Session XVII: An Unwanted Visitor

General Summary

Thanks to quick thinking and resourcefulness, Calico Jack, Horxim, Zaki, Zenora, and Brae were all able to safely escape the sinking vessel by lashing the splintered beams of the bow together to make a raft.

As they rowed for shore, Brae sat on the raft, shivering and shaking, and Calico Jack overheard him muttering to himself, "Tasha said this would happen, Tasha said this would happen, Tasha said this would happen." Feeling such conduct was out of place for a captain, Zenora brought him back to his senses with a swift bitch slap with her Mage Hand, spurring him to pick up a piece of driftwood and help row.

Once on dry land, Calico directed Horxim to take Brae into the woods under the pretense of gathering firewood and to try to find out what he might have meant when he said, "Tasha said this would happen."

Noticing that Brae was badly shaken and frozen to the core, Horxim healed his wounds. After this display of consideration, Brae opened up to Horxim and told him that ever since Tasha had discovered his affair with Kila she had been saying - or perhaps threatening - that Brae would lose everything. He had brushed it off as the understandable angry ravings of a spurned wife, but now...now he's not so sure.

After bringing the wood and kindling back to the camp, Horxim left Brae to build the fire and helped Zaki retrieve a sizeable leg-joint of the defeated crystacean, which the party roasted and feasted on, accompanied by some wild garlic and root vegetables Horxim foraged.

The night passed uneventfully through each of the party's watches until just before dawn, when Calico was awakened by the sound of Zenora's voice in his mind imploring him to "Wake up, I need you!" Bedded down next to Zenora, Zaki was also roused, and the two woke to see not Zenora before them, but another Calico Jack.

Fearing a doppelganger, Zaki attacked the duplicate Calico Jack, but missed. The real Calico Jack was first dumbfounded, thinking perhaps he had finally come face to face with Mist after so many years. Realizing her mistake, Zenora let the spell fall, revealing her normal form, and prompting a sudden and unexpected confession from Zenora and some hard questions from her companions.

Wiinken, meanwhile, worked through the day into the late evening at The Third Donkey, stopping only when Berin brought food to her door and asked if the rest of the party would be returning that evening. Assuming they would, Wiinken asked Berin to leave some food at their doors for them and bring some coffee for her, and returned to her work which she pursued through the night.

In the morning, it became quite clear that her companions had not returned, and in searching for a clue to their whereabouts, Wiinken discovered some interesting items in Zaki and Zenora's belongings, including a copper-wrapped obsidian ring and cryptic journal entries from Zenora, as well as an unsent letter addressed to Deroleux's Select Conservatory of the Arcane.

Returning to her rooms in defeat, Wiinken is startled to hear a voice emanating from her clockwork sending sparrow -- the same voice of her supposedly deceased Uncle Ignatius Fizzlefern. The voice implores her to be in a secure space at the same time the following day to receive a sensitive message.

Her flustered response was, "OMG, Uncle, I will be sure to be in the exact same spot tomorrow. OMG Uncle, Where are you? Me Donkey."

Having no way to find her companions and a deadline to meet, Wiinken elects to remain in Advenere and keep working on the Third Donkey's statue, hoping her companions find a way back.