Set Sails for Adventure! 2/23/25-

After a three-week break, Azirapheal contacts Kheya and Zorma to inform them of a new mission. A new healer, Maxine, and Ranul are already there. They learn of a new hire being held captive by the Fierce Creeper Collective, AKA the Creeper, at an inn on the outskirts of town. The Party travels to the inn, where Zorma, disguised to avoid detection by a rival guild, scouts the area while Kheya, Maxine, and Ranul head inside to speak with the bartender, Shank. Zorma reports seeing two guards at the rear entrance. A group of dwarves at the table behind them are debating logistics for an upcoming outing. To create a distraction, Kheya casts Minor Illusion, making one of the dwarves hear “one of their comrades” talking shit about them, causing a brawl among the dwarves. Shank takes bets, and Kheya uses the distraction to approach him. Zorma sneaks into the kitchen and finds stairs leading down. The brawl ends when an elf interrupts with a spell, and Shank redistributes the money since the fight wasn’t concluded, and resumes his duties. Zorma is spotted by the cook, who becomes suspicious. Zorma tries to grapple him, but his gauntlet malfunctions, playing carnival music, Cook escapes to go alert Shank. Ranul rush to help Zorma. Kheya Blinks, leaving Maxine to attempt and fail at to putting Shank to sleep. When Kheya returns she kill Shank by causing him to bleed from his eyes and ears. (edited) 2:01 PM Maxine, surrounded by shadowy wraiths, and Kheya run into the kitchen, where Zorma and Ranul have already gone into the basement. Three Creepers follow them to the kitchen. Kheya stabs one and Blinks away. Maxine rushs down the basement, joining the fight as Zorma and Ranul engage with another guard. Kheya is stabbed upon reappearing, but flees to the basement. The creepers give chase, where the three of them are trapped by black tentacles summoned by Kheya. Ranul summons a flaming bird that ignites the trapped Creepers, setting the surround shelves ablaze. Maxine uses her wraiths to drain the soul from one of the Creepers, killing him. In the far corner is a closed door leading to a back room, Zorma opens the door, revealing a stairwell leading down, a guard, and a closed door leading to the Undercity. Zorma, Maxine, and Ranul face two more Creepers they have come out the back room, while Kheya descends into the dungeon and frees Tarril, the new hire. She is marked with strange scars on her face of ruins not of Peloch origin. While Kheya retrieves Tarril, the others continue to battle until one of the Creepers blows a whistle, signaling the remaining Creepers to flee into the Undercity. Kheya and Tarril emerge, and the Party exits to the Undercity, heading back to the Temple. Before leaving Zorma, doubled back and grabbed a chest, inside containing gold and a spark pistol.

Azirapheal hires Beldon Big Belly to take the Party on his ship, retrofitted to traverse the desert. The Party boards, and Zorma finds a room below deck, where he encounters Nura muttering prayers. He quickly leaves and finds an empty room. Kheya says her goodbyes to GG, after officially going on a date with him the night before. She and Maxine then follow Zorma below deck, finding an empty room next to his and settle in. Zorma notices purple smoke in his room from beneath his door, finding a halfling woman in the next room coughing from making explosives. After Maxine helps her, she returns to her work. An hour later, Beldon asks the Party to join him on deck. They meet Aris, a thin sun-tanned traveler whose belongings were stolen by a sandwyrm. In exchange for their help, she offers to read their futures. Zorma shares the Party's mission with the halfling, and she requests the wyrm's blood and poison. The ship changes course toward the wyrm. The Party hides near a cave, and Kheya uses an illusion to mimic the smell of blood and Tarril throws rocks to lure the beast out, but nothing happens. Tarril floating inches off the ground to scout inside but finds nothing. As the Party move forward, the wyrm appears, attacks, and grabs a now paralyzed Kheya. Zorma attempts to pull her free, but misfires. Maxine heals Kheya, but as soon as she frees herself Kheya is again paralyzed and carried away. The Party chases after her into the wyrm’s tunnel. The wyrm exits the tunnel, and the Party follows hearing mumbled sounds from above. Tarril, going first, is stabbed by the wyrm’s tail and paralyzed, dragged to where baby sandwyrms are. Zorma kills the wyrm with a force dart to the head, leaving blood and gore dripping into the tunnel. Zorma and Maxine exit the tunnel to find Kheya and Tarril dead. Maxine revives Tarril, but Kheya remains lifeless. 3:18 PM In the Grey Wastes, Kheya is standing next to Skulldrinker, who looks terrified at being back in this place. Kheya opens her mouth to ask why Skulldrinker looks so frightened when Skulldrinker quickly fades away. Dropping to her knees to mourn the loss, Kheya only looks up when she sees a shadowy being above her. This almost familiar being tells Kheya it can save her if she is willing to become what she is meant to be, Kheya agrees as Zorma (back on the mortal plane) casts Spare the Dying, seemingly reviving her. Kheya looks the same, but no longer has shadows or voices, including Skulldrinkers, in her head. The Party collects the wyrm’s blood and poison, taking the baby wyrms for later sale, in Zorma’s bag of holding. Back on the ship, they return Aris’s items. She reads their futures: Zorma living comfortably and at peace, Maxine spreading the word of Azirapheal in a different land, Beldon swashbuckling and slaying beasts, as she moves to Kheya inky black smoke appears and they see Kheya larger than everyone with smaller beings indentured to her. Before Aris leaves, she gives Maxine a white feather for any future help. Tarril and Kheya go below deck to get soup from the kitchen. Beldon notices Zorma continuously burping the bag, Zorma offers him a wyrm. Quick and lightning Beldon reaches in and grabs the tiny beast. It immediately seems to like Beldon and curls up on his shoulders. Zorma finds the halfling and gives her the blood and poison, also offering her one of the baby sandwyrms. She accepts and Zorma, trying to copy Beldon reaches in quickly to grab one. Zorms pulls the baby out by the tall and hands the thrashing beast to the halfling.