Episode 64

The Iron Jaw leaves Ostend and sails towards the party’s assigned job. Time skip 2 weeks.

During their travel the weather is fair. Eventually Wix calls upon the party to line up on the deck. He gives them information about Cut Rock Island, where they will be sent to deal with the Selachian. He uses a hoop and a charm from his pocket to call someone on the island and relays that Soulfire will be arriving in 6 hours. The person on the other end of the line is relieved to receive aid. They tell Wix to look out for a woman with a red komodo. Wix pulls away the charm and wishes them all good luck. He speaks to another as the party disperses.

Four hours later, the party sees a wide island in the distance. The ship is navigated to the northern side around sharp stones and sheer cliff sides. They pass over some reefs and colorful fish, which can be seen very easily since the water is very clear. They witness a shark eating a stingray. Many fishing boats are scattered around the north side with many casting rods into the sea. Captain De’Lon comes up to the top deck as the ship settles down. He bids them farewell, unless the party wants to continue on the ship. Ingred says no thanks. The captain tells them to say hi to Fin for him and gives them all a playful goodbye. Lily thanks him. Some give him a salute.

The party is rowed to shore. Some of the crew flips them off as they leave. Some of the night crew gives them a proper send off. Marisol and Seipora flip them off back. It’s a warm farewell.

As they arrive to shore K says that he really appreciates everyone in the group. The party sees some tide pools around the rocky part of the beach. Marisol notices something and leads everyone to it. It takes them a few minutes but they approach a 7 ½ foot long red lizard. Marisol wakes it up with magic and it scrambles back away from them, mouth open and dripping. There’s a tense moment of silence before it walks back towards them. The creature stands up on hind legs and morphs into a red tiefling with yellow irises, tightly curled horns, and a bikini with a flowy open beach dress. She asks if they are soulfire, to which Lily confirms. She gives them all a bright smile and introduces herself as Tetka.

She leads them through the trees in a lax manner. The atmosphere here is warm and humid. She happily converses with them all as they walk. Seipora asks her if there is a good place to relax when their job is over. She says yes! Marisol isn’t excited about staying on the island. Tetka speaks to Kova at one point. She passes out three coconuts filled with piña colada. Some indulge. K hands his off to Seipora.

Marisol asks Tetka why Kova hates Seipora so much. Tetka corrects her, saying that Kova’s name is actually Cirika of the Mountains. Seipora soon takes Kiri out. They walk for about 2-3 hours before stopping in a nook with some palm logs laying about. Anthos helps her gather logs and they set up a temporary camp. Marisol walks off. Tetka says that they have to wait until sunset before the Selchain come out onto land. There’s been about 5 individuals as far as they know. They’ve been attacking the locals here with harpoons, some of which are dragged back into the water. They go into a frenzy in the presence of blood.

K settles down with the party and tells a story. He spoke to Vegzet. The man was very angry and made sand versions of everyone to attack him. K says that he believed him for a moment. He takes Vegzet very seriously and doesn’t play games with him. Vegzet doesn’t like the party, really doesn’t like Marisol. “Despite shit going bad, we have each other’s backs”, K mentions. He doesn’t talk about his feelings a lot, but he wanted to share them anyways and he thinks that he hasn’t thanked everyone enough for saving his ass.

The party talks about soul pigeons, seagulls, magic, and medicine before discussing plans of attack. K suggests doing a God War Arena-styled challenge. The party likes the idea and chats amongst themselves about locations before noticing that Marisol isn’t there to pitch in. Ingred steps away to fetch Marisol and tells her about K’s idea. She gets upset, realizing that the party planned things without her. K approaches and remains surprisingly calm as Marisol vents her frustrations. The situation escalates once Ingred offers to show her the “correct” way of pulling a harpoon out of someone. She gets punched by the annoyed cleric. Anthos and the party step in, insisting that she is not the victim. She imposed the problems on herself. Ingred walks off angrily, but is eventually ushered back to camp after a private conversation with K.

Back with the group, Marisol voices her concerns. They all talk for a bit before considering other options to fight the Selachian. Anthos asks Tetka where a good place to encounter them would be. She says that there’s a bottleneck at the beach or a good area amongst the trees. The party decides to wait on land in the trees and they prepare. Mariol has Tetka remove the coconuts after Ingred gets a little too into drinking.

They find two solid paths that the Selachian have been using. Marisol gives K a death ward and K confirms with Ingred about how to treat harpoon wounds. Her and Marisol say two different things. The dome is set up and Tetka comes back wearing new clothes. She goes off to the other trail and the party waits until sunset. K and Lily stand guard outside the dome. They all hear the Selachian before they arrive. They are large and more shark-like than humanoid, with harpoons strapped to their backs. K speaks to them in their tongue. One responds and blows into a conch, summoning three more to its side. Before Anthos can confirm the plan through his stone one throws a harpoon at K. It sinks in above his hip and another is thrown at Lily, which catches her in the shoulder. She is yanked forward and K gives the signal to attack.

The party is thrown into battle with the Selachian. They hit hard with their harpoons and are prone to biting those near them. Their leader arrives shortly after Tetka burns one of the Selachian to a crisp. It looks around at the scene before them and stabs at Seipora, skewering her through its massive broken fish-hook. All the Selachian acknowledge the leader as Keel. Many of the shark creatures collapse as the fight continues. Seipora manages to slip her way out of the leader’s grasp but it quickly gets a hold of her again. She is knocked out after being skewered again. Keel stops his attack after realizing that only one of his kin has been killed. He speaks to K and lets Seipora go. The Selachian retreat back to the water. K relays to the group that the shark creatures will no longer attack the island.

Tetka helps the party with pulling the harpoons out and gives them healing. The party talks about spending a zero day on the island but decides to head some instead. The session ends with a recovered Seipora teleporting them back to Gaoli after everyone says their goodbyes to Tetka.