13A:Play/5 Duck Innuendo

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Starring: 📜Elistheren, 🌲 Qistis, 📚 Annalana
Guest Starring: Firigin, Meridan (Dwarf officier)
Location: Firigin's Island; Stranglesea
Date Played: 2016 December 13

Shark (Trap) Week

📚 Annalana: The book has a cypher, which Qistis is able to easily break. She does and it says “Do not read if you value your ability to live, breath, and procreate.” We decide to leave quickly, before he returns.

As we leave, there are traps. Qistis escapes harm but Elistheren and I are caught in flying sharks jaws. The one that set upon Qistis attaches to the door and blocks egress. Elistheren pulls a bottle of everything bad for teeth out of his hat.

Firigin opens a chest and throws more jaws at us. Annalana starts to disrespect Firigin by stabbing a painting and kicking over a shelf to break it. Annalana and Firigin go back and forth until Annalana finally decides to be calm.

📜Elistheren

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🌲 Qistis: The book I took off Firigin's shelves has a cipher. I get far enough to read a warning and pass it off to Annalana. Considering Firigin's distaste in assisting us in finding Sharp I will head its words. I most certainly do not think whatever lies in this book is worth loosing my life over.

We try to leave the man's house only to be assaulted by a trap in the form of shark jaws that hold my companions in place. The sight is rather humorous and Anna's increasing hostile frustration just makes it all the more amusing. The teeth wizard comes back into his home and while I try to get some information out of him, anything that might help us find Sharp really, Anna starts throwing what can only be described as a childlike tantrum. Thankfully this doesn't put Firigin off completely, but if she keeps this up we'll be completely stuck here with nothing to go on.

Talking with Firigin

📚 Annalana: Firigin is resistant to sharing information about Inigo. “I guess that he is alive.” He tries to impress upon us that he is retired and desperate to be left alone. “So I don’t know how he did it, but he escaped his own assassination. I was still packing when my doors were beat down.”

Firigin did think about revenge but decided to just let him go, as he wasn’t worth the effort. He is sure that he can get us to him but he doesn’t know where he is. Firigin has a device that can take us to him, one that he modified to find Inigo. Elistheren agrees to publish our findings so that it is public knowledge and Firigin isn’t bothered.

The device is a boat, one that will sail us to him after singing a tune, which is a Dwarven song about a woman who reject suitors, “The Ballad of the Stone Girl”.

I ask about Inigo’s weakness and Firigin tells me that he won’t be running away from us. Apparently something has happened. “After his last assassination attempt he only came out a little ahead.”

Elistheren and Firigin talk about the obscure god that Firigin follows. They bond and Elistheren arranges to get a letter on Firigin’s death so that he may continue the god’s worship.

We are led to where the boat is kept and it is covered with an illusion. To reveal it we must reveal a secret that we do not want to have known. Elistheren speaks a secret and there is laughing on the wind and the kelp takes the form of a boat. It is halfway between a rowboat and a longboat. It is nondescript except for a bronze doodad on the sprit (front).

📜Elistheren

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🌲 Qistis

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Journal

📚 Annalana: I only managed to decipher a few passages of Firigin’s journal, which talks about the Elf Queen and another womanly icon being in a relationship. The journal finds this offensive.

📜Elistheren

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🌲 Qistis

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Magical Boat Ride

📚 Annalana: I sing the Ballad of the Stone Girl and the boat starts to creak along, moving of its own accord. It is moving at a walking pace in a perfectly straight line, just above the waves, with a minute amount of rock. After a few hours a soft, dwarven voice says, “Destination confirmed, the Stranglesea”.

Night falls and we rest.

Qistis knows about the Stranglesea, there is a mass of algae that sits on the sea. Lots of monsters and strange things that make fascinating reagents. Elistheren says that no one knows much about the Stranglesea, as you can’t find it on purpose. He says that you could accidentally find it. “I certainly wasn’t thinking about the Stranglesea”, Elistheren says. I have heard that there are “mermaids” that are actually sea plants that attack people (and I’m not sure why I wrote that down).

There is a giant spout of water and white whale starts rushing towards us, opening its mouth. I shoot arrows into its mouth to no avail. Just as it starts to get close there is a kraken that wraps around the whale and drags it under.

📜Elistheren

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🌲 Qistis

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Stranglesea

After the third day, the boat has stopped moving, we are gently caught in a tangle of seaweed that goes on for miles. “Destination arrived, Stranglesea,” says the voice of the boat. As the others awaken, I do recon. There is a collection of wrecks here, obscuring our boat. The boat is pointing to the dead center of the island. We are between two shipwrecks. The kelp is about a foot thick, thinner in some places, thicker in others. There are small, hand-sized carnivorous plants that attack fish in the water.

Qistus sends out Umbra to scout invisibly, and when it returns it begins to sketch out a map of the area. I pull out my compass and begin to navigate in the direction that the boat indicated. We end up heading in the direction of the trash heap in the map. I’m walking along, leading the party, but as I focus on the direction, I end up in the sea due to a misstep. Before Qistis thinks about it her shadows leap out and pull me back onto the mat, just before a gaping orca maw would’ve got me.

As we approach the trash heap there is a thicker weed mat that is somewhat dry. It is a basking zone of animals, lots of seals and gulls. I create a few waypoints and we circumvent the trash heap. We make it to the edge of the mat and find nothing.

📜Elistheren

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🌲 Qistis

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Dwarven Ship

📚 Annalana: We decide to investigate the Dwarven Ship, which turns out to have a pallisade erected around it. The mountainous sigil of the Dwarf King adores the ship. There is a crenelated iron wall at the top.

I call out in Dwarven and hold up my helmet to show that I’m allied with the Dwarf King. After a long wait, a crew of dwarves, five of them, come out onto the ship. One of them speaks into a brass cone, “Keep your weapons down and approach slowly.”

I introduce myself as Captain Annalana Love of the 14th Suicide Grenadiers and I am introduced to the officer, Meridan. “We were sailing and then woke up in the weed mat. The engines were close to getting us out until they failed. We have stopped counting the phases of the moon.” He tells us that there are goblins and rats. As we exit the palisades he yells, “If you find Sharp, we want him back”.

We make camp in the shadow of the dwarven pallisade and nothing of note happens. The next morning we parlay once more with the dwarves and find out that Sharp is a mechanical wizard. He was previously helping the dwarves fix their engines before he vanished mid project. He is a damn brain in a jar, of sorts.

📜Elistheren

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🌲 Qistis

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Trash Heap

📚 Annalana: This pile of trash is irregularly shaped and about 30 feet tall. Behind it we can see the wreckrat ship in the distance. There are elephant seals basking in the sun. I fish for a few hours and hand them to Elistheren, who provides us a distraction to get to the trash heap.

Qistis and I find a makeshift chair and table, with charcoal. The writing on the table is an agreement between a human and dwarf to trade goods. We search and find nothing of interest but Annalana writes “We See You” on the table in charcoal.

📜Elistheren

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🌲 Qistis

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Fungus Patch

📚 Annalana: Except for some weird, lumpy shapes, this seems like the rest of the weed mat. This stretch is oddly empty of debris. There are strange pustles, from a few inches to a few feet in size. They are dangerous fungal masses. It may have some intelligence (but probably not).

Elisthereen tries to convince us to go into the patch and when it is obvious that we aren’t going to follow, he rushes into the patch and enemies reveal themselves. We are set upon by fungal creatures!

A floating spore is thrown at Elistheren, who is overwhelmed with troubles of being shipwrecked. We take out a larger plant creature that explodes in a puff of spores, fortunately far from anyone.

In the heat of battle I’m hit with spores that remove my memories. I see only a half elf enemy and her allies. I have no idea where my allies are and why I am alone, but I know battle and battle is good. I stab at Elistheren but before I can cause harm my mind clears and my memories come back.

📜Elistheren

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🌲 Qistis

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