S11E18 - Mutiny in Scruffy Waters

The session opens with the heroes meeting Kharmir Hellstone, a dwarven merchant traveling with two warforged crew members and six guards. He invites the party aboard for tea, and they accept.

Once aboard, Ike feels a missing part of himself nearby. The sensation leads him to Kharmir’s wooden leg, bought in Zoqoi from Master Po, a retired craftsman and trader. Ike attempts to buy it but the trader asks 500gp for it. After some haggling, the heroes secure Ike’s wooden leg for 50 gp, three blue crystal shards Kharmir mistakes for gems, and a false translation of a notebook he found floating in debris weeks earlier. Brand sweetens the bargain with a finely crafted replacement leg, built from the remains of the dead warforged on their ship. A forty-year-old bottle of King Smorthar Rum clinches the deal.

Before they leave, Kharmir warns them about the dragon turtle roaming these waters. His advice is simple: always travel with another boat, one slower than yours.

After meeting the merchant, Ike asks Brand to make stilts from the two wooden pieces the party has recovered so far. Brand gladly takes on the task, planning to finish them in three days so Ike can begin practicing.

The heroes press on to Brasswake, where Ike buys a harpoon. He intends to kill the dragon turtle and make turtle soup.

Back aboard, the heroes continue south. A day out of Brasswake, they spot a small boat packed with drow refugees. They move to help, and that is when the dragon turtle arrives.

The turtle surges forward and slams into the refugees’ boat, but the vessel stays upright.

Lyra transforms into a giant octopus and dives overboard. She closes on the gargantuan turtle and releases a cloud of ink around it.

While the monster is blinded, the party orders Paquito to fire up the arcane engine and turn back toward Brasswake, towing the refugees’ boat behind them. After a minute and 500 meters of frantic retreat, they cut the engine and return to ordinary sail. Only after the escape do the drow explain themselves. They are fleeing the Shadowfell, where the Light of Pelor, an order of paladins devoted to Pelor, has been hunting aberrations and leaving carnage behind. The war has made life unbearable, so the drow escaped to the Material Plane and set course for the Ice Kingdoms, hoping to find a nice, cozy cave complex where they can be left alone. Then the drow ask for one of the heroes’ boats. The party, they argue, does not need so much ship for so few people. There are forty drow and only ten heroes. The threat is not especially veiled.

Nemo turns invisible and slips away to eavesdrop as the drow begin whispering among themselves. Luckily, he understands them. They plan to murder the heroes and seize the boats. After Ike transmits this information through his telepathic link to the rest of the party, Brand quietly loosens the rope tying the refugees’ boat to the galleon.

Several drow cast Darkness, swallowing the ship. Combat erupts. As more drow try to climb aboard, Brand’s loosened rope does its work, and they begin tumbling into the water. Ike climbs above the darkness and directs the fight from the mast. Nemo, Lyra, Soto, and Brand cut down the handful of drow who made it aboard. Within a few rounds, the refugees’ boat falls behind. The attackers are dead, unconscious, or in the water. Then Ike, furious that mercy has been repaid with treachery, casts fireball immolating the thirty-five drow still on the boat.

Ike refuses to feel anything close to guilt. He puts the lone unconscious survivor on a wooden plank, and the party leaves him floating behind them as a distracting snack for the dragon turtle.

Then the heroes turn back, take a long, wide arc around the turtle, and continue south.