Neva smiles, too, until she realizes she can no longer see Rutter in the murky water. She quickly casts light on the pins holding her hair tress and slides into the water after the halfling.
Felgar leaves everything behind but his axe and armor. He slips in after Rutter and just before Neva and sinks to the wreckage.
"Bah, nothin' for it then but ta jus' hop in? Blasted plague'll be the death of us all one way or another it seems." The grumpy dwarf sheds his armor and leaves most of his gear behind before slipping over the side of the vessel and into the murky water below.
HP: 56/56
AC: 13 (13 T / 10 FF)
CMD: 19
F/R/W: +8/+9/+4
Ranger's Focus (+4/+4): [ ] [ ]
Level 1 spells prepared (1+1): gravity bow [ ] [ ]
Necklace of Fireballs: 6d6 [ ] // 4d6 [X] [ ] // 2d6 [ ] [ ]
-Ongoing Effects-
Favored Terrain (underground/dungeon): +2 to Initiative, Perception, Stealth, & Survival for ALL party members
+1 Heavy Crossbow
Crossbow bolts
Bastard sword, masterwork
+1 Cloak of Resistance
Bandolier
Mirror, small steel
Rope, silk (100ft)
Sunrod (3)
Potion of Cat's Grace (2)
Potion of Barkskin (2)
The boat teeters and rocks as each one of you go through the preparations to dive into the chilly depths of the Jeggare River. You go in the hopes of a fruitful search for sunken clues, that just may have gone down with the ship. Each of you, in turn, slip over the edge and down deeper than what is likely comfortable. The feeling of water pressing in from all sides only grows heavier the deeper you go.
With the aid of Neva's light and the Dwarves' natural ability to see in the dark, each one of you are visible, with only Rutter and Neva truly hindered by the short range of the minor spell she used to light the way. The water is cold, a little shock to the system at first, but it doesn't take overlong for each of you to get used to it. The exertion of swimming seems to be just enough to keep the blood flowing and suffering too much from the chill. Certainly too much time both being submerged in the depths and using so much energy, however, will take its toll over time. It's for the best that you find what you are looking for down here, and get out rather quickly.
The waters of the Jeggare are so silty, and often dirty, that they are very hard to see through too far ahead. Even the dwarves natural darkvision is muddled by all the different specks to the point that it's almost trying to see in a nighttime blizzard. The backdrop is composed of blackness, and smothered by white dots.
The group spends a fair amount of time combing the depths, trying to stay together enough to not lose anyone, and find a shipwreck somewhere along the river's bottom. In the end it is Vyshael that first notices what looks to be a large wooden shape, and it only took about half an hour. Once he points it out, both Rutter and Raliscar see what he's indicated, but Felgar and Neva almost have to be on top of it before they can make out the shape.
The Direption, as the name along the bow indicates, bears the obvious scars from fire and trebuchet strikes. The ship’s broken hull lies on its side in two pieces amid the splinters of its masts. The entire ship has broken over a rock outcropping, its bow fallen to one side and a larger section of the stern on the other. Two relatively intact interior decks lie within both halves of the ship, along with the captain’s quarters situated at the stern. While the bow sunk in a way that allows easy access to any of its levels, the stern cleaved to the rocks it fell upon, limiting entrance to its lower decks.
As the derelict and cloven vessel comes into view, Raliscar draws a sunrod from his bandolier and strikes it, then tosses the rod toward the stern in the hopes of making it a bit easier for everyone to see.
Felgar makes an effort to swim towards the opening to the captain's quarters in the stern.
Neva tries to swim along behind Felgar.
Vyshael swims out in front of his companions, then casts Alter Self in their sight, taking on the form of a Boggard.
Rutter smiles as they look over the sunken vessel. He follows the light carriers closely as they head toward the ship.
As he falls behind he grumbles to himself, Wish Vyshael had told us he could turn into a frog. He could have done this himself!
Raliscar moves slowly but steadily through the murky waters towards the stern, curiosity and excitement pulling him onward and downward.
It is a meandering slog through the waters of the river for everyone except Vyshael, but he doesn't allow that to take him too far from the rest of the group. Arriving at the door to the captain's quarters first, Vyshael sees that the door is still intact and closed, but opening it shouldn't be too difficult, as it opens away into the room beyond and down. That is, if the ship hasn't been down here too long and swelled too much.
Rutter swims to the door and tries to force it open.
Vyshael swims over to assist Rutter, if necessary.
"<blub> <blub> How ye doin' <blub> there, Rutter? Ye got <blub> tha' handled <blub> do ya?"
Rutter's eagerness to get through the door, works to his advantage. The door is stuck and swollen in it's frame, but by swimming to it as he tries to force it open seems to work wonders. The room beyond is like a tall shaft, twenty feet long, by fifteen feet wide, but spanning around forty feet deep. The now open door is in the middle of the space.
Along with a few other bits of ruined furnishings, the scorched sheets of a canopied bed twist like ghosts above the snapped wooden bed frame. Knotted amid the linens, a drowned corpse wearing the birdlike mask of a Queen’s Physician twirls in the current caused by the opening of the door.
Vyshael whispers the words to detect magic, then looks into the room.
"Ah, <blub> I guess ye do at that. Nicely done, Rutter."
Felgar follows the others into the shaft to search for anything that may impact the investigation. He attempts to grab hold of the body of the Queen's Physician to see if it contains any hidden docs, etc.
Neva grimaced at the body of the Queen's Physician. Her long-time suspicions surfaced again.
"Guess the boat wasn't that unoccupied." Rutter swims to the corpse and pulls off its mask, with a wink to his compatriots. "Now we've got a disguise if we ever need one." He starts removing the physician's robes as well. He looks to Neva as he works, "Did he drown? He weren't sick, was he?"
After that, he starts searching the room, holding onto furniture to move around more deftly than he can swim.
"Bah! Light's so weird down here! Help me out!"
Neva checked the body, impressed and intrigued by Rutter's questions.
felgar aids in the search.
Vyshael joins in the search, hoping his magical senses will reveal something.
Even with the bloated corpse of the man looking worse for the wear, Neva can easily tell that he shows no signs of any of the symptoms of the plague. A look around the room turns up nothing else, but Felgar's keen eye catches a glimpse of something odd. It is a necklace that looks like a pallid beetle with its wings out, the carapace oddly resembling an upside-down yellowed skull.
Rutter glimpses at the necklace as Felgar holds it up for all to see. "I'll appraise it when we get back to the surface. Let's keep looking through this wreck."
Rutter pulls himself to the door. After a quick peek outside, he starts swimming across to the bow. He starts with what would have been the top level.
Felgar pockets the necklace and moves with the others.
Raliscar nods at Rutter's suggestion then chuckles as Felgar pockets the trinket, imagining his cousin trying it on when he thought no one was looking and the thin chain straining against his thick neck. "Ha! Oh that'd look awful fetching on ya, cousin. It'll bring out yer eyes. Ha!"
Felgar, still not too confident about opening his mouth to chat underwater, makes a fist and moves it back and forth quickly to indicate his thoughts regarding his cousin's words.
Neva didn't recognize the necklace right away, but she tried a technique that had served her well over the years.
She tried as best to float calmly for a moment and tried to imagine all the necklaces she'd ever seen.
A passing fish brushed her leg and she let out a yelp, necklaces and everything else forgotten as she moved closer to Felgar for protection.
Vyshael glances at the symbol for a moment and then nods, "Urgathoa. Makes sense that the goddess of disease would be implicated..."
As you guys discuss briefly the necklace and what it could mean, Rutter is ready to move on to more evidence. He heads off out the door and the others follow suit. Vyshael, easily catches up, and passes thanks to his spell's effects. It's then that he notices a dark shape emerge from over the curved edge of the hull. It's about a five to six foot long fish, with a very prominent dorsal fin, and it appears to be swimming toward the group.
"Fish aren't exactly an animal I come across on th' roads all tha' often if ye can believe it. What's this one then? Besides big."
Vyshael readily identifies it as a shark, but it is a little smaller than the breeds that can often be found around Korvosa. There's really not much to them beyond being voracious eaters, ready to find a meal out of just about anything that moves in the water.
"A shark?!" Raliscar blurts with alarm. "An' a small one at tha'?! Hate ta meet one o' th' big ones. Gimme a moment. There's this trick I know that works with badgers, maybe it'll work on a shark?"
Raliscar drifts forward slowly, moving his arms in gentle concentric circles as he approaches the shark. "There, there. Ye aren't lookin' ta make me yer lunch are ya now? Tha' already happened once a few days back an' I didn't enjoy th' experience."
Vyshael floats just behind Raliscar, ready to cast Shocking Grasp and touch the shark if it attacks.
Felgar swims near with his axe at the ready.
Rutter draws a weapon and attempts to swim closer to the others, but with a dagger in hand, he fails to pull himself through the water.
Neva readied her crossbow and prayed for the shark to swim away.
As Raliscar attempts to soothe a mindless eating machine, not much different than the one he had to deal with in the sewers, the rest of the gang prepares themselves for if it goes sour. Good thing they did, as once he began waving his arms and speaking the thing turned and swam faster toward him, jaws agape.
It thrashes its tail and zips through the water toward the noisy flailing dwarf, ready for something to eat. Too bad for it that it snaps its jaws shut too soon to get any of the aforementioned dwarf in its mouth.
Vyshael draws his mother's blade in his left hand, ready to cast a spell and swim forward to blast the shark if it chooses to attack.
Seeing the shark coming in, Vyshael lunges forward as he traces an arcane pattern with his right hand, slapping the shark.
for
Having readied her crossbow for just this occurence, Neva loosed a bolt into the swirling water towards the shark.