(S17) Dreadnought Lost

The cultists swarmed up on the Dreadnought, rushing to attack the beleaguered heroes. One however veers to the left and enters the navigation room, where Arya had previously found the map. Soon smoke trailed out of the door, the contents having set on fire by the cultist. While in fierce combat the voice of the cultists leader spoke - as each of her troops rushed forward a phantom image of her appeared next to them and continued talking. Oddly she was garbed in the vestments more fitting of a Loviatar priest than anything to do with Talos. She spoke and introduced herself as Dagniya, mistress of Pain.

"Well well well, you've driven back the chosen. Bravo heroes, bravo. I have no doubt that you could slay me if I faced you and I really can't have that, ohohohoho no. However my blade is at your throat as well. The ship you've liberated from us is creaking and broken. One command from me and the mangonel of my remaining ship will fire...dooming this wreck to sink. That is something neither of us wants. So I propose a deal. We both leave the ship. We both return to the shore under the others eye. The ship will be lost in the deep ocean but will be intact for one of us to find eventually. What say you?"

No words were exchanged but  The Leilon...Some? continued their fight, denying the deal and continuing the fight.Arya attempted to summon fire from the skies but was stopped by Dagniya counterspelling her, adding "Ah, a pity, we will we will have to do this the old fashioned way." in a tone of annoyance. This however meant she was no longer hidden by magic which allowed Idris to charge her. However before the Paladin could kill her she lunged towards Siax who instead of striking her, spun to pit himself between her and the others. A strange look had taken over his eyes, the Loviatar mistress having ensorcelled him in some way. Seeing this, Idris veered off to where the spear of Fheralai Stormsworn still lay. Baring incredible pain as lighting coursed through his body as he grasped it he was able to pick it up and throw it towards the cultists. It turned into a bolt of lighting, slaying many and even wounding the mistress.

Meanwhile, Effie was in communion with Emberlost using the remaining mangonel to attack the remaining cultist ship, even killing it's captain and breaking some of it's sails. However their own mangonel fired, the rock breaking through several of Emberlost's decks. Effie hears the revenant's voice via the creaking off the wood. "I descend to the depths. Make way and find the splinter in me, perhaps it will protect you as I cannot!"

She instantly jumped down the newly created hole, aiming to find the splinter. Focused on the task kept the grief that seized her heart from being overwhelming. She had done everything she could and even then she would be losing the ship that she had bound to herself. Wading through the rapidly flooding chambers she found the splinter. At first glance it looked like a common weapon, it's hilt simple black leather. However as she grasped it a spectral flame emerged from it, glowing a luminous green. Clipping it on her belt she rushed back up on the deck only barely ahead of the rising waters. She emerged to find chaos.

Idris's fighting cultist after cultist, his enflamed sword cutting foes left and right. This let ">Pine] move forward to confront the Mistress. He moved in obvious pain as his armor glowed red hot from her magic. Before he could reach her, shrugging off cultists that tried to drag him away Siax charged him striking him again and again. They had traveled together for months now and it seemed the ranger knew where every weak spot of his armor lay. This gave enough time for the mistress to teleport away, on the remaining cultist ship. Arya realized that she could break the charm that lay upon the guild ranger by striking at him. Her wildfire spirit engulfed in flames, his long hair smoldering as he instinctually rolled to extinguish the flames. Finding his feet he prepared to slay Pine but his fey companion had been correct - the charm had dropped. Rage gripped him and he killed a nearby cultist, pummeling at the mans corpse long after he had died. 

Seeing that the ship was not savable Pine decided that the leader needed to be neutralized. While heavily wounded Pine used his gnomish cloak to teleport, appearing next to the fleeing mistress.   She turned towards him as he called upon the deathly ambience of his Gods came to his aid, their spectral clawed fingers tearing at the barbed lady.  Nowhere to go, she staggered towards him, but much as Pine himself, she was too badly wounded, and stumbled, ending up attempting to crawl towards him through the rending spirits, to turn his mind against him with a touch since her words had failed to.  He had no time for her games, not with Effie having fallen, and Emberlost sinking.  He stepped forward and placed a heavy armored boot upon her sagging head, and *CRUNCH*, she was destroyed. 

It was by chance he looked up to see his allies jumping off the almost entirely sunk Dreadnought. It was by chance he sad the gleam of the hidden assassins' blade biting into Effie, some sort of poison paralyzing her. Alerting the others Arya turned into an octopus and rushed to save the drowning Effie. Idris and Siax were still fighting, struggling to stay afloat.

A Talos priest, feeling the death of his mistress, charged across the water and climbed aboard the ship to confront the instigator of her demise, summoning dark tentacles from the depths to stop him, and Pine, whose life had been hanging by only the shortest of threads, fell to their inky grasp.  Sure-sighted and desperate to make up for his earlier weakness, Siax fired shot after shot at the Talos priest from one ship to the other, embedding them in his body until his concentration failed and the spell ended, before another one cut his life away too.

Unseen the assassin was free to swim towards the ship where Pine was barely alive, having managed to call upon his fortitude and had risen from the earlier defeat.  Pine readied himself for any sign of the assassin, but his spell failed to destroy the man as he appeared over the side of the ship, dagger in hand, and buried his blade into the cleric, killing him once more. Until he did not, Pine rising again and cutting the assassin down. Whatever his deal with The Dead Three had done to him it seemed it was incredibly difficult for him to actually die. The assasin died at his claws, terror etched upon his face.

The party all swum to the smaller cultist ship as Emberlost went down. While it's steering was destroyed, Arya was able to manually move the rudder in her octopus form. Slowly they made it to the shore, beaching the ship in the caves by the Tower of Storms. They sat, utterly exhausted and lucky to be alive. They had lost ">Emberlost] to the depths. But they had the cultist map. And perhaps the lenses that was needed to read it. Perhaps this was a victory in the end?

Dagniya knelt before the makeshift altar of Loviatar in her cabin. The lingering scent of incense curling around her like a serpent. She had devoted years to  the Maiden of Pain, reveling in the exquisite agony she both delivered and endured. Pain was her sacrament, suffering her devotion. As she knelt, the words of Gadrille echoed in her mind. That intriguing woman had approached her with an offer: join the cult of Talos. Her voice was smooth and laced with power as she painted a vivid picture of the Sword Coast in flames, its people crushed beneath the fury of endless storms. “What greater suffering could there be,” Gadrille The Reef-Reaver had whispered, “than a world in ruins?”

At first, Dagniya had resisted. Loviatar had been her only god, her guide. But the more she considered Talos' plan—destruction on an unimaginable scale—the more she saw the truth in Gadrille’s words. The chaos and devastation Talos promised would ensure that every living soul knew suffering, pain woven into the very fabric of their lives. And wasn't that what Loviatar demanded of her followers? Gadrille had seen it too—her desire, her need to serve pain in all its forms. With a final glance at the altar, Dagniya stood. She would serve Talos, for through his destruction, she could spread Loviatar’s blessing of suffering across the land.

But first – to kill the thieves who had dared to take the Dreadnought. Whoever the Leilon Five were, they didn’t matter. They were just bodies—vessels for the suffering to come. 

- Dagniya