Our airship needs repair parts. We finish scavenging the other airship located in tower Secundus and end up with a gun, a rune “portal” and some bits and bobs. I guess this will suffice. This place is starting to unnerve me. Water. So much water.

We are breathing under water for yet another 24 hours – courtesy of Cassil.

Re-opening the door after sealing it with a tidal wave will be another matter entirely. None of us particularly fancies the prospect of being propelled to the other end of the room and crushed.

I mentally picture the most delightful little hut I can think of, complete with pelts, furs, candles and a fireplace. My hands weave some elaborate patterns and I mumble the words I know. After some time, Ryden and I enter Leomund’s tiny hut. Cassil takes on the shape of an octopus, I know because she’s told us what an octopus is. She grabs the door sort of wheel handle and she opens the door. All of a sudden, she looks like she is a flag waved in the blowing wind. It looks like a fun ride from the comfort of our cosy hut.

Once outside the part of the tower tittering on a cliff’s edge, we pick a burden each and prepare for a lovely stroll back to the gardens. I bet the “shark gnolls” will be fine with us leaving their waters, which they call Sahuaghin waters.

Half-way, we come across a sort of cylindrical shape somehowburied in the sands and covered with kelp and other seaweed. We fear coming across another Illithid so none of us dare go closer.

And that’s when the shark gnoll priestess decide to establish mental contact again. She enquires about the “treasures” we have just collected, meaning the kit we need to get out of here. I proceed to explain that it turns out these are not theirs but belong to Kwalish our very own ArchArtificer from times long gone. I don’t know how it gets to that, but she ends up suggesting that every thing in these waters belong to them. Everything and everyone. “No one owns a goliath” I scream in every head’s within reach as we dive into combat.

Cassil takes on most of our foes, flanked by 2 sharks and 2 shark gnolls. I only have one shark gnoll to push back. Ryden also gets his very own shark gnoll and the attention of the priestess. Our favourite octopus gets slowly bitten to pieces. Ryden takes on the blows of a magical trident from below over and over again.

We all grit our teeth and suffer from bites and stabbing. Over the next minutes, Ryden and Cassil manage to open wounds in most of our enemies. I am trying to think of a plan to protect our cargo, there is no way I am getting stuck under this forsaken sea. I rack my brain for something useful I could do, anything. I can open a dimension door so I rush to get my hands on the rest of the kit in the hope to sneak out of combat. But things are not going great, Cassil especially is looking worse for wear.

I message her and I know I can’t leave them behind. I reach the airship gun. I have no idea how it works, dammit. I focus on it while being tickled by one of the shark gnolls, mostly piercing damage. This blasted contraption is not so easy to handle. I just about manage priming it but it’s not getting me anywhere now is it?!

I see four reef sharks appear next to a human-shaped again Cassil still bracing one of the opposing sharks. Sounds good. The other opposing sharks turn to Ryden who’s come to Cassil’s rescue.

And that’s when it clicks, I find a lever that allows me to charge the gun. I turn it towards the closest opponent and fire.

The recoil takes me 5 feet back. The shark gnoll gets pulverised by the earth elemental that swoofed out of the barrel. Baby, we’re in business.

After Ryden kills one shark and Cassil the second, as well as the rest of the fighters, the priestess flees.

I take the gun, jump on the back of the two of the reef sharks while holding a rope around them. Cassil and Ryden ride the other two. We decide to not wait for more and resume heading towards the gardens.

On our way there, we pass the throne room where the priestess and the king stand staring at us. Before I can think, I hear myself screaming “No one owns a goliath” and the shot from my gun rips the priestess apart. Ryden rides into battle and come to fighting at close quarters with the king. Imagine a very buff humanoid fish with four arms and long claws. As we injure the king, his attack towards Ryden become more and more vicious and he soon can no longer escape his embrace. His ear and neck are bitten, his body clawed and stabbed. Soon he stops moving and falls into unconsciouness. Cassil almost finishes the king with a thunder wave but I leave what is left of the creature to the sharks I am riding.

We relieve the corpses of their scalemail 14 AC + DEX modifier. Perfect fit for Cassil and me, if we ignore the extra holes for the second pair of arms.

After Cassil heals his butt, Ryden is revived but in a really bad mood. Without a word, he cuts off the king’s head. The first words he directs at me seem to convey a desire for me to go away.

When Ryden goes to clean himself up, we hear a distant scream of anger. Cassil suspects this might be linked to the loss of the top part of his right ear. Sure enough, Ryden starts demanding for any of us to restore his physical integrity. Cassil asks him where the missing bit of his ear is. Ryden retrieves it from the back of the king’s throat. It’s pretty grim.

Kwalish helpfully suggests he can replace the missing part by some bronze, an offer Ryden ends up accepting. Kwalish works on repairing the airship and we take a long rest which our bodies and minds longed for.

The ride back to the surface might be the longest 30 minutes of my life. I have seen enough deep water for the rest of my days. Which helps when it comes to choosing our next destination: the mantel of Justice. This artifact lies in a mountainous stronghold, sort of halfway across the continent.
100 miles south of the Massahata archives.

The other artifact – Wisdom - is hidden on an island to the West of the land of the Guardians.

After a five-day flight, during which Cassil smells herbs and I scribble some draft for a magic spell. We reach our supposed destination which turns out to be the deepest crevice we’ve ever seen. The exact opposite of what we were expecting. We land and leave the ship to the care of Kwalish. In what should be the highest peak but is the deepest crevice, we find the entrance to a cave. Inside, we progress in almost complete darkness. On the walls, grow some luminescent fungi that Cassil identifies as “poisonous”. Ryden swiftly manages to scrape some away into a vial.

At the corner of our eyes, we perceive some movements, very swift in the darkness. After some wandering, we are faced with 3 paths, left, right and center. Cassil walks out in the middle in a huff after Ryden suggests going our separate ways. I invoke my arcane eye to scout the left tunnel and convince Ryden to follow Cassil down the middle one.

Pretty soon, Ryden sneaks off leaving us alone, to explore the right tunnel, unbeknownst to us. Cassil rages out loud about this “stinking drow” when we realise he has left us. The timing could not be better as 8 crossbows appear out of the darkness and aim at us at point blank. Each of these has a Drow on the end of it.

We kindly follow our hosts down tunnels and past a gate into a chamber where a magnificently dressed Drow weaves patterns with her hand. “Well, well, what have we got here?”, she asks with a cunning smile.