Chapter 21: Scouting Spike Island Part 2

Written by Skarth Diem to Dronaet Klingstone

In the dim light emanating from the chamber where the slaves were working, we glanced at each other to confirm that we were all ready. The noise being made by the slaves as they hacked at the rock made it easy for us to move around without being heard. After a quick discussion, the plan was for Wrack, Jenny and Kelshann to rush across to where the stairs descended to the next level. The next level down was flooded, of course, so the stairwell was filled with water. If any of the sahuagin got into the water, they would be much harder to stop. So, Wrack and Kelshann would hold the stairwell and prevent any of the sahuagin from escaping down that way and raising the alarm. Jenny told us that she should be able to freeze the surface of the water in the stairwell and thus stop any of the sahuagin from going down, or coming up. So, with the protection of Wrack and Kelshann, Jenny could focus on that task, which she said would take some time. Riellian and I would then do what we could to take out any of the other sahuagin in the room. That was our plan, anyway. But you know what they say about plans...

Wrack gave a nod and then crept out into the room and made for the stairwell. Somehow, he made it all the way there without being noticed. Jenny started going after him but she was not as lucky and when she was halfway across the space, there was a guttural shout from one of the sahuagin guards. Kelshann had not noticed that we’d started, and she was still standing back with the rest of us.

Jenny realised that she’d been spotted and tried to cast some sort of spell. I don’t know if that worked or not because I couldn’t see her target from where I stood. Riellian was hiding around the corner of the archway that led into the room and watching all of this. She shot an arrow at the sahuagin who’d seen Jenny but I think the arrow missed. When Riellian lined up to shoot a second arrow there was a loud twang as the string on her bow broke.

The sahuagin who’d been shot at then threw a spear at Riellian, which missed and clattered into the stone behind her. It charged across the room and attacked Riellian, which meant that it was completely blocking the archway into the room. That meant that Kelshann was stuck out in the corridor with the rest of us and not with Wrack where we’d planned for her to be.

In the meantime, Riellian had dropped her bow with the broken string and drawn her scimitars. She swung the scimitars in an arc, fending off the attack of the sahuagin, who I could now see was one of their champions based on his size and the colouring. Riellian managed to score a hit with her left hand, and when the champion swung in reaction to that, it left itself open for Riellian to strike deep with her right hand. Blood spilled from the deep cut and the sahuagin champion roared in anger.

I found out later that, on finding himself alone, Wrack called on his power to form the moonbeam and placed it to block entry from the far side of the stairwell, while he took station on the near side. I could see Jenny moving her hands up and down making the shape of waves with her hands. When she finished, the air around her seemed to blur and she became difficult to see. It was as if she were surrounded by the heat haze that rises from the desert on a hot day. Then Jenny moved past Wrack into the stairwell and began the long process of freezing the surface of the water there.

Kelshann moved up to join with Riellian and began fighting with the champion blocking the doorway. I sent out a tendril of thorny vine to lash at it but my effort had little effect. At the same time, I invoked my star-form and the archer constellation in my chest loosed an arrow of sparkling starlight. Somehow the stars aligned particularly well this time, and the arrow was brighter than usual. The sahuagin saw the arrow coming and its eyes opened wide in fear. In a flash of light, my arrow of starlight sank into the side of the sahuagin. It groaned and slumped to the ground and lay still.

I stepped over the body of the fallen champion and moved into the room. A sahuagin priestess had been up against the side wall where we couldn’t see her and she had two warriors near her. Another was focused on the slaves, making sure they continued their work. I suppose it was confident in the ability of its friends to ward off our incursion. There were also a couple of lesser sahuagin warriors near the priestess as well.

One of the sahuagin ran at me with a spear in its hand. It was one of their lesser warriors, and when it tried to bite at me, I was easily able to fend it off with my shield. It tried again, jabbing at me with its spear and the point scraped across my arm, leaving little more than a scratch on my arm.

Riellian stepped into the room and saw the priestess gesturing and chanting in the language of the sahuagin. Riellian swung her hand in a circle. A glowing wall of mist appeared before her and she stepped into it and disappeared, before suddenly appearing behind the priestess. Riellian swung her scimitars and struck at the priestess, managing to disrupt whatever spell the priestess was casting.

Kelshann ran into the room and, seeing that Wrack had the stairwell under control, turned to engage the sahuagin gathered around the priestess.

Wrack, from his position near the stairwell, pulled the Javelin of Lightning from its holster on his back and flung it across the room. As soon as it left his hand, the Javelin transformed into a streak of lightning that hurtled across the room and struck the priestess. She cried out, holding her hands up in a belated attempt to fend off the javelin and then collapsed in a heap.

The priestess’s two closest guards immediately leapt forward and both struck at Riellian, scoring several grievous wounds. Despite the background noise of the slaves striking the rock and the sound of clashing weapons, I could hear the low murmuring of Jenny working to freeze the water. The slaves were beginning to falter in their work as they realised that something was happening. The one sahuagin guard who had stayed to supervise the slaves screamed at them to make them keep working.

At the same time, I was still struggling with the sahuagin attacking me. I tried to send a bolt of my power into its face but it ducked and the stream of light from my hand spent itself uselessly against the wall of the cavern. The archer on my chest loosed another arrow of starlight and again, the arrow was unusually bright and powerful. The arrow struck the sahuagin so effectively that it dropped to its knees, stunned by the effect.

Riellian, bleeding in several places, surrounded herself with some sort of whirlwind which helped her get away from her attackers and she raced across the room to me. Seeing the sahuagin in front of me, she ran up behind it and swung her scimitar. The sahuagin, still in shock from the magical blast it had received from me, didn’t see her coming and Riellian was able to cleanly remove the sahuagin’s head from its body. Then Riellian turned to me and asked for help. Up close, I could see that her skin was grey and she was in a very poor state.

Before I could act, one of the sahuagin, attracted by the smell of the blood pouring from Riellian’s wounds, launched across the room and pursued her. In doing so, it foolishly ran straight past Kelshann who reached out and slammed it with her maul as it ran past. The sahuagin staggered but kept running at Riellian. It ran up to Riellian and raised its hammer for what could have been a fatal blow to Riellian, but its hands were slick with blood and the hammer slipped from its grasp and clattered to the ground. The sahuagin staggered and lost its balance after the fumbled strike.

The sahuagin was already on its last legs, so when my archer scored a hit, it cried out and toppled backwards. I quickly pulled out my wooden bowl and sang the song of healing as I poured out a potion for Riellian. She drank it eagerly and the colour very quickly returned to her skin as my healing did its work.

By this point, most of the sahuagin had fallen, and the remaining warriors showed no inclination to flee. See that it was safe to do so, Wrack left his post and ran over to engage one of the Priestess’s guards. There were now only three sahuagin left and Kelshann, Wrack and Riellian managed to dispose of them all very quickly.

I ran over to where the slaves were chained together and picked up a chisel. I called on the slaves to keep banging the wall to make enough noise that it would cover the sound of the shackles being cut. There were a couple of humans there who understood me and they quickly translated for the other slaves using a kind of hybrid patois language. I could see that the other slaves included hobgoblins and lizardfolk but they all seemed to understand each other using this strange patois language.

I’ve cut shackles off slaves many times, so I knew exactly where to place the chisel. Then I used sign language to get one of the lizardfolk to strike the end of the chisel with his hammer and break the shackles from his comrades. It took some time for me to remove the shackles from all ten of the slaves.

While I was doing that, my friends started discussing what to do next. We were here on reconnaissance and we had a fair amount of information already. The slaves were able to supply more information since some of them had been used to work in the lower levels before the big ritual had lowered the island and flooded the lower two levels. We were concerned that if we moved to the next level, we might raise the alarm and be overwhelmed with numbers. We were told very firmly to make sure the information gets back, otherwise, our work so far would all be wasted. After some discussion, it was decided that we would settle for what we had done and leave as quickly as we could manage.

In the meantime, I’d released all of the slaves from their shackles. Now I took out my wooden bowl and started pouring potions for each of them. They were all weak and poorly nourished, but with the aid of my healing, they picked up a little energy and seemed able to walk themselves out.

I suggested that we make it look like the slaves had somehow managed to break free and escape. That way the sahuagin would be focused on hunting down the escaped slaves and they might not figure out our true purpose in being there. We arranged things to make it look like this is what happened. Bludgeoning the bodies to hide the magical burn scars and so on. Then we led the slaves out to the weapons room.

There we all picked up as many of the better weapons as we could carry. We figured if we could deprive the sahuagin of some of their weapons, that would make it easier for us to fight them. When we explained what we were doing, the freed slaves agreed to help us carry away weapons. Wrack and Riellian also opened up their magic bags and put as many weapons into them as they could hold. We later counted and found that we’d carried away about 60 weapons – which included almost all of the warhammers, tridents and glaves, as well as some of the ornate daggers.

We all left through the large doors by which we’d entered. Our way was lit by a nearly full moon and the soft light of the stars gazing down at us. We found that the tide had dropped while we were inside and the causeway to the mainland was now nearly exposed. The water was up to our knees which meant wading was slow. But then Jenny started shaping the water up and away from us in the small section where we were, so we were able to walk more quickly along the damp stone between two low walls of water.

Once we were across the causeway, we had to cross the headland to where the ship was anchored. As we walked, I thought I might be able to warn Captain Duthrem that we were coming. My first teacher had shown me a way to use small animals to carry messages and I looked around for a suitable bird. Unfortunately, our large group tramping through the area was scaring off the birds and initially, I couldn’t see a single one.

Finally, I saw a gull perched on a branch and tucked against the trunk of a tree. I sang for it to come to me. It unfurled its head and looked at me, then swooped down to land on a branch nearby. I sang the song to empower it to carry my message and described Captain Duthrem in his distinctive blue jacket and where to find him. Then I spoke my message and I said, “Captain, ready the ship for immediate departure. Send the boat to the beach nearest you ... Oh, this is a message from Skarth.”

By the time we all trooped down to the beach, the boat was pulling into the beach. It took two trips to get all of us, as well as the weapons, aboard the ship. During the second trip, we heard the sound of a distant horn raising the alarm on the island. Someone had discovered the dead sahuagin and the missing slaves.