Thennek entry #10

These days, everything starts in Saltmarsh. Which might be fine if I had an observatory, perhaps just outside of town. We’re remote enough I might get a clear view of the sky. Especially from that old house on the cliff we first explored.

In any event, one Albrick sent for our party, The Salted Blades, to his home. A mansion of great wealth, at least in former times. Albrick it seemed, had been a successful merchant with a shipping industry. His ship, the Emperor of the Waves or somesuch, had been reported lost on the South Sea with valuable treasure in the hold. Fifteen days ago, reports came in of a sighting.

Our job was to take our vessel, the Sea Ghost, out to it with a dwarven skeleton crew to helm her back. Failing that, we were to secure a magically locked strongbox in a crate. Inside that, were a number of deeds and letters of debt worth one hundred thousand gold. Initially, he offered a two hundred gold downpayment and ten percent of the worth. He said that was his last coin. I declined the down payment in exchange for double that percentage. He agreed, and shortly after that, his found his pouch empty.

I suspect Mandy the dwarf with a heart of larceny had something to do it by way of her new pet monkey. I’m still not sure how we ended up with Mandy and Candy, the dwarves the dwarves didn’t want in our party. All the while filling the void of Penelope and Vantiss who went off on some side job with the druid we’d met in a pub.

Before we left, Albrick mentioned something about a scholar asking about an Eye. He shuddered when he said it, so I could tell the ‘e’ was capitalized. He mumbled about bad tidings and rushed away, not noticing the eye embroidered on my new half-cape. Probably just as well, but I will need to press him on the topic when we return.

In any event, after a refit from our original capture of her, the Sea Ghost was finally ready. We set sail with our own crew of thirty plus a captain, Oceanus the sea elf we’d rescued, as well as the twelve dwarven sailors meant to crew the Emperor for the return of the lost ship. We set sail and for several days, spent our days learning ship duties or staying out of the way. For instance the artificer took up watch duties on the forecastle, and I availed myself of the excellent view of the night sky from the crow’s nest.

I lacked the tools to measure the movements of the stars, but my practiced eye quickly found the patch of night sky where the absence of stars formed what Lapu first deemed an eye. One might not even notice, it is not large, given its probable distance, but definitely obscures stellar masses whose trajectories intersect. And one set of observations found a star crossed what we expected to be behind it, and never came out the other side.

Tonight, all I could do was gaze and dream about the observatory I might build with my share o the money. As before, inklings of arcane whispers came to mind, and the concepts of a new spell formed. Gossamer threads of light stretched from star to star, like a great web in the sky, and the thought of traversing them as a spider formed into a new spell to climb like one.

Barely had that new understanding come to me did a wet thud distract me. Below, a horde of sahauguin leaped over the rail onto the deck of our ship, slitting the throat of one of the night watch. I shouted out and sent a blistering surge of energy at one of them to minimal effect.

The ship’s bell clanged, and within moments the deck surged with dwarves fighting the boarders. Several of the dwarves fell in the initial surprise. The artificer fired her pistol, killing several. The bard made a good showing with her sword, and a summoned swirl of daggers used against the apparent leaders. One of those leaders was a cleric, and she and I traded blasts, hitting and missing. I’d nearly toppled from my perch had my new cloak not gotten entangled in the ropes and mast.

In equal measure from the rear cabin, the paladin Grixos skewered many sahaugin, and the dwarven sisters Mandy and Candy did their part. After I’d knocked the cleric overboard, Mandy jumped in and charmed her. Which went well until the cleric’s beau jumped in and impaled Mandy on a spear. The paladin dove in without a concern for his own safety and managed to heal Mandy, for I fear she would not have surfaced on her own power.

Shortly after I dispatched the cleric before any more trouble could come from her, the leader called his troops off and as fast as they appeared they were gone. I must write this. I don’t know that I needed to kill the ensorcelled priestess, but something compelled me. The coins, I think.

I fear I am cursed by too many eyes upon me.

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