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Chapter 6 - Session 3

The Prisoner of the Shatters and the Sunken Wreck

Events and Actions

Musing over the mysterious figure they had watched glide between the spires the night before, the party fell into a broader debate about the true nature of magic — noting that the priests' powers, Riu's healing gift (which even Mistress Clara says comes from the two), and Noddy's own hybrid essence-and-mentalism magic all seemed to work differently, despite the church's insistence that all power flows from the two gods alone.

The party, becalmed in The Shatters, continued their approach via rowboats toward two prominent rock spires, one of which held the wreckage of a large ship. They were confronted by an old Islander who had positioned a large cannon menacingly. Rather than fly a national flag or colors of convenience, the party ran up their own banner — the Medallion's circular device — and used semaphore to warn him that firing his loose, unbraced gun would send it recoiling back through his own shelter as much as it would endanger them. When he demanded to know who they represented, the party toyed with him through the flags, claiming allegiance to "the three" rather than the two and describing their quest as a search for "power beyond the two," testing his reaction before revealing anything more concrete. After this exchange, Riu teleported directly onto the spire to parlay; his sudden appearance so alarmed Mani that he nearly opened fire, believing Riu had been dragged there by hostile magic, until Noddy talked him down.

The man revealed himself to be Grantos, the legendary wind mage who was captured during the voyage of the "Kingship" 44 years ago. Riu, drawing on evidence the party had gathered at an old ruined port in the Channel Islands — graves of the "Kingship"'s dead, some seemingly by plague and some by violence, and hints in a ruined church that a navigator had survived and returned north — guessed correctly who he was, even venturing the name "De Rendal" as someone Grantos might have sailed with, a guess Grantos did not deny. When the rest of the party rowed over to join him, Mani suggested leaving weapons in the boat as a show of good faith; Leela flatly refused and kept her axe. As introductions were made, Grantos recognized Werner at once by his family's resemblance — and by the harpoons slung across his back — and confirmed he knew of the De Rendal line, leaving unspoken the question of whether Werner's own long-vanished grandfather, commissioned to lead a westward expedition before the Great Change, might have sailed with Grantos aboard that same doomed "Kingship." Riu, in a rare moment of candor, gave his true family name, Infurious Montesigna, alongside the name he now goes by, while Knick Nab stayed guarded and offered only an alias, "Nemo." Grantos explained that he has been a prisoner of the Divinity of Two ever since and is now magically bound to protect the wreck of the "Divine Rite," the very ship impaled on the spire. His magical binding is tied to a Diad that was lost in the surrounding waters when the ship was destroyed. He also confirmed he knew Mistress Clara, Riu's mentor and a fellow prisoner of the church — a claim he only fully accepted once shown the "Medallion" through a spyglass and recognized Clara's likeness carved into the ship's own figurehead — which helped settle any remaining suspicion between the two parties. Kneeling at the water's edge, Riu attempted to attune himself to the bound Diad and succeeded; through it he sensed an immense and alien power, one capable of channeling the full destructive wrath of the two gods — clearly not the same magic as his own healing gift, nor, as far as he could tell, the same as the priests' more mundane divine magic.

Leela and Grantos shared a conversation in their native tongue, grieving the destruction of their respective homelands by the Divinity. Moved by Leela's sorrow, Mani gripped his necklace and silently vowed that the party would stop the Divinity's destructive actions — the realization that the church could annihilate an entire island turning what had felt like an adventure into something far graver. At the party's request, Grantos summoned a wind to allow "The Medallion" to anchor safely nearby.

The party then began preparations for an underwater expedition to find the lost Diad. Noddy's initial dive was cut short when the cold and the disorientation of breathing water for the first time left him nauseous and panicked; he had to cancel the spell and vomit up the water before he could breathe air again. Before risking anyone else, Cosimo dropped a globe of illusory light down onto the wreck to scout it from the surface; the sudden glow drove the resident giant octopus into hiding but drew swarms of fish and several sharks toward the area, confirming both the wreck's location and the dangers waiting below. Werner, relying on his natural talents for cold resistance and breath-holding, then successfully completed a harrowing 100-foot dive to secure a guide rope to the sunken portion of the wreck, though he was menaced by a shark on the way back up. Riu followed down the same rope, using water breathing, water vision, and underwater movement magic to explore the wreck and surrounding seabed; he drove off the skittish giant octopus with a light spell of his own, spotted the spilled treasure chest and a giant clam, and confirmed the seabed was far too vast to search by hand, before repelling two more curious sharks with a telekinetic push on his way back up. To narrow down the search area, Cosimo performed a four-hour ritual to cast a long-range "Detect Magic" spell, which successfully located several magical sources on the seafloor. As night fell over the search, Mani offered the crew a silver piece for every shark they could haul out of the water, and hands set to work with drag nets and gill nets to help clear the area for the dives still to come.

NPCs & Creatures

  • Grantos: An ancient and powerful Islander wind mage. He was the sole occupant of the rock spire, magically bound to protect the wreck of the "Divine Rite." He has survived alone for three years by carefully rationing collected water and eating the giant tortoises that visit the spire.
  • Leela: She had an emotional conversation with Grantos about the loss of her home, Spider Island, and refused Mani's request that she leave her axe in the boat before boarding.
  • Prelate Jacque: Named by Grantos as one of two "Divine Rite" crew members he overheard discussing the party — the same prelate who once tried to have Cosimo confined as a heretic aboard the "Advance." He and an unnamed Censure spoke of Cosimo as having "corrupted the powers of the two."
  • Giant Octopus: A large octopus was seen near the wreck on the seafloor. It fled repeatedly, first from Cosimo's scouting light and later from Riu's, each time appearing agitated by the sudden glow.
  • Sharks: Numerous sharks were attracted to the area by magical light and menaced the party members during their dives.
  • Giant Sea Tortoises: Several large tortoises were seen in the area.
  • Giant Clam: A massive clam was observed on the seafloor near the wreck. It closed abruptly at one point, prompting speculation about what might be sheltering inside.

Locations

  • The Shatters: The session took place entirely within this treacherous region of shattered rock spires, the former site of Spider Island. The party's focus was a pair of rock pinnacles, one of which holds the aft section of the "Divine Rite."
  • The Sunken Wreck of the "Divine Rite": The forward section of the holy vessel rests on the seabed 100 feet below the surface. The area is littered with debris, a spilled treasure chest, and is home to various sea creatures.

Conflicts

  • The initial encounter with Grantos was tense, as he had a cannon aimed at the party's boat. The situation was de-escalated through conversation.
  • Mani nearly fired on Grantos the instant Riu teleported onto the spire, mistaking the sudden appearance for an attack, before Noddy convinced him Riu had done it under his own power.
  • Werner De Rendal was menaced by a shark during his ascent. Riu was also followed and threatened by two sharks, which he pushed away with a telekinetic spell before returning to the surface unharmed.

Learnings and Discussions

  • The party confirmed the man on the spire is Grantos. He has been a prisoner of the Divinity of Two for 44 years, since being captured on the "Kingship" expedition.
  • Grantos was forced to guide the "Divine Rite" on its mission to destroy the Totem of Earth on Spider Island. He is magically bound by a Diad, wielded by a cleric on that ship, to fulfill his last given order: "protect the ship." He cannot leave the immediate vicinity of the wreckage.
  • The party learned there was more than one Diad on the original "Kingship" voyage. Censure Bayar consumed one to destroy the Totem of Air, while the ship's cleric, Abiyard, used a second one to enslave Grantos. Grantos revealed that Abiyard survived the disastrous return journey and has since risen to become one of the Twin Eminences, the highest authority in the Divinity of Two.
  • Grantos offered his own explanation for why the church destroys what it cannot control: he believes the two gods, and their priests, cannot accept that any power exists beyond their own — that admitting as much would mean admitting there are other gods.
  • Grantos overheard crew members of the "Divine Rite" — Prelate Jacque and an unnamed Censure — discussing the party. They spoke of Cosimo as an "evil one" who had "corrupted the powers of the two," suggesting Jacque's suspicions of Cosimo followed him well beyond his time aboard the "Advance."
  • Attuning to the Diad, Riu sensed it holds an immensely powerful and destructive spell, one capable of amplifying a wielder's magic manyfold — a plausible explanation for how it can unleash a cataclysm on the scale of the ones that consumed the Totem of Air and, more recently, Spider Island's Totem of Earth.
  • Deep-sea diving at 100 feet is incredibly dangerous due to the intense cold and water pressure, which causes severe pain and discomfort. Ordinary tricks for clearing painful ear pressure don't work when the lungs are full of water, though working water through the nasal passages offers some relief. These environmental hazards pose a significant obstacle, even for characters with magical assistance.
  • Weighing how to make future dives safer, the party discussed several options: an improvised diving bell made from an upturned, weighted boat (rejected as impractical — keeping such a thing balanced and airtight while descending was judged too great a risk), securing ropes to the wreck and its cannon to ease movement up and down, and chumming the water some distance away to draw sharks off from the dive site. Cosimo also revealed that his ritual magic can draw bonus power from any crew members willing to participate, hinting at a larger, ship-wide ceremony to come.
  • Using a long-range "Detect Magic" spell, Cosimo located multiple magical sources on the seabed: one in the prow of the wreck, another in a spilled treasure chest, a third inside a giant clam, and a fourth within a cave beneath a giant tortoise.

Items Gained

  • None.

Items Lost

  • None.