Makall's missiles finish off the shark, and its master isn't looking so well either (if she ever did).
Seeing that the shark is dead, Searok will swim over to the hag.
The hag will try to heal some of her damage.
Casting Defensively:
She successfully manages to undo some of the injuries inflicted upon her, without opening herself up to more.
Shaeda will again attempt to trip the hag...
Disarm, Trip
Shaeda yanks the hag's feet out from under her, and her body down to the floor of the chamber.
The water elementals continue to thrash at the hag who can do nothing to stop them.
Between them, the water elementals squish the hag flat, and she expires with a screech.
Pumping her fist in the waters above her. We didn't die! Kicking her feet and moving towards the now dead woman to look her over. What is she?
If you examine her with Detect Magic, you find that both her spear and a wand on her belt have magical auras.
Once she is sure there is nothing else on the hag Emma moves to explore the area.
The hag was wielding a +2 shortspear, and had on her a wand of magic missile (CL 3) with 18 charges remaining.
There appears to be one more room in the ship you haven't explored yet, but the door is swollen shut and will require some force to open.
Searok will go to work on the door! He will try to push it open first, and if that does not work, he will bash it with his warhammer!
The door gives way under Searok's blow. The room within, unlike most of the rest of the ship, shows genuine signs of habitation (human habitation at least).
This was the captain's quarters. Along with a few other bits of ruined furnishings, the tattered sheets of a canopied bed twist like ghosts above the snapped wooden bed frame. Knotted amid the linens, a drowned man idly floats in the room’s murky waters. A closed footlocker sits on its side at the far end of the room.
Kicking her feet to move into the now opened room. Drifting over to the man.
Shaeda searches around the Captains room.
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Searok does not like the look of the drowned man and keeps an eye on him in case he starts to 'swim'!
The man does not look infected with anything. In fact, there's a wound on his forehead.
Shaeda notices a little bit of skin and hair on the corner of the footlocker; if he hit his head and was knocked unconscious, it would explain why he didn't escape the ship as it went down.
Shaeda whispers into the message, so she can relay it to everyone, "I think this guy knocked his head on the footlocker, and thus couldn't get out when the ship went down."
Searok gives Shaeda a skeptical look and still keeps an eye on the 'dead' man.
The dead man still stubbornly refuses to move.
Patting down his pockets before moving on. I doubt any paper would survive but maybe I will get lucky and find a key... Desna what has my life become.
If she cannot fine anything of note there Emma will move on to the desk.
In the pockets of the dead man, Emma finds a silver holy symbol, shaped like a fly decorated with a skull.
The chest is not locked, but some attempt to waterproof it has been made by coating the hinges and seams with wax.
We can come back for the chest! Searok tries to pantomime with much comic effect.
Shaeda holds out her fist, and presents a single thumb up.
Nodding and tucking the silver skull bug thing safely away. Moving back towards the door before looking back at the others with an expectant expression.
Emma recognizes the symbol, and it's not good news. It's the symbol of Urgathoa, goddess of disease, gluttony, and undeath.
Searok will poke the 'dead' man one last time before moving out to explore the rest of the ship.
Shaeda points towards the surface and waves people on...
Nodding and making sure they have everything, bottles and the chest, and then beginning to swim to the glorious surface. That symbol should not feel as heavy as it does but this ship probably did it. Why? Why are there people like this the world. Monster who wear the faces of mortals who just live to see the world suffer. There cannot be a paradise waiting for them.
Although the trunk is awkward to move even in the water, it seems mostly filled with air and isn't heavy. Eventually you break the surface and can once again breathe the air.
Once you are ashore, breaking into the footlocker is easy enough, it's only sealed with wax. Within you find a leather pouch containing 75 platinum crowns and 82 gold sails, a cloak that detects as magical (it too bears the symbol of Urgathoa, although that should be removable without damaging the cloak itself), and a book.
The book is entitled Serving Your Hunger, and a cursory examination reveals that it is a holy text of Urgathoa's. The book is exquisitely made, bound in black silk and velvet over darkwood covers; protecting it was almost certainly why the owner of the chest took pains to waterproof it. It would quite likely be valuable to a collector of religious texts; the pages within are ancient, yellow, and fragile...mostly. In the back some much newer pages have been added, and these are written in a different hand.
A brief examination of the main body of the book reveals its doctrine to be...distasteful to say the least. It's a combination prayer book and cook book...and the recipes almost universally involve humanoid flesh or blood. There is also advice for dealing with the undead, as well as several guides on how best to join their ranks.
The newer section of the book appears to be its owner's own journal. He is identified as "Rois Vindmel", and appears to have been rather unwell...at least in his own mind. The early pages of the journal seem to have been written by an extreme hypochondriac, as nearly every entry isn't so much about his life but his latest malady. Nearly every day he seems convinced he has contracted something else, including many diseases that should have killed him several times over, and a few that can't even be caught by humans. At some point he started praying to Urgathoa (goddess of disease) for "help", and eventually sought to join her clergy.
At this point the tone changes considerably, and he no longer obsesses over imagined sickness, but instead over someone he seems to have met through the church. Page after page is filled with a single word, "Andaisin", often written in florid script that takes up most of a page or surrounded with hearts.
Rois' entries become a little more substantial towards the end of the book. He mentions some mission or other that he is undertaking that he is certain will win him Andaisin's favor, and which involves taking some sailing lessons. He quite proudly notes that he himself came up with the name Direption, and Andaisin praised his wit in naming the ship an obscure Necril word for "decoy". In the final entry Rois notes that all he needs to do is point the ship into the harbor nice and straight, pay off the hag with her booze so she'll keep any shipwreck investigators at bay, retrieve his belongings, and abandon ship before it is scuttled. Simplicity itself...
While obviously the book doesn't say what happened next, the fact that he was found having knocked himself on the head and was on the ship when it sank makes it clear that the plan didn't work out as he had hoped it would.
Shaeda wracks her brains trying to make sense of the religious aspects of all this...
”Never distrust a mother’s wisdom says I. My mum used to say it, and she was right. That child’s mom from a few days ago had the right of it, the city’s malady doth seem to come from this ship, or at least the actions of its inhabitants.”
Shaeda recalls the name Andaisin, and it isn't cheering news.
Several years ago, the small village of Beorandy on the northern shores of Nidal succumbed to a bout of bubonic plague. Nidalese investigators found evidence that a cult of Urgathoa led by a woman named Andaisin had engineered the outbreak.
The plague was believed to have been caused by a blight on the grain supply, but this turned out to be a red herring arranged with a Diminish Plants spell to draw attention away from the cult's activities, which actually involved fouling the local well with an infected animal carcass.
By the time this was discovered, Andaisin and her followers had fled.
Reading over Sheada's shoulder and feeling rather ill. Tugging out the holy symbol, "Found this on him."
Chewing on her lip a moment, "Those crowns would go a long to to getting people healthy again."
Shaeda will relay to her compatriots all that she remembers of these matters.
Searok is just glad to be on dry land again. Hmmm...Shall we go report what we know?
Shaeda casts detect magic and inspects the cloak...
Shaeda is unable to determine the cloak's magical properties, but feels like she will be able to if she gives it another go.
Shaeda wakes up the next morning, and looks at the cloak again.
Take 10... 20!!!
Shaeda has a sudden flash of insight and discovers that this is a Cloak of Resistance +2 valued at 4000 gold sails. Shame about the Urgathoan decoration, but a good seamstress could remove that easily.
Reporting back to the Citadel, Cressida receives word of what you found gravely. When Shaeda reports what she knows of the name Andaisin, the lone crewman on board, and the fact that a monster was set to guard the wreckage from investigators, she concludes that the Direption was almost certainly a decoy and the plague entered the city by other means. But the evidence is largely circumstantial, there's no actual proof, and even if there was then the announcement that the plague might be intentional would only increase the panic in Korvosa.
Nevertheless, you discovered that the church of Urgathoa might be involved, and the name of their probable leader, and that is certainly worth knowing. Kroft gladly pays you the promised 300 gold sails each, and asks you to keep your eyes open but not discuss what you discovered under the river publicly.
Should the rest of the day go calmly, and the group get a night’s rest, Shaeda will memorize masterwork transformation tomorrow and make her whip a MW weapon. And the next day her buckler. Anyone else need this service?
Searok is feeling pleased with himself! Another successful job and no more water! He is so pleased he is not even aware of his surroundings!
As the four of you walk out of the Citadel and proceed down the street, Shaeda becomes convinced that you are being followed. Out of the corner of her eye she spies a mousey middle-aged woman several yards behind. She thinks the woman was in the Citadel, and left when you did.
In the middle of seemingly idle banter with her compatriots, Shaeda will cast Hold Person on the skulker.
DC 14 Will Save
”Grab her!”
The woman resists the spell, lets out a yelp, and throws up her hands.
"Please! I mean no harm!"
Stepping between the tiny woman and the temperamental priestess, "Wait." We need a break. Nerves are getting frayed .
Scowling down at Sheada, "Why?"