You head northeast. The channel of water running through this room’s floor
passes under a waterwheel connected to a pair of grinding stones. Next to the waterwheel lies a pile of bones.
A pair of giant, lanky fey are in this room. The hairy, blue-fleshed creatures' most distinguishing feature is their oversized mouths and the two rows of axe-like teeth therein. One of the fey has clamped its jaw onto the waterwheel, preventing it from spinning. The other one keeps a lookout.
When it notices you, the fey grins. "Ah! Tasty treats!" it declares. The other one lets go of the waterwheel and both move to confront you!
They are an instant too quick for you to react! One lets out a frightening bellow as it moves in, while the other bites at Batman, grabbing the nyktera in its jaws!
Success: The creature is frightened 1.
Failure: The creature is frightened 2.
Critical Failure: The creature is frightened 2 and is fleeing as long as it remains frightened.
Sylva ain’t afraid of no… whatever.
“Okay you big, hairy weirdos. You confused snack time with Smack Time, and for that you’ll get a really bad tummy ache!”
She moves to the feyrangutan that’s grabbing Sir Bat.
Ravenna hesitates, shaken by the creature's shriek, but Nox's magical sense of urgency gets her moving. While her aim is unsteady, she manages to get two shots down range.
Sir Batman enters the waterwheel room. The bronze-colored bat-shaped sprite gets his eats blown back by the bellows!
Do you guys know any bats? I can talk to bats now.
As if in spiteful response, the ugly fuzzy blue man groupie takes his jaws of life to our bat! He blocks the upper jaws, but those pesky lower jaws seem to pierogi our Bat!
Dreaming of a life with a Liberator as a friend, the freshly squeezed sprite sighs.
Normally, an introductory sentence followed by some light petting would be more appropriate.
Sir Batman Raises his Shield. He then winks at Sylva.
What do you know! Already in a Flank!
The Smiling sprite then turns his blue eyes to look at the chest of the hugger. Not think8ng that is the goal, he raises his baby blues up, up, a bit further up to look (kinda) directly into fuzzy wuzzy was a bear's eyes!
The Champion of Mazludeh then bashes him in the....chest area apparently!
Batman bashes the giant holding him, then Sylva moves in and delivers a powerful combination of punches to its gut! Nox speeds up Ravenna, who is able to shoot the same giant twice. It groans and drops Batman as it crumples to the ground! Ravenna knows these things are fey, but is uncertain exactly what kind they might be.
The other giant bends down and grabs Batman in its own jaws! It lifts him up, then its lower jaw distends as it swallows the sprite whole!
Sylva’s jaw drops.
“Oh… you just… wha… well now…”
She takes out the dagger.
—but she had given up deadly blades, hadn’t she? The urge to carve a hole for Sir Bat loses against Sylva’s resolve never to wield another blade.
After her attacks do nothing, she feels ashamed.
Ravenna pales even further as the monster gobbles up Batman, but keeps her composure enough to keep up the fire.
Sir Batman is seen about to celebrate (seems he has party favors stored somewhere), but (hehe) the bronze-colored sprite realizes there's another Blue Man groupie about to.....
And the sprite crew and Gunslinger watch as Sir Batman preforms a disappearing trick!
Meanwhile, the guts of the blue fuzzy wuzzy begins to expand, as if he ate some bean burritos!
Climbing suddenly out of said blue fuzzy mouth is seen our not so bronze-colored sprite splashing on the floor.
His blue eyes climb up to smiles brightly at him.
I got some Tums in my pocket?
The Sprite then Raises his Shield and shrugs!
Batman hauls himself up and out of the giant's gullet, plopping onto the icy floor and raising his shield as Nox heals him. The giant seems shocked and shaken by the nyktera's intimidating defiance!
Ravenna shoots the giant, narrowly missing out on a critical hit! Sylva fails to land a blow, though.
The giant growls again as it attacks Batman with its teeth and fists. The champion blocks all of the blows!
Shaking his not-so bronze-colored head at the Blue No Clues, Sir Batman enters his Stance, Raises his Shield and shield bosses the blue off him!
This feels a bit awkward after...welll...you know.
Sylva clobbers the big guy Really Hard!
“Take THAT!”
…then she gets so excited, she starts missing again.
“And tha.. nope, and. Nope.”
|
Nox reaches up under his mask giving a sharp whistle and Hildy hustles in close so that the duo can slap the Yeti-like beast with a sickly hand leaving behind a slimy ichor that quickly schlorps it's way up and into the creatures' ears uncomfortably.
"You'll really REGRET fighting us."
Critical Success The target is unaffected.
Success At the end of its next turn, the target takes 1d8 damage per different creature it intentionally damaged on that turn (1d8 if it damaged one creature, 2d8 if it damaged two different creatures, and so on). The maximum is 4d8 if it damaged 4 different creatures.
Failure As success, except the curse damages the target at the end of each of its turns and lasts until the target spends a complete round without intentionally damaging another creature.
Critical Failure As success, except the curse damages the target at the end of each of its turns and lasts until the target spends 24 hours atoning for its perceived sins.
Ravenna finally finds her stride, firing two expertly aimed bullets straight into the monster's face.
Both Batman and Sylva land solid hits on the giant. As it reels, Ravenna fires her gun twice, hitting it in the gut and then right in the heart! The fey creature topples over, blood pouring from its fatal wounds.
Without the creatures' interference, the water wheel now turns unimpeded...
Sylva’s eyes widen and follow to toppling giant. The water clouds with blood, making her not so crazy about swimming… at least not downstream.
She takes out her Med Kit and works on the bronze bat’s wounds…
—but seeing a giant heart explode has the little sprite shaken! She ends up opening a cut, making it worse!
”Oh! Sorry Sir Bat!”
Sir Batman just looks sadly at the rogue. He pats poor Sylva on her head (as he Lay's on Hands himself).
Such a wonderful patch job, Sylva!
The bronze-colored sprite winks (using his right eye).
Sir Batman then kicks both former members of the now defunct Blue man group....
With his blue eyes pleading, the Champion of Mazludeh lifts his damaged shield to Revanna.
Once you have patched yourselves up, you head east and around the corner to explore the room there. Two channels meet at a rectangular pool carved into the ice. The pool looks about four feet deep and is lined with tar-sealed wood. The air smells strongly of algae and fish.
Two withered undead stand by the pool. Once they see you, their faces pull back into rictus grins. "Ah, new menu," one hisses as both lunge forward to attack!
Menu?—NOT AGAIN! “Sprites are too high in sugar, plus we hame a weird lymon aftertaste. Might I suggest the fish?”
Sylva points to the water, then strides and strikes—
—and dashes back to Sir Batman’s personal bubble!
"Hello to you, too," Ravenna says, lifting her jezail again.
Ravenna recognizes the creatures as wights. She shoots one twice and Sylva hits the same one before falling back. The wights hiss angrily as they move in to attack, trying to get past Batman to get to the rest of you.
Sir Batman goes to Shield Block that initial strike, but then his Player remembered that this is Round 1! So, with frustration in his Blue eyes, the bronze-colored bat-shaped sprite takes that shit to the face! Twice!
The Champion of Mazludeh would have also liked to use his sweet Divine Grace Reaction for a Save, but.....
Embracing his Shield with both hands, the angry sprite Steps into one of the Wight Pirate's Square and then attempts an Everstand Strike!
I feel like I should say something snappy....
|
|
Nox raises a hand towards Sir batman and pulls at the unseen threads in the world causing the Batknight to experience a familiar sharpening of the shadows providing him with a light spiky shell with which to chase back the ghostly apparitions.
"You better not mess with us we've slain things so much bigger and weirder than you!"
Sylva remembers the wight she single-handedly smashed to pieces.
“Oh, I remember your kind from the time I traveled like WAY over a hundred miles through space. I gave him the old Triple Lindy, and put him to eternal sleep.” She smirks. “You guys were dead the moment you laid eyes on me.”
She then attacks like last time.
Well… not quite like last time, but she doesn’t make an ass of herself by missing. So there’s that.
And that:
And maybe also THAT:
Sir Batman just realized that Everstand Strike has the Press Trait (which he hates almost as much as PF1e Feat Taxes), so his Shield hangs useless at his side....
The bronze-colored sprite does wink a gratuitous thank you to Nox!
Batman bashes the wounded wight, finishing it off. Sylva kicks the other one twice, then Ravenna fires a critical hit, taking it out!
No sooner has it fallen, however, than a bizarre fishlike creature emerges from the pool! Long, fleshy tentacles dangle from its belly. "What has happened to my servants?" it whines in Sylvan. "Bah! I suppose if I want to taste you, I will have to defeat you myself!"
It shoots forth pressurized jets of water from a sac on its spine, blasting Batman and Sylva!
If they were only 15' away from the Sqidbilly Badass, Sir Batman would desire to use his Liberating Step Reaction for Sylva.
Money shot!
Sir Batman blinks the water from his bronze bat-like face. The Champion of Mazludeh then nods to the Red Fish. Blue Fish, One Fish, Two Fish before Raising his Shield, Striding into its fish space and Shield bossing its fishy face!
The bronze-colored sprite giggles!
Anyone got any hot sauce!
“Holy saved asses, Batman!” exclaims a grateful Sylva. Then, pressing her fist into her palm, she warns her foe in Sylvan, <Swim away, Four Eyes. Or your Fish Story is on its final chapter.>
She liberating steps into flank position!
Nox recognizes the creature as a grodair, a fey creature native to the First World. Their supernatural physiology includes a strange organ with an extradimensional space capable of storing thousands of gallons of water. This grants grodairs the ability to create a suitable environment for themselves anywhere by releasing the water, quickly transforming any surrounding land into a shallow bog. When grodairs wish to leave for a new location, they simply suck up all the water back up. When necessary, grodairs can also travel on land by walking upon the tangle of long, fleshy tentacles that dangle from their bellies.
Nox hastes Ravenna, who fires and reloads twice, hitting with both attacks. Batman moves in, critically hitting with his shield bash, then Sylva scores two sneak attacks! The grodair is badly wounded.
Instead of continuing to fight, the creature gulps and retreats back into the pool. "I'm sorry! Please, spare me! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the grodair burbles pathetically.
Sylva jumps into the water and…
<Yes, I accept,> she says in Sylvan. <We didn’t come for bloodshed. There’s a naiad here who cursed a ship, or trapped it in ice. How might we convince her to remove her hold on the ship… the captain thinks she’s rotten to the core and will put up a fight, but why should she care whether a ship full of ghosts is trapped forever or removed from her waters, never to return?
<Maybe if we know her motive, we can help the captain in a way that the naiad doesn’t mind.> She’s not sure if the fish guy even has this information, but she understands the Shelynite teaching to accept surrender. That kentauride enjoyed killing… I can never become like her. There’s no turning back from that. It doesn’t even bother her that the fish guy thought of her as food, and therefore would not have offered surrender.
"Ah, yes Pholebis," the grodair says. "She is my mistress! She brought me here with her from the First World. She came to this place to build a shrine to her own master, the Eldest known as Ragadahn the Water Lord. Here she holds court over the undead sailors she has drawn under her sway.
"Pholebis is corrupt, but she is a naiad of her word. If you can help her, I'm sure she would be willing to give you what you seek. I know she's been having problems with a pair of pesky fey giants. Maybe you could offer to defeat them in exchange for her help?
"In the meantime, I've gathered some treasure here. You're welcome to it in exchange for my life!"
Sylva smiles. <Okay, I think we can help with the giants.> She also helps herself to shiny things! At least shiny things she can move to the surface of the water so her bigger, stronger friends can get them without getting wet.
When you are ready, you continue to the east. In the center of this broad altar chamber, a staircase built of countless frozen bones ascends to a raised balcony. Twin fountains in the shape of water-spewing serpents create streams of icy water that cascade down the balcony and into bone pools on either side of the stairway. Between the fountains, looming over the room like a coiling shepherd, is a massive wooden sculpture of a writhing snake eating its own tail.
A beautiful but twisted naiad stands before the sculpture, singing paeans to Ragadahn in a lovely voice. She turns towards you as you approach, a slight smile on her lips. "Ah! Welcome, little ones. The water flows freely through the wheel once more. Do I have you to thank for defeating those troublesome giants? The Lantern King sent them to sabotage my shrine, but you have set things right.
"I am Pholebis. Tell me, how may I reward your efforts?"
It just now occurs to Sylva that she and her friends already defeated the giants in question!
“Yes,” she says calmly, as if she knew that the whole time. She points to her neck to show her own gills. In Sylvan she says <I am Sylva Belle. It is my great pleasure to have solved your water problem. There is nothing worse to our kind than foul water. I prefer to think of naiads as kin to my kind.> This she says with reverence. The naiad likely sees herself as the superior.
Speaking in the common tongue, she goes on, “Thank you for your generosity, Pholebis. There is a ship trapped in an ice floe. Perhaps you and Captain Tinhill have a history? Perhaps the ice floe is his punishment, and maybe he deserved it.
“Nonetheless, we would ask you for a mercy. Should you free the ship of ice, we will remove his ship from your waters.” In Sylvan, she assures the naiad, <This arrangement is beneficial to us, and the captain as agreed to serve us if you free him. I only say this so you don’t feel as if you are rewarding the wrong person.>
|
|
Nox bows slightly atop his fair steed. "My friend Sylva speaks true, we would simply like to use the ship in furthering our travels across the waters. Were you able to free it then that would be suitable payment, but perhaps you can also offer us a boon of safe passage while we are within your domain?"
"The ships here were trapped in the ice long before I came to this place," Pholebis says. "I do, however, possess knowledge of a ritual known as phantom ship. If you cast it correctly, it will allow this Captain Tinhill to sail his ship out of the Jundlan Wrecks without incident. I will even give you enough gems to power the ritual once. I'd advise that you make them count."
The naiad strides into an adjoining room, and returns a few minutes later with a vellum scroll and a pouch of pearls and aquamarines. "There you are, darlings. Go, and may the Water Lord spare you from his wrath!"
Sylva curtsies to the naiad. <Thank you, Pholebis. I will never forget you. It’s been an honor.> She takes one last look at the naiad, and is relieved that this was her first encounter with her kind.
She might be blushing a little as she turns to leave. She fails to conceal a shy smile.
|
|
Nox accepts the scroll and looks it over for a bit wondering if he could learn it for future use.
"Thank you Pholebis, if there is anything else we could do before we depart." He then rolls up the paper that's about the size of him and stuffs it in a hard leather scroll case attached to Hildy's saddlebags.
Sir Batman seems especially focused on Pholebis. The normally talkative bronze-colored sprite just stares.....
"You've done more than enough, little one. Thank you again. Now go, and leave me to my prayers," Pholebis says. Seeing Batman staring at her, she gives the champion a wink and blows him a parting kiss.
Once you return to the Mermaid's Tears, the ghostly Captain Tinhill is ecstatic. "Har har! Ye did it, mateys! Now, let's get me ship out of this bloody ice!"
On the way back, Sylva smiles at Sir Bat. “She’s so… elegant! I’m so glad we didn’t get into a fight with her. That was my first time seeing a naiad. So graceful, so…” The undine Sprite’s cheeks are pink as salmon!
• • • • •
Aboard the ship, Sylva responds to the captain by gushing over the aqua-nymph even more. “Yeah, we just talked things out, maybe accidentally pleased her by killing giants that ate Batman, but yeah… she’s not so corrupt. ‘Beautiful and bad’ is just an alliteration, y’know?”
Sylva’s cheeks are red as a koi tail. She finally shuts up.
Sir Batman stumbles back to the ship. His bronze-colored bat-shaped head turned rearward....
|
|
After plenty of time to study and learn the ritual Nox returns to the main deck and claps his hands to draw attention to himself.
"Captain if you could gather yourself and your first mate. Batman, Sylva, Ravenna please stand here also. I'll need to draw upon the natural magic in all of you to aid in this spell."
Once everyone isnassembled he begins drawing the complex rune circle to encompass the entire group. Large runes hang around the outside of the circle slowly shrinking as they move inward towards the focal point. Within the inner circle he hands one of the pearls gifted by Pholebis one to the captain, one to the second mate, and he keeps the third for himself.
Then begins the chanting slow and seemingly endless, almost nausiating after ten, twenty, thirty minutes. The entire time a sinking gutteral feeling of being dragged down seeps into everyone's bones, or ectoplasmic-frame. The spiralling feeling heightens as the sky above them begins to swirl with spectral blue and black tendrils remenescent of some depictions of the Boneyard. Nox beckons forward whatever magic comes from that place and ghostly tendrils stretch the inpossobly long distance down to wrap around the vessel and gently touch those aboard. The touch of these tendrils send shocks of cold and a primal fear of the innevitable through everyone. Everyone feels compulsed to blink to try and drive away the specter at death's door and then they do. The pearls pulse sickly and then crumble into dust.
When everyone's eyes open they see the world overcast in shimmering silvery blue and their being as well as that of their companions and the ship are mildly see-through with the same ghostly shimmer.
Nox looks around after the ritual is complete. "Do not leave the vessel, nor should you take flight from it's deck. But Captain, she is ready to leave on your command just take the helm and give the order."
The wide-eyed little sprite keeps a white-knuckle grip on whatever she can get her hands on from where she stands. She is not leaving the vessel!
“Yeah. I am not leaving the vessel.”
Serious bronze-colored sprite face is seen not tickling behind Sylva's ear during the sweet light show that grandpa Nox provides for the grandkids entertainment....
"Yar har! Ye did it!" Captain Tinhill shouts. "Let us set sail!"
The ghostly ship lurches into motion, surging forward despite the lack of wind. Unfettered by the ice floes and half-sunken ships all around, Captain Tinhill guides the Mermaid’s Tears toward open waters. Once there, the ship re-substantiates with a strange lurching sensation.
"Westward, ho! To Mendev!" the ghostly captain calls as he steers the ship. "Assuming the weather holds out, we should get there in about four days' time. Make yerselves at home!"
Sakuachi stands at the prow of the ship, smiling as she looks out across the expanse of the Lake of Mists and Veils.
The Champion of Mazludeh is seen standing at the prow of the ship as it sets sail across the Sea. He then let's go of the rail to flutters backwards through the air, flapping his sprite wings as he goes!
Wiiiiiiiii!
Sir Batman catches himself in a neat pile of sails (he may have previously gotten some undead sailors to create a net for him).
Smiling, the bronze-colored bat-shaped sprite repeats the ride for the entire trip.....