Their ship halted by the grip of tentacles, boards creaking as they threatened to break or drag the ship down, the group readied themselves for battle as the mucus-infested dead surrounded them.
All but Kael had been through many fights such as this. Siax had killed a dragon, the group had battled ancient powers throughout the Mere and won, they had even seen the ascension of a God, and yet the battle before them was not easy.
The boat rocked and tipped as those on deck were converged upon by the corpses. Kael valiantly tried to hold the line like Idris would have done, and struggled with the reality he had only read about before. Siax, balancing atop the mast, struggled with his anger over his mind having been tampered with again, but used that anger to focus himself and managed to do huge damage to the Aboleth currently trying to sink their ship and claim them all. Effie darting in and out, Arya supporting, and Tiaumil blasting the worst offenders, it seemed manageable. Progress was being made, the dead were rendered inert once more, and tentacles were being made to retreat from their grip on the boat. But then Kael was grappled and both him and the dead went overboard.
Not missing a beat, Arya launched herself off the side of the ship, transforming mid-air into giant octopus in order to aid their new companion, even as the Aboleth surged upwards through the gloom, a magical symbol seen branded onto its head. In a daring manoeuvre, she latched onto the Aboleth's face, grappling it, giving the group a chance to help Kael back onto the ship. It did not go well for her, for soon it had prised her off and consumed her.
Siax, focused and determined, shot arrow after arrow into the creature, determined not to lose yet another companion. He did so much damage, that the Aboleth regurgitated Arya back into the water. In Tiaumil's book, her name glows a moment, before the words erase themselves, and Arya is alive, Kael channeling a great deal of healing into his saviour.
But their struggles were not over, for the Aboleth, although seriously hurt, still lived. A creature from a race older than the gods, its intelligence dwarfing all those around, it grasped at Kael's mind and succeeded. Unknowing of what had befallen him, Kael tried to get the group to stop attacking it, thinking the creature was an ally, telling them that it might know how to get Idris back if they questioned it. Dissent befel the group as Tiaumil, who was knowledgeable of the ways of the shadowfell, warned of a trap, while Siax struggled with the dilemma.
Thinking that he merely needed to understand his 'ally' better, Kael attempted to read the Aboleth's mind, but what he found there was so far beyond his comprehension. He was unable to handle the information, his mind faltering, his ability to speak cutting off, and he falls, stunned, to the deck.
In the lull, Effie moves forward and finishes off the Aboleth.
Shaken and exhausted, the group was alive, but not unchanged by the experience. The fight and their time in the Shadowfell had been challenging in a way that other situations had not, and their experience of the world had broadened (Level 14 now). But with that experience, so came another realisation: the fight they had just fought was not entirely over, for they realised that some of them had become infected by the very same mutation that the aboleth's dead had been carrying, and not one of them had any way of countering it.
If Idris had been still with them, or Pine, the task would have been an easy one to resolve, but while the group had healing from both Arya and Kael, neither of them had the ability to counter disease or curses, and from what they'd learned about the mucus, it was far too fast acting to find another source of help. They had mere seconds left, by the time they understood their predicament, and the certainty of their doom was imminent.
That doom came, but not in the form of the mucus, but from the source that saved them from it.
On the prow of their boat, a woman appeared, one that they had seen in a vision before from the fall of Idris; the leader of the House of Merdelain slavemasters, Qoledre Sarinaha. With an easy sweep of her hands, she healed them all of all ailments, before time around them stopped entirely, far too great a spell for any of them to counter. Collars like those they'd seen around the necks of the sorrowsworn appeared, hovering, waiting for time to reassert itself, and there was nothing any of them could do about it.
Except for Effie.
In her mind, a voice whispered, familiar and compelling. She could get out of this, if she wished. She could have everything she wanted, with just one sentence, when otherwise that chance would be gone along with the sword, and in that frozen moment, she took it.
"I wish the power of the ruinstone was mine."
Everyone in the group was frozen but Effie in that moment, her words shocked their enemy, for she should not have been able to say or do anything in that frozen moment. But she had, and in that instant, with her wish having been granted, she was gone.
Effie got her wish, but the sword had never been truly benevolent. She was granted the power of the ruinstone, but not in the way she had imagined. She had, in some way, become the stone. Its power was hers, because she was the stone, but a stone does not wield its own power.
Meanwhile back on the boat, time reasserted itself. Four collars slammed shut around the necks of the group, their magic, their very will, cut off. They were not the Heroes of Phandalin any more, they were not the Leilon Five any more, they were not anything.
They were just slaves.
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