The battle with the pirates continues. Titania, knocked backward, is toe-to-toe with the sleeping deck mage, who is now snoring loudly. Reyna rushes over toward her vulnerable hexmates, unleashing a trio of Scorching Rays as she goes. One strikes an approaching pirate with devastating accuracy. Clothing and beard afire, the man runs up the beach and away from the scrum.
Titania is able to roll to her knees and casts a well-placed Entangle spell beneath another rapidly nearing pirate, and the vines, grasses, and trees leap to entwine the surprised sailor. With a mighty effort, he tears himself loose and leaps free of the questing branches and vines to pivot, bringing down his hammer on Beckaylee. The pirate captain follows this up with a bolt sent from his hand crossbow, striking Beckaylee yet again. Snarling, the druid responds by casting a Heat Metal spell at the closer pirate. The vicious hook he threatened Beckaylee with begins to glow an angry orange, igniting the man’s jacket and shirt. The man screams in pain, dropping the molten hook, but not before flames run up his arm. The man collapses, engulfed.
Reyna is able to draw out her Dagger of Sharpness but fumbles the swipe at the approaching pirate. The magical blade falls harmlessly into the sand.
Hester lands and begins to conjure as well, hands sculpting Rime’s Binding Ice. Streams of magical ice wind their way around the hexmates to encrust two of the pirates and their captain. One man, already wounded, collapses. The captain and his crewman are wrapped in a thick icy coat, rendering them unable to move.
KFC swings her battle axe, and Debbie strikes with a Ray of Frost. Soon, only the pirate captain remains, encased in Hester’s icy spell. Debbie demands the man’s surrender.
“I’ll give you our treasure! There’s a map in my pocket! Here, see?” He wriggles desperately to draw out a dirty folded parchment. “Let me go and it’s yours!”
Reyna tugs the map from the man’s hand but can make no sense of it. Debbie pulls it gently from her hands and rotates it 180 degrees. “See?” Debbie’s finger traces the outline of the shore. “We’re here,” says Debbie. “The island looked this way from the air.”
Squinting, Reyna observes, “The path marked here goes around the shoreline. It’s less far if we go through the middle of the island, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” agrees Debbie, “it is!”
“We were going to travel through the center of the island! It’s quicker and it’ll get you to a HUGE payoff!” shouts the pirate captain. He finishes chipping himself out of his icy binds and begins to move off after his fleeing crewman. No one among the hexmates stops the shivering, bloodied man, and he darts out of sight down the beach.
The friends pack up their camping gear rapidly, tossing it back into the enchanted bus. With Debbie at the wheel, the group ascends to a height of about 40 feet. They sail above the tops of palm trees illuminated by only moonlight. Soon, in a clearing below, they spy a large glassy lake ringed by palms. As the shadow of the bus crosses the placid surface of the water, the roiling begins. The group, noses pressed to the bus’s windows, can see enormous dark shadows moving beneath the surface.
Suddenly, a gigantic tentacle, then another, then two more, lash out from the water, grasping at the bus. Debbie rolls the bus to rock her passengers away from the windows. The hexmates brace themselves for the crushing impacts as the giant creature seizes their bus, fully expecting to be dragged from the sky into a crushing maw.
When the bus levels out, the group can see the suckered arms slip back into the black waters of the churning lake. The bus is safe.
They land lightly on the sand near a trio of trees marked on the pirate’s map. Thanks to Titania’s Detect Magic spell, the group digs until the sun begins rising. Soon, a small, steel box sits upon Reyna’s lap. Stilling her trembling hands, Reyna inserts her thieves’ tools into the keyhole, and with a few delicate movements, the lid pops open.
Within the small box lie three spell scrolls, a black velvet ring box, a glowing phial of potion, and a hat box. There is also a leather sack that jingles with coins. The coins, counted out, are 60 platinum pieces. The scrolls include an Expeditious Retreat spell, a Mage Armor spell, and a Summon Beast spell. The potion is easily identified as Cure Wounds. The ring box yields a heavy silver loop with an amber stone. Titania identifies it as a Ring of Sustenance. Finally, Debbie opens the hat box and plucks out a ragged sailor’s hat that radiates intense enchantment. It is similar to a Periapt of Wisdom.
The hexmates, now exhausted, load back into their bus and press through to the island resort. As they depart for their rooms, Alister seizes control of their body. He asks Debbie if she might share a confidence, one of the six they must collect before he can depart from the body he shares with Titania and can return to his own in the Feywild.
While Debbie considers, Squid volunteers to the desperate elf, “Alister, no one likes you!”
Alister sadly regards the child and says, “That’s not a secret, Squid.”
Debbie brightens, telling Alister, “I ate the last Christmas cookie!”
The hexmates retire to their rooms. Alister needs five more secrets from five individuals who do not trust him.
