RQG 132 - Sinking Feeling

## Summary

The crew gets their last details together and set off for the Shoin Institute.

## Synopsis

The episode starts where the previous episode left off. The party surveys their submersible boat/stealth catamaran. Hamid still doesn't have much faith in using it, and suggests asking Einstein to teleport them to the island instead. He uses his mobile stone to contact Einstein, who seems to be in the middle of something and quite busy with something, apparently falling off his horse. Hamid asks if he has enough spells to teleport them to the island, but Einstein can't, and also can't share what he's busy with because he got in trouble for oversharing last time. He reminds Hamid not to let anyone see the mobile stone, and Cel interjects to introduce themselves. When Einstein realizes someone is there he doesn't know, he hangs up.

Zolf expresses concern about the boat being electrified, and requests that Cel turns it off so nobody gets electrocuted. Cel, hurt, removes an electric eel from the boat and walks off. During the evening, Wilde swings by and asks whether the party is planning on sailing that night. He seems to have doubts about the boat, but reluctantly trusts the party's judgement, and reminds them there is a B-team available in the event they should perish. Hamid says their escape plan is using the tunnels, and Wilde thinks he might be able to do something that makes the tunnel less defended come morning. He then requests to talk to Zolf alone, and they both go outside.

Wilde tells Zolf that the priority is to get anything related to the simulacrum, and that the goal isn't to assassinate Shoin or anyone else. Although he has no reason to think Cel has been turned, he does express concern about them, and tells Zolf that he trusts him to make sure the correct information makes it back from the institute. Zolf thinks Cel should be trustworthy. Wilde then asks if there's anything else they need, before leaving.

**BREAK**

Zolf suggests everyone gets drunk to deal with the voyage, but Hamid thinks this is a terrible idea because they might need to fight when they arrive. The villagers help them get the boat to the stormy beach, and Cel asks Jasper to go back to the village and study, although he briefly protests, he does reluctantly go back to the village. The party debate how to get the boat into the sea. Hamid and Azu enter the boat. Zolf casts bull's strength on himself and begins pushing the boat into the sea with the help of Cel.

They get the boat into the water successfully, and both Zolf and Cel climb on top, Cel is almost immediately knocked off the boat due to getting hit by the boom of the sail, and they turn into a dolphin and swim alongside the boat. Cel notices that the boat has been launched into a potent cross-current that is pushing it in the opposite direction of where they want to go. Cel tries to make this clear to Zolf in dolphin talk and hitting the boat. Inside the boat, Azu gets nervous about the noise, and Hamid tries to council her. Zolf understands what Cel is trying to tell him, and corrects their course. Cel jumps back on the ship and changes back into a half-elf, and ties themselves to the boat.

Over time, they make tangible progress towards the island and it takes a couple of hours to get there. Cel becomes sea sick and is starting to suffer from hypothermia, and they decide to get inside the boat. As they enter, they can briefly see something big moving in the water in the distance. Hamid asks them if they're feeling all right, but Cel says they're fine, even though they look terrible. Outside, Zolf is singing a sea shanty to himself while he continues to sail. He eventually sees the island and a bright light from above the island, and uses it to navigate. He also notices a suspicious tentacle thing in the water, but far away on the far side of the island.

The island/rock has very sheer rocks on all sides and a keep immediately on top of it, and a lighthouse on top of the keep. Zolf notices a natural cleft in the rock, similar to a smuggler's cove. Zolf times the waves to make it inside the cove without dashing the boat on the rocks, and then lowers the sails. It is very dark inside the cove, and the boat scrapes against the rocks, springing a couple of small leaks. Zolf latches the boat to a pontoon and then opens the hatch and lets the others disembark the boat.

The cove is a big, dark cavern, and only Zolf and Azu can see in the darkness. Hamid casts dancing lights to see, and Zolf protests and tells him to turn them off again because of the danger of other people noticing the light. Hamid listens to him reluctantly and turns them off, and Zolf orders Azu to pick Hamid up so he doesn't fall in the water. Zolf and Azu loose their footing, but Zolf is still lashed to the boat. Azu tumbles into the water, taking Hamid with her. Both of them are able to grab onto the pontoon. Cel is the only one left standing on the pontoon.

## Quotes

"You guys don't seem to really understand how physics works. Physics is how you convince elementals to do what you want them to do? Usually by physically beating them up."
―**Cel**

**Cel**: "Hello stone! You seem really friendly!"
**Einstein**: "Who is that?"
**Hamid**: "That's Cel."
**Cel**: "Hello!"
**Azu**: "They're a friend."
**Cel**: "Hi! What kind of elementals are you using?"
**Einstein**: "... I am... a sentient rock..."
**Cel**: "Oh my god! I'm a sentient Cel!"
**Einstein**: "...with no.. with, with no important... information."
―The party calls Einstein to see if he can help get them to the island.

**Wilde**: "There is a ... B-team, let's say, but they're not going to be around to help. So, yeah..."
**Cel**: "A what?"
**Zolf**: "A back-up if we all die."
**Cel**: "Oh, well, I wasn't planning to."
**Zolf**: "No, I know, I'm not... but you know, just in case."
**Wilde**: "But on the positive side! You guys... are the A-team!"
―The party preps to leave.

"Hey! You understand Dolphin! Sorry I swore so much at you. I was really - I shouldn't have called you those things, but I was just panicking, you know? Just panicking."
―**Cel turns into a dolphin as the boat sets off in the wrong direction.**

"Playing somebody who isn't self-destructive? This is novel!"
―**Lydia**

"I'm a lonesome drunken dwarven sailor, I am on the sea! I can take to the sea whenever I do please! I like to be on the sea, I like it when I float! I want this boat to not sink, please don't sink, please don't sink boat!"
―**Zolf, singing a sea shanty.**

**Alex**: "You have maybe only seen four storms at bad as this."
**Ben**: "Was one of them the one we were in on the channel?"
**Alex**: "Weirdly, yeah?"
**Ben**: "Ahhh... was it also the one that sunk the boat I went AWOL on?"
**Alex**: "....Weirdly, yeah?"
―The storm gets worse as they get closer to [Shoin's.

"You and your long-term plot threads. So... so smug about it, isn't he? Look at his little smile."
―**Bryn, to Alex.**

**Alex**: "Zolf, I'll allow you to decide. Do you just wander off for a while first, or do you open the door?"
**Ben**: "Why. Why is that even an option in your head?!"
―Zolf successfully lands the boat in the cove.

**Alex**: "The ship... I keep calling it a ship. The- the monstrosity you built... but works! It does work."
**Lydia**: "My hideous child."
―Cel built a ship.

## Dice rolls and Mechanics

* Hamid Use Magical Device check to use a mobile stone: 24
* Zolf Profession (Sailor) check to get the boat into the water: Natural 1
* Cel Acrobatics check to not get hit by the boom: 8
* Cel Perception check on the boat: 22
* Azu Will save against panicking inside the boat: 27
* Zolf Sense Motive to understand Cel: 20
* Cel Acrobatics Check to land on top the boat: 21
* Azu Will save inside the boat: 30
* Azu, Hamid and Cel Fortitude save against getting sea sick: 20 (Hamid), 20 (Azu), 16 (Cel)
* Zolf Profession (sailor): 24
* Zolf and Cel Perception check: 20 (Cel), 17 (Zolf).
* Zolf and Cel Fortitude save: 28 (Zolf), 11 (Cel)
* Zolf, Cel, Hamid and Azu Fortitude save: 29 (Zolf), 20 (Hamid), 22 (Azu), 12 (Cel)
* Cel Dexterity check to get inside the boat: 11
* Zolf Profession (sailor) check to get Cel inside the boat: 21
* Zolf Perception check: 25
* Zolf Profession (sailor) check: Natural 20 (30)
* Zolf, Azu and Cel Acrobatics check to walk on the pontoon: Natural 1 (2; Zolf), 12 (Azu), 13 (Cel)
* Zolf, Azu and Hamid Reflex save to not fall in the water: 6 (Zolf), 21 (Azu), 22 (Hamid)