February 27th, 2010

The last session ended when Magnys is saved from a certain death in a giant crab’s pincers by her friends Tonks, Larryl and Darryl. Now she knows what a regular tin can feels like.

The little party gets back to the trail of the lost four sailors, who left the ship to forage on the island. The ‘Waterspirit’, owned by the brave Captain Nalas, is on her way to Skuld. They follow the tracks through sand and rocks, until they reach a rock wall where seagulls are nestling in the cavities. Darryl notices that two of these nests have been disturbed. He climbs up to investigates and yells to his companions that the nests have been robbed. Looking down he notices there’s an imprint of a human body in the sand. He nimbly jumps down – he’s a monk after all – and the party follows the trail that is winding its way near the rock wall. After a while they have to climb up. Even Magnys manages, notwithstanding her heavy armor. On top of the rock wall they continue towards the centre of the island, when suddenly they spot a mast sticking up from the water and rocks to the right. Seems like there are a lot of ships stranded on the shores of this strange island.

An eerie sound floats on the air. Magnys and Larryl manage to break free from the alluring sound, but Tonks and Darryl are suddenly lost in an imaginary world: all they want is to get into the water! Larryl spots a female further out at sea and looses an arrow on her. The creature dives under and the singing stops. Alas the effects on Tonk and Darryl continue. Magnys tries to trip Tonks, who’s walking blindly towards the shore in a shiny and heavy armor, but doesn’t succeed. Meanwhile Larryl has managed to wrestle his brother down before he drowns himself. After some minutes the fog clears off Darryl’s mind and he looks around, stupefied of finding his brother pinning him down. Finally Magnys grapples Tonks, who’s standing up to her knees in the cold salty water, after which she comes to her senses too. Larryl and Magnys find a floating body in the water: seems one of the sailors also couldn’t resist the call of the siren.

The friends leave this dangerous coast and follow the tracks again. Suddenly they notice that the tracks of the sailors are mingled with other imprints. Larryl thinks they belong to big aquatic humanoids. Seems like the sailors were captured! Larryl scouts ahead and spots a group of four creatures… and they see him too. When he runs back to the group, the humanoids follow. Larryl uses ghost step and hides while the big creatures advance on the party. Using smooth javelin-evading moves and close combat tactics, the four friends manage to kill the attacking horde. Onwards. When the tracks lead in two separate directions, they follow the ones with the big humanoid and human imprints. Though the tracks almost disappear on the rocky ground, Larryl still manages to follow them. They lead to higher grounds and head straight into a cave entrance. In the lintel of the cave there are three skulls, one of them decorated with a black gem in the eye socket. Eyeing the gem, Darryl decides to climb up to take a closer look at the skulls. He manages to loosen the skull and throws it down to his brother Larryl. The gem is stored in his backpack.

In they go and Magnys has a close encounter with the green slippery floor… twice. With the help of Darryl she finally manages to stay on her feet. Damned and blessed heavy armor! The path leads downwards and opens into a somewhat broad cave. After careful listening, they decide to move on. The cave splits up in two corridors and the group follows the left path. Only Tonks’ amulet spreads some light. Other senses take over and Darryl hears something sloshing through the water. The brothers hide, while Magnys and Tonks stand ready to take any action needed. As a human, Magnys sees almost nothing and growls with frustration. ZOMBIE. Darryl charges on the reanimated corpse but misses, while Larryl fires two arrows in quick succession. The zombie doggedly moves forward. Finally seeing her target, Magnys charges with a smite attack, calling her Deity Lathander’s name and Darryl follows with a flurry of punches. Larryl’s kukri and Tonks’ ‘healing’ spells make sure the zombie doesn’t get up anymore. The creature also has a black gem in its eye socket. They take the stone with them.

Following Tonks’ dancing lights, our warriors advance deeper into the tunnels. When it splits, they take the left again. After a while they spot two more zombies and an old seahag with greenish skin. While Magnys attacks the zombie in melee, Tonks calls forth magic stones. Meanwhile Larryl and Darrly kill the seahag. Larryl finds a pouch with 25 gold pieces on the female. A sickening stench tries to fight them off but they continue through the left opening of three new tunnels. After some feet, the smell gets even fouler, one could cut it with a knife. Or kukri. They enter a small room and almost gag on the stench. Pieces of meat and human limbs are lying around. A new zombie is being created, transformed from a human into an abomination. Larryl charges straight into the creature and Magnys aids him with a powerful attack. The creature goes down in a heap of… well let’s not get into that.

We continue to the other side of the small chamber, which opens into a larger room with a large fire pit in the middle. Above that pit hangs a kettle from which a carrion stench evaporates. Horrible. Magnys insists they tip over the kettle to get rid of the boiling filth inside and manages to do so with Darryl’s help. They empty the cauldron and find more black stones in the bottom. There are jars on shelves around the room.

Another room opens up and there the party encounters another zombie with a black gem for eye. A gem is also embedded in the rock wall. While Tonks explores the room, the others attack. From the right side two more zombies emerge, accompanied by another green skinned seahag, plus a different female with blue skin and black hair. After a valiant fight, the friends triumph, find a nice loot (including excellent sea charts) and manage to free the three missing sailors. Two are bound, frightened to death, and the third is missing an eye. Seems the hags use the eyes to create the magic black gems by boiling them in the cauldron. Through these gems they can keep ‘an eye’ (or more) on the cave area. They split up the treasures and escort the unfortunate sailors back safely to the Seaspirit with great speed. They don’t even investigate the rest of the island, nor the tracks. They only want to get the hell away from the island. Captain Nalas is very happy buying the sea charts for gold and goodwill.

~Marion / Magnys the Paladin