Harmony is not having a good day, but she's far too upset in the stomach to risk breathing in spores.
With her back turned to the combat she inspires her companions with a hearty... umm... something inspiring!
Coughing from the spores Polli flings her hand out to spew magic missles at the creature.
Val flaps forward behind the remaining creatures and unleashes another flurry of stabs.
Polli sends a round of magical missiles into the floating intestines.
Round 3
The swashbuckler and the slayer strike at the creature quickly finishing it off and it too falls to the floor below with a disgusting sound.
Combat Ends!
With Polli and Harmony's guidance, you avoid the most dangerous portions of the floor and make it across to the stairs descending below.
Rubble from the collapsed ceiling fills the center of this room, which is shaped like three-quarters of a circle. The walls bear scorch marks, and the plaster shows severe cracks. To the southeast, two eerie ivory statues stand on either side of a closed door. These statues are carved into the forms of handsome men that have been bound, gagged, and blindfolded, both heads turned inward to face the other. The statues seem strangely moist, as if they have just been pulled from the sea.
Harmony makes her way over to the clay statue and carefully removes its shiny eyes before joining the rest of her crew downstairs.
"Well that isn't nice." She says, looking at the statues, before briefly explaining the story. "I think we need to rotate their heads, or else they'll curse anyone passing between them. Maybe once they aren't looking at each other that'll stop."
Beneath the mold covering the clay statue, Harmony discovers that the four eyes are actually emeralds and she quickly removes them.
~~~~
Turning each of the heads away allows you to pass between them and through the door into the room beyond unharmed.
Flaking plaster speckled with patches of mold crusts the walls of this room. Faded frescoes portray a strange, crystalline city rising out of a vast ocean beneath a gray sky. In several places, imposing iron hooks protrude from the wall, now rusted with age. To the southwest, a jumble of bones held together by an aged suit of black leather armor slumps against the wall, while in the middle of the room, a huge circular trap door sits in the floor. Three lengths of chain have been hammered over the hatch, bound in place by iron spikes that have been hammered into the floor. A black handprint is on the wall next to the skeleton, along with a few lines of scribbled text.
"The Shrouded Queen yet lives below, bound by Blackfingers’ forbiddance and Aiger’s Kiss. Seek not entrance for naught but her rotting curse awaits ye — let the slumbering darkness lie!"
"Correct me if I'm wrong..." Harmony says. "But it sounds like the reason no-one has claimed the sword is because it keeps the Shrouded Queen here... frankly that seems like a good thing. Unless we want to try to destroy her for good. Dony, Polli, do you have any idea what might have a 'rotting curse'?"
She glances at the skeleton and incants the spell to check for magic. "Val, want to make sure that body is really dead?"
Harmony detects that the leather armor and both rings the corpse still wears are magical.
"Val, that armor would help your sneaking if you want it." The Captain suggests, "Take the rings too."
Polli is wheezing from moving around the tower, coughing near constantly, and pale as a sheet.
"There are... many options... on rotting... curse. So many... diseases... magic... gods... could just be... an expletive... or a.... mother-in-law." Polli decides sitting down on the floor is a good idea at the moment, just a moment.
"Thanks, cap'n, but my armor does the same thing," Val answers with a tug on her cap. She moves to remove the armor and rings from the definitely dead figure, but as she does she can't help but ask, "Donm, do you have anything to help her cough out those spores? She looks even fainter than I feel..."
Feeling guilty for not noticing it before, Donomsail speaks a prayer over Polli and the sylph feels the grasping hand on her lungs relax.
The swashbuckler considers commenting on Polli's condition, but the fact of the matter was she was feeling a little under the weather with those stupid spores as well.
"I say we're here, we might as well send this Shrouded Queen on her way." Tessa contributes.
"That's settled then." Harmony says, slightly grimly. "Let's make our preparations."
She squeezes Tessa's hand, imparting a sense of heroism in her fiancee, and then claps Val on the shoulder, doing the same for her.
Polli breathes! Finnaly. Standing she gives her love a long hug and a whispered "thank you" the wizard goes ahead and casts flight on Tessa and Dony.
Val smiles as Polli's coughing stops and her color returns. She prepares to cast a few spells on herself and then pauses. Looking to Dony she silently confesses, [Those spores have weakened me some too... is there any chance that you could fix me too?] A moment later she returns to her preparations.
Polli will look around for a lever to use to pry off the chains.
Twenty minutes later Polli has the chains removed holding the trap-door closed. Beneath it is a five-foot wide shaft leading downwards. In the meantime, Donomsail casts another spell on Valeria to heal the damage caused by the spores.
Descending the fifty-foot vertical shaft leads to another chamber. Decorative stone rafters partition the ceiling of this large circular chamber. A frieze between the vaulted ceiling and lower portion of the chamber depicts a chain of intertwining sea creatures and human bones. In the chamber beneath this frieze, a large altar overlooks a fetid, brackish pool of stagnant water. At the bottom of the pool, what appears to be a blackbladed short sword is impaled in the stone.
The biggest thing of note in the room is what you assume to be the Shrouded Queen. She looks something like a hideous mix of eel, octopus, bat, and spider, all melded together into a body the size of an elephant. She shrieks out at you and skuttles around the edge of the chamber.
Combat Begins!
Round 1
"It about taking ones time to do things properly." Polli points out to anyone complaining how long it is taking her to remove the chains. A soft but enthusiastic agreement from Dony, makes the wizard into smiles and burning cheeks.
"That thing is quite ugly isn't it. It's a... augnagar? That's disappointing. I was hoping for more I guess." Polli scoffs. "Lawfully aligned weapons work best, which is a problem usually from pirates. Immune to cold, poison, and mind-affecting spells. And resistant to acid, electricity, and fire, on top of that. Oh and the very sight of them makes some go insane."
Cocooned inside her invisibility Harmony mangaes to not gibber and freak out, just about...
"This is it Sirens, time to build our legend even higher!" She declares before coating the Sunken Queen in shininess.
Taking advantage of the gift of invisibility she’s been given by the captain, Val flies down to the figure and stabs her to find out just how tough she is. She studies the ‘augnagar’ as she moves.
Valeria advances and strikes with her shortsword, drawing gray ichor instead of blood. Polli tries to blast the thing with a magical ray, but only manages to put a huge divot in the stone floor. Tessa follows up towards the behemoth and plunges Wayfinder into it, just missing a narrow opening between some of the chitinous plates while Harmony inspires one and all by sending a gout of magical glitter to descend on the otherworldly beast. Other than causing it to shimmer in the dim light, the glitter seems to have no other effect.
The Queen screeches incoherently and Tessa, Harmony, and Polli feel a tiredness seep into their bones.
Donomsail invokes a prayer to increase the ladies' energy.
Round 2
Harmony moves out of the way of the rest of the group, trying to avoid another nasty cone effect and lets out a loud scream as she does so. Strangely no-one hears her do it.
"IT DODGED!" she snapped, even though there was no way a thing that big dodges anything. Ignoring her own brian's balking at her mouth's attempt, she pulls from her arcane bond and tries again.
And tries to miss again. This time she can at least blame her desire to sleep.
Val shifts to one side to keep directly between herself and Tessa, and she unleashes a flurry of thrusts with her shortswords.
Valeria stabs and stabs and stabs, her blades striking over and over. Polli's ray strikes the creature dead-center and another screech is forthcoming. One more strike from Tessa with Wayfinder finishes off the Queen.
Combat Ends!
Strewn throughout the chamber lie the Shrouded Queen’s most valuable items. These include a set of tiny but elaborate statuary of horrifying deep-sea creatures carved from whalebone and coral , 10 clay amphoras filled with assorted pearls and gold and silver ingots , and a crystalline case containing a collection of six ampoules filled with what looks like blood. The markings on them indicate the samples are from Azlanti kings . One of the most valuable of her items, though, is the golden tiara she wears upon her misshapen head — an eldritch work of art . Fragments of her spellbooks lie strewn about the room — they are too damaged to be of any use, though.
The one other thing in the room is the black-bladed shortsword that's currently embedded in the bottom of the pool. The fetid water is only three feet deep, so the blade is easily reachable.
Harmony tiredly gestures to Val. "The sword looks perfect for you." She says with a grin. "Enjoy."
She does check the water for magic first, just in case!
Harmony detects faint traces of conjuration magic emanating from the pool. Her best guess is that it's just a leftover aura from strong magics that have been long broken. She also detects a very strong abjuration aura on the entire room. Examining it a little longer, she determines that a forbiddance spell was cast here. The spell has an evil feel to it, so she's not sure why it hasn't affected any of you negatively.
Val looks about the room with some suspicion. "That was... easier than I expected," she comments warily. "I know we're fearsome pirate lords and all, but if a whole expedition of Norburgerites, or whatever, couldn't actually kill her doesn't it seem like that should have been worse?"
When Harmony directs her towards the shortsword, she moves towards it but before grabbing it asks, "are we sure this is safe? The sword's black, like the wards... are we sure this isn't stuck here as part of one last protection? Maybe to stop her from returning in a more powerful form or something? If it is Aiger's sword we should probably take it either way--since that's why we came--but maybe we should at least be prepared for another fight?"
Polli is bemoaning the loss of so many spellbooks, flipping page after page only to frown over and over. "Let me look." Polli moves over looking at the magic auras to see if she can tell if pulling the sword will be dangerous, casting dispell magic if she thinks she sees something.
Polli doesn't find anything hazardous in the auras. From what she can tell at one time the pool was a summoning gateway. Somehow, though, Aiger’s Kiss has destroyed that aspect. It takes Valeria some effort to extract the blade, but with some assistance from Tessa, she finally pulls the weapon free. Once removed she can feel the foul waters of the pool slowly draining out through the hole left in the stone.
With the defeat of the Shrouded Queen, the Sirens make their way back up to the roof of the tower. From here the entire island is visible as well as the Siren itself.
And a second ship alongside it.
The second ship is flying the colors of the Shackles as well as their own colors; a barracuda on a blue field. You also notice that the colors of the Siren have been struck and the same blue flag is flying there as well.
Someone has claimed the Siren.
"That! That... bastard!" Harmony exclaims. "I don't care if he wants the sword, he can have it rammed down his damn throat!" Rage seems to be effectively over-riding the tiredness of the Sunken Queens spell.
"Ok. That down there is Barracuda Aiger and he's taken our ship. Does anyone object to us killing him in brutal fashion?" She asks, looking around. "No? Good!"
Val briefly chuckles at the other captain’s boldness, but her demeanor quickly hardens and she answers, “if he’s hurt anyone on board I’m going to jam it somewhere worse than his throat... and after we’ve finished brutally killing him Donom can bring him back so we kill him again, more brutally.”
Turning to her fellow officers she scowls for a moment and asks, “is there any way at all that we could teleport back? I can become small if that helps...”
Donomsail has a hard look on her face, the adventures she has experienced have put her an edge on her that she never thought would be there. "If'n he be hurtin' ma family Ah'll be bringin' 'im back lots o' times so's we kin all be killin' 'im, at least one time each."
"I can take four." Polli says with a flat voice that is ready for violence. "Val, can you turn into a bird, and fly down. Then when we see you are there, we'll teleport over and start taking on any and all." Polli slips her hand in Dony's, squeezing it tight.
”No...” Val answers with a mix of disappointment and frustration, “only humanoids, and I can only fly as my self. I can fly down there, but they’ll see me coming, unless I go slow enough to try to keep clouds in between me and the ship. Is there any chance you can teleport enough times today to drop me off either in the clouds above the ship or somewhere on board where I could hide while you go back for everyone else?”
"No. Make your approach nice and obvious Val." Harmony says, as the cooly analytical part of her mind engages. "Make a show of it but stay out of range. Then we teleport in."
Polli was opening her mouth to answer but closed it as Harmony gave her command.
Val tugs her hat in salute and leaps from the top of the tower. Her shimmering black wings beat through the air as she flies directly towards the Siren as fast as she possibly can, making no effort to hide herself.
It's a much quicker trip as the crow flies and it's only a few minutes before Valeria reaches the two ships anchored off the island. Her arrival doesn't go unnoticed by the crews on the decks of either ship. She doesn't see a recognizable face on the deck of the Siren. She does note a colorfully dressed figure moving around on the deck of the Siren that seems to be giving orders. A couple of the sailors have drawn bows and are aiming them at her as she circles, but they haven't fired yet.
"You must be one of the previous officers of this fair ship that I call my own, now!" the colorful figure calls out to her. "Perhaps you'd like to land and discuss terms?!"
Harmony gestures for everyone to gather round, casts an Invisibility sphere and then squeezes Polli's hand. "Take us down." She says grimly.
With the remaining officers ready to go, Polli casts haste on them all and then teleports them right behind the talking anus hole.
"If you wish to discuss the terms of your surrender, we can do so from here," Val calls back as she knocks an arrow, studies the fool barking orders, and takes aim at them.
Harmony squeezes Polli and Tessa's hands slowly once, twice, and on the third time lets go.
"There is no surrender. You die for this." She proclaims sharply and then begins to sing a supremely creepy song.
"Foolish men who sail the waves,
Sailing above their watery graves.
The touch of a hand and the feel of her kiss,
The joys of the land for you to miss."
"The sea can be kind,
The sea can be cruel.
But if you face the Sirens,
Then we know you're a fool."
"The sea runs red,
Before the sun's gone.
Hush now my darling,
Your life's light is done."
As Valeria calls out her challenge, the other four officers appear on the deck of the ship to startled cries from the occupying crew. The colorfully dressed leader - who's facing the other way - stiffens up slightly and then slowly turns to face you. You can see know that he's a half-elf.
His lip curls up into a confident smile. "My terms;" he says. "Return to me my mother's sword and I will return your ship and crew to you - mostly unharmed."
"You wouldn't have to be begging us to return anything if you had didn't have tiny little baby balls not worth a damn. The captain says you will pay for this with your life. So your only hope at the moment is that we kill you quickly, otherwise, I'll have time to peel your minuscule balls while you scream, you soiled rancid ass!"
Combat Begins
Round 1
Tessa loves moving faster than the bad guy. Intuition is in her blood and she leaps forward with Wayfinder, attempting to plunge it into him as she says "Now I'll show you our terms."
Tessa is quick to advance and draw first blood, as Wayfinder strikes true. Not intimidated, Aiger snarls in response, showing teeth that have been artificially sharpened to resemble his namesake. He grabs a nearby hanging mastrope and slams into the redhead sending her stumbling over the railing and into the calm, blue water below. He swings back around and lands on the deck.