wanderingbishop
2013-04-04, 09:21 PM
So, this is a 1-on-1 campaign my younger brother started running (well, it morphed into a 2 PC campaign a little later on, but his intention is for it to primarily be 1-on-1 with guest appearances). He's been wanting to get into DM'ing for a while now, and I really wanted to get on the other side of the DM screen for a bit, so while I continue to take my 4 siblings through the Age of Worms campaign (hooray for pre-built D&D groups!), I'll be doing this campaign on the side on-and-off when my brother has a spare weekend from university.
I will be playing Caileigh, a haughty, more-than-slightly-full-of-herself psion with a penchant for throwing stabby crystals at things – she's basically the multiple-projectiles version of a pyromaniac. Stunning, and she knows it, but she's got the stubborn, self-assured personality of a camel. Who spits razor sharp crystals.
Part 1: Shipwrecked
In which true natures are concealed on more than one occasion,
the dramatic possibilities of mixing Robinson Crusoe with sword-and-sorcery fantasy are explored,
and a naked ghost with a giant centipede is not, in fact, an innuendo.
The Story Begins
While travelling from one island of indeterminate location to another island of indeterminate location on the merchant ship Bluebell, Caileigh is woken up by an almighty crash. In the middle of an ocean, on a trade route with no landmasses, the ship has hit a reef next to an island. The lifeboats are manned, and everyone scrambles to abandon ship. The waters churn in the confusion as the ship sinks down into the water. But the churning isn't just from the boats. Dark shapes circle around, fins breach the water – they're surrounded by sharks. One of them breaks off from the pack and rams one of the boats. It rocks, sending some of the sailors tumbling off. They are immediately swarmed and torn to pieces. Another shark goes for the boat Caieligh is in. Half the rowers tumble, left to the mercy of the predators as the remaining rowers frantically make for the small island right in front of the boat.
The sharks go for the first boat again, this time capsizing it completely. Now it's just Caileigh's boat and the captain's boat. They look like they might both make it – but then a titanic form surges out of the water, lunging at the Bluebell and biting down with a rack of razor-sharp white teeth. A gigantic dire shark clamps onto the boat and bites it clean in half. The two parts of the wreck now sink very quickly, and the rowers pick up the pace. The sharks continue to follow us, attempting to knock more of us off – and then with a swell of water that sends Caileigh's boat towards shore, the shark breaches the surface, swallowing the captain's lifeboat with all its occupants, mashing its jaws together and diving back under the water, putting a merciful end to the screaming of the doomed sailors. As Caileigh's boat reaches shore, it hits something solid, the keel cracking and the boat falling apart. In a mad panic, we scramble up onto the shore, getting up to the treeline at the top of the beach. Turning back to look out to sea, we see the tip of the Bluebell's mast sink beneath the waves.
The Survivors
The only ones to survive the mad dash for shore are the four in the last boat:
Caileigh, a psion
Dwerrow, a dwarf.
Father Elsh of Mug, the ship's chaplain.
Joslin, a young sailor.
Naturally, everyone's a bit shaken. Caileigh recovers first and takes charge, declaring they need to explore the island, find some shelter and work on finding some food and water. At this point, now that they're not in a life-and-death situation, Caileigh suddenly realizes something – there's something on the island with them. What, she's not sure – but she has a very clear sense that a psionically capable mind is in the immediate vicinity. Joslin is a bit too shellshocked to respond, but Dwerrow raises an eyebrow at Caileigh, not thinking much of her aristocratic airs and affectations. Caileigh responds in kind, matching his snide observations with snippy retorts.
With no clear winner in the one-upmanship contest, they split up and explore. Caileigh pokes her head underwater to find what they hit on their way in. She finds that the shore is... odd. The beach does not extend out gradually into the sea like a beach should. It goes maybe a few feet underwater, then drops straight down in a cliff-like edge. A little way below that drop, she can see a large peninsula of seabed that goes out to the reef where the Bluebell ran aground. Caieligh next heads round anticlockwise along the beach. The island is small – perhaps 250 feet across – and she quickly finds the biggest point of interest. To the north of the island, a very large tree is growing. Reread that sentence. Not on the island, north of the island. It's not even on a sandbar or something, it's just growing straight out of the water.
Heading up to the hill in the middle of the island, she finds an open clearing near the top. As she passes, she sees a flicker of movement. A very large centipede shifts on a tree, looking at Caileigh with... curiosity, before scuttling away into the branches. She heads back to the beach and continues round, running into Dwerrow, who's been coming round from the other side. Elsh is behind him, and Caileigh continues round to meet up with him. They've found a freshwater spring a little way into the jungle on the west side of the island, so water isn't a problem anymore. Before anything further can be discussed, a pair of centipedes swim out of the surf, seemingly from a hunting patrol, and attack. The fight is short and easily decided, especially when Dwerrow runs in to help.
They head back to base on the south of the island, where Joslin has been using the flotsam that's washed ashore to construct a rude lean-to for the night. Before nighttime however, Caileigh has one last place to check.
A trail leads away from the beach into the forest on the northeast side – she follows it to find an abandoned circular shack, overgrown with vines. She peers in the door. Three giant centipedes stir, raising their heads and peering back. Caileigh quietly steps back and leaves.
On the way back, she comes across a sea turtle pulling itself up onto shore. She promptly flips the turtle onto its back and drags it up near the tree line. With dinner now taken care of, she heads back to the campsite and informs the others so they can carry the turtle back to be turned into soup.
It's getting late, so at this point they call it a night, with the intention of looting the wreck of the Bluebell for supplies if it's safe tomorrow.
The Isle is Full of Noises
The next morning, Elsh, Dwerrow and Caileigh head out towards the wreck. Dwerrow and Elsh go down while Caileigh stays with the boat. A small while later, the two men come back up, scratched and bruised. There are Sahaugin in the waters, and they've already started looting the ship. With the supplies on the ship being a bust, they head back to shore, to find the campsite trashed and Sahaugin footprints everywhere. Joslin comes out of hiding in the woods, more than a little panicky.
A few Sahaugin came out of the water after the others left – Joslin managed to run and hide in the woods and avoid being seen, but he's beginning to lose it – he's just a simple sailor after all, he didn't sign up for this kind of thing. Dwerrow manages to shake some sense into him, and they clean up the campsite, salvaging what they can. They only have two weapons between them – Caieligh's crossbow that she took with her, and a dagger Dwerrow keeps on his person. With the Sahaugin in the wreck, there's no chance of getting weapons from anywhere other than the Sahaugin themselves. First, however, Caileigh wants to check out the abandoned shack. She brings her hand up to a choker necklace around her neck, and taps the lilac diamond on it. It sprouts ectoplasmic legs, pulls itself out of the inset, and clambers down onto the sand – it's Caileigh's psicrystal.
Enjoying the surprise and slight discomfort the suddenly ambulatory crystal instills in the others, Caileigh sends it scuttling around the beach towards the shack. She sneaks it into the shack. The centipedes stir, but the crystal is small and innocuous enough that they let it be. It climbs up the wall to the ceiling, Caileigh relaying back everything it sees – and at that point a ghost suddenly skips in through the wall of the hut, wearing nothing but his birthday suit, prances up to the centipedes and declares “Gertrude! Betsie! How are you today my dears?!”
Caileigh sits where she is on the beach, face in an incredulous expression as the psicrystal relays the information to her. Deciding this is enough craziness for now, Caileigh calls the psicrystal back. It comes scuttling around the beach, clambering up into Caileigh's necklace as the survivors decide how to act on this unexpected turn. We decide the ghost is as good a place to start as any, so we cautiously make our way up to the shack. The ghost (who seems quite mad) greets us warmly, and the centipedes seem surprisingly docile, almost like pets. He introduces himself as Balshazar the Brave (a.k.a Balshazar the Bungler, he answers to either). He's surprised to see other people on the island, he hasn't seen anyone for nearly 17 years (and he's been dead for 7 of those). He asks if the survivors can find his bones and inter them in the shack – he'd tell us where to find them, but he's not entirely sure where his body is, because he was pounced by a tiger and eaten.
The four of us look at each other with “Are you freakin' kidding me?” expressions.
So yeah. Apparently there's a tiger in the jungle. Swell. We do a search of the island, and find a small cave tucked away in a denser part of the foliage. Fortune of fortunes, the tiger isn't home. We sneak in and head to the back, finding the only set of human bones in the cave, long picked clean.
And at that point we hear a small “prrrrowwl?”.
The Tiger has a kitten. She has a KITTEN. Sweet mother of... and before we have a chance to say “at least things can't get any worse”, a loud roar comes from outside the cave.
Dwerrow and Joslin are staring down an angry mother tiger while Caileigh and Elsh are in the cave. We scoop all the bones into a sack, get back to the entrance, and then we all high-tail it out into the jungle as fast as we can. Fortunately the tiger is more concerned with defending its cave, and we escape without a scratch. But man that could have gone badly.
As we crash through the forest away from the tiger, we catch a flash of movement in the trees. A scaly form darts out of cover – a sahaugin. Not wanting him to report back that we exist, we give chase, knocking him down with non-lethal damage. We take the opportunity to find out a bit about just what the hell is going on. The men hold his arms and legs down, while Caileigh stands over him, crossbow pointed at his head, before nudging him awake with her shoe.
The sahaugin is suitably despising and smug, even at bolt-point. He confidently proclaims that the rest of his kind will hunt them down and kill them before too long. Caileigh attempts to wrangle info out of him under threat of death, but meets with very limited success – she only manages to find out that the sahaugin are serving a “Servant of the Master” - who or what that is, gods only know. Eventually, the Sahaugin decides the men aren't enough to hold him down, and struggles violently to escape. Without hesitation, Caileigh fires a crossbow bolt point-blank into his brain.
The body will attract attention whatever they do, so they decide tossing the body into the surf will be the less dangerous option – at the very least it should create some uncertainty about exactly where he was killed. But we're on a timer now.
We take the bones back to the shack and bury them. Balshazar thanks us verbosely, unlocking the two chests in the shack before he fades from this world and goes to his eternal rest. Inside we find a badly rusted sextant, a mildewed old journal with most of the pages ruined beyond legibility – and a finely crafted pendant in the shape of a water drop. Figuring it's probably useful, Caileigh slips it on over her neck, letting it hang down lower than her existing necklace. They now head back out onto the beach to decipher the journal.
Most of the journal is mad ramblings, with a few bits of what looks like an explorer's log buried under the scribbling. The journal keeps referrring to someone called “Ratty” - seems the mad ghost had an imaginary friend or something. However there is one passage in particular that stands out. A single scrawled exclamation.
“It MOVED!!”
We Need To Go Deeper
At this point, Dwerrow sees something on Caileigh. His eyes widen and he speechlessly indicates Caileigh's hands. She looks down – her hands have become webbed and slightly scaly. She takes this fairly well in stride, quickly figuring it must be the amulet she picked up from the shack.
Deciding to test out the amulet, they go to the one place on the island they haven't searched – the fresh water spring.
The spring breaks out of the hillside about halfway up, trickling down a small stream and collecting in a small pool, whose waters run so deep as to be the colour of midnight. Every now and then, a creature – sometimes a fish, but just as often a centipede or some other terrestrial creature – appears out of the spring, breaking the surface and scampering off into the jungle. Caileigh and Co. make their way to the pool. It's too dark to see the bottom, and when Caileigh puts her hand in, she can feel a faint but firm tug of a current drawing everything that enters the pool towards the bottom.
Caileigh takes a deep breath and dives, letting the current pull her down. She finds that her air doesn't seem to be running out as fast as it should – the amulet doesn't actually let her breath water, but it'll certainly make exploring a less dangerous prospect. As she goes to swim down, there is a splash from above: a frog has jumped into the water. It swims its way down into the depths. Perhaps 20 seconds later, as Caileigh swims towards the dark depths of the pool, a centipede swims down past her. Seems there's something worth exploring down here.
Caileigh swims all the way down, and finds a bend in the stone bed of the pool, a tunnel curving sideways and back up, with the faintest of glimmers coming from somewhere up the rock passageway. Caileigh swims through, the current carrying her with ease into a large, circular chamber, filled with water. The psionic presence that she's been able to feel constantly since she first set foot on the island is now stronger than ever.
Here, a ring of softly glowing aquamarine sconces casts a pallid glow in the water. A steady stream of creatures comes in through the tunnel at the base of the chamber. Each creature drifts near one of the glowing sconces, stares into it for a space, then drifts away, swimming into a second tunnel that branches of the side of the chamber, the current pulling into it, forcing Caileigh to tread water in order to stay put. After observing for a bit, she swims close to one of the crystal lights and attempts to extend a mental greeting. A mind responds.
“You... are new...”
The voice is slow, ponderous, and is above all quite strange to Caileigh's senses. He's certainly not human. She tells the entity her story, that she and three others were washed up on the beach, and gives him a brief rundown of what they've done. She also mentions the ghost, Balshazar.
“I remember... Balshazar... he has not talked to me.... for a long time...”
Caileigh gives the entity the bad news. He is quiet for a while, then starts again.
“Have you come... to wake me?”
Caileigh doesn't understand. The entity explains in slow, ponderous terms. He is actually currently asleep. The sahaugin seek to kill him – he knows this, and knows they stalk the island, for he knows all that happens on it. The animals of the jungle are his unwitting eyes and ears, and all of them act as his scouts, refreshing the link between him by falling in the water and being drawn into this chamber. The sahaugin have searched for a way to kill him, but have so far failed – as Sahaugin, they detest fresh water, and none of them have ever entered the pool. Once he is awake the Sahaugin will pose no threat - but he cannot wake himself from inside his own dream.
Caileigh considers this. She now has a suspicion as to what the entity is. She tentatively tries to find out in a roundabout manner by asking “How many years have you slept?”
“I... do not know... longer... than the number... of trees... on my back.”
Well, that basically confirmed it.
Caileigh agrees to find a way to wake him. She swims out the side passage, her air finally beginning to reach its limit, and breaks the surface in the spring at the top of the stream. She pulls herself out of the water, wrings out the majority of the water from her dress, and makes her way down to the pool, where the rest of the survivors are waiting. She gets them up to speed, telling them what she was told. Elsh takes the information in, rubbing his chin in thought. Caileigh notices him thinking, and asks if he has an idea what the entity is. Elsh looks up and responds with a single word: “Zaratan”
“...well, I would have said 'giant turtle', but that works as well... oh, wait – the journal. Ratty. Zaratan.”
Dwerrow rolls his eyes “Aye, of course, tha' makes perfect sense...”
At this point, any further discussion is put on hold – there is a hideous gurgling screech from further around the island. We look up to see a troupe of sahaugin charging towards us through the trees.
...I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means
Dwerrow makes to retreat, but Caileigh says no, they can win this – she has a plan. The survivors stand their ground and take on 4 sahaugin. Elsh and Dwerrow hold the line up front while Joslin supports at range with the trident... and Caileigh casts Attraction on the Sahaugin.
(Now, full disclosure here, I figured out afterwards that Attraction doesn't work the way I thought it did here – the power description specifically says they don't act on the compulsion effect if they're in combat, and in any case it's meant to be more of an out-of-combat diplomacy check boost. Be that as it may...)
With her psionic coercion in full effect, she calls out to the Sahaugin attacking Dwerrow, saying “Wait, don't hurt him! He's a friend!” The Sahaugin hesitates... and hangs back. Caileigh attempts to repeat the trick on the next one... but the rest seem to be made of sterner stuff. Caileigh spends about 6 rounds trying to pacify the sahaugin, during which things go badly for the survivors. Elsh is cut down – alive but barely. Joslin fares much worse. A critical strike with a trident spells his end, bringing him straight down to -10hp. He dies with an expression of confused fear and pain on his face.
As Joslin goes down, Caileigh manages to pacify the last Sahaugin, but it's a pyrrhic victory. Dwerrow hoists the unconscious, bleeding Elsh, the group's only healer, up on his back and starts carrying him back up the hill where he has some space to attempt first aid. Caileigh, in something of a daze, absentmindly asks the Sahaugin to pick up Joslin's body and carry it behind her.
Obviously, Caileigh is shaken to have someone die in front of her – but it goes a little deeper than that. After all, they stayed to fight on her insistence, so that she could try a plan she'd been working on... it would not be a large stretch of imagination to say that Joslin's death is on her head. And her mind has a very competent imagination. But a psionic is nothing if not adaptable, and her mind locks that possibility out of conscious thought, leaving only a subconscious twinge of guilt that pulls at the back of her brain. The formerly aloof and uncaring Caileigh now has a psychological tic, one that will make her more... charitable when it comes to helping people in need in the future.
For now however, Caileigh steels herself and focuses on the plan she has in motion. She asks the Sahaugin more about themselves, and what they're doing. It turns out that the Sahaugin are serving a “Servant of the Master” - a direct servant of the Sahaugin's god, who has come to their settlement on the ocean floor with instructions for them to slay the Zaratan who sleeps above them. They have been collecting every magical weapon they can get from ships that either berth or crash against the Zaratan's back, intending to amass a large enough arsenal that they can use to attack the Zaratan en masse and kill it before it can retaliate. They're not quite there yet, but they're getting close.
Caileigh sets her plan in motion. The Sahaugin know they're on the island, and they're coming for their blood. She needs to buy the survivors enough time to find a way to wake the turtle and get the hell outta Dodge. So, she tells the friendly-fied Sahaugin to go back to their settlement, get one of their leaders, and tell them to meet Caileigh outside the abandoned shack, with a promise that she can give them what they want – a way to slay the Zaratan.
An Offer You Can't Refuse
Caileigh and Dwerrow make sure Elsh is stable, and Joslin's body is hidden. Once they're sure both of them are safe, Dwerrow and Caieligh cut across the island to the shack and hide. A short while later, Caileigh's Sahaugin friends return, with a very unimpressed-looking sahaugin priestess. Caileigh sounds them out, sending her Psicrystal scuttling along the path behind them. They turn, and grip their weapons a little tighter, but don't immediately attack. Satisfied that they aren't attempting an ambush, Caileigh steps out of the trees onto the path and greets them with a stately bow.
She skips right past the formalities and goes straight to business. She says that she knows the Sahaugin seek to kill the Zaratan. She says that she can help them achieve that goal. The priestess asks suspiciously why Caileigh would help them. Caieligh shrugs and replies that it doesn't matter to her what happens to the Zaratan – all she cares about is getting off the island. She reasons that if she helps the Sahaugin, they will be more willing to let them build a boat and leave without killing them. The priestess buys this, for now anyway. Caileigh explains her offer. She can wield magic – and she presents the charmed sahaugins she used to get the priestess here as proof. She says she can take the Sahaugin's magic weapons and increase their strength so that they can kill the Zaratan with what they already have. She suggests that the priestess give Caileigh one of the smaller magic weapons, so that she can go away, enchant it, and then bring it back tomorrow morning. If the priestess approves of the results, Caileigh will proceed to enchant the rest of the weapons.
The sahaugin leader considers Caileigh for a few tense seconds. Then, she unsheathes a dagger from her belt... and casts it at Caieligh's feet. Caileigh smiles and gives another bow, together with a formal “pleasure doing business with you” farewell. The priestess and entourage turn to leave. Caileigh waits until they have gone out of sight... and then drops the mask, letting out a long breath she's been holding for the last minute. She puts her hands on her knees and bows her head as the adrenaline purges itself from her system.
Dwerrow comes out of hiding and looks curiously at Caileigh. He gives the first genuine compliment he's ever given Caileigh, and says that was well acted. Caileigh acknowledges with a nod, and continues to recover. Finally, she stands upright and says they need to move quickly – she's bought them a day, no more.
Caileigh heads back to the pool. Diving back into the chamber, she comes up again and gets, uh... Ratty, up to speed. She tells him her plan – use one of the magical weapons to try and prick him awake – normal weapons can't hurt him, but this one will, and should be enough to force him awake. It's a decent plan... but there's a problem.
The dagger isn't magical. At least, not in the right way. A +1 light weapon this ain't, it's a Sahaugin blood dagger. Useless for what Caileigh wants to do. Now at a loss, Caileigh asks if there's any other way to wake Ratty up. He responds that whale song might do the trick. Caileigh jokingly asks where the nearest bit of whale song is. Ratty replies. “On the opposite side of me from the sahaugin camp.”
Naturally, Caileigh wasn't expecting such an easy fix (“easy” in quotes, but still). She and Dwerrow start discussing their options (currently revolving around Dwerrow staying to watch Elsh and Caileigh swimming out on her own), when they round the beach and come across a strange sight.
A Sahaugin is tied to a diagonal cross on the beach, apparently left to die. He is a little smaller and sickly looking than the ones we've seen so far, with a paler hue of scales. As we come into view, he looks up, and on seeing us gets quite excited, calling out to us in halting, broken Common. It seems he was left there as a blood sacrifice to the Servant of the Master – he's an outcast, with no love for the Sahaugins, or their cause. He knows about the survivors, and offers to help them in any way he can if they will cut him loose.
Caileigh is suspicious, so she tests his resolve by telling him that they intend to wake the Zaratan before the day is out. Morenki nods enthusiastically and offers to help. It's a risk to trust him... but Caileigh is running out of options and needs every possible advantage right now. She cuts him loose, and then explains that she needs to swim out on the opposite side of the turtle from the Sahaugin camp. Morenki knows where that is, and so he can point Caileigh to the appropriate piece of beach to swim out from.
Whaddya know, it's the piece of beach where the giant tree is.
And I'm Definitely NOT a Villain
(At this point, my other brother joined in the action, so this next character's introduction will be somewhat... shoehorned. We're playing with a “getting people playing the game trumps 100% consistent narrative” attitude.)
Caileigh and Morenki dive into the surf, swimming out towards the tree. As they get close, they see a small sailing boat approaching from sea. On board is a figure, black-cloaked, somewhat lean, and with the last dregs of a long-term supply of food and water rations at the stern. This is Mordred. He was chased out of his home town for dabbling in the occult. He has a collapsible scythe strapped to his back. He worships Nerull, and one day, he intends to face off against and slay the god of death with his own hands.
I think he's Lawful Neutral or something.
(For those of you twitching spasmodically in the back rows, I will mention that this is not only my other brother's first time being part of an ongoing d&d campaign, so we really don't feel like limiting his choices, we also trust him to play ball and not try to screw us over, even while staying true to his character's LE alignment. Fear not, the only shark available for jumping is home sick with the measles.)
Anyway, since he really has nothing better to do, Mordred decides he may as well help Caileigh and Morenki find this 'whale song' they're after, especially if it improves his chances of getting back to dry land alive. The three of them dive down towards the base of the mysterious tree (Mordred having a sphere of plot convenience water breathing on him). As they get down through the murk, the trio see a large shape at the base of the trunk – the remains of another ship. The tree seems to be growing up through the ship – in roughly the same position the mast should be. Seems a wizard on the ship panicked or something. Another mystery solved, kindof.
A search of the ship reveals one or two minor knick-knacks, nothing special. The psionic presence is still there though. Finally, the trio swim into the sailor's bunks up the front of the boat. A humped, tattered form lies in a hammock near the back. As the three of us enter, it stirs, rises from its rest – and charges blindly.
The fight that follows comes very close to the wire. Caileigh's only effective form of attack is her Crystal Shard power, and against an undead that piercing damage resistance makes her next to useless. Mordred does marginally better, managing to slice out a section of the creature's abdomen, betraying the tell-tale glint of a psionically charged gem buried deep inside the undead's body.
Morenki, however, is the hero of the hour, almost single-handedly defeating the undead by going into an uncontrolled bloody frenzy and tearing it into shreds of ectoplasm. Unfortunately he doesn't quite finish it off before he is stricken unconscious, and Caileigh pulls his limp form away, frantically indicating for Mordred to follow, before powering up to the surface as her air runs out. Once she's broken the surface, she hurriedly searches Morenki's belt, finding what looks like a healing potion, and makes him imbibe it – fortunately it is a healing potion, rather than a bottle of glue, and Morenki is back to consciousness.
Meanwhile, Mordred finishes off the last few hitpoints the ghoul has. It disappates into the water, leaving an inert and depleted psicrystal floating in its wake, the last vestige of a dead psion's consciousness that it tried to maintain now completely spent. With no-one to supervise him, Mordred takes full pickings of the treasure tucked in the undead's hammock – a handful of valuable-looking crystals. Two little stone-like gems and a thin, wand-like stick of crystal, maybe 6 inches long.
With everyone thoroughly beaten up by the undead encounter, we all pile into Mordred's boat and row to shore. Caileigh believes the expedition to have been a bust, and is now trying to come up with another plan. Mordred decides to get some info on what he's swiped for himself without overplaying his hand, and hands Caileigh one of the smaller gems, saying he found it in the cabin and wondered if she knew what it was. Caileigh quickly identifies it as a Cognizance Crystal – specifically a 3 PP version – and declares it to be a highly valuable item – in the hands of of a psion. Fairly useless otherwise. Realizing that it's in his best interests to help Caileigh find a way to wake the Zaratan, he surrenders the slim stick of crystal to her for apparisal as well, keeping the second cognizance crystal for himself to sell off at a later date.
This, Caileigh identifies as a Dorje – exactly what spell it casts, she can't tell. One easy way to find out though. She turns around, points the Dorje at an empty stretch of beach, and wills it to activate. An eardrum-piercing keening wail reverberates through the air, blasting a small crater in the sand with its force. Dwerrow comes running round the corner of the island with a “da hell was that?!” expression. Looks like we found the whale song.
Everything is now set. Caileigh tells the others to get ready, while she goes to the pool one last time. She determines where the Zaratan's head is by asking it on which side it feels the sun in the mornings – this narrows it down to approximately northeast. With the dorje in hand, Caileigh swims out into the sea. A little way out, and she spies a small rocky outcrop down below. She swims down. It's a domed, roughly oval section of rocky seabed, maybe 50 feet long. She swims alongside, getting about 10 feet out. She pulls out the dorje, takes aim, and fires.
On reflection, swimming a few more feet out from the Zaratan's head might have been a prudent move.
The altered acoustics from casting the spell in water smooths out the harshness, creating a long, powerful cry of whale song that echoes through the water, slowly dying away. For a moment there is nothing. Then, a low rumble begins to grow in strength, coming from the direction of the island. The oval outcrop of rock shifts, layers breaking away in clouds of silt. Deciding the alarm clock has more than worked, Caileigh swims to shore, double time.
And not a moment too soon. As she pulls herself up onto shore, the island is being shaken by what feels like an earthquake, and large sections of sand on the beach are sliding off into the surf, revealing a rocky, textured surface underneath. The others are in the process of pulling Mordred's sailing boat up onto shore before it gets dashed to pieces in the turbulent waters, struggling to keep their feet. With the beach no longer a tenable location, the party stumble their way up into the trees, getting to the top of the hill in the center of the island, giving them a clear view all around. And as they get there, they are treated to an awe-inspiring spectacle.
In Awe of the Power
BGM ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DggH6CReCNA
To the south, a great surge of water heaves up, and a colossal fin breaches the surface, centuries of sediment breaking off. Caileigh sees the wreck of the Bluebell sitting on the fin, before the two halves fall away and crash back into the sea. To the northwest, the gigantic tree leans to the side, and with an almighty groan of splintering wood, falls into the ocean as another fin breaches. There is an earth-shattering bellow as the Zaratan breaks its head free, and brings the fins back down, a near tidal wave of water being displaced as it pushes itself forward.
Caileigh comments “...well, I reckon I should go back to the cavern and talk with the Zaratan”
The Zaratan replies, “THAT WILL NOT BE NECCESSARY, I CAN HEAR YOU FINE FROM HERE”
The full psionic presence of the Zaratan's conscious mind appears, knocking Caileigh to her knees from its sheer size. So great is its psionic strength that even the non-psionics can feel the thing's presence.
At this point Morenki pipes up and points off (shore) shell. A shark fin, dwarfed by the Zaratan but still massive, has broken the water and is following after them. It's the giant shark that destroyed the Bluebell and swallowed the crew. “Is servant of master!” Morenki declares.
So, we've got a giant dire shark, servant of an evil deity coming after us... and he's keeping pace with the Zaratan. We're at something of a loss. This thing has literally bitten a ship in two before our eyes, we are not getting in the water with it. Even at top speed, Ratty can't outrun it. But then, Morenki speaks up. He quietly mentions that he was meant to be a blood sacrifice to the shark. “Maybe... sacrifice will calm him, maybe.. .I buy you time?”
Mordred doesn't have a problem with this plan, but Caileigh shuts it down outright. She is not having another person die before they get back to shore. The Zaratan uncertainly muses that it's never actually tried to fight before, but Caileigh won't be having that either. Instead she draws attention to the fact that the turtle is a psionic creature – a psionic creature several orders of magnitude more powerful than herself. He should be able to use his mind to incapacitate the shark without killing it. The Zaratan considers for a moment... before finally saying...
“I WILL TRY”.
The permeating psionic presence on the island builds in intensity, reaching a zenith. In a blast that knocks Caileigh back to her knees, a violent tempest of psionic force surges out behind the Zaratan. There is a sudden violent thrashing in the water, as the shark writhes, churning up foam... then it becomes still and slowly sinks down below the surface.
The Zaratan just cast Ego Whip. At 25th manifester level. 24 charisma damage. That shark doesn't even know who it is anymore, let alone who it serves. It'll eventually recover over the next month, and then we might very well have a problem – but we won't be seeing it any time soon.
So, we sail off into the sunset (because it is getting towards sunset now), taking stock of our situation. Elsh is badly hurt, but will recover. Joslin's body is preserved – there's nothing we can do for him now short of take him back to shore for burial. Morenki is happy to come with us, and we'll be looking to see if we can find some kind of reverse water breathing amulet for him so he doesn't have to go back into water every 8 hours, maybe repurpose the amulet Caileigh has (or the sahaugin blood dagger, we've still got that). Elsh suspects there's something amiss with the latest addition to the group, but Mordred declines to reveal his allegiances, instead sneaking away in the dead of night to pray to his dread god. Caileigh and the others aren't aware of his actions... but Mordred always feels the presence of the Zaratan, observing him, but saying nothing.
Morenki expresses an interest in Caileigh's psionic abilities. He decides that psionics are “good magic”, being intrinsically different from the magic that the priests of his people use – the power does not come from other beings, but from within. And while Caileigh warns him that the gift is very rare, she agrees to attempt to tutor him.
There's also a more pressing concern. Now that Ratty is fully conscious, he reaches out to feel the rest of his kin... only to find none. The oceans are completely empty. Zaratans sleep for centuries – millennia even – but even if this servant of the Sahaugin god had been going after Zaratans for a while, he couldn't have killed all of them... right?
But that is a conundrum for another day. For now, we sail towards civilization; a hot-headed psion, a gruff dwarf, a doddery old cleric of St Cuthbert, a brooding, scythe-wielding cleric of Nerull with aspirations of deicide, and a Sahaugin who, as narrative causality would have it, seems to have a latent psionic gift. And we all live on a yellow submarine giant Zaratan. Called Ratty.
Level 3 is gonna be fun.
We never did find out how that Tiger got on the island though.
This section got written up a while back, and we've actually had another couple of sessions over the Easter break, so I'll be trying to get those written up and posted in the next week or so. They're not quite as dramatic as this section, but they do establish the campaign setting and set up the overarching plot. In the meantime, hope you enjoy this :)
I will be playing Caileigh, a haughty, more-than-slightly-full-of-herself psion with a penchant for throwing stabby crystals at things – she's basically the multiple-projectiles version of a pyromaniac. Stunning, and she knows it, but she's got the stubborn, self-assured personality of a camel. Who spits razor sharp crystals.
Part 1: Shipwrecked
In which true natures are concealed on more than one occasion,
the dramatic possibilities of mixing Robinson Crusoe with sword-and-sorcery fantasy are explored,
and a naked ghost with a giant centipede is not, in fact, an innuendo.
The Story Begins
While travelling from one island of indeterminate location to another island of indeterminate location on the merchant ship Bluebell, Caileigh is woken up by an almighty crash. In the middle of an ocean, on a trade route with no landmasses, the ship has hit a reef next to an island. The lifeboats are manned, and everyone scrambles to abandon ship. The waters churn in the confusion as the ship sinks down into the water. But the churning isn't just from the boats. Dark shapes circle around, fins breach the water – they're surrounded by sharks. One of them breaks off from the pack and rams one of the boats. It rocks, sending some of the sailors tumbling off. They are immediately swarmed and torn to pieces. Another shark goes for the boat Caieligh is in. Half the rowers tumble, left to the mercy of the predators as the remaining rowers frantically make for the small island right in front of the boat.
The sharks go for the first boat again, this time capsizing it completely. Now it's just Caileigh's boat and the captain's boat. They look like they might both make it – but then a titanic form surges out of the water, lunging at the Bluebell and biting down with a rack of razor-sharp white teeth. A gigantic dire shark clamps onto the boat and bites it clean in half. The two parts of the wreck now sink very quickly, and the rowers pick up the pace. The sharks continue to follow us, attempting to knock more of us off – and then with a swell of water that sends Caileigh's boat towards shore, the shark breaches the surface, swallowing the captain's lifeboat with all its occupants, mashing its jaws together and diving back under the water, putting a merciful end to the screaming of the doomed sailors. As Caileigh's boat reaches shore, it hits something solid, the keel cracking and the boat falling apart. In a mad panic, we scramble up onto the shore, getting up to the treeline at the top of the beach. Turning back to look out to sea, we see the tip of the Bluebell's mast sink beneath the waves.
The Survivors
The only ones to survive the mad dash for shore are the four in the last boat:
Caileigh, a psion
Dwerrow, a dwarf.
Father Elsh of Mug, the ship's chaplain.
Joslin, a young sailor.
Naturally, everyone's a bit shaken. Caileigh recovers first and takes charge, declaring they need to explore the island, find some shelter and work on finding some food and water. At this point, now that they're not in a life-and-death situation, Caileigh suddenly realizes something – there's something on the island with them. What, she's not sure – but she has a very clear sense that a psionically capable mind is in the immediate vicinity. Joslin is a bit too shellshocked to respond, but Dwerrow raises an eyebrow at Caileigh, not thinking much of her aristocratic airs and affectations. Caileigh responds in kind, matching his snide observations with snippy retorts.
With no clear winner in the one-upmanship contest, they split up and explore. Caileigh pokes her head underwater to find what they hit on their way in. She finds that the shore is... odd. The beach does not extend out gradually into the sea like a beach should. It goes maybe a few feet underwater, then drops straight down in a cliff-like edge. A little way below that drop, she can see a large peninsula of seabed that goes out to the reef where the Bluebell ran aground. Caieligh next heads round anticlockwise along the beach. The island is small – perhaps 250 feet across – and she quickly finds the biggest point of interest. To the north of the island, a very large tree is growing. Reread that sentence. Not on the island, north of the island. It's not even on a sandbar or something, it's just growing straight out of the water.
Heading up to the hill in the middle of the island, she finds an open clearing near the top. As she passes, she sees a flicker of movement. A very large centipede shifts on a tree, looking at Caileigh with... curiosity, before scuttling away into the branches. She heads back to the beach and continues round, running into Dwerrow, who's been coming round from the other side. Elsh is behind him, and Caileigh continues round to meet up with him. They've found a freshwater spring a little way into the jungle on the west side of the island, so water isn't a problem anymore. Before anything further can be discussed, a pair of centipedes swim out of the surf, seemingly from a hunting patrol, and attack. The fight is short and easily decided, especially when Dwerrow runs in to help.
They head back to base on the south of the island, where Joslin has been using the flotsam that's washed ashore to construct a rude lean-to for the night. Before nighttime however, Caileigh has one last place to check.
A trail leads away from the beach into the forest on the northeast side – she follows it to find an abandoned circular shack, overgrown with vines. She peers in the door. Three giant centipedes stir, raising their heads and peering back. Caileigh quietly steps back and leaves.
On the way back, she comes across a sea turtle pulling itself up onto shore. She promptly flips the turtle onto its back and drags it up near the tree line. With dinner now taken care of, she heads back to the campsite and informs the others so they can carry the turtle back to be turned into soup.
It's getting late, so at this point they call it a night, with the intention of looting the wreck of the Bluebell for supplies if it's safe tomorrow.
The Isle is Full of Noises
The next morning, Elsh, Dwerrow and Caileigh head out towards the wreck. Dwerrow and Elsh go down while Caileigh stays with the boat. A small while later, the two men come back up, scratched and bruised. There are Sahaugin in the waters, and they've already started looting the ship. With the supplies on the ship being a bust, they head back to shore, to find the campsite trashed and Sahaugin footprints everywhere. Joslin comes out of hiding in the woods, more than a little panicky.
A few Sahaugin came out of the water after the others left – Joslin managed to run and hide in the woods and avoid being seen, but he's beginning to lose it – he's just a simple sailor after all, he didn't sign up for this kind of thing. Dwerrow manages to shake some sense into him, and they clean up the campsite, salvaging what they can. They only have two weapons between them – Caieligh's crossbow that she took with her, and a dagger Dwerrow keeps on his person. With the Sahaugin in the wreck, there's no chance of getting weapons from anywhere other than the Sahaugin themselves. First, however, Caileigh wants to check out the abandoned shack. She brings her hand up to a choker necklace around her neck, and taps the lilac diamond on it. It sprouts ectoplasmic legs, pulls itself out of the inset, and clambers down onto the sand – it's Caileigh's psicrystal.
Enjoying the surprise and slight discomfort the suddenly ambulatory crystal instills in the others, Caileigh sends it scuttling around the beach towards the shack. She sneaks it into the shack. The centipedes stir, but the crystal is small and innocuous enough that they let it be. It climbs up the wall to the ceiling, Caileigh relaying back everything it sees – and at that point a ghost suddenly skips in through the wall of the hut, wearing nothing but his birthday suit, prances up to the centipedes and declares “Gertrude! Betsie! How are you today my dears?!”
Caileigh sits where she is on the beach, face in an incredulous expression as the psicrystal relays the information to her. Deciding this is enough craziness for now, Caileigh calls the psicrystal back. It comes scuttling around the beach, clambering up into Caileigh's necklace as the survivors decide how to act on this unexpected turn. We decide the ghost is as good a place to start as any, so we cautiously make our way up to the shack. The ghost (who seems quite mad) greets us warmly, and the centipedes seem surprisingly docile, almost like pets. He introduces himself as Balshazar the Brave (a.k.a Balshazar the Bungler, he answers to either). He's surprised to see other people on the island, he hasn't seen anyone for nearly 17 years (and he's been dead for 7 of those). He asks if the survivors can find his bones and inter them in the shack – he'd tell us where to find them, but he's not entirely sure where his body is, because he was pounced by a tiger and eaten.
The four of us look at each other with “Are you freakin' kidding me?” expressions.
So yeah. Apparently there's a tiger in the jungle. Swell. We do a search of the island, and find a small cave tucked away in a denser part of the foliage. Fortune of fortunes, the tiger isn't home. We sneak in and head to the back, finding the only set of human bones in the cave, long picked clean.
And at that point we hear a small “prrrrowwl?”.
The Tiger has a kitten. She has a KITTEN. Sweet mother of... and before we have a chance to say “at least things can't get any worse”, a loud roar comes from outside the cave.
Dwerrow and Joslin are staring down an angry mother tiger while Caileigh and Elsh are in the cave. We scoop all the bones into a sack, get back to the entrance, and then we all high-tail it out into the jungle as fast as we can. Fortunately the tiger is more concerned with defending its cave, and we escape without a scratch. But man that could have gone badly.
As we crash through the forest away from the tiger, we catch a flash of movement in the trees. A scaly form darts out of cover – a sahaugin. Not wanting him to report back that we exist, we give chase, knocking him down with non-lethal damage. We take the opportunity to find out a bit about just what the hell is going on. The men hold his arms and legs down, while Caileigh stands over him, crossbow pointed at his head, before nudging him awake with her shoe.
The sahaugin is suitably despising and smug, even at bolt-point. He confidently proclaims that the rest of his kind will hunt them down and kill them before too long. Caileigh attempts to wrangle info out of him under threat of death, but meets with very limited success – she only manages to find out that the sahaugin are serving a “Servant of the Master” - who or what that is, gods only know. Eventually, the Sahaugin decides the men aren't enough to hold him down, and struggles violently to escape. Without hesitation, Caileigh fires a crossbow bolt point-blank into his brain.
The body will attract attention whatever they do, so they decide tossing the body into the surf will be the less dangerous option – at the very least it should create some uncertainty about exactly where he was killed. But we're on a timer now.
We take the bones back to the shack and bury them. Balshazar thanks us verbosely, unlocking the two chests in the shack before he fades from this world and goes to his eternal rest. Inside we find a badly rusted sextant, a mildewed old journal with most of the pages ruined beyond legibility – and a finely crafted pendant in the shape of a water drop. Figuring it's probably useful, Caileigh slips it on over her neck, letting it hang down lower than her existing necklace. They now head back out onto the beach to decipher the journal.
Most of the journal is mad ramblings, with a few bits of what looks like an explorer's log buried under the scribbling. The journal keeps referrring to someone called “Ratty” - seems the mad ghost had an imaginary friend or something. However there is one passage in particular that stands out. A single scrawled exclamation.
“It MOVED!!”
We Need To Go Deeper
At this point, Dwerrow sees something on Caileigh. His eyes widen and he speechlessly indicates Caileigh's hands. She looks down – her hands have become webbed and slightly scaly. She takes this fairly well in stride, quickly figuring it must be the amulet she picked up from the shack.
Deciding to test out the amulet, they go to the one place on the island they haven't searched – the fresh water spring.
The spring breaks out of the hillside about halfway up, trickling down a small stream and collecting in a small pool, whose waters run so deep as to be the colour of midnight. Every now and then, a creature – sometimes a fish, but just as often a centipede or some other terrestrial creature – appears out of the spring, breaking the surface and scampering off into the jungle. Caileigh and Co. make their way to the pool. It's too dark to see the bottom, and when Caileigh puts her hand in, she can feel a faint but firm tug of a current drawing everything that enters the pool towards the bottom.
Caileigh takes a deep breath and dives, letting the current pull her down. She finds that her air doesn't seem to be running out as fast as it should – the amulet doesn't actually let her breath water, but it'll certainly make exploring a less dangerous prospect. As she goes to swim down, there is a splash from above: a frog has jumped into the water. It swims its way down into the depths. Perhaps 20 seconds later, as Caileigh swims towards the dark depths of the pool, a centipede swims down past her. Seems there's something worth exploring down here.
Caileigh swims all the way down, and finds a bend in the stone bed of the pool, a tunnel curving sideways and back up, with the faintest of glimmers coming from somewhere up the rock passageway. Caileigh swims through, the current carrying her with ease into a large, circular chamber, filled with water. The psionic presence that she's been able to feel constantly since she first set foot on the island is now stronger than ever.
Here, a ring of softly glowing aquamarine sconces casts a pallid glow in the water. A steady stream of creatures comes in through the tunnel at the base of the chamber. Each creature drifts near one of the glowing sconces, stares into it for a space, then drifts away, swimming into a second tunnel that branches of the side of the chamber, the current pulling into it, forcing Caileigh to tread water in order to stay put. After observing for a bit, she swims close to one of the crystal lights and attempts to extend a mental greeting. A mind responds.
“You... are new...”
The voice is slow, ponderous, and is above all quite strange to Caileigh's senses. He's certainly not human. She tells the entity her story, that she and three others were washed up on the beach, and gives him a brief rundown of what they've done. She also mentions the ghost, Balshazar.
“I remember... Balshazar... he has not talked to me.... for a long time...”
Caileigh gives the entity the bad news. He is quiet for a while, then starts again.
“Have you come... to wake me?”
Caileigh doesn't understand. The entity explains in slow, ponderous terms. He is actually currently asleep. The sahaugin seek to kill him – he knows this, and knows they stalk the island, for he knows all that happens on it. The animals of the jungle are his unwitting eyes and ears, and all of them act as his scouts, refreshing the link between him by falling in the water and being drawn into this chamber. The sahaugin have searched for a way to kill him, but have so far failed – as Sahaugin, they detest fresh water, and none of them have ever entered the pool. Once he is awake the Sahaugin will pose no threat - but he cannot wake himself from inside his own dream.
Caileigh considers this. She now has a suspicion as to what the entity is. She tentatively tries to find out in a roundabout manner by asking “How many years have you slept?”
“I... do not know... longer... than the number... of trees... on my back.”
Well, that basically confirmed it.
Caileigh agrees to find a way to wake him. She swims out the side passage, her air finally beginning to reach its limit, and breaks the surface in the spring at the top of the stream. She pulls herself out of the water, wrings out the majority of the water from her dress, and makes her way down to the pool, where the rest of the survivors are waiting. She gets them up to speed, telling them what she was told. Elsh takes the information in, rubbing his chin in thought. Caileigh notices him thinking, and asks if he has an idea what the entity is. Elsh looks up and responds with a single word: “Zaratan”
“...well, I would have said 'giant turtle', but that works as well... oh, wait – the journal. Ratty. Zaratan.”
Dwerrow rolls his eyes “Aye, of course, tha' makes perfect sense...”
At this point, any further discussion is put on hold – there is a hideous gurgling screech from further around the island. We look up to see a troupe of sahaugin charging towards us through the trees.
...I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means
Dwerrow makes to retreat, but Caileigh says no, they can win this – she has a plan. The survivors stand their ground and take on 4 sahaugin. Elsh and Dwerrow hold the line up front while Joslin supports at range with the trident... and Caileigh casts Attraction on the Sahaugin.
(Now, full disclosure here, I figured out afterwards that Attraction doesn't work the way I thought it did here – the power description specifically says they don't act on the compulsion effect if they're in combat, and in any case it's meant to be more of an out-of-combat diplomacy check boost. Be that as it may...)
With her psionic coercion in full effect, she calls out to the Sahaugin attacking Dwerrow, saying “Wait, don't hurt him! He's a friend!” The Sahaugin hesitates... and hangs back. Caileigh attempts to repeat the trick on the next one... but the rest seem to be made of sterner stuff. Caileigh spends about 6 rounds trying to pacify the sahaugin, during which things go badly for the survivors. Elsh is cut down – alive but barely. Joslin fares much worse. A critical strike with a trident spells his end, bringing him straight down to -10hp. He dies with an expression of confused fear and pain on his face.
As Joslin goes down, Caileigh manages to pacify the last Sahaugin, but it's a pyrrhic victory. Dwerrow hoists the unconscious, bleeding Elsh, the group's only healer, up on his back and starts carrying him back up the hill where he has some space to attempt first aid. Caileigh, in something of a daze, absentmindly asks the Sahaugin to pick up Joslin's body and carry it behind her.
Obviously, Caileigh is shaken to have someone die in front of her – but it goes a little deeper than that. After all, they stayed to fight on her insistence, so that she could try a plan she'd been working on... it would not be a large stretch of imagination to say that Joslin's death is on her head. And her mind has a very competent imagination. But a psionic is nothing if not adaptable, and her mind locks that possibility out of conscious thought, leaving only a subconscious twinge of guilt that pulls at the back of her brain. The formerly aloof and uncaring Caileigh now has a psychological tic, one that will make her more... charitable when it comes to helping people in need in the future.
For now however, Caileigh steels herself and focuses on the plan she has in motion. She asks the Sahaugin more about themselves, and what they're doing. It turns out that the Sahaugin are serving a “Servant of the Master” - a direct servant of the Sahaugin's god, who has come to their settlement on the ocean floor with instructions for them to slay the Zaratan who sleeps above them. They have been collecting every magical weapon they can get from ships that either berth or crash against the Zaratan's back, intending to amass a large enough arsenal that they can use to attack the Zaratan en masse and kill it before it can retaliate. They're not quite there yet, but they're getting close.
Caileigh sets her plan in motion. The Sahaugin know they're on the island, and they're coming for their blood. She needs to buy the survivors enough time to find a way to wake the turtle and get the hell outta Dodge. So, she tells the friendly-fied Sahaugin to go back to their settlement, get one of their leaders, and tell them to meet Caileigh outside the abandoned shack, with a promise that she can give them what they want – a way to slay the Zaratan.
An Offer You Can't Refuse
Caileigh and Dwerrow make sure Elsh is stable, and Joslin's body is hidden. Once they're sure both of them are safe, Dwerrow and Caieligh cut across the island to the shack and hide. A short while later, Caileigh's Sahaugin friends return, with a very unimpressed-looking sahaugin priestess. Caileigh sounds them out, sending her Psicrystal scuttling along the path behind them. They turn, and grip their weapons a little tighter, but don't immediately attack. Satisfied that they aren't attempting an ambush, Caileigh steps out of the trees onto the path and greets them with a stately bow.
She skips right past the formalities and goes straight to business. She says that she knows the Sahaugin seek to kill the Zaratan. She says that she can help them achieve that goal. The priestess asks suspiciously why Caileigh would help them. Caieligh shrugs and replies that it doesn't matter to her what happens to the Zaratan – all she cares about is getting off the island. She reasons that if she helps the Sahaugin, they will be more willing to let them build a boat and leave without killing them. The priestess buys this, for now anyway. Caileigh explains her offer. She can wield magic – and she presents the charmed sahaugins she used to get the priestess here as proof. She says she can take the Sahaugin's magic weapons and increase their strength so that they can kill the Zaratan with what they already have. She suggests that the priestess give Caileigh one of the smaller magic weapons, so that she can go away, enchant it, and then bring it back tomorrow morning. If the priestess approves of the results, Caileigh will proceed to enchant the rest of the weapons.
The sahaugin leader considers Caileigh for a few tense seconds. Then, she unsheathes a dagger from her belt... and casts it at Caieligh's feet. Caileigh smiles and gives another bow, together with a formal “pleasure doing business with you” farewell. The priestess and entourage turn to leave. Caileigh waits until they have gone out of sight... and then drops the mask, letting out a long breath she's been holding for the last minute. She puts her hands on her knees and bows her head as the adrenaline purges itself from her system.
Dwerrow comes out of hiding and looks curiously at Caileigh. He gives the first genuine compliment he's ever given Caileigh, and says that was well acted. Caileigh acknowledges with a nod, and continues to recover. Finally, she stands upright and says they need to move quickly – she's bought them a day, no more.
Caileigh heads back to the pool. Diving back into the chamber, she comes up again and gets, uh... Ratty, up to speed. She tells him her plan – use one of the magical weapons to try and prick him awake – normal weapons can't hurt him, but this one will, and should be enough to force him awake. It's a decent plan... but there's a problem.
The dagger isn't magical. At least, not in the right way. A +1 light weapon this ain't, it's a Sahaugin blood dagger. Useless for what Caileigh wants to do. Now at a loss, Caileigh asks if there's any other way to wake Ratty up. He responds that whale song might do the trick. Caileigh jokingly asks where the nearest bit of whale song is. Ratty replies. “On the opposite side of me from the sahaugin camp.”
Naturally, Caileigh wasn't expecting such an easy fix (“easy” in quotes, but still). She and Dwerrow start discussing their options (currently revolving around Dwerrow staying to watch Elsh and Caileigh swimming out on her own), when they round the beach and come across a strange sight.
A Sahaugin is tied to a diagonal cross on the beach, apparently left to die. He is a little smaller and sickly looking than the ones we've seen so far, with a paler hue of scales. As we come into view, he looks up, and on seeing us gets quite excited, calling out to us in halting, broken Common. It seems he was left there as a blood sacrifice to the Servant of the Master – he's an outcast, with no love for the Sahaugins, or their cause. He knows about the survivors, and offers to help them in any way he can if they will cut him loose.
Caileigh is suspicious, so she tests his resolve by telling him that they intend to wake the Zaratan before the day is out. Morenki nods enthusiastically and offers to help. It's a risk to trust him... but Caileigh is running out of options and needs every possible advantage right now. She cuts him loose, and then explains that she needs to swim out on the opposite side of the turtle from the Sahaugin camp. Morenki knows where that is, and so he can point Caileigh to the appropriate piece of beach to swim out from.
Whaddya know, it's the piece of beach where the giant tree is.
And I'm Definitely NOT a Villain
(At this point, my other brother joined in the action, so this next character's introduction will be somewhat... shoehorned. We're playing with a “getting people playing the game trumps 100% consistent narrative” attitude.)
Caileigh and Morenki dive into the surf, swimming out towards the tree. As they get close, they see a small sailing boat approaching from sea. On board is a figure, black-cloaked, somewhat lean, and with the last dregs of a long-term supply of food and water rations at the stern. This is Mordred. He was chased out of his home town for dabbling in the occult. He has a collapsible scythe strapped to his back. He worships Nerull, and one day, he intends to face off against and slay the god of death with his own hands.
I think he's Lawful Neutral or something.
(For those of you twitching spasmodically in the back rows, I will mention that this is not only my other brother's first time being part of an ongoing d&d campaign, so we really don't feel like limiting his choices, we also trust him to play ball and not try to screw us over, even while staying true to his character's LE alignment. Fear not, the only shark available for jumping is home sick with the measles.)
Anyway, since he really has nothing better to do, Mordred decides he may as well help Caileigh and Morenki find this 'whale song' they're after, especially if it improves his chances of getting back to dry land alive. The three of them dive down towards the base of the mysterious tree (Mordred having a sphere of plot convenience water breathing on him). As they get down through the murk, the trio see a large shape at the base of the trunk – the remains of another ship. The tree seems to be growing up through the ship – in roughly the same position the mast should be. Seems a wizard on the ship panicked or something. Another mystery solved, kindof.
A search of the ship reveals one or two minor knick-knacks, nothing special. The psionic presence is still there though. Finally, the trio swim into the sailor's bunks up the front of the boat. A humped, tattered form lies in a hammock near the back. As the three of us enter, it stirs, rises from its rest – and charges blindly.
The fight that follows comes very close to the wire. Caileigh's only effective form of attack is her Crystal Shard power, and against an undead that piercing damage resistance makes her next to useless. Mordred does marginally better, managing to slice out a section of the creature's abdomen, betraying the tell-tale glint of a psionically charged gem buried deep inside the undead's body.
Morenki, however, is the hero of the hour, almost single-handedly defeating the undead by going into an uncontrolled bloody frenzy and tearing it into shreds of ectoplasm. Unfortunately he doesn't quite finish it off before he is stricken unconscious, and Caileigh pulls his limp form away, frantically indicating for Mordred to follow, before powering up to the surface as her air runs out. Once she's broken the surface, she hurriedly searches Morenki's belt, finding what looks like a healing potion, and makes him imbibe it – fortunately it is a healing potion, rather than a bottle of glue, and Morenki is back to consciousness.
Meanwhile, Mordred finishes off the last few hitpoints the ghoul has. It disappates into the water, leaving an inert and depleted psicrystal floating in its wake, the last vestige of a dead psion's consciousness that it tried to maintain now completely spent. With no-one to supervise him, Mordred takes full pickings of the treasure tucked in the undead's hammock – a handful of valuable-looking crystals. Two little stone-like gems and a thin, wand-like stick of crystal, maybe 6 inches long.
With everyone thoroughly beaten up by the undead encounter, we all pile into Mordred's boat and row to shore. Caileigh believes the expedition to have been a bust, and is now trying to come up with another plan. Mordred decides to get some info on what he's swiped for himself without overplaying his hand, and hands Caileigh one of the smaller gems, saying he found it in the cabin and wondered if she knew what it was. Caileigh quickly identifies it as a Cognizance Crystal – specifically a 3 PP version – and declares it to be a highly valuable item – in the hands of of a psion. Fairly useless otherwise. Realizing that it's in his best interests to help Caileigh find a way to wake the Zaratan, he surrenders the slim stick of crystal to her for apparisal as well, keeping the second cognizance crystal for himself to sell off at a later date.
This, Caileigh identifies as a Dorje – exactly what spell it casts, she can't tell. One easy way to find out though. She turns around, points the Dorje at an empty stretch of beach, and wills it to activate. An eardrum-piercing keening wail reverberates through the air, blasting a small crater in the sand with its force. Dwerrow comes running round the corner of the island with a “da hell was that?!” expression. Looks like we found the whale song.
Everything is now set. Caileigh tells the others to get ready, while she goes to the pool one last time. She determines where the Zaratan's head is by asking it on which side it feels the sun in the mornings – this narrows it down to approximately northeast. With the dorje in hand, Caileigh swims out into the sea. A little way out, and she spies a small rocky outcrop down below. She swims down. It's a domed, roughly oval section of rocky seabed, maybe 50 feet long. She swims alongside, getting about 10 feet out. She pulls out the dorje, takes aim, and fires.
On reflection, swimming a few more feet out from the Zaratan's head might have been a prudent move.
The altered acoustics from casting the spell in water smooths out the harshness, creating a long, powerful cry of whale song that echoes through the water, slowly dying away. For a moment there is nothing. Then, a low rumble begins to grow in strength, coming from the direction of the island. The oval outcrop of rock shifts, layers breaking away in clouds of silt. Deciding the alarm clock has more than worked, Caileigh swims to shore, double time.
And not a moment too soon. As she pulls herself up onto shore, the island is being shaken by what feels like an earthquake, and large sections of sand on the beach are sliding off into the surf, revealing a rocky, textured surface underneath. The others are in the process of pulling Mordred's sailing boat up onto shore before it gets dashed to pieces in the turbulent waters, struggling to keep their feet. With the beach no longer a tenable location, the party stumble their way up into the trees, getting to the top of the hill in the center of the island, giving them a clear view all around. And as they get there, they are treated to an awe-inspiring spectacle.
In Awe of the Power
BGM ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DggH6CReCNA
To the south, a great surge of water heaves up, and a colossal fin breaches the surface, centuries of sediment breaking off. Caileigh sees the wreck of the Bluebell sitting on the fin, before the two halves fall away and crash back into the sea. To the northwest, the gigantic tree leans to the side, and with an almighty groan of splintering wood, falls into the ocean as another fin breaches. There is an earth-shattering bellow as the Zaratan breaks its head free, and brings the fins back down, a near tidal wave of water being displaced as it pushes itself forward.
Caileigh comments “...well, I reckon I should go back to the cavern and talk with the Zaratan”
The Zaratan replies, “THAT WILL NOT BE NECCESSARY, I CAN HEAR YOU FINE FROM HERE”
The full psionic presence of the Zaratan's conscious mind appears, knocking Caileigh to her knees from its sheer size. So great is its psionic strength that even the non-psionics can feel the thing's presence.
At this point Morenki pipes up and points off (shore) shell. A shark fin, dwarfed by the Zaratan but still massive, has broken the water and is following after them. It's the giant shark that destroyed the Bluebell and swallowed the crew. “Is servant of master!” Morenki declares.
So, we've got a giant dire shark, servant of an evil deity coming after us... and he's keeping pace with the Zaratan. We're at something of a loss. This thing has literally bitten a ship in two before our eyes, we are not getting in the water with it. Even at top speed, Ratty can't outrun it. But then, Morenki speaks up. He quietly mentions that he was meant to be a blood sacrifice to the shark. “Maybe... sacrifice will calm him, maybe.. .I buy you time?”
Mordred doesn't have a problem with this plan, but Caileigh shuts it down outright. She is not having another person die before they get back to shore. The Zaratan uncertainly muses that it's never actually tried to fight before, but Caileigh won't be having that either. Instead she draws attention to the fact that the turtle is a psionic creature – a psionic creature several orders of magnitude more powerful than herself. He should be able to use his mind to incapacitate the shark without killing it. The Zaratan considers for a moment... before finally saying...
“I WILL TRY”.
The permeating psionic presence on the island builds in intensity, reaching a zenith. In a blast that knocks Caileigh back to her knees, a violent tempest of psionic force surges out behind the Zaratan. There is a sudden violent thrashing in the water, as the shark writhes, churning up foam... then it becomes still and slowly sinks down below the surface.
The Zaratan just cast Ego Whip. At 25th manifester level. 24 charisma damage. That shark doesn't even know who it is anymore, let alone who it serves. It'll eventually recover over the next month, and then we might very well have a problem – but we won't be seeing it any time soon.
So, we sail off into the sunset (because it is getting towards sunset now), taking stock of our situation. Elsh is badly hurt, but will recover. Joslin's body is preserved – there's nothing we can do for him now short of take him back to shore for burial. Morenki is happy to come with us, and we'll be looking to see if we can find some kind of reverse water breathing amulet for him so he doesn't have to go back into water every 8 hours, maybe repurpose the amulet Caileigh has (or the sahaugin blood dagger, we've still got that). Elsh suspects there's something amiss with the latest addition to the group, but Mordred declines to reveal his allegiances, instead sneaking away in the dead of night to pray to his dread god. Caileigh and the others aren't aware of his actions... but Mordred always feels the presence of the Zaratan, observing him, but saying nothing.
Morenki expresses an interest in Caileigh's psionic abilities. He decides that psionics are “good magic”, being intrinsically different from the magic that the priests of his people use – the power does not come from other beings, but from within. And while Caileigh warns him that the gift is very rare, she agrees to attempt to tutor him.
There's also a more pressing concern. Now that Ratty is fully conscious, he reaches out to feel the rest of his kin... only to find none. The oceans are completely empty. Zaratans sleep for centuries – millennia even – but even if this servant of the Sahaugin god had been going after Zaratans for a while, he couldn't have killed all of them... right?
But that is a conundrum for another day. For now, we sail towards civilization; a hot-headed psion, a gruff dwarf, a doddery old cleric of St Cuthbert, a brooding, scythe-wielding cleric of Nerull with aspirations of deicide, and a Sahaugin who, as narrative causality would have it, seems to have a latent psionic gift. And we all live on a yellow submarine giant Zaratan. Called Ratty.
Level 3 is gonna be fun.
We never did find out how that Tiger got on the island though.
This section got written up a while back, and we've actually had another couple of sessions over the Easter break, so I'll be trying to get those written up and posted in the next week or so. They're not quite as dramatic as this section, but they do establish the campaign setting and set up the overarching plot. In the meantime, hope you enjoy this :)