Session Date: 07/20/2026
Session Start
The trawler we are on is definitely for smaller creatures from The Howl, but it’s still quite a spacious area. There’s an entire second deck that is meant for housing the creatures the trawler pulls in, and there are areas for crew - an area to sleep, the piloting area, etc. There’s windows to stare out into the abyss.
Wulfgang van Hond - the detective from Point Chasm - explains that the creatures are aberrations, with some acting a lot like fish, though there is no water here. The trawlers are meant to work in this darkness and the magic here in The Howl. The darkness here is firm enough you could touch it, but you should not. The creatures taken out of The Howl are dead - they do not like light and don’t really live when removed from it.
We continue to move through the darkness and at some point as we sit quietly and let Wulfgang pilot, we realize the darkness isn’t silent. There is more than just echolocation, though - there’s like a telepathic echolocation, almost. There’s a gentle testing of the mind but it is not intelligent. We move along smoothly until we hear a clicking sound, and then Wulfgang saying uh oh and movement growing more irregular, and then a hissing noise.
Faylen looks over the shoulder of Wulfgang to try and figure out what is going on with the trawler - he’s also realizing that the darkness itself exerts pressure, and this instrument has essentially sprung a leak. The instrument is designed to help with navigation, and if we don’t fix it then we will lose track of which way is up and we won’t be able to make our way back up. Faylen goes down with Akker to work on the instrument and Faylen guides Akker into fixing the instrument and then he goes off to break something after fixing it.
Bosch follows Akker in case he breaks something important and Akker admits that he feels that he should dislike this place more, but something about it just fascinates him - Bosch says good luck with that, and he Bosch says he figured that Akker was just into the ultimate destruction, etc, etc. Akker says maybe, and Bosch says no need to think on it any further.
Wulfgang appreciates that we showed up to help. Mary lets slip we’re looking for Emer Kaine, to which Bosch corrects meaning the Professor. Mary admits that we are looking for him to deal with issues on the surface, and numerous people sent us. She lets slip we are trying to stop the Dark Demesne. Wulfgang asks if the government sent us, and Bosch comments that it feels like the government is working for the Dark Demesne as of late. Wulfgang ultimately seems a bit suspicious of us as we talk to him. He comments that something smells wrong - it doesn’t fit - but maybe it’s something from the outside.
He deploys a flare and then approaches it. Talitha explains to Mary what she sees: darkness, something weird - she’s not sure how to describe these things since they’re alien. The thing Talitha is seeing is then gone - definitely not a ship, a creature. Tabby asks what Talitha is saying and Mary explains that she doesn’t like the area, and Wulfgang comments about it, saying he dabbles in Wildspeak and animal speech.
We continue our journey and Mary hears something - the thoughts are heavy and big and in a language that she doesn’t understand, nor if anyone on the surface might understand. There’s a slight malice there, but it’s mostly a detached interest - like a scientist watching something he doesn’t care about if it survives. Mary sits around and she blinks and something weird has happened - she’s lost the last ten minutes of memory (she’s forgotten that something is out there). There’s some confusion about it.
But then we get to a second buoy and our flare deploys (it does so automatically) but we don’t see any indication of another trawler. Wulfgang admits he’s getting worried at this point. Wulfgang is still unable to place what’s weird with us, and Akker finally comments that there’s something out there and then points - we all just see darkness. Mary proposes we get closer and Wulfgang nervously says that’s not the way we need to go so we should just go the way his map indicates. Akker comments that he feels that as a scholar, he should have some say in where we go, and we should go after what he saw.
There’s some chaos where we all talk about where we should be going and he sends off a flare in another direction to see another buoy. We manage to convince Akker to lay off of this obsession and he’s gotten distracted by something else, so we wind up turning off to continue the buoy. Bosch also works to distract him by asking what kinds of things live down here and whatnot.
Wulfgang finally figures out that our scents do not match our ancestries. He asks for an explanation as to why that might be and we finally manage to get to a place where he will trust us enough to get through this mission, but we will need to explain more once we get back to safety. He comments that he himself is expendable and all of us deny that, with Tabby saying nobody is expendable, and he decides he likes us even if he doesn’t fully trust us.
Another flare goes off with the buoy and we finally see the trawler we’re looking for. We’re in a small ship, but the one before us is the equivalent of a galleon. This one has been ripped open by something. There is debris slowly drifting away from the trawler. The name of this other trawler is Siren Song - Wulfgang tries to communicate with them via the communications across the ships and there’s a moment of silence, then we hear someone from the other side whisper: “do you see it? do you see it in the darkness?”
The voice says that we will see, and perhaps we will need to look closer.
The trawler is hit by a huge harpoon and it ruptures the trawler we are in, but doesn’t reel us in. Mary falls prone as the harpoon hits. Bosch and Faylen go to check on where the ship was hit while Tabby checks on Mary.
Bosch grabs the harpoon and then manages to get it stuck into the hull of our trawler so that we are being pulled in. We crash into the other trawler and we hear footsteps.