Well, we’re back, and with a pretty solid session, too. We started by entering the cove, where we waded our way into the water. From what we had been told, fish were dying from some kind of poison and it was our job to find out why and stop it. Once submerged, we did see some darker clouds in the brightly lit water, but they were all over and did not imply a specific source.
Our investigation led us through examining a giant anemone (which tried to psychically draw me in to touch it and die horribly, but failed), a dead coral reef which whispered to us if we got too close (and apparently was the grave site of an aboleth), a statue of a clam (which gave temporary hit points at the cost of disadvantage on insight – I didn’t get this effect, but both Cass and Ghoti did, and it proved to be important later on), a shipwreck where a zombie was collecting bones out of the sand and completely ignoring us (and where we were attacked by a giant eel until it disturbed the zombie’s bones and it crushed the eel’s head), a deep chasm (which we went down a short distance at first, but descended further into later, as you’ll see), and a small cave filled with glowing crystals. In the cave, we found a mermaid.
The mermaid told us that her village had been destroyed by agents of the evil hag leader of the Dreadwood, and that it was her influence causing the poison. Convenient, but we all fluffed our insight checks, so we believed her. However, after we found no other possible cause, and because she was incredibly insistent that we go to the Dreadwood and kill the hag, I expressed that we couldn’t do that, at least, not straight away, and the more she insisted and the more I said no, the angrier she got, until she eventually dropped her form and revealed herself to be a hag herself. Begin combat.
End combat. After I grappled her and we hit her a few times, she surrendered, not even making an attack back at us, and promised to help us remove the poison – the cause of which, she claimed, was at the bottom of the chasm – so long as we didn’t kill her. We only agreed after she willingly let Cassius cast Suggestion on her, but her dishonesty and his choice of wording proved that not to mean much in the long run.
The hag cast a light for us, since part of our reticence to delve deeply into the chasm was my inability to see in the dark and our collective lack of ability to create light underwater, and we began making our way down. As we were almost to the bottom, we saw a freaking Young Bronze Dragon, chained to the wall and gagged. At that moment, the hag revealed that she lied to us and that she was the source of the poison, and dropped the light. So the others could see, but I could not.
Begin combat.
While Ghoti tussled with the hag and Cassius tussled with a tentacled-faced crab monster that swam up from the depths, I did the only thing I could think of that didn’t require me to see. Working my way through each of the three, one at a time, I tore out the anchors holding the dragon’s chains into the wall. As I grabbed the third one, the crab monster almost got me, but I managed to hold on long enough to get the dragon free.
Once it was free, the dragon took over. She obliterated the hag with one lightning breath before tearing the crab monster to pieces, rescuing Cass and I from its claws. End combat there.
After the fight, the dragon headed back up the chasm quickly, while I felt my way up the wall without quite the speed and Cass and Ghoti made their way to the bottom to search for loot. They found a chest full of pearls, and then we all reconvened up above. There, the dragon pointed out that the zombie had the symbol of Orcus carved into its chest, so we killed it. Her getting to blast it with lightning twice certainly helped, to the point that I never even hit it before it died.
And that was that. The dragon kindly flew us back to town, to the townsfolk’s shock. Cassius made the most of it, playing it up (and rolling a natural 20 performance check for the effort) and we ended the session there.
So, a solid session after our week off. Cassius got pretty beat up by the crab monster, but otherwise we were pretty okay. The dragon was a massive help, obviously, and I’m glad my decision to break it free straight away paid off. Hopefully those good decisions will continue next week when we get back on track with taking down these smugglers. I guess we shall see.