Finally, a fight we manage swimmingly (pun not intended – which you’ll understand later). Of our own accord, too; no dragons to take care of things for us this time. Let’s get to it.
We began with a brief meeting where we learned that the smugglers had arrived, so we made our way up to the haunted house to signal them before sailing out in a rowboat crewed by our two guardsmen liaisons – whom we affectionately named Biggs and Wedge. Once aboard, we explained that we were new hires and were to take the goods back to shore. The captain agreed and let me down into the hold, but before the others could follow he slammed the hatch shut. Evidently, our ruse wasn’t good enough.
As combat began, Cass used his Mantle of Inspiration – which proved to be a massive help in this session, buffing us up with twenty temporary hit points each over the course of the fight (hit points which Cass and I wouldn’t have stayed conscious without) – which allowed me to move back up through the hatch and get back on deck. So, despite my terrible initiative roll, I was able to be on deck to join the main fight instead of trapped below with and swarmed by a bunch of smugglers.
I got swarmed by them anyway, but up on deck with the other smugglers, so instead of me facing half the bad guys and Cass and Ghoti facing the other half, separated like, it was all of us facing all of them together. Which meant I could do my job of being surrounded and hitting people hard so the others could do their job of not being surrounded and doing more interesting things than just hitting people.
More interesting things such as Ghoti dropping a Shatter over my head, hitting me but also all the nine smugglers surrounding me. The six regular smugglers were killed outright, leaving me facing just the captain, first mate and bosun. Cass Suggested the captain to give up while I finished off the others.
More stuff than that happened, otherwise. That was the main bit, but it was actually quite a protracted fight that took most of the session. Ghoti cast darkness on herself and was basically untouchable for most of the fight. Biggs and Wedge almost both did damage. There was a wizard that didn’t really do much until I chopped her head off. Cass stabbed a guy to death and then shot a guy that tried to steal our boat. And when we reached the end of the fight, we still had one last thing to take care of. The lizardfolk.
Three of them came out on deck right toward the end of the fight, one carrying a heavy chest. They jumped over the side, so Ghoti and I jumped in after them (we are the two with swimming speeds). We caught up to them and took out one, but the other two walloped me down to one hit point after dropping the chest. One of the lizardfolk then swam away before I hit the other, he hit me back and knocked me out, and then Ghoti finished him off. I floated to the surface (thank you, Mariner’s Armour) and Cass healed me up, while Ghoti went for the chest because the third lizardfolk was too far gone. As soon as I was conscious I went back down for the chest, since Ghoti was struggling to stop it from sinking (she is not strong), and we got it back up on deck.
We spent the rest of the session searching the ship, finding the contraband, lots of money (including 500gp worth in the chest we dove for – definitely worth it), a sea elf prisoner in a secret compartment, and some bugs, which we fought. After we had scoured the place, we sailed it into town, where the authorities took the contents into custody. As a reward, we were paid even more money, plus gifted the ship and a crew (fully paid out for a year) including Biggs and Wedge.
And that was how we ended. A really, really solid session. Admittedly, I did go unconscious, but that’s what happens when you dive off a ship in pursuit of three lizardfolk with only twelve hit points left. Besides, I knew Cass had my back.
It’s beginning to feel like we’re really coming together as a party. Last session was great, but only because of the dragon’s help. This week, we needed no help at all, especially thanks to the amazing uses of Ghoti’s Shatter and Cass’s Mantle of Inspiration. Hopefully that will continue, especially now that we’ll be taking our adventures on the high seas (I hope). But I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.