Shipwrecked in Saltmarsh

     “I’m not sure there’s much we can do?” Fianna says, absently, while trying to think of something to do.  “I have no way to block it from coming or going…  does it need the ship to cross the water?  It certainly seemed to make its way from the sinking vessel to the skiff easily enough…”

((We’re on main dwarf ship now, yes?  Not the skiff?))

     “Did you see any reason it may be staying with us? Any connection?  Do we think it’s protecting or guarding the box?  It did attack us before we ever got close to it though..,” she just rambles on stream of consciousness got a while.  Eventually she decides she should go investigate the box right away!

Kelnan tries to explain to Dain.

"Imagine you are inside a great glass bowl, sitting on the surface of the ocean. And with great effort, you can push the bowl down into the surface of the water for a moment. You can see down there, even move about a bit, but interacting with anything is almost impossible and the connection to the air above is maintained at all times or else the bowl would fill with water and you would sink irreversibly into the sea. So it's like that, but magic and there are spiders and ghosts down there. No ghosts on this ship, I mean. At least not that I saw. Also you can fly in a way, so no I don't think the spider needs a boat to travel, but I imagine it gets tired too, so a free ride might be welcome. Also hungry. I wonder how often they eat? It may be perfectly happy to subsist on the rats below decks, but better to be careful..."

((We’re on main dwarf ship now, yes?  Not the skiff?))

(Correct. You are on the Soul of Winter, a 90-foot, three-masted schooner captained by Wolgar Windrune and his crew of thirty twenty-three.)

Fianna stares blankly at the large blue metal box. It is made of an unknown metal, and has no seams, latches, hinges, or any other apparent way to open it.

The spider stays hidden; it does not appear to follow Kelnan back to the material plane.

I am assuming you are sleeping in your former bunks: Molo with Dain; Fianna with Katernin; and Kelnan by himself.

Four of you are currently on the lower deck, in the hold outside your cabins. Molo must be off somewhere making dinner and slapping imaginary spiders off his good foot.

     Harumph.  For lack of anything actually constructive to do, Fianna will just keep the box close and secure.  She'll ask the others if they have any way to identify it or tell if it is magical or not.  "I suppose we shouldn't force it open... But I must admit I am dying of curiosity!"

Dain blinks twice at Kelnan's explanation and goes back to his duties on the ship.

The rest of the evening passes without incident, although you find it quite difficult to fall asleep knowing that there is a huge, poisonous spider just a few feet away from you in a dimension you cannot see, hear, or touch.

You awake just before dawn to a commotion. There has been an attack in the hold. A dwarven sailor was killed as she slept. Witnesses confirm a massive blue spider tore her to shreds and vanished into thin air before her alarmed crewmates, awakened nearby, could react. All that is left are bloody bits and the wails of her friends.

The wind had picked up outside; you can hear the hiss of sleet against the hull, and feel the lurch of the undercrewed ship as it plows over enormous swells in the predawn light. 

     “Can we speed the boat up?” Fianna asks uselessly but with nothing constructive to add.  
     “Even if we did know when it would pop out, we have no way to stop it from popping right back away again…”

Molo begins booby trapping the kitchen. 

(oof. Kelnan would have set an audible Alarm in his cabin but I guess it didn't matter. I doubt it would catch the ethereal spider, but hopefully once it turned solid at least everyone would know)

Kelnan proposes that if we have another night at sea, everyone stay together in the hold, with crew and adventuring party keeping watch overnight. Unless someone has a plan to trap it of course.

     Fianna, to the party, not the crew, proposes her hunch:  "I... I think it's connected to the box.  I don't know much about other planes or such but...  I would think to follow us here, it would need move there.  Wherever there is.  And even if the there is all good moving landscape for the spider, I find it hard to think it's as fast as a ship.  Nor tires with trying to constantly keep up.  So I am thinking there is a connection?  An umbilical between the two perhaps?  A magical tether?  Plus the metal box cube thing is blue... The spider is blue and white...  I dunno, seems... Connection."

     She shrugs.  She thinks she may be right but that it doesn't really help.  Oh it would help if they were willing to ditch the box overboard but that's not an option....

Dain blinks at Fianna and returns to helping the crew with his duties.

“So… we can trap the spider by trapping the box? Moving it to a room where it remains tethered?” Molo looks A bit tired from stalking the ship and booby trapping the kitchen, but still… surprisingly lucid.

     "I... don't know.  I am just guessing.  I think my guess is that the spider stays within a certain closeness of the box... To be free of it we would have to abandon the box, which I do not think we want to do," Fianna speculates.  "Or there could be no connection, maybe the spider just likes Dwarf meat."

Kelnan

"Hmm, not sure what use a spider has with a mysterious box, but it's worth consideration. Question is, how do you trap a creature that walks through walls?"

     "Well I can always try to use my Fey wiles and try to charm it..." Fianna says, no real faith in that plan at all.  "If I am right, and there's a connection... then only sure way would be to dump the box.  But I don't think any of us want to do that. Specially as we don't know for sure."

((Anyone got Identify or Detect Magic?))

The captain walks in, furious. 

"What kind o' foul demon spawn have you drawn aboard my ship?" he demands. "I have lost eight o' my people. I cannot lose any more. You must get this ghost spider off my ship immediately! I will NOT have more death on this voyage. They tore her t' pieces!" 

“We’re working on it, Captain…. We aren’t blind to the danger. We’re working on it.” Molo pays the captain’s hand, assuringly.

"The poor creature," Katernin says sadly, and quietly.

((Katernin can cast detect magic))

     “The thing didn’t exactly come over in our backpack, captain,” Fianna points out.  “It’s attacked us more than your crew.  You’ve seen us fight the thing.  We didn’t bring it aboard, it poofed aboard.  And it’s not like you weren’t aware there’d be some danger and mayhem possible…”

     “You of course have our sympathies for your losses.  We’ll pitch in where we can, fight the thing if we are around if it reappears…  but other than that, there’s naught we can do about reality jumping water spiders.”

((once away from captain Gianna would suggest perhaps Katernin do Detect Magic on the box?))

Kelnan

"Captain, rest assured you and the families of your fallen crew will receive additional compensation once our mission is complete. Until then, I have a plan. If I can prepare a spell's energy pattern in the material plane, I should be able to carry it to the ethereal and release it upon the spider, ambushing it upon its home terrain. The destruction should remain confined to that plane as well. It may not work, and I suspect we will only have one chance, but better than letting it run rampant."

(Basically Kelnan wants to cast Blink, prepare a Fireball to be cast upon seeing the spider, and try to nuke it on the ethereal plane once he travels there. Of course there's only a 50% chance he even goes ethereal on that turn. He'll have to follow up with weaker spells if that doesn't do the trick.)