Varor draws out his scimitar but doesn't move to engage, he knows that he's here as more of a support role than anything else and wants to stay out of it as much fighting as possible.
Zamanda: Fail to cast
Kalem: Smash
Bash: Slash
Pel: Magic Missile
Varor: AoO
Ilsa: ?
Bashiel and Kalem quickly dispatch two of the eels with seeming ease while Zamanda struggles to get her bearings and a spell off. Pel goes with a simpler incantation, firing off a slew of magic missiles that dispatch a third eel. Ilsa and Varor hold back, judging the scene and looking for an opening.
The eels break out from their holes and split off into groups. Three of them go after Bashiel, two after Kalem and another two after Zamanda. All three manage to hit one of their attacking sea snakes, and Bashiel and Kalem both manage to kill another of the slimy assailants.
Zamanda and Kalem are both bit once, while Bashiel is bit twice.
Zamanda feels like she is moving slower. She realizes that these things must be poisoned.
Zamanda manages to rotate in the water so that her hands are positioned between herself and the eels.
(success)
(success)
Zamanda casts Burning Hands, which causes a 15 foot bubble of steam to appear and damage the eels in front of her (also the eels on Bash, and Bash himself unfortunately).
Engulfed in steam and eels, Bashiel churns from side to side in the water. The movement is definitely not enough to protect him as the steam scalds, but he focuses his attention on fighting the eels rather than working out where the steam came from. In the moment the eels are thrown off he stabs his dagger into one of them.
Pel, thankful his magic still functions properly underwater, casts Magic Missile once again. He also enhances the spell with his reservoir to add another missile.
Kalem could feel the eels trying to make a meal out of him. Holding his trident, he plunged it into another one with a smile. So far they didn’t seem that dangerous. He couldn’t even feel it when they bit him. A good sign, he assumed.
Burning Hands + Magic Missile kills three, wounds another. Kalem kills one.
Zamanda: Burning Hands
Kalem: Smash
Bash: Stab (miss)
Pel: MM
Varor: Hold
Ilsa: Stab (miss)
Zamanda summons forth a blast of flame that turns water into steam and cooks several of eels along with the paladin. Kalem kills another, and a string of magic missiles from Pel finishes off several that had survived Zamanda's blast. The rest of the party tries to slash at the wriggling beasties but are founded by the aquatic environment.
The last eel, scalded and injured by a magic missile, tries to flee back into the hulk of the Deription. As it tries to wriggle away from Bashiel, the man slashes once more, this time slicing the eel almost in half.
As the blood and disturbances in the water subside, you're able to reorient yourselves. The doors into the bow of the vessel remain open, swinging at their hinges. Scattered pots and overturned bunks rest against the hull and bulkhead.
Disoriented by the water and blood, Kalem wasn’t of much help in searching the ship...
It doesn't look like there are supplies or personal effects in here at all. Like it wasn't just a ship that "happened" to come down sick, but the whole thing was engineered.
Yes, but let's be super-careful. There could be other creatures stirred up by the sinking and trying to make a new home here.
"Indeed. I suspect Eels are one of the lesser threats the Jeggare holds."
"Engineered?" Bashiel snorts, sending bubbles rising "What would be the motive for making such an elaborate ruse? After all, the effect was only to pull the attention of the guard so they take action to sink it, and then to attract our intention to investigate it. That's hardly much of an impact."
'Or is it? Am I missing something?'
Bashiel heads towards the other half of the ship.
Engineered to begin the plague, of course.
"But how?" Varor asks, "the more I think about it the more it doesn't make sense, if the disease was spread by the water supply then half of the city would have already been infected by now. And the eels came here, but they would have gotten sick and died too, along with any other nearby fish."
Floating deep underwater, Bashiel engages in some speculation."I think I agree Varor, it doesn't quite add up. This is an awfully complicated way to begin a plague, and putting out the light to get the ship sunk seems counterproductive if this WAS engineered. Though I wouldn't count the healthy eels against it. With how the Urgathoans were experimenting with the plague, it could have been made to only affect humans or another race, and leave eels alone."
He surveys the unexplored side of the ship from the outside. "Maybe the other side here will yield something more solid."
Zamanda tries to open the door.
Bashiel and Zamanda swim over to where there used to be a grate over the cargo hold. With the ship having sunk and come to rest on its side, the grate has fallen down into the muck at the bottom of the river. That combined with the damage from the ship's sinking reveals a yawning wound into the ship's charred timbers. Murky water flows through the debris-cluttered hold. Loose timbers, small fish and dozens of identical boxes float eerily in the quiet darkness.
|
Ilsa peers into the inky blackness. The side of the ship looks like a gaping mouth ready to swallow her whole.
She swallows and murmurs into the water. "We should probably see what the cargo is and open one of those crates..."
From outside the ship, she closes her eyes for a moment and ponders whether there might be anything with a magical aura inside.
Zamanda agrees with Ilsa and moves to open one of the identical boxes.
Pel moves his Dancing Lights to near the boxes to hopefully make opening them easier.
Staring at the boxes for a moment, Pel bites his lip before saying, "I don't suppose anyone can cast Detect Poison? I'm worried about what we might release by opening those crates if this ship is the source of the plague. Maybe... maybe all but one of us should stand back before we open it? Ishani's resources are limited, so some of us may be disabled for an extended period of time if we're all exposed to the contagion."
Varor swims over and listens to Pel voices theory and says, "Oh come on it's a disease not a paralysis, we're not going to be immediately paralyzed by it." He then swims over to help Zamanda.
Still he's not wrong about it possibly being in these crates.
Bashiel pauses to let Ilsa scan the inside for any magical auras. Assuming she doesn't find any, he pulls himself through the open grate and into the hold.
He looks through the room for any eels or other dangerous creatures hiding first, then joins Zamanda in opening one of the boxes, lending his strength to help pry a lid open. "I doubt that we have anything to worry about from these crate Pel. If the plague was still sealed in them, it wouldn't be spread throughout the city right now."
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After thoroughly scanning the area with means magical and mundane, you determine there is not much to be see from outside the vessel. No magic and no evidence of threats. And so Bashiel and Zamanda swim into the vessels hold. As Bashiel begins to move towards one of the crates there is a flash of movement from the corner of his eye followed by the intense pain of something clamping down on his arm and thrashing about.
You’ve seen one of these before. It’s one of the jigsaw sharks that inhabit these brackish waters. This one seems smaller than most yet even more tenacious.
Bashiel rests a hand against the wound he just received and focuses on his connection to Osiris! A dim green light flows out of one hand and into the arm.
He follows it up by slamming the dagger down into the shark, trying to deliver a sound enough blow to scare it off.
Kicking himself forward through the water, Kalem swam to Bashiel’s aid.
As Kalem swims towards the shark Varor says to the others, "Yep that's a shark. Do any of you want to see if it's a disease or poisonous shark?"
Zamanda swims to a better vantage point, floating above Bash to get a clear sight line to the shark and drawing her bow.
(Piercing)
Not particularly interested in getting bit by a shark, Pel opts to stay outside the ship and aid from afar.
He enhances his spell even as he says the words of the arcane incantation. He lets the missiles fly toward the shark, confident they'll bend and swerve toward their target as needed.
Bashiel, Kalem and Pel's combined efforts are enough to quickly dispatch the shark. It thrashes about from the wounds then its form goes still, slowly sinking to the side of the ship's hull.
A search of the crates reveals they are empty. Towards the bow, the broken ships rests against the rocky spire. Towards the aft, a steep set of stairs goes "down" to the lower deck while a door, closed, leads to a cabin or other room.
"Time to go down then. Varor, heal Bashiel's wound. We don't want more sharks thinking him a snack. I'll go down here, easy enough for me to see in the dark. So far this trip has been a waste of resources. There has to be something below deck of value."
Bashiel, Kalem and Pel's combined efforts are enough to quickly dispatch the shark.
Zamanda wants to check the other room before going down, but follows the others when they go, making a note to check the room when they come back up.
Pel follows slowly, struggling to move through the water. Swimming was never his area of expertise and this excursion isn't likely to make him want to improve. He definitely prefers to travel by land.
"I feel like we already knew something was amiss before traveling down here," Pel says to Ilsa's comment. "I suppose the cargo is nice, but I think we'll need something more firm to make any strong conclusions. Hopefully the rest of this place will prove more useful."
Despite Pel's spoken hope, he doesn't actually hold much confidence they'll find conclusive proof of involvement with the plague. Any written records would surely have been destroyed when the ship sunk.
"Wow, okay, that was clearly said in an "I'm not asking" way, so no." Varor says to Kalem as he swims over to Bashiel. "Hey Bash what is that?" he asks pointing to the shark.
"That's a–"
"That's a shark!" Varor interrupted. And what did I say on the boat?"
"You said–"
I said one shark and I'm out of here, that is one shark!" Varor turns back to Kalem, giving him a dirty look and says, "Do not order me around like you're my boss. Besides I'm sure he'll be fine, it's not like anyone's ever been torn in half by a shark before."
Bashiel shakes his head at the empty crates. "Nothing here. I agree Ilsa, this is obviously intentional. At the same time, there's nothing that we've seen so far that could have been used to transmit a plague. It's starting to feel a little like a trap. Though the creatures we've seen so far have been mundane enough." He clears the shark's blood away and stares into the darker depths of the ship.
"Pel, I'm not sure if we'll find anything useful. It's too... tidy. Like it's been scrubbed clean of any evidence."
Bashiel swims forward to the cabin door Zamanda is eyeing. With light from Pel, he checks the door over for any of those aforementioned traps and then tries to open it if it seems safe.
”Varor, go screw yourself.” Kalem kicked himself over towards Bashiel, clearly angry, and doing his best to hold the worst of it in. He reached out for him. His innate magic began to make Bashiel’s wounds close. ”Nobody here has *ever* refused to help each other. You always lord over my head that you have lived longer than me. You should know by now that when a friend is bleeding you help. If you want to leave, then go. If you aren’t fighting, and you aren’t healing hurt comrades, then you are just leaching off of us and complaining, neither of which I care for.”
"Yeah you're right, and good job undermining yourself by saying that right after healing him yourself."
”Are you an idiot, elf? My argument is that you are a piss poor cleric if you go around insulting people over their heritages, threatening to leave at the first sign of danger, and refusing to heal a comrade because your paper-thin pride got hurt. But yes, I healed him. Proof that none of us can rely on *you*, nor do we need you.”