Journal 3: Sea Creatures

From the Journal of Talmuq ur'Tak

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11 Midsummer 807

In order to investigate mysterious sea creatures stealing fish from fishermen off the coast of Stonnet and sinking a couple of ships, me, Aalari, Bula, and Glendower rode out on a fishing boat. Since I grew up around boats, I handled it better than some of the others, who had trouble finding their sea legs. Glendower had an especially bad time. After an hour or two at sea, one of the lines for the nets got pulled down. Three crewmembers got pulled overboard trying to stop it, but I managed to use my magic to freeze a square of water for them to use as a raft. We put on the magic chokers that Alouicious gave us to let us breathe underwater and we dove in to find out what was happening. Three of us grabbed the rope to see where it was getting pulled, but Aalari didn’t manage to grab it in time and she quickly faded into the murky distance as we got tugged down. We stopped near the bottom, but we couldn’t see the far end of the rope, and we saw Aalari get pulled past us by a humanoid fish-creature I recognized as a Sahuagin. I hit it with a Ray of Frost, but it kept going. While Bula and Glendower followed the rope to see where it led, Aalari broke free of the monster’s grip and I hit it again. It let out a strange call, and two of its companions came to join it. At that point, Bula and Glendower came back to help us fight. After a pitched battle, we managed to beat all but one of them, which escaped. It quickly came back with a pair of sharks, but after we killed one of the sharks and the Sahuagin, the second shark lost interest, which clearly showed that it was being controlled. After the fight, we tracked the path the Sahuagin had come from and found a cavern near a shipwreck. We saw one of the fish-men leaving the wreck towing a human corpse. We intercepted him and Aalari used her magic to charm it so we could interrogate him. The Sahuagin told us that he was taking the body to what he described as “the keepers”. He said the keepers looked like him, but they were made of seaweed and their heads were sea anenamees. He told us that the keepers needed the body for food, but lately they were rationing food and keeping it from his people. The Sahuagin said that they used to look more like him, but they recently changed, shortly after a cave-in inside the cavern. We suggested he should spread some ideas among his people to reject the authority of the keepers while we went off to explore the shipwreck. We searched the shipwreck thoroughly, but did not find much of interest. About when we were ready to give up, we saw the charmed Sahuagin come back with others. One of them had a priest-y look to her. She told us that the shipwrecks weren’t an attack. The first one was an accident and the second was already sinking when her people got to it. She said her people did not want war, and she would talk to someone about making a deal with the surface-dwellers. After dismissing the others of her kind, she told us that there was a secret she was keeping from what she described as the “lower caste”, that the keepers were being controlled somehow, something to do with a secret chamber in the cavern near the keepers’ chamber. That was what was responsible for the change in the keepers’ behavior and why the Sahuagin needed to steal food from humans. In order to smooth relations, we offered to help break the control over them. To do that, we had to get into the cavern, so we played dead while she carried us to the keepers. We were dragged into a pitch black stinking cave with a pile of rotting corpses and we were briefly left alone. After a few moments, we were grabbed by something in the darkness. We were hauled into another chamber and found ourselves face-to-face with the keepers. They looked like a mass of seaweed topped with anenamees. While we watched, they dropped the glamor that was disguising them and we saw their true nature as Sea Hags. Before they could eat us, I used my magic to blind two of them with opaque water and threw a handful of sand in the third one’s eyes. The four of us scattered to get away. Glendower and I found the exit to a larger main chamber. Bula followed behind closely, but Aalari couldn’t find the tunnel and was trapped with the hags. Unknowing of the danger she was in, I searched for a hidden tunnel to the secret chamber, and I managed to find it. I directed Bula and Glendower to it, then, realizing she was missing, I went back for Aalari. She found her way out into the main chamber, but the hags were right on her tail. The two of us fought them while Glendower and Bula braved the secret tunnel. Aalari and I realized we were outmatched, so we broke off and dashed to the tunnel. Before the hags could get in behind us, I froze the entrance so they couldn’t chase us. We followed the tunnel until it opened up into another chamber, where we found Bula and Glendower. They were facing off against a huge, serpentine sea creature we recognized from Alouicious’ tutoring as an Aboleth, an extra-planar water creature. Psychically, it told us to stop fighting it, as it meant us no harm. It told us it got there accidentally through a rift to the plane of water. The rift drifted out of its reach, and it was trapped in this cave on the material plane. All the Aboleth wanted was to get home to the plane of water, and it had been controlling the hags to help it by using their magic to find and harness the rift, but they weren’t powerful enough. It said if we helped it, it would make the hags stop attacking us. I offered to use my magic, and swam off to find the rift. I found it in a different chamber. Before trying to capture it, I stuck my head in to see the plane of water. It was the most beautiful ocean I’ve ever seen, with islands in the distance and amazingly clear water. For posterity, I took a container of the water and a handful of sand. Then, I used magic on the rift which surrounded it and allowed me to control it to a limited degree. While I was towing it back, I swam by Aalari, who was approached by a group of Sahuagin. They said that she had inspired them to revolt against the oppressive caste system and asked her to help them fight for their freedom. Controlling the rift took a great deal of concentration, so I couldn’t stop and listen, but Aalari gathered them around her and tried to stall them. Then my path was blocked by a group of other Sahuagin intent on putting down the revolution. They were large warriors riding massive sharks. Glendower got them out of my way by directing them to the huddle around Aalari and I swam on. I heard the sounds of battle behind me. On the way back to the Aboleth, I was met by one of the mind-controlled hags, which I spoke through to the Aboleth. I asked it to help the revolutionaries, because I felt bad that we had started the battle. I sent the rift ahead towards the Aboleth, which gratefully vanished through it. Glendower went to search the Aboleth’s cave while I turned back to help the revolutionaries, but I was too late, and unfortunately, they had all been killed by their oppressors. We decided we needed to get out of there, so once Bula swiped the hags’ treasure chest, we made a quick retreat. We swam fast for the surface and made it back to the boat and headed for home. Despite the tragic end to the uprising, we felt confident that without the Aboleth’s control, the attacks on the surface would end and thus our mission was complete.