A few minutes later, with Psycho in the crow’s nest, Dragonwing in hand, Draya, Gromphy, and Snowy huddled in the middle of the ship with Picket and Keyvan. All lanterns had been put out, and the crew remained silent in the dark night. The halfling had his eyes closed again. He still gave occasional direction to Ellanay, but Draya had been told that he was more focused on communing with the fish to detect the pirate ships that would close in on them.
“How far out can his senses reach?” Draya whispered. The thrum of the waves against the hull produced a white noise that would drown out any sound short of an explosion, yet the young woman felt compelled to keep her voice down lest she be the one to alert the pirates to their presence, even though that was precisely what they wanted. “Surely Psycho will see them first.” She could see nothing in the darkness but knew the elf’s eyes were different.
“P’haps,” Picket said, “but Captain said them pirates might have another trick up their sleeve tonight since y’all are with us.”
Draya had heard Jace talk with Gracie and Wallace in the past about how their group's advanced skill often elevated the difficulty of their quests. She remembered that the mission she and Psycho had done to get the Frosthold had been more complex than their player escort had anticipated. He had blamed it on their level. Draya wasn’t aware enough to know what all that meant and tried to think of questions to ask to unravel it.
“So there might be more than three ships this time?”
Picket shrugged his shoulders. Draya looked out on the quiet waters at the tiny islands sliding past, lit by the moon and starlight. Most weren’t large enough to hide a wagon, much less a pirate ship. Several rocks stuck out of the water, passing within yards of the large hull. She trusted the ship’s crew to avoid them but shuddered as she thought they looked like tombstones poking through the waves. With the sun down, the air cooled just above the water, forming swirling curls of mist that skimmed over the waves like ancient spirits.
“Maybe we be seein’ the ghost pirates tonight.”
“What?” Draya said. “Jace promised . . .”
“Maker, have mercy,” Gromphy said, rolling his eyes at his companion’s response.
“I’ve only heard rumors of them, meself, but I know plenty o’ sailors that lost ships to the spirits of the seas. They hide in the mist and pract’ly board you before you see ‘em.”
“I don’t like the undead,” Draya said, fire brimming in her eyes. “I had an unpleasant experience with a lich.”
The pirate backed away from her, fear on his face. “Then they prob’ly just be pirates, as before.”
Standing to their left, Keyvan stiffened and raised his hands. “They comin’,” Picket grinned. “Not ghosts, then.” Draya wanted to ask more, but the man held his hand to silence her. From Psycho’s perch, three short calls pierced the night. Picket nodded. “Three of ‘em then. This will be a fight.”
Serenity had been acting like a merchant ship before, silent and dark, trying to slip through the pirate-infested waters without being seen. However, as the three pirate ships closed in, the jig was up, and the deck exploded into action. They lit lanterns and raised catapults into position from where they had been hidden below the railing before. Serenity’s instant transition from a merchant vessel trying to remain unseen into a warship didn’t deter the advancing pirates, and soon Draya saw them too, just over the horizon, bearing down on their location like sharks. They moved at a speed that conflicted with the still night air, and she realized they each must have a mage or druid aboard.
Ellanay had little flexibility in the course she could take, with shallow rocks rising around her, but with the Keyvan’s help, she found a path that minimized the pirates' ability to flank them completely. The attackers used smaller ships with less draw and weren’t as restricted by the shallow water. Still, they had to avoid the rocks protruding from the surface. Draya watched as two of the advancing vessels nearly crashed into each other as one had to veer more directly toward the nimble Serenity and avoid an underwater reef.
Long before Draya could discern individual figures scrambling around approaching ships, she heard the repeating twang of a bow from above. She glanced up to see Psycho letting fly with arrow after arrow, aiming toward the pair of ships. She didn’t know how he could see what he aimed at, but cries of pain carried over the water. Draya turned her eyes toward the other elf on board and saw Ellanay glance between the lofted archer and the distant targets with a look of wonder on her face.
“Atta boy, Psycho,” Draya muttered. “She’ll be butter in your hands after this.”
“Picket!” Renald shouted. “Organize the catapults against the lone attacker.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” The bearded man leaped into action, moving NPCs around to coordinate their own assault.
“I smash and bash!”
The captain shook his head at the eager dwarf. “Not yet, Bash. In a few moments. Help Picket.” He turned to Jace’s crew. “Goblin crafter, uh, Gromphy,” the captain stuttered. “You have something that will disable that ship without making it look destroyed?”
“I shall endeavor to provide aid to that end,” he replied, ejecting his chest from his inventory and getting to work.
“Is that a ‘yes?’” Renald asked Draya.
“I think so,” she answered. “What do you need me to do?”
“Cloudspark’s ship usually comes from that direction,” the captain said, pointing ahead between two distant mountainous islands. “If you are going to make it look like we are losing, that is who you will need to convince.”
Draya moved more toward the front of the ship, climbing the forecastle and peering out into the misty night. So far, nothing had moved on the horizon, and she turned to watch the battle unfold around her to understand better how to create a convincing illusion.
Arrows cut into the water in a shrinking arch around the ship, fired by attackers who thought if Psycho could make the shot, they could too. They were wrong, as most shafts didn’t come within 100 feet of Serenity. Draya still couldn’t see Psycho’s targets, but she imagined the chaos on those ships as pirate after pirate fell dead with an arrow through their head.
While the attackers were still out of range with their bows, their catapults could make the shot. Three flaming balls of pitch hissed into the water around the ship before the fourth one found its mark. However, Keyvan was ready, and a whale surfaced briefly beside the boat to eject a plume of water into the air, extinguishing the projectile before it touched the ship. The heavy ball still hit hard, shattering through two barrels and sending the crew retreating.
Gromphy worked diligently amidst the chaos and wasn’t roused from his activity until the second ball of extinguished pitch exploded into the quarter-deck ten feet away, spraying him with hot tar. He cursed in goblin, put down what he was doing, and stepped more toward the ship's center to cast a protective spell. A glowing orb expanded from his position and soon covered most of the middle, the fore and aft still exposed.
The next ball came in a few seconds later, and the druid wasn’t ready with another whale spout to extinguish it. It didn’t matter as it splattered against Gromphy’s shield like a rotten egg on a window. Flame spread from the explosion, riding the dome’s curve and touching against the sails that stuck above the spherical barrier. The crew cheered at first and then scrambled into a bucket brigade to douse the flames. Draya locked the image of burning sails into her memory and then turned to the ship's far side.
Gromphy finished his previous preparations and delivered large white stones to the catapult crew. The peculiar ammunition steamed into cool air, and Draya discerned it was cold, not hot, as the mist soon mingled with the clouds that already covered the water.
The ship on that side of Serenity was just getting in range, and its third pitch ball splattered against Gromphy’s shield and slid into the water. The Serenity crew needed thick gloves to handle the crafter’s bitterly cold creations and soon had them loaded and fired. Picket was a better shot than the attackers, and under his guidance, they didn’t need to miss twice to zero in on their target. Draya saw the white projectiles burst onto the deck of the distant ship into intense pockets of snow. A blizzard engulfed the vessel briefly before whatever mage was on board could blow it back into the sea.
At first, it looked like the attack had only proved to be an annoyance, but the next pitch ball they sent wasn’t on fire, and the ship was suddenly angled in the wrong direction, turning directly toward Serenity so its catapults didn’t have an angle to fire. Draya saw its sails frozen solid, unable to catch the wind as before, with its rudder coated in ice and stuck in the wrong direction. A second later, the ship hit a massive rock (no, an iceberg!) and threw half a dozen people overboard.
“There he is.”
Renald’s voice pulled her away from the battle, and Draya looked forward to see a massive ship, easily fifty percent bigger than Serenity, emerge from the gap between the distant islands and bear down on their location.
“If you are going to do something, do it quickly,” Renald says. “They have magical spy glasses. If he gets any closer, he will see what is happening and turn to run. We can’t catch him.”
Cloudspark was still almost a half mile away, and Draya couldn’t make out any features of the ship other than its size. Still, she trusted the captain and got to work. After wisely stepping back into the safety of Gromphy’s protective shield, she entered her inventory and began forming the spell she needed. This would be the biggest illusion she had ever cast. She would need her entire mana pool for this. Draya filled her mind with images of the flaming sails and men falling overboard. She had seen enough arrow victims in her brief life to add a few. A gaping hole in the ship's side wouldn’t hurt, and having just seen one of the attacking vessels list hard to one side after hitting the iceberg, she added a tilt to Serenity as well.
Satisfied with what she had built, Draya released the spell and almost fainted from the exertion. She caught herself on a railing and fell to one knee. Shaking the cobwebs from her head, she began to pull herself up, hoping the illusion had worked. Her feedback couldn’t have been more instant.
“Oh, no!” Renald cried out. “My ship is on fire!”
Draya rolled her eyes at the captain’s stupidity and started to call out to him not to worry. However, she paused and let him go. She had designed plenty of damage and carnage into the illusion but neglected to add characters reacting to it. If Cloudspark saw the fire and dead bodies littering the ship but no one racing around in response, he might grow suspicious. Instead, the Serenity crew splashed water on imaginary flames and tried to haul away phantom bodies littered with arrows.
A check on the approaching ship showed that the massive vessel had not deviated from its intercept course. If anything, it appeared to be gaining speed, likely trying to arrive before the beleaguered craft sank. Draya examined the other three ships and saw them all in mostly working order. The pair of ships approaching from starboard no longer fired flaming attacks, likely because they didn’t have sufficient crew left after Psycho had annihilated them. However, if the pirates aimed to take this ship in one piece, it would make sense for them to refrain from further attack with the Serenity already engulfed in flames.
The lone ship from the other direction had thawed its rudder and limped toward them. It also didn’t attack anymore, likely because the snow had extinguished all their fire. However, one could assume the same logic as before, and Draya hoped the inactivity wouldn’t raise alarm.
Motion from beside her startled Draya, and she jumped as Psycho landed on the deck, having swung down from the crow’s nest on a rope. “I know the flames aren’t real,” he said, “but I still can’t concentrate on what I’m doing.”
Draya looked back up at where he had been and saw the imaginary fire burning out of control just below the crow’s nest. The ranger would have been roasted alive if the flames were real. Captain Malcolm also realized the illusion had fooled him, as the peculiar fires were impervious to his bucket brigade.
“Is any of it real?” he asked, unwilling to completely abandon the extinguishing efforts.
“I don’t think so,” Draya replied. “Your ship is in perfect working order.”
“And the attackers?” he asked.
“I left a skeleton crew,” Psycho replied.
“Aha, argh!” Picket cried in celebration, approaching the group at the front of the ship. “So they indeed be a fleet of ghost pirates!”
“Don’t start,” Darya said, incapable of resisting the shudder that went through her at the thought.
“I smash and bash!”
“Not yet!” Renald said, not bothering to turn to address the dwarf.
“But soon?” Psycho asked, his bow out with an arrow trained on Voltspear, approaching quickly.
“I don’t know,” Renald said. “The last time Cloudspark got this close, it was because my ship was actually on fire and sinking. I wasn’t here when he boarded. A level 25 mage might have a death spell to wipe us all out first.”
“Aha, argh! Then we be the ghost pirates!”
“Shut up, will you,” Draya scolded.
“He wouldn’t turn tale and run if he could do that,” Psycho said, ignoring the antagonistic pair.
“True,” Renald admitted. “I know a few players who’ve attempted this module and stayed to fight. They all died and weren’t forthcoming with information as to tactics. We can’t give anyone else an advantage, can we?”
Psycho sighed, happy he was joined to Jace, who didn’t care about such petty issues. He let the frustration go and looked to his left and right. The other ships still drew near, but it was more of a listless approach than a determined flank. They should be swinging alongside Serenity to keep her from maneuvering while Cloudspark closed in. Instead, they drifted straight at them and not accurately. If they kept their current trajectory, the three ships would miss their target and crash into each other in Serenity’s wake.
“Can you see the mage?” Renald asked. “Can you take the shot?”
“I can see him,” Psycho confirmed. “He has a spyglass and doesn’t look happy.”
“Take the shot,” Draya said.
Psycho shook his head. “It’s almost a thousand feet. I can hit him, but I won’t kill him, and then he will know something is up.”
Renald looked from port to starboard, realizing how unconvincing the lifeless pirate ships looked around them. “He’s going to figure that out anyway.”
As if on cue, the massive ship before them made a sharp turn to starboard. As big as it was, the vessel took its time, and as Renald screamed at his crew to stop Serenity’s meager coasting and go full power ahead, Psycho drew tension on his bow. Cloudspark stood at the front of his ship, and in a few seconds, when the massive vessel completed its turn, the ranger wouldn’t have a shot. They got within 800 feet before the angle closed and Psycho fired. The distance was so great that it took a full round for the arrow to complete the flight, and when it did, a shimmering oval enveloped the mage, and Psycho’s arrow deflected into the water.
The archer cursed. “He erected Piercing Immunity. I missed.”
“Then shoot the rest of the crew,” Draya said.
“It’s not that simple. To shoot that far, I must spend two rounds on each shot.” Already, the ship was mostly turned around, presenting the broad rear end of the vessel. They couldn’t see any crew.
“How fast can we go?” Draya asked. “Can we catch them?”
“I’ve never been able to before,” Renald said, “but we can try.”
“Thy ship is indeed lethargic,” Gromphy confirmed. “Wilt thou allowest me to enhance thy vessel?”
The captain shrugged his shoulders and looked at Draya. “Translation?”
“He wants permission to make your ship go faster,” she said.
“Yes, please, by all means, go, do it, do your thing.”
“I smash and bash!”
“No, not you!”
Gromphy ignored the chaos and got to work. He stopped first at the mainsail, pulled oil, copper, and silk from his trunk, cast a spell, and drew a circle around the thick mast. The wooden pillar grew and straightened, extending another ten feet into the air, and the area of its top sail grew by fifty percent. The ship shuddered under the weight and extra leverage.
“What just happened?” Ellanay cried. The paladin struggled with the wheel as the ship wanted to lurch from side to side.
Gromphy wasn’t done and dripped liquid silver down the ship's hull, casting more spells as he did. Instantly, Serenity straightened as her breadth swelled to give the vessel a more stable purchase in the water. The goblin worked between each of the masts, fortified the rudder, and even disappeared into the hold to make adjustments.
As he scrambled about, a few remaining pirate archers from the approaching ships took potshots at him. They weren’t as accurate as Psycho, and as the arrows thudded into the decking, missing the sprinting goblin by several feet. Draya responded with her dragon staff. Each ship only took one fireball, and they were soon floating funeral pyres. “Take that, ghost pirates,” she said and rejoined the rest of the crew at Serenity’s prow.
After each improvement Gromphy made, the ship lurched forward. When he finished, Psycho, Draya, and Renald were nearly blown off the forecastle by the wind whipping past them.
It was usually impossible for a sailing ship to create a headwind, as they were supposed to work with the air currents, not against them. However, usually, those ships didn’t have a broken level 20 crafter on board. Gromphy had enchanted the bowsprit and added a flying jib that shielded the sails from the wind. They only caught the magical breeze Keyvan produced. And, after the halfling drank a potion Gromphy gave him, the druid threw a hurricane at the masts.
The distance to Voltspear decreased.
“Amazing,” Renald said, holding on to his hat as he watched the goblin race around his ship and turn it into the fastest water-going vessel in all the realms. “I was looking forward to upgrading by trading for Voltspear, but I’d be a fool to get rid of this now.”
Psycho didn’t listen and stayed focused on the ship before them. He still couldn’t see anything besides the vessel’s massive rear end. The archer had put a few flaming arrows into the back, but the fire had died almost instantly. He figured it was enchanted with a protection spell. Plus, he had to use his less accurate elemental bow to make those shots, as he didn’t have the mana to fill the arrows with magic. An idea struck him, and he changed back to Dragonwing. “Draya,” he said, holding out one of his fire arrows. “Do you mind filling this with something more potent?”
“Gladly,” she said, drenching the arrow with dragon fire and then handing it back to the archer. The shot was now under 700 feet, almost in range of one of Draya’s fireballs, but they still wanted this ship in one piece. The arrow thunked into Voltspear’s backside, and the fire did not die off this time, slowly spreading over the wood. After another three arrows, the rear was engulfed and lost considerable speed as the navigator had to abandon the back deck, and the ship bounced off unseen rocks below the surface.
A priest must have finally responded to the trouble as the flames eventually died, and further attacks did not yield the same result. Still, the damage was done. The cables tying the rudder to the wheel were gone, and the rear hung into the water, adding considerable drag.
“Pull alongside him!” Psycho called back to Ellanay, and the pilot responded, angling the speedy ship to starboard until Psycho once again had a clear view of the prow where Cloudspark stood. With the Piercing Immunity in place, the mage couldn’t move, but he could still cast spells, and Psycho didn’t like what he saw.
The pirate captain finished waving his hands, and a massive storm inserted itself between the two ships. The starry canopy above disappeared, replaced by angry black clouds filled with lightning. Gromphy’s enchantments allowed Serenity to cut through the wind and rain without problem, but the passengers needed to hold on for dear life. Even without the Piercing Immunity surrounding the distant mage, Psycho could barely see through the wind and rain and couldn’t attain stable enough footing to remain motionless for the necessary two rounds to take the shot.
“Gromphy!” the elf screamed in the wind. “Can you do anything about this?” The ranger kept his eyes forward on their target, but when he didn’t hear a response, he turned to find the goblin. Gromphy was hanging on for dear life, his small fingers gripping a taut line, his body flapping behind him in the wind like a flag. Somehow, his top hat stayed on. Whether or not the crafter heard Psycho’s call, he didn’t reply, and the elf knew not to press it.
He turned instead to the captain, who fared little better, gripping the railing with white knuckles, his hat gone. “We need shelter from this storm. What can you do?” Lightning flashed at the ship, and the copper-enchanted masts guided the electricity safely into the water and away from the valuable sails. Serenity didn’t slow, as Gromphy’s spells kept the ship together for now. That wouldn’t last forever. “Surely you have a way to combat weather.”
“Keyvan can give you a pocket of calm,” Renald shouted above the wind. “But not while he is simultaneously pushing the ship.”
Psycho looked back at the halfling, his eyes still half-closed, pumping spells into the taut sails. While everyone around him fought against the elements, he stood calmly, not even his curly hair affected by the wind. The ranger returned to their target and saw Voltspear pulling away from them, already near his range’s limit again. While the storm beat them down, it pushed the enemy ahead. It didn’t matter if Serenity held together. They would lose their prey if they didn’t do something fast.
“I need him up here,” Psycho said, returning to Renald. “The ship will have to coast forward without him.”
The captain nodded and raced to the quarterdeck, his movement aided by the wind. Psycho took the opportunity to rescue Gromphy, gripping the goblin by his coat lapels and wrenching him off the rope. The ranger had him sheltered behind a wall when Keyvan arrived. The halfling knew his job and, saying nothing, erected a sphere of calm in the raging storm. Instantly, Psycho’s cloak and hair fell straight to his side again. Draya’s dress was tighter, so she hadn’t fought against her clothes as much, but the gale had tangled her hair into knots, and she desperately combed at it with her fingers.
Psycho entered the quiver built into his cloak and pulled one of the level 15 arrows Gromphy had made for their last adventure. He treasured them above all his other arrows but knew this desperate shot would require the best. He knelt before the crafter, still huddled in the concave shelter at the front of the ship. “I need to penetrate a level 25 Piercing Immunity spell,” Psycho said, holding the arrow out to the crafter. “What can you do?”
Gromphy nodded silently, used his cane to stand up, straightened his hat, and dusted himself off. He took the arrow from Psycho and rolled his eyes back in his head. His massive trunk was beside him shortly, and after rummaging through it, he turned to Psycho. “Level 25, Mage, Piercing Immunity, Death Shot?”
Psycho nodded. “Death Shot would be great, but I really just need to end the spell. I can kill him with the second shot.”
Gromphy sighed and continued digging through his trunk. “Thou knowest ‘tis called IMMUNITY for a reason.”
“I know,” Psycho said. “I hoped you might have a way to. . .”
“Say no more,” Gromphy cut him off. He emerged a few moments later with a collection of crystals, two potions, a scroll, and a live sparrow.
“What . . .” Draya asked, stepping away from the goblin, fearful of what might happen to the bird. “How many animals do you have in there?”
The crafter glanced at her. “For the wind,” he said. He returned to the collection of ingredients, took a deep breath, and then looked up at Psycho. “Promise thou wilt catch me.”
“Catch you?” the elf asked.
Gromphy didn’t clarify. Instead, he drank one of the potions, poured the other over the bird, and gathered energy for six seconds. After a flash that could have been lightning striking the ship, the ingredients vanished in an explosion of blues, yellows, and a few feathers. Only the arrow remained, held loosely in the goblin’s still hands. His eyes were blank as he teetered forward, allowing the arrow to roll off his fingers to the deck, and then he rocked back on his heels, falling past the point of no return.
Psycho remembered Gromphy’s last request and deftly knelt beside the unconscious crafter to catch him before his head hit the wood. Heat rolled off the goblin’s limp body, sparks leaping between his splayed fingers. Draya crouched beside the pair as well, and the elf let the woman’s gentle hands take over as she rested the crafter’s head in her lap so Psycho could fetch the arrow.
The archer turned to see Keyvan lifting it off the deck. The halfling’s mouth was open in shock as his magical skills read the spell cast on the projectile. “A god in goblin form.”
“Perhaps,” Psycho said, reaching his hand toward the druid. “But I need it now. Our prey is getting away.”
The halfling handed the arrow to the elf and stood back. Already, the ship had 800 feet on Serenity, pulling further away each second. Power radiated from the arrow as Psycho pulled Dragonwing’s string back to his ear. He needed to wait for a full round to aim and then let go. All eyes followed the arrow as it sliced through the wind and rain, streaking like the lighting that flashed around it.
In the distance, Psycho could barely see the expression on the mage’s face as the arrow homed in on him. Because of his protection spell, he couldn’t move, so instead, Cloudspark looked on with confidence, thinking he would easily make the saving throw.
He thought wrong.
The immunity spell disappeared, and the arrow split the mage’s skull clean in two, striking with such force that it lifted him from the deck and tossed him into the churning sea. The violent storm between the two ships vanished as if it had never been there, and all the characters on Serenity, not in Keyvan’s tiny bubble of calm, lurched against the suddenly absent wind they had been fighting. The storm’s disappearance created a momentary energy vacuum that sucked the ship forward and had the opposite result on Voltspear, reducing its speed to almost nothing.
Psycho looked at his bow in awe and then down at Gromphy. There was no way that should have had enough power to dispel the immunity and kill the mage so dramatically. He hadn’t been that successful against the level 15 shamans at Stormhold. Cloudspark must have rolled a one.
Keyvan also stood in shock, and Renald had to tell him twice to resume his post at the base of the mainsail. The halfling scrambled into position, and the chase resumed. Within a few rounds, Serenity closed over half the distance, a few hundred feet, and the crew readied for an attack. Psycho didn’t have the best angle to pick off enemy sailors, and the pirates were smart enough to take cover from the deadly archer. Still, by switching to his elemental bow, he peppered the ship with lightning and acid, softening it for the inevitable boarding party.
