A Drug-Fueled Ship Sailing the Silver Sea

(continuing the adventure that started here and then continued here.)

Setting & System: Cinderheim, 5e D&D

Characters: Warleader Kro (human barbarian), Sylvester Tremaine (human mystic), Blatherskite (kenku fighter), Lilai (human cleric)

Events: A lot of time has lapsed since this part of the adventure was played; I'm going on hazy memories here, but this is what I remember happening:

Lilai took an instant dislike to Petros. She sidled up to him casually, then kicked his barbed staff across the room and brought her maul down on him.The group's combined efforts took him out swiftly. That wet degenerate never had a chance.

While exploring further, the party found a kitchen in which robed skeletons were mechanically chopping vegetables and adding them to a simmering stew pot. Warleader Kro ate the stew to no ill effects, although he has now unwittingly committed cannibalism.

In the back of the larder, the group discovered another member of Kro and Sylvester's mercenary band hanging by meat hooks that pierced his ankles. The body appeared to have been drained of blood. Sylvester and Lilai tried to get him down but the body began to shudder and convulse as it came to unlife and attacked. The skeletons from the kitchen joined the fray, but a well-timed turn undead stemmed the tide.

The search for intoxicants with which to fuel the vessel they discovered in the prior session continued. The smell of opium greeted the party as they discovered another young dancer blissed out of her mind in her bedroom. They took her stash, and Kro slung her over his shoulder.

However, Lilai felt that they had unfinished business with Navara. Navara felt the same way; she was waiting for them in one of the central tower chambers. Since they were unwilling to do her bidding, combat witht he group was inevitable. Navara's limbs turned into hideous flesh-whips tipped with demonic barbs. Blatherskite was nearly felled when one of those barbs caught him and sent poison coursing through his body. Lilai was also pierced by one of the barbs, but instead of being poisoned she was cursed. She now bears a demonic mark upon her skin that she is not best pleased by. And yet, Navara was ultimately no match for the party that opposed her.

Returning to the vessel, the group fed opium into the ship's "control maw." Acrid smoke filled the interior of the vessel, which sighed contentedly. Then, suddenly, the ship was no longer in the stone chamber in which it was discovered; it was now sailing a silver sea.
After a few hours, the vessel exited the silver sea and appeared in a cavern. A passage was carved in the rock, and a number of rope ladders run down from apertures in the cave's ceiling where the light of the demon sun streamed into the chamber.

The characters climbed the rope ladders to get some idea of where they were. At the top, all they could see was sand and desert stretching as far as the eye could see. However, they also realized that the "cave" below was the interior of a great statue. The apertures they had ascended through were the statue's eyes and nostrils. The rest of the statue's body was buried in an enormous sand dune.

They descended into the cave to explore and were greeted with a horrific smell that was like a combination of spoiled milk and rotting rice. They surprised the source of the stench as they stumbled into a den of troglodytes who fled at their approach. Sylvester's attempts to communicate psionically were no use; the trogs ran for it and attempted to steal away with their treasury (but only secured about half) before collapsing a passage behind them in a rain of rubble.

Currently, the characters are regrouping within the "cave system" with other passages yet to be glimpsed.