Thunderstruck

After camping for the night on the road outside Gate, the Soup Troop see ethereal words appear in the sky: "Chief, meet us at Draughmoor port the morning after tomorrow. - A". It's a message for Ghorza from Ahim of the Red Galleon. Ghorza reviews her postal correspondence with Mar over the last month; Mar has been sick and getting worse since losing the souls he held within him. Politics on the Red Galleon have been troubling, with the crew distraught at the lack of leadership from Mar during his recovery. The group teleports to the Temple of Tymora, where they discover a boarded-up hidden library containing the temple's lost teleportation circle. Lots of arcane books are held within the library, including information on restricted magic, some of it written in Infernal. After activating a hidden switch, the party leaves the room and meets Lil' Billy and a business manager named Lacroix. Lacroix informs Brodo of some business transactions "Brodo" made earlier in Draughmoor. Brodo signs some doccuments and now owns the Draughmoor Opera House, which is being restored under his account. Brodo pays Lacroix 4000 GP (half Brodo's, half the Soup Troop communal gold pool) to complete the repairs. Lil' Billy has been working on restoring the Temple and watching Beefo, and the Temple is beginning to thrive with the arrival of new worshipers. Bliss gives Lil' Billy the hammer taken from the forge in the Vault of Gate. The party goes shopping in Draughmoor and opens up a bank account at the First Bank of Draughmoor. Brodo visits the Opera House and his new office within, where he finds a playing card smeared red with blood, reading "Welcome the neighborhood, kid."

The Soup Troop head to the docks and board the Galleon, reuniting with the whole of the crew, including Pluvio and the Hopalongs. Ghorza finds Mar on his deathbed. A mystic homeopathic healer, Mucho Gusto, is helping him survive along with the efforts from Ahim, and tells Ghorza he thinks a coatl feather could help cure Mar's disease. They set sail to a distant island in search of a coatl, expecting a three day trip. Brodo learns that Malamun left the ship on bad terms with half the crew to form her own ship, the Black Guillotine. Ghorza temporarily gifts Mar her mother spirit, and Mar rises, telling her he's had visions: their people sailed to Juniper from some other shore, and not all who left arrived at the travel's end. Sirrias assists crew member, Lea Luka, with the navigation, but he can't/won't close the deal with her sexually. After a few days at sea, the ship nears an island. A storm picks up and rocks the boat, thunder crashing. Ever-regenerating aquatic zombies and crab people board the ship as an army, led by the reanimated corpse of Ol' Buckets (now posessed by some kind of eldrich horror) and a pair of Aqualocks for support.

Mystic typhoons, one a miasma of death reincarnation and th eother made of living lightning, rage on either side of the ship and a battle ensues. Escalating lightning strikes the crewmates, and Mucho Gusto is killed by a few stray bolt. Sirrias summons a water elemental and Mar limps above deck, telling Ghorza he knows how to stop the storms. He tells he she has to stab him and throw him into the sea. She does so, and his body swirls up into the lightning storm with Ghorza's scimitar still embedded in him. It subsides, and Mar falls back to deck holding a new wooden greatsword crackling with fire and electricity. He gives it to Ghorza. Mar collapses, and Ghorza rides the water elemental into the second miasmic maelstrom, where she sees an artifact churning within. Ghorza hears the voices of her new weapon, both the personified voice of her scimitar and a new voice who identifies as the prior blade's "sister", and they implor her to destroy the vortexed item, describing it as the "bad sister". Ghorza hits the bone-and-sinew composed mystic staff inside the vortex, and the death-storm subsides. After returning to the deck, Ghorza passes out from exhaustion, and the new wooden greatsword returns to its natural form; Ghorza's scimitar, and Mar's new nearly identical scimitar from the center of the thunder storm.

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Next Episode: The Fire Within