Session 12: Davy Jones' Locker

Upon opening the door and confronting the 3/4 nude pirate deep in the bowels of the ship, Rasool steps into the room and closes the door, but not before Hank can establish a telepathic link with him to let him know when the escape is ready.

Dagrim dismantled the magic trap that they had detected on the port side doors. The rest of the party quietly searched the rest of the hold, finding some papers and a chest. Within the room, there was a conspicuous negative space compared to the hold outside the room. Dagrim searched the back wall and found a secret door that led to a hatch in the floor. Around this time, Graycen started to walk towards the fore of the ship to a steamy section of the hold, but was stopped by reminding her what happened the last time she tried to go off solo and thought the better of it.

Beneath the hatch, there was a steel tube with a ladder leading down to another hatch, which meant they had finally found the submarine. Convinced the sub contains the orb the dragon asked them to retrieve, the party started towards the control room that they spotted while waterbreathing the day before. Hank tells Rasool they are in the sub and the party was closing the sub hatch and barring it. If he needs to escape, go up to the Harpers. Proceeding forward on the catwalk, the remainder of the party manages to be just stealthy enough to reach the area above the control room, with two ladders leading down. Taking advantage of the opportunity to ambush the two drow and the rock gnomes working below. Hoping the gnomes are working under duress, Dagrim casts sleep and knocks them out.

The fight turns bad as soon as the drow can react. Graycen climbs down to attack from melee and is quickly stabbed multiple times by one of the drow, and killed outright. From above, the party continues to focus fire on one of the drow captors, but within the confines of the submarine, their arcane tolling of the dead seems less effective than usual. Hank sees the fight going badly, and decides to intuit the controls that are now ungnomed, and attempts to tear the submarine from the ship, hoping to start the ship flooding through the open hatch. Two attempts to incomprehensibly flip switches and turn dials with his mage hand result in nothing of the kind. The wounded drow climbs up the ladder and kills Hank outright before Chip's eyes. Chip is still firmly in the denial stage of the Kübler-Ross model when his grief is cut short by his own similar demise. Dagrim angrily attempts a killing blow to the drow to cover Marty's escape, but he likewise quickly falls before the drow who has clearly outmatched the party.

Marty manages to flee up the ladder to the hold and block the hatch, briefly securing his escape.
Meanwhile, Rasool decides to abandon the intimidation tack that was not working, and starts asking probing personal questions of Jarlaxle. Jarlaxle indicates that he was already made aware of the party and their dealings in Trollskull manor from some unknown source. After vicariously telepathically witnessing the demise of Graycen and Hank, Rasool enters the bargaining phase quite rapidly. Jarlaxle offers him his life if Rasool will return with one Eye of Golorr.

Rasool and Marty are somewhat depressed as they head topside to gather the Harpers and limp back home in the rowboat. By the time they pull ashore, they have accepted their losses and are determined to gather some new allies by auditioning prospective adventurers in the tavern that evening.

Session 11: Zounds! Zardoz Zord Zaps!

The beginning of Ches 27 dawns grey and cold, with a light snow, and the Batmen are going to the Seven Masks Theater. There, they are greeted by the ghost of Malkolm Brizzenbright. In the stage manager's office, they find a letter to "J" reading “There have been strange eyes fixed upon the house of Fenerus Stormcastle and flights of black snakes have been seen flocking the skies of the Trades Ward. Greater care should be taken when messengers approach the house, and we may want to find an alternative asset. I leave it to your judgment whether or not Fenerus himself should be warned. -K”
After this they decide to talk to the Harpers to get some extra manpower . They also want to try and get Davil out of jail. Mirt agrees, since Davil is an important counterbalance to Manshoon in trying to keep the city stable.

After meeting with Mirt, the Batmen and the Harpers go to the docks to try and infiltrate the Eyecatcher while the sunlight makes the drow less observant. But their plan goes awry when Chip and Hank sneeze loudly, and Dagrim curses at them in response. The Drow sailors point at the longboat and start firing crossbows. They exchange fire with the party until the boat gets adjacent to the ship and the Harpers storm the decks ending the fight. The Harpers go to secure the main deck while the Batmen explore the Captain's chamber more thoroughly. They find the captain's spell book, and head down to the main deck, which the marines have secured.

The Batmen explore the ship, and it is largely uneventful. Below decks, they find experimental floats from the Sea Maiden's Faire, including garishly colored giant spiders. The spiders turn out to be alive, just standing very still, and they attack. Rasool smashes one of them while Chip and Dagran sling spells at them. Gracyen is a whirling dervish of death, killing two and grievously injuring the third. Marty hit it with a clean shot from her crossbow, and Rasool is able to use his glaive to end its life.

Below decks, the party finds two doors. The one on the left is guarded by illusion magic. They can hear people behind the other door, so rather than explore the unoccupied room, they go to confront the occupants of the chamber. Behind the door, they find Zardoz Zord with two friends. Rasool attempts to threaten Zardoz into submission, but Zardoz is not intimidated.

Session 10: You Can't Not Be on a Boat

Following the dragon's announcement that his mother's crystal ball is on the submarine, the Batmen proceed to investigate it. Sneaking up to the fore windows, they see a control room where three rock gnome engineers keep the sub running under the watchful eye of their drow guards. Dagrim looks around the ship for air bubbles, but doesn't find any. The party tries to chip away at the docking mechanism, but the wood is too hard and it is difficult to get leverage underwater. Hank swims up to the surface and sees that the colors of the ship the submarine is docked to match the colors of the Hellraiser and Heartbreaker attached to the Sea Maiden's Faire pier.

The party swims aft, and Graycie and Essex climb nimbly to the the aft castle where they silently murder the two sailors. Upon their death, the illusion fades, revealing their true identity -- drow! The Batmen rain missile fire down on the two sailors on the aft deck, again killing them swiftly and silently. But their success may have made them overconfident. Essex picks the lock to the captain's chamers, and Rasool attempts to open it quietly. Unfortunately, Rasool was not quiet, and the occupants of the room, the ship's captain and a nimblewright are not taken by surprise. The captain blasts Rasool, Hank, and Chip with a lightning bolt, striking them all down. Dagrim is able to heal Chip, who takes over healing duties from there. Once revived, Rasool is a machine with his glaive, while Marty with his acrobatics and crossbow puts in a number of well-aimed shots. Graycen taunts the nimblewright to lure it from the door, but she is a little bit too successful, and takes a grievous blow to her side. The captain blasts Rasool again with a lightning bolt even as Hank is able to send the nimblewright into the Arms of Hadar. The captain lets loose with a flurry of magic missiles, but Marty Crane lands an arrow through his throat, ending his threat.

Using the ring of keys they found on the captain, the party searches the room. There is a bookshelf and a locked trunk. Opening the trunk, they find gold, pearls, and a bottle of wine with the label "One-Eyed Jax". Essex throws the body of the nimblewright overboard, hoping the remaining crew will assume it went crazy, killed the captain and the sailors, and fled. The party reports back to the dragon, and offer to share the wine, an offer which the dragon declines. They return to land to lick their wounds after dismantling the ship's rudder. Dagrim suggests getting Zhent help to raid the ship, and they walk over to the Yawning Portal. They don't recognize anyone there, so they decide to spend some time looking for nimblewrights before returning to the Manor. There are no 'wrights in the Dock Ward other than those on the ships, but they find one in the Southern Ward. Back at Trollskull Manor, Istrid Horn, Master of Trade for the non-Manshoonian Zhentarim, those associated with the Doom Raiders. She says the guards are running down known Zhents, and Davil was arrested. Hank offers his room to the dwarf, but she says it's creepy until Hank clarified that he'll sleep with Chip.

The next day, the Batmen go to the Seven Masks Theater. It is Ches 27. There, they are greeted by the ghost of Malkolm Brizzenbright. In the stage manager's office, they find a letter to "J" reading “There have been strange eyes fixed upon the house of Fenerus Stormcastle and flights of black snakes have been seen flocking the skies of the Trades Ward. Greater care should be taken when messengers approach the house, and we may want to find an alternative asset. I leave it to your judgment whether or not Fenerus himself should be warned. -K”

Session 9: How's it Hanging

The next day was Ches 25, and the Batmen decided to investigate Yellowspire. The lead was somewhat thin, but they didn't have any others. (They did, however, talk about the need to look into the Xanathar's operations. Yellowspire is a two-story run-down tower covered in scaffolding. The scaffolding would be easy to climb, but loud. They knock on the door many times, and a woman named Amanth answers and tells them to go away. But before they leave, Essex notices that the walls behind her are covered in black hands, which Dagrim recognizes as the symbol of Bane. Bane's priests were allied to Manshoon before the Manshoon Wars.

After this, the party goes to the Yawning Portal and meet with Davil and one of his associates, Istrid Horn. Dagrim wants to know about the Gralhunds' commercial contracts, to extract revenge through economics. Hank asks who was selling nimblewrights, and Istrid says she'll look into it. They ask about Manshoon and the Baneites. Davil doesn't know about Manshoon, but says it makes sense that Urstul was working for someone. As far as religion, "Tying oneself to a specific religious cult tends to have consequences that are less than helpful."

Next, Essex and Graycie go to the Harpers. There, Graycie asks about her father, and Mirt tells her he died on a mission for the Emerald Enclave. Mirt also tells them three further things. First, there are drow spies in town, and they should check out the Seven Masks Theater. Second, the entertainer Zardoz Zord has been selling nimblewrights all over town at a loss. Finally, there's a wererat/doppelganger gang in town.

The party reconvenes, and decides to save the theater for tomorrow, and investigate the docks that night. The festival normally marking the Sea Maiden's Faire's pier is subdued, most of the attractions being carted uptown for the Shipwright's Ball. They check out the Heartbreaker first and ask for a nimblewright. The ship's mate says he doesn't know anything. But they have better luck on the Hellraiser. There "Montague Fauntelroy III" discusses buying a nimblewright from Fergus Crabwater. They cost 25,000 dragons each, but he also finds out that the Gralhunds bought one. After some defamatory remarks about that family, he leaves. Meanwhile, Graycie snoops around, and notices that a lot of the crew speaks with elven accents and seem to talk with their hands a lot. On the way back, they have to duck down an alley to avoid getting caught up in a mob of 10 people protesting in favor of single-decked carriages.

On the next day, Ches 26, a representative of the Emerald Enclave comes to Trollskull Manor looking for Yinrick. Apparently, there's a bronze dragon in the harbor, and it's making people nervous. The druid wants them to talk to the dragon and ask what its intentions are. He gives them potions of water breathing, and wishes them luck. The dragon, Zelifarn, has been seeking a crystal ball that belonged to his deceased mother. The ball is in a submarine attached to the bottom of a boat in the middle of the harbor. Dagrim asks how the mom was killed, and Zelifarn says that it was a group of drow adventurers. Zelifarn promises to richly reward the party if the crystal ball is returned to him.