DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
Abdul el Abdul (Fighter 4)
Kwinsea (Aquamancer 4), with familiar Hermes, and henchman Xavier (Swashbuckler 2)
"No. 7" (Halfling 1)
Torak (Cleric 4)
Beuford Bumbletoes (Halfling 3)
With Chaff out of action, they party decided to first sail about the Magic Isles, looking for the Cloud Tower and any other sights worthy of exploration. But only after No. 7 captured a few of the three eared bunnies for Chaff to cuddle while he recovered. Raising sail, the "Purple Haze" headed north-east, and after passing several small chains of islands, soon hauled in view of a place they recognized; the Blue Tower. There was some talk of going ashore to see if they'd missed anything on their last visit, but then someone remembered the two 'guests' they'd robbed and abandoned there. Figuring they wouldn't be welcomed with open arms, the party had the crew turn the ship about. Now that they knew where they were, they headed back to the Lightning Tower to recovered the silver they'd had to leave behind. This was done with no interference, so they turned about once more and headed in the direction the tribal chief had told them the Cloud Tower lay.
The party found the Cloud Tower without much trouble. They found an island, over which floated a large black cloud dumping rain on an abandoned town below. That was odd enough, since otherwise the sky was clear and a brilliant blue. Doubly odd was the lower half of a tower that stuck out of the bottom of the cloud. The "Purple Haze" circled the island, but nothing else of interest was observed. Again, reluctant to tangle with any danger without Chaff, the party decided to anchor here for the night and then continue exploration of the Magic Isles, coming back to Cloud Tower at a latter time. To speed up the process, Kwinsea volunteered to
seasong the vivmancer to sleep each night to aid in his recovery.
However, the rest for the remainder of the party was not as complete and pleasant. Just before dawn, No.7 was on watch. The halfling was observing the tower, and noted a few shapes emerged from the cloud, flew around it and the island below, before returning from whence they came. At about the same time, she heard a scraping sound on the rail behind her. Turning, No. 7 saw a dripping horror climb onto the deck. A demonic visage topped a body covered in spikes and barbs, a body the colour of old bronze and covered in seaweed and slime. The halfling raised the alarm as the beast fell upon her. Luckily, No. 7 was both quick on her feet and armored like a tank, and held off the thing while the rest of the party rushed up from below deck to help. They found, however, that most of their weapons could not hurt it; only Abdul with his magic sword could seem to do it any harm. So the two heavily armored halflings, No. 7 and Beuford, held the creatures' attention while Abdul chopped at it, finally cleaving the thing in half. After a quick investigation of the remains, it was dumped overboard. And with the sun coming up, the crew was roused and the "Purple Haze" got underway, the party having decided this was probably not the best place to stay anchored while Chaff recovered.
They sailed north again to explore and find a quiet place to anchor for a few days. They passed though another chain of islands, with a few notable locations (a pair of islands, one a blistering hot sandbar, the other a mountain obscured by a raging snowstorm; another sandbar that shifted under the effects of wind and waves such that it's location was never the same twice). But the ship moved on, finally dropping anchor off the island that floated 1 foot above the waves. For some reason, this seemed to the party like a safe spot. And for the most part it was, except when Xavier spied a raft of some sort drifting down the channel from the north west. As it came closer, they could see it was about 100' across, and at one end was a small grass hut. The raft was also not made of logs or any other normal material, but appeared to be a mass of dead crocodiles! A lone figure stood on the roof of the hut, a cadaverous human dressed in dirty robes. He/it stared at the party, who tried to communicate but received no response. At least until someone decided to cast a spell at him, at which point the figure cast a spell of it's own and started to
levitate above the raft and the ship. A duel ensued, with pistol fire and spells from the ship countered by more spells from the mystery figure. The figure was able to
confuse the party, such that Kwinsea turned to attack Xavier and Beuford attacked No7. Beuford quickly battered his fellow halfling down, while Xavier jumped into the rigging and climbed away from his employer, while at the same time trying to swing out towards the
levitating figure to slash at it with his sword. That unfortunately did not work, and Kwinsea was able to use her
prismatic ray gem to blast her henchman out of the rigging. By this time, the rest of the party had blasted away at the
levitating figure, such that it had descended back into the hut and disappeared. They then turned attention to subduing Beuford and Kwinsea before they could so more harm. Luckily both No. 7 and Xavier were not dead, but would be joining Chaff in the sick bay for some time. Meanwhile, Lynessa and the crew had gotten the "Purple Haze" underway to put some space between them and the zombie raft while the remaining party members decided what to do next ...
TOTAL XP
2328
GAINS
18283sp
KILLS
1 aquatic horror
LOSSES
No. 7 (temporarily)
Xavier (temporarily)
No comments:
Post a Comment