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Previously on Call from the Deep
Starring:
Gotwald Ironhorn, level 9 minotaur Rune Knight Fighter
Mac, level 9 tortle Drakewarden Ranger/Rogue
Savra Akkedis, level 9 lizardfolk School of Necromancy Wizard
Torrel, level 9 kenku Fathomless Warlock Pact of the Amulet/Fighter
From Mintarn the Zoo Crew heads toward their first lead: Ironhand Cairn, located at the southern tip of Alaron (moved slightly closer from Oman’s Isle as originally written).
The area is wild and untamed, forcing the party to anchor offshore and take a rowboat toward the wooded, hilly area.
Soon after stepping off they hear the sounds of battle, and monstrous cries screams.
Heading toward the sounds, they come across a large barrow with a single stone slab entrance surrounded by standing stones.
Near the entrance are a pair of deformed giants (fomorians) and a trio of chuuls locked in a bloody battle.
The party recognizes the chuuls as frequent adversaries, though they’re not sure of the nasty-looking giants. After some history and nature checks, they find that fomorians are typically as cruel and evil on the inside as they are deformed on the outside, prompting Savra to cast sickening radiance on the whole lot of ’em.
The radiation begins burning them with glowing light, forcing all the combatants to escape the area, while still attacking each other.
However, the attack draws their ire, and the fomorians can use their evil eyes to target the party from a distance.
Torrel is especially effective at knocking chuuls and fomorians back into the spell’s radius, and the exhaustion begins slowing them down — a killer combo!
Meanwhile, Mac hasn’t fired a shot, still unsure of the motivation or context of this fight. He drinks a potion of gaseous form and seeps into the barrow — which he mistakenly believes is a burrow, or perhaps a halfling hole?
He appears in the first room of the tomb. It’s pitch-dark, forcing him to drop the form and cast darkvision.
While the others continue to battle outside, he begins exploring the tomb by himself, moving past a pair of statues into a corridor, and triggering a spike trap spell. He leaps onto the nearest wall and moves along the wall with this climb spell, noting the empty room in I3, skipping I2, and heading straight south toward I5, and the subterranean river.
It’s at this point that Mac’s player hilariously realizes this is not a burrow, but a whole dang dungeon!
He uses his ring of water walking to walk over the river and effortlessly climbs up the cliff on the other side.
As he does so, he notices torchlight coming from the west. Half a dozen pirates are trudging through the cold river water, heading toward his direction, and a nat 1 stealth check alerted them, even as he drops prone from above.
As luck would have it, just as they make their was toward him, a cloaker unfurls itself and attacks the pirate in the back, forcing all of them to deal with this threat.
After a moment’s hesitation, Mac leaps down and fires arrows into the cloaker, helping the pirates.
The cloaker’s victim is killed but the cloaker is forced to escape back to its nest.
Mac and the group’s leader recognize each other. She’s the Storm Maiden, one of the pirate lords identified by Captain Callous, and a high-ranking agent of Sea King Tentrix.
And of course, the Zoo Crew’s infamy has reached a level that the pirate lords are actively seeking and hunting them!
But she hesitates. Mac is alone, and just helped them fend off a nasty creature. He explains how he defected from his party just now, and wants to join up.
And hey, a slot just opened up!
Back outside the rest of the party has no idea where Mac went. Without his damage output, it takes them a long time to put down the monstrous threats — though Savra’s chromatic orbs and ongoing sickening radiance do the heavy lifting.
Poor Gotwald is stricken with the fomorians’ curse right before the last one dies, causing his own body to deform, giving him disadvantage on anything STR or DEX related.
After the battle they’re forced to short rest. Mac disappearing in the middle of the fight isn’t out of the ordinary, but they don’t even know he’s inside the barrow: the stone slab still remains closed!
Inside, the Storm Maiden demands a show of good faith, and Mac casts pass without trace on the whole crew, noting it would’ve come in handy to avoid the cloaker.
She agrees, and reluctantly allows Mac to join their crew. Their goal is to loot the fabled treasure of Thelgaar Ironhand, whose final resting place should be in the deepest bowels of this cave.
Mac climbs back up the cliff, drops a rope, and helps everyone up to explore the southern room with his newfound allies.
MVPC – Mac
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