Emeris tells Quillong the basically true story that they are here to acquire property for their boss, and that brings them into conflict against the sahuagin who have looted the ship. Quillong agrees to help them and sends his dolphin back to Konagis to report to the other tritons.
So Emeris the shadowcaster, Early the fighter, and Quillong the triton follow the trail of debris back to a cave. Schools and fish and small eels swim in and out of it. Inside, they take the left passage and swim into the lair of a giant crab, which proves to be extremely formidable. The massive creature nearly slays Emeris and Quillong before Early strikes the final blow.
Continuing through a long underwater tunnel, they are attacked by a large poisonous eel and discover the body of Linele. Suddenly, they see a strange vision where the girl is playing on the shore of some island with her black dog, with the Arrowhead and a cluster of buildings in the background, then the vision changes and the compound of buildings in the background aflame, under attack by swordsmen, and the girl is carrying only a gold pocket watch asking “why?”. The illusion repeats itself until they suppress it with willpower.
Upon escaping the illusion, they see the real Linele—now an undead vampire spawn—cowering at the end of the cave. She clutches the gold pocket watch greedily, and rambles incoherently. Early thinks the creature is truly awful and says as much, which angers Linele and she attacks them. Her energy draining attacks bring Quillong to death’s door. Emeris’ energy is sapped by the girl’s vampiric touch, while Early tries to plunge his dagger through its heart. Emeris quaffs the potion of fire breathing. The magic fire works even underwater, and tilts the battle in their favor. When Linele falls, Emeris and Early remove the head and drive a crossbow bolt through her chest, and use potions to save Quillong from bleeding to death.
Exploring a narrow winding passage that opens in a cavern above, the company sneaks into a large cavern and finds where the sahuagin have been bringing the loot. They find Linele’s broken glass coffin and the loot, as well as a group of thugs and guards with a pair of slaves. It appears the thugs were working with the sahuagin and were under the employ of the Balacazars. Another name, “Medre something”, came up but it was unfamiliar. When they try and sneak away, they are spotted, but they escape into the watery passage—thanks to their potions, the thugs cannot follow them.
Hauling the vampiric girl’s body with them, the three leave the cave. Quillong heads back to Konagis, saying he will report back to his people and they will have to deal with the sahuagin later. He gives Emeris a coral charm that grants good luck as thanks for saving his life.
Returning to the boat, Seanus is quite horrified with the fate of Linele, and escorts them back to Linech. On the way, he mentions Linech’s shady guest who gave him the gold statue. The characters tell Linech the lie that they found Linele in this state, after she'd been killed by thugs who had seen her dark transformation. Linech seems angry about the fate of his daughter, but his mood improves substantially when they deliver the gold watch. They get paid and leave.
The next morning, Early purchases a dagger with an alchemical silver blade and an enchanted breastplate from Bull and Bear Armory. Though he was not hurt in the battle with the vampire spawn girl, he was going to be ready if they ever met another one.
Now it is time to return to Castle Shard…
Next time: Castle Shard offers the company a new mission!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment