Diary of Captain Nomed Oppenheimer - Entry Number 25
Monday, December 2nd, 907 TA
Well, we are into the endgame of our cat and mouse fight with the Old Kingdom and the Siren’s Song. Our ship is whole, but even full strength we are not a match for the sadistic sister of the Wanton Wench. Our hope lies in finding a bottle in a haystack and using it before we all die gruesome deaths. Let’s just hope someone actually knows where to find it.
After a brief respite from solving the teleportation cube, we heard more of those frog demons heading towards our chamber. Me, still woozy from the effects of the unwanted licking, was not quite in the mood for a prolonged fight, and with a blast starlight, I felled several of the creatures. The rest of the party quickly finished off the rest, and we determined to clear this level of the demons before moving down to the ship. No sooner had we entered the next dome than we heard a large battle taking place. Chironomous realized that it was his precious zombified dragon and rushed ahead to help and we raced after him.
The dragon was found in a larger dome, flying above one of the holes to the cavern below, fighting off several demons at once, (who had some limited power of frog flight as well). We came to the dragon’s aid and started hacking away at the creatures. The resilient bastards did not go down easily, but we killed them all and Chironomous had a heartwarming reunion with his (nec)romantic partner.
With the immediate threat gone, we did a quick search of this chamber. In it were three things of note:
- A small hole with salt water leading out to sea. Large enough for us all barring the dragon to fit out as well as the arbalests.
- A large sack of sulphuric liquid that seemed to power the illusion of the Cecilia above.
- A stone disk, several feet wide, that could be used to move goods and people up and down between the levels.
With this last room, we had discovered most of the main floor. The only other room of note was in front of where the sleeping Heh, who just our luck had mysteriously disappeared, had been sitting. This room was a nursery, and held dozens of eggs, each containing a young demon frog. They did not seem to be active, but they could start waking at any time. With the knowledge that we should not overstay our welcome, we all jumped on the stone disk save for Chironomous and Java and made our way down to the Cecilia.
The ship was a peculiar sight. Hanging above the deck were crystal cocoons. Inside of the cocoons were bodies of men whose necks had been snapped. The cause of these cocoons was in the form of 3 giant crystal spiders who were tucked away inside the front cabin of the ship. The last thing of note was that the aft cabin had strange shadows emanating from it, and a magical darkness inside.
Finn was volunteered to go on first, in order to use our boundary chalk to trap in the spiders. I soon followed to get a better view of what lay inside the rear cabin. No sooner had I embarked, then the spiders started to stir. Finn put up the boundary just in time to stifle the movements of the spiders, and I opened the cabin door to see what was inside.
The room was unnaturally dark, but I could still make out the forms of four people sitting around a table, including that of Father Evan Black, who had sent us here. Behind these bodies was none other than Heh himself, who attacked immediately. He attempted to spew a viscous acidic goo on all of us, and then ignite us, but we were all nimble enough to avoid the worst of the damage. At that point, the spiders found a secondary exit from their room and Chironomous brought down his dragon and a great battle ensued. Scylla, using the powerful druid staff, brought forth a treant, whose job was to drag Heh out into the light so that our party could all attack him. Java used her voice, amplified by magic to shatter the cocoons and the spiders. Heh became surrounded and was beaten down by all. He attempted to flee back into the cabin but was struck down by the legendary Brine’s Sting, wielded by Wrane. Heh dissolved into a pool of sulphuric goo, and the battle was over.
With the threat neutralized, we took a closer look at the four figures. Each of them was clearly dead, but they seemed to be animated by black necklaces. Removing one caused the body to disintegrate, and the bodies disintegrated after we asked each of them a question. From our inquiries, we were able to determine that Heh, was not truly dead and would reform over time unless all his “followers” were destroyed. We thanked the dust that was once these people, took the necklaces, and systematically went through the caverns above, making sure no demons escaped and destroying all Heh’s eggs.
We were now safe, and so started the task of bringing up the arbalests and getting them moved to the ship. While that work went on, I went to the top of the cavern to look at the projection device that was used to fake the Cecilia. I removed the device but it was badly damaged in the transfer. Something to tinker on during my free time. With everything moved up to the ship, the Wanton Wench was finally whole again.
Wendy appeared to us and thanked us for making her whole again. She had been directing Naomi, one of the crew, to create a portrait of our enemy, the Siren’s Song, and we saw that even whole we were outmatched. We asked Wendy how to defeat her sister and she was hesitant to answer. She finally spoke up, saying that our hopes lay in a magical bottle. The Impossible Bottle, she said, was an old form of magic, that when used would trap a ship and any crew inside of the bottle until another ship was put in its place. She did not know the location of the bottle, or even which ship was its current resident, so we decided to go to one of our two most “reliable” contacts in Morgan.
We made haste to Dragonsford, arriving on the evening of December 2nd. Only thing of note was that Chironomous’ experiments with the paladin had finally come to fruition and he now had a faithful servant in the guise of an Old Kingdom soldier. When we arrived at Dragonsford, we attempted to head straight for the castle to speak with Morgan when out of the darkness, we were surrounded by four vampires. They had been sent for the vampire glasses that unfortunately lay in some other realm of existence. We tried to offer them Finn, but they insisted on attacking us. Unfortunately for them, we were not as easy to take down as they’d hoped. We slew three of them, and then gave chase to the fourth, culminating in a bit of a light show as I used one of our newly acquired arbalests to explode the fleeing terror. With that bit of unpleasantness behind us, we continued towards Morgan, who was now very much aware of our presence.
We made sure to let Morgan know that his vampire problem had been dealt with, and he was less than grateful. Somehow said it was our fault they were here in the first place. That aside though, we asked Morgan if he knew the whereabouts of the Impossible Bottle. He said he had never even heard of such magic, but that he’d gladly do some time-consuming research. In the meantime, he could provide us with some other information. First, the Siren’s Song was still in Portsmith, and her captain was a Hugh Edge. The second piece of information was that Jana Blackfire had become gravely ill, and had been isolated in her quarters, almost the same way Winters had been. We made some sad noises, followed by hearty laughter.
With this knowledge and lack of knowledge, we are left with some options. We can go to Elias and seek information there, or we can attempt flying across the continent to Teufeldorf in the hopes of finding the Ranger’s vault, whose key we found so long ago and whose treasures could include the Impossible Bottle. Only time will tell which one of these is the correct course of action.