Session 26: The Mouth of Gargothica
General Summary
North of the mighty Aeops River, which bisects the Ten Thousand Trackless Sands, is the gulf known as the Bay of Jewels, far more navigable than the Aeops (which requires that the transfer of goods be made onto Masashandan galleys to be transported thence upriver). And so the coast of the hundreds-of-miles-wide bay is dotted with trading towns and fishing villages, all eager to take their share of the wealth that must pass this point to continue onto the Great Road to Masashanda.
The Bay of Jewels glitters beneath the Aharan sun, and Aharan fishing sloops dot its waters as Little Sister’s partially-rebuild hammership sails serenely by, now only some 40 ft above the surface, its tattered sails snapping in an otherworldly breeze.
Guarding the mouth of the Bay of Jewels are two castles perched on steep-walled headcliffs: the northernmost, largest, castle is called The Crown of the Sultana, while the southernmost is known as the Castle of Swallows. The gap between them is named the Mouth of Gargothica on all the maps that are known to the cartographers of the Twilight Empire.
The hammership drifts between and below these two mighty guardians as guardsmen stare down in wonder and fear. But no arrows rain from above. No aerial knights come flocking to harass this escapee from the deep desert.
Instead, as the ship drifts out beyond the cliffs, into the wilder waters of the Golden Ocean, dotted with islands and archipelagos baking under the midday sun, the deep booming sound of two massive gongs comes drifting with them from the battlements of the castles. Gongs that haven’t been struck in over forty years.
There are many long minutes where the doom-doom-doom of the gongs echo and fade away. Then, the sky begins to darken with clouds and the surface of the sea begins to roil.
Kelpip barely has time to shout a warning that he has spotted something in the distance, back toward the castles: what looks like the wings of a white, armored griffon -- perhaps an aerial outrider of the party whose plume of dust the Thieves had seen as they flew away from the Graveyard of Ships; or perhaps a curious nomad from among the many they had spotted as they crossed the windblown steppes of the Ten Thousand Trackless Sands. But that mystery will have to wait, for even as the storm above intensifies, tentacles explode out of the water of the Golden Ocean to reach up and grasp at the tasty morsel that is the adventurers' goddess-cobbled airship.
Even as the tree-trunk-sized tentacles wrap around the deck, lightning is unleashed from the clouds above. One of the bolts strikes down the side of the mizzenmast, setting the sail cloth there on fire and arcing to Trajinous, who has the misfortune of standing next to this giant lightning rod. Her golden beard hairs curl and melt, and she is flung several feet away from the burning mast.
Fortunately, most of the crew are not where the tentacles come crashing down onto the deck. Percy isn't as lucky as the others, but is able to roll partially out of the way and not be entirely mashed by the colossal cording of rubbery flesh as it hits the planking where she had been standing only a heartbeat before.
Another tentacle, though, wraps around the foremast, ripping it out of its moorings and holding it high, sails flapping like the cloth of a flag.
The creature that wields these tentacles is vast, vastly powerful, and vastly enraged by being summoned by the gongs atop the cliffs of the Mouth of Gargothica. And as powerful as our heroes have become through the course of their adventures, they know that they stand little chance against this behemoth. Ruhst leaps down the stairs and into the gun deck where the body of Little Sister slumbers in a coma, he draws his swords and stands protective above her still form.
On the main deck, the others strike their poses and prepare to give the thing a fight worthy of the bards.
Then Trajinous stands. Her clothes are smoking, the side of her face is blackened from the touch of the lightning, and her beard is melted into golden, matted threads in places. Her eyes smolder.
"Dare attack me with the tools of my own god!" she shouts. The thunder seems to heed her words, punctuating them. "Nay! Begone, beast of the depths! Begone spawn of a lesser being! Begone!"
Trajinous speaks words of power. The sky itself seems to shake. Thunder crashes and lightning flares.
...and the kraken ... vanishes.
"We have not much time," the cleric says, dropping to one knee from the exertion required by the spell. "I can hold it at bay for only so long."
But the ship, freed of its tentacular anchors, has already jerked forward, speeding above the surface of the calming Golden Ocean, despite having only one mast left. The crew leaps into action, putting out the fires on the mizzenmast and doing what they can to mitigate the damage done by the loss of the foremast.
The place where the Kraken lurked is soon left behind, though in the days to follow, the Thieves keep a wary eye out for signs of pursuit from that nautical terror. All they see, though, is that spark of white on the horizon: a spark that could be a trick of the light ... or a rider on a white-winged griffon.
They have no choice, however, but to go where the ship takes them. And where it takes them is to an island beyond the last jagged upthrusts of rock that are the Prelude Archipelago and the Islands of the Prophets. It is not a large island, but it is covered in jungle and steep with rock.
But its primary feature is the mountain that rises from the bed of jungle growth, a mountain shaped like a skull.
The ship sails, seemingly of its own mind, to a small fishing town built on stilts out from the beach and into the sea itself. There, the airship settles onto the water and drops its own anchor.
Somewhere on the island, the Helm waits to be collected.
Rewards Granted
One more level gained. Everyone should be 11th level now
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