We join our doughty crew on board the ES Biminey. A search of the ship has turned up little in the way of supplies other than a fairly well equipped artificer’s lab/workshop. Through the use of 80′ fishing lines and water converted to steam converted to water to get rid of the salt the group is able to stay fairly fed during the entire voyage.
Biminey uses the free time to construct two Amulets of Blink – Neck Slot items that provide the following function – Blink (Daily, Teleportation) – Minor action – teleport up to 4 squares. Elisssa and Biminey take them.
Day three of their voyage after dark they spot lights on the ocean and their course takes them near. It’s a group of slaver rading ships off loading their ‘cargo’ into two large galleons, home port unknown although Biminey recalls seeing historical tales of travel from back when there was travel between cities of significant nature that cities along the southern end of the west coast used them for hauling goods around. It’s been decades since their city has seen anything more than small fishing boats that take shelter in their bay blown off course by storms from the tiny ‘towns’ on either side of them along the coast.
Ballistae bolts fly toward them from slaver ships but they arc below their elemental ship’s height. It will take time for the slavers to elevate their weapons and time isn’t something they have as the ship continues on it’s inexorable course south by south east. Â Arcane energies flare out from one of the galleons but falls short of them. With the strong northerly winds there’s no chance the slavers will be able to follow with enough speed that they won’t be lost before daybreak.
They soon pass the point where they believe their city is to the east but the coast isn’t visible to them and there’s nothing they can do.
Day eight of their voyage finally brings the low smudge of coastline to their left. The ship continues on its journey and the coast grows closer. The lands once they finally can make them out are flattening out, the rocky coasts of their town long gone. The lands grow marshy and then turn into full blown swamps even as ruins start to sprout up. From piles of jungle covered stone to partial upgright walls to almost intact buildings over time.
Dark forms, keeping to the shadows below pace the ship after awhile, its speed drastically decreased as it enters the cities airspace.
A tall step sided tower is seen in the way, canted at a sharp angle obviously as result of the slow devastation caused by the swamp engulfing the city. This cant is putting it squarely in the way of the ship which continues on. With a heavy crash the ship collides with the upper part of the tower and sends almost everyone crashing to the deck.
Figures cloaked in living shadow swarm up and around the tower leading into the deck, The attackers consist of literal shadow, small flitting forms of black swirls and coase featured humanoids draped in it. Larger forms swarmed over the ship grabbing the unskilled citizens and fall over the sides down to the ground below while more engage the combatants of the ship’s passengers. Ranged attackers armed with shadow given substance line the tower’s ledges.
A long fight but our party perseveres and wipes out the attackers but they’ve lost 5 of their 6 companions, only little timithi going uncaptured due to his hiding in the wheelhouse with Bimini.
After recovering, tossing the bodies over the sides our heroes regroup in the dawns morning light to discuss their options. It’s a toss up as to who is the most uncaring but eventually after listening to Timithi’s pleas to save his little sister the group starts on the trail toward another intact tower they can see rising up from the ruined city about 2 miles distance.
Stak recoverd a suit of Blacksnake Armour which makes him fairly shifty once a day.
On their journey they are attacked by a building. Or rather someone drops a building on them. All but Torel are captured by the debris, immobilized trying to get free as archers, feral humanoid creatures open up from a second story on a building facing the now large mound of debri. Three giants, most likely part goliath drop into view wielding massive steel mauls although one is bearing the black steel, red runed warhammer known as Rockcrusher. Additional creatures stream out narrow alleyways into the fray, wielding rusty corroded weapons.
The party makes good use of their teleportation powers to escape the stone and debris holding them motionless and engages the attackers. The archers from above do a good number on the party, Torel, Elissa and Stak taking numbers of missiles in their backs and sides as they engage the maulers. Dra’kin and Biminey engage the feral foot soldiers then turn their attentions to the archers while the maulers are brought down by their friends.
Poor little Timithi is crushed into a pulp during the fight as the party watched with casual interest. His dying words even as ribs ripped his lungs apart and his brains leaked out are “Please sir, please won’t you save my sister.”
Elisssa latches onto the dweomered Rockcrusher.
The group continued on through the streets of the city toward the tower. There they found it sitting in the center of a plaza, the base covered in swirling shadows. A body falls from the tower above, a gaping hole where her chest had been, a waitress from the Blue Duck in their home town by the name of Lolly. Yes there were jokes about adverbs.
As they move closer the shadows start to detach and surround the group and then attack, sinking into the very bodies of the heroes with a bitter burning cold of the soul. Using his resounding armour ability Biminey blasts open the door into the tower during the fight.
The first floor proved to be empty but filled with the most noisome furnishings one could ever hope to find.
The second floor appeared at first glance to be the same then slender shadow draped forms erupt from hiding spots under the piles of foul bedding. Trying to ease into positions where they could inflict devastating damage the heroes proved to be too careful [DM: And my dice proved to suck royal ass. A problem that occurred with distressing frequency for most of the evening. I don't' think I've ever had that many numbers below 10 before.]
After a short breather the heroes continued up the tower, finding the third floor as empty as the first. [DM: As it was getting late and I wanted the boss battle to occur, I pulled the forces from this room which would have further drained the groups resources, it was planned for an addition encounter of 6 level 2 brutes, the same Darkmith Retrievers that had captured the hostages. As a result there's a bit of a break in continuity but no one noticed that the creatures that had kidnapped the hostages vanished into thin air. But this is party of what being a DM is about. Dynamic changing of things to fit the available time, interest and party resources.]
Stak with a stealth ability the likes of which hasn’t been seen outside the training rooms of the local thieve’s guild sneaks up the stairs to look over the rooftop. He sees pillars of energy slowly eating away the chest away of another of the captives. The remaining three captives are laying motionless near one edge of the rooftop guarded by the darkmith lurkers they’d fought on level 2. Â Two dark priests are directing the energies in a ghoulish sacrifice of the captives.
With Elisssa’s battlecry, “Let’s charge them!” the party moves up as a whole to the top of the stairs. The dark priests react to this intrusion and the fight commences. The dark priests have the abiltiy to cloak themselves in shadow and vanish from mortal sight but it proves to be of only moderate use to them as they continue to take damage, Stak continually sinking arrows into their invisible forms. With Elissa and Torel taking care of the skirmishers, Dra’kin amusing himself with incredible lack of skill at combat. [DM: Four 1's in a row, I kid you not.]
The battle is tough but our crew is up to the job and downs the bad guys, frees the hostages and looks askance at Dra’kin wondering just which side he’s working on given his complete ineffectiveness during this fight.
We leave our party atop the tower recovering with their rescued captives including little Suizin who’s asking about her brother.
[DM: This was planned to be a little tougher fight than it was but I forgot to use a wonderous item a Jar of Steam that I'd given to one of the dark priests and in general my overall lack of decent dice rolling and Stak's high rolls kept the fight from being as tough as I'd hoped. With two shifts in the balance of randomness that way it does tend to deflate an encounters power base. But I'm sure that at some point the tides will turn and the shoe will be on the other leg.]
From this fight the heroes garnered a amulet of protection (not that it did that much good for the priest wearing it since the group is primarily an AC attack base) that boosts NADS, a pair of Goblin Stompers (shift as a reaction to being missed), an Azurian short sword (lighting damage + close burst once a day of lighting damage) and the Jar of Steam.
The podcast of the events will be made available as I get it broken up and cleaned up. If you’re subscribed to the feeds either from the site or from iTunes you’ll get it automatically when you sync whatever you’re using to pull the feed. If you don’t have a feed toy then you can hit the site up and listen to them through the flash players on each post.
