Inside a large ship called The Doldrum, Clio, Dragomir, and Cherish awoke inside coffins, uncertain of how they had arrived there. Clio pushed the lid off her coffin, while Cherish magically blasted her way out of hers and helped Dragomir out of his, by blasting off the top. Cherish and Dragomir had already been acquaintances, but it was here that they met Clio, the paladin of Pelor, for the first time.
Cherish found a censer of incense that had burned out in the corner of the room. She realized it was Sleeping Gas Incense, which had been keeping everyone unconscious in their coffins until it burnt out. She found some of it unburnt and handed it out to everyone, in case it would be useful later.
The party discovered a letter from someone named Amhach Dormineth, as well as some supplies he left.
Cherish discovered a cat prowling around the room and used her magic to speak with it. She asked the cat if he knew how they had gotten here, or how to get out. The cat was not very helpful, introducing himself as ‘The Captain’ before slinking away.
Searching the room, the party found a trapdoor down into the bilge, where they discovered a cart that could carry one person through a dark, narrow tunnel from one end of the ship to the other. They decided not to go down.
At some point on the ship, Dragomir caught a glimpse of Amhach with Divine Sense.
Healing towards the rear of the ship, one room over, the party found the corpse of a man. They approached cautiously, but Cherish, desperate for weapons in this strange place, took his saber. A swarm of rats came crawling out from inside him, attacking the party. Dragomir and Clio toppled a coffin onto the swarm, squishing it.
In the next room, the party came across a broken staircase with blood on the banister, where Clio also found an ax. Dragomir attempted to identify the blood, being a vampire. Clio and Cherish watched Dragomir uncomfortably as he tasted the blood for several minutes, before declaring “I think this might be blood.” The party moved on. They discovered a dumbwaiter but found it stuck, tugging on the chains until they realized there was a dead halfling man jamming it. His body was cut in half, and the platform plummeted into the bilge.
Party checked the door to the next room and found it barricaded by a severely wounded blind rogue on the other side.
The rogue was incoherent and raving. Cherish slipped the sleeping gas incense through the door to knock him out.
Once the rogue had fallen asleep, the party broke down the barricade and went in. The other door out of this room was also blocked.
Inside, the party gathered some supplies and was careful of the rum spilled across the floor. Dragomir, very hungry, unsuccessfully attempted to drink blood from the sleeping rogue, who awoke with a start and slapped Dragomir nearly to death. A battle against the blind rogue, named Cutter, ensued. Even wounded, Cutter was a formidable foe for the party, but in the end, Dragomir managed to throw a dagger into his throat, ending the fight.
As Cutter died, he lit the rum on the ground with his lantern, causing the room to burst into flames. The party fled the way they came and closed the door.
As the fire spread, the party ran back to the trapdoor and went down through the bilge. Dragomir went first and discovered that the tunnel was flooded, and also discovered a strange, aquatic-looking dagger.
Clio went next. As she was pulled the bilge, she saw a strange, pale woman at the far end of the tunnel. The woman had long black hair, tangled with seaweed. The woman disappeared, and Clio held her breath as she pulled through the flooded portion.
Last was Cherish, who was frightened by the same pale woman, who swam by, watching her. Cherish also had to hold her breath, but couldn’t do at as long as Clio, let alone Dragomir who did not need to breathe at all, and passed out by the time she got to the other side.
The party climbed up into a partially flooded room, where they resuscitated Cherish. They also found a large cage with broken bars, where presumably someone had escaped. The party started exploring rooms, heading back towards the fire.
In one room, Dragomir found a carpenter's workbench, where he quickly built a very shoddy shield.
In the next room, they found three giant crabs. They battled the crabs, and Dragomir got to test his new handmade shield. It broke after one attack. The crabs were defeated, and the party realized they had been in pain. When they died, they melted into seafoam.
Moving on, the party found another corpse, of a human man, as well as an alchemy table. They took 5 healing potions and examined one experimental potion, which they couldn’t identify. Cherish convinced Dragomir to test the experimental potion, which made him ravenously hungry, so he drank blood from the corpse, which made him violently ill.
Cherish tried smelling the potion, and it made her nose turn inside out, then. She thought drinking it might fix it. Her nose did turn right side out, but it was a different shape.
Clio took a hesitant taste and temporarily gained the ability to breathe ice like a white dragon.
The party returned to the back of the ship and climbed up one deck to the barracks where the ship’s guards slept.
On the new level, the party found several bunk rooms, the first of which was mostly bare. There were only some reed mats on the floor and a shrine to a strange spider goddess. There was a chest, but no one was able to pick the lock.
The party then checked the next room, which they pieced together had belonged to Cutter, the rogue. The room was covered in pinup art and erotic statues which Dragomir admired like fine art. On his desk, they discovered many identical love letters and a great deal of jewelry. Cherish took some of the jewelry, putting it on her tail.
The room after that smelled sweaty and had several torn-up training dummies. The walls had fist-sized holes in them, and under the covers of the bed, Cherish found a small black bear, hiding.
In the next room, there wasn’t much to find, but Dragomir did take a key to a cabinet in the room. He locked the cabinet, keeping the key.
The room after that was completely ransacked, and the party didn't go in.
In the final room, they found nothing but a trail of rot and black blood, which they followed toward the front of the ship. Where they encountered the long-haired woman again, attempting to open the huge, ornate doors to the winch room. The party was uncertain whether the woman was a friend or foe, so Cherish decided to talk to her. She spoke to the woman in Infernal, which she understood. She introduced herself as Margo Tyl and told Cherish that she needed to rescue her children. Cherish promised to help, and Margo warned her to “Beware the candles.”
Heading up the stairs from the second level to search for a way to help Margo, the party found themselves in a colossal hold full of crates of supplies stacked 30 feet high.
Rather than navigate the maze of crates, the party attempted to scale the 30’ foot tall piles of supplies. Dragomir and Cherish reached the top, catching a glimpse of Margo’s summoned creatures on the other side. The creatures attempted to climb to attack but were unable. Clio fell off the crates when she tried to climb up. Dragomir and Cherish climbed along the top for a while until they had to leap across a gap, and fell to the ground.
Following the black blood, the party discovered the crushed phylactery of Edgar Pentilious, who had been destroyed in his weakened state by Nomi, who was hiding in the meat crate with all the cats. Nomi Vos Halaur was asleep and wounded, but no one woke her up. The party realized she was probably the one who had broken out of the cage earlier. Cherish and Dragomir recognized her, but Clio didn’t know her.
As the party neared the front of the ship on this level, they ran right into a dwarven warrior named Brea Oakharbour, as well as two halfling nobilities--Lavinia and Aric Tallow. Cherish recognized that the halflings owned the ship based on their heraldry, a candle symbol, which was carved into all of the doors. She reacted by Eldritch blasting Aric so hard he exploded, killing his mother as well, at which point Brea furiously attacked the party who ran away. Cherish dodged her electrical flail with a flip, up onto some crates.
The party ran up onto the open top deck and barred the trapdoor behind them. They quickly looked around, seeing the deckhouse, and the two ballistae on the front of the ship.
Brea punched through the trapdoor and attacked Clio and Cherish. Dragomir briefly used blood-puppet to try to convince Brea to jump off the ship, but she broke out of his control.
Cherish threw a dagger at Brea who deflected it into Cherish’s shoulder, while Dragomir attempted to shoot Brea with a ballista. However, not understanding how the ballista works, Dragomir cut the bowstring and was slapped by the whipping cord and knocked into the ocean.
Meanwhile, Cherish and Clio got into a tug-o-war with Brea using her flail. Cherish targeted the lantern on the end of the flail, releasing the trapped soul of a silver dragon into the sky, which killed Brea with a bolt of lightning.
Dragomir managed to swim against the current and the reach anchor chain, which he climbed up into the winch room. While briefly below the surface, he spotted two giant figures walking along the seabed, pulling the ship along by the anchors.
Inside the winch room, Dragomir encountered Garret Tallow, another halfling. Garret was panicky and threatened Dragomir with a dagger, while also offering him 200,000 to get him off the ship before it sinks. Dragomir pretended to accept before taking his dagger. After telling Garrat to disarm the ship, he bit him to death and drank his blood.
The rest of the party arrived when Dragomir opened the large ornate doors from the inside. Inside, the party sees a portrait of an elderly halfling woman, with white eyes and grimacing red teeth. The woman was Mother Tallow. Dragomir, suspicious of the painting, attempted to use his blood-puppet on it but was affected by her Dominate Person instead when she saw the party through the painting. Cherish slapped Dragomir into unconsciousness.
Cherish found a safe behind the portrait, containing an Infernal contract binding Margo, locks of hair from Margo and her children, and a book of children’s stories including the one about Margo. Clio was familiar with the stories, which were Thayan and Zhent.
A long time passed while the party rested and read the contract and stories. Cherish burned the hair and contract, releasing Margo and her children, but also destroying the enchantment that kept the ship floating. The ship, still on fire, and presently having the prow torn off by the huge chains, began sinking.
The party fled frantically to the lifeboat at the back of the ship, Dragomir carrying Garret’s body to revive later. Nomi was already on the lifeboat with the cats. The party lingered momentarily at the front of the ship as they witnessed the arrival of 3 Zhentarim warships attempting to board and rescue the sinking vessel. They returned fire and cut the ropes the Zhents were trying to board with.
The party ran up the sinking vessel as the deck became steadily steeper, sinking into the depths. They managed to reach the lifeboat, which was hanging from its crane. Everyone got inside quickly, except Dragomir who was burdened with Garret’s body. Dragomir attempted to jump into the boat holding the corpse but fell short by several inches. Cherish attempted to catch Dragomir by skewering Garret with her Arms of Hadar, but she just cut the body in half. Dragomir fell into the churning ocean.
As the lifeboat was dragged down by the ropes securing it to the crane, Clio saved everyone by using her ice breath to freeze and shatter the ropes.
The lifeboat was tossed on the waves as a huge storm raged, and the Zhent ships were unable to pursue.
Meanwhile, Dragomir sank to the seabed, where he was rescued by Amhach, who he got a brief glimpse of. Dragomir immediately had a crush on the triton.