"Hm. Certainly not encouraging, but I suppose if the buildings are there it could be worse. Unless you have other suggestions, I guess the only thing we can do is disembark at the colony. That is, if the ship can actually get there.
When we had almost arrived, the ship started slowing down rapidly, even though we had plenty of wind in the sails. We had someone check under the boat, and we weren't stuck on anything. I don't think the ship can move at all anymore, and the people are getting nervous."
"We didn't have any issues with getting our small boat to sail back and forth. Perhaps you could start ferrying settlers to shore in it? It would take a while obviously, but is an option. We would strongly suggest that whatever group gets there first should go ahead and set up watches. The settlement was positively infested by a variety of unwelcome and aggressive creatures. We killed all we found, obviously, but they had to come from somewhere and more might try to make their way in."
"Perhaps we could take a look under and around the ship? I know you said you had someone look, but it is possible they may have missed something and at any rate, it couldn't hurt to take a second look at it."
"We had someone check under the boat, and we weren't stuck on anything, I don't think the ship can move at all anymore, "
"... what?'
At Lorelei's suggestion he turns and gives her a nods of agreement.
"Would you like me to have another look under the ship?"
"I did that sort of thing for a living for years."
Ramona nods. "Makes sense. It's a large ship."
The ship is indeed large, but a search of the entirety finds three large, colorful fish which have attached themselves to the ship with their sucker-like mouths.
Bhookaaj reports what he found to the officers and his ship mates.
"It's mostly normal under there."
"Except for three large colourful fish have attached themselves to the hull like lamprey eels."
"I've never seen anything like them; magical fish of some sort, I reckon."
"Magical fish you say? Maybe I should go take a look. I might now be able to breathe underwater, but I can swim. Just pass me a rope just in case something goes bad down there." Once he gets a rope, he ties it to himself and passes the end to someone that stays on top. He then dives down, followed right behind by Rhyfedd. He stays behind is phantom while trying to identify the fish.
"They don't appear aggressive at the moment." Ebirah adds.
"I wonder if they taste good? Fresh fish is my favorite dish and those look easy to catch."
Ebirah quickly nods in agreement. It had been awhile since any of them had eaten.
"Perhaps we could remove them, but keep them alive and on hand?" Elia suggested, "Assuming they don't fight back too hard, of course. The ability to steal speed in such a manner could be useful."
Ebirah nods. "How would we go about doing that though?"
They're long and narrow, about 3 feet long and a few inches wide.
Lorelei shakes her head. "I don't think it's worth the trouble. Those things aren't little guppies. I don't think we have any tanks big enough to hold those. And besides, what would we want to put them on?"
"Skewers?"
"If we could capture them alive, they would be very handy for slowing down a ship trying to pursue us."
"Valdern. Do you know if these echeneises are dangerous?"
"Lorelei, Ebrira, and I could try prying them off the hull."
"Then we could keep them in a tank, or barrel, to use against other ships."
Calderon knows that Echeneises can deliver a somewhat powerful bite, which can steal speed from its target.
"I am not going to try to pry one of those things off of anything, it will just try to bite me. I'd sooner just kill the thing so we can move the ship."
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"Okay, fair enough. Anyone know the easiest way to kill them?"
”Stab them?”
"I was thinking maybe a speargun. I do have one."
Gorglumch nods and fires his own underwater crossbow, but the fish react incredibly fast and his bolt misses.
Bhookaaj tries to take out one of the echeneises:
Valdern and Rhyfedd wait with the others, ready to engage when the fish close to melee range.
Once fired upon, the echeneises detach from the ship, causing it to lurch into motion. They move incredibly fast, easily reaching the crossbow wielders and snapping at them with sharp teeth. One manages to attach itself to Bhookaaj, and the undine starts to perceptibly slow down. The two dwarves attack, but can't land a hit on the nimble creatures.
Lorelei will move up to Bhookaaj and attempt to strike the fish on him with her shortspear.
Bhookaaj pulls out his short sword and tries stabbing at the echeneises that's latched on to him:
Target the nearest living echeneise instead with his underwater crossbow,
using the same rolls
The echeneises prove surprisingly resilient, injured but not dead from both attacks.
Ebirah moves to flank the fish attacking Bhookaj.
Valdern tries to stay in the fight, but sadly the combination of stabbing with the spear and the weight of his gear drags him a little deeper than he wanted.
Rhyfedd continues to attack the fishes. The watery nature of the phantom seems to be helping as he launches powerful slam at the fishes.
A drowned channeler has a drowned phantom. A drowned phantom’s ectoplasmic body drips with water and seems to bleed off watery droplets even its incorporeal form. A drowned phantom gains a swim speed of 30 feet in both forms and gains the water subtype in addition to the phantom subtype, meaning that it can use its natural slam attacks underwater without taking the penalty for bludgeoning attacks underwater. The drowned channeler’s etheric tether extends twice as far underwater, but only half as far above water. Additionally, the drowned phantom doesn’t grant any of the usual benefits while confined in the drowned channeler’s consciousness unless the drowned channeler is within 25 feet of an ocean, sea, lake, or other large body of water. Both forms of bonded manifestation grant the drowned phantom’s swim speed of 30 feet to the drowned channeler, and attacks from the ectoplasmic bonded manifestation’s tendrils don’t take the typical penalties for bludgeoning attacks underwater, as if the phantom itself made them.
Lorelei stabs out again at the fish on Bhookaaj.
With one fish latched on to Bhookaj, Elia tried to slow the other one down through disorientation.
The raging phantom's blows slay the echeneis on Bhookaaj and greatly injure a second. Elia's blast of color engulfs the third, but it emerges unaffected.
Bhookaaj uses his short sword and tries stabbing the injured echeneise:
Lorelei attempts to stab at the injured fish.
Ebirah turns his ranseur onto the other nearest fish.
In her element, Kela pushes a fist sized wave of water at the nearest fish.