Sellen Passage Transit Day 3
Captain Skywin had described the Passage to the group. The Sellen Starling was a riverboat, not built for deep water, and in any case no sane person wanted to get any closer to the Isle of Terror than they absolutely had to. She would travel south and east, hugging Lake Encarthan's coastline all the way to the Glass River, then east to Lake Kallas where they would meet the Sellen River, which they would then take all the way south down to Cassomir.
She didn't intend to put in anywhere short of Lake Kallas, and the town they were just passing exemplified why. No ship received a friendly welcome in Illmarsh, she said, and a chill fog rolled in as they neared the town and its bad reputation. With visibility lowered in the fog, the crew had to sail even closer to shore than they would have wanted, close enough to see Illmarsh's dilapidated wharves through the fog.
ship.
Hannah was hanging out in the back of the Starling, her mood deteriorating with the weather. She frowned and rubbed her bare arms as the cool fog obscured the sun. Her gaze dropped from the sky to the water, which is when she spotted the ship. Her frown deepened, remembering Skywin's earlier warning.
She left the rear of the ship to find Skywin and her friends. "We are being followed," she reported, "Red sails."
It had taken Reine some time to get used to the new things in her life. Not having to maneuver her way over endless waves of fear and terror was one of them.
It wasn't that the fear didn't exist. It was just... it was no longer an exhausting presence in the back of her mind, always threatening to escape and overpower her. Instead, if anything, she felt that she'd come to understand fear. Understand how it worked, where it came from, and what it could do to a body and a mind.
The thing that truly frightened her, she realized (and even that was only a vague, disconnected thing), was that Reine now understood how to draw power from fear, and how to weaponize it. Whether the fear was her own, or others'.
She'd always been able to do that, she realized. She just hadn't realized exactly what she was doing, or how. But using her terror - and the anger it had stirred in her as a defense mechanism - to protect herself and destroy things that tried to destroy or devour her had been something she'd instinctively learned to do, and she'd gotten good at it in the past weeks. Something about their time in the asylum, she thought. It had...
Well, she didn't know what it had done, but she'd woken up with the ability to funnel her fear and anger into both psychic and physical forms of attack and defense.
Up to now, that had all been instinct. Basically, she'd been throwing raw power at her opponents, and brute-forcing that power into crude (but effective) weapons or shields, as it were.
Now though, Reine knew, there was another way.
She had no real idea how to access that way, how to be more subtle, more delicate with the power that came from fear, but she knew it was possible.
Now, she just had to figure out how.
Also, she had to figure out what to do with her emotions. Now that she didn't need a shield of constant anger to hold back and direct the constant fear, she wasn't always sure how to react to people or situations. On one hand, it was nice to not have to always be bridling her rage.
On the other hand, her anger, she knew, was quite often a very useful tool for creating (or unlocking) fear in other people. And that gave her some very significant advantages...
She'd spent much of the trip so far leaning over the rails of the ship, staring at the sky or the water, pondering her new reality.
And then, the fog had parted, briefly.
Not the fog of her thoughts, but the literal fog the ship was sailing through.
Even as the fog closed behind the ship again, Reine was reaching for her weapons - the weapons of rage and fear.
Hannah came up beside her with her warning.
"I saw it," Reine said, "Someone is about to mess with the wrong ship, I think."
"Sail ho!" Reine called out, not really knowing what the proper procedure was in such a situation, but she'd heard the sailors yell similar things before. "Behind us - er...astern! Red Sails!"
Lachen comes to the desk, having spent much of his time between books and the two scholars.
He seems angry, but perhaps more at himself that at someone else.
I just can't do it anymore for today. Those two ladies are fine, I'm quite fond of Wreben, in a way, she's kind and gentle, but Gossa..She's too strict, she doesn't ask, she gives order, as if I was one of her soldiers. I NEED FREEDOM!
He rubs his always clean-shaven face with his hand, thinking.
Yet you need more discipline, Lachen. Freedom is nothing else than Chaos disguised, only law and order give true power, over oneself and over others.
I don't want power over others! I respect everyone's freedom!
Strangely, the man seems to argue with himself. His hands grip the desk with a strenght and rage Reine recognizes.
Then he points at the waves
There! Have you seen? Something swims toward us... Four creatures, it seems.I don't know much about fishes, but I wouldn't bet for a natural sea creature...
Reine followed Lachen's finger, and swore.
"'Ware the water astern!" Reine bellowed at the top of her lungs, "We're under attack!"
Unfortunately, Reine didn't really know whether the things in the water were going to attack the ship directly, or wind up jumping up and assaulting the deck. And each option suggested opposite courses of action for her and her companions.
If the ship was about to get hit, they needed to hang onto something - likely the rails right in front of them.
But if the enemy were about to come leaping aboard, having a weapon in hand and being free to move about would be better.
And each was the exact opposite of what one should do if she guessed wrong.
"Get ready," she warned the others, unhelpfully.
Fortunately for Reine, at least, she didn't need to take up a hand holding a weapon. She was a weapon all on her own. But that wasn't true for her companions.
Reine put one hand on the rail and squatted down, making herself as stable - and as small - as she could. If something jumped the rail, she's still be stuck between the enemy and a hard push over the side, but at least she wouldn't be helpless. And if the ship got hit, she'd be close to the deck.
As she ducked down, Reine seemed to fade from view for a split second, then reappeared as if nothing had happened, with a Harrow card in her hand. She flicked the card over the rail, even as she braced herself.
Unseen by anyone, the Keep skimmed along the wavetops for a few moments, before disappearing, having never touched the water.
The crew shouts to each other in alarm as the Briarstone survivors wait for their pursuers to show themselves.
Hannah padded over to Lachen and touched his shoulder. "Sarenrae's strength with you," she said.
When the enemy didn't immediately slam into the back of the ship or leap up onto the deck, Reine shuffled herself to the center of the back rail, still ducking down. She reached into the well of power within herself - the one powered by the terror she no longer felt - and made ready to meet her enemy.
Lachen shoots an arrow over the boat, then retreats and switch weapons.
I gave them a warning shot. Maybe I shouldn't have, now they might know we have spot them. My bad.
Lachen's arrow slipped into the dark water with no apparent effect on the monsters. The 4 Vs in the water split up, with 2 shooting straight for the stern and 2 going wide to come in amidships.
Reine could see as the pair of things scaled the side of the boat. They were brightly colored, long-necked amphibians with six legs, a fanged snout, and numerous finlets running down their spine.
Hannah frowned as she spotted one of the creatures climbing the hull. ""Vooniths. They're a smart enemy, be ware," she reported. She muttered another prayer and touched Lachen nce more before moving to Reine and touching her. She then backed away a little and touched herself, finishing the spell.
Smart and tough, I guess? I suppose they aren't good looking, or I may be a Voonith too, unknown to me.
"You're a little taller than they are," Reine said, her tone dry, "And you're missing a few legs."
Then, she stood up, putting herself in direct line of sight of both of the creatures climbing up the back of the vessel.
, Reine spoke in no more forceful a tone than anyone had heard her do before, but now, her voice seemed to echo in the minds of everyone near her, melodious and yet amplified by some power, and carrying a promise of sure doom to those who disobeyed it. The mental echo of Reine's voice was so powerful, it was as if it left a subtle chime ringing in the minds of creatures within 15 feet of the vooniths at the stern.
The vooniths themselves began to feel their minds flooded with horrible visions of future possibilities.
Both of Reine's targets froze as they were suddenly flooded with myriad of visions of their own deaths or worse.
As a standard action, a voonith can unleash a bloodcurdling howl. All creatures within a 30-foot-radius burst must succeed at a DC 15 Will save or become dazed for 1 round and then shaken for an additional 1d6 rounds. Any creature that makes a successful save against a voonith’s howl is immune to the same voonith’s howl for 24 hours. This is a sonic mind-affecting fear effect. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Lachen moves toward the fourth Vroom-or whatever it name is, and strikes it with his hammer, hoping to surprise it
Thanks for coming. Thanks for going, too, with a massive headache, curtesy of my hammer.
Turning to his companions
Don't let them howl, the sound is horrible to hear and might scare you.
Lachen moved over to the railing above where the starboard side voonith had started scaling the ship's hull, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
When it was nearly over the rail, Lachen smashed his hammer down onto the thing's head.
Hammer met skull and flattened it entirely, splattering the warrior and the ship all around him with bits of blood, brain, and bone.
Perhaps sensing the death of its companion, the voonith on the port side howled.
Hannah had her head on a swivel, watching her friends engage the enemy. She backed towards the center of the ship, getting as equidistant to each as possible. Once there, she called on Sarenrae to bless everyone.