<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">The combat seems to have bogged us down a bit. <br/>I'm going to nudge us toward some progress to free up actions and interactions.</div></div><br/>It is easy to attribute some amount of intelligence to the gleam in the eyes of the wolf - a natural desire to project thoughts and emotions onto animals, particular for those with strong sympathies toward them. The creature, low to the ground, stares on with fur raised and teeth bared, while Callenda uses the spear to open the latch on the cage. The iron whines as the door opens, and though the empty space between them seems vast, the creature is suspicious and seems to have no longing to move closer to the ranger and her spear. There seems to be a moment, brief and quiet, where the animal's snarl begins to fade and its fur begins to flatten, but that moment is quickly interrupted.<br/><br/>Maron, her clothing torn from her body and her cudgel destroyed, tumbles down the stairs into the cargo hold and splashes in the shallow water at the feet of the others. "Dead. Brandon is dead," she says as she strains with all of her effort to get back up onto her feet. It is then that the others hear the wail, otherworldly, horrifying, echo throughout the corridors of the ship and there at the top of the stairs emerges the seething and hissing shape of the Sea Witch, nude and beautiful, her spines trembling in rage, her body brimming with hatred, and with her loathing begins to churn all the sea about them and from the depths comes the squeals and cackles of creatures strange and bestial.<br/><br/>All aboard feel the shadow of death cold upon them.<br/>"Run," someone dares to say aloud, and all the terror of the sea is on their flight.<br/><br/>They scramble upon the slippery wood, taste the salt of the depths, and claw and fight and chew their way through all that wishes to grasp at their flesh. Swimming with all the might left within their bones, crushed within the waves, upon the sand, the specter of terrible things is with them in the water. The teeth of things that swallow men whole behind them, for those who dare to look back. And crawling, spitting up the ocean, kicking off scaled and fishy shapes that clutch at their ankles, the group climbs onto the shore to meet the others already there and the beginnings of a fire taking form.<br/><br/>Set against the moons and the flying clouds, they hear the wail of the Sea Witch call and the answer of all things death return her mournful song, while the shapes of terror climb upon the remains of the Dread Horizon, to scavenge the meat from her bones. Her tattered sails billowing in the wind, while the winding limbs of something unspeakable engulfs her from the water's break.<br/><br/>The sea has become their foe.<br/>Through the fog someone sees a wolf run into the forest.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">Callenda, Selwyn, Sae'Ka, Theresa, Maron, and Valen have all suffered 5 points of damage during the escape and -1 additional (temporary) CON loss. <br/>Brandon has died.<br/>Everyone is freezing.<br/>Those upon the shore have successfully gathered firewood.<br/>The 2 remaining goblins will wake up soon. </div></div><br/>