The good ship Binggongchang sailed out from Akari and by the end of the day had left behind all sight of land. Captain Won revealed himself to be a harsh taskmaster, stalking the decks with a whip and addressing his crew in tones that ranged from disdainful to explicitly life-threatening. He was, however, very respectful to his passengers, and to the spirits of the sea. On the first morning on the open ocean, he produced an exquisitely-detailed model of the Binggongchang with gold fittings. He asked Shoji to pray over it and then tossed a silver coin to the water, a ritual that he would perform every morning.
Nevertheless, all aboard were awakened the next morning by a ferocious storm. The ship lost her course and the clouds so obscured the sun, that the passengers lost all sense of direction. The Captain ordered all passengers off the deck. After two days of fitful sleep, Bayan was awaked by an odd sound, that of small waves crashing on a beach. The storm had cleared but they were about to hit land. She went above deck and alerted Captain Won. After assuring her that he had already seen the hazard ahead, he made slight adjustments to their course. All the passengers came up to see what first looked the corpse of an enormous whale, pinned by the current on a coral reef just below the surface of the waves.
The ship dropped anchor. Except that it was suspended in the water, the object resembled a long, smooth stone. Much of it was under the water—its full size was at least ten times as long as the ship. The boat was dropped and a small party approach for a closer look. The object was made of dark metal, battered, and badly rusted at the water line. Paddling their boat around it, the party deduced that the object was the hull of a capsized metal ship. Hyamsam sensed a magical aura and detected an eldritch symbol etched into the metal at the center of the hull—that of a burning eye surrounded by arrows pointing in every direction.
The water around the metal ship was covered with an iridescent sheen and the coral was covered with a black sticky substance. Hyamsam experimented a little and learned that the substance burned easily and with great heat. Great quantities of the black oily substance were found inside the metal ship. At Bayan’s suggestion a barrel was ordered from the Binggongchang and filled with the black oil.
The Captain congratulated them on the discovery suggesting that it could be fed to the crew.
After several more days at sea, the voyagers spotted an island just big enough to offer resources. Bo Jing offer to go ashore in the boat, accompanied by Shoji, and two of the sohei. He was oddly unnerved by what he found. Circling the island, he noted a likely landing place, a sandbar connecting the two rocky islets that composed the island. Drawing closer, he noticed the bodies of four sharks on the beach. The circling birds swooped down over the rotting bodies, but each one recoiled before it got close enough to eat. Seeking another place to land, Bo-Jing found another beach, this one bisected by a shallow stream of water. The boat landed. Shoji tested the water and found it good. They followed it upstream to a cave. There was a rusting inside and Bo-Jing decided than rather than entering alone, they should seek reinforcements.
The next day, a much larger group that added Bangqiu, Bayan, and Hyamsam entered the cave. They were attacked by odd, blood-sucking birds, but these were killed or driven off. In following the stream through the cave, they came upon a locked door. When Kafka tried to open the door, he was nearly overcome by intense pain. A symbol glowed on the door—the same symbol that they’d seem on the bottom of the metal ship. Bayan steeled herself and shouldered the door open. Immediately a half-dozen starving giant shrews charged out. The explorers fended them off with swords, spells, and scraps of food. Inside the guarded chamber, they found little that seemed to justify the magical protection—some unfamiliar metal objects that seemed worthless and did not hold any magic dweomer, plus some mouldering tomes in an unknown language. There was a small sack of gold coins and uncut gemstones. But the greatest treasure found in the caves was water-- a large pool that was the source of the stream. The party filled their water barrels with good, clean water.
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