RPG Campaigns

Giraine Summaries

The Pithdarans have a saying “Out of the cooking pot and into the undertow” but something is lost in translation. Anyway, you lived it.

The great crimson sea serpent slid under the Churner as Bar'ran unleashed magics that propelled the boat toward the stomach wall and beating heart. You waited, looking down at where Boamund/Ciddar had spotted it, then it erupted from the waters on the other side of the boat, and looped over the Churner to throw a coil about it! The Baronet began shouting ribald poetry about the follies of sailors, Bar'ran was kept busy guiding the ship and then hewing at the stomach wall with his pole-knife, Ciddar could not harm the serpent with his sword, and so it was left to Boamund and the Captain to bear the brunt of the battle.

Boamund struck the first wound, and nimbly stepped aside as the serpent's huge, vengeful jaws slammed into the deck, taking several splintered boards with it. Then the Captain struck it in its hindfin, and it swept at him with its great tail but missed. The serpent took out its frustrations on the Churner, looping another coil over it and then squeezing, producing ominous creakings and crackings from the hull. But Boamund and Ahappi kept stabbing at it with firebladed spear and cruel harpoon, and soon the wounds accumulated. Ahappi pierced the body one final time, and sent the stunned monster into shock. In its mortal throes of pain, the serpent contracted its body and crushed what was left of the Churner, which was just barely hanging together. But you left clear of the wreckage and grabbed what you could for flotation, while the Captain swam over to Bar'ran, who was standing nonchalantly atop the waters.

Bar'ran handed the pole-knife to Ahappi to do the final cuts, as he produced a magically-burning torch from a fleshy bladder-thing on his belt, and then shoved the torch into the exposed, beating heart of the Vomiter! And that did not turn out so well for you. The Vomiter convulses, sending huge waves of muscle contractions through its entire gut and forcing out all of its contents into the oceans– and off you went! Somewhere else, buffeted by flotsam and jetsam and currents and heroquest energies…

And you awoke in misery. Chained, gagged, wounded, naked, cold, dripping wet, and lost. In a dank underground cell with only dim torchlight filtering through a slit in the cell door to reveal your grim situation, which included petrified skeletons of past prisoners, lithified by the dripping waters. To make matters worse, a figure came into the room, crept to the Captain and… licked… his wounded leg… shudder. Surprised by his stirrings, it slinked out.

A glimmer of hope appeared, though. A man came to the door and whispered to you. He was a fellow Seshnelan named Maugis; young and brown-bearded, a scholar and healer- but filthy and in rags, a recently captured slave to the pirates who lived on this island, called Smelch (infamous for its many pirates; all of you had heard of it). He confided, speaking with Ciddar whose gag had slipped off, that he had been sent by Big Ron to find you but had ended up here (about a day before you) and wanted to help you escape now. But the pirates were vicious and powerful: led by a sorcerous lord called Erythagulos the Defacer, and obsessed with blood-letting and blood-drinking and fouler bloody things. Maugis said he'd try to find a way out, then left in your miserable state.

But Maugis did find a way out within a few hours: he heard the pirates having a celebration or ritual or something, then snuck up to the dungeon entry door and spied the jailor napping in his room beyond, glutted with blood-wine. A quick Palsy spell and the “keys” (an enchanted severed hand and fingers) were his! With some struggling, he got the cell door mechanism to work and set the bedraggled four heroes free. Then you all came up to see the jailor, who was still paralyzed, and saw that the armoury beyond this room was clear of pirates. Your group hurriedly gathered what bits of their belongings remained (the rest, either the pirates had or the seas had claimed). The Captain came back to the jailor, pulled the rags covering his face off, and saw the horror of these pirates: the face was twisted into a tendril of blood-red flesh! In disgust, the Captain smashed his harpoon down through the thing's head. Boamund's sorcery suggested it was not a chaos-tainted thing, but something else: demon, sorcerous creation, or otherwise, but none of you had heard stories of such faceless pirate men who bathed themselves in blood. You freed the five slaves left alive, finding a few bodies in other cells that were too horrid to bear further investigation (and the rats! What was wrong with those hungry, obese rats!? You dared not think about it, and were glad the Baronet had no raunchy poems to spin this time). There was no sign of Bar'ran; Ahappi surmised that he'd taken his questing path into hell and abandoned you to your fates again.

Time was short, you knew. The pirates were doing whatever they were doing in the room just beyond the armoury, so you slid a chest over to block the door while you dressed and re-equipped, and Maugis cast healing and hasting spells on you. But soon the pirates tried the door, and began pushing at it in growing suspicion. You knew you had to run: there was a doorway out from the armoury into the ruined fort's courtyard, and Maugis said there were paths out of the gates either west- down to the docks, where ships moored; or east- into the jungles, and who knows what else. You chose the latter. As soon as you left the outer door (which Maugis holdfasted shut), you saw two guards hefting their cruelly barbed ball-chains and shields by those gates. Battle with the pirates was joined!

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