"I'll keep some emergency healing in store."

She assures Ula and the rest.

She looks at the grate gloomily.

Avaria feels so much better.  She puts her hand on Ula's shoulder and looks her in the eyes.  "Thank you friend, thank you for always helping us when it is so needed.  You're right, I definitely do not want to become one of those."  She looks at the undead and shudders, "ever."

Seeing that the wood can easily be moved away, she does this and pausing to make sure no one tells her not to, she then starts heading down to the cargo hold.

Jan will keep her friend covered by crossbow as she descends.

And Ethel will grab a piece of the ruined grate, casting light on it and tossing it down to the level below.

Marrin will peer down after Ava.

The lit piece of rotten wood spirals round and round, like the falling seed pod of a maple tree, casting shadows and a pocket of bright light for Avaria to see what's what before venturing below.

From what she can see, the entire cargo hold is filling with water. She's not sure how deep, but judging by the size of the other decks and how much space there was before the lit wood starting bobbing up and down, there's probably two - three feet of water down below.

There isn't enough light to see the entire deck, but from what Avaria can see, the cargo hold runs the length of the ship with no bulkheads or walls dividing it up. Scattered about the hold, sticking up out of the dark, murky water are the tops of barrels, crates, moldering ropes, an old sail and other odds and ends, some of which might be the edges of chests.

There's no ladder, but it looks like the water below would be more than enough to absorb any impact she'd receive from jumping down.

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Is Avaria jumping down?

Avaria quickly digs into her pack and pulls out her rope.  Giving an end to Ula, she takes the other end and jumps down into the water, heading for what could be chests if she can.

((How deep is the water once she's down? Knee deep? Hip?))

Avaria finds the water to be about hip / waist deep, assuming she doesn't have abnormally long legs or torso (about 3' deep).

With the debris and clutter, there appear to be chests in all directions - which way is Avaria headed (bow, stern, port, or starboard)?

Groaning at the depth of the water, Ava tries to go as fast as she can, she heads to the bow first.

As Avaria sloshes through the water, making her way to the bow, she unfortunately stirs up the only other beings down in the hold. She sees four shapes rise up out of the water and come towards here - four ghasts, similar to the ones she saw up above.

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Initiative please (for everyone)

Initiative: 16

((Can we get a picture/ on the ghouls' locations in relation to each other and Ava?))

"Rubbish!" Ethel shouts in despair.

Initiative:  9

"Honestly, how many people were on this ship?"

The four ghasts were chilling in the bow until Avaria came their direction. She made it about 5' from the cargo hold hatch. The rest of you are around the dotted square, which indicates where the open hatch is. The rest of the party is around that opening, except on the deck above

And Avaria notices that she's only making about half speed with the depth of the water (difficult terrain).

Growling, Ava looks at the creatures coming at her... wondering how many more of these were around.

Initiative: 20!

Jan: 10

"Ava, let them come to you. I'm going to do the same thing as before."

Marrin quickly yells down.

Everyone in the party (except Ula) are up first, then the ghasts, then Ula.

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