But Divination Doesn't Do That - November 15, 2024

 - CR PJ top 

- April fender bender on I-30 on-ramp

- Soliana suggests they do a circle around the island to examine it before they get any closer and asks to borrow a spyglass.

- Zemma also watches from the crow's nest.

- Through the spyglass, Soliana observes that there are several small islands rather one medium sized island. Maybe four or five. None more than about a miles across. The nearest island seems mostly barren , just rocks with perhaps some very small vegetation.

- Off near one of the islands, there appears to be a shipwreck. 

- The area with the islands and the glowing lightning looking tendrils (?) is fairly large, so they don't do a whole loop.

- They decide to examine the shipwreck first to see if they can glean what caused it to make sure they don't end up shipwrecked.

- They load up with three sailors into the landing craft and it's slow going because the four of the five party members are wimps.

- The shipwreck is nose down in a sand bar. There are no visible bodies and no obvious signs of carnage. The ship is still in pretty good shape, so it's a relatively recent wreck. There are some ropes that make it look like it they launched their small boats.

- Niniel sticks her hand into the water and does not get immediately zapped.

- Soliana tries to examine the glowy stuff again, but the water is too murky.

- Niniel directs the sailors and they get the landing craft within about 20' of the shipwreck so that the party (except Poetry who waits on the boat) can walk over to the craft. Soliana sticks her head underwater and can read "adow" in the part that isn't buried in sand. The Moon Shadow was the boat that never returned to Sir Foxglove.

- Niniel and Zemma go to check the crew's quarters while Soliana and Caleb go to the captain's quarters to looks for the ship's log.

- The crew's quarters are empty, with most of the personal possessions are missing, but they do find a rucksack in the corner with a weird looking hat and 10 GP. The hat looks a bit like a yarmulke, but with "tentacles" that has a bit of magic. Zemma puts on the hat. Nothing bad immediately happens. Niniel and Zemma each take 5 GP.

- Caleb finds a log book on the desk. It's a standard book with weather and locations. The last entry is about running aground. Nothing about where they went.

- Soliana looks around the bed area that there is a book between the bed and the wall. It is a journal with the captain's personal thoughts. The other captain wrote about a storm that swept them onto the sandbar which they weren't expecting because the islands aren't charted. The tone shifts and it becomes a story about finding a witch and it seems like they're not on the ship any more, but it could also be the outline to a novel he wants to write? The location where the witch seems to be doesn't sound like the visible parts of the islands. He talks about trees and forests and there is none of that visible from here. The entries about the witch are dated like the other entries and they are dated from a few days after the entries about running aground.

- Soliana casts Detect Magic as a ritual. Zemma and Niniel show up as she is flipping through the journal looking for illusory script (of which there is none), so after a look around the whole cabin to double check, she casts Identify on the hat and it is a Cap of Water Breathing.

- Niniel then goes to check the aft cargo hold. There are a lot of barrels back there. They seem to be full of food stuffs and other supplies. After that she checks for a forward cargo hold (underwater where everything feels like a charged like air full of static electricity) where she finds a hole in the hull and that anything that had been stored in this area has been washed through it. She swims out the hole and finds a few of the crate also holding more supplies and "boring stuff".

- Using her Message cantrip, Soliana reads the passage that describes where the witch was found, but it also doesn't match anything Niniel can see underwater near the ship.

- Niniel determines that the static-like charge feels like its coming from the island. Maybe the nearest one.

- The sailors agree to drop the party off on the nearest island and then get other sailors to transfer the stores from the Moon Shadow to the Storm Caller. They will either message them or send sparks into the air or some other means of getting their attention when they are ready to be picked up again.

- The electric feeling is in the air and the ground feels unstable like things are still moving a little bit. Is the island still growing?

- Soliana determines that the rocks are mostly basalt. Aerated with lightning?

- Niniel still hasn't found anything she can talk to that's native to the area. (She can talk to any critter with a swim speed.) 

- Soliana ritually casts Detect Magic again and there's a very strong magical divination field here that originates in the center of the island. 

- They start walking. As they go, there's a hum that grows and then when it gets to a certain size, there's a pulse that flows out and over everyone. Soliana feels kind of nauseated, but Caleb immediately vomits and feels dizzy and like his equilibrium shot. 

- They keep walking and when they are almost to the center of the island when there's another pulse, Soliana, Niniel, and Poetry all stagger and loss their balance and stumble to their knees.

- Zemma still has no idea what anybody is talking about.

- After the second pulse, everybody's senses go fuzzy and then suddenly they are somewhere else.

- They are in an office and a person asks, "So you really think you can find them?"

- Niniel asks who he is and he is Mayor Brigsby. He is a short, stocky man with a round body and bushy hair. His attire is a bit old fashioned. They can see a bay of water out of the office window.

- Soliana asks what the date is from where she is hiding behind Caleb, but she is ignored completely.

- Caleb agrees that they can find the fishermen who went missing. 

- Niniel wanders near his desk to see what she can glean from anything that might be on his desk, and there's a newspaper that read "Canticle Bay Times".

- No one in the group has heard of Canticle Bay.

- The fishermen have been having to go farther and farther out to get fish and they just haven't been coming back.

- Niniel looks in her black pouch that she had already emptied on the cairn at Sir Foxglove's and now there is a large, black fish scale in there. It has a purple-y sheen to it.

- Mayor Brigsby refuses to talk to anyone except Caleb. He offers 500 GP to the group if they can find survivors (rumors of shipwrecks on an island) or figure out what has happened to the fishermen so that it doesn't continue to happen. Recommends they go talk to people in the Shriveled Barnacle to talk to some of the other sailors.

- Caleb then asks for a date, but the date given to him is not in a calendar system he has ever heard of. 

- Soliana thinks it's a very old calendar system.

- Caleb agrees to the job since there's not much else to be done in this situation.

- They leave the office and find themselves in a cobble-stoned street.

- Most of the people in the street are human, but there are also elves and halflings and DWARVES?!

- Soliana tugs on Niniel's sleeves and tells her that on land dwarves died out nearly a 1000 years ago. She thinks they may have been sent back or projected back in time. 

- They head down to the beach. There are no dead fish, so the fish area more like leaving rather than diving. 

- Niniel wades into the water and talks to a fish. The fish is happy. It has noticed the bigger fish going away. It knows where they went. It was a few tides ago at least. It knows why they went, and it wasn't because they were scared. It wasn't because they were hungry. It was not a migration. Something told them to go away or calls them away. It was not a big thing that called them away. It was a voicy thing that called them away. 

- While Niniel was underwater, Soliana cast Identify on the fish scale and learns that is not magical and was not created by magic. 

- Soliana starts to cast Find Familiar, but since that's going to take an hour Niniel goes to talk to some women farther down the beach who are repairing nets and cleaning the days catch and things. Niniel asks where they are, and they welcome her to Canticle Bay, which is on an island. It's a small village that mostly keeps to itself. There's a small ship here and there who bring supplies, but not much else. 

- There are some other small islands around so it would be a miracle if the 30 or so men who have gone missing with the five or six boats that were lost. 

- Niniel asks about men who refuse to talk to women, and apparently there are some men who are just right asses.

- Caleb went to the Shriveled Barnacle to start investigating since their experience to the point of splitting up implied other men would only talk to him.

 

- 210 XP ea for 900 XP total ea. LEVEL UP