As Echo finally bursts through the jungle and onto the beach, having led the others here, she points at the wreck. Although she smiles for a moment, in a flash the smile is replaced by a mournful, solemn frown.
"It looks like ours." she remarks.
Then she walks towards the ocean.
---
Before heading into the water, Echo focuses her psychic powers on her own well-being, augmenting her health, defences and skill at swimming.
Nathan will make sure his ice armor is running up to speed. He'll take a bestow insight to to make sure and then swim on out.
"I'd rather we took a look around the shore for a bit before swimming," Aki comments drily, though she makes certain to ward herself, as well.
Celebeth peeks out curiously from the jungle edge at the ship. Finally she eases out onto the beach.
"I agree with Aki," she says. "I'd rather not have someone pop out and shoot arrows at me while I'm trying to swim back to shore."
The wreck looks to be about 200 ft off shore, and it is hard to tell depth, but could be 20-30ft or more. The ship is pretty well wrecked but looks stable enough. The waves are light, but not perfectly calm. Beach is rocky sand, and no sign of coral, although Pharithstilis finds a sand-dollar.
You see no indication of any danger, though.
"Alright... Let's go." Echo says after some contemplation. She follows Nathan out into the surf.
As they near the shipwreck, Echo looks around for signs of dangerous sea creatures or unstable sections of the ship.
Nathan will land on the portion above the water and climb out to take a look around.
The side of the ship has a huge gaping hole, and you can swim right into it. Echo thinks the remains of the wreck will hold, but clearly it wasn't designed for this, so you should be cautious. No signs of creatures.
Celebeth looks for a convenient place to stash her traveling spellbook, since she can't risk it getting wet and waterlogged. Finally she settles on quickly burying it with her tools just off the beach, under a small pile of rocks that she can quickly find later.
Then it's off into the surf to join the rest of the party at the wreck!
"Hey Pharithstilis!" she shouts to the gnome as they swim out. "Keep yer pants on this time!"
Aki follows the others, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.
"Hey Pharithstilis!" she shouts to the gnome as they swim out. "Keep yer pants on this time!"
Echo lets out a laugh, despite their circumstances. "Sounds like there's an exciting story there!" she jokes.
After examining the ship, she remarks. "Looks stable enough, but be careful."
She swims into the ship's interior and looks around.
The ship is upside down, so you can see what's left of the flooring in the lower deck. This is where the slaves were held, and you see manacles still attached to the floor. Luckily you don't see any bodies.
Pharithstilis feels something rub against his leg.
"This is the slave deck. We'll have to head deeper into the ship to find anything useful."
Hearing Pharithstillis giggle, Echo ducks under the water to see what's under the surface.
As you enter the hole, you find the floor slanting above you, and the ceiling underwater deeper than you can stand, although you can find a number of handholds to take a break from swimming.
What you recall from the layout of the ship is that the cargo hold would now be below you, and that the hatch to get to it is at the far side of the boat, underwater.
As Echo dives under, she can just make out the hatch, and it is clear of debris. However, a giant moray eel comes poking out of it towards you!
Echo pops her head back out of the water and calls out "Giant eel! Over there!" she points it out for good measure.
Ducking back under the water she stares HARD at the eel, overloading its simple mind with memories of pain and confusion.
Celebeth manages to center herself in the water for a moment and launches a brace of magic missiles with the goal of convincing the eel to find a different lunch.
The eel takes a few blasts of magic to the face, and shudders as the mind thrust blasts it. But it is made of sterner stuff, and it rushes forward in the water. It latches on to Echo's leg and starts gnawing away.
None of her spells would be particularly wise to use at present, and so Aki tries to swim over while drawing Yang, then stab at the eel.
Nathan will take a shot at the eel with an ice blast.
point blank shot, precise shot
Pharithstilis acts quickly, and while none of you have ever seen an eel laugh before, this one does so. And in doing so, it won't be able to maintain the grapple.
Nathan lines up an excellent shot, and icy coldness batters the eel. Aki tries to stab the large aquatic creature, but can't quite get the stab in line in time.
Echo draws her dagger and thrusts it at the eel.
It's all Celebeth can do to try to keep treading water.
The eel retreats back towards its hole while laughing. Then it stops.
Assuming it is still visible, Nathan will again blast at it with an ice bolt.
precise shot, point blank shot
Aki watches the eel carefully, ready to strike when it returns.
Echo tries to stab it with her dagger as it retreats.
Echo manages a small nick as the eel retreats, but everyone else has a hard time adjusting to working underwater, and miss with their attacks.
Not wanting to swim any closer to it, Echo stares HARD at the eel, overloading its simple mind with memories of pain and confusion.
Celebeth manages to keep herself righted, and moves to a position where she can stab the eel if it shows itself again.
The eel again attacks, seeing Celebeth as an easy target. However, as it closes, it takes a rapier poke in the snout.
Not yet dissuaded from having its meal, the eel continues it's lunge. It bites Celebeth and latches on!
Aki tries to swim around the thrashing eel, but catches a wave in the face, breathing in water and leaving her choking and sputtering.
That will again try to end the eel with an ice blast.
point blank shot, precise shot
Nathan's blast dissuades the eel, and it lets go of Celebeth. It swims slowly out of the ship.
As the eel swims away, Echo drifts back to the surface for a welcome breath of air. She swims over to Celebeth and looks at her wounds.
"Hold still." She tells her. Then Echo STARES at the wound for an uncomfortable amount of time, and the wounds slowly close under her gaze.