Ghosts of Saltmarsh (#15) - The Emperor of the Waves I

Day 23 - Salvaging the Emperor of the Waves

The rest of the night passed without further drama. We managed to get a little rest before being roused by the captain to honour the fallen and bury them at sea. The captain lost eight of his crew to the sahuagin raid. He wrote a heartfelt obituary to each and every member of the lost crew members in his log.

Not long after the burials had taken place, a heavy fog rolled in. We feared the worst but all seemed calm until there was a shout from aloft "Ship Ahoy! Off the Starboard bow". The captain furled the sails, not that they were doing much any more, and brought the ship to a halt 500 yards from the ghostly outline of a damaged ship leaning to port. He dropped anchor, and he and his crew studied the ship for several minutes before confirming it was indeed the Emperor of the Waves, the ship that we had come looking for. It was looking a bit worse for wear, with two masts being broken off completely, the guard rails on the decks appeared to have been crushed as if from something large grabbing hold of the ship, and many very worn and damaged hull planks.

We all jumped into a jolly boat along with three dwarf crew members and were told by the captain that the ship would be soon be ours; once we have handed over the treasures requested. The dwarf crew rowed us over to the Emperor, where we climbed the grappling hooked ropes the crew had cast for us.

The main deck was discovered to have many bloodstains on it which we ascertained to be maybe three days old. We split up to explore the open air decks but found nothing of interest except for the obvious beaten-up state of the ship - the lack of two masts and the loose ship's wheel - which caused us most concern; how would we sail it back to port?

After finding out that the ship was not in good shape we decided to go look for what we had been asked to find. The large cargo grate was too heavy to move, and peering into the darkness didn't reveal anything that could be seen. Drakkon and Druss approached the forecastle cabin doors and tried to push them open but they were very difficult to budge. They did eventually manage to open them wide enough to enter the cabin beyond to find it full of large spider webs and a massive pile of junk to the right.

Whilst the two warriors searched through the debris and cleared a path through the webs for the rest of us to fit into the room, suddenly, a brutish creature dropped from the ceiling and took a nasty bite out of Drakkon. Gladreth, who was close to the doorway when the two warriors entered the cabin managed to Firebolt it, and Druss joined the melee too. 

Unknown gribbly encountered on the Emperor of the Waves

I Blessed those already in the room, and after a tough fight, the strange being was finally felled by Druss, but not before a giant spider-like creature had also dropped into the combat. By now, Dharion and Navda had moved up and were able to add their arrows to the fray. 

A nasty, poisonous giant spider thing

Not long after the giant spider dropped from the ceiling, several smaller ones also began to join their larger cousin in what they probably hoped would be an easy hunt for their next meal.

A frantic combat ensued, wherein Gladreth was bitten by the giant spider and fell to the floor paralysed. The party took quite a number of horrific wounds before I was able to offer a Prayer of Healing to get them back in the fight, but the spiders seemed to shrug off most of our attacks; our weapons seemed to cause them minimal damage.

With their renewed vigour, the fighters in the party began to take a toll on the spiders and the beasts were slain one by one; Drakkon slew the giant spider and one of the smaller ones, whilst Dharion and I managed to slay the other two, but none would have gone down without everyone being involved in the fight. 

On board the Emperor of the Waves

With the fight over, we spent some time trying to revive Gladreth. Luckily, she began to shrug off the effects of the poison after ten to fifteen minutes. Whilst she was being administered to, the rest of the party searched the cabin but found nothing of interest within the piles of wood, paper, cloth and other debris.