Beholder Group - "Abandon Ship!" - Session 17 The Eye of Kronos
30th Jan 2020, 8:00 – 11:45pm
In-game timeline: Start of session, 1489DR, Eleasis 24th. End of session, Eleasis 24th.
We find our “Heroes” on board the floating wreck of The Emperor of the Waves, having just defeated the half-Orc druid Kranth and his spider minions, plus a couple of demons, whilst on the hunt for a mysterious lockbox that Devon has agreed to recover for some friends of his.
After resting to recover some health and the odd ability or two, the group press on further into the lower deck of the creaking ship.
Opening the door out of the chamber where they defeated Kranth, the see a hallway, with various doors leading from it, and a grate in the floor in the centre of the hall. Drogan led the way, and entered the first room to the right – it was full of webs, and little spiders, but little else. They moved on.
Drogan crouched down to investigate the grate in the floor, spying water in the cargo hold beneath. As the ret of the group made their way towards him, he was suddenly attacked by more spidery things! Another Ettercap, a couple of large, but not giant, spiders all header towards Drogan, who was too busy looking down to notice. Alwaith acted quickly and fired off a Shatter spell, managing to kill the two large spiders immediately, and doing decent damage to the ettercap. The Ettercap took a bite and a swipe at Drogan, though, and, in his surprised state, he received a decent amount of damage from the ettercap’s claws. As Devon moved in to take some more health from the ettercap (and then not, unusually, moving away again), they saw two swarms of little spiders forming and moving in to attack Drogan and Devon, hitting them both.
Drogan, saving his last rage, attacked the ettercap recklessly, and damaged it some more, but left himself exposed to the ettercap’s retaliation. With the rest of the group busy fighting off the swarms of spiders, the ettercap was able to have another go at Drogan, but luckily missed. Alwaith, Devon and Dwarrowsteel were tackling swarms of their own, which seemed to be literally coming out of the woodwork to attack, leaving Drogan to finish off the ettercap, but be taken down by one of the swarms.
In-game timeline: Start of session, 1489DR, Eleasis 24th. End of session, Eleasis 24th.
We find our “Heroes” on board the floating wreck of The Emperor of the Waves, having just defeated the half-Orc druid Kranth and his spider minions, plus a couple of demons, whilst on the hunt for a mysterious lockbox that Devon has agreed to recover for some friends of his.
After resting to recover some health and the odd ability or two, the group press on further into the lower deck of the creaking ship.
Opening the door out of the chamber where they defeated Kranth, the see a hallway, with various doors leading from it, and a grate in the floor in the centre of the hall. Drogan led the way, and entered the first room to the right – it was full of webs, and little spiders, but little else. They moved on.
Drogan crouched down to investigate the grate in the floor, spying water in the cargo hold beneath. As the ret of the group made their way towards him, he was suddenly attacked by more spidery things! Another Ettercap, a couple of large, but not giant, spiders all header towards Drogan, who was too busy looking down to notice. Alwaith acted quickly and fired off a Shatter spell, managing to kill the two large spiders immediately, and doing decent damage to the ettercap. The Ettercap took a bite and a swipe at Drogan, though, and, in his surprised state, he received a decent amount of damage from the ettercap’s claws. As Devon moved in to take some more health from the ettercap (and then not, unusually, moving away again), they saw two swarms of little spiders forming and moving in to attack Drogan and Devon, hitting them both.
Drogan, saving his last rage, attacked the ettercap recklessly, and damaged it some more, but left himself exposed to the ettercap’s retaliation. With the rest of the group busy fighting off the swarms of spiders, the ettercap was able to have another go at Drogan, but luckily missed. Alwaith, Devon and Dwarrowsteel were tackling swarms of their own, which seemed to be literally coming out of the woodwork to attack, leaving Drogan to finish off the ettercap, but be taken down by one of the swarms.
The rest of the part ignored Drogan’s death-throws, and hoped he would recover of his own accord – which he seemed to be doing – while they slowly thrashed around at their swarms, which proved to be relatively easy to hit, but bloody difficult to kill. And the nasty little blighters did significant damage – at least until their numbers were thinned a little. Alwaith’s hex, and Dragonsboon did useful damage against the critters, and even Dwarrowsteel was managing to hit a few of them!
Then Drogan’s luck ran out. His slow recovery from unconsciousness stopped suddenly and he took a major turn for the worse. Dwarrow had no option but to take a potion himself, and cast healing word on Drogan, to stave off death and bring him back in the fight. And not a moment too soon – with Devon unusually missing many of his hits, it was down to Alwaith’s trusty sword, and Drogan’s axe to take down the last of the spider swarms.
Shocked, the party sat amongst dead spiders, large and small, and totted up their low combined health and much reduced abilities before deciding to press on.
The surrounding rooms bore little fruit – a few of them being completely empty, barring the few remaining small spiders scurrying about. One room seemed to be Kranth’s cabin – some gnawed bones and skulls showing he was not necessarily a nice half-Orc. It did reveal a note, signed from “B”, which talked about gifting him the boots to help with his interaction with his spider-friends, and an implication that any fruits of his summoning rituals would be useful to Bree and “The Sisters”. Drogan immediately put on the boots he had acquired and found that they allowed him to move freely about the webbed area of the ship – the “Freedom Boots” gave him good movement on some difficult terrain, as well as improving his overall speed.
On to the final large room at the prow of the deck. Upon opening the door it seemed to reveal a room that could have been used for rituals – chalk runes on the floor, ritual-type implements on the table surrounding the mast, and four suspicious looking cocoons embedded in a mass of webbing at the back of the room. Drogan wanted to check if the cocoons contained any crew members who could still be alive but, aware that the last set of cocoons contained demons, approached cautiously, using ‘Ropey’ – Drogan’s sentient rope – to tie around a cocoon and drag it away from the webbing, from a distance. A good plan - this had the effect of splitting the cocoon and when the demon emerged from it, Drogan, and the others, were far enough away to be able to shut it inside the room, with them outside.
These tactics allowed the group to form a plan, and prepare their attacks. When Drogan opened the door, using the door to both hide and shield himself, the others let lose their attacks, managing to hit the demon for decent damage, and Dwarrow used his staff to entangle the area, which caught the initial demon, and one of the others that had escaped from its cocoon. Knowing there were likely to be 4 demons in the room, and using the doorway to stop them getting too far, and the entangle spell restricting their movement and forcing them to use their actions to escape the entanglement rather than attack, proved a perfect plan – the demons got a few attacks in, but missed them all, allowing Alwaith, Devon and Drogan to pick them off one by one.
Demons taken care of, Drogan stayed out in the hallway, preparing for attacks from the stairway to the top deck, whilst the other three went back in the room to investigate. Devon and Alwaith started checking out the contents of the room, whilst Dwarrowsteel looked over the table, which contained a fairly dirty and tatty cloth containing a spider emblem on it, a wooden chalice containing a liquid of something or other, and a ceremonial knife. Picking up the chalice to look at its contents more closely proved to be a BAD IDEA. The spider emblem glowed briefly, a loud crack of thunder was heard, seemingly from INSIDE the room, and a flask of lightning, emanating from the spider glyph on the cloth, filled the room. Devon and Dwarrowsteel managed to dodge the worst of the damage, Alwaith took the full force of the lightning. As they all dusted off their armour and nursed their smouldering wounds, they watched as the floor and ceiling around the mast cracked under the force of the lightning, and the mast came crashing down straight through the ship, leaving a hole in every deck, including the cargo hold below. As they looked down the resulting hole, they saw the hold, which was already partially filled with water, starting to fill up – the ship was starting to sink!
As Drogan rushed in and assessed the situation, he looked down and estimated that the ship probably had about 20 minutes before the cargo hold was completely full with water, possibly harming their chances of recovering the lockbox that they came here for, and the whole ship was likely to go down soon after the hold was flooded. Quick as a flash, Drogan necked the jar of Aboleth phlegm that he had been carrying around – he almost retched, but managed to keep down his lunch, as well as the phlegm – and leapt into the flooded cargo hold – the Aboleth mucous granting him water breathing abilities.
The water was only chest high at this point, so the phlegm-drinking seemed a bit pointless at this stage, but Drogan assessed the damage from the mast – a large hole that was too big for a mending spell from Dwarrowsteel, and would take too long to repair using any carpentry skills that the party may or may not have between them. So Drogan abandoned the idea of repairing the ship and instead headed back along the ship, wading through the flooded cargo hold, intending to try to find the lockbox, which they suspected would be beneath the grate somewhere.
At this point Alwaith decided he wanted to check out the other areas of the ship on his own. He almost went upstairs into the room they hadn’t been to yet, leaving Drogan to do his swimming lengths in the cargo hold, but was fortunately persuaded against this course of action by the others, who instead made their way to the grate and attempted to break the rusty hinges and lift up the grate.
It was at this point that Drogan, all alone in the cargo hold, was attacked by a swarm of piranha-like fish called quippers. Two swarms of them in fact. Stirred up into a frenzy by Drogan’s blood from previous battles dispersing in the water, they went straight for Drogan doing significant damage, whilst Drogan tried to fend them off with an axe, which proved slow-going. So slow-going in fact, that the swarms managed to drain the health completely from Drogan and he fell unconscious in the water. Luckily for him, the Aboleth phlegm stopped him from drowning, but unluckily for him both swarms continued to attack him, trying to rip the flesh from his unconscious body. Things were not looking good for Drogan. Not good at all.
With help from Alwaith, Dwarrow manages to get the grate lifted, takes one look at Drogan’s body lying in the water and immediately jumps down in the water and uses a potion to revive Drogan, saving him from being attacked whilst unconscious and almost certain perma-death. Devon jumps down too and attacks the quippers, and Alwaith follows up from above with an Eldritch Blast to kill one of the swarms. The other swarm is still alive, however, but manage to miss Drogan, who responds with a smash from his axe, and Dwarrow thins them out a bit more with a successful hit. Another hit from Alwaith thins out the remaining swarm even further, but they manage another hit on Drogan, once more taking him into unconsciousness, but this time Dwarrowsteel is there to finish off the swarm. Finally.
Healing Drogan once again to restore his consciousness, the three party members in the hold quickly search for the lost lockbox. Drogan, despite having been knocked unconscious twice during that battle, finds it! A small, metal box with no obvious means of entry. He shoves it quickly in his backpack and they all make a quick exit out of the cargo hold.
“Let’s get out of here” seems the general cry, and the group make their way back the way they came to the top deck, though not before Alwaith seems to somehow conjure up a raven from mid air, tie a note around its leg, and instruct it to find the crew in the rowboat waiting for them. The note asks them to hurry back to pick them up from the wreck before it sinks. The group wait on the forecastle to be collected. All is well. They have survived and are safe and sound.
Until, that is, they decide to look down into the room they haven’t yet been in. It has a big hole in it where the mast collapsed through it, and Drogan can see a mass of webs, but through the webs, a table with papers on it. It looks like the old navigator’s room. It’s just an old chart. Possible. Or may be nothing at all. And the group have NO SPELLS. And NO ABILITIES. And ALMOST NO HEALTH. So surely they will just wait to be picked up. No. Drogan decides to run down to the door, run into the room and grab whatever is on the table and try to make it back.
Unfortunately the spider, Ettercap and spider swarm(s) that were in the room decided they wanted to stop him. Drogan manages to grab the chart on the table, but doesn’t make it back to the door. A hit from the Ettercap, followed by another from the spider swarm downs Drogan for the third time in 15 minutes. The rest of the party, once they have got over the surprise at such an impetuous move from Drogan, rush down to try to rescue him. Alwaith tries to pull on the rope that Drogan had sensibly (!) tied around himself, and drag his body out of the room. Unfortunately he fails. Devon conjures up an image of a dwarf on the nearby table, trying to distract the spiders, but they are far too focussed on the bodies right next to them to turn around and check out other areas of the room, and the illusion goes unnoticed – at least until another swarm of spiders forms and the illusion does manage to distract them, which does actually help matters. In the meantime, however, Drogan succeeds on his first death saving throw, but the swarm, which doesn’t care if their target is conscious or not, continues to attack him, hitting him and dealing 2 death throw failures. Luckily the Ettercap is more concerned with living bodies, and targets Dwarrowsteel, hitting him. Devon uses the groups penultimate healing potion to revive Drogan before he can be perma-death’d by the swarm (or by a bad death save), and Drogan immediately lays into the swarm that is all over him.
What follows is worthy of a Tomb Raider ending. Our “Heroes” are all really low on health now, and have only one health potion left. They are facing a healthy spider, fairly healthy swarm of spiders, and an Ettercap, with another swarm in the background who will very soon find out that they body they are crawling over is an illusion, and who knows how many other swarms forming in the background. How will they escape?
Drogan, as always, leads the way. He dodges the swarm, runs towards the gunwale, throwing Ropey towards Dwarrowsteel and instructing Ropey, successfully, to tie itself around the cleric, which it does. Drogen then leaps off the boat into the seas below. This has the effect of dragging Dwarrowsteel rapidly towards the edge of the boat – the Ettercap attacking him has an attack of opportunity against him, but luckily misses him. Dwarrow just about manages to drink a potion of water breathing before being dragged off the boat by Drogan’s leap, causing them both to end up in the water.
Then Drogan’s luck ran out. His slow recovery from unconsciousness stopped suddenly and he took a major turn for the worse. Dwarrow had no option but to take a potion himself, and cast healing word on Drogan, to stave off death and bring him back in the fight. And not a moment too soon – with Devon unusually missing many of his hits, it was down to Alwaith’s trusty sword, and Drogan’s axe to take down the last of the spider swarms.
Shocked, the party sat amongst dead spiders, large and small, and totted up their low combined health and much reduced abilities before deciding to press on.
The surrounding rooms bore little fruit – a few of them being completely empty, barring the few remaining small spiders scurrying about. One room seemed to be Kranth’s cabin – some gnawed bones and skulls showing he was not necessarily a nice half-Orc. It did reveal a note, signed from “B”, which talked about gifting him the boots to help with his interaction with his spider-friends, and an implication that any fruits of his summoning rituals would be useful to Bree and “The Sisters”. Drogan immediately put on the boots he had acquired and found that they allowed him to move freely about the webbed area of the ship – the “Freedom Boots” gave him good movement on some difficult terrain, as well as improving his overall speed.
On to the final large room at the prow of the deck. Upon opening the door it seemed to reveal a room that could have been used for rituals – chalk runes on the floor, ritual-type implements on the table surrounding the mast, and four suspicious looking cocoons embedded in a mass of webbing at the back of the room. Drogan wanted to check if the cocoons contained any crew members who could still be alive but, aware that the last set of cocoons contained demons, approached cautiously, using ‘Ropey’ – Drogan’s sentient rope – to tie around a cocoon and drag it away from the webbing, from a distance. A good plan - this had the effect of splitting the cocoon and when the demon emerged from it, Drogan, and the others, were far enough away to be able to shut it inside the room, with them outside.
These tactics allowed the group to form a plan, and prepare their attacks. When Drogan opened the door, using the door to both hide and shield himself, the others let lose their attacks, managing to hit the demon for decent damage, and Dwarrow used his staff to entangle the area, which caught the initial demon, and one of the others that had escaped from its cocoon. Knowing there were likely to be 4 demons in the room, and using the doorway to stop them getting too far, and the entangle spell restricting their movement and forcing them to use their actions to escape the entanglement rather than attack, proved a perfect plan – the demons got a few attacks in, but missed them all, allowing Alwaith, Devon and Drogan to pick them off one by one.
Demons taken care of, Drogan stayed out in the hallway, preparing for attacks from the stairway to the top deck, whilst the other three went back in the room to investigate. Devon and Alwaith started checking out the contents of the room, whilst Dwarrowsteel looked over the table, which contained a fairly dirty and tatty cloth containing a spider emblem on it, a wooden chalice containing a liquid of something or other, and a ceremonial knife. Picking up the chalice to look at its contents more closely proved to be a BAD IDEA. The spider emblem glowed briefly, a loud crack of thunder was heard, seemingly from INSIDE the room, and a flask of lightning, emanating from the spider glyph on the cloth, filled the room. Devon and Dwarrowsteel managed to dodge the worst of the damage, Alwaith took the full force of the lightning. As they all dusted off their armour and nursed their smouldering wounds, they watched as the floor and ceiling around the mast cracked under the force of the lightning, and the mast came crashing down straight through the ship, leaving a hole in every deck, including the cargo hold below. As they looked down the resulting hole, they saw the hold, which was already partially filled with water, starting to fill up – the ship was starting to sink!
As Drogan rushed in and assessed the situation, he looked down and estimated that the ship probably had about 20 minutes before the cargo hold was completely full with water, possibly harming their chances of recovering the lockbox that they came here for, and the whole ship was likely to go down soon after the hold was flooded. Quick as a flash, Drogan necked the jar of Aboleth phlegm that he had been carrying around – he almost retched, but managed to keep down his lunch, as well as the phlegm – and leapt into the flooded cargo hold – the Aboleth mucous granting him water breathing abilities.
The water was only chest high at this point, so the phlegm-drinking seemed a bit pointless at this stage, but Drogan assessed the damage from the mast – a large hole that was too big for a mending spell from Dwarrowsteel, and would take too long to repair using any carpentry skills that the party may or may not have between them. So Drogan abandoned the idea of repairing the ship and instead headed back along the ship, wading through the flooded cargo hold, intending to try to find the lockbox, which they suspected would be beneath the grate somewhere.
At this point Alwaith decided he wanted to check out the other areas of the ship on his own. He almost went upstairs into the room they hadn’t been to yet, leaving Drogan to do his swimming lengths in the cargo hold, but was fortunately persuaded against this course of action by the others, who instead made their way to the grate and attempted to break the rusty hinges and lift up the grate.
It was at this point that Drogan, all alone in the cargo hold, was attacked by a swarm of piranha-like fish called quippers. Two swarms of them in fact. Stirred up into a frenzy by Drogan’s blood from previous battles dispersing in the water, they went straight for Drogan doing significant damage, whilst Drogan tried to fend them off with an axe, which proved slow-going. So slow-going in fact, that the swarms managed to drain the health completely from Drogan and he fell unconscious in the water. Luckily for him, the Aboleth phlegm stopped him from drowning, but unluckily for him both swarms continued to attack him, trying to rip the flesh from his unconscious body. Things were not looking good for Drogan. Not good at all.
With help from Alwaith, Dwarrow manages to get the grate lifted, takes one look at Drogan’s body lying in the water and immediately jumps down in the water and uses a potion to revive Drogan, saving him from being attacked whilst unconscious and almost certain perma-death. Devon jumps down too and attacks the quippers, and Alwaith follows up from above with an Eldritch Blast to kill one of the swarms. The other swarm is still alive, however, but manage to miss Drogan, who responds with a smash from his axe, and Dwarrow thins them out a bit more with a successful hit. Another hit from Alwaith thins out the remaining swarm even further, but they manage another hit on Drogan, once more taking him into unconsciousness, but this time Dwarrowsteel is there to finish off the swarm. Finally.
Healing Drogan once again to restore his consciousness, the three party members in the hold quickly search for the lost lockbox. Drogan, despite having been knocked unconscious twice during that battle, finds it! A small, metal box with no obvious means of entry. He shoves it quickly in his backpack and they all make a quick exit out of the cargo hold.
“Let’s get out of here” seems the general cry, and the group make their way back the way they came to the top deck, though not before Alwaith seems to somehow conjure up a raven from mid air, tie a note around its leg, and instruct it to find the crew in the rowboat waiting for them. The note asks them to hurry back to pick them up from the wreck before it sinks. The group wait on the forecastle to be collected. All is well. They have survived and are safe and sound.
Until, that is, they decide to look down into the room they haven’t yet been in. It has a big hole in it where the mast collapsed through it, and Drogan can see a mass of webs, but through the webs, a table with papers on it. It looks like the old navigator’s room. It’s just an old chart. Possible. Or may be nothing at all. And the group have NO SPELLS. And NO ABILITIES. And ALMOST NO HEALTH. So surely they will just wait to be picked up. No. Drogan decides to run down to the door, run into the room and grab whatever is on the table and try to make it back.
Unfortunately the spider, Ettercap and spider swarm(s) that were in the room decided they wanted to stop him. Drogan manages to grab the chart on the table, but doesn’t make it back to the door. A hit from the Ettercap, followed by another from the spider swarm downs Drogan for the third time in 15 minutes. The rest of the party, once they have got over the surprise at such an impetuous move from Drogan, rush down to try to rescue him. Alwaith tries to pull on the rope that Drogan had sensibly (!) tied around himself, and drag his body out of the room. Unfortunately he fails. Devon conjures up an image of a dwarf on the nearby table, trying to distract the spiders, but they are far too focussed on the bodies right next to them to turn around and check out other areas of the room, and the illusion goes unnoticed – at least until another swarm of spiders forms and the illusion does manage to distract them, which does actually help matters. In the meantime, however, Drogan succeeds on his first death saving throw, but the swarm, which doesn’t care if their target is conscious or not, continues to attack him, hitting him and dealing 2 death throw failures. Luckily the Ettercap is more concerned with living bodies, and targets Dwarrowsteel, hitting him. Devon uses the groups penultimate healing potion to revive Drogan before he can be perma-death’d by the swarm (or by a bad death save), and Drogan immediately lays into the swarm that is all over him.
What follows is worthy of a Tomb Raider ending. Our “Heroes” are all really low on health now, and have only one health potion left. They are facing a healthy spider, fairly healthy swarm of spiders, and an Ettercap, with another swarm in the background who will very soon find out that they body they are crawling over is an illusion, and who knows how many other swarms forming in the background. How will they escape?
Drogan, as always, leads the way. He dodges the swarm, runs towards the gunwale, throwing Ropey towards Dwarrowsteel and instructing Ropey, successfully, to tie itself around the cleric, which it does. Drogen then leaps off the boat into the seas below. This has the effect of dragging Dwarrowsteel rapidly towards the edge of the boat – the Ettercap attacking him has an attack of opportunity against him, but luckily misses him. Dwarrow just about manages to drink a potion of water breathing before being dragged off the boat by Drogan’s leap, causing them both to end up in the water.
The Ettercap and swarm were left without targets – briefly. They latch on to Devon but both miss their attacks. Devon uses his roguish skills to disengage and follows Drogan and Dwarrowsteel over the side of the wreck – leaving poor Alwaith on deck, with all the enemies attention turning towards him. Alwaith has no choice but to do the same. He dodges, to improve his chances against the inevitable opportunity attacks, turns and runs.
Unfortunately the spider’s attack on the fleeing Alwaith hits home – its teeth sink into Alwaith. The warlock survives the piercing bite, but succumbs to the poison being injected into his body. He falls. Unconscious. All his friends are in the sea below. Unable to help. Or so it seemed.
The spider poison knocks Alwaith unconscious, but stable. The giant spider proceeds to wrap Alwaith’s unmoving body in spider silk, intending to feast on him later. In the sea below, the rowboat, having been summoned by Alwaith’s message, has arrived by the side of the wreck and the crew are busy pulling the other three out of the water and into the rowboat. Sensing trouble above when Alwaith failed to appear over the side, Devon sends up Nige the parrot to see what is happening, zoning in on his bird senses to relate what is going on. Drogan, using information provided by Devon’s familiar, instructs Ropey to latch on to Alwaith’s body, and uses his inspiration to improve his animal handling test to encourage Ropey to do this. Despite it being a complicate instruction, it worked! Drogan threw up Ropey on deck, and Ropey proceeded to tie itself around Alwaith’s cocooned body. DevoNige reported back that Ropey had done the deed, and Drogan and Dwarrowsteel proceeded to use their strength to pull Alwaith’s body off the ship. It took a couple of goes, and the rowboat was pulled right next to the wreck, but they managed it. Alwaith’s body, tied to the end of Ropey, was pulled over the side of the Emperor of the Waves, and landed on top of Drogan and Dwarrowsteel, who provided a soft-ish landing to prevent further damage. Unfortunately it arrived complete with a surprised giant spider, who was busy trying to cocoon a body that was being dragged across the deck and over the side. Luckily Devon acted fast and efficiently, and managed to dispatch the (already quite damaged) giant spider before it could get a hit in on any of the very weak party members.
And they rowed the hell out of there! As the Emperor of the Waves slowly sank into the seas, they gave Alwaith the last healing potion to revive him, and, exhausted, made their way back to The Evening Mist, with the two crew members rowing as fast as their arms can carry them, and wondering what the bloody hell has been going on!
Phew!
Unfortunately the spider’s attack on the fleeing Alwaith hits home – its teeth sink into Alwaith. The warlock survives the piercing bite, but succumbs to the poison being injected into his body. He falls. Unconscious. All his friends are in the sea below. Unable to help. Or so it seemed.
The spider poison knocks Alwaith unconscious, but stable. The giant spider proceeds to wrap Alwaith’s unmoving body in spider silk, intending to feast on him later. In the sea below, the rowboat, having been summoned by Alwaith’s message, has arrived by the side of the wreck and the crew are busy pulling the other three out of the water and into the rowboat. Sensing trouble above when Alwaith failed to appear over the side, Devon sends up Nige the parrot to see what is happening, zoning in on his bird senses to relate what is going on. Drogan, using information provided by Devon’s familiar, instructs Ropey to latch on to Alwaith’s body, and uses his inspiration to improve his animal handling test to encourage Ropey to do this. Despite it being a complicate instruction, it worked! Drogan threw up Ropey on deck, and Ropey proceeded to tie itself around Alwaith’s cocooned body. DevoNige reported back that Ropey had done the deed, and Drogan and Dwarrowsteel proceeded to use their strength to pull Alwaith’s body off the ship. It took a couple of goes, and the rowboat was pulled right next to the wreck, but they managed it. Alwaith’s body, tied to the end of Ropey, was pulled over the side of the Emperor of the Waves, and landed on top of Drogan and Dwarrowsteel, who provided a soft-ish landing to prevent further damage. Unfortunately it arrived complete with a surprised giant spider, who was busy trying to cocoon a body that was being dragged across the deck and over the side. Luckily Devon acted fast and efficiently, and managed to dispatch the (already quite damaged) giant spider before it could get a hit in on any of the very weak party members.
And they rowed the hell out of there! As the Emperor of the Waves slowly sank into the seas, they gave Alwaith the last healing potion to revive him, and, exhausted, made their way back to The Evening Mist, with the two crew members rowing as fast as their arms can carry them, and wondering what the bloody hell has been going on!
Phew!