Shattered Star: Rock the Boat

Game Date: 3/7/2015
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 18
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Carlie Nackle (Chere) - Gnome Wizard
Maruca (Daniel) - Human Ranger /Cleric/Rogue
Shemus (Cliff) - Elf Ranger
Slancio Brioso (Thomas) - Human Bard
Tai (Angela) - Human Monk/Warlock
...and special guest star James as the monsters.

The Session:
When we left off last week, we had just kissed the feet of a painting, and vanished.  Today we found ourselves standing on a stone platform, in an enormous watery cavern.  There was a carving of a demon on one wall, with the word "Farewell" in another language.  There was a waterfall on one end of the cavern, and three rowboats docked at our platform.  There was another platform farther down the opposite wall, so we decided to set sail for it.

We put Tai, Slancio, and Bjertha in one boat, Maruca and Carlie took another, and Shemus took the third.  Shemus checked out the waterfall while the rest of us took a more direct route towards the other dock.  A few yards in, we saw several bony hands reach out of the water.  Our ships were surrounded by several lacedons - aquatic ghouls.  We tried to turn around and head back to the platform, but the ghouls were too fast.  They started tipping our boats, dumping some of us into the water.

Fighting in the water was pretty tough.  We had disadvantage on most attacks, and our movement speed was halved.  Some of the ghouls' attacks also paralyzed us, making it difficult to swim.  Luckily, Shemus still had a scroll of water breathing, which he cast on the party.  Tai hit a couple of ghouls with Frightful Presence, and Carlie blasted a few with a Shatter spell.  Meruca nearly died at one point, and Tai finished the fight with a couple of Sleep spells.

After the fight, we continued to the other platform.  We docked and found a red door with some panels depicting Sorshen.  We pressed the center panel and the door opened.  Through the door was a large hall.  There was a center row of columns, and the walls were covered with more lewd frescoes.  The hall ended with a throne room.  Sitting on the throne was a Cave Giant, surrounded by chests and guarded by two monitor lizards.  The giant spoke with Sorshen's voice: "Kneel to me now, and I will only eat one of you."

Tai replied, "I think you're sitting in my chair."  There was a bit more banter, then the fight began.  During the battle, the giant would throw the chests at us, which turned out to be full of rotting meat.  The lizards didn't give us a lot of trouble, but the giant hit hard.  It knocked Tai and Carlie down to zero during the fight, but they recovered.  After it finally died, we took a long rest in the throne room.  We also found a platinum plaque on the wall, which we carefully pried off to sell later.

Back in the boats, we continued to explore the underground cavern.  Past the second platform the passage narrowed.  As we floated down one wide hallway, a pair of giant bat creatures swooped overhead.  We sailed on without a fight.  Eventually the cavern opened up into another large chamber, with a beach at one end.  Some of us started hearing whispers.  Suddenly Slancio, Carlie, and Tai stood up and started removing their gear.

Tai was the first to finish disrobing, and she was compelled to dive into the water.  Carlie was farther behind, while Slancio would take many rounds to remove his armor.  The rest of us did our best to restrain Carlie and Slancio, but Tai was long gone.  As Tai swam towards the beach, a pair of giant eels emerged and grappled her.  We had our hands full trying to fight the eels while restraining the bewitched party members.

Tai eventually made her save against the compulsion, but Carlie got loose and made it to the beach.  The gnome started digging wildly at one of the walls.  One of the eels pulled Shemus under the water, grappling the ranger and dragging him away from us.  Tai and Meruca fired after the eel with their ranged attacks, while Bjertha chased it in one of the rowboats.  We finally finished off the eel, but we were too late to save Shemus.  Our ranger had been chewed to death by the eel.

Back on the beach, we found a secret door where Carlie had been digging.  Once the door opened, Carlie and Slancio went back to normal.  We entered the secret room, and ended the session there.