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| The Second Wind - A Living Ship |
The Second Wind took flight into Wildspace, the vessel hitting over four million miles per hour, a stream of light upon their tail. Uncertain of the distance they had to travel to reach their destination, the group chatted and relaxed with the crew of the ship. Always wary, Joe decided to be incognito, switching his appearance to that of the person who had gone below deck to rest, so occasionally he would appear as Krux, sometimes as Mister Flinch the first mate.
Several hours into the journey, however, the ship suddenly jerked to a stop. Gargantuan rocks drifted around them, multiple times larger than the ship they were sailing in. They had steered themselves straight into a small asteroid belt. While considering how to go around it, from around one of the rocks a dark ship emerged, a spiral shell, a long open bow, beneath which long tentacles waved as if caught in an invisible current. "Mind Flayers.", Krux said nervously.
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| A Nautiloid - The Mind Flayer Vessel |
People moved into positions, ready for an attack, but it was only a few moments later when Krux realised, "It's a derelict.", pointing out the holes in the hull and the stripped weaponry. "There could still be something worth salvaging.", Krux considered, though while looking over the ship, Joe's keen eyes also picked out movement; a young elven girl, dirty and in slave clothing, was searching the remains for something. Noticing the ship in return, she panicked and rushed back inside. Joe let everyone know and the group had the Second Wind pull up alongside, so they could investigate.
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| Map of the Nautiloid |
The inside of the Mind Flayer vessel was a disgusting, biological mess, with fleshy doorways, slimy black, ridged walls, and dim flickering light from bioluminescent orbs. Joe scouted ahead onto the Battle Deck, calling out to the girl he had seen, but, while at the bottom of a set of stairs, he caught movement up above him. That, however, was no girl, it was a creature of some kind, something with claws and a white, bulbous body. It was too fast to discern, so he cautiously advanced up the stairs to investigate.
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| Inside the Wreck of the Nautiloid |
The rest of the group hurried to join him and they ascended to the next level, the Bridge Deck (4), where they found four dead human pirates, their bodies bashed and sliced, but the ultimate cause of death being the removal of their life energy; some kind of necrotic attack, not something common to Mind Flayers.
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| A Mind Flayer |
Up again, another metallic ladder, to the Command Deck where a walkway lead out to a chair overlooking the Battle Deck below (1). Another horrific mess was still seated in the chair, another Mind Flayer with its skull open and brain removed, this one with green glowing maggots crawling over the remains.
Searching around again with his detection spell, Bessok managed to find a hidden compartment on the chair that held a spell scroll, but more importantly, he picked up something above him. He looked up but couldn't see anything in the darkness, but something magical was up there. Vinthanamel, able to see invisible creatures thanks to his Robe of Eyes, followed Bessok's gaze upwards and looked straight into the many eyes of a terrible creature.
Clinging upside down to the ceiling, a creature of nightmares hung. Almost ten feet in diameter, its bulbous white body was covered with what seemed like pustules, but on closer inspection actually held the brains of the creatures it had been feeding on. Its legs were similar to a crab, but thinner, four eyes lined up two each side, above a mouth surrounded by smaller sets of claws and a row of razor sharp teeth waiting to devour whatever was in front of it. It sensed it had been detected and screeched, skittered across the roof and dropped down behind the group.
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| A Neh-Thalggu A Horror from the Far Realm |
As the creature dropped to the ground it unleashed a psionic pulse over the group, their limbs freezing up, Vinthanamel and Morthwyl becoming frozen in place while the others managed to shrug it off. Before the creature even had time to attack, however, Vinthanamel cleared his mind and started to move away from the monster, feeling Bessok's hand on his shoulder as the Dwarf rushed past him to halt the creatures advance.
Attacks came in a flash, as Joe's arrows found a home in the monsters bulbous body, Morthwyl shook off her paralysis and rushed in to bring her hammers down hard on the creature. It was time for it to consider other tactics with this group and so it skittered off at speed, down the wall and into a lower deck. Bessok gathered his balance then gave chase, but lost the monster as it went out of sight, so descended the wrong stairs in search of it. Bessok, however, being a Priest dedicated to Travel, still had enough running speed in him to rush back up the stairs and down another set, to find himself directly behind the creature on the Cargo Deck level (13). The position was shared across the groups mental connection and the others also gave chase.
Throwing a rope up to the ceiling, wrapping it around a bioluminescent orb, Joe leapt from the platform and slid down the rope to the ground two floors below. He rushed to join Bessok, stopping right behind him and unleashing a flurry of arrows at the monstrous creature that was fleeing before him. It squealed in anger and blinked out of sight while, behind Joe, Morthwyl and Vinthanamel rushed to catch up. Searching the space in front of him, Bessok realised the creature had actually gone, it wasn't simply invisible this time.
Cautiously, the group moved around the area, moving into the area that the monster seemed to have been heading for (14). Inside was the cargo hold, which now looked and smelled more like a slaughter house. Human bodies lay strewn about the deck and the floor and walls were stained with blood. Some of the bodies were missing the top of their heads, more brains devoured by the monster, others were bashed and sliced, limbs snipped clean off. The bodies seemed to be more pirates, perhaps the unfortunate scavengers that were responsible for the state of the ship.
As Vinthanamel made his way down toward the room, he noticed another opposite the doorway, one whose door had been smashed open after previous attempts to seal it were made with sutures made of ropes and steel hooks (10). A glance inside the room showed the walls were scarred with claw marks made from a very angry creature. Was this were the Mind Flayers had trapped the creature before it made its escape?
Moving to join the others, the monster reappeared, Vinthanamel spotting it moving through the walls but unable to react before it had blasted out a psionic attack, making him unable to act in response to its presence. The monster rushed in and the smaller claws around its mouth went to work, slicing with precision at the wizards skull, blood dribbling down the side of his face as the bone also began to crack. Not enough time..
The others moved in a flash, Bessok grabbing Vinthanamel and moving him away from the horror so he could move in and put his shield wall in front of it. Joe and Morthwyl unleashed their attacks, seemingly starting a competition of who could hurt it the most as their attacks hit with horrible power. Again, the creature blinked out of sight, with only Vinthanamel able to see it through the ethereal. It moved around and Vinthanamel moved to track it, informing the others where it had repositioned itself to. As he did so, he raised a powerful magical shield around himself to block any further attacks.
The monster blinked back and made a few attacks against Morthwyl, resorting to its claws and bite, but it wasn't enough. The onslaught from Joe and Morthwyl was too much for it. Joe acrobatically maneuvered himself over Vinthanamel's shield, using it as a launch pad to send himself into the air. He unleashed a flurry of arrows into the creature mid-flight and it collapsed, Joe landing on its slimy bulbous body and sliding off back to the floor.
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| Natalia Ewtree Mind Flayer Prisoner |
Moving around, however, Joe found the girl while he was searching through the Prison Deck (17). Hearing his voice, she nervously peeked around the corner of a doorway to see if it was safe, and decided to shuffle nervously out into the open and join him at his side, even reaching up to take his hand so she could be led away.
While making their way out of the Nautiloid vessel, the group starting talking casually with the girl, finding out that her name was Natalia Ewtree (I know! Shuddup!) and that she was from a Planet, a different Wildspace system - or was it just the name of her city? - that they had never even heard of.
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| A Lamprey Ship |
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| Vampirates |
Scattered across the deck of the Second Wind were humanoids known as Vampirates, undead creatures similar to normal Vampires in that they feed on others to survive, but different in many regards. The leader was a pompous, gaudy man who immediately launched into a monologue when the group appeared.
He started talking about how he and his clan had been 'sponsored' by the Cult of Vecna, the man making a motion to the three darkly dressed men standing further back upon the deck of the Lamprey, their Vecna emblems noticeable now the groups eyes were drawn to them. They were in search of an item that they knew the group had in their possession, and if they could just hand it over then everything would be perfectly fine and no harm will come to anyone, and we shall all just move on and find other adventures to pursue.
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| A Cultist of Vecna |
The last of the Cultists, perhaps the leader, created a powerful spell, lightning unleashed from his fingertips to arc from one person to the next, though Joe managed to dodge it completely, Bessok bounced it off his shield, and Vinthanamel was out of sight so it only made his hair stand on end as the electricity passed overhead.
To say the group had the upper hand would be an understatement. If this wasn't enough of an assault upon the Vampirates, the shouts and screams coming from inside the Lamprey meant something else was also on their side. Bessok rushed off to investigate, flying by the Vecna Cultist so fast it barely had time to register his presence. Inside the Lamprey, Bessok found a tall man, dark reddish plate armour, finishing off another Vecna cultist with a brutal sword strike. A brief mental conversation revealed that he knew who Bessok was, but that they would talk after the battle. Bessok, still travelling at warp speed, rushed out of the Lamprey and into the back of the Cultist.
Another volley of arrows from Joe and it was all over, Vinthanamel controlled the remaining cultist to drop to his knees and beg for his life, but the man from inside the Lamprey had different ideas. He leapt up out of the interior of the ship and walked forward to talk with the group, casually slashing his sword into the Cultists neck as if he wasn't even thinking about it, the head leaving the shoulders and drifting off into space.
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| Kas the Betrayer |
While talking the last, Kas was making his way back to the hold of the ship, and after a farewell that lacked heart, a promise of encountering each other again, he dropped back into the ship. Even with the speed Bessok can move, when he rushed over to check inside, the Vampire was gone.
With the battle over and everything settled, the group decided to look over the Lamprey ship, which contained very little but a few dust covered coffins and a small pouch of diamonds, no doubt the payment the Cult of Vecna had given to the Vampirates. With the Lamprey's Spelljamming Helm still intact, the group decided to keep the vessel for themselves. Vinthanamel took the helm and the others instructed Commodore Krux to follow them with his vessel.
After removing the spikes from the Second Wind, the damage repaired almost instantly by the presence of the Treant, Vinthanamel reversed the Lamprey back, turned it around, then accelerated rapidly. A flash of light and they were up to speed once again, racing across Wildspace toward their destination. Commodore Krux naturally took to following, Fel Ardra in her Spelljamming helm able to keep track of the Lamprey and stay behind a safe distance.
Taking them dangerously close to a world spinning through space, the group were able to make out some familiar land mass from maps they had seen. That was their homeworld, Toril, and they were looking down upon the Sword Coast. It lasted mere seconds at the speed they were travelling, the planet soon becoming little more than a dot in the distance. Up ahead, however, the edge of Wildspace could be seen, a softly glowing blue/purple mist that circled the entire system.
A few seconds later and there was a shudder through the ship as it punched through into the Astral Sea. Off in the distance they were witness to massive whale-like creatures, as large, if not more so, as the gargantuan rocks that had previously dwarfed their ship in Wildspace. They swam slowly and gracefully through the Astral, smaller fish like creatures swimming alongside.
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| Space Whales swim through the Astral Sea |
It was only another couple of hours before the Rod brought them to their destination. With a large object up ahead, Vinthanamel had to rapidly decrease speed to avoid a collision, managing to stop five miles out from a hundred mile mass of flesh and bone floating in the Astral Sea; a Dying God. Vinthanamel left the helm and walked out to join the others on the deck, to gaze out across at the both disgusting and incredible sight to see.
The rod seemed to be pulling directly toward a section of the God, so Bessok pulled out a spyglass and zoomed in on the area up ahead. It still looked tiny from this distance, but they could make out the wreck of a Spelljamming ship, a Galleon, a crash that was so violent the ship had broken into three separate parts. The rear of the ship still existed, buried in the flesh of the dying God, but one half of the middle section was missing and embedded into the flesh of the God a half mile from the rear section. The front of the ship had also survived, mostly, another half mile from the middle section and nestled in against the heart of the dying God, a snapped off mast piercing straight through the flesh. The ship section shook with each sporadic beat of the heart.
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| The Wreck of the Lambent Zenith |
Not being able to pilot their own ship any closer for fear of being pulled in to the dying God's gravity well and ending up like the Galleon, they first informed Commodore Krux what they were going to do, then the group threw themselves off the side of the Lamprey and took to flying through the Astral Sea, a simple task that involved thinking about the direction they wanted to move in.
Fearing attack, Vinthanamel covered himself with an invisibility spell, a wise idea as two glowing balls of light approached them as they moved ever closer to the wreck. It soon became obvious that there were creatures behind the light, large creatures with huge teeth!
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| Star Anglers |
Morthwyl was first up, rushing forward to slam her hammers into one of the creatures. Bessok followed swiftly behind, moving into a more suitable position to confuse the creature. Arrows flew from Joe while Vinthanamel decided to sit this one out, watching and holding his power in reserve, should things turn sour.
With a swift movement, one of the creatures moved around to a suitable angle where the two large Star Anglers could each have a share of the female dwarf. Their attacks were brutal, not one failed to land and another caused severe damage, a flurry of attacks unlike anything they'd experienced before. Luckily, their ability to take damage in return wasn't as high as hers, and before they had a chance, the combination of attacks from the three members of the group had the Star Angler's corpses drifting off to join the flesh of the dying God.
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| Map of the Lambent Zenith |
Bessok moved to perform some healing on Morthwyl, then the group continued onwards to the Stern Segment of the wrecked Galleon, the name readable on the back as they approached as, 'The Lambent Zenith'. Spotting a pair of Githyanki on the deck, they floated down and came to a landing near them, after they waved them in - they seemed concerned about creatures in the area.
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| Lysan and Zastra, Githyanki Crew |
The Githyanki introduced themselves as Lysan and Zastra and were very welcoming to the new arrivals, asking them questions about where they had come from and how they survived the trip down to the wreck. The group suggested they could rescue them, which was gratefully received, though they'd like to rescue the rest of the crew trapped on the other sections too. While Lysan was doing much of the talking, Zastra called to another individual called Ilren, who came up from below to see what all the fuss was about.
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| Ilren Interim Leader and First Mate |
Not being entirely subtle, Joe called him out on it and caused an argument to brew, something which took a dark turn when Bessok tried to speak into Ilren's mind to try and calm him outside of the audible conversation. This caused Ilren to snap angrily, glaring at Bessok as if he was about to change from welcoming to all out violent.
With a huff and a grunt, Ilren excused himself, declaring he had work to do, and off he stomped to who knows where. This left the group with Lysan and Zastra once again, who looked a little sheepish at the encounter and reluctantly agreed they didn't have much in the way of kind thoughts in regards to Ilren. Ilren had taken over recently as interim leader while the real Captain was still trapped on another section of the ship, and also as first mate now Figaro, the previous first mate, had been taken 'ill'.
The pair kept to themselves otherwise, so pointed the group downstairs to the Galley, where they might get more sense from Kycera, the ships second mate. Down the steps and in through the doors, the group found themselves passing an open door with several crew sitting around a table inside. These were noticably 'different' than expected, Bessok realising they were actually Celestials, commoners from the Celestial realms, rather than Angels, but still powerful due to their bloodline.
Joe wasn't fooled, he stopped at the doorway and started accusing the crew of hiding something, threatening them if anyone gets in his way, while the Celestials looked on curiously, a glance to the rest of the group as if to ask, 'Is he okay?'. With good hearts, they refused to get drawn into an argument with Joe, constantly trying to calm his wicked thoughts. Everything would be fine!
Meanwhile, the rest of the group made their way into the Galley, where a female Orc was cheerfully humming to herself as she cooked a meal. The smell of spices was heavy in the air, it was enough to make a tummy grumble, except there was no real need to eat while in the Astral Plane. When questioned about this fact, she explained that it was a 'creature comfort', something to calm the nerves and bring that feeling of home back to the crew.
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| Kycera Second Mate and Ship Chef |
Kycera admitted that they did have an ancient and powerful artifact on board and that she had even helped design the security system to protect it.
Naturally the group were curious about this security system, so she informed them that in the case of a pirate attack or, as in this case, a crash, the artifact would be secured against access. Stored in front of the ship, once the security system was triggered, it would draw power from two runes to control a shield that was impenetrable.
One of the runes was in the ships Stateroom, but that was currently locked down by Figaro, the first mate, who was acting strangely. Some said he was ill, but she wasn't so sure. Not physically ill, at least.
Having finished badgering the Celestials, Joe turned his attention to Kycera, again seeming to be on edge as if he was expecting anyone and everyone to attack at any point. Warnings were thrown around, but like the Celestials, she was too kind and thoughtful a person to be drawn into it, instead offering the man some of the soup she was making.
Onwards to the Stateroom! The group made their way out, with Joe pointing his warning finger on the way out, and made their way toward the stairs down to the next section of the ship. On the way, however, Joe's keen eyes again caught an individual, this one sat on his own in the Mess Hall, playing a solo game of cards. Perhaps now relaxing a little, Joe wasn't so aggressive this time, sitting down to see what the man was doing.
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| Daveras Elven Druid |
Having to rush to catch up with the rest of the group, Joe made his excuses and started to leave, but Daveras stopped him and asked if he spots a Halfling by the name of Cirit to let her know he was waiting in the Mess Hall still. They played cards often, but she hadn't been seen for a while now and he was starting to become worried.
Joe continued on his way, finding the group in the area below, outside the Stateroom with its closed and locked door. It didn't take him long to have the lock click, and the door open, though it opened to a softly glowing blue wall of force that seemed to surround the entire room. Inside, a purple skinned Tiefling was crouched on the end of a bed, a book in his arms that he was focusing on. With the door opening, Figaro, the Tiefling, called out, "Leave me alone!", and did everything he could to avoid interacting with the group. He wanted nothing to do with them.
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| Figaro, The Lambent Zenith's First Mate |
With his ability to see invisible, Vinthanamel could see the rune glowing upon the beds headboard, and so he tried to dispel it. The spell bounced off the wall of force and fizzled away, unable to penetrate. By now, Figaro was lost inside his own thoughts, seeming a little crazy as he rocked back and fore whispering words to himself. Nothing the group could do seemed to get through to him.
Stepping back, the group gathered up to discuss their options on how to get in there, and Vinthanamel came up with the idea of maybe shifting into the Ethereal Plane, moving through the wall of force, and then returning to the Astral Sea so they were inside the room.
Bessok also had the same spell prepared, so this could just work! Vinthanamel started casting his spell...
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