Live streamed and uploaded every week on YouTube. Join us live on Fridays at 7:30 pm Pacific/10:30 pm Eastern!
Original character art by Jimmy McClure.
Music by Kevin MacLeod.
Chat with us in the Official Discord Server.
Support the channel via Patreon!
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
With the giant shark outside mostly pacified, Torrel and Mac delve into the temple ruins in Narino to continue scouting (this time, with Mac’s player late to the session, Torrel took point).
Torrel uses his first of many stellar rolls on a Medicine check on the floating sahuagin bodies, finding claw marks and puncture wounds. Whatever happened to them, happened quite recently.
The trail of bodies leads to an open door to the north, and into a covered, overgrown courtyard thick with blood.
Torrel’s stealth and perception rolls make him the perfect scout as he quietly swims through the foreboding waters. Seeing a nearby plant shake, he peers in to see a ghoulish sahuagin with glowing eyes feasting (or suckling) on the dead body of another sahuagin.
Torrel takes the sensible approach and Nope’s right out of there, grabbing Mac and swimming back to the surface to inform the others.
Back on the ship, Gotwald changes into his lighter mariner’s armor and drank a potion of water breathing, while Savra uses the breathing stones to create a personalized air bubble.
The full party descends back down several hundred feet, leaving Mac to entreat with the anxious giant shark outside.
Knowing nasty creatures prowled in the northeast courtyard, the party opts to head west into a long hallway.
Across the hallway is a crypt containing floating sarcophagi decorated with coral, looking like merfolk royalty.
But when Gotwald swims into the hallway, a sigil lights up, creating a whirlpool in the middle of the room!
Savra is sucked into it, getting battered by debris, but Gotwald, despite his cursed mutation, is able to pull her out.
They huddle on the north side until the trap subsides. They call Mac over to lockpick a nearby door leading north. When he fails, Gotwald whips out a crowbar and breaks it open.
The door opens into a vast, domed temple chamber. Captain Dhurge, one of Tentrix’s Pirate Lords, is surrounded by his crew, though half of them are already dead. He whips around with wide eyes, blood staining his robes, and points all four of his wands down the hallway toward the party.
Whatever he’s been dealing with isn’t showing up, but the party’s here!
Gotwald and Torrel swim forward and Savra unleashes a nasty synaptic static, nearly killing the other sahuagin and forcing Dhurge to use his 1/day Legendary Resistance.
Dhurge tries to paralyze Torrel with his wand of binding, but once again Torrel refuses to fail a roll, and Dhurge follows up by firing a lightning bolt down the hallway, hitting the full party.
The DM momentarily panics when Torrel casts banishment on the four-armed boss, but he manages to make the save.
Then the party see one of the sahuagin bodies twitch and twist, its eyes glowing and its jaws distending with elongated fangs.
Whatever’s happening, Dhurge isn’t happy about it, blaming some unseen creature that had been attacking them shortly after they arrived.
The party isn’t deterred, with Savra unleashing another big AoE spell, destroying the rest of the still-living sahuagin.
Dhurge uses his wand of fear, hitting Gotwald and a newly created vampire spawn. The poor minotaur fighter had used his action surge just to swim closer, only to now dash-swim his way back down the hallway toward Savra.
But a second lighting blast knocks Savra unconscious!
Torrel casts blight on Dhurge, and Mac shows up to start peppering him with arrows. Dhurge’s wand of wonder is hilariously ineffective, turning Torrel blue, then summoning an awkward rain storm — underwater!
The pirate lord is sagging as more dead sahuagin rise as vampire spawn.
The first spawn swims in fear alongside Gotwald back into the hallway, triggering the vortex trap again! Gotwald makes the save but the spawn is dragged in and killed.
Dhurge is finally killed by Torrel’s tentacles, and Gotwald is shaken free just in time to revive Savra.
Suddenly a soft but commanding voice rings out, and the newly birthed spawn all float perfectly still.
A merfolk descends from a dark corner of the chamber, dressed simply but elegantly, and regards the party with a mildly amused expression.
She doesn’t hide her fangs when she smiles.
She explains that these sahuagin invaded her home, and she had been dealing with them until the party showed up.
She then watched the battle unfold, curious about these newcomers, who are definitely not creatures of the sea.
The party remains respectful and awed. And to their credit, they never entered the crypt room, nor looted anything from the ruins.
The mer-vampire introduces herself as Mei Ling, and even she’s surprised that the sahuagin transform into vampire spawn so quickly, and unintended side effect of her attacks.
Savra asks about becoming a vampire (because of course she does), but Mei Ling warns the process may turn her into a mindless spawn.
Gotwald launches into an inspiring speech about their noble quest against the kraken and the pirates, but Mei Ling doesn’t seem to care much — though she is a bit concerned that her location has been compromised.
And after she spent all that work killing everyone in the city, too.
The party has zero problems with the vampire, and Savra asks only for one of Dhurge’s wands — the wand of wonder.
She allows them to take the wand, and explains that the one thing she’ll give to them for their quest is their lives, provided they tell no one of this place, and take nothing else.
The party agrees, though Mac looks longingly at her magic bracers and the crypt that surely contains some fabulous loot (it does).
But Mei Ling deactivates the hall trap and uses her many spawn to escort the players back out.
After all, their goal was to take out Tentrix’s leadership in the Pirate Lords, and they did just that. Two down!
Mac breaks the sad news to the giant shark that his sahuagin crew is all dead, then offers him a job. The shark readily agrees to be Mac’s battle mount, leaving the others to clamber aboard the ship while Mac rides in style underwater on a giant frickin’ shark.
The party had found another magic compass on Dhurge that points to the Nelanther Isles — to Tentrix. The party heads out toward the Isles, but within only a few hours, they spot a large ship on the horizon barreling toward them, and it’s proudly flying the flags of the Black Armada!
MVPC – Torrel
Live post-session discussion:
Live streamed and uploaded every week on YouTube. Join us live on Fridays at 7:30 pm Pacific/10:30 pm Eastern!
Support my channel via Patreon!
RogueWatson 