S3 Ep4

Full Episode

Dirty Twenty Recap

### The Ariadne

The crew approaches the derelict ship, wondering at their apparent luck. First an island, and now a massive ship. No one has brought something so impressive back to the Flotilla for as long as most of the crew has been alive. They debate for a moment, wondering if it's worth the risk to stop to examine the ship. Looking closer, Snibbles notices that it's covered in barnacles, almost as if to indicate that it's been submerged below the water for a long time. But that couldn't be possible, right? The group speculates about the risks. Rory asserts that although their experience on the island was dangerous, they gained a great deal of knowledge and value; therefore, even if this ship turns out to be dangerous as well, they could still triumph and come out the other side with great benefits as well. Fin dives into the water and checks out the underside of the ship; he finds a surprising amount of barnacles and organic matter are densely packed there. "It's almost like the boat is alive," he reports back. After more debating, the group decides to proceed carefully.

The crew, bringing Carric along, tie their boat to the Ariadne and board. They are greeted by the sight of more barnacles packed in clusters along the deck, as well as two bodies, both half-covered in barnacles themselves. There's a pungent smell in the air; spores, perhaps? Sensing that there could be some disease or air-born hazard on the ship, the air-breathers cover their noses and mouths before attempting to investigate the barnacles. Snibbles realizes that the barnacles themselves appear to be moving in a semi-rhythmic pattern. They pierce their dagger into one of the barnacles and are surprised to find that the texture is soft, giving way to their dagger easily. A fleshy orb, covered in pus, rolls out of the "barnacle". Everyone gags. Meanwhile, Val and Bal investigate the bodies on the deck, and we all thank god for the scene shift. Val realizes that the barnacles seem to resemble a fungus more than anything; it seems to be feeding on the body like a parasite. Hope begins to wane; the ship appears completely diseased, and the group doesn't want to A. Catch any illnesses, B. Bring illnesses back to the Flotilla, or C. Mess around with flesh orbs for much longer. Bal suggests burning the ship to prevent it from spreading any diseases to other wanderers. Rory sends her Echo down into the hold, visible to the party via a grate in the top deck. She trades places with her Echo in order to scope out the room. Strangely, in the quiet of the hold, she hears the sound of coughing somewhere in one of the unexplored rooms on the top deck. Even more alarming though, in a corner, she sees two hands emerge from a patch of fungus. A head follows. Just as a colorless, eyeless face whips in her direction, Rory teleports back up. She reports what she's seen and suggests that they abandon ship. Val and Fin get ready to start burning the ship down. The sounds of monstrous yelping and screeching can be heard from the hold below. In a final burst of curiosity, Snibbles takes their dagger and pops the flesh ball. It explodes in a splash of pus, leaving a strange spider-like creature laying curled on the deck. Its leg twitches. Snibbles attempts what everyone is thinking: BURN IT WITH FIRE. However, their firebolt misses the small creature, and it bolts upright with a hiss. The barnacles on the far sides of the deck begin to quiver and more spider-like creatures begin to erupt. We all scream and roll initiative.

### The Dungeon and the Dragon

Val yells to everyone to abandon ship, and the chase is on. The creatures swarm the group immediately, absolutely tearing into Fin and Balthier. Rory's Echo shoves Balthier off the ship with her pike in order to get him out of danger, knocking the wind out of him a little, but otherwise getting him to safety. She jumps straight from the Ariadne to the smaller boat in one impressive leap. Snibbles comes to the rescue with their magical tech, using a whole bag of jingle bells to cast Thunderwave and killing all the monsters in their path, before finally placing their canon down before finally jumping overboard to safety. Val and Carric are the last to disembark the Ariadne, with Val tackling the Darkling over the side. And then, because of course they do, the creatures begin to follow the group off the boat, leaping into the water and flailing at the party. As the group deals with *that*, Rory's Echo appears back on the boat and begins setting more things on fire, attempting to burn the barnacle patches away. The party keeps hacking away at the creatures and just as all is seeming to calm down and the group is getting ready to sail away, Bal hears a voice call out in Draconic, pleading with them to help. "We can't leave yet," Bal says. "Someone on there is intelligent and needs help." And the mission to re-embark the Ariadne is underway. The group picks off the last of the spider-like creatures and Bal enters one of the rooms on the top deck, finding a wounded Dragonborn who introduces himself as Baradad. He explains that he cannot abandon the ship without his "cargo", which lies in the ship's hull: the "basement". He had been transporting cargo along with his crew, until a mysterious fog rolled in and cast a sickness on the ship. Those who succumbed became bloodthirsty and mindless, killing their friends in a craze. Baradad barricaded himself in the room to stay safe from the illness, and was wounded by one of the monsters in the lower level when he tried to sneak his way to recover the cargo himself. Bal sighs frustrated before calling out to the others: put out the fires. Their work isn't done here yet.

As the rest of the party patrols the deck, Bal continues to question Baradad. He claims that he was transporting items relevant to his culture. He asks the group to recover his lost cargo-- if they do this for him, he will give them a portion of what he was transporting. He also reveals that he is looking for an island, which rests several hundred miles away; the island is home to a castle where many survivors have landed. After some deliberation, the group agrees to descend into the hull and find Baradad's cargo. With the fires safely put out and all of the visible barnacle patches burned away, Rory, Fin, and Val move one of the dingy boats tied to the ship's side and drag it to cover the stairs. Those terrifying eyeless monsters won't be able to charge up the stairs now, even if they manage to somehow find them. With the top deck mostly secured, the group fan out and explore the different rooms. Bal and Fin take one side, and Rory and Val take the other. Bal and Fin find money, a handful of sapphires, and a map that shows the coordinates and directions to the island Baradad mentioned. Val and Rory find maps of places that the ship has already been, a health potion, a brown bottle that Snibbles determines to be a potion of Giant Strength, more money, and a personal journal kept by the ship's captain. Gathering back in the center of the deck, the group peers down through the cargo grates and sees that two tall, gangly monsters are visible, shambling along in the darkness. They shoot the fish in the barrel, making quick work of them; Fin in particular nails one with an impressive headshot, taking it down by himself. Balthier takes note of their teamwork, and the fact that they've taken out a threat without putting themselves in danger. "That was fun," he says. Val grimaces a little, displeased with the loss of life. Realizing that the lowest level of the ship can be reached by opening the cargo grates rather than descending the stairs, Fin and Rory volunteer to drop down first. They're the most mobile of the group, and furthermore, if there are spores concentrated down there, neither of them need to breathe the air. They tie ropes around themselves and drop down, with everyone else waiting up top to haul them up at the first sign of danger.

### The Deep Rises Up

Armed with Snibbles' canon, the duo makes their way down. The farther down they go, the more tightly packed and dense the barnacles appear. It seems that the illness may have somehow originated in the cargo hold. All is eerily quiet, until they approach a door at the far end of the hold. A muffled voice can be heard rambling without pause. *"Touch the mirror/Below the dark/The deep rises up./To forfeit the body/Is to gain eternity/An overflowing cup."* Rory's Echo opens the door, with no apparent affect on the voice. Fin places the canon in front of the door and primes it to fire. Rory takes a position behind some barrels and Fin backs up behind her. The canon erupts, unleashing a barrage of fire on a particularly hard cluster of barnacles. From the cluster erupts a horrifying monster, which screeches horrendously before running directly at Rory and Fin. We roll initiative, all freaking out on the inside and also on the outside because that was TERRIFYING.

The creature unleashes a string of attacks against Snibbles' turret, and because everything associated with Snibbles is badass, the turret withstands the barrage. Val wastes no time jumping down into the hold, foiling Fin's plans of retreating back to the top deck. Instead, he gets to relative cover and attacks the creature with his crossbow. Rory hits critically, with the tip of her Echo's pike meeting her own in the middle of the creature. Snibbles continues their assault of fire damage using their canon as well as a handy fire bolt. Balthier stands by, prepping his action to haul up anyone who needs to get out. The fight is long and hard, but with Snibbles' constant rain of fire and heavy damage dealing from the whole team, the massive creature bleeds out a sticky new carpet for the cargo hold. Fin and Rory take the opportunity to explore the room the creature came from; barnacles encrust nearly the entire room, centralizing around a humanoid: the apparent source of the murmuring, which hasn't stopped throughout the combat. The person holds a book. After knocking it out of their hands, Rory kneels down and asks for their name, but there is no answer. Deciding it would be a mercy to kill the person, she begins to stand, but it lashes out and grabs her wrist. "*What is thisss?"* The voice is all too familiar; the same as the one from her vision. In an instant, the person and the barnacles surrounding them are immolated by Snibbles' canon. Fin and Rory take the book, as well as the chest containing Baradad's cargo, back up to the deck, attempting to lighten the mood for each other. They speculate that one day they may have their own comic book, just like the Thunder Knights. After all, being the best explorers ever, they certainly deserve it.

### The 7th Day

As peace settles at last over the Ariadne, Baradad himself emerges from his cabin. He opens the chest for the group, revealing five eggs of different colors. He reveals them to be drake eggs; as thanks for helping recover these precious creatures, Baradad entrusts them to their care.

Balthier selects the green egg: the Galeon Green Diver.

Snibbles selects the black egg: The Umbral Lurker.

Fin selects the blue egg: The Lightning Ridge Lancer.

Rory selects the white egg: The Silver-Back Snow Crawler.

Val selects the red egg: The Rotarian Red-Tail.

The matter remains: will Baradad simply allow them to take the Ariadne back to the Flotilla? Turns out, yes. The Dragonborn expresses enthusiasm at the thought of joining with a larger group. He will go with them. And so at long last: three friends richer, piloting a brand new ship, equipped with drake eggs to hatch and raise, and with knowledge of not one but two islands, the crew officially embarks on their final day of travel. When the sun rises again, it shines on the distant silhouette of the Flotilla: The Trials of Agamen, at long last, complete.

And that's where we left off last week on Dirty Twenty! We have video recaps as well as full episodes up on Kanoadaddy's Youtube Channel: just navigate to the top of the page and you'll find the links! See you on Friday!