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Paul DMing; Scott: Smudge (shadar-kai rogue 8 / barbarian 2) and Martin (duergar cleric 10); Dane: Tudo Fleck (dwarf cleric 10); Rob: Vox (half-elf bard 10).
Last time our heroes smoked an ancient hookha and smashed a giant snail. This time, they finish exploring the undersea torus reached from Shaheduzzaman's water slide.
Vox rings the bell mounted on the sailing dingy, triggering a Constitution check form everyone. The ringing of the bell is not audible but everyone feels it in their bones. Smudge and Vox fall unconscious.
Tudo uses tongues to read some of the inscriptions etched on the bell. Some runes are magical sigils, others are a poetic ode inviting the "serpentine masters" and their "sleek black ships".
Todo shakes Smudge and Vox awake.
Tudo detects magic. The bell conjuration radiates. The key they found last session radiates both transmutation and abjuration.
The large sea creature with the one big round and lobster claws looms closer. It reaches through the transparent wall as if it isn't there and nips at smudge with is big crab claw. Smudge easily steps out of the way, and the eye of the deep withdrawals its claw and does not press the attach.
Vox casts charm monster on the big round creature. It grins at Vox, showing rows of pointy teeth.
Todo controls water to create an air bubble
The monster's name is Aqualicious. They ride it. Aqualicious is very chummy in a blue-collar way. He's probably been lonely.
Aqualicious tells how he's working for the beholder ("He's an asshole, but I need the job") and Shaheduzzaman. Aqualicious isn't totally sure of the beholder's plan, but it's something about stealing energy from the surface world and draining it into the inner sea world.
"Yah gotta take the dingy down the drain to the inner sea for that bell to work!" Dane feed some ROCKtopus to Aqualicious.
Aqualicious dives to the bottom to harvest tube worms near volcanic vent, then takes them to a sunken ship with several treasure chests in its wrecked hold.
Smudge uses the magic key in the lock of one of the chests and finds:
Aqualicious swims them back to to the torus.
They have Aqualicous move the sailing dingy from the south-east bubble room to the south-west bubble room.
They bid Aqualicious fairwell, climb into the boat, and pull the plug in the floor.
They fall through dark nothingness and land in the boat in on a featureless sea. They see no land or vessels, but they do see a twenty-foot diameter glowing green portal floating thirty feet above the water.
They ring the bell mounted on the ship. Tudo's bones vibrate until he falls unconscious. Fog rolls in. They row over toward the glowing portal. They hear a bell sound from somewhere nearby, presumably from another ship, invisible in the fog.
Vox signals to the other ship, which looms out of the fog, tall and black and Giger-eque. It is a two-hulled catamaran.
Smudge makes himself invisible.
A ladder drops with a mechanical CLANG from the rail to the water. The deck is featureless, apart from stairs descending inside. Smudge notices a gigantic eel-like creature harnessed between the hulls.
Enemies(?) defeated: Aqualicious
Treasure: ship-mounted magic bell, sailor's cap, friendship(?)
