Savage Tide

As the adventurers outrigger-canoe rounded the rocky cliffs that sheltered Farshore’s harbour they saw the colony was in flames. In the harbour moored alongside the Blue Nixie was a battered looking dhow, with the figurehead of a large fiendish looking anglerfish on the prow. It flew a black flag with a skeleton dancing on the noose with an hourglass over one shoulder and a blood red heart over the other. Farshore was under attack by pirates!

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After defeating Olangru and purging the Shrine of the Demogorgon, the continued south and within a few days had reached the Great Wall. There they met with several Olman tribesmen lead by Huemac, Master of the Hunt, from the village of Tanaroa. Huemac, only spoke Olman, but a young woman who was with him clearly understood, the common trade tongue, used in Amedio region. She later introduced herself as Tayanna daughter of the matriarch.

In the village there was a celebration to give thanks for surviving the trails the shipwrecked survivors faced and the defeat of the ape demons. The Olman have strange customs, they see no evil in animating their dead, and in fact the Zombie Master is an honoured position within Olman tribes. The survivors were put a little on edge seeing zombies working in the fields, but as the villagers seemed not to be concerned they didn’t question them.

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Art by Ben Wootten

The huge chamber was watched over by five hideous statues. On the opposite side of the room was an even larger statue made of a green rock. Possessing the stout, stylised body of an ape, this statue had two stone tentacles where each of its arms should be. Sprouting from its shoulders were two fanged baboon heads. The statued lorded over the room atop a great dais, staring out in frozen rage.

To the east and west stood four towering demonic apes, bar-lguras like the creatures the heroes had already encountered. These faced a roaring fire pit in the room’s centre. Suspended above the pit locked in a metal cage, was Tristy Sommers, her naked body was battered and bruised marked with several cuts and painted with runic symbols. As she saw Dalrin and the others enter the room she pleaded for help. Her pitiful plea became a scream as the latch retaining the winch used to raise the cage flicked up and the cage started slowly lowering towards the inferno below.

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As the party advanced slowly out of the fog appeared the features of two gigantic fanged baboon heads, their fanged jaws opened wide. These figures were actually carved into the black rock of a small hill their gaping maws revealing two caves leading into the hillside. The adventures advanced into the western cavern, unfortunately it appeared to be rigged to collapse burying the front ranks of the party under several feet of rubble, but thankfully the back ranks of the party were able to dig them free before they suffocated. The adventures were more cautious as they navigated the eastern cave.

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The group decided to head inland in hope of avoiding any reprisals for the death and desecration of the gargoyle king. After about a days march through the mountain pass they made camp about a mile from the edge of the Fogmire, a mist shrouded swamp they would need to pass through to get to the open plains to the south.

Bar-lgura by Ralph Horsley

That night the camp was attacked, the assault was sudden and brutal, both Valdis Aldranna and “Two-Feathers” were taken completely by surprise as two large ape like creatures burst from the trees and pounced on them. A third larger ape seemed to be barking orders from a small hillock, screams came from within one of the tents the passengers were resting in.

As quickly as they attacked, they vanished, stepping back and disappearing into nothingness. Valdis prepared to defend himself shouting the alarm to raise the others, while “Two Feathers” moved to see what was causing the screams in the nearby tent. Shallasar slept on blissfully unaware of the attack. at the bottom of a nearby stream, but the others were roused.

Dalrin woke in time to hear “Two Feathers” say that Tristy was missing, some ape had grabbed her and then just disappeared, thinking quickly he summoned into his mind a picture of the simple silver bangle he had bought her all those months ago with the loot from the Lotus Dragon’s Den, focusing on it he got a bearing of its (and hopefully her) location nearly 300 ft to the south west. He charged off after her without a care the others or the situation in the camp, as he ran moved passed on of the creatures that had become invisible, it was a simple matter for it reach out with a claw and rake Dalrin’s chest, opening four bloody gashes and grazing one of his ribs. Such was Dalrin’s drive to recover his sweetheart he barely noticed the grave injury and calling on spirits of the winds to raise him up he zoomed up into the night sky.

Meanwhile at the camp more screams were now coming from the other tent, the large ape had vanished like his companions, after the battle they would discover Halfast Woodman and his infant daughter were also missing.

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The following morning the adventurers cleared a path through the Olman temple complex. There they faced a number of challenges, a trapped tomb, guardian mummies and gigantic caterpillars that had grow fat eating fish that got trapped in the rock pools below. On exiting the pass they fought hungry monstrous crabs, which in turn were turned into a meal for the hungry survivors. Valdis Aldranna had nearly killed Trantil and Shallasar in his attempt to free them from the crabs claws with a lightening bolt, Shallasar had managed to shield himself from the bolt, but Trantil had been badly burned.

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The group of shipwreck survivors pressed on through the jungle until they stumbled on a vast depression in the ground that stretched nearly 6 miles across by a mile wide. No tress grew in this area, and the ground was rough, with patches of tall grass. Dalrin gave the blessing of flight to Shallasar, who glad to be able to move freely in three dimensions, like he could at sea, dove into the air, from up above he saw a herd of enormous beast with elephantine bodies, long necks and even longer tails.

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With the survivors all on the beach (among them Avner’s horse, Thunderstrike who had somehow made it to shore), the adventurers turned their attention to recovering goods from the ship and along the beach, focusing mainly on food.

Dalrin pointed out that with a blessing from the sea-gods even the normally poisonous masher meat could be made edible, if not particularly palatable, and so one of them was dragged ashore to be hacked up to provide food for that evenings meal. They cut the sails to make a makeshift shelter and started fires to dry their clothes. Urol presented a map he drew of the Isle of Dread, showing where he suspected the ship had struck the reef and a proposed route to get them to The Great Wall, following an ancient Olman costal road, he thought it should only take about 10 days walking.

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When we last left our heroes a terrible storm had forced The Sea Wyvern off course until it collided with a reef. The heavy seas had washed several of the crew overboard and the sharp coral had gouged a large hole in the side of the ship below the water line. Any one could clearly see that the ship was no longer sea-worthy if it was not resting on the reef it would have sunk to the bottom.

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The storm struck during the night, Amella Venkalie and the crew fought with it throughout the next day and well into the following evening, by dawn the winds had settled down enough to see that The Blue Nixie was nowhere to be seen. The standing orders if the ships were separated was to continue to Farshore and reunite there, and that is exactly what Amella intended to do, even though she could not know for sure is Lavinia´s ship had made it safety through the storm. While the winds had dropped the sky had become dull and overcast, and as night fell a damp fog drifted in to surround the ship making a bearing from the stars impossible.

As the grey dawn broke, burning fitfully through the morning fog to light the sea, the adventurers discovered something strange about the waters below. They had become almost solid with weeds and vines, The Sea Wyvern was trapped in a Sargasso. It extended about half a mile to the west but in all other directions it seemed to stretch to the horizon, and they were not allow trapped within it seemed to be dozens of other ships, and some looked as if they had been there for many years. This was no ordinary Sargasso, but Journey´s End, a sailor´s myth, a huge expanse of seaweed that once a ship entered it never left.

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