Two sailors rush onto the deck and begin emptying a barrel over the side. The fish from the ships food stores begin to spill out into the water. Several of the sharks veer off to go for the bait while the others hang back. Malachi and Joren watch as the bull sharks get closer.
Malachi watches as some sharks pull away, but focuses on several that continue pushing toward the ship. As the closest sharks get within 60 feet of the boat, Malachi points out to one and utters a unknown words under his breath, sending a spike of psychic energy toward the beast.
(shark has to make an INT 15 save or takes 5 psychic damage and subtracts 3 from its next saving throw. Nothing on a successful save.)
"Sharks?" The growing hubbub caused by the approaching creatures pulls Samir from his thoughts. Straightening his clothes and glasses, he gets to his feet and makes his way to the rail for a look. "I have always heard stories of sharks swimming up the canal, but I've never seen one myself. I'm at a bit of a loss for how I can help at the moment, to be honest."
Dunamis Blade drawn, Joren's echo stands just above the water's surface, 30' away, ready to (non-lethally) attack sharks that approach close enough.
He grimaces at Samir. "Despite there being a paucity of sharks in the Dalmodh Plains, and of ocean for that matter, I still think we are having little to fear from ordinary sharks hunting for dinner. What is worrying me is if they are somehow magicked up and sent by one of our enemies. I am thinking we hold on in case they are ramming us, and attack from range to discourage them, theoretically being enough if they are normal wild sharks."
Or at least I am hoping so, Joren thinks ruefully.
Vilus seeing what is going on from his height advantaged position, looks around to see what preparations are being made, reading the lips of the group he readies an eldritch blast for the moment the first shark gets within 120ft of the ship, hopefully what he's heard from fishermen in the past is true, smack one on the nose and they'll turn tail. If the action goes off the group will realise exactly where Vilus is, in the crows nest looking down on the crew, disguised as a slightly rotund tiefling.
The sharks continue to close in slowly, though one of them thrashes and submerges when Malachi's magic hits it. Just as Vilus prepares to let fly with his magic, though, the sharks scatter. Within a few moments, the water is perfectly still once more.
"Well what the hell was that all about?" Haymitch grumbles. "A waste of fish dumped overboard. We don't have enough food to see us to port. We'll have to stop and catch some more, but I'd like to get a little ways away from these waters first." He starts walking off. "Dammit!"
Vilus, still disguised as a tiefling in the crow's nest leans out peering Into the depths.
"There! A shadow!" He calls out gripping the railing and wobbling, he closes his eyes, dizzy and mumbles out "the eye, it's..." Before passing out, plummeting over the rails and slamming into the deck where he lays unconscious, still somehow in a tiefling form.
Malachi leans over the railing, shielding his eyes as he looks through the glare of the sun off of the ocean waves and ignoring Vilus for the moment. “I don’t think the fish distracted them, it was something else. Yes, Vilus saw it, look there!”
He points in the direction of the large moving shadow moving under the ship. “Something has scared them or driven them off.” He looks up frantically “Captain! What frightens a bull shark? Have you seen anything like this before?”
By this point, several sailors have gathered around Vilus, propping him up and checking him for a pulse. Captain Torm emerges from his quarters, removing a small pair of reading spectacles and blinking into the bright light of day. "What's this commotion!" He shouts.
His first mate rushes over to his side. "There were some sharks, captain, but they got scared off. Some of our folk say they saw something in the water that spooked them." Captain Torm blinks a few more times, striding over to the railing on the side of the ship and looking over the edge. First Mate Haymitch comes over to his side and joins him.
Torm looks up to the crows nest. "See anything from up th-" Then he notices the unconscious tiefling being unsuccessfully revived at the base of the crows nest. He looks back up and a down a few more times, connecting the dots. "Haymitch, the smelling salts."
"Aye," Haymitch responds, rushing over to Vilus' side with a small pouch of powder. He takes a pinch and holds it under the tiefling's nose.
"This thing you saw," the captain says to Malachi. "How big was it."
As Vilus comes to, he looks confused, then wholly unsettled, "it's sees us!" He shouts out, "a massive inky black eye. How fast can this thing go!?" He pushes the sailors helping him up away and corrects the orientation of his prosthetic leg under his illusory visage, which must look brutal to anyone not in the know.
Sidling up to the group he mutters, "it's not one of mine, but we're sitting ducks out here."
"Seeing it too, I was, by the soil of the Plains. Or at least a vast, dark shape, passing underneath. Not noticing that it was... an Eye, but believing it."
Joren's voice is grim, though unlike the sailors, he gives tiefling Vilus space and stands at the rail, scanning the waters and coastline, Dunamis Blade still drawn and echo summoned out over the water, thinking ruefully... As if a few swipes of your sword will be discouraging something like... that.
He turns back to the goliath/tiefling and lowers his voice. "If it was wishing to harm us out here on the water, it could have, rather than passing on. You are sure the Eye was our... enemy we were seeing in the device below Talmouth," (he means the Hydaelym vision of Razmus being towed by the fleet) "... while in the presence of the woman who served that enemy but is now becoming a tree?" (He means Marigold) "It is making sense, given the vision, and I am not doubting you, friend, but only wanting to check if you are certain it is that enemy, and not something of your... Watcher."
"I saw us through it's vision and it, it's difficult to explain. But it wasn't watcher crap. The vision was obviously jarring enough to render me unconscious, I'm just thankful I wasn't awake for the fall." He rubs his shoulder that is obviously suffering from being landed upon. "I can't be sure either way... It's possible that it was that 'thing' but I doubt the boats dragging it would have set it free, they had intention for it." Tiefling Vilus gives an uncertain nod to Joren.
Ashley rushes to Vilus after he fell and is grateful for the help from the other sailors. But immediately jumps up as she sees how agitated he is once he has his faculties back. She watches him and Joren discuss this eye that her friend felt. She stares off into the sea at times, but worry starts creeping into her bones.
"So you say we are sitting ducks out here? Whether you know what that eye was or not, I don't like the sound of that one bit." She turns to the Captain, "How do we find cover? Is there any land nearby?"
"it's much bigger than the ship and we are in its territory, if we start taking on water then whatever chances we might have had will be gone" Vilus mutters to Ashley under his breath not wanting the sailors to hear.
The captain pales, and several sailors mutter prayers. "There's tales told in old dockside alehouses and ship canteens about a man-eating shark as large as a ship about this size. A beast the can take a vessel down on its own by ripping off the rudder with its teeth and splintering the hull with its body. Then, as the ship sinks, it can feast on its drowning victims one by one. Some consider it mere superstition, but they'll still mutter a prayer before a long voyage that they never meet it. Her name is Deep Blue. What you just described sounds bigger."
There is a loud thud low against the other side of the boat, and all of the sailors cringe. "Oh gods, it's over," one of them shouts, burying his head in his hands.
In all the sudden hubub, Samir finds himself blocked from getting to the fallen figure of his traveling companion at first as the sailors crowd around. Eventually, however, he is able to squeeze in closer, clicking his tongue as he begins seeing to the obviouly pained shoulder. A dip into his ever-present bag produces a small tin of pungent smelling. Muttering under his breath about moving from one disaster - no matter how fascinating - to another, he daubs it onto the warlock's flesh without waiting for permission.
"That should help. I swear, if this is another world-ending terror ready to devour us, I will seriously consider moving to the mountains and becoming a cloistered monk."
Joren has never been a battlefield commander, but he raises his voice to a loud growl, trying to snap the sailors back to attention.
"CAPTAIN TORM. FIRST MATE HAYMITCH. Getting your men in order sooner rather than later, yes? Less wailing, more sailing. Making for the coastal shallows double time." So Joren, how exactly is a ship supposed to move double time? The echo knight muses to himself for a split second. "Meanwhile, we can be seeing if my friends' magic and my echo can be doing anything to discourage our new neighbor who was just giving the ship a love tap."
To his companions, he thinks out loud, open to ideas, "Attacking from any side at any time, this big water beastie. Should we be considering each taking one end of the boat, port, starboard, bow, stern so we are ready for it? Holding on and doing our best to fend it off while the ship makes way?"
Joren immediately trots to the opposite deck where the loud impact had come from and re-summons his echo IN the water, moving it to within thirty feet of himself anywhere he can see a target to attack (OOC note: Joren also has 10' blindsight from his fighting style). Bracing himself, Jorenattacks immediately from his echo's position if sees a plausible target, and the echo hangs in the water, a meaty Joren-shaped body, ripe to be snapped up...
"Cloistered monk?" Ashley can't help but chuckle even in these circumstances. "I don't see it, nope, not you. You'd miss out on all this fun!" And following Joren's lead, she heads to the closest of the four 'corners' and looks overboard, seeing if she can spot the monstrosity below them.
Ashley and Joren quickly see what made the sound. A large chunk of driftwood had bumped into the side of the fishing vessel. Ashley can make out the pocking of barnacles covering the surface of the curved piece of drift wood, and she realizes it must be a piece of a ship's hull. Even as she looks, she can see other shapes bubbling to the surface.
Captain Torm collects himself and yells out, "You heard the man! To your stations. Get us closer to shore. Haymitch, get a man back up that crow's nest. Make sure we don't run aground, but get us into shallow waters, then hug the coastline. Doesn't matter how big this creature is if we go where it can't follow." Man scurry to their stations. Then there is another thud as a large mast strikes the bottom of the boat. One sailor, who'd been tying down the sails, gets knocked of his feet and tumbles over the railing. He just manages to catch the ledge, dangling over an ocean that is suddenly practically boiling with air bubbles and emerging flotsam
Joren glances over at Ashley, making eye contact and nodding to confirm that they have noticed the same thing.
"Not seeing a sea beastie bumping the boat. Not yet, anyway. Seeing the wreckage of another ship rising up from the deeps. Planks, mast and all. NEEDING TO MOVE OFF THIS SPOT. NOW!" Joren growls as he moves to where the sailor is clinging to the edge, stowing his Dunamis Blade.
Joren'sAthletics to heave the man back on board by his collar with one arm, bracing and holding the rail with his other arm and shoulder: 25
Two sailors rush onto the deck and begin emptying a barrel over the side. The fish from the ships food stores begin to spill out into the water. Several of the sharks veer off to go for the bait while the others hang back. Malachi and Joren watch as the bull sharks get closer.
(What does Malachi do when they reach 60 ft?)
Malachi watches as some sharks pull away, but focuses on several that continue pushing toward the ship. As the closest sharks get within 60 feet of the boat, Malachi points out to one and utters a unknown words under his breath, sending a spike of psychic energy toward the beast.
(shark has to make an INT 15 save or takes 5 psychic damage and subtracts 3 from its next saving throw. Nothing on a successful save.)
.
"Sharks?" The growing hubbub caused by the approaching creatures pulls Samir from his thoughts. Straightening his clothes and glasses, he gets to his feet and makes his way to the rail for a look. "I have always heard stories of sharks swimming up the canal, but I've never seen one myself. I'm at a bit of a loss for how I can help at the moment, to be honest."
Dunamis Blade drawn, Joren's echo stands just above the water's surface, 30' away, ready to (non-lethally) attack sharks that approach close enough.
He grimaces at Samir. "Despite there being a paucity of sharks in the Dalmodh Plains, and of ocean for that matter, I still think we are having little to fear from ordinary sharks hunting for dinner. What is worrying me is if they are somehow magicked up and sent by one of our enemies. I am thinking we hold on in case they are ramming us, and attack from range to discourage them, theoretically being enough if they are normal wild sharks."
Or at least I am hoping so, Joren thinks ruefully.
Tanis(Ranger1): Shiverquill's Tempest City | Xarian(Fighter2): NioNSwiper's Tyranny of Dragons
Dyson/Eleo(TwilightCleric4): Vos' Beyond the Veil | Soren(ShepherdDruid5): Bartjeebus' Ravenloft | Ophelia(WildMagicSorcerer4): Ashen_Age's Risen from the Sands
Joren(EchoKnightFighter6): NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(MercyMonk3): Bedlymn's Murder Court | Seri(NatureCleric3/DivineSoulSorcerer1): Bartjeebus' Greyhawk
Vilus seeing what is going on from his height advantaged position, looks around to see what preparations are being made, reading the lips of the group he readies an eldritch blast for the moment the first shark gets within 120ft of the ship, hopefully what he's heard from fishermen in the past is true, smack one on the nose and they'll turn tail. If the action goes off the group will realise exactly where Vilus is, in the crows nest looking down on the crew, disguised as a slightly rotund tiefling.
The sharks continue to close in slowly, though one of them thrashes and submerges when Malachi's magic hits it. Just as Vilus prepares to let fly with his magic, though, the sharks scatter. Within a few moments, the water is perfectly still once more.
"Well what the hell was that all about?" Haymitch grumbles. "A waste of fish dumped overboard. We don't have enough food to see us to port. We'll have to stop and catch some more, but I'd like to get a little ways away from these waters first." He starts walking off. "Dammit!"
Everybody make me a perception check
Vilus, still disguised as a tiefling in the crow's nest leans out peering Into the depths.
"There! A shadow!" He calls out gripping the railing and wobbling, he closes his eyes, dizzy and mumbles out "the eye, it's..." Before passing out, plummeting over the rails and slamming into the deck where he lays unconscious, still somehow in a tiefling form.
Malachi leans over the railing, shielding his eyes as he looks through the glare of the sun off of the ocean waves and ignoring Vilus for the moment. “I don’t think the fish distracted them, it was something else. Yes, Vilus saw it, look there!”
He points in the direction of the large moving shadow moving under the ship. “Something has scared them or driven them off.” He looks up frantically “Captain! What frightens a bull shark? Have you seen anything like this before?”
By this point, several sailors have gathered around Vilus, propping him up and checking him for a pulse. Captain Torm emerges from his quarters, removing a small pair of reading spectacles and blinking into the bright light of day. "What's this commotion!" He shouts.
His first mate rushes over to his side. "There were some sharks, captain, but they got scared off. Some of our folk say they saw something in the water that spooked them." Captain Torm blinks a few more times, striding over to the railing on the side of the ship and looking over the edge. First Mate Haymitch comes over to his side and joins him.
Torm looks up to the crows nest. "See anything from up th-" Then he notices the unconscious tiefling being unsuccessfully revived at the base of the crows nest. He looks back up and a down a few more times, connecting the dots. "Haymitch, the smelling salts."
"Aye," Haymitch responds, rushing over to Vilus' side with a small pouch of powder. He takes a pinch and holds it under the tiefling's nose.
"This thing you saw," the captain says to Malachi. "How big was it."
As Vilus comes to, he looks confused, then wholly unsettled, "it's sees us!" He shouts out, "a massive inky black eye. How fast can this thing go!?" He pushes the sailors helping him up away and corrects the orientation of his prosthetic leg under his illusory visage, which must look brutal to anyone not in the know.
Sidling up to the group he mutters, "it's not one of mine, but we're sitting ducks out here."
"Seeing it too, I was, by the soil of the Plains. Or at least a vast, dark shape, passing underneath. Not noticing that it was... an Eye, but believing it."
Joren's voice is grim, though unlike the sailors, he gives tiefling Vilus space and stands at the rail, scanning the waters and coastline, Dunamis Blade still drawn and echo summoned out over the water, thinking ruefully... As if a few swipes of your sword will be discouraging something like... that.
He turns back to the goliath/tiefling and lowers his voice. "If it was wishing to harm us out here on the water, it could have, rather than passing on. You are sure the Eye was our... enemy we were seeing in the device below Talmouth," (he means the Hydaelym vision of Razmus being towed by the fleet) "... while in the presence of the woman who served that enemy but is now becoming a tree?" (He means Marigold) "It is making sense, given the vision, and I am not doubting you, friend, but only wanting to check if you are certain it is that enemy, and not something of your... Watcher."
Tanis(Ranger1): Shiverquill's Tempest City | Xarian(Fighter2): NioNSwiper's Tyranny of Dragons
Dyson/Eleo(TwilightCleric4): Vos' Beyond the Veil | Soren(ShepherdDruid5): Bartjeebus' Ravenloft | Ophelia(WildMagicSorcerer4): Ashen_Age's Risen from the Sands
Joren(EchoKnightFighter6): NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(MercyMonk3): Bedlymn's Murder Court | Seri(NatureCleric3/DivineSoulSorcerer1): Bartjeebus' Greyhawk
"I saw us through it's vision and it, it's difficult to explain. But it wasn't watcher crap. The vision was obviously jarring enough to render me unconscious, I'm just thankful I wasn't awake for the fall." He rubs his shoulder that is obviously suffering from being landed upon. "I can't be sure either way... It's possible that it was that 'thing' but I doubt the boats dragging it would have set it free, they had intention for it." Tiefling Vilus gives an uncertain nod to Joren.
Ashley rushes to Vilus after he fell and is grateful for the help from the other sailors. But immediately jumps up as she sees how agitated he is once he has his faculties back. She watches him and Joren discuss this eye that her friend felt. She stares off into the sea at times, but worry starts creeping into her bones.
"So you say we are sitting ducks out here? Whether you know what that eye was or not, I don't like the sound of that one bit." She turns to the Captain, "How do we find cover? Is there any land nearby?"
"it's much bigger than the ship and we are in its territory, if we start taking on water then whatever chances we might have had will be gone" Vilus mutters to Ashley under his breath not wanting the sailors to hear.
The captain pales, and several sailors mutter prayers. "There's tales told in old dockside alehouses and ship canteens about a man-eating shark as large as a ship about this size. A beast the can take a vessel down on its own by ripping off the rudder with its teeth and splintering the hull with its body. Then, as the ship sinks, it can feast on its drowning victims one by one. Some consider it mere superstition, but they'll still mutter a prayer before a long voyage that they never meet it. Her name is Deep Blue. What you just described sounds bigger."
There is a loud thud low against the other side of the boat, and all of the sailors cringe. "Oh gods, it's over," one of them shouts, burying his head in his hands.
In all the sudden hubub, Samir finds himself blocked from getting to the fallen figure of his traveling companion at first as the sailors crowd around. Eventually, however, he is able to squeeze in closer, clicking his tongue as he begins seeing to the obviouly pained shoulder. A dip into his ever-present bag produces a small tin of pungent smelling. Muttering under his breath about moving from one disaster - no matter how fascinating - to another, he daubs it onto the warlock's flesh without waiting for permission.
"That should help. I swear, if this is another world-ending terror ready to devour us, I will seriously consider moving to the mountains and becoming a cloistered monk."
Joren has never been a battlefield commander, but he raises his voice to a loud growl, trying to snap the sailors back to attention.
"CAPTAIN TORM. FIRST MATE HAYMITCH. Getting your men in order sooner rather than later, yes? Less wailing, more sailing. Making for the coastal shallows double time." So Joren, how exactly is a ship supposed to move double time? The echo knight muses to himself for a split second. "Meanwhile, we can be seeing if my friends' magic and my echo can be doing anything to discourage our new neighbor who was just giving the ship a love tap."
To his companions, he thinks out loud, open to ideas, "Attacking from any side at any time, this big water beastie. Should we be considering each taking one end of the boat, port, starboard, bow, stern so we are ready for it? Holding on and doing our best to fend it off while the ship makes way?"
Joren immediately trots to the opposite deck where the loud impact had come from and re-summons his echo IN the water, moving it to within thirty feet of himself anywhere he can see a target to attack (OOC note: Joren also has 10' blindsight from his fighting style). Bracing himself, Joren attacks immediately from his echo's position if sees a plausible target, and the echo hangs in the water, a meaty Joren-shaped body, ripe to be snapped up...
Tanis(Ranger1): Shiverquill's Tempest City | Xarian(Fighter2): NioNSwiper's Tyranny of Dragons
Dyson/Eleo(TwilightCleric4): Vos' Beyond the Veil | Soren(ShepherdDruid5): Bartjeebus' Ravenloft | Ophelia(WildMagicSorcerer4): Ashen_Age's Risen from the Sands
Joren(EchoKnightFighter6): NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(MercyMonk3): Bedlymn's Murder Court | Seri(NatureCleric3/DivineSoulSorcerer1): Bartjeebus' Greyhawk
"Cloistered monk?" Ashley can't help but chuckle even in these circumstances. "I don't see it, nope, not you. You'd miss out on all this fun!" And following Joren's lead, she heads to the closest of the four 'corners' and looks overboard, seeing if she can spot the monstrosity below them.
Perception 16
Ashley and Joren quickly see what made the sound. A large chunk of driftwood had bumped into the side of the fishing vessel. Ashley can make out the pocking of barnacles covering the surface of the curved piece of drift wood, and she realizes it must be a piece of a ship's hull. Even as she looks, she can see other shapes bubbling to the surface.
Captain Torm collects himself and yells out, "You heard the man! To your stations. Get us closer to shore. Haymitch, get a man back up that crow's nest. Make sure we don't run aground, but get us into shallow waters, then hug the coastline. Doesn't matter how big this creature is if we go where it can't follow." Man scurry to their stations. Then there is another thud as a large mast strikes the bottom of the boat. One sailor, who'd been tying down the sails, gets knocked of his feet and tumbles over the railing. He just manages to catch the ledge, dangling over an ocean that is suddenly practically boiling with air bubbles and emerging flotsam
Joren glances over at Ashley, making eye contact and nodding to confirm that they have noticed the same thing.
"Not seeing a sea beastie bumping the boat. Not yet, anyway. Seeing the wreckage of another ship rising up from the deeps. Planks, mast and all. NEEDING TO MOVE OFF THIS SPOT. NOW!" Joren growls as he moves to where the sailor is clinging to the edge, stowing his Dunamis Blade.
Joren's Athletics to heave the man back on board by his collar with one arm, bracing and holding the rail with his other arm and shoulder: 25
Tanis(Ranger1): Shiverquill's Tempest City | Xarian(Fighter2): NioNSwiper's Tyranny of Dragons
Dyson/Eleo(TwilightCleric4): Vos' Beyond the Veil | Soren(ShepherdDruid5): Bartjeebus' Ravenloft | Ophelia(WildMagicSorcerer4): Ashen_Age's Risen from the Sands
Joren(EchoKnightFighter6): NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(MercyMonk3): Bedlymn's Murder Court | Seri(NatureCleric3/DivineSoulSorcerer1): Bartjeebus' Greyhawk