With the upgraded and re-christened “Defiant” ready for the voyage, they set sail for the RDC outpost of Hasongo. They voyage was stormy, but they made it through with little serious concern. Unfortunately as they approached the island they could see why Hasongo was no longer responding. It appeared as if an earthquake had hit – levelling parts of the fortress, and damaging the dock system. The lighthouse still stood, but it was unknown if anybody still lived. Their RDC observer, Maia, had apparently served at Hasongo before, and was anxious to get ashore and search for survivors.
At first look the port was utterly wrecked. And there were the unmistakable signs of Eothas’ passing – giant footprints tromping straight through structures. The presence of a colony of Dawnstars living at Hasongo had apparently done nothing to deter him
Soon enough they discovered what appeared to be another part of the devastation, as they were attacked by Naga warriors leaping out of the water!
They found a number of refugees and injured RDC soldiers holed up in a supply house. An Aumaua woman named Zuhira appeared to be the nominal commander (she had formerly been the quartermaster). She was quite overwhelmed. Star managed to calm her down enough to get some information out of her. As suspected, the fort had been “visited” by Eothas. This has significantly damaged the defensive fortifications, but he had largely ignored the troops and canons in favor of doing… something… to the lighthouse. Then he had left. But before they could even finish assessing the damage Nagas had attacked from the water through the breached defenses! They had always had a rather peaceful “non-interaction” with the Nagas before, so they were not sure why they were attacking now. Maia was furious, and wanted to immediately take the fight to the Naga. Grim wanted to know what was going on first. He was certainly not opposed to a good fight, but he preferred to know who/what he was fighting and why first.
A bit of exploration revealed large concentrations of Naga swarming critical points in the fortress – apparently centered on the lighthouse. They needed to get to the lighthouse, as clearly something there had attracted both Eothas and the Naga. But there were far too many concentrated near the approach paths to fight there way through. They needed a better plan.
With some covert reconaissance and careful ambushing of isolated patrols they made a number of discoveries. They found a naval bombard still in operational shape, with which Ace was overjoyed. Unfortunately they did *not* immediately locate any ammunition.
Many of the supply rooms and functional areas of the fort were partly sunken/flooded. The armory appeared to still be above water, but there did not appear to be an above water access route. So Blur drew the task of trying to find an underwater route that the others would be able to survive.
The armory turned out to have already been ransacked. The aquatic isolation was no impediment to the Naga. But Star felt a strange pull and looked with her other senses. She sensed the spirit of a dead Naga, lost and confused. In speaking with it she learned they had come because “the “striped-ones” had taken the light”. And it was lost and confused because its soul could no longer find “the source”.
Continuing to explore, they came to a barricaded workshop, behind which was the fortresses Chief Engineer, an Aumaua named Aimuro. He had decided to lock himself in his workshop rather than gather with the others to protect his work, and he showed Ace an explosive ordinance of which he was particularly proud. Ace immediately offered to “field test” it!
It worked nicely with the bombard they had found earlier to clear their path to the lighthouse.
Inside the lighthouse, several Naga shaman were performing rituals around the Adra pillars used as the power source for the lighthouse. He turned as they entered and lambasted them for the apparent sins of their kind. He claimed that the “sea-striped fiends” had disrupted the “tree of the gods”, and that this threatened to bring “once again” bring down the wrath of the gods to destroy the Deadfire.
They eventually realized that he was referring to the RDC using the Adra pillars, and thought that this had brought Eothas to punish them. The Naga had taken the lighthouse to secure the pillar, in the hopes that this would prevent the gods from raining down “another cataclysm”. When they asked him what he meant by “another cataclysm”, he scoffed at the short memories of the warm bloods.
This didn’t tell them much, but Star realized that his fundamental concern was that the Adra pillar was now blocked – preventing it from serving whatever purpose it held for the Naga. He was not convinced when they tried to explain the complications around Eothas’ – especially because they couldn’t even give a good explanation for what Eothas was *actually* doing. But Star offered to “bond” with the pillar, and clear its “blockage”.
Upon connecting to the pillar, Star found herself once again pulled into the astral realm. And she once again found herself drawn to the aspect of Eothas. He claimed he had a special purpose in mind, sacrificing now to gain the energy to to what must be done. Star angrily scoffed at the idea of draining souls and rampaging through populated areas as a means to a greater good. But Eothas would not explain further at this time. He told her, however, that he would be waiting for them at the Ashen Maw in Magran’s Teeth, and that he would reveal his purpose there. Then he ended the connection.
But that had been sufficient to allow her to clear the disharmony blocking the pillar, and souls could once more use it as a gateway. Sugaan was astonished when it came back to life – and dismayed to learn that Eothas had not come to punish the RDC for blasphemy.
He left to contemplate what this all meant, taking the remaining Naga with him. Maia was incensed, wanting to punish them for “murdering her fellows”. But Grim looked her in the eye and ordered her to “stand down”. No good would come of igniting a full-scale war with the Naga over a conflict for which the blame, ultimately, lay with a rampaging god. She was *not* happy about it, but she obeyed.
As they prepared to set sail a large portion of the RDC fleet was sailing in – alerted to the change in situation by the re-ignited lighthouse. Now that Grim had learned what he could they would wait no longer. They would immediately restore and reinforce the port, which they considered critical to protecting their supply routes back to Rautai.
As they sailed Grim was once again summoned to a council of the Gods, who were once again at each other’s throats – with some wanting to destroy Eothas altogether and others still not sure of his plans, but clearly agitated by his destination. They certainly were in no hurry to illuminate things for Grim beyond insisting he meet Eothas as requested. As they began to leave, another god appeared. One who had clearly *not* been invited. Rymrgand. The Beast of Winter. Herald of Destruction. None but Berath herself dared speak in his presence. He announced that Eothas was bringing an end. But would not say an end of what.
On the way back they made a detour to Dunnage – a former dwarven colony which now served as the largest pirate town in the Deadfire, and home of the Principi Council of Captains. He wanted to collect the bounty on Benweth from Captain Furrante, and try to get a better angle on who *exactly* Furrante was and what he wanted.
Furrante congratulated him and paid well, but clearly had his own agenda. He wanted Grim to talk to a sailor named Selinia, and then return to him after hearing what the woman had to say.
Selinia was a worn, empty-eyed woman, and Furrante showed her little respect as he introduced her. She was apparently the sole survivor of an attack on her ship by the “Floating Hangman” – a legendary ghost ship crewed by undead and captained by a long-dead Darcozzi Paladin – Lucia Rivan. She said the attack began with a magical mist appearing in what had been sunny seas, blinding them to the ship’s approach until it was already on top of them.
Furrante said he wanted the Floating Hangman “dealt with”, as it had become a direct threat. But that he hadn’t been able to learn enough about it purposes and the reasons for its existence to learn how to counter it. He claimed that the man who had killed Lucia – named Yseyr the Barbarian – lay entombed in the catacombs of Berath in Neketaka, and he wanted Grim to go there and see if he could learn anything else. Grim was positive there was a *lot* that Furrante was not telling him here, but he agreed to “look into it”.
They left to return to Neketaka – to report their findings from Hasongo and collect their reward. On the way – as if it had become aware of their involvement – a dark fog rolled over them and an ominous sight appeared.
The feared Captain appeared, but rather than attacking merely stared silently for a time, then nodded and left. Calling out that she would “leave what Berath has claimed for Berath“. And the ghost ship vanished into the haze once again.
And with that, for once, Grim had reason to be glad he was currently a servant of Berath. It certainly had failed to be convenient up til now. But he had a new objective. He was once again going to need to sink some serious funds into the Defiant. “Magrans’ Teeth” was a chain of volcanic islands in notoriously treacherous waters. No sane Captain intentionally sailed near. And it was populated by the Rathun – fierce Fire Giants who attacked any who approached their lands. Nothing like another simple task for the Gods.
Author’s Notes:
Nagas were every bit as painful to render consistently here as the Yuan Ti in Icewind Dale. Perhaps even worse as the oceanic background led to the AI desperately wanting to turn them into Sea Serpents and the like. I eventually, however, stumbled on an approach with a modest success rate. Rather than describing them as “snakes with arms” or the like, I started with “merman”. Since that is a shape the AI knows – and already has a humanoid torso with a scaly body with no legs – it proved much more amenable to being morphed in a Naga shape. Particularly since the Naga in Deadfire are amphibious anyway.
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