"That makes me feel much better. Nali, as far as a signal, um, you seem to have more experience with these things, what would you suggest?"
@rolond and Henris- let me know when ya'll are ready. I am going to look at drowning rules, and if anyone else is coming.
Almon stands by, watching the preparations.
"I just hope whatever us in the storage room doesn't mind being underwater. You should take an extra rope though. If you find the mate's corpse or anything of value, it'll be easier for the rest of us to pull ut out."
"That's a good idea, Almon!
Roland, I would say maybe you can give us a series of three strong pulls?"
Nali fastens the other end to a pole with a quick sailor's knot.
"Ok. Well, the tide won't wait forever, might as well get to it. Hendris, you ready?" With that Roland wades in to the water till it comes up to his neck. Once he receives a signal that Hendris is ready he plunges into the water, cutlass in hand, and begins to working his way to the back of the hold.
@Roland and anyone else going in. your perception check shows nothing new.
@henris- DC 10 check-
DC 10 swim check in the hold- every ten ft you move you need to make a escape or dex check dc 12 as the hammoks wrap around you on the hammok sqaures. (so you will need to make at least two checks, you can move 15 ft as a full round action start counting it by rolling.) tell me what round you are on when you reach the door if you don't waste any time getting entangled.
Right before the heroes enter, Nali says: "Be sure to hack loose whatever might otherwise entangle you, and don't hesitate to sometimes return for air"
Then she takes position on the rope, obviously expecting Almon to take a more prominent position, as he is a lot heavier.
Henris gets tangled up in the first hammock, takes a few seconds to extract himself, then swims up to breathe air, and dives down again.
Henris makes it to the door on his second try.
@roland and Henris- swimming through the darkened water the daylight shining through the hole in the side cast lurid shadows in the hold. The salt water burns your eyes as you try to make your way through the floating hammock's. when you get to the back end with the rope around your ankle you realize that the towing rope could easily get snagged on a post or the hammock's as you weaved your way through them. when you get to the back you see that the door is shut to the back room. (the door to the right of the way down is open as the water rushed in. the other room. so the map is accurate just open.)
#1- you want to do anything about the rope?
#2- the door is stuck.
your both on round 3, I think. (let me know in discussion tab if that's not right. but just go with it for now.)
@nali- Your post is a little metagamy after I posted the rules but i'll forgive it. the warning was in the description of the room. lol. :)
Almon takes up position on the rope, keeping alert for anything above or below the water.
Henris motions to Roland, and sets up against the door to try and push it open. He then works with the stronger man to open the door.
Thraxis continues to stand watch at the entrance to the hold, helping with managing the rope. "How do you suppose we should wait before considering the need for a rescue attempt" he asked as the coil of rope slowly played out.
Roland throws his shoulder into the door as best he can while submerged.
@Roland and Henris- the two of you try your hardest to open the door but are unable to get it to budge currently without better leverage.
round 4 under water
Henris tries again with Roland, trying to plant his feet firmly on the floor and heave.
Roland with a look of fury and desperation tries again.
@roland and Henris- The door still seems to be jammed. (round 5)-
Still enraged Roland tries again.
Nali answers Thraxis with slightly alarming calm, considering she's talking about lives of allies.
"Well, usually people don't drown if you get 'm above water after a minute or so. They might have some water in their lungs by then, though. If that happens, we need to lie them on their belly and drop ourselves on their backs. That might get the water out. So I'd say we should give them another half minute or so before we pull 'm up."
Henris again helps Roland slam into the door, trying to open it.
With a mighty heave the door slowly pulls open, a small bit of air pops out and you get a good look at the room. the room appears to be a small bunk room that was originally the cooks room. a small bunk lays along one wall and a desk is floating towards the ceiling. the body of the first mate is seen at the bottom of the room. You see his cutlass on the ground where he must have dropped it. the body has many wounds from a fight but none of them appear to be lethal.
Since it's been some time, Nali says:
"hold the rope, I'm going to take a quick look to see if they're still ok."
With that, she drops to the floor, sticks her head in the water, and looks.
After which she quickly resumes position again, having (I assume) seen that her pack is still swimming, not floating.
Henris motions to the body, then swims over to the cutlass, picks it up, and sticks it behind his belt. He then points at the rope, then the body.
Roland nods and puts his own cutlass into his belt before moving to the the rope around the body.
Quickly wrapping the rope around the body you think you have a good tight knot. (I will be assuming that since niether of you are greedy you would then yank on the rope for them to pull the body up.)
@nali as you look down you see that a blue fish shape comes through the hole and heads towards where Roland and henris are at. You have seen this shape before, and its a Bull shark. the trashcompactors of the Sea.
@everyone- you feel the tugging on the rope. (you can either jump in or pull on rope)
The shark uses his first round to simply move into the ship.
Heroes go.
-Reminder-
start at Round 7 (when you go) for the underwater heroes. remember anything more than a move action takes a additional round of breath away. Please place your breath rounds at the bottom of your post for the encounter if anyone jumps in. (because we are starting on the weekend the battle i will wait til at least monday night to post unless everyoen else does to give people time. (and those that are nature buffs, yes i know its a tiger shark, it was hard to find a image a particular direction and type. lol, see map.)
Almon starts to pull on the rope. When alerted to the shark, he drops the rope and draws his dagger.
Roland motions to Henris to point out the shark. Then he draws his cutlas as he moves to stand next to the cleric.
@roland-you need a swim check to move. I'm good with it not taking you very long to wrap up the body.
"they've been silly by binding the rope to something else, so we can't pull them in. Also, there's a big shark."
With that, Nali takes a couple of deep breaths while drawing her rapier, and enters the water. She holds the rope with her left paw.
Round 1/24 of breath
Henris's eyes widen at the sight of the shark. Unlimbering his trident, he swims up with Roland to prepare for the fight against the shark.
The shark rushes Henris, easily dodging through the hammoks. the Shark does a great bite on Henris's leg, possibly severing a artery because blood freely flows in the water.
@nali and Almond- Tharaxis pulls on the rope. moving the body through the water. (i'll be NPCing him on this first round since he didn't post by deadline. I figured he wouldn't fight the shark being a druid. because the Bull shark is territorial and we must be intruding. If he joins us later hopefully he will let me know if I guess right.)
Heroes round 2 go!!!
Swinging his cutlass in two hands, Roland trys to drive the shark away.
The bite on Henris's leg makes him woozy, but since he isn't unconscious yet, he thrusts his trident at it, joining Roland in trying to drive it away.
"Shark! Good heavens!"
Almon hesitates a moment, then plunges heavily into the water. He squints through the water and spots the others, but is unable to make any headway in the churning water
Seeing Almon leap into the water and immediately flounder, Thraxis uses his free hand to cast his spell allowing the half orc to swim as easily as the shark. Webs grow between Almon's fingers and toes and his boots magically meld into his body.
Then with his remaining strength he continued to pull on the rope. It would be best for everyone if they could expedite the removal of the body. Although he would rather have not disturbed the shark, he was not currently willing to let it take one of the other survivors.
Even though the Water pulls against Roland's cutlass he manages to score a long slash across the gills of the shark before Henris finishes it off the shark twitches several times before finally going still and going belly up. Looking back you see the body is still attached to the rope as thraxis pulls it, it slowly floats past you and the dead shark.
Henris attempts to swim back through the hammocks to the surface, the pain in his leg nearly unbearable.
Making his way back through the hammocks, Henris's head bursts through the water next to Nali, taking a deep breath before hauling himself up onto the decking out of the water. Once there he clutches his holy symbol of Gozreh and prays, causing a burst of healing energy to flow from him and was over those nearby.
"Well, that was eventful."
Roland puts his cutlass back in his belt as Henris swims deftly away. Dragging the shark body Roland trys to follow.
He vet's caught up in the hammocks halfway through and has to stop and cut himself free. At this point his lungs are beginning to burn. After cutting through the hammocks he was caught in he moves forward again and luckily makes it back to the hold.
As he comes up for air he gasps, "Henris, are you ok?" After a few deep breaths he continues, "You swam off so fast. I was wotried, but I figured if you could swim like that you must be mostly ok." Turning to the others he says, "Here. I could say we found dinner, but it's more of dinner found us." as he drags the sharks body up the stairs a ways.
Nali stays underwater, covering the rear.
Ready action to make an attack if the shark comes within her reach. If the shark is already there... Normal attack.
Nali will use an immediate action (and an aoo) to attempt parry and riposte if the shark attacks her.
Breath 21/24
the main room with the hole in the side of the ship has ruined crates and misc items in it, nothing of value. the create you found on the beach were byproducts of the hull breach so nothing more to search in the ship. and no further clues, I will be adding together the food and water found, and seeing if anything is unaccounted for this weekend. since you did grab the shark Roland ill be adding some extra pounds of food. you can talk among yourselves while you are making your way back to the Camp with the items found.
Thraxis helped haul the corpses to the upper deck. "We should take a few moments to clean the shark here to avoid attracting scavengers near the camp proper."
He helped process the shark before setting about tightly binding the sailor's corpse in rope and scraps of sail cloth. "This will make it easier to move the body and likewise help avoid attracting animals for a short time"
With those tasks completed, he sets about transporting the material from the ship to the shore.
Henris nods. "Good idea, Thraxis. I'll assist you."
Henris helps Thraxis with cleaning the shark so they could transport it. As they move the material from the ship to the shore, he keeps an eye on the heat of the day.
"Thraxis, do you think we can keep some of the shark's hide? I know some of the sailers really like using it for sword grips and stuff like that. It'd be pretty nice as a memento."
Shouldering as much of the load of loot as he can reasonably manage and begins back with eveyone else. When they get to shore he seeks out Sasha and hands her the letter.
"Here, we found this while searching the wreck, I think it's yours. If you could help us tonight with keeping watch it would be a nice way to say thank you."
That done he goes to attempt to break open the captain's chest.
Nali helps along with the unloading and the shark. Then, when she's back at camp, she's less vocal then she was before. It seems to be a reflex from growing up in cutthroat environments. She is waiting, once more, to find out the current pecking order. She's made some more friends, now, though.
She asks Almon: "So, what tools do we have to work that scorpion poison?"
She seeks to engage Almon in conversation to find out who should assist whom.
Almon assists in carrying the items back to camp, making a note to point out the books to those remaining at camp. "We managed to retrieve some more food from the ship, as well as some reading material. It might help to pass the time until we are rescued. One of them is by our erstwhile navigator on the jungle, We also had an encounter with the shade of the first mate, who was able to tell us more of what happened. Apparently, we have Ieana to blame for our predicament - she enchanted the captain and some of the crew.""
" Well, I couldn't find my proper equipment - I fear it's at the bottom of tbe sea. I have my extract making tools, but they are more suited for magical concoctions. We do have mugs, pots and a fire though, so I think we can manage something. Two of us working on it should make up for the less than ideal tools. We'd just best be sure to clean everything thoroughly afterwards."