Good morning,
it was a good afternoon & evening yesterday. Honestly we met around 13:30 / 14:00 for one of those nice gaming sessions, as we do so often (probably every two weeks). I started with short stories on our mission a few weeks ago and thought it appropriate to report back with more details now. Well, we did your way to Baldur’s Tor to find out, that Duke Eltan has a strange disease but we will probably not get any chance for an audience any time soon. Being “the good guys” here, we thought about something we could do to improve our standings with the city and the opportunity we’ve been waiting for might have been just here. We had several little happenings in the city, Sharyl escaping closely from a brawl when she first really botched it when trying to rob a drunk and Rei tried to help her with a real bad aim for the drunk’s leg. But they managed a close escape and got into a short talk with a shady figure in the city – they were kinda “hired” with the promise on some information to take out a lingering ghost from the sewers.
Well we didn’t as much as complain on our way, with Soinius noting that proper preparation would have been a good idea which went largely unnoticed. Not even having the gnome wizard with them, they finally got destroyed the ghost with the combined effords of summoned elementals noticing hardly how close they all were to dying there. A short inspection of the area brought (by the way) the insight that they were battling on the remains of a rather large temple of Bhaal. And it was spooky!
We did not have to wait very long for a real quest coming up and we had a few things that just pointed westwards (a missing relic of the Umberlee Temple, Eliath – the main reason for Sharyl and Rei to be around in Baldur’s Gate – the request of the flaming fist (local mercs that are very much the city guards)), well Eliath was somehow connected to the missing relic and we were hired of the Flaming Fist for some gold pieces to find out what really happened to an missing ship (~150 ppl + large battleship) on its way to a dungeon of trapped fiends.
Well, having enough adventure in immediate future – we started within days and did not question a lot – together with Helmfried, a local ass – ah I meant Helmite and Solvis one of the sea-bitch’s favored and roundabout 200 soldiers, mercenaries and shipcrew guys, we headed for the far west. Having a journey in front of us that would take several months. And it did not take long (around 2 weeks) until we met the first real encounter on ship – a ghostship from Luskan.
It was Selvis that tried to convince the captain to take the ship down to the depths of the ocean where it belonged when we found out that it was probably not our chosing – the damned vessel was coming for us – straight and that is where the fun for us players and probably the horror for our characters started.
We were very much determined to find the evil focus/foci on the ship and destroy it before the wraiths and undead would take down our whole crew. So Halfling and Gnome made for a good start and stepped through Dimensional Doors directly into the enemy’s ship-bow. Calling out to Brandobaris Soinius did his best to keep the vile ghosts at bay while his gnomish accomplice would take care of a protective circle. When finally Sharyl, Vadania and Rei arrived on the ghostship – a severe fighting of ghosts and men was ongoing on our own vessel. We had to hurry and find the unholy forces that kept this ship together…
Fighting dozens of ghosts ourselves with the unfailing backup of summoned celestial creatures to aid either men or direct combat on our side we managed to go below and were confronted by a powerful drowned undead wielding butcher’s axes, while the chains that were the focus were healing him and made him a tough challenge. It was then when the gnome had depleted all of his magic and dropped, Sharyl had taken severe hits and the party was working hardest to solve the puzzle, when Solvis send a message to the unnerved and deperate halfling – that the chains were the real focus of the enemy. Within moments Vadania and Soinius had channeled the undying’s doom, positive healing energy into several of them – it was then when Rei split chains with her bare hands and Sharyl cleaved at them with her blades. All happened faster than one can imagine this, the ship fell apart – indeed going back to unknown depths – Umberlee’s depths. While a quick prayer to the lucky one gave all, including the gnome that had regained his consciousness, the ability to breathe water, Vadania turned into a large bear and took off with the whole party attached to her fur, carrying the gnome in her mouth like a baby bear – flying back to our ship, where the exhausted and battered party picked the direct way back to their resting places. Forgetting to give a glance to what happened here – probably turning around when the crying and wailing of the wounded from above, make at least Soinius’s stomach once again turn upside-down.