Characters:
- Ilai
- Fae’ael
- Florian
- Raoul
- Serena & Cedric
- Belrith
Hearing reports of a squad of Undead taking over the Fort to the North-East, the party prepares to take back what they consider their fort, as a prelude to the battle of Crowspire. There are many discussions as to our best approach on the fort, but our Admiral and Captain Raoul wishes to try out his new keelboat – The Valiant – so a seaborne approach is decided upon. Heading out from Wyvern Keep, the party plan to explore the seas and islands in the East before heading north to clear out the fort.
With a bottle of whiskey to christen the ship, the party set out and immediately run into problems, as the boat is only big enough to carry three of them with Raoul piloting. Ilai solves the problem by transforming into a bright teal walrus to swim alongside the boat, with Belrith riding on their back. The immediate problem solved the first few hours of travel are easy with good weather and strong wings, and the party is joined by a couple of dolphins who swim alongside the ship for a while.
By mid-day however the problems accumulate, Cedric (Serena’s elemental friend) is sea-sick, the party is being followed by a group of sharks and Ilai is running out of uses of their wild-shape. Deciding to try and ditch the sharks and get Ilai to shore before they can no longer transform, Belrith casts water-walk and rides ahead with Ilai to the nearby shore, planning to meet up with the rest of the party later that night.
Florian attempts to send the sharks away by tossing a spear soaked in the scent of blood into the water, and over the next few hours the sharks seem to lose interest in the boat. Planning to meet up later that night, Fae’ael, who has been navigating, gets confused in her directions and the Valiant drifts towards the Werewolf Island. Not wanting to battle the werewolf this adventure, Raoul sets off again, but they are forced to rest on the boat, failing to meet up with Ilai and Belrith. Although they do discover a group of ruins below the waves, just off the shore of the werewolf island.
Meanwhile Belrith and Ilai have discovered a new shrine to Zeus on the Eastern continent and have a lovely beach picnic and nap before setting off to the rendezvous point. Learning via sending stone that the Valiant got quite lost, they set up camp on the beach and wait for pickup in the morning. As the Valiant manages to navigate to the shore in the morning (Florian now navigating) the party reconvenes, narrowly avoiding a fight with a group of displacer beasts who chase Ilai and Belrith to the boat. The party decides to not split again, and with a combination of spells and better time-keeping – set a short rest for every six hours so Ilai can refresh their wildshapes.
Heading off North, the party continues to have good weather and wind, and pass by a group of glowing glyphs, spotted far below the waves. They mark it on Fae’ael’s map to come back later to and head to the shore for a long rest, 12 miles or so from the undead fort. They are awakened that night by a group of ghouls, but with a quick turn undead from Belrith they are sent on their way and the party continues by boat to the fort. (Raoul ignoring Fae’ael’s continuing confusion with navigating via water.)
Once on the shore, Ilai and Serena come up with a plan to scout the fort out via the air, using Ilai’s ability to summon 8 giant owls for transport. If the undead seem reasonably weak, then the plan is to ride the owls down as a surprise attack and use Belrith’s destroy undead to thin out the enemy. The rest of the party is happy with the plan, and Ilai summons their 8 owls. Flying over the fort, the party sees that the structure has been reinforced, and has been built up a couple more levels with palisades and spear walls set up to deter cavalry. The undead in the fort appear weak, so everyone prepares for plan Belrith. Concerned that this feels a bit too easy, Fae’ael tries to examine a flickering green flame in the fort’s tower that Florian points out, commenting that it might be a way to negate Belrith’s abilities.
The party have a quick discussion, but decide to go forward with the plan and dive down onto the fort. As Belrith gets to 30 feet and gets nearly all of the undead in his aura, he prepares to cast destroy undead. Before he gets a chance a bolt of green lightning shoots out of the fire, destroying Belrith’s owl and dealing the cleric a substantial amount of damage as he lands prone in a group of undead.
Their cleric down and surrounded, Ilai moves to remove the wight protecting the fire, while Serena sends off a fireball, incinerating 7 undead, as she fills in where Belrith was negated. Worried for her friend’s life, Fae’ael lands beside the fallen cleric and heals him, before taking a defensive posture back to back as they face off against the undead. Fortunately the rest of the party is able to band together, and with Florian grabbing the enchanted fire and putting it in a nearby river, the party is able to clear out the rest of the undead with Raoul’s sniping capabilities, Serena’s fireballs and Ilai’s army of owls.
As the stragglers are picked off, Belrith and Fae’ael share a smile, before a vampire spawn leaps out of a nearby well, grabs Belrith, bits him and drags him back down the well.
Furious at the attack on their friend and cleric, the party comically each jump down the well and gang up on the vampire spawn, managing to bring them down before their friend is eaten or worse. Meanwhile Ilai circles the fort, looking for further attacks but it appears they have cleared out the structure once again.
Reconvening they recover some gold and discuss what they should do if the undead come back. Florian retries the slightly soggy fire, and Belrith dispels it, planning to get one of the wizards at Sophia’s Rest to have a look at it. With a Divination cast by Belrith and aided by Fae’ael they determine that the fort should be safe for at least a week and they decide to head back by boat.
The journey home is reasonably uneventful although the party is quite blown off course and spends a couple of days attempting to fight the wind and get back to the Keep. With Raoul’s expert captaining they manage to do so, but decide that the next time they set sail, they might want to have the recommended number of people that the boat can carry to avoid the complications they ran into. Fort successfully capture and the maiden voyage of the Valiant completed, they return to Sophia’s Rest with an updated map and a plan to free Crowspire from the plight of undead that control the village.
