Chapter 8: Exploring the Wreck part 1

Written by Skarth Diem to Dronaet Klingstone

I spoke to Keth and Tymm, the two marines who were going to be rowing us across to the derelict ship. I asked them to try scraping the paint at the stern where the ship’s name is painted to see if there was another name underneath. It seemed to me that it would be something they could do from their boat, which we wouldn’t be able to do from the deck of the ship. Keth and Tymm grabbed a shovel with a long handle as the name would be above their heads when they were in the rowboat and promised to give it a go.

As we got closer to the derelict ship, I saw that the paint all over the ship was old and peeling and I began to wonder if my idea was wrong. We came up beside the ship and a rope was thrown up with a hook on the end to give us something to hold onto as we climbed the side of the ship. The wooden hull was slippery and a bit mouldy but we managed. Keth and Tymm then moved the rowboat around to the stern to start scraping the paint.

We quickly checked the three decks – a low middle deck plus raised decks at the front and back. They were completely deserted. The wheel spun uselessly suggesting that the rudder was gone, and the chain dangling from the capstan had no anchor attached to the end of it.

We gathered again on the mid-deck and decided to explore the front cabins first.

There was a single door leading forward. Kelshann opened the door, grunting with effort as it was firmly stuck. The door opened into a single room that appeared to cover the entire area of the front of the ship. The space was completely choked with spiderwebs. Jenny lit a torch and passed it to Kelshann who then stepped into the room. She started waving the burning torch around to burn a path through the webs.

At this point, we became aware of two creatures lurking among webs. One of them revealed itself to be a human-sized spider-like creature that Wrack called an Ettercap. Riellian drew her scimitars and rushed into the room, striking at the Ettercap. As she did so, she used some magic that resulted in thorny growths appearing that surrounded and trapped the Ettercap. Riellian then backed off and Kelshann, who had followed Riellian’s trail, skewered the Ettercap. And just like that, it was dead.

The second creature in the room was hard to see due to the thick spiderwebs. We could tell it was there because of the large shadow moving amongst the webs but, at first, we couldn’t see what it was. Eventually, it moved through a gap in the webs and we saw that it was a gigantic spider with a body as large as a full-grown dwarf. Riellian again rushed to strike at it and, with some aid from the rest of us, within a short time it was also dead.

Wrack and I entered the room behind them and saw that the two creatures were dead and that there was no other obvious threat in the room. We looked around and saw a set of stairs leading down into the belly of the ship. Wrack and I went to peer down the stairs to see what we could see – and also to guard against anything coming up the stairs to attack us.

Suddenly, swarms of little spiders came boiling up the stairs towards us. These were not monstrously large spiders such as the one Riellian and Kelshann had destroyed, but they were small and very numerous. Wrack and I were quickly surrounded and they swarmed up our legs, giving the two of us many very painful bites on our legs.

There was a good deal of stamping and waving of burning torches in an effort to destroy them or drive them off. Kelshann sent a freezing breath of cold air rushing past us and over the swarms of spiders. This had quite a good effect on the spiders but the cold also bit into Wrack and me. I was able to use a spell that absorbed some of that cold and redirected it at the spiders but the rest seemed to cut through to my bones.

Then Wrack cast a spell that resulted in a strong wind emerging from his shield. The wind sent the spiders tumbling away from him and back down the stairs. Unfortunately, I was also caught by the wind and I found myself helplessly blown into the corner of the room and up against the wall.

All of this biting and buffeting about had caused me to gain some injuries and I was starting to feel very sore. I frantically healed myself. Then, using all of my strength, I managed to walk against the pressure of Wrack’s wind until I was behind him and free from the wind. The wind continued to hold the spiders back, so I was finally free of their biting which was a huge relief.

I finally got into a position where I could sing the song of lightning and sent a bolt searing through one group of spiders. Then I sang the song of ice and sent a jagged spear of ice into another group. Both of my attempts seemed to have some effect in reducing the number of spiders arrayed against us. My comrades were striking at them with burning torches and whatever else came to hand while Wrack’s wind held them on the stairs and stopped them from attacking us. Eventually, we were able to destroy enough of the spiders that the swarm was dispersed and the remaining few spiders scuttled off into the darkness.

Finally, the room was still and we were able to catch our breaths. I took the opportunity to run back out and across to the stern where I spoke quickly to the two marines. Keth told me that there were layers of paint where the ship had been repainted from time to time, but the name had not been changed at any time. I warned the two marines about the swarms of spiders on board and suggested they move the rowboat away from the ship, which they did with some haste.

I returned to my comrades who were discussing the creatures we had just fought. I gathered from their comments that Ettercap are not sea-going creatures, nor are gigantic spiders. There was no sensible reason for them to be in a ship in the middle of the sea. There were some fanciful suggestions made but ultimately we had to admit that we were only guessing.

We looked around in the room we had cleared for any clues about how this situation came about. There was a table in the room that had some old dirty maps and so forth on it, but we didn’t get much information from those.

At this point, we had a choice of going down another level or heading to the back of the ship where we expected to find the captain’s cabin. We decided to try the captain’s cabin as we were still looking for information about the ship.

We crossed the deck and Kelshann used her shoulder to burst through the door to what we assumed was the captain’s cabin. We all crowded into the room which was in a complete mess. There were shattered crates, palm fronds and piles of debris everywhere. There were a few human skeletons scattered around and dried blood everywhere. Across the back of the room was a row of human skulls mounted on spikes.

The thing that caught my attention was a crude stone altar set up in the middle of the room with various sigils and symbols painted on it and around it using a mixture of blood and mud and who knows what other filth. Some of the writing I could read as it was in the language of the demons and I could make out the name, Lolth, the demon queen of spiders.

While we were looking around at all of this mess, some of the debris stirred and a giant spider emerged on one side of the room, then an Ettercap crawled out of another pile. I sang the song of lightning and sent a bolt of power at the spider, I was in my star form by this time and the constellation of the archer on my chest fired his arrows of starlight at the same target. Then my archer fired another arrow which came out looking larger than normal and it penetrated deep into the spider’s body. The spider quivered and died.

In the meantime, the Ettercap had taken on Wrack and the two of them were exchanging blows. Then Kelshann became involved and wow! Previously we had seen Kelshann grow claws in the middle of a fight and fly into a sort of berserk rage. But this time, she grew a tail and she whirled into the fight and slammed her tail into the side of the Ettercap. I could almost see the Ettercap fold in half as Kelshann’s tail struck it. Her tail whipped back and the Ettercap crumpled to the floor and was still.

Jenny hunted around and found the Ship’s Log and the Captain’s Diary. She quickly found out that the captain was called Jarvik Mornsen and the ship was the Emperor of the Waves. Jenny immediately turned to the last page and read the last entry out loud. It told how they were attacked by orcs, goblins and monstrous vermin. The crew had fended off the last attack, but they had suffered heavy casualties. The Captain was then worried that the attack had been a precursor for a larger attack and that they would be hard-pressed to fend off such an attack. The entry was dated some two years ago.

This was interesting so she turned back to the previous page and saw that the previous entries referred to a terrible storm that had driven them off course. They had lost sight of their escort ship in the storm. When the storm settled, they found an island that they couldn’t locate on their maps and dropped anchor.

Given the description, we speculated that the island was a part of the archipelago occupied by the pirates who call themselves the Sea Princes.

Throughout this, I was still in star form and the glow from my stars lit the room. I was able to fossick around and discovered a small sack amongst the debris. I opened the sack and discovered it contained 10 brilliant red gemstones, which I’m told are rubies. They are certainly very pretty. I wonder if they are worth anything.

Jenny pocketed the two journals and we went down the steps to the next level below the captain’s cabin. There we were met by the stench of rotting meat, piles of bones, broken tables and chairs. This appeared to have been the ship’s galley. There were many very tiny little spiders everywhere, but they did not attack us, they just scuttled around and added to the shocking condition of the room. There was a trapdoor leading further down that was covered by debris and looked like it hadn’t been opened since the humans were in charge of the ship. There was also a door leading forward into the main belly of the ship. That door had been wedged shut by a couple of iron spikes jammed into the wood of the door.

My comrades speculated that the crew may have attempted to make a last stand in this room. While they were discussing this, I listened at the door. It was not easy, but I managed to hear the sound of someone or something breathing and shuffling as it waited for us.

I got the attention of my colleagues and we prepared ourselves as best we could before we removed the spikes and Kelshann used her shoulder once more to burst the door open. The floor of the room inside was covered in runes and circles. There were more references to Lolth, demon queen of spiders. In the middle of the room stood a half-orc, dressed in furs with ritual scars and sigils tattooed into his skin that showed his devotion to Lolth. He was clearly some form of magic user and we later found out that he called himself Krell.

Krell stood there in the centre of the room and instructed his two servants to attack us. Two more of those monstrous spiders emerged from where they had been lurking and scuttled forward to block the doorway.

Jenny cast a spell that involved peeling strips off a small thing that she held in her hand – I couldn’t see what it was. I don’t know what the spell was, but it seemed to hurt both Krell and his spiders.

Suddenly there were spiderwebs everywhere and Wrack, Kelshann and Riellian were all wrapped in webbing.

I was peering through a gap between my colleagues and thought I had a clear sight of the half-orc Krell. As I started to sing the song of ice, a spider suddenly appeared in mid-air to my left. My archer shot his arrow of starlight at the spider to my left but the shot went wide. I sent a shard of ice between Wrack and Kelshann and it speared into the shoulder of Krell. Then it burst and sent tiny shards of ice at Krell and his two spiders. The shards appeared to strike Krell and his two guardians, but Krell was truly staggered by my strike. I thought for a moment that with such grievous wounds that he was done and that he would fall, but the spider webs surrounding him seemed to shiver and support him and supply him with one last burst of energy.

In the meantime, the spider that had appeared to my left tried to bite me with its ferocious fangs. Instead, it bit into the solid edge of my shield. It appeared to have injured its fangs in the attempt and I could almost hear the shrill keening as it reeled back in pain.

Riellian shook free from the web that had tried to trap her and raced forward with her two scimitars held high. She made very short work of one of the giant spiders and what was left fell to the ground in a scattering of parts.

Jenny did the same spell again, I must ask her what she was doing, but she seemed to be peeling something, and as a result of that spell, Krell collapsed to the ground and lay still.

The spider that had appeared near me seemed to be in pain, and perhaps it realised its friends were being killed and it wanted to avoid the same fate. For whatever reason, it must have decided to leave because it somehow folded itself up and disappeared with a faint pop.

Kelshann, having freed her hands from the webbing that was restraining her, ignored her own situation and in the midst of her berserk fury, tore into the last of the spiders with her claws. The last spider had no chance to resist her and was shredded into pieces.