Ship Happens

Ship Happens is the 7th Oxventure episode of the Second 2 and the 14th episode overall, in which the Oxventurers find themselves taking a very unique request.

Synopsis
The Oxventure crew embarks on a hard-partying cruise, aboard Corazón's ship the Joyful Damnation with a horde of suspicious revellers. What's their deal?

Summary
Two days after their adventure in Mistmire, having being banned from the citadel, the Guild are relaxing at the docks of Barrow Springs. As they admire the sea and enjoying some fish and chips, a giant tentacle rises from the sea and delivers the Joyful Damnation to the Guild. The tentacle then gives them a bunch of sandwiches and disappears back into the sea. Dob and Egbert jump onto the ship out of excitement. This greatly annoys Corazón, as the captain should board the ship first, and Merilwen follows the two in order to annoy Corazón further.

As Corazón stews in his fury at the docks a man in a robe approaches him, asking for passage across the sea. When asked why, the man gestures behind him towards twenty nine similarly dressed men, with woad paint on their faces and arms, and explains that they are organising a stag do. When Corazón ask who's getting married, the man points vaguely behind him and he doesn't get an answer. Corazón is suspicious about the men, but asks where they want to go. The man explains that they want to go to on a five day voyage to Necropolis on Sea, and they will pay them one hundred thousand gold pieces, with a further two hundred thousand if the entertainment is satisfactory. One of the men shows him a chest filled to the brim with gold. Corazón is naturally ecstatic at the prospect and accepts, showing them to the ship's "entertainment director", Dob. Dob begins to explain what the itinerary will be, but is interrupted by the leader of the men, who give him a pre-planned that will last the five days, which reads the following:

"Stag Do Itinerary
 * 1) Karaoke
 * 2) Magic Show
 * 3) Whale Watching
 * 4) Dinner and Fireworks
 * 5) Pirate Training, with a Real Life Pirate"

Amazed with how fitting the list of demands is to their skill set, the Guild accepts the itinerary. Corazón rows the men to the ship on a skiff, as they solomly chant "Lads, lads, lads" etc. As Prudence boards the skiff, she gets a hum of eldritch energy coarse through her body, and gets the felling that Cthulhu wants her to be there, and gets determined to throw these men the best stag do they've ever been on.

Once all of the Lads have boarded the ship, the Guild decide to let their guests have the sleeping quarters and plan where they will stay in the meantime. Corazón already has the captain's quarters, Dob decides to stay in the crow's nest unsecured, Corazón offers Prudence the first mates quarter's, where he keeps his boots, Merilwen decides to go down to the alcohol storage room and snuggle next to the barrels, and Egbert wants to sleep in the room next to all the gunpowder, but is convinced by Corazón to sleep in the room two doors down from the gunpowder.

With that settled, the Guild soon realise that they aren't skilled enough at sailing to last the five day voyage, and they can't ask their guests to do it, because that will be rude. Dob then gets an idea and, before any one can stop him, takes out his hammer. The sea then begins to bubble, as sixty skeletons rise from the water and climb aboard the ship. The skeletons are surprised that no one has killed the Guild yet, and that they still have the hammer. They have a brief discussion with skeletons and come to an agreement that they sail them to Necropolis on Sea in exchange for killing every seabird they see, except albatrosses, as it is bad luck to kill them, they are only allowed to kill one and maim one to keep as a pet.

After spending two hours to shake every skeletons hand to seal the deal, during which a lot of birds get killed by the skeleton archers at the docks, the ship sets sail. As Corazón and Dob go to fetch some drinks for their guests, Prudence tries to see if she can sense any magic coming from the Lads, but finds nothing. Corazón and Dob produce barrels of drinks for their guests, and the Lads take turns drinking from a single cup that they share between themselves. Dob remedies this by asking the skeletons, who they deem to be doing the least important job amongst themselves, to give the Lads their heads to drink out of, which costs them an extra two and a half albatrosses. With the skulls, the Lads' drinking chain gets far more complicated, but they are drinking more than they originally were.

Eventually, the evening roles around and Dob decides it's time for the first item on the list, the magic show. He gathers the Lads to the poop deck and tells them that their magician for the night will be Corazón, who he introduces as "Misterio de la Magicienne". Although caught off guard by being picked to be the magician, Corazón is convinced do it upon hearing his cool stage name. Corazón steps onto the stage and is immediately booed. He tries to win their appraisal by casting Dancing Lights, Grease and using Mage Hand Legerdemain to steer the ship, but it doesn't work. The leader of the Lads then advises Dob that Corazón might not be the best choice for a magician, on the count of being a moron. Annoyed by this, Dob summons Prudence to the stage to replace Corazón out of spite, Corazón flips the Lads off with Mage Hand as he leaves. Prudence casts Hunger of Hadar over the side of the ship, producing a swirling void from between the stars filled with tentacles and other such eldritch items. Egbert vomits off the side of the ship and the Lads cry tears of blood. Never the less the Lads are impressed with the magic show.

Dob then announces that the evening isn't over yet, because it's salsa night. Egbert tells he he though he meant the dance, and hasn't even prepared any food, but Dob corrects him, saying it's both, and they happen together. Egbert quickly makes some salsa, and dances from Lad to Lad serving it to them. The Lad give the Guild a bow of deference, thanking them for an entertaining evening, and Dob sends them to bed.

Corazón gathers the Guild into the captain's quarters for a debrief on how the evening went. They have a discussion on what order they should do the remain items on the itinerary. They eventually decide that they should do the whale watching next, followed by the karaoke, the pirate training, and then finish it off the dinner and fireworks. Everyone then heads to bed, except Prudence, who stays awake in a vigil to keep an eye on the skeletons.

Suddenly, everyone is woken up by the sound of loud throat singing, Egbert isn't woken up at first, but he is eventually woken up by the sounds of ritualistic stomping of feet and scraping. Corazón changes out of his skeleton themed pyjamas, which caused the skeletons to give him funny looks, and goes to investigate. Merilwen tries to convince the skeletons that he wears those pyjamas because he thinks the skeletons are cool, only for one of them to show off his pet maimed albatross, which flaps in her face, horrifying her. Prudence uses Eldritch Sight and sees the ship is surrounded magic, and that the ship is repelling the water away from it, although it's still sailing as normal. Corazón wakes up a naked Dob and tells him to investigate for his vantage point in the crows nest.

They all eventually become aware that there is an eye at the front of the ship, frantically searching for something. Dob recognises this as a Sea Sauron, gets dressed, and scampers out onto the bowsprit of the ship to get a good look at it. He asks the Sea Sauron what it's looking for, which grabs it's attention. It then rolls back in on itself, towards the ship, for a few seconds, then rolls back, glances at Dob and then ignores him, continuing to search for something. Dob comes to the conclusion that the Sea Sauron is looking for the Lads, but everyone else agrees that it's more likely that the Lads summoned it.

Corazón goes down to the Lads' quarters, the singing stops and the magic and the Sea Sauron disappear. Corazón asks about the Sea Sauron, but the Lads claim that they don't know anything about it. With the Lads claiming innocence and the Sea Sauron gone, Corazón and Dob consider the problem solved. Merilwen isn't convinced, and uses Wild Shape to turn into a cat to spy on the Lads. Merilwen crawls through the ship's tunnels that were designed for cats to sneak through them and deal with the rats, just like all ships in G'eth, and sneaks into the Lads' room. She over hears the Lads talking about how they didn't find anything. The Lads then talk about the salsa, which was a bit spicy for their liking, but they say it shouldn't detract from them enjoying the stag do. Merilwen then waits for them to fall asleep before sneaking back out.

The Guild wake up the next day to find the deck covered in dead seabirds, killed by the skeletons over night. Dob turns two of them into puppets, horrifying Merilwen, while Egbert barbecues some them for breakfast. The smell of the cooked birds wakes up the Lads, who eat the food and then wait patiently for the next round of entertainment to begin. Dob decides to turn the whale watching into a drinking game, where the Lads have to drink every time they see a whale and confess a secret, which the Lads think sounds like fun. Merilwen then casts Speak with Animals, and summons a pod of different whales and dolphins. As the whales start to jump, the Lads begin to drink. One by one they confess that they are looking for something at the bottom of the sea, something called "Lads", and "it's a religious thing".

Curious about this, Egbert sidles up to a Lad who has drank the most and starts talking about religion. He asks the Lad who the bride is, and he says she's "on the land" and dresses in "red and red and red and red and red". Worried, Egbert asks if he name begins with "L", but the Lads says it doesn't, although he thinks there's an L in it. Corazón worries it might be Blibdoolpoolp, although he stumbles over the name when he asks, but the Lad says it's not, as he hates that deity. Dob then decides to use the remaining whale jumps to go through the alphabet to find out what her name begins with, but all the Lads pass out before they can get an answer. The Guild then recap what they've learned to see if they can come to any conclusions, but can't think of anything.

Dob thinks they should dive to the bottom of the ocean to find what they're looking for, but Corazón suggests they just look through their pockets, which Dob admits is a better plan. Corazón and Dob find dear antlers wrapped in twine made of kelp in the Lads' pockets, which Dob licks until it smells of toenails. Corazón finds the chest that the Lads showed them, but discovers it's empty. Corazón think this means Dob threw it in the sea, and grabs him by the lapels, asking where the money is. Meanwhile, Prudence, Egbert and Merilwen go investigate the Lads' quarters. They discover a map with eighty voyages on it, all angrily scored out with X's to the point only a fifth of the map left unmarked. They see the path they are currently on, and it is filled in part way with the X's. They show Corazón and Dob the map, and Dob thinks this means the Lads' have been cursed to go on an endless stag do until they can find the wedding, but everyone else thinks this is unlikely.

Corazón is annoyed, because now he's lost his entire motivation to keep the Lads on board has gone out the window, but the others want to find out what the Lads are doing, and eventually convince him to keep up the charade. They drag the Lads back into their hammocks and head for bed themselves. Dob, however, wants to keep a look out for any more suspicious activity during the night, so he ties himself to the front of the ship to keep watch. Unfortunately, since he's been awake for two straight days, he immediately falls asleep and spends the entire night dangling over the water.

At 6 am the next day, Dob is awoken by a flying fish smacking him in the face. He then scrambles aboard the ship and decides that karaoke night is happening now. Dob bags on a pan to wake up the extremely hung over Lads, who reluctantly scramble to the deck. Prudence casts Thaumaturgy and sings some Barry White, to get things started. Up next is one of the Lads, who requests Tequila by The Champs. Dob then decides to turn it into a drinking game where ever other time they sing someone has to confess something they're looking for. Corazón confesses that he's looking a hundred thousand gold pieces, Egbert confesses that he's looking for atonement, Prudence confesses that she's looking for ultimate power, Merilwen confesses that she's looking for all the animals in the world, and one of the Lads gets swept up in the moment and confesses that they're looking for an imprisoned god. Corazón gets caught up in the moment too and confesses he's looking for his father's love, much to his embarrassment.

Intrigued by this, Egbert tells his fellow Guild mates that he has a new spell called Zone of Truth, which forces any living being to tell the truth while inside its range. Dob then gets the idea to frame it as a drinking game. Dob explains the rules to the Lads, saying that if they flip a coaster in the air and fail to catch it then they have to take a drink, get in the Zone of Truth and confess something. But, as soon as the first Lad successfully catches the coaster, he changes it to if they do catch the coaster, blaming the Lad's "misunderstanding" on his drinking. Egbert casts Zone of Truth, and the Lad gets inside it. Egbert asks where and where the imprisoned god is. The Lad explains that they don't know where the god is, but have been looking for a long time, and if he tells them who it is he will die. Egbert asks what happen to the last few crew members they've sailed with, to which the Lad explains they are fine and quite wealthy. Merilwen asks where did the money go, revealing that they looked in their chest. The Lad is suspicious of the fact that the Guild haven't played any of the drinking games themselves, but reveals that he and the other Lads have the money in little sacks under their robes. With the money still on the table, Corazón is suddenly happy to keep the Lads on his ship.

With 6:15 am rolling about, the Guild sends the Lads to bed. Egbert fires a T-Shirt Cannon, launching a T-Shirt into the sea. One Lad goes to get it, but doesn't make it back. The other Lads seem unconcerned by this, and head to bed. Dob is upset that they've lost some of the money, but is happy that it's now in the sea where he wanted it.

5 am the next day, Dob bursts into the Lads quarters and shakes them awake, asking if they want to be a pirate. Although startled, they eventually gather to the deck and crowd around Corazón. As Corazón stretches and talks about how great being a pirate is, all the Lads start throat singing and stamping their feet. Prudence uses Comprehend Languages to translate their singing, and realises they are saying "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough". Suddenly, something in the water shoots towards the ship like a torpedo and jumps out onto the deck in front of Corazón, and they can see it's a type of fishman called a Sahuagin. It attacks Corazón with it's spear, it misses but it also bites Corazón, but he uses Uncanny Dodge to only get mildly injured by it. Corazón uses this moment to teach the Lads about Uncanny Dodge, but is then surprised that the monster is still there. Dob tries to uses Calm Emotions on the creature, but falls flat on his face trying. Corazón then faints an attack and then slashes its chest, causing it to scream in pain and gore sprays over the deck. The Lads then change their chanting, which Prudence hears as "Great job, sod off". Sure enough, the sea monster jumps back into the sea and swims away.

The Lads tell Corazón that they were greatly entertained by that, although you wouldn't be able to tell if they didn't tell you. Even the skeletons are impressed, as they give Corazón a round of applause, causing finger bones to rain on the deck. Dob heals Corazón's wounds, as one of the Lads tells Corazón that they are having the best time. With 5:30 am rolling around, the Guild tell the Lads to go to sleep, and they immediately fall asleep on the deck.

5:45 am the next day, they wake the Lads up for a daytime firework display. Egbert gathers all three of the bombs he brought on the trip and launches them into the air, lighting them on the way up with his mouth, so they all explode in synchronicity. Unfortunately, the fuses were long than he thought, and they land in the sea and kill the pod of whales they summoned, which were still following them. The explosion causes their guts and flesh the rain down onto the ship, and the Lads eat them ravenously. Merilwen is horrified by this, but the Lads are so thrilled that they give Egbert a standing ovation, before passing out.

The next day, Corazón sees Necropolis on Sea coming over the horizon. Upon hearing this, all twenty nine of the Lads spread their arms out, and the ship suddenly stops. The Lads throat sing for a few seconds, but soon get incredible excited. They begin to chant their usual "Lads, lad, lads", but it soon changes to "Ladsenkaldyr, Ladsenkaldyr". Suddenly the sea begins to bubble, and Prudence feels an eldritch tentacle pat her back in an excited way, as a colossal, diseased looking stag rises from the ocean. It's so big, that the rib cage of a blue whale can be seen in its seaweed cover antlers. The leader of the Lads monologues about how their five day ritual has been a success.

The stag god, Ladsenkaldyr, tries to sprint across the ocean towards the land, but a tentacle grabs its leg and prevents it from leaving. Ladsenkaldyr then notices the Guild and roars at them. Corazón runs down to the cannons and, using his crossbow knowledge, manage to land a shot on the colossal beast. Merilwen casts Moonbeam, blasting the restrained beast with a blast from the heavens. The skeletons are impressed by the attack, whereas the Lads begin to question their loyalty to the god, being on the losing side of the fight. During this, Dob runs to the steering wheel, and steers the ship into Ladsenkaldyr, stabbing it with the ship's bowsprit. The combination of the moonbeam and being skewered in the heart causes Ladsenkaldyr to burst, splattering its multicoloured blood all over the ship.

As the Guild catch their breath from the fight, the skeletons ask if they can have another albatross, as theirs were killed by the guts of the stag god falling from the sky. Even though it isn't really the time to be asking a question like that, Dob rewards the skeletons for ferrying them to their destination by letting them have their heads back. The Guild then confront the embarrassed Lads, who give the Guild the money they promised them. The Lads half apologies, and explain that the trip was a ritual to free their forgotten god and make sure he had his "wedding to blood" and take revenge on those who imprisoned him. The Lads then say that they won't give them the bonus they promised them, on account for killing their god. Dob takes out the bird puppets he made earlier and uses them to ask for the bonus. The Lads are so amused by this that they gather up two hundred thousand gold pieces and give it to Dob, much to the protest of the other Guild members.

Notable Events

 * The Guild kill a god.
 * The Guild arrive at Necropolis on Sea.

Guild Hijinks

 * Egbert serves salsa to a bunch of cultists while salsa dancing.
 * Dob sleeps in the nude.
 * Dob makes two puppets out of dead seabirds.
 * The Guild get a group of cultist to pass out drinking during whale watching.
 * Egbert causes a cultist to get lost at sea trying to retrieve a T-Shirt.

Character Development

 * The skeletons tell the Guild what the consequences for their demands will be and are willing to make a change if they don't like it.

Trivia

 * This epiosde's name is a pun on the phrase "Shit happens".
 * The stage name Dob gives Corazón is a mixture of Italian and French.
 * "Misterio" is Italian for "mystery".
 * "Magicienne" is the French feminine word "magician".

Behind The Scenes Trivia

 * Once again, Johnny had to speed up the quest due to the Guild's faffing about, hence the weird time frames between the later days of the stag do.
 * Johnny assumed the Oxventurers would be jerks and ask him to name all 40 cultists. So he prepared a list of their names. Instead they were jerks and didn't ask at all!