13. Into the Atoll

Having returned to the world as they knew it, the party sailed back to Bisquay, no longer interested in the seers of Agnor, having had their fill of Driscoll's territory and its dangers. As they went, they dubbed the now-conquered landmass Hideno Island, in memory of the castle that had once stood there eons ago. Pyt kicked the dead body of Spice the cat into the ocean while the party were debating how to deal with it. Wilfred then used a few firebolts to burn it as it floated away. Bisquay was a long day of sailing away, giving the group time to talk. 
Malak apologised to Clwyd for his previous attitude, saying that he had been grounding his uncertainty in keeping the goblin around in the fact that the group are constantly doing dangerous things and they don't want to just drag anyone into that sort of mess. He finished up by telling her that she was a real asset during the ordeals in the Land Beyond Life and he'd be more than happy if she stuck around with the group. 
Vic and Clark chatted a bit while they guided the ship up on deck. She thanked him again for bringing her back to life and asked for more details on what he had done. Clark could only say that the little training he had in clericy hadn't covered this sort of thing; he was mostly figuring it out as he went now. Vic was worried that maybe she was somebody else after coming back, and the cleric couldn't really ease her concerns, but did say that he assumed she was the same as before. 
As the day wore on and night set in, Wilfred and Vic took the first watch as the rest of the party found their way to uncomfortable rest in the Drunken Dragon's small quarters. Wilfred offered to try and dispel the magic on Vic's locket but was unsuccessful with his first attempt. The arcane lock was very powerful. Soon after, masses of pyreflies began rising from the ocean and sticking to them and the ship. The pair hastily woke the others up as more of the orbs of light rose from the sea and floated like dust in a sunbeam towards them. The party were wary about moving too fast in the nighttime waters, lest they attract the Moonswimmer or any other such danger that might haunt Driscoll's waters. They slowly rowed through the swarm of pyreflies, but the deck, hull, mast, and sail of the Drunken Dragon were all full and glowing from the thousands of motes of light now stuck to them. Where the pyreflies built up too much, the sail and mast caught fire. Arcs of lightning began jumping from the light-riddled hair of all the party members to other places with large build ups of the glowing things. The party were eventually able to escape the horde of glowing lights, but their ship had been damaged even further in the ordeal. 
The next day, brief communication with Duster revealed to the party that roughly two weeks had passed in this world while they were in the Land Beyond Life. The Ramshod now had been missing for quite some time. Duster told them that the Matricide would be in Bisquay in about five days, and the party were to wait for them so they could discuss things properly in person. 
In Bisquay, the group spent their time shopping for supplies and equipment, and running some personal errands. Clwyd finished the ring of swimming she had been working on for Pyt and the half-elf was delighted to now be a faster swimmer than Malak. The pair actually ended up having something of a confrontation when they were otherwise alone in Pyt's drum-yurt one night. Pyt mentioned that the hooded figure in the Land Beyond Life had said some things concerning both of them, and that maybe they should both just agree to forget about what they heard. Malak made it clear that he was concerned about Pyt dabbling with things more powerful than he understood. He said that if they got an eleven-year-old killed because of Pyt's past, Malak wouldn't know what to do with himself. Ultimately though, he said to Pyt that they had a deal for now - neither would bring up what the creature had said about the other, and the few others that had heard all it had said didn't seem interested in talking about it. 
Meanwhile, Wilfred was able to dispel the arcane lock on Vic's locket. The gnome left her with the object, not interested in prying into what was hidden beneath it. Alone one night, Vic was able to pick the mechanical lock, opening the glass window of the locket for the first time. Below the picture, she found a folded up piece of very thin, beautifully crafted paper. The penmanship on it was magnificent, but the runes made no sense to her at all, though she did note that it appeared similar to some things she had glimpsed Wilfred scribbling down in his book from time to time. She shut it back in her locket for now. 
Interested in trying to help Simon, Wilfred approached Pyt one evening, established that the pair could both speak Sylvan - the language of the fey - and then set out with the bard to try and question some of the creatures that the inhabitants of Bisquay leave cups of wine out at night for. They were eventually able to find a narrow alley with a lot of cups and a number of cracks and chips in the cobblestones. Late in the night, a tiny horse and cart wheeled around the far corner - no larger than half-a-foot tall. Leading it were a trio of brownies, who slowly made their way up the alley fixing cracks and sipping from the wine cups as payment. They didn't notice Pyt and Wilfred in their drunken stupor, and made to run away when the pair started talking to them. Pyt was able to ease their fears by saying they meant no harm and the Sylvan tongue guaranteeing the truth of his words. They had a brief chat, but the brownies weren't able to provide details on a 'pantalay' when Wilfred inquired about the butterfly-winged dragon Simon had mentioned. They strongly suspected that the name was made up, since names apparently have great power in Faerie. Before they left to get back to work, Pyt asked for their own names, and the little trio clearly just made up some to appease him, not keen to give out their own. 
The party considered buying another cat to replace Spice, but were presented with a steep price from the only ship that would even consider selling one. They decided to just wait for the Matricide and get a cat from them, but did learn from the sailor that there are shipwrights near the docks of Tortuga, a place owned and run by a man called the Proprietor. 
The Matricide arrived in the evening of the party's fifth day on Bisquay. Laylin met the party in the Ruddy Grape, covered in cloak and hood to obscure her elven features; otherwise, in a civilian town like Bisquay, she would have undoubtedly drawn a crowd keen to catch a glimpse of one of the rare fey folk. Driscoll was apparently too angry to talk right now, and Duster too upset. Laylin herself was more agitated than the group had ever seen her, but she gave more details about the Ramshod's disappearance: they hadn't wandered off into a faerie ring or sailed into a deep maelstrom like the party suspected. They had out-and-out vanished. One moment they were all scattered around Longreach like normal, some in the drinking hall, some in the bathing pools, others on the beach or elsewhere. The next moment they were gone. Their clothes, the cups they were wearing, weapons, armour, hats and so forth all fell to the ground. Their ship disappeared in the water too, though a lot of its cargo splashed down into the sea and quickly washed up on the beach. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. And worse, the only people among Driscoll's forces with knowledge of the arcane enough to search for clues were all long dead. 
Shandy had apparently turned her gaze away from Driscoll again. She'd suffered for the innattention to her other borders that Eight Finger had caused by inciting her rage. Pirate Lord Svavil had been able to take advantage of her lapse and had killed one of her commanders, someone named Tauran - this was what the Matricide had been celebrating when Driscoll called Malak in for a meeting the last time they were in Bisquay. However, King was still injured, the Fortunate Fool was still at half strength, Badger and Nemmonis were stuck in Tortuga and couldn't be trusted in any case, and now one of their last full-strength, truth worthy ships had vanished. If Shandy, or any of their other enemies, heard about the Ramshod's disappearance, it would spell the end for them all. The party needed to go to Tortuga as soon as possible and root out the traitor before it was too late. Before the Matricide left to reinforce Longreach, Pyt got Laylin to give him a cat, an old, grumpy, grey thing that the party named Nimbus.
The Drunken Dragon set off early the next day, following the Merchant Strait's Rope Road towards the Chelonii Atoll. On their way, the party saw a ship belonging to the Scars of Mir, the goliath mercenaries who police the Strait under the employ of the merchants. Thanks to Driscoll's flag, the party were able to pass without confrontation. Later, they saw a surprisingly neat-looking goblin junker heading towards Barge End, but after a brief discussion, the group opted not to investigate. They reached the atoll the next day and found an opening where the coral wall dipped down enough to not damage their hull. Inside, the group saw the beautiful patchwork maze of coral below them through crystalline waters. As they sailed, they weaved through huge areas where the water was as shallow as knee-height on a human. In other places, the water suddenly plunged down to the deepest of unseeable depths. At one point, a few of the crew spotted an enormous dragon turtle come up from one of the holes for a gulp of air. The deeper into the atoll they went, the more the ocean waters opened up, and they soon began spotting little areas of land rather than just coral outcroppings. It was only when they noticed that these islands were moving that the group realised they were zaratan, huge island turtles that drifted around on the ocean surface in slumber. The day pressed on as the group skirted around the left-hand wall of the atoll. They had to stop for the night and were relieved to be able to drop anchor safely now that they were out of Driscoll's dangerously magical territory. The next day, the sailed through the morning and early afternoon until eventually Tortuga came into sight: a zaratan incomparable to all the others. The turtle was larger than most islands any of them had ever seen, and a full, sprawling metropolis had been constructed on its shell and fins. It stretched beyond the whole horizon, its sheer size defying belief. 
Before landing on the island, the group decided to find Driscoll's artificer. Malak knew he lived on an island that trailed behind Tortuga, and after a few more hours sailing, the group spotted a much more modest sized zaratan with a cottage in the middle of its back. On approach, they saw the entirety of the shell was covered in a latticework of glyphs of warding that would explode when an unwanted guest stood on them. It took a lot of shouting before Clay, a elderly tortle artificer, heard the party. They'd forgotten to message Duster to warn the tortle of their arrival, and he was particularly curt as a result. He eventually acquiesced to see them, and sent his magical familiar, a tortoise named Claytee, to safely guide them through the explosive glyphs to the door in a process that took around fifteen minutes. Malak and Wilfred remained on the ship to keep it near the turtle in the open water. Inside, the party saw a humble one-storey cottage dominated by a large artist's studio and workshop in the back. There were a lot of ropes hung on the large room's walls, as well as a crude, ugly-looking dagger resting on a small anvil that appeared unfinished. More than anything else though, the room was dominated by canvases, easels, and paintings of every sort and style. Clay was unhappy to hear that Driscoll had presumed he'd be free to work on the dragon hides the party had brought, especially with no upfront supply of gold. Furthermore, after consulting with his 'recipe book', a paper drake named Claronn, Clay concluded that he didn't know how to make dragonhide armour and would first need to be provided with a recipe. He reckoned the Rumidian Western Margrave likely had such information, as well as the artificer's recipe to something Clay had been after for a while - though he didn't divulge what that was to the party. The group were able to leave the dragon hides with Clay, freeing up the space in their portable hole, and then they took their leave. They messaged Duster to explain about the missing recipe and he replied that for now their top priority was the traitor on Tortuga, but when the time came, they may be the only ones Driscoll has available to go searching for it. 
The party left, sailing into the evening hours, and finally arriving at the docks on Tortuga's front-left fin, which were filled with a huge number of ships flying all manner of flags.
Category:Part Two