You returned to the Blue Dock tavern and lay the mumbling, cold Captain in a bed; he seemed to be recovering. But no sign of the Baronet was evident– would he be found in time to meet Bar'ran? Your answer came the next morning, after more vague nightmares, and a dawn that greeted Handra in dark silence and grim apprehension. You found The Baronet sitting in the tavern's main hall, rocking calmly back and forth in the same chair that the enigmatic Accountant had sat the night before, just inside the doorway at the bottom of the stairs from your room. He was messily eating a plum with gusto, and afterwards seemed obsessed with plums, and very short on explanation for, or interest in, where he'd been. But he was back, and the Captain was mobile again (Despite a pounding headache), and so you left together.
Down at the Inner Jetty, led by Handra guardsmen and officials, you found that the Churner had somehow made it to a safe mooring, but seemed empty and still. Some fisher and newtling boats were converging on its location; some of the few left intact around Mooring Isle. Before they left you, the officials imparted Bar'ran's payment: 2000 silvers worth of rare pearls, gems and metals– booty from his travels across the sea, in a little leather sack for each of you. This was to cover your reward/funeral expenses for your services in whatever plan he was hatching. But where was he? No one knew; his crew had been seen aboard earlier but now they were scarce. You climbed aboard the stout grey ironwood ship and noticed the mast had been sawed off, goods secured to the deck, and odd implements such as 12 hook-ended oars and a 3m-long polearm-knife-thing had been strapped to the deck walls. Soon enough, as you wondered what to do and hailed the fishermen, the boat shuddered and you spotted a churning beneath its stern. Some magic had been conjured, and the Churner began to tug at its moorings, which eerily released themselves along with the gangplank. With some lines tossed from the fishing boats to act as steering, you began to move…
And soon enough, as you rounded the isle toward its northern end, rocked by the stirrings of the great eel, a voice boomed from inside the ship: “Get below decks and secure yerselves; we're a-goin in!” You did so quickly, scrambling into the hold, and were knocked about by cargo that slid around the craft as it suddenly was jostled, tossed about, surged forwards, then slowly calmed, as a foetid odour crept in through the deck hatch. As you prepared to slip out, Bar'ran appeared out of his locked cabin into the hold, wild-eyed and bushy-bearded, swirling with magics and casting the hold in an eerie light with his magic eye.
Bar'ran explained, gruffly and briefly, that you were headed inside the eel, which he called The Vomiter, and you were charged to defend the Churner and keep it moving- it must not stop, he warned. He explained, somewhat cryptically, that the Vomiter brought sea monsters from other places into its body and honed them (hence its other names, Midwife and Polisher), then released them to terrorize the world. You would quest together into its body, through its four stomachs, and then Bar'ran would reveal his plan to stop it. That was about all he'd tell you, then he returned to his cabin, with hints he was preparing something.
You passed through the fanged mouth of the Vomiter, down a narrow, muscle-walled passage into a widening that was the first stomach. A dull pale light was cast from the bottom of the water here, and flotsam floated on the surface. Soon enough, inside the chamber, monsters splashed forth from the waters- four great striped sharks with spiky, membranous wings! They would glide at you, jaws snapping, then pass by and dive back into the water, re-emerging later to try again. A fierce fight erupted, in which the Captain struck down one on the deck and another was mortally wounded and splashed back into the seas. Luckily, no one was wounded much, and the sharks entered a blood frenzy that soon turned on their injured fellow, leaving you at relative peace to glide along, pushed by a current from the monster's own gut, into a passage at the far end of the chamber and then slowly into the next chamber, the second stomach.
Almost as soon as you entered the place, the Churner slid to a halt amidst wreckage and sludge coating the gut-water's surface. And the Captain spotted tentacles gripping the boat, so he leapt overboard with Ciddar, who was quicky grabbed. The foe turned out to be a giant, red-brown octopus of insane tenacity. Soon it had hold of the Captain too, and bit him savagely, leaving his wound burning with a cold fever from its venom. But some of its tentacles were dealt wicked blows by harpoon and cutlass, so the battle was not over yet. Aboard the Churner, the armoured or un-water-breathing nobles Boamund and Shaven were deciding what to do, as they spotted magics blasting at their friends from a distant spot underwater. Then a voice spoke to the two sailors locked in desperate battle: “Surrender now… and become my slaves!”
But slaves to whom or what? And what will you do? We shall find out next time- probably this Friday 2 Nov, but let's see if Tim can make it.
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