As the officers go about their business, so does the crew. Some spend their pay to buy a personal item or two. Some don't.
After all is said and done the time come to determine what comes next for ship and crew. The sun is rising clear and golden and the tide is as high as your loot-bare ship rides on the harbor waves.
Kehlysch makes a few stops at the dockside taverns, spending a few coins and recounting in ominous tones the tale of how they took two prize ships, and then did battle with the Deathknell making sure to describe the experience in vivid, haunting detail.
"We stood in a line across the prow of the phantom whaler as rank upon rank of dead men, still waterlogged from their watery graves lunged forward upon us. Captain Pilk and his First Mate stood at the helm, as the ominous chime of the cursed ship's bell rang out over the hell-spawned gale..."
"...then Captain Tamesis took aim with her bow, loosing an arrow infused with the power of the Nine Hells itself, and blasted Old Captain Pilk's Shade from the deck of the ship! The moment he vanished, the sea rose up in a whirlpool to reclaim the Deathknell and the dead men who crewed her. We were sucked down into the maelstrom, but we managed to make the swim back to our ship. We made port with not just one, but two prize ships in tow. Who else can boast such a feat? Is Whalebone Pilk and his accursed whaler gone for good, who knows? But his Shade will think twice before again hunting the likes of Captain Tamesis, and the crew of the Sunset Challenger."
That night, while Kel tells their tale, Tamesis stalks from bar to bar, making good use of their fearsome new reputation to strongarm able bodies sailors into joining their crew.
The next day, Tamesis follows Kel's directions to the temple of Pharasma to pore over their books in search of anything that might have been missed in regards to the legend of Whalebone Pilk.
Tamesis is able to find some additional information that Kel missed.
Captain Jeremiah Pilk took the whaler Belle Dame to sea from the port of Magnimar in 4631 ar. The Belle Dame could take a whale in far waters, skin it, render its blubber in the tryworks, and store its meat, all without seeing land for weeks at a time. Such was Captain Pilk’s success that he became known as “Whalebone” among Magnimarian seafarers after the rumor that all he left of his prey were the picked-clean bones, and his ship became known simply as the Bell for Pilk’s habit of sounding the ship’s bell with a furor every time he caught sight of a whale’s spout.
The story goes that Pilk drove his men to exhaustion on their ill-fated final voyage, hunting down a pod of whales after a long dry spell, and nearly beat his knuckles bloody ringing the ship's bell during the pursuit. There are only scattered reports of the final days of the Belle Dame, but it is rumored that Pilk was forced to savagely and cruelly put down a mutiny, having the leader skinned and rendered in a try pot, and nailing his cleaned skull to the mast. After that, it seems that the ship was damaged by the very whales it was hunting, and sank. With his dying breath, Pilk cursed the whales and his own crew for their failure, and continued ringing the ship's bell as it sunk beneath the waves.
Whalebone Pilk is now the captain of a ghost ship that haunts the Fever Sea. Occasionally rising from the bottom of the deeps, Pilk continues his hunts in the renamed Deathknell, stalking his prey for 3 nights, all the while ringing the bell, until he brings them down. Pilk always waits until the third night to strike, as the group already knew.
Kehlysch repeats the tale at several other establishments, each time maintaining his air of inhuman intensity. He focuses part of the tale on each of the officers and their prowess in battle, although he emphasizes Captain Tamesis' name and that of the Sunset Challenger as often as possible.
For the next three days, Tamesis takes Sven around to different taverns, taking care to avoid Kel in the process, to drink and tell stories (and tall tales) about their exploits so far. Once it seems clear that the locals have heard enough, though, she gathers the officers together for a quick meeting, "Is there anything else we need to accomplish in this port? Or shall we move on to the Rock?"
“Ready to sail, Captain,” Kehlysch replies.
"I am as ready as I can be. Unless anyone knows what kind of threats we might encounter at the Rock? If we had more intelligence then more specific last minute preparations might be able to be made."
Tamesis racks her brain, but can't seem to think up any information. With all that settled, she orders the ship to set off the next morning, with their heading pointed towards the Rock.
Madiya has vaguely heard of this Rock thing before, but has no knowledge whatsoever of it. Not being of much help in the research efforts, she spends her time tending to the ship's weapons and her own training with her crossbow, though she's fast growing rusty with some of her mentor's more elaborate moves with the rapier.
With some old navigational charts inherited from the previous captain of your ship and a couple nuggets from the crew, you're able to pin the location of Tidewater Rock as Windward Isle, the westernmost island in a small archipelago south of Motaku Isle about 100 miles west of Rickety Squib's. You are a few days out of port when, as the sun sets, a familiar outline of a low-railed whaler appears against the setting sun before vanishing...
"I knew it."
Tamesis calls the officers together once the specter passes and the crew is otherwise occupied, "Looks like our friend is back for a second round. According to my research, he has a pattern. On the third night, he'll attack again. This time, though, we'll be prepared. Kel was right, when I went back to do some more reading, I found out that Pilk had some kind of obsession with his ship's bell. That, plus the naming convention, seems to point at that bell as the lynchpin. When we battle again, I think we need to focus on it. Destroy it, if possible. Sven, your hammer is best suited for that task, if you think you can get close enough to hit it?"
"Good to know Pilk's approach is so predictable. We have a couple days to prepare for his assault," Kehlysch replies.
"What can we do to prepare though? Did anyone think to buy more holy water while we were in town? Without that we don't have the consecrated circle that Sandara made for us last time. I don't know how much it helped though."
Buhayra thinks over their options for a few minutes.
"Sven, the main thing is to get you to the bell as quickly as possible. What if you did your water thingy like you did when we took the Winter's Bite? You become water before the ship arrives that way you can sneak up and board the ship while we deal with the soggy zombies. Maybe you can get to the bell and destroy it before they know you are there?"
"And if we create a patch of Holy Ground, like before, the dead men will keep their attention on us, but also their distance. We can hit them at range while Sven sneaks aboard. This could really work," Kehlysch adds.
Baolus listens to the others in silence, each time more sure they were indeed cursed.
Sandra pipes up, I can create a couple circles. I got the supplies back at port.
Tamesis gives Sandara a smile and a nod of thanks, "Perfect. We have another opportunity, too. Last time, we had three ships to try to defend, this time, it's just the Challenger. We don't have to just sit there and let them define the battlefield. The ship's bell is near the stern, right? When the time comes, we'll try to swing around them, grapple near the bell, give Sven a shorter path to get to it."
Sven nodded. ”Cast your mind Protection spells on me before we do this. Last time they got in my end.”
The news is spread throughout the ship in a matter of minutes. As the hours wear on and the crew prepares, or tries to, for what's to come, the officers notice something. A common refrain among the newer crew and the fresh recruits is that they have been brought out here "just to die." Morale is dropping. Hard and fast. The more seasoned crew who have been with you since the squibbing seem to be less vulnerable, but you can still see the worry in their eyes.
Hearing the muttering of the crew, Kehlysch makes a point of replying anytime he sees the sailors congregating. ”Whalebone Pilk’s already marked our ship. Unless you had forsaken your calling as pirates, and spent the rest of your days on land, this fight was inevitable. The Captain, the other officers, and myself are going to be in the vanguard. What you need to do is your jobs. If we fall, the best thing you can do is fight; the ghost ship doesn’t need the wind to move it. If you run, he’ll catch you!”
He fixes them with a steely glare.
”Whatever happens. Hold fast. All our feet are nailed to the deck on this one.”
As usual, Madiya spends most of the day tinkering with the ship and its weapons, but that doesn't mean that the Deathknell's return - and the crew's worries - escape her attention.
As the officers formulate a plan, Madiya adds that she has a spell to make them invisible to undead - this way Sven and possibly others could try to destroy the bell without being attacked.
After the officers' conference, Madiya seeks out her feathery friends onboard and anyone else who will listen, reminding them that they signed up for danger and possible death when they decided to join a pirate ship, while pointing out that they'd survived just fine the first time around.
The night passes. As does the day. Kehl's stern admonitions keep the men's spirits from collapsing, though nerves were naturally frayed.
That knight another mystical bank of fog rolls in along with the ominous ringing of the Deathknell. Once again the ghost ship appears out of the mist for a faction of a second before disappearing again.
The next day is clear and bright. A mocking juxtaposition of the night to come.
Dusk falls and the stars are bright. A bulging belly moon like a old drunkard hangs in the sky and the wind is lethargic and drunken, coming in unpredictable gusts generally from the east.
The port watch is the first to spot your haunter. Sails Ho! One of the new guys, Max, shouts. You spot it, bearing down on you with it's tattered sails whipping with invisible wind that is clearly not the wind driving you.
The Deathknell rings supernaturally clear and strong across the rapidly shrinking distance between you.
Madiay, you estimate that, at this rate, you'll be able to get off two, maybe three shots with your weapons before the Deathknell is upon you.
"Here they come Madiya! Cast your spell to hide Sven and a few others and then let's blast them while we can!"
Heading over to the aft-port side of the ship, Buhayra pulls energy from the cold air surrounding her and blasts at one of the figures on deck of the oncoming ghost ship.
With a chant, Madiya casts her spell on Sven, letting the remaining energy dissipate. She warns that there's a possibility of the spell not having an effect on Pilk or his first mate, and also that he can't attack or touch any undead or else the effect will end altogether. With that, she heads over to the broadside ballista, taking a few crew to help out, and opens fire, hoping to thin out the enemy crew a little.
"Not today, you bastard! Bring us about! Move to grapple, don't let them ram us!"
Tamesis leaves Kel to handle the wheel, instead moving to direct the crew to make the process easier.
"Aye, Captain," Kehlysch responds, as he turns the ship.
Kehl turns and the Deathknell counters quickly. Her Captain clearly knows what he's doing.
Tammesis maintains her position amidships, barking orders and directing the preparations for the oncoming fight.
The ships close quickly, ballista shots ripping the tattered sails even more. The Deathknell doesn't slow. Blue annihilates a zombie in the rigging at over 100 feet with a brilliant blast of winter.
At the critical moment the Deathknell starts to lean into a turn to ram. Kehl compensates as ordered, but the Deathknell suddenly surges and turns, kicking up a rush of water as it maneuvers. Kehl can't keep up.
The Deathknell impacts the challenger at a little less than a full ram due to its feint and the Challenger holds strong. Mostly. The fore crossmast of the Deathknell rips through the less armored walls of the sterncastle! Undead swarm from the rigging toward the breach! You're crew tosses grappling hooks, trying to bring the Deathknell into range of boarding planks!
Kehlysch moves towards the starboard rail after the initial collision.
As he moves, he calls upon the power of the Stormlure necklace, wreathing his body in a shield of shifting winds.
"All crew to the foredeck! Kill anything that makes it past our line, but otherwise do not engage! Officers, to the front line!"
Tamesis steps up to the starboard rail. She casts a spell on her bow, following that with a touch of her own magic, and fires an arrow at a zombie moving for the breach into her quarters. As annoyed as she is with that particular development, she'll deal with it later.
"Sven! We can fight the battle for today. We need you to destroy that bell. Hopefully it will prevent us from having to fight this battle again and again. Use that spell Madiya cast on you to go ring THEIR bell!"
Rushing up next to Kehlysch, Buhayra picks her target and sends another cold blast through the air.
As the ships collide, Madiya opens with another Burst of Radiance - seeing as last time, she waited and the spell was wasted. She aims the burst to catch the majority of the enemy zombies in the collision zone , sending a wave of holy light over the ghost ship. Once that's done, she draws her crossbow. She's not sure how much it'll do, but her shooting may at least keep the enemy occupied for Sven to sneak in behind.
Baolus rushes to the captain's quarters in order to intercept the zombies and keeping them from storming their ship. Once there, he readied himself to trip the zombies as they moved in, intending to once more send them to the see.
The upper three start drinking about even more aimlessly. One is taken out by blue and another, the only one Madiya didn't hit, is put down by by the captain with an arrow to the head.
Sven attempts to jump into the other ship
He trips over the railing, but the resulting swan dive into the sea is just so amazing that most people think he totally meant to do that.
Three more zombies move up the deck from further back and two who can still see attempt to cross. Baolus fails to stop them.
Both make it across! Baolus now faces two zombies inside the captain's cabin!
Kehlysch unleashes a gout of acid at the nearest zombie (Gray-Black icon).
With her magic taking effect, Madiya fires off a bolt at one of the blinded zombies, hoping to destroy it before it can regain its senses - though she's a bit distracted by Sven's graceful dive. Meanwhile, the crew who had been helping with the ballistae head off to join the melee.