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--- giraine:summary-371 [2025/04/10 14:21] – tim45tenwa
+++ giraine:summary-371 [2025/04/10 14:25] (current) – tim45tenwa
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-<- giraine:summary-370|Pehraln's warehouse of terror ^ giraine:summaries-2025|Summaries 2025 ^ giraine:summary-372| ->
+<- giraine:summary-370|Pehraln's warehouse of terror ^ giraine:summaries-2025|Summaries 2025 ^ giraine:summary-372|Effervescent Puzzle ->
 ====== Summary 371: Assault on The Effervescent (2025-02-07) ======
+----
+Almost 4 hours of dramatic combat!
+It is another cold night in Estali, but the snows have dwindled to just a few flakes dancing in the light breeze. Valind’s furious storm has passed well south now, and so Himile holds sway here, with Inora coating previously clean surfaces with her decorative frost as you make your way through the city.
+Along the way you hear an uproar down a main street—more sounds of people making animal noises, and some real animal noises, and Safelstran shouts of what might be city guard or military. You navigate around it, intent on your goal.
+You reach the docks area and see the warehouse has some extra lamps lit around it, and the ship is more lit than when you left. So your foes know something is wrong. You leave the warehouse alone and go down a dock to the south of the anchored Effervescent. You’ve given instructions to the dozen Estali marines on what to do, having hatched a plan: Bog will fly and Darkwalk in from above to begin the attack on the bow, Boamund will bottom-walk across the lake floor and then climb the anchor-chain to attack the stern, and Fraud and Shrett will wait back with the sled-skiff and the marines, coming in later.
+It's a nice plan.
+It doesn’t go off well. Bog flies in and falls down, all of his magics gone as he crosses the perimeter of the ship. Luckily, he grabs onto the gunwhale near his target, shocking the guard on duty on the front-left arbalest platform.   [BTW the arbalests were wrapped in oilskins; not active] He clambers onto deck; surprise is not lost, but his target is aware. Other sailor guards nearby, too, are alerted. Similarly, when Boamund reaches the aft deck, climbing with great skill, he finds that the magics he prepared have gone. He faces one surprised guard and several more around the two levels of aft platforms. Gradually, the sailor-guards invoke magics that protect them and bulk up their muscles, and cause their daggers to burst into flame.
+Bog adapts and swings his mace, taking out his enemy. Boamund, too, makes short work of his. But gradually the problem becomes clear, as three more sailors emerge from their mid-ship quarters and others converge on where Boamund and Bog are: you’re outnumbered. Worse yet, Bog succumbs to a fearful howl at a bad moment, but he overcomes this with his Berserk miracle and wades into combat, soon facing three sailors at the mid-front deck. They fall one by one before his mace, but two stick him with deep wounds of their flaming daggers, powered by cords of arm muscle that they’ve magically enhanced.
+Boamund’s situation is worse. He too faces three sailors soon, and while he’s whittling them down, the sinister form of Captain Wat Daham steps out onto the rear deck, unleashing his terrible ghoul-howl. At first he has the look of just a seasoned mercenary ship’s captain, missing one eye and clad in worn half-plate armour, wielding a firebladed broadsword that hisses and whines with an eerie flame. But that guise is shed as he howls and strides into the melee, his flesh burning away to reveal his true form: an undead ghoul with a glowing red right eye, whose flame matches that of the sword, and leaves Boamund unsettled. There’s a sickliness or uncleanliness to that fire. It’s not a cleansing flame like he prefers.
+But the fight is on! Boamund is soon grabbed by one, then another sailor, having been impaled in the ?leg, but he disarms the Captain. However, he has been wounded and gets forced down prone onto the deck, pinned by one sailor and in a desperate plight. He takes his last option: mustering all his strength to rise and throw himself off the aft deck, hoping to take a guard or two with him. One lets go right away, and the other almost holds him back, but his wet body slips clear and he tumbles overboard, landing roughly on a leg. He limps around the rear of the ship, under the right side of the catamaran, out of sight of the two remaining sailors and Captain (who recovers his sword).
+Bog continues to lay waste to his foes. Soon two lie crippled on the deck and leave blood-slicked swaths of snow and ice as they creep away. He makes a ruin of a total of four foes, but one manages to escape deeper into the ship. Shrett has come into range with his bow, riding atop the skiff, and begins peppering the right side of the deck with arrows. One guard is struck dead, his arm pinned through into his chest. A second is forced to take cover, having shouted alarm that draws attention to the new threat but also to him as a target. But the Captain calls forth a gout of evil flame that blasts the ice near Boamund, who was hoping to get back into the fight after removing the dagger from his flesh. Captain Wat Daham soon calls forth another blast, this time targeting the skiff, including Shrett; a marine is taken out.
+Fraud, seeing that help is needed aboard the ship, invokes his Fly spell and glides in to the right foredeck, running across to join the fray where Boamund was. He hews down the one Shrett wounded, then leaps down onto the aft deck to kill another. The Captain retreats to his doorway but Fraud has caught him in time to slash his right arm off, leaving his fell sword behind. Bog is close behind, pushing Fraud rudely aside and throwing his raging body against the door which the Captain has just slammed shut and held against Fraud’s effort. The door swings inward suddenly as the force throws the Captain down onto the floor, and Bog steps in, his own eyes ablaze with murder.
+Speaking of blaze, though, a new flame lights the Captain’s chamber. It is a howling skeletal spectre, wreathed in that same uncanny orange-red flame as the Captain uses. It wails away at Bog but his Shield magic protects him. Bog shoves the Captain back against the far wall, making room for Fraud to enter, and Fraud slashes the fire-wraith into nothingness after two powerful sword-blows. The Captain, buoyed by the safety his protective sorcery gives him against Bog’s mace, ignores the attacks and keeps biting Bog around the face and neck, starting some nasty wounds. He also blasts Bog and Fraud with another hellish flame-burst and Fraud’s leg is crippled, but he uses magic to make it good as new again. Soon Fraud joins Bog against the Captain, and they hit him repeatedly in the head. With one final blow, which didn’t seem that strong, Bog manages to cave in the remains of the Captain’s rotten skull and bring him down.
+Boamund has climbed back aboard the ship as the battle ends. Fraud hurries to treat wounds as Bog, once he rushes around the deck ensuring that all foes are thoroughly dead, collapses in an exhausted heap. And Fraud does a nice job of it, so Bog and Boamund are feeling better. Fraud also recognises the threat of the ghoul-Captain’s bites and happily pulls out what he is confident are the right herbs, poultices and salves to treat this—he was ready, especially as you’d heard that the Krarsht assassins were using ghoul-venom on their wicked throwing-blades. Bog does not suffer further.
+Now you turn your attention to the ship, as Shrett climbs aboard with the marines. The last surviving sailor is found wounded in hiding in the crew quarters at mid-ship, and refuses Shrett’s grim offer of one chance to talk or be slain. He curses, “My soul will be fuel for the flames!” and Shrett sends him to oblivion.
+Boamund and Fraud survey the captain’s chamber. It’s rather unusual. There is a table with what must be the Captain’s latest meal, some human remains, decaying. Gnawed bones are strewn on the floor. Some of the cabin’s surfaces are slightly burned, with some of these patched. He’s not a good housekeeper, whereas the rest of the ship is well tended. There is a finely wrought wooden pedestal with a similarly crafted coffer, holding 1900 guilders in mixed coins and gems, you find. Notably, there is no bed or other things a normal resident would need.
+And there is a “desk” (or altar?): 2m wide x 1m deep x 1m tall,assembled from carved human bones, inscribed with runes of Law, Chaos and Arkat. Atop the desk are some papers:
+  - A map showing the Felster Lake region: some shipping routes are drawn, nothing immediately seeming out of the ordinary, although two routes go close to Partan Island (one to the east, one to the west side), you note soon enough;
+  - A letter inked on papyrus (Safelstran): “P—Here is my final shipment of the parts you need; and I have included some spares. The Mistress should have the other shipment. I apologise for the delay; procuring some of the vital components proved difficult. Our partners had some trouble with a would-be thief. --WD”   “P” here must be Pehraln, and “WD” the Captain Wat Daham.
+  - There is the ship’s log in Safelstran, too, but this will take time to peruse.
+Seeing the desk, Fraud immediately sets to destroying it. Boamund, though, looks below the desk, where there is a compartment fashioned from a dried human torso, with a flap of skin at the “stomach”, so the flesh of this hideous compartment acts like a curtain. Boamund reaches in and the flap reveals hidden fangs that grab his right arm, biting deep into his skin, and holding on to gnaw at him. Fortunately, he wrenches his arm free before it can consume his hand.  [And, with two party luck points burned in the “boss fight” with the Captain to save Bog, then one here to save Boamund, you’re back at 0 party luck pts!] Fraud now proceeds to whack the structure into utter ruins.
+Shrett, now that the ship seems secure, gets into the hold with some marines. The internal chamber is contiguous and contains lots of unexceptional trade goods and supplies, except bow and aft compartments. The bow has two reinforced doors with good quality locks, and these must open into small chambers. The aft wall is larger, with one reinforced, locked door. Shrett can smell an odd smoky aroma there, which he cannot place; it’s not simply the odour of burning wood. Judging from the wall, the chamber beyond must be about 5m wide, placed against the back wall of the ship’s hull.
+You regroup and share information. Next step will be for those who are able (i.e., not Bog) to explore the hold’s compartments. The Captain’s corpse has the keys to the doors, so that obstacle is removed.
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