Well, Hades, but whatever. Turns out that’s the grey place we somehow were transported to. Not a nice place either, as it turns out.
We learned this shortly after we began our session, when, while sailing our way along the River Styx, we met a creepy subhuman trader who told us where we were and how to get out, which apparently could only be done from a different level of Hades to where we were. We collectively decided on Pluton, since it sounded the least bad of the four options we were given, and tossing a gold coin into the river, we summoned a ferryman and paid the requisite fee for them to sail us there.
Along the 24-hour journey to the beginning of the road to Pluton, we suffered some terrible hardships. First of all, our crew was ravaged by sickness, and we lost six of the seven members that were laid low by it. Luckily, none of the party or the ship’s other officers were affected, but it was still a major blow.
But then, as if to add insult to injury, the ship was attacked. All over this area, we were seeing skirmishes being fought as part of the Blood War, and it felt inevitable that we eventually got caught up in it. Over the course of the fight, we battled a bird creature, spiky bitches, dudes with snake beards, and more, but we came out of the other end alive (except for one more crew member). It was a very protracted fight, and it was only when the last snakebeard decided to flee off the side of the ship that we finally got a reprieve from combat.
In the aftermath, we rested, before eventually arriving at the start of the road to Pluton. The ferryman took their leave, we disembarked and burned our dead, and then began making our way down the road, leaving the ship behind in what is hopefully not going to be its final fate.
And that was it. The end of the session. It doesn’t read as a lot, but between observing our environment from the (relative) safety of our ship, our conversation and trade with the trader – which took a while – the fight – which took a long while – and a few technical glitches, that was all that we got through. At least we know where we are now. Hopefully we’ll soon be able to get back to the Material Plane, and double hopefully we’ll be able to bring our ship out with us.
Tune in next week to see how we get on, and what further horrors await us in Hades.