The first two days of the voyage are uneventful, with the exception of a minor squall on the second evening. On the afternoon of your third day of sailing, however, Ravenna spots a vessel on the horizon. Time reveals that the ship—a two-masted caravel painted black and bearing a crimson flag—is heading straight toward you!
The Mermaid’s Tears is fast, but the incoming ship is even faster—supernaturally fast, it seems. As it closes in on your vessel, howls of animalistic fury echo from the decks of the mysterious caravel, making it crew’s intentions patently clear!
"Yar! I'm givin' her all she's got, but it's no use! Those reavers will be upon us soon!" Captain Tinhill exclaims.
"Well, they won't take us without a fight! Right?" Sakuachi declares, looking to you for support. Her escorts grimly ready their weapons in preparation of a boarding action...
Sylva agrees. “They picked the wrong ship to mess with. Those pirates’ll be shivering their timbers when they see what fight we put up. Their yo-ho’s will turn to uh-oh’s. They’ll have to call time out so they can paint their sails Surrender White.
“Oh, but Nox, do you have some kind of magic spell that can slow them down, set their entire ship on fire, or summon hundreds of bees? That would be a real time-saver.”
Sylva makes sure she is well hidden so the bad guys won’t see her coming until they get a fairy fist in their pupil!
Gallantly standing alof, Sir Batman yells down insults, challenges and his phone number to whichever pirate(s) want some!
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Nox hoo'd and hummed about what to do. The usual trick of quickening Ravenna was a good one so he stayed next to her until the dastardly pirates came into range of her trusty rifle before boosting her with a zephyr wind. Which manifested as little tendrils of shadowy goop easing the latches of her bullet case when she reached for them and almost placing the shot in her hand as she needed it.
Then he moved to take cover against the railing. Hildy meanwhile was hiding below deck.
You can see the nameplate of the ship as it draws closer: the Red Duchess. As it comes within a few dozen yards of the Mermaid’s Tears, a strong breeze wafts a sweet odor—like lilacs and vanilla—from the invaders’ ship.
The sweet-smelling breeze sends your mind reeling and provokes a vision so vivid it seems real. This hallucination is no random, meaningless delusion, though—it’s a memory. And not just any memory, either, but one which you recalled only hazily until now, rendered in vivid detail before your very eyes: the sun low in the sky, the chill of the fall air, the glowing gateway before you. It’s the evening of the Missing Moment, the night everything changed.
The only thing out of place is that, in this memory, you’re not alone. Several other figures—your fellow party members—stand beside you as you all gaze at the gate. Standing at a distance is the seer Sakuachi, who silently watches your group. In unspoken agreement, your party strides forward and walks through the gate together.
The vision dissipates as quickly as it formed. In the meantime, the crew of the Red Duchess hasn’t been idle. When you snap to, you discover that the Mermaid’s Tears has already been boarded!
Ravenna manages to keep enough awareness to give her a slight edge as the battle begins...
Luckily, you all are able to act before the enemies!
Sylva comes out of hiding to sneak-attack!
“Surprise, Bad Guys! Better surrender ’fore somebody dies!”
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Nox curls defensively at the sudden arrival of the pirates and wraps his tattered wings around himself, hoping that perhaps they'd just ignore the dark splotch on the ship. But only moments after does he explode outwardly into a mass of roiling black oozy mold. Like a deadly alien creature from another universe Oozx lashes out in stringy weblike pseudopods at the nearest would-be pirate.
He slowly boils over towards the nearest hostile entity, spreading like a creeping mass of mobile spider webs that stretch out for the path of least resistance before pulling the main body along for the ride.
Sir Batman bats his blue bat eyes blinking back the bothersome, but informative dream, vision, thingy. Seeing that the pirates boarded the ship, the Champion of Mazludeh giggles, as he ◆Enters his Stance, ◆Raises his Shield, ◆jumps down, down, down from the crow's nest to land before a pirate!
You shall not pass!
Ravenna's first shot is a critical hit that downs a pirate! She reloads and shoots again, but this time her bullet goes wide. She reloads once more.
Transforming into an ooze, Nox clobbers a pirate with a critical hit of his own! Sylva finishes off that pirate with a combo attack, then Batman leaps down from the crow's nest in the remaining pirates' midst!
The enemy bosun cries out as she attacks Batman with her naval pike! The sprite deflects the attack with his shield, foiling her follow-up attack. She shouts out commands to the other pirates, who move to flank Batman and slash him with their cutlasses.
While the enemies flank Sir Bat, Sylva whips out her instrument and activates its magic.
Hi diddly dee!
A pirate’s life from me!
You’re spared to sail the open sea
If quick to take a knee!
Her song is to the bosun. It’s the sweetest way a fairy can say Surrender or Die. She hopes that her opponent is unconscious and Ravenna’s opponent is a corpse with a big hole will help get the message across. Else, she’ll drop the banjo and rush the fray!
Sir Batman--Reacts--quickly by Blocking almost all of the initial strike, bit his smile is blasted by the follow up!
The Champion of Mazludeh then Raises his Shield, Steps into a Pirate's space and Shield Boss him in the...well, let's just say in a most uncomfortable spot!
"Bloody pirates!" Ravenna shouts, reloading and firing twice more. In her frustration, though, the shots go wide, doing more damage to the river than anything else.
Ravenna scores a hit one one of the remaining pirates, then helps Nox with a fake out. The sorcerer-turned ooze finishes off that foe with his pseudopods, then Batman critically hits the remaining pirate! The bosun shakes off Sylva's attempt to charm her.
The bosun attacks Batman with her fists, commanding her remaining pirate minion to strike with greater fervor! Batman takes a beating!
Sylva strikes!
Sylva again warns the bosun. “You CAN’T win! Kneel, before you end up dead like half your men!”
Sir Batman--Reacts--by Shield Blocking the initial strike!
The other 3 strike go rattle, rol, run like a beating of a drum!
The Champion of Mazludeh then Raises his Shield, prior to Shield Bossing some Pirate kneecaps!
Ho how ho and a bottle of rum, my arse!
Unfortunately, the crazed bosun doesn't respond to Sylva's attempt to talk her down. Between her, Batman, and Nox, the last pirate and the bosun herself go down!
Sakuachi and her companions are still in a trance as Captain Tinhill tries to disentangle the ropes connecting the Red Duchess to the Mermaid's Tears. "It's no good—these maggots seem like they want to chase us to the ends of the world, and they’ve got a fast enough ship to do it! The only way to shake the marauders is to defeat their captain. A ship with no captain’s as good as scuppered! Go, go!"
As you board the enemy ship, the door to the captain's quarters is flung open and the captain strides out, unsheathing her scimitar. The tall, imposing Chelaxian woman has rage burning in her wild eyes. "Traitorous scum!" she shouts. "You are enemies of the one true house of Cheliax. You must die!"
Two other sailors flank the captain as she prepares to attack!
Sylva glares at the captain. “You don’t know us. And yet you sent your crew to their doom when we wanted no trouble and offered mercy.
“This regret, you will take to your grave.”
Sylva rushes the captain, expecting Sir Bat will follow.
”DROP THE CAPTAIN FIRST—THEN WE SINK THIS DAMNED VESSEL!!!” Sylva hollers!
"I don't give one single damn about Cheliax," Ravenna answers, sighting the captain down. She fires once, then reloads on the move as she looks for cover.
What's a Cheliax?
The Champion of Mazludeh Enters his Stance, Strides into the Captain's square and Shield Bosses her!
Sylva attacks the captain in a heroic effort, scoring two hits! Ravenna shoots the woman then reloads as she moves to take cover. Her fake out isn't enough to help Batman score a hit, however.
"Heretics!" the captain shouts as she slashes at Sylva, bloodying her with her scimitar!
"No quarter!" she commands, and the other pirates move to attack the rogue as well!
Sylva refuses to back down, knowing that to back off only means she will die last if her friends are somehow overpowered.
Unfortunately, she is so badly hacked, slashed and overwhelmed, warp-stepping the hell outta there would have been the wiser move! That occurs to Sylva right after two attacks are parried and dodged easily, and her third strike barely scratches the captain’s armor.
Sir Batman--Reacts--by granting Sylva his Liberating Step!
The boisterous bullying business minded bronze-colored sprite Raises his Shield.
The Champion of Mazludeh then yells at the Captain's knees!
He then Shield Bosses her in said knee cap!
"Sylva!" Ravenna shouts, before firing two shots in quick succession.
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After the onslaught against the captain and the various return fire from the crew Oozy Nox seems to stiffen and crumble to dust, leaving Normal Nox to vust through the shriveled remains of the Ooze body.
Sylva feels her wounds begins to close as the darkness that accompanies near-death intensifies around her vision for a few moments.
Ravenna shoots the captain twice, then Batman scores a critical hit, finishing her off with his shield! The remaining pirates snarl and shift their focus to the champion. One gets a lucky strike!
Sylva says, “You shoulda surrendered.”
Evanscent wings appear on Sylva’s back. They buzz wildly as she ▶️leaps into a ⏩flying kick!
Sir Batman--Reacts--by Shield Blocking the critical strike!
The teary blue eyed Champion of Mazludeh Raises his (freshly dented) Shield.
The bronze-colored bat-shaped sprite growls as he Shield Bosses the pegleg off the pirate!
You tarnished my shield, man!
He Steps into said pirates square.
In a steady rhythm, Ravenna loads, fires, and reloads her weapon one more time.
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Nox nods now that Sylva isn't in danger of immediately dying a horrible painful death, although she still looks terrible. He looks around the battlefield of the boat for a moment and then wills the fallen captain's cutlass to fly through the air towards one of the remaining pirates.
"Give up! Your boarders have fallen, your captain is fallen, and soon you shall too."
The two pirates prove to not be very tough. Sylva takes one down with a furious combo, then Batman and Nox team up to knock out the last foe!
The captain of the Red Duchess gurgles as she coughs up blood, her eyes struggling to focus. "B-bubble," she manages to gasp. "Bubble. Bubble. Bubb..." With a sigh, her eyes glaze over, and she lies still.
You are able to explore the Red Duchess in the aftermath of the fight. The caravel’s remaining crew don’t interfere, and in fact don’t seem to be conscious of the situation at all—they simply stand in place on the ship’s deck, mouths agape and eyes unblinking. It is clear that these sailors are beyond hope—their consciousnesses have been totally destroyed. The best that can be done for them is to make them comfortable before their bodies shut down.
Sylva is horrified by the state of the crew. “They… I don’t understand. Bubble what?”
She doesn’t know what to do! Her first instinct is to revive the captain. “Bubble what? Why didn’t you… ohhh..”
Failing that, she tends to Sir Bat’s wounds and her own.
Sir Batman stands proudly over the fallen, bloodied, stupid pirates. The sprite holds his pose for just the correct amount of time, before Laying on Hands these injured.
Thanks, Sylva! You patching up skills are only surpassed by your stabbing!
The sad eyed bat does hold out his heavily damaged shield to Ravenna.
As you return to the Mermaid's Tears, Sakuachi and her companions snap out of their fugues. "Huh? What happened? I saw a vision..." the young seer says. She confirms that she shared the hallucination, standing with you and watching as you walked through the aiudara. She shakes her head wearily. "I have no idea what it means."
"Arr, enough lollygagging! Let's set sail!" Captain Tinhill cries. The ghostly halfling floats back over to the ship's wheel, and soon you are underway once more.
Ravenna rolls her eyes with a smile and takes the tiny shield before getting to work on repairing it.
Sylva looks back at The Red Dutchess.
She asks Sakuachi, “What happened to those pirates? They wouldn’t stop… and even when they did stop, and we didn’t hurt them, they…”
Her aquatic eyes well at the thought of the crew’s strange fate. Even though they attacked her party’s ship, Sylva truly pities her enemies. Especially those who seemed to be just waiting to die…!
"I am not certain. I just hope that we do not suffer a similar fate," Sakuachi says.
***
Free of the Red Duchess, the Mermaid’s Tears continues its course toward Egede. Unfortunately, this course takes you straight through yet another danger: a snowstorm of epic proportions. It is too large to steer around, and soon the ship rocks to and fro in the strong winds, the driving snow making it difficult to see very far in front of you!
Captain Tinhill does his best to keep the ship steady as you hunker down to try to ride out the storm. However, after a few minutes, the air becomes crisp and sweet-smelling. As you inhale a lungful, your mind is once more whisked away from the present. This time, though, there’s no glowing gate in sight. Instead, your party is somewhere very cold and very desolate. You trudge together through an arctic waste in the middle of a snowstorm, compelled by some unseen force to move toward an unknown destination. In your hands, you pull one end of a rope secured to a sled that trails behind your party. On the sled is the body of some large creature, hidden to you beneath a canvas tarp.
Once again, Sakuachi stands at a distance, too far from you to do anything but watch. Ahead, a black spire juts from the horizon. Just as quickly, though, the spire resolves itself to be a ship mast. The crunching snow beneath your feet yaws and rolls, and you are once more on the Mermaid’s Tears, her sail flapping wildly in a strong and bitter wind.
Unfortunately, you have seemingly brought back the worst effects of your shared hallucination with you. The blizzard has worsened significantly—the gunwales are coated in ice, drifts of snow are piled by the doors leading below decks, and the lake churns with big, choppy waves. The most pressing matter, however, is a creature of elemental ice—a manifestation of the freak tempest itself! Its humanoid form looks vaguely familiar. Indeed, if you peer closely enough at the monster, you see features of your own visage roughly hewn across the elemental’s “face!”
Sir Batman glances up, up, up, way up to look at the Icicle Popsicle Surprise appear only a mere 15' away!
The laughing, giggling, joyful, boisterous bronze-colored bat-shaped sprite Enters his Stance, Raises his Shield and Strides into the big desserts square!
Ravenna blanches at the sight of the horrifying ice monster, but opens fire all the same with Nox's help.
Ravenna's burning bullets blow chunks of ice out of the elemental's body. Crackling angrily, the creature slashes at Batman with its ice claws, but he fends its attacks of with his shield!
Sylva sees the ice being and runs right at it!
“Daaah! Go away or die or something!!”
Sir Batman Raises his Shield (smiling)!
The Champion of Mazludeh then flutters his wings to better look the Blue Popsicle in his eye candy!
Anyone got any chocolate fudge for this sundae!
The bronze-colored sprite then Shield Bosses the Crying man!
Sylva delivers several critical strikes to the elemental! Then Batman delivers a powerful shield bash, and the creature explodes into shards of ice crystals and snow!
As soon as the elemental is defeated, the snow on deck melts away and the worst waves cease battering the ship. Sakuachi rushes up to you. "Are you alright? There was another vision... A frozen tundra and a black spire in the distance. Where are these coming from? What do they mean?"
Sir Batman is seen trying to see if any of the exploded ice shards got embedded in Sakuachi's head. All the while, he is eating fresh chunkedblueberry ice cream....
Ravenna shakes her head, trying to clear the vision's after effects. "I wish I knew."
"Let's keep going. Perhaps the answers will reveal themselves in time," Sakuachi says.
***
Hours pass. Night desscends. It’s the final night of the party’s voyage across the Lake, and dark storm clouds roll in to commemorate the occasion.
The ghostly Captain Tinhill floats over to you. "There's at least one more full day of sailing ahead of us, but we should reach Egede tomorrow evening. Ye've had quite the day, haven't ye? Why don't ye try to get some rest? I'll keep her steady as she goes."
You settle down for the night. However, anybody who happens to be awake at around three o'clock in the morning spots a thin bubble emerge just a few hundred feet in front of the Mermaid's Tears. It reaches the ship before Captain Tinhill can do anything about it, popping on the ship's mast!
The familiar sweet air washes over the ship, and whether awake or asleep, you find yourselves being drawn into yet another vision. You stand on hard, frozen ground in the center of a circle of towering black monoliths. The spires, each hundreds of feet tall, stand against a moonless night sky, illuminated here and there by curtains of auroral light.
The sled you dragged with you in the previous vision is nowhere in sight, though Sakuachi is present once more, watching from a distance. Below you, the ground is a sheet of solid, blackest ice. Through the nigh-impenetrable ice, you see the form of a massive beast limned in iridescent blue light. You feel compelled to get closer to the titanic being, and kneel to do so. The ice cracks slightly.
A piercing scream breaks the hallucination and dissipates the vision. Back on the Mermaid’s Tears, Sakuachi stands on deck, mouth agape, clearly caught in her own hallucinatory trance. She stares with wild eyes at a mass of dark clouds rushing toward the ship at an alarming speed. As the clouds near, they resolve into the shape of some massive, whale-like monster—the same dark shape just glimpsed lurking beneath the ice! Its icy blue eyes shine through the storm like stars.
“The stars!” Sakuachi cries deliriously. “They’ve come to punish us!” Indeed, the cloud-monster’s eyes become javelins of light which streak down toward the Mermaid’s Tears at incredible speed and land on deck with two audible thuds.
The stars solidify into snakelike entities, hissing with anger. At the same time, the cloud monster unleashes a tremendous sigh of freezing wind, coating the deck of the Mermaid's Tears with ice!
"Then they can go to hell!" Ravenna shouts, glaring back at the monster with her own mismatched eyes. The impact of the two snake monsters catches her attention just long enough for her to snap a shot off at one of them.