink backward into the ocean and away from his assailants without incurring attacks of opportunity, then remounted his great white shark who burst out of the water to leap at the divinely inspired Siegride. The reader should bear in mind that this shark gets +10 to hit and had advantage because of the blood frenzy in the water, and still _missed_ the cleric because of her mondo awesome AC of 24, whereas the demonic Merfolk prince riding this massive great white shark leapt out of the water, huge mouth gaping rows of teeth, and sailed right pass her in super slow mo (one could just see the twisted agony and surprise on the Merrow's face, then pan over to the shark's expression which was went from uber smug to sharkly shame), then the shark and princely rider (most un-epicly) splashed into the water on the opposite side of the rowboat. Thereby he was attacked by a water walking dwarf with a holy weapon she acquired from some old mines some 300 miles away.
Returned to consciousness, Ma'yah unleashed a volley of Magic Missiles against the prince again to finally finish him off. His body sank to the sea, and one lone Merrow escaped into the depths of the sea.
It was a bad day for sharks and Merrow. But it was only going to get worse.
The party continued their way to the Gentle Current, climbed upon the nearby rocks, and boarded the vessel. There they investigated the ruins and found the remains of several sailors. They also found the ship logs:
The Current is a three-mast Barquentine with a shallow draft. Captain Herisha Jeremo; Quartermaster Lynn of House Parque, Merchants of Floreth; a crew of eighteen: a pilot, a navigator, a cooper, a doctor, a lookout, two cooks, a sailing master, three carpenters, seven able sea men. Logs would show the boat built Rose: 13 in Rhackdalia; recent voyages have been running legitimate merchant cargo to destinations throughout the Shattered Isles and Floreth....
Logs would show that the Current was carrying 20 water-tight trunks of books and scrolls and literature that had been smuggled out of Rhackdalia before the Wall fell. House Orlante financed the recovery of these texts and commissioned to have them sent to the Seminary in Sphant. There was other material - food stuffs, blankets, bedrolls, supplies for refugees; chests of artifacts from the library; tapestries from the library.
The ship's cargo was apparently dragged out of the hull and across the rocks down into the depths of the sea. Gorbash dove in and swam some 90' down into the coral reef to find a cave opening decorated by the Merrow, and he tried to descend further into the cave but had to return, fearing drowning. Meanwhile, Ma'yah cast a spell to allow her to shapeshift and breathe underwater, and she found that the cave opening lead to a cavernous lair. She then returned to the group. The party concluded that it would be too difficult for everyone to hold their breath for seven or eight minutes, so they had to find another way.
Returning to the ship, the astounded crew was in awe of what they had seen: water-walking, flames shooting out of their hands, lightning called down from the heavens, streaking magic missiles ... pretty fitting of a Holy Company, they had thought, and they spoke to all of the party with some reverence. There the party waited, slept, and took eight hours to rest and heal up, and, to wait for the tides to lower so that they could explore the caves against the face of the cliff, facing the water.
Kersplat! Some 30' down. Siegride thought she heard some voices but couldn't understand the language, so Ma'yah cast a spell on Siegride that allowed her to comprehend and speak any language. Turns out some female voices down below were surprised that the sharkdog on a rope had fallen through the hole, and they went to go get some guards. Meanwhile, they pulled up the sharkdog and did the kersplat-thing again, and followed the corpse down into the hole.
At the bottom, Siegride was first to realize that she stepped into a birthing pool filled with tadpoles and a white muck (the guts of squished tadpoles that had been crushed by the falling sharkdog). The rest of the party descended. There was phosphorous moss growing in the pool and soon it was obvious they were in some Merrow nursery.
Exploring their surroundings, the party were in some narrow caves that were dimly lit with the phosphorous moss with water (that fell from the spillway above the cavern) into nursery. It wasn't long before the party was met in battle by Merrow guards who were sure that these were the scoundrels who killed their prince.
Eventually the party would come across a large 9' tall statue and find its craftsmanship somewhat shoddy in concealing a secret passageway behind it. The party opened the statue and saw a descending slope downward....
... and that's where we'll start up next time!
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