Several Days, 623 HK: Wherein a supernatural storm lays waste to a group of exploration ships. A handful of survivors end-up on the beach of an uninhabited barrier isle somewhere along the Fiery Isthmus. After finding other shipwreck survivors, the small group explores the tropical coastline and makes a raft to cross the intracoastal channel. Reaching the forested mainland, the party finds some statues and an old road leading back into the jungle.
Continued from Shipwrecked.
Prologued
What sailors on the Vedre Taládus knew about Vaska is that he was a frantic man who spent most of the voyage in the ship’s castle, studying bundles of scrolls that he clung to wherever he roamed, ship or port. On two separate occasions the scrolls were brought to good use. Between Naskàra and Lanádus a great serpent rose from the waves and grabbed the ship. Vaska scurried from his cabin, shuffled through his scrolls, and spoke to the great monster for some hours before it released the ship from its coils. When asked about this, Vaska only said that the seas were filled with many great and ancient evils, and that the King and High Priest had provisioned them with letters of passage so that they be bound by ancient pacts between Yrūn and elemental forces. From that moment forward, the sailors referred to Vaska as the “Wizard” though upon hearing this he vigorously dismissed the idea.
A week after leaving Naskàra, he showed his mettle again as a giant whirlpool tried to draw the four ships to the sea’s bottom. Again Vaska ran from his cabin and shouted ancient words from his bundle of scrolls. Some claimed to have seen horrible faces deep beneath the spiraling waters. After the reading of the words, the whirlpool lessened and the ships returned to calm waters. Those that had seen the faces could not sleep for many nights and instead screamed and cried like children from their hammocks. During the days their eyes were wide with fear and they spoke with nonsensical words that the sailors claimed must be Netharic. Over the next few nights, those men disappeared and are believed to have pitched themselves into the sea during the night.
The voyage progressed well following the Faces in the Water, until the night before this tale began. A furious sea storm rose and assaulted Vaska’s four ships. The captain was wrenched wholly from the wheel and hurtled screaming into the night’s darkness. Above, the clouds churned and the winds howled, tearing at the sails and crashing wave after wave across the tossing decks. Masts bent and creaked as oars were snapped and ripped from their moorings. Men in the masts were ripped from the lines and hurled into the darkness, except for those few who tied themselves to the fate of the ships. When the masts cracked and pitched into the sea, these men were lost too. Amid the panic, Vaska fumbled with his scrolls, trying to determine what force they faced, but soon the great explorer was lost beneath a giant wave that swept across the Vedre Taládus, leaving only a sodden pile of scrolls and parchments behind. Wave after wave pummeled the ship until a long splintering crack sent the Vedre Taládus below. Those aboard jumped into the swelling black sea, delivering themselves unto the mercy of Ilyzūygol.
Day 1, 623
As morning rose in the East and the last of Mamra’s crescent faded into blue sky, a handful of sailors picked themselves up from the flotsam strewn beach. The shore stretched north and south, a tangle of sand and knotty roots reaching out across a thin margin that separated the forest from the sea. Picking their way across the snarled shoreline, the battered and stunned survivors climbed across splintered planks, knotted ropes, and torn nets, deposited among the clutching roots by the night’s surf. Now and then a body would peek out of the roots and sand, eyes still wide with terror from the events of the passed night. The dead were not still, as the dead should be, but instead jittered and danced with the weight and pull of hundreds of spidery crabs that came to accept the sea’s morning bounty. In the deep shadows of broad leafed forest, thousands of curious eyes watched the sailors’ every move, both alive and dead.
Looking past the tidal pools, low breaking waves, and the shallow reefs seething with life, the wreckage of the Vedre Taládus could be seen sundered upon a distant reef some five hundred yards from shore. A large copper device glowed from the heart of the wreck, polished and glistened in the morning light. Now and again the ship’s heart would emit a piercing mechanical squeal and cast arcs of lightning burning into the air and sea. No survivors knew the purpose of the strange machine, and ship’s captain Vaska had taken its secrets to a watery grave.
Day 2, 623
Raft building. Crossing the intracoastal channel. The road to Irdànya Nyad.
Continued in Irdànya Nyad.
Characters
- Abràkus = 1 CPs
- Dīad = 1 CPs
- Gaston = 1 CPs
- Ōded = 1 CPs
Played 05 Aug 2005