| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Emma peers around the ship and notices something a little odd. The place is indeed a wreck, but it doesn't look like all of the damage occurred in the sinking. Remains of tables and chairs look as if they were hacked apart by an axe or something similar. Much of the debris has floated away in the current, but what is sill there looks a little...staged. If someone were setting up a shipwreck for a play, they would make it look like this.
But the really weird thing is a little bit of furniture that remained intact. A chair and a small card table are in there, both in one piece and kept from washing away by a bit of chain that had the "luck" to entangle them, holding them in place. But the weirdest thing is, the way they are held is keeping them perfectly upright relative not to the wreckage, but to to riverbed, as if someone actually set up a little sitting room in the wreckage.
Before Emma can ponder how to convey any of this without speaking, she happens to glance up and see a four foot shark right behind Makall and approaching fast. Her expression of shock must speak volumes, because he turns just in time to mess up the predator's chomp, and it continues past him, disappearing into the rear part of the ship.
Shaeda looks at her friends, shrugs, and continues on towards the wreck.
No sign of the shark as you approach the larger rear section of the Direption; either it went further into the wreck or continued onward and outward through it.
You find yourself in a longer room, the hold of the ship. Loose timbers, small fish, and dozens of identical boxes float eerily in the quiet darkness. Still no sign of bodies; although the presence of the shark might account for that somewhat, some of them being carrion feeders, there is also no hint of remains, not even so much as a stripped bone or torn piece of clothing.
Shaeda focuses on the floating boxes to see just what they are.
Searok will keep an eye out for the shark so he can punch it is the nose if it comes back.
Searok sees no sign of the shark.
It doesn't take Shaeda long to realize that the reason the boxes are floating is that they are empty. They don't appear to have been broken or opened either, just a ships hold full of empty boxes.
However, noticing this makes one box stand out precisely because it isn't floating, but lying on the floor (actually wall due to the state of the ship). It's lid is slightly ajar, revealing its contents; a dozen stoppered bottles of fine brandy. A couple more bottles, their stoppers and contents gone and filled with only river water, lie discarded next to the crate.
Shaeda will point the bottles out to Searok. ”Dwarves are good for hauling stuff,” she thinks to herself.
Swimming over and waiting to see if Searok bothers with it.
Twisting her fingers together while trying to say something and growing more agitated as time goes by.
Smiling before pointing at Sheada then Makall, and lastly Searok. A quiet and oddly distorted whisper in Emma's voice fills everyone ears, "Oh my Gods it worked! You have to speak to me but I can relay anything back and forth. And we can always come back if you want the bottles."
”We want the bottles!”
Searok is confused when everyone starts pointing at the bottles. How can we drink when we are under water? He thinks to himself. He nods that he sees the bottles then throw his hands in confusion as to why everyone wants to drink now instead of waiting until we get back on dry land!
Sighing and tugging her bag off her shoulder before grabbing the bottles and shoving them into the bag. Returning the bag to its place on her back before pointing towards the other part of the ship.
You continue your walk toward the rear of the ship, and as you do you notice a change in the water around you. Despite the current of the river, the walls of the ship have allowed the water to still for the most part, and it's increasingly foggy and foul.
You push open a door to a room that was once some sort of crew quarters, with several murky hammocks floating ghostlike, still attached to the walls. There's still no sign of bodies or personal belongings that would suggest an actual crew.
The room is not uninhabited, though. It swirls with a haze of gore, fish heads, and half-eaten eels chumming the circling waters. At the far end float two creatures. One is the shark who gave you a fright a minute ago, swimming circles around the second figure. That one appears at first glance to be an old woman, but a second and third glance prove to be rather nauseating mistakes.
She has skin the color of pond scum, white staring eyes, long bloody teeth like an eel's, and a pointed nose. In one hand she holds a spear with a large shark tooth at its tip. In the other a bottle of the brandy you found, with her thumb plugging the top. Even floating in the middle of the room she seems to sway as if drunk.
"Ah, Skinshear, it appears you were - *hic* - correct." The water somehow poses no impediment to her speaking clearly. "We have guests. We must be hosp - hospittle - welcoming". She grips her spear aggressively.
Damn it, damn it, damn it!
Turn Order:
Makall
Emma
Skinshear
Searok
Hag
Shaeda
Makall quickly begins to open a seam between Gollarion and the Elemental plane of Water.
Pointing a finger at the strange woman, "Stay where you are." Please work!
The hideous woman flinches at the magic, but is able to shrug it off. "Nice try dearie". With a gesture, she sics her shark on Emma, which swims up and tries to take a chomp out of her.
Kicking in the water to avoid the massive mouth coming at her. Damn!
Searok will attempt to hit the shark on the head with his warhammer!
Searok finds that it's hard to swing a hammer underwater, so his hammer doesn't connect as hard as it would, but connect it does.
"Don't touch my fish, shrimp!" The hag fixes Searok with her gaze and an uneasy feeling comes over him.
Can I spellcraft that?
Shaeda moves forward and attempts to trip the hag...
She's in position to bodyguard Emma, and maybe more folks if they come up.
Shaeda tries to yank the hag to the floor, but fails. Makall, meanwhile, completes his spell.
Makall finishes his summoning and two vortexs appear beside the the creature and start to attack her.
Makall directs two missiles at the shark
Moanna slams the hag in the face, and Makall's missiles pierce the shark's cartilage. It retaliates, swimming up to him with jaws wide.
Stabbing out with her rapier and cursing the little amount of time she had ever spent in the water.
Unlike warhammers, rapiers are fairly well suited for use underwater, and Emma reddens the water with shark blood. It doesn't look like it can last much longer.
The shark retaliates, adding some Emma blood to the river as well.
Searok feels a gnawing sense of impending doom, as if the water is closing in on him and crushing the life out of him.
Did the shark swim by Shaeda? She’ll take an AOO if it did.
Disarm, Trip
Searok feels a gnawing sense of impending doom, as if the water is closing in on him and crushing the life out of him.
Searok delivers a glancing blow to the shark as it passes.
The hag swims up to Shaeda, and jabs at her with her spear.
Gasping in pain and trying to twist to pull her leg away from the shark. Aiming for the shark again.
Shaeda will fervor herself as a swift action...
Shaeda will go ahead and just attack with her whip...
Disarm, Trip
Hits the drunken hag.
The elementals continue to attack the hag and they start to flay the hag right before your eyes.
Makall lets off another two missiles at the shark.