Ghosts of Saltmarsh - Day 1

Last weekend, whilst playing in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure, I tried to write up some notes on what was happening as we went along, but after a short while I had become so engrossed in the narrative that the note taking fell by the wayside. So, what I will do here is write a summary of the goings on from my character's perspective as a kind of diary entry...

 

Day 1 - We were awoken to the sound of loud bangs and explosions - the town appeared to be under attack from a pirate vessel anchored just outside the harbour. We grabbed what we could of our belongings and ran into the street to see what was going on. The town was ablaze with flames from the exploding ordnance that was being shot from the marauding vessel. One explosion threw us off of our feet and down into a fissure. Luckily, no-one was hurt as we slid 80 or 90 feet down into the depths of the earth. The falling scree and rocks from above made going back out that way impossible, not that we wanted to return to the chaos of the streets above.

We briefly examined our surroundings and noticed that, other than the rockfall blocking our way out, we were in a dusty, crafted corridor; smooth masonry walls and ceiling, with a flagstoned floor. We espied a room in the shadows at the end of the corridor, so we approached it with trepidation in our hearts. As the light in the underground realm began to fail, I cast Light upon my trusty mace and the party members who didn't have dark vision lit a couple of torches that were in sconces on the walls just inside the room to aid in their seeing.

At one end of the the room were four stone blocks that we soon ascertained needed to be used to open the large door exiting the chamber. Four of us stood upon the blocks in order to open, and keep open, the door, whilst two of our party passed through the door to find the levers that would lock the door open. We joined our companions in a room with a fountain containing stagnant water.

We explored the room but didn't really find anything except for a few coins that appeared to have been thrown into the fountain as tokens to be taken in payment for wishes. I walked up one of the exiting corridors only to find myself fall through a trap door into an oubliette type space several feet deep. A series of bars closed across the top of the opening I had fallen through and it began to fill with water drained from the fountain in the room. I began to panic at being in an enclosed space slowly filling with water and all of my companion's efforts to wrench the bars open came to naught. Luckily for me they valued my life as much as I do and searched about for a release mechanism.

The lever that reset the trap was found in the room at the end of the corridor I was exploring. Unfortunately, over the years a family of giant spiders had moved into the room and had to be dispatched before the lever could be pulled to release me.

There was nothing else of interest in that room, so we headed back to the fountain room in order to find a way out of our predicament. Navda, our wily rogue, managed to find a door that was hidden from view whilst the rest of us searched in vain for another way out. He fiddled with the door's release mechanism and the hidden door opened into a very dusty, but also very full library which our resident barbarian (who cannot read by-the-by) took a great interest in. The library opened onto another short corridor with a big door at the end and a side corridor that begged to be explored.

We decided to explore the corridor first, which opened up into a room full of very thick webs. Again, we were ambushed by giant spiders that included maybe a matriarch as one of them was huge. We managed to overcome the arachnids with a few minor injuries and upon searching the room found out not only how the beasts got into their underground lair (via a very narrow, but very high chimney which we would not climb even if we could) but also a few items that might be of use to us later.

The big door at the end of the other corridor now beckoned us towards it, so we headed that way and with a bit of effort got it open. The room beyond was full of all sorts of arcane bric-a-brac and a huge magical portal in front of which was a half-consumed corpse; well it was after one of the fighters put a sword into it. We notice that the dead person was reading from a tome about how to use the portal but we didn't get time to read it before several piles of junk rose up in the shape of the shambling dead. We struggled to defeat these lumbering beings as they absorbed every blow we threw at them, but things turned for the worse when a large floating eye with four tentacles appeared through the shimmering portal. It rapidly incapacitated two of our party before Druss, our dragonborn barbarian, literally split it in twain with a mighty cleave. The undying were soon put to rest again after the death of the floating eye.

The portal and any wish to stay put in that room for any time longer than necessary meant we were able to find our way out along a maze of winding tunnels onto a headland a short way from the town. From this vantage point we were able to flag down a ship escaping from the chaos at the harbour, and for a small fee book a passage to the town of Saltmarsh a few days' sail away.