Post by Markas Virnala on Nov 15, 2019 10:22:15 GMT
"Sinking the Sunken Ship"
23rd Entry in the journal of Markas Virnala
Another Interesting quest we went on this week, more like the stuff we were up to when I first came to Kantas. After the Espionage work we did earlier this week, I headed back down to Port Ffirst and immediately found myself signing up for another boat trip with almost all new faces. I barely had time to visit my room in the Hook! Speaking of which, as I got outside, there is a huge Skull outside now. A human and a dragonborn were showboating outside about how they took it down and after listening for a bit, I realised it was Shivon, the Dragon-Turtle we stole that Gem from. I did feel a little relieved we didn’t have to worry about them showing up in Port Ffirst at least but wasn't so nice to know someone else has dealt with the problem we brought in. I told them what had happened back then but they only seemed interested in showing off so I went into the Hook with another new face for: BB
BB is a Firbolg, the first I've ever seen! They seem really nice and after seeing them fight, they remind me a lot of Urso and his random magical fallout that used to follow him around. Turns out BB has moved into NHB now and taken over the Flower fields there. We had a good chat about our trip there and I think I may have shed some interesting light on Ranulf, the old Gnome she has set her business up with. Of course, he was under the effects of those stones in the water but it was fun to see the shock on her face. He is obviously back to normal by now.
Stedd was the next one to come in and Pieni showed up not too much later to join us which is always nice, and finally we were joined by the two showboating outside and a tiefling called Arkadius. He seems nice enough. Drinks a lot though. He has actually started up a Post service in Port Ffirst now so he is a little more driven and creative than most I guess.
The Human turned out to be called Wil. Seems an odd one to me, haunted by something and had a bit of a depressed aura around him, once you got past the excited showboating of course. Says he's a fisherman but he looks skinnier than me so I'm not sure how good a fisherman he is. He is another one who draws his power from something/someone by the look of it.
The Dragonborn was a bit of a different case. Stockier than Wil as I'd expect a Dragonborn to be now and pretty keen to get into a fight. His name is Taz and while he definitely has some strength behind him, I think he faired up the worst out of all of us on this trip, partly thanks to Pieni of course.
-
So the job: a guy called Igor wants us to join him on a voyage to reclaim an old ship of his, one that sank about a year ago but has been seen on the water again? Not sure what to expect so wants some extra muscle to deal with whatever he finds there. More importantly, he wanted a bundle of paperwork concerning his trade business but if we could secure the boat too, that would be great. To be honest, this sounded way too easy to me, so I began quizzing Igor about everything I could, the amount of paperwork, what was on it, where was it, the layout of the ship etc. in the end, it just sounded like it was going to be getting on board and finding a small folder. He didn't seem to know anything else so it was a case of find out what's there at the time. He gave us a sketched map of the ship at least.
The next morning (A few of the group noticeably worse for wear after drinking most of the night) we met at the docks to see Igor and a crew of 5 or 6 people, all manning a small decrepit looking fishing boat and within the hour, we were sailing out of the harbour for open water.
After two days at sea, it was getting a bit tiresome being on the small boat. We had some fun on the first day, Will and Stedd fishing and Arkadius cooking one of the catches with a tiny ball of fire in his hand but moods were starting to drop a little. Finally, Igor announced we were in the rough area where his ship was supposed to have been seen so BB summoned a small Magpie they call Blue to scout ahead for us and they eventually sent a message back to BB who guided us to this ship.
The ship itself was definitely a write off. It had clearly been underwater for a long time so how it was floating again was a bit of a mystery. The entire thing was caked in algae and slime, the sails were in tattered ruins and every board and plank that made up the boat looked rotten and water logged. Igor recognised it as his ship but he was looking pretty spooked by it at this point. He got us fairly close but refused to get closer, let alone come on board with us. This is what he hired us for I guess so I can't blame him. He said he would wait 6hrs for us before leaving, unless we could give him a sign we were alive. Quite a worrying way to set us off but we agreed between us we had means to let him know in case we were still searching the ship after 6 hours.
We boarded the ship using a small rowboat, Stedd using his new cloak to swim through the water instead. BB created a magical set of flowery armour for herself before boarding but by the time she was on deck she was nearly twice the size as normal! Concerned about the strength of the Boards, BB waited at the edge with a the others while Taz and I began searching, starting with where the Folder was supposed to be kept; the captain's cabin to the back of the ship.
Pushing it, we found the room full of densely packed webs but between us we got in, cut our way through and managed to search the room to find nothing, aside from a very large husk of a spider that had shed. A staircase led down into the ship from there but was even more condensed with Webbing. Over through the door to the front, we found a ruined room with a weird Shrine in the corner, decorated with humanoid skulls, clearly added since the resurfacing of the ship. Was kind of a weird setup but reminded me of the Spider God I've heard Igrainne mention before. Besides that, another stair here led down but was also massively packed with webbing.
Finally, I opted to sneak over to the grate in the middle of the deck and see what was going on down there while the others waited with BB, now back to normal size (!?). Below, through even more webbing I could see a large Purple vaguely human shaped creature surrounded by a few giant spiders, leaning over a pool of what looked like blood, talking to a Kobold woman with horns or Antlers on her head. I didn't catch all the conversation but it was clear she had brought 'something' back and didn't want it going to waste. Crawling back across the deck I told the others and Stedd seemed to recognise the Kobold as someone called Molly Khaosborn.
It wasn't clear what else was down there but the prospect of fighting in such a tight space didnt sit well, so we formulated a plan. Taz and Blue would each go to the stairs covered by webbing and cause a distraction by attacking the webbing. That should hopefully drawing the creatures away from the hatch at least. Then, while they are distracted, a few of us could drop through to the lower deck and surround them, making them easier to pick off. Worst case, they would come straight up through the grating and we would have more space to defend ourselves. We agreed on the plan and everyone got into position, then on three, we put it into play.
It was a good plan, that immediately fell apart.
The distraction made, the spiders and purple creature looked up at us, the spiders jumping straight up at me and Stedd. In response, he put on the mask he got in Sigul and immediately grew in size. The rickety boards, as BB suspected, quickly gave way and he went crashing through the deck, taking BB and Will with him, crushing the purple thing in the process in a shower of debris. Taz came sprinting out of the room with the shrine, covered in a swarm of tiny spiders, while Pieni and Arkadius took to the air.
Then we could hear some noise from deep in the ship, a thrashing chaotic sound.
The spiders were killed fairly quick between myself and Taz, with Stedd swatting at them with only his head poking out from the hole in the deck. Where he neglected to deal with the swarm, Taz was now covered, the spiders crawling into his mouth and choking him. Another purple creature emerged from the captain's cabin and began shooting webbing at Pieni and Arkadius.
Stedd finally removed his mask and climbed back onto the deck with wil, while Taz was.... Well, Taz was being molested.
Seeing him choking on the spiders, Pieni summoned to massive frogs on the deck that started lashing out at him to catch the spiders. What happened instead was, one ended up wrapping him up in their tongue, hanging up over the hole in the deck, while the other's tongue was rammed down his throat along with the spiders. Will started shaping water in his hands to try and wash his mouth out and Taz, the entire time just looked confused at what was happening to him.
Spotting BB hadn't climbed back up, I decided to head down and keep an eye on her, there was enough people on deck to deal with the purple thing and…. Well I didn't want to get involved with the Taz situation… The noise from below was getting increasingly louder as well and I didn’t want BB to be running into anything on her own. I dropped down the hole in the deck and dashed down the stairs, rounding a corner, coming face to face with Molly's 'thing'.
It had been chained to the wall at the back of the ship, but hearing the commotion had broken free and was now on the stairs in front of me, with BB no-where to be seen. It was humanoid 'shaped' but it was definitely not normal. Blue scales and a mangled face looked like it may have once been a dragonborn, but otherwise it's body was a twisted mess of bulging purple muscles and scars. A huge axe was in its hand and through its arms and legs where the chains that once held it, run through the skin rather than shackled on. While it was looking right at me, it didn't look like it was actually seeing me at all.
On instinct, I lashed out and struck it where I assumed I could disrupt the Ki channels in its body but the moment I touched it, the usual flow of energy I can feel was missing. There was just no life within it.
Fighting it off, still unsure on where BB was, Taz emerged next to me, finally free of whatever they were doing to him up there and swung his maul at the thing, actually dislodging one of its eyes and yet it still kept thrashing at us. The combined weight of us on the stairs finally caused another collapse as we dropped to the bottom deck and I finally caught sight of BB as she slipped past us towards the back of the ship, just as the thing seemed to slow down all of a sudden (Turns out BB was behind me on the stairs and used her magic to help us)
Through the flurry of thrashing limbs and weapons, we were just managing to deflect what we could and land our own attacks on the abomination. With it slowed somewhat, we managed to disarm it but as it dropped one of the axes, a hole was punched into the rotting wood and water began gushing in over us. As we continued to hack away at it, the creature leant forward as four massive tentacles erupted from its back, each beginning to form into their own muscular appendages it started swinging as us with.
Stedd and Wil finally came crashing down the stairs and joined us in driving this thing to the ground. In a crazy few moments, sprayed in water and the cold congealed blood that oozed from the creature, we managed to beat it down to the ground and finally, Stedd bringing his huge sword round and burying it deep in the creatures body, it dropped to the ground and stopped moving.
Through the holes we had ripped into its body we could see two odd looking stones had been stuffed into the chest. BB came splashing back through the water with the folder we needed and, grabbing the last of the stuff we could see around, we bolted back up and onto the deck and made our way back to Igor.
He was happy to retrieve the documents before asking about the boat. Once he heard of the hole in the hold, he let go of any hope of salvaging the wreck now and over the next 20-30minutes, we watched the ghoulish boat slowly sink back under the water, for the 2nd time!
Stedd seemed pretty angry that this Molly Khaosborn was involved. Apparently, a few adventurers have run into her before and she seems to make a habit of creating these freakish monsters from the bodies of the dead, explaining the nightmarish look of the ghoul in the cargo hold. This particular one Stedd recognised as someone they had killed the last time they encountered Molly. I'm not sure what she is up to but if she keeps making those things, she is going to need to be dealt with. I might ask Stedd about it once this mess with the war in K'ul Goran finally dies down. Hopefully she won't cause too much trouble in the meantime.
Once we had a chance to look at the stones we took from the creature, I realised they were similar to the little floating one Paw had! I traded mine with Stedd though, it felt like it would suit him better. The one I took instead seemed to take away the hunger I was starting to feel but in truth, I was just happy sitting on the boat watching the small stone float around my head, reminding me of Paw.
23rd Entry in the journal of Markas Virnala
Another Interesting quest we went on this week, more like the stuff we were up to when I first came to Kantas. After the Espionage work we did earlier this week, I headed back down to Port Ffirst and immediately found myself signing up for another boat trip with almost all new faces. I barely had time to visit my room in the Hook! Speaking of which, as I got outside, there is a huge Skull outside now. A human and a dragonborn were showboating outside about how they took it down and after listening for a bit, I realised it was Shivon, the Dragon-Turtle we stole that Gem from. I did feel a little relieved we didn’t have to worry about them showing up in Port Ffirst at least but wasn't so nice to know someone else has dealt with the problem we brought in. I told them what had happened back then but they only seemed interested in showing off so I went into the Hook with another new face for: BB
BB is a Firbolg, the first I've ever seen! They seem really nice and after seeing them fight, they remind me a lot of Urso and his random magical fallout that used to follow him around. Turns out BB has moved into NHB now and taken over the Flower fields there. We had a good chat about our trip there and I think I may have shed some interesting light on Ranulf, the old Gnome she has set her business up with. Of course, he was under the effects of those stones in the water but it was fun to see the shock on her face. He is obviously back to normal by now.
Stedd was the next one to come in and Pieni showed up not too much later to join us which is always nice, and finally we were joined by the two showboating outside and a tiefling called Arkadius. He seems nice enough. Drinks a lot though. He has actually started up a Post service in Port Ffirst now so he is a little more driven and creative than most I guess.
The Human turned out to be called Wil. Seems an odd one to me, haunted by something and had a bit of a depressed aura around him, once you got past the excited showboating of course. Says he's a fisherman but he looks skinnier than me so I'm not sure how good a fisherman he is. He is another one who draws his power from something/someone by the look of it.
The Dragonborn was a bit of a different case. Stockier than Wil as I'd expect a Dragonborn to be now and pretty keen to get into a fight. His name is Taz and while he definitely has some strength behind him, I think he faired up the worst out of all of us on this trip, partly thanks to Pieni of course.
-
So the job: a guy called Igor wants us to join him on a voyage to reclaim an old ship of his, one that sank about a year ago but has been seen on the water again? Not sure what to expect so wants some extra muscle to deal with whatever he finds there. More importantly, he wanted a bundle of paperwork concerning his trade business but if we could secure the boat too, that would be great. To be honest, this sounded way too easy to me, so I began quizzing Igor about everything I could, the amount of paperwork, what was on it, where was it, the layout of the ship etc. in the end, it just sounded like it was going to be getting on board and finding a small folder. He didn't seem to know anything else so it was a case of find out what's there at the time. He gave us a sketched map of the ship at least.
The next morning (A few of the group noticeably worse for wear after drinking most of the night) we met at the docks to see Igor and a crew of 5 or 6 people, all manning a small decrepit looking fishing boat and within the hour, we were sailing out of the harbour for open water.
After two days at sea, it was getting a bit tiresome being on the small boat. We had some fun on the first day, Will and Stedd fishing and Arkadius cooking one of the catches with a tiny ball of fire in his hand but moods were starting to drop a little. Finally, Igor announced we were in the rough area where his ship was supposed to have been seen so BB summoned a small Magpie they call Blue to scout ahead for us and they eventually sent a message back to BB who guided us to this ship.
The ship itself was definitely a write off. It had clearly been underwater for a long time so how it was floating again was a bit of a mystery. The entire thing was caked in algae and slime, the sails were in tattered ruins and every board and plank that made up the boat looked rotten and water logged. Igor recognised it as his ship but he was looking pretty spooked by it at this point. He got us fairly close but refused to get closer, let alone come on board with us. This is what he hired us for I guess so I can't blame him. He said he would wait 6hrs for us before leaving, unless we could give him a sign we were alive. Quite a worrying way to set us off but we agreed between us we had means to let him know in case we were still searching the ship after 6 hours.
We boarded the ship using a small rowboat, Stedd using his new cloak to swim through the water instead. BB created a magical set of flowery armour for herself before boarding but by the time she was on deck she was nearly twice the size as normal! Concerned about the strength of the Boards, BB waited at the edge with a the others while Taz and I began searching, starting with where the Folder was supposed to be kept; the captain's cabin to the back of the ship.
Pushing it, we found the room full of densely packed webs but between us we got in, cut our way through and managed to search the room to find nothing, aside from a very large husk of a spider that had shed. A staircase led down into the ship from there but was even more condensed with Webbing. Over through the door to the front, we found a ruined room with a weird Shrine in the corner, decorated with humanoid skulls, clearly added since the resurfacing of the ship. Was kind of a weird setup but reminded me of the Spider God I've heard Igrainne mention before. Besides that, another stair here led down but was also massively packed with webbing.
Finally, I opted to sneak over to the grate in the middle of the deck and see what was going on down there while the others waited with BB, now back to normal size (!?). Below, through even more webbing I could see a large Purple vaguely human shaped creature surrounded by a few giant spiders, leaning over a pool of what looked like blood, talking to a Kobold woman with horns or Antlers on her head. I didn't catch all the conversation but it was clear she had brought 'something' back and didn't want it going to waste. Crawling back across the deck I told the others and Stedd seemed to recognise the Kobold as someone called Molly Khaosborn.
It wasn't clear what else was down there but the prospect of fighting in such a tight space didnt sit well, so we formulated a plan. Taz and Blue would each go to the stairs covered by webbing and cause a distraction by attacking the webbing. That should hopefully drawing the creatures away from the hatch at least. Then, while they are distracted, a few of us could drop through to the lower deck and surround them, making them easier to pick off. Worst case, they would come straight up through the grating and we would have more space to defend ourselves. We agreed on the plan and everyone got into position, then on three, we put it into play.
It was a good plan, that immediately fell apart.
The distraction made, the spiders and purple creature looked up at us, the spiders jumping straight up at me and Stedd. In response, he put on the mask he got in Sigul and immediately grew in size. The rickety boards, as BB suspected, quickly gave way and he went crashing through the deck, taking BB and Will with him, crushing the purple thing in the process in a shower of debris. Taz came sprinting out of the room with the shrine, covered in a swarm of tiny spiders, while Pieni and Arkadius took to the air.
Then we could hear some noise from deep in the ship, a thrashing chaotic sound.
The spiders were killed fairly quick between myself and Taz, with Stedd swatting at them with only his head poking out from the hole in the deck. Where he neglected to deal with the swarm, Taz was now covered, the spiders crawling into his mouth and choking him. Another purple creature emerged from the captain's cabin and began shooting webbing at Pieni and Arkadius.
Stedd finally removed his mask and climbed back onto the deck with wil, while Taz was.... Well, Taz was being molested.
Seeing him choking on the spiders, Pieni summoned to massive frogs on the deck that started lashing out at him to catch the spiders. What happened instead was, one ended up wrapping him up in their tongue, hanging up over the hole in the deck, while the other's tongue was rammed down his throat along with the spiders. Will started shaping water in his hands to try and wash his mouth out and Taz, the entire time just looked confused at what was happening to him.
Spotting BB hadn't climbed back up, I decided to head down and keep an eye on her, there was enough people on deck to deal with the purple thing and…. Well I didn't want to get involved with the Taz situation… The noise from below was getting increasingly louder as well and I didn’t want BB to be running into anything on her own. I dropped down the hole in the deck and dashed down the stairs, rounding a corner, coming face to face with Molly's 'thing'.
It had been chained to the wall at the back of the ship, but hearing the commotion had broken free and was now on the stairs in front of me, with BB no-where to be seen. It was humanoid 'shaped' but it was definitely not normal. Blue scales and a mangled face looked like it may have once been a dragonborn, but otherwise it's body was a twisted mess of bulging purple muscles and scars. A huge axe was in its hand and through its arms and legs where the chains that once held it, run through the skin rather than shackled on. While it was looking right at me, it didn't look like it was actually seeing me at all.
On instinct, I lashed out and struck it where I assumed I could disrupt the Ki channels in its body but the moment I touched it, the usual flow of energy I can feel was missing. There was just no life within it.
Fighting it off, still unsure on where BB was, Taz emerged next to me, finally free of whatever they were doing to him up there and swung his maul at the thing, actually dislodging one of its eyes and yet it still kept thrashing at us. The combined weight of us on the stairs finally caused another collapse as we dropped to the bottom deck and I finally caught sight of BB as she slipped past us towards the back of the ship, just as the thing seemed to slow down all of a sudden (Turns out BB was behind me on the stairs and used her magic to help us)
Through the flurry of thrashing limbs and weapons, we were just managing to deflect what we could and land our own attacks on the abomination. With it slowed somewhat, we managed to disarm it but as it dropped one of the axes, a hole was punched into the rotting wood and water began gushing in over us. As we continued to hack away at it, the creature leant forward as four massive tentacles erupted from its back, each beginning to form into their own muscular appendages it started swinging as us with.
Stedd and Wil finally came crashing down the stairs and joined us in driving this thing to the ground. In a crazy few moments, sprayed in water and the cold congealed blood that oozed from the creature, we managed to beat it down to the ground and finally, Stedd bringing his huge sword round and burying it deep in the creatures body, it dropped to the ground and stopped moving.
Through the holes we had ripped into its body we could see two odd looking stones had been stuffed into the chest. BB came splashing back through the water with the folder we needed and, grabbing the last of the stuff we could see around, we bolted back up and onto the deck and made our way back to Igor.
He was happy to retrieve the documents before asking about the boat. Once he heard of the hole in the hold, he let go of any hope of salvaging the wreck now and over the next 20-30minutes, we watched the ghoulish boat slowly sink back under the water, for the 2nd time!
Stedd seemed pretty angry that this Molly Khaosborn was involved. Apparently, a few adventurers have run into her before and she seems to make a habit of creating these freakish monsters from the bodies of the dead, explaining the nightmarish look of the ghoul in the cargo hold. This particular one Stedd recognised as someone they had killed the last time they encountered Molly. I'm not sure what she is up to but if she keeps making those things, she is going to need to be dealt with. I might ask Stedd about it once this mess with the war in K'ul Goran finally dies down. Hopefully she won't cause too much trouble in the meantime.
Once we had a chance to look at the stones we took from the creature, I realised they were similar to the little floating one Paw had! I traded mine with Stedd though, it felt like it would suit him better. The one I took instead seemed to take away the hunger I was starting to feel but in truth, I was just happy sitting on the boat watching the small stone float around my head, reminding me of Paw.
