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Sometime in the weeks after you cleared out the strange Azlanti tower, the party gathers to chase after the story the water elemental told you: a tale of an ancient Azlanti ship full to the brim with treasure of that nearly forgotten empire. Will it be as exciting as you expect it to be, leaving your pockets full of Azlanti gold? Or will it be a tall tale, a lie or misinformation from the water elemental? Only one way to find out, you suppose.
The party chooses a fair weather day to make the several hour trip to the eastern shore of the island, heading towards the spot the elemental gave you. You've taken one of the ship's smaller rowboats with you (with Ramona's permission of course) and plan to use it to ensure you can make it to the water above the ruined ship below. Ramona has also provided you with
The sun is high above you in the sky when you finally arrive at the spot, and the sea is thankfully smooth sailing. A slight breeze drifts over the water, creating calm but steady waves. Rowing the small boat to the spot, you can just barely see the remnants of something deep beneath the waves. Whether or not it's the sunken ship remains to be seen, and will require a little bit more effort to reach than just swimming down, as it looks to be more than just a dip into the pool in terms of water depth.
Braxton stands on the prow of the rowboat, easily maintaining his balance on the gently rolling sea, and gives and exaggerated stretch, yawning loudly. "Anyone else feel like they've slept for three months?" He claps his hands and looks around, seeing nothing but sea. "Alright, roll call. Who can breath underwater?" Braxton has artificial gills, but he does not doubt at all that that Ankha will have cooked up something better. "I just realized." Braxton says, adjusting his gear. "We could have asked the sea gobbos to check on this for us."
I can hold my breath for upwards of five minutes," Ku'Hania says, stretching and limbering up her body for the upcoming swim. "With Ankha's air crystals, I can take a breath when I need to, and keep that going for a bit before I'll need to come up."
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"Who can breath underwater?"
“You know people who can breathe underwater?!” Ankha looks at Braxton in amazement, then suddenly shakes her head in sudden realization. “Ooh, I guess we all do now that we know the grindylow. But that gives me a great idea! If I experiment on some of the grindylow maybe I can figure out how to create a potion that would let us breathe underwater too! Thanks Braxton!” The alchemist beams gratefully at the swashbuckler for reminding her of the possibilities of grindylow vivisection.
She nods in agreement with Ku’Hania. “The air crystals probably won’t last more than a minute, but they’re good in case of an emergency—if you’re running out of breath down there, just pop them in your mouth and give them a chew. Don’t worry, I won’t need them myself—I figured out a way to hold my breath for hours. It’s a really good way to reduce harmful effects of oxygen.”
For her part, Ankha prepares by releasing her ioun torch for light in the depths, and then drinking a number of potions and elixirs. Finally she takes a deep, deep breath, then jumps into the water with a cheery salute.
Ku'Hania nods, securing her belt and weapons before casting a few spells and drinking a potion, preparing her body for the possibility of having to fight underwater, and help her to move more quickly, before taking her own deep breathe and slipping beneath the water.
With Ankha and Ku'Hania now underwater, Becky turns and faces Braxton, looking very apprehensive. "We're not going to drown, are we?" she asks. "Cuz it feels like a real possibility. I just know I'm gonna want to spout all sorts of facts about whatever we find down there...and once I open my mouth, I'm a goner."
With Ankha and Ku'Hania now underwater, Becky turns and faces Braxton, looking very apprehensive. "We're not going to drown, are we?" she asks. "Cuz it feels like a real possibility. I just know I'm gonna want to spout all sorts of facts about whatever we find down there...and once I open my mouth, I'm a goner."
Braxton doffs his hat and and dons his goggles, which look a bit silly but are nevertheless effective. He opts to leave his buckler on the boat as it would only get in the way, though he keeps his mithral shirt on as it does nothing to slow him down. Amazing stuff. "Here, you can use this." Braxton nudges the artificial gills with a bare foot as he ties his two silk ropes together with a sheet knot. "They look a little intimidating, but they're easy to use. You only need to use one hand to work the pump, and the mask should let you breath and talk normally. I wager no one except Ku'Hania will be able to hear you, though. Maybe not even her. I don't know how aquatic elf ears work." Braxton throws the coil of silk rope over his shoulder, using a clove hitch to fasten one end of it to a cleat on the rowboat. "Why don't you put it on and slip into the water. You can practice using it here on the surface while I swim down to tie this off to the sunken ship, then I'll come back for you."
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The trip down through the water is surprisingly serene, once you get your breathing situation together that is. A handful of small fish flutter by here and there, but there doesn't look to be anything larger predator wise like the shark you fought earlier.
Two halves of a sunken ship (presumably the one you're here for) lay on the ocean floor, sixty feet below the surface, split in half as if by some titanic ancient force. The sun shines through the calm clear water, illuminating the entire area in much more light than you'd expect this deep. You can see that the southern half seems to be mostly upper decks and not likely to contain the treasure you seek, although the northern half looks to have the captain's quarters and a handful of other interesting rooms that are worth a look.
Taking advantage of her now webbed fingers and webbed feet, Ankha quickly descends down to the ship. Her ioun torch swishes through the water as it slowly circles around her head, though it doesn’t seem necessary with so much sunlight. She swims towards the more promising-looking northern half of the wreck, but halts when she’s about twenty feet from the bottom. Her head swivels sharply to peer at the southern half of the wreck.
A moment later she waves excitedly to get the others’ attention, then points at the southern half of the ship. She then points at Ku’Hania’s tiny octopus familiar, then back at the southern half of the ship, then spreads her arms apart as if to indicate something large.
Ku'Hania glides through the water with natural ease, effortlessly diving down with Haplo swimming beside her. The calm that enveloped her whenever she was underwater, fills her with a sense of awareness, a feeling of communion with what she considered her preferred environment, despite having to hold her breath.
Noticing the lurking octopus almost as soon as Ankha does she nods, taking her spear off of her back as they wait for the others before engaging.
Clearly this was a hunter waiting for its prey to blunder closer.
Braxton indicates to the others that they should parlayon the surface. Whence they arrive, he says "Octopus are usually fine fellows. Very intelligent. I'd hate to see one killed for no reason, and this one's big enough to keep monsters with more evil intent away. We should examine the wreckage that the octopus does not occupy, then swim around the far side of the octopuses hold and beat on the hull of the ship. I wager it will flee to the other section if we disturb but do not block or directly confront it." Either way, they are wise to refresh their air reserves now.
Inspired by Ku’Hania, Ankha readies her fauchard as a means of communicating that what they’ve spotted is a potential threat. But if it doesn’t bother them, she has no intention of bothering it. She continues swimming slowly towards the northern wreck while keeping an alert eye on the octopus, wondering why it seems different.
With a light spell emanating from the front of her armor, Becky swims down to the ship to join the others.
Braxton hangs back to make sure Becky gets along alright. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.
sick map yo
The reason the 'octopoid' is different is because it isn't actually an octopus, not really. It's a magical beast called a devilfish, an altogether different creature. Rumored to have a fiendish ancestry, most sages believe that the original devilfish were once outsiders from the Abyss, and that over the course of thousands of years they became true natives of the Material Plane’s oceans. Regardless of how they got here or their true nature, devilfish are vicious, unabashedly evil predators of the ocean.
Knowing what you know, and seeing how the devilfish starts to slither out from its 'hiding' spot in the wreckage, you don't think it will leave you alone.
Init:
18- Becky
17- Ku'Hania
7- Devilfish
6- Braxton
6- Ankha
Becky starts gurgling info about devilfish while trying to swim deeper to join her friends.
Seeing the octopus creature beginning to move toward them, Ku'Hania waits for the beast to approach, preparing for a fight while Haplo moves to hide behind her.
The devilfish launches itself forward out of its hiding spot in a predatory dash towards Becky, the closest prey. The fiendish creature's tentacles lash out in a flurry towards the young explorer, attempting to get a grip on her.
Init:
Round 1:
18- Becky
17- Ku'Hania
7- Devilfish
6- Braxton
6- Ankha
Round 2:
18- Becky
17- Ku'Hania
7- Devilfish
6- Braxton
6- Ankha
Ankha is quick to react when the devilfish attacks Becky. With a burst of speed, her webbed feet churn through the water directly at the fiendish predator. Thanks to the strange magic in her new fauchard, she is able to wield it as freely underwater as above, slashing at the tentacles with one fluid swing.
A shame he hasn't the time to cast a spell to aid him in combat. Damsels in distress do tend to pick the most inconvenient times to be distressed. The veteran sailor keeps his cool and dives towards the squid, his goggled eyes keen for its lashing tentacles, looking for any opening.
Seeing the creature's sudden attack on Becky, Ku'Hania rapidly swims right at the monster trying to stab it with her spear.
Becky summons all her strength and squirmitude to escape the monster's grasp. When she pauses but an instant to realize that "squirmitude" isn't a real word, she somehow manages to get herself nearly mummified by crushing tentacles instead of getting free.
Ankha's charge strikes true, hitting it hard enough to force the devilfish to let go of Becky and turns its attention to the alchemist.
In its pain fueled anger, the things' tentacles lash out and connect on its tormentor, wrapping tightly around her.
Init:
Round 2:
18- Becky
17- Ku'Hania
7- Devilfish
6- Braxton
6- Ankha
Round 3:
18- Becky
17- Ku'Hania
7- Devilfish
6- Braxton
6- Ankha
While Becky's grateful to no longer being crushed by the monster, seeing Ankha in its grasp is no relief. The young bard ceases her Naturalist ability and stabs at the devilfish, lightly enchanting her rapier as she does so.
for
Somewhat relieved that the squid has released the young girl, Braxton swims beneath it.
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Ankha winces as the pseudo-octopus threatens to crush her in its grasp, but she half-closes her eyes and forces herself to calm, channeling her body’s alchemically enhanced healing powers. Together with the defensive spell that blunted part of the damage, her wounds miraculously heal in mere seconds.
Flicking her eyes open, she glances around her, looking at Becky in particular. The halfling-raised warrior’s protective instincts kick in—she will gladly accept the price of tentacular suffering if it means sparing her friends. That means keeping its attention focused on me. Unable to wield her fauchard properly while ensnared by the devilfish, she simply lets it go and, in such close quarters, fights tooth and claw. Literally. Having tweaked her mutagen to help her grow longer, sharper nails and fangs, the mutated alchemist bites down hard on one rubbery tentacle and slashes rapidly at another while Braxton distracts it from behind.
Resisting the urge to cheer as Ankha savagely tears into the devil-octopus, Ku'Hania swims in to add to the assault. As her companion quickly darts in unseen to bite one of the monster's tentacles, water begins to swirl in a roiling column around the half-elf's hand, increasing in density as she reaches out to strike it with surprising concussive force.
The devilfish has taken a huge beating from the party so far, and a strange deep black blood is leaking from the multiple wounds in its large tentacles. It does...something, a little jerk of movement, and suddenly an entire night-black cloud sprays out of the many wounds in a sphere around it.
The devilfish crushes its tentacles around Ankha, maintaining the grip it has on the alchemist.
The tentacles wrap tighter around Ankha, despite the coating of slippery black blood. Instead of using the grip to squeeze harder, however, the devilfish lashes out with the beaked mouth at the center of its mass of tentacles.
Init:
Round 3:
18- Becky
17- Ku'Hania
7- Devilfish
6- Braxton
6- Ankha
Round 4:
18- Becky
17- Ku'Hania
7- Devilfish
6- Braxton
6- Ankha
Braxton stabs his rapier into the inky blackness, but feels no resistance. Did he connect? His history of cephalopod stabbing is dearth of events.
As the cloud of inky blackness envelops them, Ku'Hania focuses on gesturing and uttering an incantation as she directs a sudden rush of water, meant to wash over the creature, pushing it back and clearing some of the miasma.
Ankha winces when the sharp beak pierces her flesh. For a moment she thinks the shallow wound could be worse, as if there might be some venom in the bite, but the worry quickly passes when there don’t seem to be any other ill effects. More concerning is the sudden cloud of midnight that envelops them all, but then an unexpected current washes enough of the thick black blood away for her to clearly see the devilfish, or at least the part of it that’s crushing her. If she were the religious sort, she would thank Gozreh for this divine intervention. But she’s not, so instead she simply tries to bite and slash her way through the tentacles around her.
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Becky tries to swim up to the devilfish to stab at it again.
for
for
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Becky's rapier strike hits the dastardly devilfish through whatever passes for its head and it suddenly stiffens up before slowly drifting down away from the group. It's obviously dead, which just leaves the sunken ship far below you.
The sun is still shimmering down through the sixty feet or so of water above you, though the last rays of light are growing weaker and weaker. The shipwreck beckons from below, now free of its cephalopod defender and potentially ready to relinquish its treasure. Whether or not it goes easily is another story altogether.
Braxton swims over to Becky to ensure she is alright after their encounter with their tentacally foe. She seems to be, and he winks at her, acknowledging her prowess with her blade. The strange beast surely was not counting on them bringing their own strange beast, Ankha. It should have let him scare it away, whatever it was. He likes cephalopods, even weird black ones with odd numbered limbs. Despite the short melee, the sailor still has plenty of breath left in him and, once everyone has regathered themselves, he searches out the captain's cabin as he had originally planned.
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Ankha gives Becky a big grin and two enthusiastic thumbs up--with long protruding claws and webbing between her fingers--for the kill. With the devilfish dead and everyone seeming no worse for the encounter, the bestial alchemist uses her fins to quickly swim down to the bottom to retrieve her fauchard. Once she has her weapon she joins Braxton in searching the shipwreck, her ioun torch slowly circling around her head.
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With a nod of approval, Ku'Hania also dives down toward the wreckage, with Haplo leading the way.
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Becky seems utterly shocked that it's her measly stab attack that ends the devilfish's life. When all her new friends wordlessly give her kudos, the teen bard manages a nervous, weak smile and follows after them toward the shipwreck, taking a moment or two to tap herself with Ramona's gifted healing wand. She's soon shaking the thing in aggravation.
Gaaaa!! Stupid thing doesn't work underwater!
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The gang makes their way towards the sea floor and finds that while it is wrecked and in two pieces, the ship itself is in surprisingly good condition. A short search of the wreckage reveals a hole towards the rudder large enough for everyone to make it through. Ku'Hania's sharp eyes notice there's a distinct separation between the water and the interior of the ship, as if there was some barrier along the wall of the ship. A cursory inspection reveals it to be some sort of magical barrier holding back the water, most likely a protection put in place by the Azlanti that once crewed this ship.
The barrier is clear and you can look through the hole to see the inside, it opens up into what looks like the lower cargo decks. The condition of what you see inside is actually surprisingly clean for what you'd expect of a shipwreck: crates are intact, rope nets full of barrels hang from the ceiling, planks in the floor and wall are in great shape, the works.
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Becky fights off a strong urge to just swim in and loot. Instead, she takes a moment to cast detect magic to examine the hole for auras and to probe for any magic items in the hold's interior.
Braxton searches his sailor brain for memories of this anti-water spell, also casting a spell of magic detection. He is glad, at least, that Becky did not merely swim in, though this would be an odd place for a non-cephalapod to lay a trap. Still, the water elemental was out there somewhere...
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Ku'Hania comes to a halt with the others, studying the ship intently before attempting to go through the barrier into what seems like dry air.
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Ankha marvels at the air-water barrier, examining it like the others before following Ku’Hania through the hole (assuming no one detects any threats).
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The effect holding back the water is magical, radiating an aura of strong abjuration and conjuration magic. Seems to function similar to spells that conjure bubbles of air to use for breath.
Making your way through the hole and the air barrier is easy enough, ending up inside the ship and revealing the rest of the lower cargo deck. Stacks and stacks of crates of presumably cargo lay scattered around the deck, and at the far end sits what looks to be a simple brig with two straw beds on the ground.
Standing next to a pole with a rope ladder leading up to the next level is a man dressed in stereotypical sailor garb, haggard from what looks like months at sea. The man turns to you and doesn't seem to be too surprised to see you, a crooked-toothed smile spreading across his face before he breaks out in excited frantic words.
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As her clothes drip water onto the deck, Ankha’s mouth drops wide open in surprise. Finding the ship’s interior in such pristine condition is already an unbelievable mystery, but that there would be a sailor alive here, at the bottom of the sea? It boggles the mind.
“What?!” she exclaims, her mind racing to catch up to the reality of the situation. Confused, she turns to Braxton. “Do … do you know him?” Despite not understanding a word of what the man says, she can sense that his tone is friendly and warm, like that of an old friend. “Do … do I need to wear your hat again?”
"Would that I brought my hat, dear Ankha. Would that I brough my hat." Braxton is taken aback by the... guy, but the man cannot really be there. Many a tale he has heard of such ghostly spectors trapped on sunken ships, though he perhaps did not really believe them... until now. Braxton takes a step forward and adopts a commanding posture.
"Yes yes, all is well down here. What, ahh, is our status, sailor? A full report, if you please."
They say that one must ascertain what bond a person had in their life that keeps their spirit tethered to the mortal realm, and only then can you help them... or so they say. This could still be the water elemental...