Session 06: The Sea Ghost Report

11700 AR, 27th to 28th of the 3rd Moon

The party makes a brilliant plan for taking on the Sea Ghost: they need someone to signal to the smugglers while others sail out to meet them. Two of the party, Virion and Melody, will board the Sea Ghost while the rest of the party stays in the rowboat. If anything goes wrong, Fishcod can burn it all down.

There's just one problem: the Alchemist. The Alchemist wants to keep his house, and wants the party to fence the "philosopher's stone" he supposedly made. The party discusses in the other room and ends up in an argument about what to do about the Alchemist. Fishcod is all for the Alchemist keeping the house, while Melody is skeptical of undead and would rather burn the house down. This devolves into a debate about whether or not the undead are "natural" and if skeletons can own things under property rights, something Virion is unsure of. Mystan points out that the Alchemist, clearly, is not a threat and there's no reason to take his house away. Eventually, Virion and Melody are overcome by Mystan and Fishcod, and the Alchemist is assigned the job of signalling the smugglers while Mystan and Fishcod stay on the boat. To sweeten the deal, the party offers to fence the philosopher's stone.

Melody delivers the news to the Alchemist, who agrees to their terms. She also asks if the Alchemist can drink water. He does, but it just falls onto the floor because he's, you know, a skeleton.

Melody then confronts Fishcod on the obvious magic javelin - but a nat 20 and an actually concealed spear convinces the party it's perfectly normal. Outside that, though, the others discusses Fishcod's non-javelin spell, the sprinkling on the corpse, and the reference to the arcane with Keledek the Unspoken, which Mystan overheard. Melody is confused why Fishcod would hide magic and guesses that they're a sorcerer. They all agree that something is amiss, but Melody and Mystan agree they shouldn't confront Fishcod, which Virion is okay with. Then Mystan says they don't need more discord from a confrontation, as they have a mission to attend to. This causes Melody and Virion to go at it again.

Meanwhile, Fishcod is chatting with the Alchemist about.. Alchemy. IDK.

They take a long rest. Virion has visions of a past life despite trying to meditate on bladesong drills; the bladesong seems to awaken them. He sees people bringing great walls up from the earth, and a bustling seaside town. There is no empire, and a great chieftan gives out gifts. After his trance he writes it down.

Fishcod, upset the party nearly saw their secret, relieves the trauma of the fire and their exile in their trance. Mystan just plays catch with Raiden.

Melody (feeling restless) seeks an owl. She finds a, kinda creepy one, and gets a success despite it being the middle of the day, with a nat 20 and minor illusion.

The party now heads for the ship. They stealthily sail around the Sea Ghost, enlisting the Alchemist to give the signals from the second floor. Virion cast Darkvision on Mystan, and Mystan cast Aid on everyone (Cat's Grace) while Fishcod cast Mage Armor on themself. Melody ties a grappling hook to a rope and gives it to Mystan, who throws it up to the deck.

The party approaches unseen, Melody giving Virion Bardic Inspiration. Aided by the Alchemist's signals, the pair sneak onto the deck of the ship. They head into area 8, a room in the stern of the ship. They see a small room through a window on the door, and Virion sneaks in while Melody keeps watch. In the room he sees a maroon cloaked woman sitting at a desk. He sneaks under the bed and tries to open a chest - but it's locked, so he sneaks out of the room. This was all with an inspired nat 20.

Melody used Message to ask Virion what happened, and he explains that the chest was bolted down, locked, and that there's a person.

They look into the Captain's Quarter's through the window, and see a man with a fancy hat and coat at a writing desk. There's a couch and a lit lamp along with boxes and a bearskin rug. Seeing that the man (likely the Captain) would be able to see them if they came in, they do not go in there!

The third door takes them down a staircase. They don't hear anybody, and Virion checks another window. There's a galley with seemingly nobody in it. He checks another room, this one with lots of people.

Once again via Message they communicate that the port door is the kitchen, the starboard crew quarters, full of smugglers. Both have further doors. Virion sneaks into the Galley, checking that nobody is in it by cracking the door open. The door on the far side seems to open to a back room that the crew's quarter also connects too. Passing all the food, he opens the door to what looks like ship stores. It's empty save for rope, tar, and a barrel of gunpowder.

They then concot a plan to use sleep and knock out the two crewmembers - which succeeds. One hits the deck and is bound and gagged (DC 16) under the jollyboat, the other fucking dies going overboard.

The next step of this BRILLIANT PLAN is for them to simultaneously knock the Captain and the Deck Wizard, Punketah, unconscious. This backfires, as Virion's Sleep doesn't get Punketah, who knows what happened, and Melody's knock on the door yields only a "What is it?" and when the sleep spell fails "Who the hell are you!?"

Mystan and Fishcod hear what's happening and they join the fray with Raiden.

Mystan climbs up, sees Melody with the Captain, and casts Blindness on the Captain, which works! Fishcod climbs up and moves a jollyboat to be in the way of the oblivious crew. Melody takes cover behind Mystan and casts Hold Person on the captain, paralyzing him. Virion then tries Sleep on Punketah again, which succeeds this time. Raiden does a charged bite on the helpless captain, following which Mystan & Fishcod tie him up (DC 13). Punketah is similarly tied up by Virion (DC 17).



Virion fixes the Captain Sigurd ties, now it's DC 20. They then loot Punketah and the Captain's rooms, most notably finding a document "signed" by a lizardfolk requesting more ironwear "as per previous consignments and at the agreed terms", as well as a crudely drawn map showing the rendezvous point between the Lizardfolk and the Sea Ghost at a promontory in a tidal marsh ten miles southwest of Saltmarsh.

There's a smuggler in the crow's nest who, somehow, has noticed nothing. Virion locks the doors to the galley and crew to ensure they don't notice either. Nor have the two smugglers on the rowboat waiting for the shipment that will never come.

The party then heads below decks, coming into First Mate Bloody Bjorn's quarters below the Captain's. He asks who the hell Virion is, who responds "I could say the same" after drawing a pistol. Virion and Melody then try to convince him they did a coup against Sanbalet and want Bjorn's help raising a mutiny against Captain "Snake Eyes". Bjorn says he wants to take over as Captain, and Virion says "Good then, you can die as captain if you don't shut up."

Bjorn, not wanting to die but bound by honor not to let Virion take the ship, offers to negotiate. Fishcod wants him to join them taking over the trade, and Bjorn lets the party in so they can discuss it all properly. Unfortunately for them, the First Mate was just going along with it, having discretely alerted the Bosun, who burst through the door and hooked Virion!

"Nobody make a move!"

Raiden retaliates with an electrified bite to the Bosun, and Mystan Inflicts Wounds the bastard. Fishcod then pulls a GREATAXE OUT OF THEIR CLOTHES and casts Hex on the First Mate. Melody then does her Hold Person routine on Bloody Bjorn, who passes! Virion, angry at Melody for wanting to "not kill anybody" stabs the attacker behind him, slaying the Bosun. He then pulls the hook out.

The First Mate tries to disarm Fishcod, failing miserably. Raiden scuttles away, and Mystan - using inspiration - gets a nat 1 and then a 2, missing. Fishcod, still holding their greataxe, also missing. Melody, with no other options, stabs at Bjorn with her special dagger, the one her wife gave her. This hurts Bjorn but also hurts her soul. Virion, staggering, misses a pommel strike due to his injuries. Bjorn retaliates with two swipes, knocking Melody unconscious, her dagger clattering to the ground.

Mystan uses a Healing Word to get Melody back up, and then swings at Bjorn, bloodying him. Fishcod then finishes him off with a critical hit.

Melody cleans her dagger carefully. and the party searches the rest of the ship.

The party then finds the cache of imperial weapons hidden in the back, as well as Oceanus the Sea Elf, who was imprisoned after seeing the Sea Ghost load weapons in Seaton.

They also found three lizardfolk below decks...