Chapter 7

“What’s that?” Aldalome sounded out an alarm. He pointed off to the distance on the right. “I think I see some sahuagin.”

Vennoa peered, but couldn’t discern anything other than waves. The constant movement of the rowboat and the waves made it hard for her to see anything.

“Are those fins?” Nat said, pointing in the same direction as Aldalome.

“Sharks!” one of the dwarves called out. The two dwarves started paddling more frantically towards the Emperor of the Waves.

“Why would sharks be attacking us?” An’gari asked.

“If your friend saw sahuagin, then they must be controlling the sharks,” the dwarf said while huffing and rowing. “We must hurry or they’ll be upon us before we arrive.”

Vennoa took a quick look around the rowboat and saw two other oars. Ehs and Aldalome had scrambled to pick them up and start rowing as well. Looking at the Emperor, then at the sharks, Vennoa could tell that the sharks would reach the rowboat before they could arrive.

Vennoa took a deep breath, stood up and concentrated again. It took considerable effort, but she managed to build up the fire within her core, and shot three rays towards the two sharks that she could make out. Due to the rowboat’s rocking, the waves, and the fact that all she could make out were the sharks’ fins, two of the rays missed their mark and dived into the water. Vennoa was surprised those rays didn’t simply sizzle when they hit the water, but seemed to be able to go into it. The third ray hit one of the sharks, but it appeared to have done minimal damage.

Vennoa sat back down, feeling exhausted. She definitely wouldn’t be doing that again soon. Not unless I help you. She looked at the rest of the party who weren’t rowing the oars. Nat and An’gari gave her helpless shrugs, holding their melee weapons.

In the short time it took for the sharks to reach the boat, Vennoa managed to fire two firebolts at the shark she had hit earlier, but only one found its mark, again doing minimal damage. The sharks must have had thick hide!

Sensing that Vennoa was the biggest threat somehow, the shark jumped out of the water and bit hard at Vennoa. She tried to dodge out of the way, but the rowboat was small. The shark grabbed onto one of her arms, and tried to pull her into the water.

An’gari quickly stepped up, and landed a precise punch at the shark’s nose. It looked momentarily stunned and opened its jaws. Vennoa quickly pulled her arm free and mouthed a thanks to An’gari. The shark slid silently back into the water.

On the other side of the rowboat, Nat swung her longsword at the other shark whenever it came close, but neither shark nor Nat made physical contact.

In the distance, Vennoa finally made out some silhouettes of sahuagin. It looked like there were two of them, and they were coordinating the sharks’ attacks somehow. Vennoa eyed them, and readied a firebolt towards them. Suddenly, a third silhouette appeared, that appeared to be holding a body of some sort. The three sahuagin sank back underwater and disappeared from view before Vennoa could shoot her firebolt. With that, the two sharks also did not reemerge from the water.

Now that the way to the Emperor seemed clear again, the party made haste towards the ship. The dwarves deftly threw grappling hooks from the rowboat onto the top deck of the ship, and pulled the rowboat right beside the ship.

Nodding to the party, the dwarves said, “The two of us will stay here as long as we can. Do what you must and hurry back. There’s no telling how long this ship will stay afloat.”

Nat flexed her muscles and climbed up the rope, seemingly unhindered by her armor. Ehs quickly followed, then An’gari. Vennoa looked at Aldalome, and then climbed the rope. It was wet and a little slimy, but she managed to find purchase on bits of wood sticking out of the ship’s hull and pull herself up without much trouble. Similarly, Aldalome climbed up with no issues.

The top deck of the ship was empty, and it was slanted towards the port side. Where the ship’s masts had been, short stumps of splintered wood stood. It appeared as if the masts had been broken by a storm of some kind, and then washed away, together with everything on the main deck that had not been bolted down. There were two sets of double doors, one at the front of the ship and one towards the back. The doors at the back were closed, while the front doors were swinging wildly with the wind and rocking of the ship on the waves. Other than the occasional sound of the front doors hitting the walls, it was silent.

An’gari stepped over to the back doors and tested them. “They’re locked,” he said gravely. “Should we break it open?”

“Not yet,” Aldalome said. “Let’s see what’s behind the other set of doors.”

The party walked carefully towards the open front double doors. They passed a metal grate that led to the lower deck. Vennoa couldn’t make out much of the lower deck, other than lots of cobwebs and fist-sized spiders that scurried away from the light shining down. Vennoa shuddered, and thought she could feel tiny spiders crawling up her back. Creepy crawlies were not her favorite.

As the party made it near the front doors, they could tell that the room inside was also filled with webs. There were so many sheets of webs that they couldn’t see more than ten feet into the room. They carefully stepped into the room, using their weapons to clear the cobwebs as necessary.

Suddenly, they heard some chittering sounds ahead of them. The room was dark, and with the cobwebs, Vennoa couldn’t see what was making the sounds before the sounds disappeared. The party remained wary, and continued making their way forward, towards what looked like a desk.

When they cleared the way through the webbing to the desk, Nat scrambled forward and looked at the top of the desk. There were many pieces of paper and a map, which were also covered in heavy webbing. Nat used her hand to try to clear the webs and read the map.

The chittering came again, much louder this time, and from above them. Vennoa peered up, and saw a giant spider making its way towards the party. Vennoa shuddered and absently brushed away the webs sticking to her clothes.

The spider moved swiftly down the ceiling and shot a sticky fluid towards Nat. Before she could fully turn around, the fluid struck her and the desk, turning into a web-like consistency. Her arm was close to drawing her longsword, but it was still out of reach. She grunted and tried to fight the webbing.

Aldalome drew his longbow and shot an arrow at the giant spider. The arrow hit one of the spider’s legs, and it chittered in pain. The spider turned and glared at Aldalome menacingly.

Vennoa raised her hands, and Ehs shouted, “No fire! You’ll set everything on fire!” Vennoa decided that he made a good point, since they were surrounded by webbing that was likely to be flammable. She shrugged and drew her trusty dagger instead. Still, she kept her distance, not wanting to get close to the spider.

An’gari stepped towards the spider, but before he could engage it, another figure dropped down from the ceiling. This time, it was some sort of gray monstrosity. It struck at An’gari with its arms, but he managed to dodge the attacks, and land a roundhouse kick at it. The monstrosity grunted and inched slightly back towards the ceiling.

Ehs shapeshifted into a bear, and roared and swiped his claws at the spider. The spider oozed some blood from the gashes left by Ehs. Now that the spider’s attention was fully on Ehs, Vennoa stepped towards Nat, and used her dagger to free Nat from the webbing.

Nat thanked Vennoa, and finished drawing her longsword. She slashed at the spider, and cleanly chopped off one of its legs. Even with the tight confines of the room, the party dispatched the spider and the monstrosity quickly, and their corpses remained hanging from the ceiling, through some of the webbing that they had used to climb down.

“What’s that?” Vennoa asked, pointing at the monstrosity.

“It’s an Ettercap,” Aldalome said. “Nasty things.”

“If I can’t use my fire spells, I’m not sure how much good I’ll be in here,” Vennoa said to the party.

“Don’t you have any other spells?” An’gari asked.

Vennoa shrugged. “Not really? Everything burns.”

“Indeed, and you’ll burn us all alive if you use them here and set the webs on fire,” An’gari replied harshly. “Just stay back and do what you can with your dagger.”

Nat finished clearing the cobwebs from the papers and map, and spent some time perusing them. Then, she turned to the party and said, “There’s nothing useful here, these maps look pretty standard, and the papers are just regular ship stuff, from what I can tell.”

With that, the party continued making their way forward, and came across a stairway leading down to the lower deck. The staircase was also full of webbing, that had been strewn in all sorts of directions. As they made their way down, swarms of the fist-sized spiders began biting them. However, the swarms quickly retreated once the party cleared the webs near to them and the spiders couldn’t reach them. Even though the spiders seemed reluctant or unable to jump at them, Vennoa still scratched herself at various places, still imagining tiny spiders running around under her clothes.

They arrived at the lower deck, or at least one corridor of it. The webbing was still present everywhere, but due to the large space of the corridor, the webbing was mostly confined to the walls and ceiling. The party could make their way across the corridor without clearing more cobwebs. By this time, many of their weapons had a wrapping of webbing around them.

The corridor was relatively short, and its two ends were capped with identical wooden doors. There were also two doors along the corridor, one on each side. Nat closed her eyes for a few seconds, and then reopened them. She pointed at the door behind them and said, “I sense multiple undead behind that door.”

“What about the other doors?” An’gari asked.

“I didn’t sense any undead there,” Nat replied.

“What about spiders?” Vennoa asked.

Nat shrugged. “I’m not able to sense spiders.”

They first opened a door to their left. The room was filled with cobwebs, and some smashed furniture could be seen strewn around the floor. Tiny spiders ran around the cobwebs, but stayed clear of the party.

The party then opened a door to their right. The room was also filled with cobwebs and tiny spiders, although the furniture was in slightly better shape than the previous room. There was a bed and a dresser, that were covered in thick webs.

Ehs, in his bear form, started heading towards the back door. Vennoa readied her dagger in case the undead rushed out once Ehs opened the door. However, Ehs had something else in mind. He used his bulky body to move some debris and furniture from the side rooms towards the door.

“Great idea, Ehs!” Nat said. “Come on, let’s bar that door.”

The party stacked as much as they could outside the door, so that the undead wouldn’t be able to open the door towards them. As much as Vennoa appreciated the idea, she wondered if the door could be opened the other way, away from them. Shrugging to herself, she figured that half a chance was better than none, and even if it didn’t work, all the stuff they had piled in front of the door would at least slow down the undead’s approach to them.

Only one door remained. Emboldened by the empty rooms to their sides, the party swiftly opened the door and strode in. This room was larger than the other two. It was also filled with cobwebs, and two humanoid-size bundles hung from the ceiling, with many, many tiny spiders running around the surface of the bundles. The floor of this room was surprisingly clear of cobwebs, and a large rune had been drawn into the center of the room with blood. The blood must have been pretty old, since the rune was a dark red color. On the far side of the room, a humanoid figure sat on a chair, surrounded by vines.

The figure stood up as the party entered, and pointed at them with a quarterstaff. In a deep voice, the figure said calmly, “Enjoy your meal, my pets.” He then sat back down onto his chair, as if the party was mere amusement to him.

Two giant spiders emerged from opposite corners of the room, and approached them. As if in synchrony, the spiders shot their sticky fluid at the party.

The spiders’ webbing caught the party flat-footed, and most of them were hit by it. Vennoa was pushed backwards towards a wall, and she could see and feel the webbing leaving her stuck against it. Luckily, her dagger was firmly grasped in her hand, so she began slicing whatever web she could reach.

An’gari had managed to deftly dodge the web shots, and he immediately charged at the humanoid figure at the back. When An’gari was twenty feet away from the man, a greenish spider suddenly materialized in behind An’gari, and bit him firmly, then swinging him towards the side of the room, towards one of the other spiders. An’gari grunted as he hit the side wall with a loud thud.

“Good work, Roil,” the man said, standing up again. This time, Vennoa could tell that he was a half-orc. The half-orc lifted his quarterstaff slightly, and a large flaming sphere appeared briefly in front of him, before flying towards An’gari. An’gari, who was still stunned from the impact on the wall, didn’t notice the fiery sphere flying towards him until it was too late. He took the full blast from the sphere, and slid to the ground, unconscious.

By this time, Aldalome had managed to free himself partially from the webbing, and took aim at the spider that had materialized. He shot an arrow towards it. However, before the arrow arrived, the spider disappeared again, and the arrow flew through empty space and finally hit the back wall of the room.

Seeing that the half-orc’s flaming sphere had not set anything on fire, Vennoa felt bold, and after freeing herself from the webs, she shot a firebolt towards one of the giant spiders. The firebolt hit the spider on its head, and it chittered in pain. It turned and glared at her, and Vennoa gulped.

Ehs let out a load roar and easily broke free from the webbing around him. He charged at the spider that Vennoa had hit, and clawed at it with both paws, then followed up with a ferocious bite. Tearing off the spider’s head, Ehs spit out the head, and the spider’s transparent blood could be seen dripping off the sides of Ehs’ mouth. The rest of the spider’s body fell to the ground.

The green spider appeared again, this time behind Ehs, and tried to bite him. However, even though Ehs was preoccupied with the spider he had killed, his hide was very thick and the spider’s bite was unable to find purchase. Ehs spun around to land a hit, but the spider phased away again.

While the spider was attacking Ehs, Nat charged at the half-orc and swung her longsword at him. He smirked and parried her blow with his quarterstaff. He swung the other end of his quarterstaff at her, and knocked her slightly off balance to the side. She took a few steps to regain her footing.

The remaining giant spider shot a small web line to An’gari’s body, then scampered up the wall towards the ceiling. Its movement dragged An’gari slightly upwards, so he was partially off the floor.

Aldalome brushed off the last bits of webbing on himself, and took aim at the spider. He fired two arrows consecutively, and the arrows both hit the spider’s head. It chittered loudly in pain, and dropped the web line holding An’gari. It then scampered quickly higher up to the ceiling.

Vennoa rushed over to An’gari, and took out a goodberry from her pocket. It was left-over from earlier today, since she hadn’t finished handing them out before they spotted the Emperor in the distance. She opened An’gari’s mouth, and squished the goodberry with her hand, dripping its juice into An’gari’s mouth. Vennoa then put the remainder of the berry into his mouth, and tried to get him to swallow. After some effort, An’gari managed to swallow, and then started coughing.