Celeana cast Mage Armor and dashed below decks, where she walked into a low beam and knocked herself out cold…
The roc circled the ship as the crew prepared for a deadly fight.
Maeglin discovered a ballista in the forward storage, and between Dani and Flex, the figured out how to get it working.
Bruni didn’t wait for the thing to be set up before she just starting chucking the bolts like javelins — and hitting the Roc, as hard as it to imagine.
Dani peppered it with bolts.
Kahseer fried it with lightening.
Brialle blasted it with radiant energy.
Maeglin got the ballista working, but found it hard work a weapon that wasn’t a finesse type.
The roc attacked the ship, its intention — it seems — was to try to take the ship. A roc is fairly mighty, but a Carrick family enormous, but we’ll never know, because it failed to get grip on the ship as it passed.
On its second pass, the party continued to wear the monstrosity down, leading it to decide to get away with what he could.
In this case, it was Brialle and Bruni.
Both were snatched up off the deck with talon attacks, while Maeglin took a severe injury from its beak as the roc passed the ship.
With the monstrosity rocketing away clutching two of their companions, the party on the ship struggled with what to do? Killing the thing would send all of them plunging into the sea. Taking no action meant leaving Bruni and Brialle on their own to fight as the could, when they could.
Brialle had the answer. It was simple! It was straightforward! It would work!
It did work!
She cast command on the Roc and ordered it, “Down!”
As the roc began its decent toward safety, Bruni killed it — about 200 feet in the air above the water.
Bruni, raging, survived the fall.
Brialle didn’t.
The situation was dire.
Flex brought the ship hard about.
Maeglin and Dani went to work getting the skiff ready for a rescue.
Kahseer leapt from the deck, taking the wild shape of a giant octopus, and raced to the rescue.
Bruni grabbed Brialle to keep her from drowning.
(As it turns out, breath water was still up from Kahseer’s casting less than twenty-four before, which was critical in Brialle’s rescue)
Kahseer cast a healing spirit in the shape of an orca, and Bruni carried pulled Brialle into it.
The skiff ready, Flex ordered Maeglin to weight the anchor to arrest the ships movement, and Dani put the skiff in the water.
Shortly after, Brialle was back on the deck, safe and sound.
Back on the ship, the party decided to forego any further misadventure, deciding to make for the port of Fortinbras.
The party then faced a foe more deadly and terrifying than the roc: they faced bureaucracy!
They were sailing into port without legitimate papers. The captain — at least the captain identified in the ships registration papers — was not on the ship. He, with his crew, were presumably either driven mad or transformed into the ethereal on Craptopia.
Maeglin and Flex set about plans involving forgery, duplicity, and some spell work.
It wasn’t simple. It wasn’t straightforward! It might — or might not — work!
Maybe it worked!
Documents of ownership and registration were forged.
(Here’s hoping, fingers crossed)
Then came the question of the manifest, and that brought them to a question that really they should have been asking far, far sooner and probably with a lot more urgency: “why are there seven coffins in the hold with bodies that are not decaying?”
Brialle realized that they had been preserved in state with Gentle Repose.
A medical check revealed these were war dead who suffered mortal wounds in battle.
A close examination of their clothing revealed… well, that it was clothing.
The manifest confirmed that they were being carried from Mememerdre in Newur to Fortinbras, where they were to be received by ground transport for the next leg of their journey for whatever purpose at whatever destination.
Conversation about chucking the coffins over the side abruptly halted and focused on a new object: reward.
With the manifest and cargo orders also forged (here’s hoping for the best), the Anti-Saturday Squad made for the harbor in Fortinbras.
The were greeted, if that’s the word for it, by the harbor master who request their papers.
At which point, Celeana emerged from the hold and asked if she missed anything?