Before we set out for our voyage to “The Purple Rocks”, we spend our morning eating breakfast and drinking. Sage doesn’t seem like he has the time for relaxation as he has been staring at his newly found daggers since before I got up this morning. While he is minding his business, the server walks up to me and slides me another heavy stout. Again, not wanting to weigh myself down with this dark drink, I turn to slide it to Gauthak. He is already staring at me with an empty mug, waiting patiently.

The group of us walk outside and are immediately blinded by the sunrise shining off of all of the surrounding snow. We barely have time for our eyes to focus before Elro appears before us, as if he has been waiting the whole time. He starts thanking us again and tells us about the ship that he chartered for us. He chatters on for quite a while and tells us about the outpost of Vilkstead, which is on “The Purple Rocks” largest island of “Utherall”. Orvo Mustave will be waiting for us there and he will escort us to where we are headed. There is a magic chest that can transport the cure back without having to take the long trip back. Seems like a great system, I only hope that “The Fated Few” will be able to handle this job.

We decide at the last minute that we want to head to the small general store to see if there is anything worth buying before our long trip. I spend some time in the air on the way to “Bits and Bobs”, watching as the others are slowly walking towards the shop. I take in the cold air and use this opportunity to continue waking up in silence.

I arrive at the shop and after speaking with the shop owners, I find nothing worth my time (or money) and walk out the front door to perch on the roof and continue watching the sunrise. The others take too much time, in my opinion. It was almost like listening to children Aarokocra at a fish hatchery. I chuckle to myself at my clever thought.

We head down to the bluffs and see the small dock with several smaller boats. A larger boat sits to the side. There are oars lining both sides, and it looks like its a faster ship for local trading. Out past the dock, deeper into the water, there is a massive ship, the “Remorahz”. The others hop on a small row boat that glides up to us. I jump and take a short flight over to the deck.

We are immediately met by the snarky captain who seems to have an interest in making comments to me. I am not too pleased by his remarks, but I don’t show it yet. Not quite sure I like him too much.

He starts telling us about all of the jobs on the ship, and how we can help out. I don’t particularly like this as I was expecting a leisurely trip, but if it is necessary, I guess I can put some time in.

Day 1

We start communicating with those around us and figure out who is doing what. I figure that since I like being up in the sky, I would take lookout. Within seconds, I regret this decision as the crew mate at the top is a talkative creature. He only talks about himself and all that he has seen. Something about krakens and being the only survivor. Out of everyone I have met so far on this boat, he seems the least likely to survive such a daring tale. I slowly lift my wings up to block the sound, and his words become muffled gibberish as I look out over the see.

My concentration (or maybe lack of) is interrupted by a coughing noise. I look over the edge of the mast at the exact moment that Gauthak runs to the railing and empties his ale into the ocean. I accidentally chirp in laughter, but am quick to keep everything else internal. This is going to be a long trip. Gauthak turns and toddles towards the lower deck. I suspect we won’t see much of him the next several days.

Another several hours of (almost) bliss pass. My lookout partner won’t stop talking, but I have grown accustom to tuning out his voice. Over the sound of the wind, I hear frantic yelling. In a small panic, I look over the edge again, and see a blazing fire. The cook and Sage come running out of the kitchen with smoke billowing into the sky. On the other side of the ship, the captain is yelling orders and in order to help, I fly to the opposite side and yell the same instructions. Unsurprisingly, the dwarves running around are so full of themselves that they decide they don’t want to listen to my words, and the fire continues to rage.

After several painstaking hours, the fire is extinguished and the condition of the ship is revealed. The hull, helm and our weapons have taken damage. What a start to this trip. I hear some murmurings that we lost two of the crewmen. I am not surprised, because they looked as if they had never acted under any type of pressure before this. A couple of the men take some time to mourn those that were lost, but the majority of them get immediately back to work, almost as if they didn’t know those that are no longer with us.

Through all of this, we still managed to sail roughly 120 miles. We are that much closer to our destination, but with the events of today, I do not have expectations that this trip will go by quickly. All I can do is stay alert, and watch out for myself (and maybe the other 4).

Finally, the first day of this trip is over. The others head down to the lower decks to fall asleep in the stomach churning hammocks. I decide I want to stay out on the masts above. It’s nice and cool up here. I watch as the sun sets slowly over the horizon and when the waves go from a soft orange glow to a dark blue tone, I drift off to sleep.

Day 2

When we all wake up on the second day, we are passed out small portions of food. I look around and a lot of the men are becoming unhappy. I guess the fishermen didn’t get quite enough the day before to feed us. I throw my food back pretty quickly and volunteer to help with some of the ship repair. I figure since I can fly around, I might be able to help reach some parts of the ship that might not be easy for others.

I was able to help out with the helm of the ship. The dwarf and I were able to restore it a little bit with some miscellaneous parts we found on the ship. It will have to do for now. I see that the entire ship seems to have a rhythm to it. Erky is running around and healing those that were burned in the fire from yesterday. Gauthak is handing out mugs of his ale that he brewed while hiding in the lower part of the ship. The morale of the crew seems to increase as time goes on, and we get back on track with our trip. I think we are all doing fairly well.

We are able to make it another 120 miles, totaling our trip to 240 miles. The second day is coming to an end as I find a comfortable spot high above the ship and fall steadily to sleep.

Day 3

The days are starting to feel repetitive. I believe that I have been helpful in repairing the ship so I go and meet the Buson for further maintenance. We are able to take the repairs of the helm a little farther. Sadly not as much as we did the day before though, because we are beginning to run low on material.

In the hustle and bustle of the day, I hear another scream. I immediately take a whiff of the air to see if I can smell some more smoke. In a slight state of panic, I turn and see Grey flinging his hand around with a fish attached to the end of it. Again, I laugh to myself and slightly hope for his sake that they were not his bow string fingers. We could use those in the future. I guess being a woodland elf doesn’t help when you are out on the ocean. I chuckle again to myself for being so clever. Sometimes even I wish I had someone to share these thoughts with.

Fighting through all of the pain, Grey and the other fisherman were able to catch quite a bit of fish for the whole crew. We all made our way to the kitchen, obtained our meal for the day, and a without warning, a loud clang interrupts our break.

I watch as our captain runs as fast as he can to the edge of the ship. As soon as he peers over, 3 humanoid, green figures leap out of the water and land onto the deck. Chaos overwhelms the ship as dwarves and humans scatter, leaving the five us in our place. We take our stances, draw our weapons and prepare to fight.

These creatures, Sahuagin, are tall and covered in shell armor. They have spiked fins and long tridents. I do not know what might have triggered this attack, other than possibly sailing into their territory, but they do not look as if they want to have a conversation.

Without hesitation, Sage shoots a fireball from his gun and misses. Thankfully, the fireball missed the boat and lands in the ocean. The Sahuagin is angered and in the process of its attack, Gauthak runs at it with his great-sword drawn. In his state of sea-sickness, he swings and completely misses this creature causing even more anger, and bringing forth a mighty growl that I have never heard before.

In anger, it charges at Gauthak and takes a swing with his claws, but because of his thick skin, the nails basically bounce off of his flesh and allows him to prepare for the follow up bite. It seems to me that even though these creatures are from underwater, they do not do well on ships either, and he misses Gauthak and leaves him unharmed.

I look to my left and see one of these animals staring at me. I fly quickly and directly at him, flipping in the air as I pass him and I send my shortsword swinging down his shoulder and chest, ripping him open. He screams in pain as I land behind him on the railing of the ship, remove my off-hand dagger from its sheath, and sink it into his back. I twist it quickly, and remove it quicker, slinging sahuagin blood all over the slatted wood. Somehow this disgusting creature is still standing.

I look up to check the status of the others and Erky begins yelling and sends a flash of light towards the sahuagin at the rear of the ship. He completely misses and burns a small black hole into the wood. Without a moments notice, a giant spectral hammer appears above him as he mumbles again. It’s massive and hovering in the air. He moves his arms a little bit and the hammer comes smashing down on this sahuagin. The whole ship shakes as the creature is completely stunned. What an unbelievable sight. This dwarf continues to surprise all of us, including me.

The fighting continues as Grey sends an arrow into the first one, and suddenly, spectral sharks appear and swarm around it, causing him to scream in pain. It is also slightly wounded.

One of the ocean creatures lifts his hand out over the water, and a gigantic shark flies over the deck and snatches one of the dwarves in its mouth. There is a faint scream as the shark disappears over the other side of the ship, and we know that we will never see the dwarf again. There is a brief moment of silence and disbelief over the entire ship as everyone questions what they just saw. This moment is quickly disrupted by Erky, screaming in pain. A sahuagin is standing above him, with his trident pierced into his chest, directly between his armor.

I try to focus on Erky to see if there is some way to help, but the disgusting animal in front of me turns and tries to bite. It misses. He stabs at me with his trident, but because of the damage done, he is too weak to inflict pain and I quickly dodge his attacks.

As I jump, I hear Sage’s gun fire and then see blood and skin flying off the face of the third creature. This is followed by a beautiful dagger throw that lands directly inside the same wound, pushing his entire head (and body) up and over the railing, and into the ocean where it belongs.

Gauthak, overwhelmed by the thrill of the fight, screams in enjoyment, laughs and then runs at the closest enemy. He swings his great-sword again. Misses. Weighed down by too much ale and vomit.

In the moment of my trident dodge, I bring my short-sword back around and send it into my enemy’s chest. I lift him over my head and throw him back to where he came from, and to where he never should have left.

In my moment of relief after destroying my enemy, I look back at Erky as he puts his hand into the chest of the creature standing over him. It appears as if he has completely removed the life from it. It just dies, as if it had 100 years of decay in one single moment.

With that, in a matter of seconds, all of them are gone, never to be seen again. We are down one more crew mate, and everyone takes the time to regain composure. I clean the blood off of my weapons and shake off my feathers.

The third day is complete, and we have traveled another 120 miles, for a total distance of 360 miles. Roughly a third of the way there.

Day 4

In the morning, while we are all eating our breakfast, Sage walks over to me as if he is going to tell me a secret. He tells me that he didn’t quite like being up high during our intense interaction with the sea creatures yesterday, and asked if I would be willing to trade responsibilities with him. Of course I would. I don’t quite like being down here with all of these greasy dwarves. He didn’t realize that I was going to ask him the same thing. I am glad he broke before I did.

We begin our work for the day and are able to maintain the speed and pace that captain set. I hear from some gossip that we did not catch any fish today, but that the elf had caught a gigantic sea turtle, providing 5 days worth of meat for the crew. Go figure.

While manning my post, I look over the horizon and off in the distance I see something floating in the water. It looks like debris. Broken boards. Barrels. Crates. Parts of a mast. Sails. Was this a battle? There was no way to know, but judging by the amount of ice that covered everything, it had been there for a while.

After several more hours, I see something else on the horizon. This time I am more unsure and fearful as we have been running out of luck recently.

The mast of another ship, piercing the sky, is coming towards us. This boat dwarfs our ship. It is completely black, with gold embellishments painted along the side. It’s extremely menacing and frightening. I mention it to my fellow crew mate and he stairs at it in amazement. He says “That is the ‘Furious Kraken’, it’s a warship!” He then proceeds to call down to the captain to make him aware.

The captain uses the entire next few minutes to prepare for a meeting with the warships captain. He boards a small rowboat, as does the captain of the “Furious Kraken” and they meet in the waters between. There is some conversation, some pointing, and finally a hand shake. The rest of us watch in eagerness as we are unsure of the outcome.

Our captain slowly returns and gives us the all clear. It turns out, this large ship is patrolling the water for pirates. They allow us to pass, thankfully. I would not want to be on their bad side. We were out weaponed and outsized in every aspect.

With a calm outcome to the fourth day, we lay down the rest, making it another 120 miles. We will make our way to “The Purple Rocks”, slowly but surely.

After the first night in this frigid place, the five of us walk downstairs into the tavern of the Inn. It’s loud in here…dwarves, elves and a family here and there. We sat down and they serve us plates of meat for breakfast. They also bring us these cups of some sort of dark stout. Just the look of it made me feel heavy, so I slide my mug down to Gauthak, who I know is always ready for any type of ale. Thankfully, no words were required as Gauthak threw my mug back and saved me the trouble.

While I am eating, I hear Sage and Erky talking about one of the books they found. I glanced and noticed it looked like it was made of some sort of dragon skin. Erky seems really interested in this book, so much that he begins to mumble to himself. Dwarves are always up to something strange.

As we finish breakfast, I hear Erky telling Sage that he wants to check him over and make sure he is okay. Yesterday, Sage put his hands directly on the dagger that Tulgi gave us. I don’t know why in the material plane he would have thought that was a good idea, but he did. I guess it stuck out enough to Erky, that he became worried about him. I have been avoiding close contact with the others for now. Turning to ice doesn’t sound like something I want to experience. I chuckle to myself and click my beak as I know that none of the others would allow me to “check over them”. I don’t believe I have given them much reason to trust me that much yet.

As the others stay inside, I decide I need to get some air. For the first time since we arrived in the town of Aurilssbarg, I walk outside and decide to take flight. As I spread my wings out, there is a calm feeling in the snow. There isn’t much sound. It’s bright. I flap my wings towards the ground and leap into the air. As I look down, I see what looks like a crater in the snow from where I took off, surrounded by a cloud. I look up towards the sky and begin to feel rejuvenated. The wind is crisp and fresh and I realize that I am enjoying the feeling of it so much that my mind begins to forget where I am. I spend a little while up in the air and begin to understand that although it feels great now, if I were too high, or if the weather turned for the worse, It would be too dangerous for me.

After those few peaceful moments in the sky, I look down and see my crew walking towards, what the locals call, “Pelcs Curiosities”. I take my time, but eventually meet them at the entrance of the building. This building looks like it’s frequently used, but at the same time, it is looking slightly abandoned. There is a really intricate illustration of a dragon forming the “P” in “Pelcs” on the sign above the door. A little cliche in my opinion. The shutters on the building are all closed, and there are no lights on inside. The five of us notice the door slightly ajar at the same time and we all are suddenly on guard. While Grey draws his bow, the others crouch and begin to be more intentional about their movements. Except Gauthak, he stands there like a wall, like he always does.

I decide I would rather have a wider view, so I take flight and circle the building. I want to see if there are more windows, or possibly an exit. I do notice some footprints in the snow that come from the north and wrap around the south side of the building to the ajar front door. There is also a rear door, locked of course. 

I am not quite sure what the others are doing, but I take a look at the back door to see if I can get through. I very quickly and skillfully unlock the door and walk in. While my eyes adjust, It takes a moment for me to understand what I am looking at. The room is completely dark, I can see the faint outline of what looks like an elf, bundled beneath blankets. He is sitting next to a long extinguished fire, and I see several cups and mugs right next to him on the floor. As I get closer, I come to the sudden realization that this is Pelc, frozen like a statue, and dead from the same sickness that the others have. Without thinking, I walk backwards out the door and quickly circle the building to be with the others.

As I turn the corner of the building and the others come into view, I hear mumbling form inside and the quick sound of an arrow slicing through the air and hitting the wall next to Grey. Knowing that no one from inside has seen me, I throw my wings at the ground, take a quick flight, and land on the roof. From above, I hear a lot more commotion and know that there are now two exits from this building. One towards the others, and one out the back. I quickly toss 20 or so caltrops at the base of the back door to slow anyone down who tries to exit.

Grey looks like he is ready to fight, Gauthak is always ready to fight. I realize that I can see down the chimney and pull out a flask of alchemist fire. I decide that I can distract the intruders while the others follow in and attack. But, for some reason, Erky decides he wants to try to talk to these creatures. He uses one of his magic spells to increase the sound of his voice and those inside surrender without a second thought. After a few minutes of muffled talking, the elves from inside decide that they will work with us and take us back to Hullil, Tulgi’s sister.

As the elves slowly march out of the building, the five of us walk up to follow them. They turn and give us an odd look as they have never seen a group like us. We let them judge and have their thoughts as they don’t mean much to us.

As we walk towards the north, the bandits start telling us about themselves, and that they work for Hullil. They tell us their groups name, it’s slightly forgettable. They tell us that Hullil is very sick with the blue icy vein ailment that took some of the others. They also continue to talk a lot about where they live. They call it “Croaker Cave”. I guess it’s a fitting name, because as soon as we walked in the entrance of the cave, there were three giant ice frogs sitting in the pool of water in front of us.

As we slowly walk past these giant frogs (all of us still remembering the incident in the sunless citadel with Grey) we begin to see more and more elves, and more and more frogs. The elves are throwing dead bats in the air for the frogs, and as they snatch them, we realize that the elves are training the frogs. What an odd thing to see.

“Hold a moment, I’ll call our ferry” says one of the elves. He throws a dead bat into the air and the largest frog we have ever seen jumps up out of the water and eats it. It lands, very heavily right next to us. As we look up at this massive creature, we see the tall cold spikes on its back and its humongous pads. It slowly makes his way over to us and sits down. All the bandits, without hesitation, climb on the frogs back, and the rest of us follow. This frog slowly ferries all of us across this pond to a cavern within a cavern. As we turn the corner, we begin to see the flicker of a glowing fire. Two silhouettes form and within seconds, we recognize one elf with a tattoo of a dragon on his face, and one dwarf. Probably Hullil.

The elf and the dwarf turn towards us and the bandits that we traveled with walk to the walls and stand still, as if statues. Posting guard maybe? I stay by the pond while the others walk in the cavern. I am still a little concerned about this unknown sickness.

Over the next (what seems like several) hours, Hullil converses with Erky and Sage. She talks about her sister and Pelc. They talk about the items she took from Tulgi, and finally the “Purple Rocks”. It seems like we are getting somewhere. Although I am concerned about getting this mysterious ailment, I am finding myself urging to get to these “Purple Rocks”. I truly believe that if I am patient, I might be able to put myself in a place to bring home many items of value.

We eventually leave the cavern with the intent of going to the “Purple Rocks”. One of my crew mentions that this place is close to 1000 miles across the ocean. Now…I have spent time with all of them in the depths of a dungeon, but being on a ship with them for an extended amount of time seems almost unbearable.

When we get back to the town, the warden finds us and asks us if we have discovered anything. We tell him all that we know, without revealing too much. We mention the sickness coming from the blue powder on the items, and the warden seems to be relieved, but also discouraged. He tells us that he suspected as much and then informs us that the Ascarlians, from the legendary floating city, kept a cure for the disease in golden vials. He tells us that he will charter a ship for us, if we are willing, and that if we are able to search the ruins of this supposed city, and find the cure, there would be a great reward.

Before we rest that night, the warden gives us each 100gp as he promised he would, if we found out anything about the sickness. He thanks us for our hard work and sends us on our way.

As we walk to the Inn, I realize that I am getting used to this cold. In fact, I could see myself preferring it. I expect I will regret this thought later.