We emerged once
again from our extra-dimensional campsite, ready to unleash seven
kinds of hell on whatever else we could find down in these caverns.
As we were walking along the hallway, Whitmore and I noticed that
part of the wall looked...not quite right. Upon investigation it
proved to be an illusion concealing a secret passage. The hidden
passage had some sort of strange...slime...that appeared to be
growing from the rocks itself, but undeterred we proceeded onward
into the chamber. Within it we found a bier which had a giant mound
of green slime on top, surrounded by dried out husks of skin. Having
gotten quite used to how these things seemed to go Whitmore shouted,
“Surrender your treasure now and we probably won't murder you.”
There was a reply in a language none of us understood, but Soma was
able to utilize his magic to translate and revealed that the room
was, in fact, inhabited. Whitmore then asked whom we were addressing
and the slime congealed itself into a freaky ocean monstrosity and
revealed itself to be Maelrawn the Tentacular.
We were, at first,
rather concerned by Maelrawn's sudden appearance. As the pirates
seemed to be scared shitless at the very mention of his name, and
mighty sea creatures obeyed his commands, we were worried we had come
up against a force to be reckoned with. However, Soma was able to
discern that Maelrawn did not seem as powerful as he claimed to be.
Our suspicions were further strengthened when Maelrawn revealed he
was trapped down within this island simply because he had no access
to water. He wasn't bound by a magic spell or hemmed in by magic
wards, or chained with adamantium or even shifted into a pocket
dimension. He's trapped because there's no water. I mean, why were we
even afraid of this guy in the first place? We could literally leave
him right there at the bottom of the hole and he would continue to
not be a threat to anyone. Desperate weakling that he was, he tried
convincing us to help him get free, which earned nothing but our
contempt and decision to outright murder him.
Sadly, I must say I
remember nothing of the battle with Maelrawn, which is really a big
disappointment in and of itself, but is only coupled with the fact
that the fight was over in ten seconds. As I was standing right in
front of Maelrawn and waving around that spear specifically designed
to hill him, Maelrawn decided to focus on me and take control of me
with a spell, resulting in me just standing there uselessly, not even
my martial spirit could save me. But as that happened, Meda fired
several arrows straight into Maelrawn, Soma dropped a spell, Whitmore
threw a bomb right down Maelrawn's gullet, and Meda fired another
cluster of arrows into his face. At which point Maelrawn dropped
over, almost but not quite dead, and I took quite great pleasure in
finishing him off. Done. That's it. We've literally fought a tree
that took more time and effort to kill than this so-called god.
Disappointing as hell.
After looting
whatever scant valuables Maelrawn had hoarded for indeterminite
purposes, we headed back down the passage, investigating the
remaining chambers. In one we found five more of the freaky fish
guard people, which Soma quickly scorched to death with a fireball,
who seemed to be working on finishing that canal project which would
have let Maelrawn out to disappoint the entire world. Thankfully we
had spared the world such a horror. The final chamber turned out to
be an alchemical workshop containing none other than Gerlach, also
transformed into a freaky fish person. Gerlach naturally asked who
the hell we were and what we wanted, and I decided to begin
negotiating from a position of strength by saying, “We're the
people who just killed your god.”
In hindsight, after
I'd been hit by two lightning bolts, saying that you've just killed
someone's god may not be the best position to begin negotiating from.
However, in my defense I figured that anyone obeying something as
pitiful as Maelrawn had to be much lower down on the food chain than
Maelrawn and would surrender unconditionally and immediately
following such a statement. This seemed, however, to only irritate
Gerlach and provoke him into attacking us. Once again I charged
forward and managed to get a good hit in, followed by the usual
collection of bombs, spells, and arrows, but Gerlach did something
that let him sap my energy somehow and I found myself too weak to
properly beat him to death with my sword. It turned out Gerlach was
actually stronger than the so-called god he worshiped. But not much
stronger because we murdered him to death as well.
An examination of
Gerlach's lab turned up a few odds and ends, but perhaps most
importantly information on a potion that could reverse the curse of
the island, as well as the curse affecting the pirate people.
Gathering the remaining loot and valuables we easily escaped from
Maelrawn's prison of...a hole in the ground, and emerged once again
upon the island. We found the remaining villagers and explained
Gerlach and Maelrawn were dead and we would soon be sending help to
assist them. They seemed rather unimpressed. We went back down to the
beach and utilizing my manta cloak I was able to tow the party and
the boat back to Blackcove to meet with the pirates. The pirates
seemed rather sad that Gerlach was dead, but relieved that Maelrawn
was gone and that there was a way to remove the curse afflicting
them. The captain rewarded us with some lovely cash and we were
invited to a feast to be held that evening.
At the feast things
were a little...odd. The captain seemed far more formal than he
needed to be, especially considering we had just saved his village of
eight people from being disappointed to death. It seemed that for
once there was a reason because the captain later diplomatically
asked about our opinions of the Pathfinder Guild. After we
enthusiastically expressed our hatred for those bastards and their
role in sending us down into No Fun, the captain seemed much more
relieved and explained that he was no friend to the Pathfinders as
well, having stolen quite a few of their artifacts and objects over
the years. The captain went on to say that he was very interested in
a sword which belonged to a woman named Chellan, a being that had
been created by alchemists trying to convert lead into gold. Her
sword was made of hardened gold and contained many wondrous
properties, including the ability to turn people it struck into gold.
As the captain was a collector of swords he was rather interested in
obtaining this sword and wished to hire us to acquire it for him, as
well as any other swords we might find interesting and cared to give
him. He promised to reward us handsomely if we succeeded and would
take us to the port where he had a very good lead on the sword's
location. As we had no compunctions about liberating artifacts from
the Pathfinders we agreed to take on this job for the captain.
- Krinsblag the
Manta Lord
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