[I'm fine with the wings flying underwater--or at least with them getting you to the surface quick enough--but the real problem here is that the ship has not manifested: it's still in the ether. I assume that you're using your plate mail of etherealness for this?
I'm also fine with you taking a few rounds worth of actions here, seeing as how the previous combat was effectively over. To catch everyone up, I'll declare that Gulleye cast haste on Tessius, who finished off the rats a few rounds sooner. That means everyone is free to act on what goes on here.
Finally, as Balin can't close with the captain right away, and has no ranged attacks (except for turning undead, to which the captain is immune), his options are still somewhat limited. It's with these limited options in mind that I take some liberties with the actions of the captain here.]
"Parley?" the ghost sneers, backing away from Balin's wrathful sword despite his scorn. "Are the forces of heaven so...so galled by my imminent success that you come to...to tilt at words with me?"
The ghost captain's halting manner betrays his distraction--he's waiting for a rescue. The coal-bright eyes deep in his face flare as he shouts mental commands...but no help is forthcoming.* Resigned to face Balin alone, he works up his courage and plunges ahead: "
See how far Pieter van Riese has come on the sweat of shirkers and layabouts! I spurned your help on the icy wastes, I need less of it now!"
With that, the ship shudders out of the spirit world,* parting the jumble of flotsam and drawing screams and gasps from the onlookers as it pulls into the shallows. Pieter's eyes flare like tiny suns; he vaults over the side and crushes the wills of the stunned onlookers with barely a glance around him. Cargo nets are cast over the side by unseen hands, and people are already streaming into the sea, trampling each other to get into the new boat that inexplicably promises to hold all of them....
With mounting horror, Balin recalls the tale of a celestial sent to rescue a ship stuck in the frozen wastes on a long-forgotten world. The captain was grateful, until he realized that the creature intended to take the men home and leave the ship to be crushed. The angel tried to explain that the lives of the survivors were worth more than any ship, but the captain disagreed. Enraged, he attacked his would-be rescuer as a meddler who would thwart the search for a trade passage through the ice, and laughed that if souls fetched more than ships, he'd start ferrying for hell. His bargain was heard, and the entire ship vanished into another world, never to be seen again....
...until now. That story was so ancient as to be told as a cautionary tale among the celestials, the original participants long forgotten, yet how long had that ghost said they had toiled before the mast? A hundred lifetimes under the lash of this immortal taskmaster, and still they had not found a port where they might make berth and unload their cargo.
Balin recalled the shadowy shapes writhing inside the translucent hull when the Relentless had sailed past before--all those souls brought aboard with empty promises. Reise wasn't here to end his torment, but to swell his bottomless hold with the bounty of innocent lives. Perhaps he could make berth any time he wanted, but his greed had always won out and he kept looking for more and more cargo. The ghosts who toiled in his service were waiting for a rest that would never come, because the captain valued the promise of a great haul over his own soul, and theirs.
* Sense Motive, taking 2.
At any rate, Reise just bestowed three negative levels on Balin in one hit.
]
