Raevynn the druid is getting mightily sick of scraping algae off of the sides of canal walls. Leeches, filth, the hot sun, annoying overseers…. So when the sending from Velendo arrives, she is more than happy to shirk her civic duty. Dumping an armload of algae into a rain barrel, Raevynn leaps into the canal, following it out into the inner bay. She wild shapes into a huge dire shark and speeds across the harbor, seeking the ship that Velendo told her about.
Meanwhile, Tao has slid down the visor of her magical helm and activated its clairvoyance effect, trying to find the ship. She sees a likely candidate, and activates the clairvoyance once again to get a better look. Now her gaze hovers over a 40’ long masted vessel, with a motley collection of people up on deck: a sea elf, a minotaur, two half-orcs, a lizardman with a trident, several humans, a dwarf, a halfling, a kobold… along with a number of sailors working the rigging. And there, tied to the mast, Tao sees the psionic assassin that they’re hunting: Brindle.
Tied to the mast? Odd.
She reports what she’s seen, slips into mist form along with her friends, and lets the magical wind blow her out towards the bay. The consensus is that Brindle must have done something to anger his cohorts, and was captured as a result.
Approaching the ship, the Defenders observe from above. Several of the people previously seen on deck can be seen no longer, probably because they’ve gone below-decks. Now, all the Defenders need is a distraction to slip their misty forms into the hold, allowing them the thirty seconds that they need to reform into physical shape! The approach of Raevynn in dire shark form gives them that opportunity. The sailors are lining the rail, pointing at the huge fish. Pleased that she’s served as a distraction, Raevynn still needs to get on board, so she dives out of sight. Underwater, she changes back to elven form, and uses thousand faces to make herself appear to be a mermaid. She then surfaces and feebly pleads for help. The sailors haul her up onto deck as she feigns unconsciousness, secure in the knowledge that she’s providing an awfully good distraction. A man kneels over her as she lies on the smooth deck, water dripping from her, eyes still shut. He gently cradles her head in his hand…. And jams a long knife into her throat.
Meanwhile, the Defenders have reformed in the crate-stuffed hold of the ship. They aren’t sure whether or not they were observed. Gathering at the end of the shadowy space and already mass hasted, Nolin puts his ear on the wall between the hold and the Captain’s cabin. He carefully concentrates and listens. And although the cabin on the otherside of the wood wall is silent, he hears from above, “Ready now? On the count of three. 1, 2, 3!” As he yanks his head away and shouts a warning, the trapdoor over their heads rises slightly, and the hold fills with the choking fumes of a roiling, yellow-green cloudkill.
TomTom’s first instinct is unfortunate. He dimension slides through the wall into the Captain’s cabin, but feels hideous pain as he materializes inside of something else. The psionic feedback flings him tumbling into the astral plane. Mists boil around him as he tries to overcome the pain enough to concentrate and reemerge back on the ship. It will take him four rounds before he succeeds.
Within the gas-choked hold, Tao grabs Mara, Malachite and Agar and dimension doors up to the poop deck. Nolin sprouts fiery wings and smashes open the trap door, rising like a phoenix (conveniently enough) into the air above the ship. And Velendo stands in the hold, surrounded by gas, shouting, “Hello? People? I don’t suppose anyone would like to offer me a little help? I can’t fly, I can’t levitate, and there’s nothing to climb! Hellooooo?” And then he sighs heavily, leans on his stone shield, and shakes his head.
Up on deck, the man pulls his dagger from Raevynn’s throat. She’s unable to scream without choking on her own blood, so she does the next best thing; she wild shapes back into a dire shark, healing herself somewhat while knocking a piratical minotaur and a male half-orc with a great sword off the deck of the ship. The human leaps clear as the Raevynn-shark rolls off the deck into the water, setting the ship to rocking horribly.
Nolin addresses the sailors. They’re a mean-looking disreputable lot: half-orcs, a tattooed lizardman, assorted other scum. Only a prim dwarf looks out of place. “We have no argument with you yet,” Nolin says in ringing tones. “We just want Brindle. What’s your business with him?”
“Well,” answers the man who just stabbed Raevynn. “He promised us a no-lose situation. We help him, we get all of your magic items. You have some nice magic items.” He wrinkles his nose. “But he lost, and now we’re going to turn him over to the Children of Lethe. They want him reeeeal bad. But y’know,” he says as he rubs his chin with his hand, “I think we might be able to keep your things after all.” His voice rises into an authoritative snarl. “Kill them all!”
Nolin the bard is flying, fiery wings beating the air as he keeps pace with the gently rolling ship. The alienist Agar stands at the back of the raised poop deck, just a few feet away from the Defenders front-line fighters: Mara the paladin, Sir Malachite the Hunter of the Dead, and Tao the Divine Agent. TomTom the psion/rogue is trapped in the Astral Plane. Raevynn the druid is wild shaped into the form of a dire shark, in the water next to the ship. And Velendo the cleric is stuck in the ship’s hold, unable to climb out.
Visibly arrayed against them are a mated pair of half-orcs (one knocked into the water), a small kobold, a minotaur (also knocked into the water by Raevynn) wearing the religious regalia of the God of War, a lizardman with a trident, a primly dressed dwarf, and a non-descript human (possibly the captain). Previously seen but currently unaccounted for are a halfling, a sea elf, and a human woman. A dozen or more sailors also crowd the deck.
At the human captain’s command, the demi-human mercenaries leap into action. The kobold whips a scroll out of his belt and reads it, greasy black smoke rising as the words burn, his long fingers caressing a disturbing holy symbol. Hand crackling with black fire, he then leaps over the rail right onto the dire shark’s back. Slapping Raevynn squarely by the dorsal fin, she feels the remorseless cold of a harm spell ripping away her life force. Raevynn fights off most of the effect and dives, stranding the kobold in the water along with the minotaur and one of the half-orcs. In the water, Raevynn can smell her own blood; she’s badly hurt.
Up on the poop deck, Tao, Malachite and Mara advance to the stairs leading down to the main deck. There they take a stand, opposed by the female half-orc, the lizardman with the trident, and the dwarf. Unfortunately, they also make a perfect formation to be blasted by surprise lightning bolts – four of them, to be precise, coming from two or more invisible casters. One of the invisible casters has the fluid accent of a sea elf, and has the same voice that Nolin heard counting down to their ambush. The lightning bolts are followed up by crossbow bolts coming from the rigging, fired by someone improved invisible and doing sneak attack damage. “Who has true seeing up?”, Agar calls desperately. His clothes are smoking from the electricity. The answer, unfortunately, is TomTom – stuck in the Astral – and Velendo, stuck in the hold. Down in the hold, Velendo shakes his head and summons an air elemental, trying to decide what to do.
The half-orc flies into a rage, her spittle flying across Mara’s face as she hammers her greatsword home through her defenses. The lizardman attacks Malachite, but instead of stabbing him with the trident, he catches Malachite’s holy blade “Aleax” in between the tines of his trident – and twists. Aleax screams as he bends slightly, razor-sharp edge chipping. Grinning a toothy grin, the lizardman then spins the trident and buries it in Malachite’s belly. The dwarf, looking panicked, cowers. The Captain coolly observes the combat.
Back in the water, Raevynn has circled and approaches the floundering minotaur at high speed. She leaps into the air, breaching and then slamming her full body weight down on top of the minotaur. He takes less damage than he would have on land, but he’s unable to attack her as she continues to circle. The kobold is sputtering and treading water, and the male half-orc is swimming towards Raevynn with powerful strokes, a knife between his teeth.
A few seconds later, Raevynn closes in on the half-orc, teeth ripping and tearing as she tears a chunk of flesh off of his side. He doesn’t even seem to notice as he twists his body and slices his knife across Raevynn’s back. He slams powerful fingers down into the gash he’s just made, hanging on for dear life as Raevynn accelerates to full dire shark speed, diving, in an attempt to shake him off. She is down to single digit hit points. The half-orc unthinkingly refuses to let go, though, and even as Raevynn dives deeper and deeper into dark water, he clings to her back, actually trying to bite her himself.
On deck, Agar unleashes attack spells as Tao, Mara, and Malachite attack with their swords, easily hitting their lightly-armored opponents. Three lightning bolts shatter the air this time, along with a disintegrate spell that Mara shrugs off. The invisible wizards are still out there. Nolin tries to find them, despite crossbow shots from the rigging that pierce deep into his vital organs. Combined with the savage attacks from the female half-orc and the lizardman, who continues to try to sunder Aleax, Malachite, Mara and Agar are all badly hurt; only Tao, with her protection from lightning spell up, is still feeling fine.
The dwarf looks up at Mara as she looms over her. “Oh please,” he whines, “don’t hurt me! I didn’t want to be here, I don’t want to do this, I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time!” Mara feels the equivalent of several strong hands trying to rip her brain apart; she marshals her faith and resist it, and the dwarf looks more worried than before. “That wasn’t an attack!” he squeaks. “I would never attack someone like you! Honest! I was just trying to defend myself!” He tries to “defend” himself yet again, this time with a dominate, and Mara decides that she doesn’t especially like lying psions. An air elemental whirls past her as it moves to attack her enemies.
Nolin has inspired greatness already, and he uses is preternatural hearing to detect where the wizards are casting from. Blanketing the area with fireballs, he tries to play a dangerous game of hit-and-run, as he tries to kill the invisible casters before they can kill his friends.
In the hold, Velendo is getting more and more frustrated. He can hear the lightning bolts, hear the combat… and he’s useless! From where he’s standing, through the acrid fumes of the cloudkill he can even see the coiled rope ladders 10’ out of his reach, right up on deck. Where the heck is TomTom? Velendo summons another huge air elemental; he can’t speak with it, so he can’t tell it to do anything but attack his enemies, but he sends it up to do exactly that. Maybe if he’s lucky, this one will take down one of the flying spellcasters. Then, finally out of other options, Velendo draws on that core of wild faerie magic that he had acquired almost a decade ago as a gift from the Queen of Faerie. “I can’t believe I have no way to get on deck,” he proclaims disgustedly, and a shuddering roll of the ship flips the rope ladder right down into the hold. Sighing, hearing the faint tinkle of fairy laughter, and trying not to choke on the fumes, Velendo (and his six strength) prepare to make the long climb up the ladder onto the main deck.
Over on the bow of the ship, the Captain smiles, and yawns, seeing that his troops have an obvious advantage. He’s realizing that he Defenders’ reputation is badly overblown. Kicking Brindle for luck, he leans forward, delighted by the combat. His warriors are doing well; he can sense their triumph from here. Those two damn paladins are worried and look almost dead, and that blasted wizard can’t be too healthy. Ah, the minotaur has cast water walk and is rescuing the kobold. But where’s the half-orc and the dire shark? The Captain shakes his head regretfully; if I had just pushed a little bit harder with the dagger in the throat, he thinks, she wouldn’t be a problem. Oh well, live and learn. Another two lightning bolts arc through the air; my, thinks the Captain, they just won’t get out of convenient formation, will they? How useful for us. Then the situation shifts, and he begins to frown.
Velendo hauls himself onto the deck at almost the same time Tao whirls both her blades through the female half-orc, unexpectedly gutting her almost in two with several perfectly-aimed blows. Malachite, almost dead, lays on hands on himself and then manages to finish off the blasted lizardman that keeps trying to shatter Aleax. “I can’t take another lightning bolt!” says Agar, trying to maneuver….
And two more lightning bolts arc down at him from near the whirling air elemental. Nolin fires off another fireball into the area, and he hears yelps of pain, but he’s too late.
Agar only screams briefly, the world full of exquisite agony, before everything goes black. Malachite also drops, only saved by Aleax laying on hilt before he actually dies. Mara is staggered, but she still manages to plant her holy mace Lightbinder right in the middle of the unctuous dwarf’s face. The dwarf drops, and Mara manages to barely stay on her feet as another crossbow bolt hits her from somewhere up in the rigging. “That’s it,” says Velendo. “We’re retreating.”
Nolin descends and TomTom finally manages to rip himself out of the Astral. He appears shuddering, covered in ectoplasm, and splashes into a puddle of his friends’ blood. Velendo encloses the entire group other than Raevynn in a flexible wall. “How bad off are we?” he asks.
Nolin answers with a tired voice. “Agar is dead. Dead! Malachite is unconscious, Mara is on her last legs, and I’m badly hurt. Tao looks okay, TomTom looks unhurt, and I have no idea where Raevynn is.”
A disgusted-looking half-orc bobs to the surface a hundred yards away, having finally lost his grip on Raevynn.
Tao, looking grim, says, “They wanted our magic items? Well, we got theirs!” She picks up the magical trident from the dead lizardman and enunciates carefully through the flexible wall of force, waving the trident as she does so. “We. Have. Your. Magic. Items. You. Don’t. Have. Ours! Ha! Ha!” “Tao!” rebukes Velendo, but then he notices the angry Captain – and exchanges glances with TomTom. “That’s a doppelganger,” says Velendo. Half the group rolls their eyes with worry. “I hate doppelgangers,” someone says.
So with the three bodies of their dead foes, and the unconscious or dead bodies of their allies, Velendo activates the rod of security. And in a heartbeat, they move from the deck of a rolling ship to the warm sunlight and gentle grasses of Haven. “Paradise. I wish I was less angry so that I could enjoy it more. I wonder how Raevynn is doing?”
Good question.
Near death, Raevynn had finally managed to shake the half-orc free from her side. She is still seething with anger, though, and she has a vengeful side. Surfacing far from the ship and turning back to elven form, she casts fire seeds. Should she? She shouldn’t. But she is furious, and she’s going to whether she should or not! Wild shaping into a bird, she picks up the fire seeds in her talons and flies over the ship. She sees that the air elemental is gone, so she craps on one of the mercenaries, drops her cargo on the sails and keeps flying. The seeds explode into a tremendous conflagration, consuming most of the sails and rigging. Success!
Then Raevynn realizes that she’s being pursued.
Two people, a man and a woman, are flying after her faster than she can fly herself. Not good. Using her last wild shape, Raevynn turns into a fish, and plunges into the ocean. Muscles aching, still bleeding, she makes her way back to Eversink.
“One thing is for sure,” the rest of the group agrees, back in Calphas’ paradise where they have sheltered. “Those bastards are going to pay. We heal, we bring Agar back to life, we use divination spells, we file the right paperwork, and then we kick their asses.”
To be continued….
In particular I note the absence of Palladio, our most steady thinker. 
