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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1576872" data-attributes="member: 9626">The Sunless Sea“The Sunless realm?  He must be even crazier than that letter makes him sound.  No one leaves the continent.  Those that try never return!”  Tsine angrily shouted.“Well, if we want to know what Raz is talking about, we don’t really have a choice,” Tal pointed out.  He looked fairly despondent himself, though.  He and Tsine were the only ones left from the original party, and the only other party members they still had were Dane, Robin, and Fnipper.  Well, Fenthrip might join, but that wasn’t guaranteed.  Still, that was even more reason to find Raz.  Not only was he an old friend, but it sounded like he had answers to the mutual mystery most of them share.  “It’s not like we have anything better to do right now, anyway.  Bas’ forces will be in chaos for months after our raid.  They won’t do anything until we get back.  And if you do some magical research before we leave, you can just take us home magically if things get too difficult.”Dane, however, had other ideas.  “What about the temples Shekuldellstra told us about?  We can try to raid them.”Tal shook his head.  “It would be pointless by now.  We’ve been busy for an entire month since the raid.  Bas must have prepared for the possibility that Shekuldellstra would turn to our side.  Either she has the temples ready to be abandoned at a moment’s notice, or she’ll use them for traps.  We can’t go near her forces for a while until her defenses calm down, so we might as well help Raz.  After all, if it’s as hostile as you say it is, then he might need us to rescue him, and he is still a former comrade in arms.  And if he really knows the truth about Lady Memory, it’s worth the risk to find out.”Tsine still looked reluctant.  “The wizard’s guild still remembers the last time an expedition was sent to this continent.  It was led by Joddark, a dwarf arch-mage decades ago.  They were never heard from again, and he easily had the same means to travel instantly that I will have.  But if you want to go on this fool’s errand, I might as well tag along.  If nothing else, it should be good for our reputations.  But you better survive long enough to write about it, Tal.”Once they had a plan, the party wanted to make sure they were prepared for the ordeal.  Tsine learned teleport, in case they needed a quick trip home.  Everyone in the group who could afford one bought a ring of warmth or a similar item if they couldn’t use any more magic rings.  They then spent a few days traveling to Majestic, the southernmost city of the continent.  It was built inside a hollowed-out volcano, which had been inactive for centuries.  As a result, the city is the only one of the major metropolises of the nation that had natural sunlight at times.  It was also the patron city of Jolia, the goddess of love, and was known for its great culture and nobility.  This often tends to manifests in noble houses out-doing each other for prestige, which doesn’t really correspond to the overt intentions of the city.  It also has the only port of the major cities, which was the main reason the party went there.After taking a few days deciding on what kind of boat to make, they basically decided it wasn’t worth the risk and hassle, and just bought a magical Folding Boat instead.  They also had to find someone to pilot it, of course, since none of them had any experience piloting a boat that wasn’t undermanned, surrounded by darkness, and floating on a very still lake.  They eventually chose Rothaire, an expert who had completed his initiation a few years ago, and thus could travel on the surface.  Of course, traveling the Sunless Sea was another story, but Tal was a highly trained speaker and motivator by this point, and they had enough spare money to let it make a convincing argument as well.  The final agreement was that Rothaire would pilot the boat for them until they reached the continent, and then they’ll provide him with all the supplies they needed to stay safe, full, and warm and leave him there until they returned to pick him up.  He decided this was a much better plan than actually crossing the frozen, hostile wasteland with them, and agreed for a sum of money that was larger than any he’s seen before in his life.After just a few more days of basic training and gathering supplies, Fenthrip arrived, having been directed to Majestic by Tal and Tsine’s house servants from Methosilang.  Though he admitted he wasn’t nearly as well trained and experienced as the rest of the group, he was happy to help the group for at least a while.  Finally, after everyone was ready to go, they went out to port, magically enlarged their boat, and then set off for unknown lands!The journey was a long one, however, before they would even reach the continent.  The first few days were fairly easy, but after five days of travel, the weather got steadily colder.  Worse, as their position under the moons began to change, the days began to change.  First, the daylight hours that were free from the moons got later and later, and soon intersected with normal nighttime hours.  Meanwhile, a new dark moon was coming up over the horizon to make up for the one they were leaving behind.  By the time they reached the continent, they would have three moons in the sky above them, and absolutely no sunlight!Another problem occurred eight days into the journey.  As the group was continuing to sail south, the sharp-eyed Robin noticed something heading at them from underwater on all sides!  Quickly the group moved to the edges of the boat, ready to attack any potential danger, as their enemy arrived.They looked like turtles, but their head was closer to the top of the shell, and had a strange vertical mouth.  They also had a pair of strange claws in addition to the normal flippers.  There were four “turtles” the size of a human, and an especially large one that was twice that size!Fnipper was the first to react, but since they didn’t reach the boat yet, he could only fire at one with his crossbow.  Tsine also was quick to react, and fired a lightning bolt at the largest.  It singed the creature slightly, but it seemed to partially absorb the damage, suggesting that it had some resistance to electricity.  The four small ones then closed in a bit more on the boat, but instead of attacking the boat or its passengers, they squirted jets of ink at the heroes.  Fnipper deftly evaded two of the jets, but while Tsine was lucky enough to block one with his hand, the other got into his eyes.  Cursing, he began to stumble around blindly, while complaining that he just has no luck in boats.Dane, Robin, and Tal still couldn’t get close to their enemy, so they fired at them with arrows and magic missiles.  Meanwhile, Rothaire and Fenthrip panicked and hid inside the boat.  Finally, the largest of the turtle-creatures got next to the boat, and tried to bite the appetizing-looking Fnipper.  However, the nimble gnome was able to carefully sidestep the bite at the last minute, and then retreated to the middle of the boat to activate one of his new magic items, a ring that made him rapidly blink into and out of the material plane.While Tsine continued to thrash about uselessly, the smaller four turtles decided that the threat above was too great for a direct assault, and began to bite chunks out of the hull of the boat.  Dane and Robin busied themselves by attacking the largest turtle, and while they did some decent damage, unless they could get at the turtles that were destroying their boat, the situation looked dire.  It was then that Tal had an idea, and he dashed below deck.  Back when he was building his manor, he spent some money to purchase a Lyre of Building.  The item helped him build the manor quickly and inexpensively, since they didn’t have to pay for much labor.  However, the Lyre had another use that suddenly became very useful.  Tal quickly came to his stored equipment, and with strum of the lyre, all inanimate objects around him, including the boat, were immune to attacks!  As Tal’s friends cheered, the largest turtle noticed that the attacks of its allies were doing nothing, and then retreated to try temporarily disabling one of the heroes with another blinding jet of ink.  However, Robin, the unfortunate target, was able to shut his eyes in time.Fnipper was able to get close enough to the largest turtle for one last set of attacks.  His constant appearing and disappearing made it hard for the turtle to concentrate on him, giving Fnipper a chance to make a perfect attack at the neck of the confused turtle, and then his perfectly honed tactical skills gave him another opportunity.  The two attacks easily killed the monster.Seeing what happened to their leader, the four smaller turtles quickly began to retreat, while being shot at with arrows and blasted with a fireball by an angry Tsine.  At first, it looked like this was the end of the encounter, but a minute later, the four surviving turtles appeared again about thirty feet away.  The party prepared for another defense, but this time, they didn’t attack.  Instead, one of them said something in a strange, hissing and dripping language.“Does anyone know what that means?”  Tal asked.  Everyone shook their heads.  Suddenly, Fenthrip raised his hand cautiously.  “I can use a spell to understand them, but it won’t let me talk back.”After a few moments of whispered debate, Fenthrip cast the spell, and then looked at the creatures.  “They said they were just looking for food.  There aren’t enough fish in these waters for them to be happy with normal hunting.  They want to know if we can spare any.”The group soon decided to give up a bit of their rations to the monsters, in the hope that they’ll go away.  However, while the monsters greedily slurped up the prepared food, they continued following the group, though they didn’t make any more hostile actions.  In fact, they looked almost tamed and happy to be with the group.  Since they could make decent bodyguards, the group continued to feed them regularly for the rest of their trip.OOC Notes:  The monsters were Tojanda, and for once the group didn’t know what they were despite being in the core book.  This was not a common occurrence, so I enjoyed it, even if they were thoroughly trounced.  I especially liked Tal’s Lyre of Building plan. Fnipper officially started his awesome stage around here.  He slows down a bit when fighting constructs later, but against living things, he was getting at least two sneak attacks almost every round.</blockquote>

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