Away from the Mere, I managed to contact the Three while we went to seek out Ularan's ship and its bound spirit, Emberlost. The response left me with mixed feelings, especially with how I have been feeling lately. To know that Bhaal would find amusement in my death, it hit me hard. Perhaps that is one of the reasons Ularan wished for me to have a greater purpose for myself, not merely duty, for hearing those words when I had been struggling to put all my effort into this task for them, having set aside all else that meant much to me in order to do so, it weakened my resolve somewhat, or at least drained me of some of the impetus to push myself further for his benefit.
Perhaps that was obvious, for Myrkul gave me a directive, clear and precise, and Bane's words of caution, said in a way to show that at least to him my life and death held more than merely entertainment value, it helped.
Away from that, and having had time to think back without the press of potential catastrophe looming, I think perhaps Bhaal's words were not as hurtful as I had thought at the time. His words held warning about the situation ahead, but perhaps also reassurance that my failure would not displease him. I try to hold that in my thoughts as we continue on. I will admit that it still troubles me despite that. Irrational, perhaps, as I have always known what sort of personality he was carved from.
I am tired, and Ularan's words make more sense than before. Perhaps I do not have what it takes to endure the years without such a purpose as he clearly holds. I do not know how to find one in these lands though. The dead are numerous, but I am not as needed here for them. On the mountains, I was all they had.
-==I==-
The situation at Ularan's ship was difficult, helped not at all by the weariness we felt when we got there. The battle with the hydra had left many of us low on resources, but we had tarried so long in the Mere trying to find the lizardfolk that I especially felt that time was pressing.
We rested only for a short time at the top of the cliff, and perhaps that was a mistake not to rest further, but when we had got there we could see the cultists working on the ship, casting magic over and over, and it felt foolhardy to let them continue for longer. How long before they finished what they were doing? How long until they gained reinforcements? Ularan's words sat heavy upon me, of how the cultists were trying to wear the spirit down, and so we made our way there, hoping to take them by surprise in the gloom of approaching night.
In some ways it went poorly at first, with Idris fumbling on the way down the cliff, and then getting hit by a ballista. In others it went surprisingly well, for in fairly short order we were on the ship and most of the cultists were dead, and only the leader, a gnome skilled in alchemy, remained. He cast a spell into the sky to bring reinforcements, and it was that, rather than anything else, that made me worry more acutely about the time. Ularan's ship wasn't seaworthy, and we hadn't managed to find any way of getting the spirit on our side or to return it to the Mere. I managed to call down the weather to disperse the words in the clouds, but not instantly. Not nearly as quickly as I had wished.
The Three had told me that I would need to find a way to influence the spirit, and that such a thing was likely to be in the depths of the ship itself. So when the gnome leader seemed to be in a state that the rest could deal with it, I headed below, into the ship, asking for Effie's aid. She didn't give it, too worried about finishing the leader I think. She had shown canny fighting priorities before, and so I merely went down myself, too aware of the time before more Talos reinforcements, headed by the leader of the cult, might appear.
Ularan had told us of that leader, of how she had found a way to get reincarnated a day later each time she was killed, and how that was only speeding the degradation of the situation with the Death Gods, or lack of them. We could not afford to be there when she got there. Few of us had any resources left with which to fight, and until Ularan's ritual was complete, she should not be killed.
Down in the depths of the ship, I lit a torch and followed the sound of an elven voice. We had thought Emberlost was on the deck of the ship, chained down and covered. It was because of this that I was perhaps foolish enough not to question my actions, thinking the voice was something related, that it heralded the answers I might have been looking for. Instead, in my torchlight, I found the torso of the knight, one that melded more and more into the ship around us as it went down. This was not a figure standing on a ship. The ribs of the ship were part of this creature. The ship, in its entirety, was him. It was Emberlost.
I had unknowingly opened the door before I had found what was needed, and maybe it was just my state of mind, but I could imagine Bhaal's laughter only too well, delighted in the slaughter to come.
Standing there in the darkness with only my torchlight facing the spirit bound and moulded into the ship, I was at a loss as to what to do. I had no wish to fight him, or harm the ship. We needed to get it back to help secure the Mere so the ritual could be done uninterrupted, but by Ularan's words, the spirit was maddened, and by the Three's I had needed information I had not yet found. I did not know what to do, and so alone, I did the only thing I could think of; I attempted to persuade him of the goal, of the fact that we were allies to help him return to the Mere.
I do not think I need to detail how poorly that went.
His words commanded me, and I found myself stepping forward. His greatsword lit as he grabbed me, and it fell, and it fell, and it fell. I felt my armour buckling under the onslaught. I felt my body do so too. He dropped me on the floor, and by some miracle I was still alive. Barely. A state I was only too familiar with.
And then Idris was there behind me on the stairs. I was not alone.
I healed myself as best I could, and stepped back as quickly as I dared in the state I was in, Emberlost's greatsword missing me by the thinnest of margins. Idris told me to go above, the paladin stepping forward towards Emberlost. At first I thought it a foolish move, considering the state I had been left in only moments before, but strangely the spirit did not attack Idris, and seemed to be talking to him instead, in a way that I had failed to manage. I was worried my presence would only enrage the spirit once more and ruin that peace, and so I did as I was bid and headed upstairs, healing myself with some of the last magical reserves I had.
But the ship had changed since I had been down, since Emberlost had decided to ready himself for battle. There were skeletal rowers now working on the benches, and the floor undulated in ways that showed more undead were being called. I met Siax there, and together we felt the ship bob and move, saw the land drifting further away as the ship managed to launch itself into the sea once more. And I saw how it was not level. How it was sinking.
My first thought was to get everyone off the ship, now that Emberlost had mobilised. Even sinking, a bone ship might still be of use to Ularan, it might even be able to sail beneath the water. But as soon as I thought about abandoning the ship to its journey, I realised that we were scattered as a group. I did not know where Effie was, and while Arya must have been around somewhere in order that Siax was back with us, where she was I didn't know. But more than that, Idris was talking with Emberlost, and through all our time together, his stubbornness and curiosity were well documented. Could I actually manage to persuade him to leave, and then gather all the rest of our group safely off the ship, while under attack, and make it to land in time without falling to the devastation of those weapons? I didn't think so.
Instead, seeing little other option, I warned Siax in case he hadn't seen the ship sinking, and then swiftly made my way downstairs into the lowest part of the ship in order to try and somehow mend the hole to give us time. If Idris could at least talk the spirit down, long enough to get to the Mere, we would be safer to disembark, and the ship would be where it needed to be without fear of us being targeted by the Talos cultist's leader. We would not survive that.
Below once more, more of the ship had come alive, and I found myself victim to some cargo nets that tried to smother me, but I managed to blast it off before continuing down.
I had thought, hoped even, that it would be empty down there but for crates or cargo, or even just bones that made up the ship, but no. There was a creature there, grotesque in appearance, twisted, hate-filled. She glared at me as I struggled against the buoyancy of the water while trying to repair the hull, but she was chained to the ship and could not get to me, thankfully.
Ularan had made no mention of her being there, and as I struggled to mend the ship, I had to wonder why that was. Why had he given us so little pertinent information if he truly wished for us to succeed?