By Kelly "Fern" Perfetto and Dan "N" Hudon
Fern [Friday night]:
This past weekend we once again set out to Nangea, this time in the hopes of defeating Thea Dalma, the rogue avatar of the sea goddess Calypso. Our journey began as we boarded two boats; a graciously lent Pacifican vessel, and Jack of Redwall’s ship which he had been working on for quite some time. There were not many people with me on Jack’s ship, but we fared well with a cannon primarily manned by Elric, and a good number of fighters, clashing against the creatures of the sea that Thea Dalma sent our way. That is, until a Leviathan appeared, and crashed through both ships. The Pacifican vessel sustained too much damage, and the crew had to row dinghies or ride inexplicably tamed sharks to land. Avendar did the bulk of fixing Jack’s ship as Gael, Ryu, and I baled water, before running aground.
On land once again, we found King Skyros of Pacifica, who had also become wrecked and was missing some of his people. After traveling for some time through dangerous territory, we came across a safe haven, where some aquatic folk - Aquarians - were tending to some of the wounded Pacificans. They offered refuge to us as well, and we set out across the island to gather essential poultice ingredients to heal the Pacificans; some sort of bird eggs, pine fruits, and tropical aloe. At least one of the Aquarians, Asogill if I remember correctly, joined in our search so that we had a guide. The Aquarians were quite eager to teach us as well, and some of us went out on a brief expedition to learn how to tame giant seahorses.
With the Pacificans on the mend, these Aquarians promised peace with the Pacificans, but asked for a favor in return. We were to slay the Leviathan, ending its reign of terror on their people and allowing us to travel the rest of the way to Nangea. Armed with harpoons and rope, which would become a line once on the ship (or boat? They were quite insistent on some terms but not others) we returned to the beach. Our primary Pacifican contact Thassos had gotten another ship for us, and once again two ships set out. I somehow ended up on the sparser ship again, and yet we had two of three harpoons. We reeled the Leviathan in many times, as did the other ship, and we hacked away at it as it trashed violently against our ship. Showing its corruption, it cast mind altering forces upon us but we managed to dodge the worst of it. The Leviathan finally succumbed to its wounds after many attacks. After some of us gathered up valuable provisions for later, we waded ashore to Nangea and settled for the night in Gundalf’s Tavern.
I have been trying to work out some sort of dish with Leviathan meat, pine fruit, tropical aloe, and eggs, but I think that might be an article for another time.
N [Saturday]:
Greetings, mortals (and otherwise)! I have been asked to recount a tale of our (Ashen) adventures in Nangea this past weekend, so here is my account!
While I was unable to join the adventuring party on Friday night (seems like I boarded the wrong ship…) I heard that the heroes of the Realms encountered a mighty leviathan on their voyage to Nangea. From aboard their ships, they had to launch harpoons through the fins of the long wet creature to pull it alongside the hull and wail on its purple hide. I hear that leviathan meat is quite tasty, so perhaps it was worth getting sunk over!
When I arrived in Nangea after a much less eventful trip on Sunday morning, I found everyone gearing up to fight the forces of the evil Thea Dalma, traitorous avatar of the sea goddess Calypso. We gathered at Gundulf’s Tavern (where some of my companions gambled with a pirate for his treasure map) and were met by faces familiar to my companions, Tybalt of the Brimiri and Leyla, Archon of Friendship. After they declared their intentions to form a new, united Nangea, we set off to raid a glowweed lab inhabited by Narissa, an old friend of Leyla’s who had been corrupted by Thea Dalma.
After fighting our way through a maze of glowweed we entered the lab to find many potions of varying effects, as well as a complex mechanism sealing Narissa behind it. After spending quite a while arranging the wires, the lightning was able to channel properly and Narissa was released. She gifted us a number of necklaces blessed by Blue Flame, capable of pacifying and cleansing the Hollow that roam Nangea. In addition, she presented us with an incredibly useful invention: a power-draining gauntlet that could be used to absorb energy from beings augmented by corrupted ley cores. The user simply had to charge a powerful punch and strike the corrupted being to drain them, but any individual person could only use it once before side effects might take hold. Mandolin was the first to use it, draining Narissa to purify her and transfer her memories into Leyla.
Next, we went to find some Hollows to cleanse with the Blue Flame necklaces. While I tried shapeshifting into a Hollow to see if I could sneak some on covertly, it appears gifts of jewelry aren’t a common occurrence among Hollows, so we turned to the solution to all problems: violence! Corpses are much easier to adorn with necklaces than angry undead, and once we had drained a Hollow leader with an embedded ley core that could roar its fellows back to life, we had a pile of blinged-out bodies to cleanse. Unfortunately the Hollows had to be alive (undead? Er, not dead) to be cleansed, but with the power of raises and blunt force head trauma we solved that issue. We surrounded the sleeping undead and held hands while reciting a prayer to Calypso, and the Hollows were freed. We repeated this process several times throughout the day, so hopefully we made a dent in Nangea’s Hollow population.
At some point after this, while many of my companions went looking for some seafolk who served Thea Dalma, I joined several of my fellow militia members (and a few others) to go looking for the buried treasure at the end of the pirate from the tavern’s map. While Bogen, who had the map, fell a bit behind dealing with Jasper shenanigans, Kalashai had memorized the map and led us to the spot, where Yppn found the chest hidden under fallen leaves. After “liberating” the treasure, we headed back to rejoin the group, where we found J’ortsa reanimating a Sea Skrunk as an undead and much of the party concluding successful negotiations with the seafolk by dancing with them. Honestly not sure how all that ended up happening, but sometimes it’s best to just smile and nod.
The final preparation for the showdown with Thea Dalma was to destroy the three elemental totems giving her control over the storms, seas, and skies. Braving a maze of lightning, a pool of water, and a wall of wind - all while being attacked by hostile elementals and needing to destroy the buildings the totems were housed in with golem-provided bombs - we managed to break Thea Dalma’s influence over the weather.
As night fell, we prepared for our final assault on Calypso’s traitorous avatar. King Skyros of Pacifica arrived to promise aid on our western flank, the seafolk were in position to betray their master, we were ready. Thea Dalma herself, a tall, corrupted monstrosity, appeared before us with a host of glowweed elementals who could turn us against each other. A long battle ensued, as much amongst ourselves as against the enemy, but eventually we were able to enact our plan - to surround Thea Dalma in the same type of ritual circle as we used on the Hollows and burn away her influence with Blue Flames.
We coated our weapons in Blue Flames provided by Vesper’s flaming sword and attacked the avatar with great vigor, keeping her occupied and blocking her dissension-causing swings while the rest of us (aside from those keeping the glowweed at bay) formed a circle and began chanting the cleansing prayer - Blue Flame burns with cleansing fire, save this soul from fate most dire! - bringing Thea Dalma to her knees. As she was weakened, Orion charged a powerful draining punch with the gauntlet and dealt her a devastating blow. Still, however, it was not enough, and we had to repeat the process a second time. This time it was Bogen who landed the draining strike, once again injuring the avatar.
As her strength waned, Thea Dalma called out and summoned a massive leviathan, much like the one from the prior night. But this time, without harpoons to subdue it, there was nothing we could do but avoid its forceful strikes as we tried to form the ritual circle one final time, with Fern, J’ortsa, 404, and Mirren among those drawing its attention away. It was difficult, but eventually we managed, with Gordon dealing the final draining punch. The leviathan and glowweed disappeared, and Thea Dalma fell to the ground, her body shrinking and crumbling from a towering beast into a mere mortal form, then into a tiny sea snail no larger than a shoe. Despite her cries demanding the respect an avatar deserves, we gave her to Lyla to consume, ending her reign over Nangea once and for all.
We cheered for victory and a united Nangea, then returned to Gundulf’s Tavern to celebrate. Chimeron worked to create a new body for the Little Prince, Thea Dalma’s familiar who died with her, so that he could stand trial for his crimes and be returned to Sir Tara. We divvied up our loot (except the Goblin Gold, which was worthless aside from being shiny) and went our separate ways. Oh, and I got a new hand! Gonna reverse engineer that gauntlet and stick it on my arm cuz it looks cool.
Overall, our adventure was a rousing success, and I foresee a prosperous future for the people of Nangea.
‘N’ ((OOC: Daniel Hudon))
OOC: This was an amazing event, thanks to Ashenmark and all the staff and NPCs for making it happen! Even though it was my first event in the series and the series’ conclusion, I had a great time, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for whatever comes next!