Main Sail Set - 04/01/2023 - Archie’s Extracts
Jan 6, 2023 22:38:15 GMT
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Post by Andy D on Jan 6, 2023 22:38:15 GMT
On Caution When Signing Up For Adventures
There was an adventuring notice for a maritime escort job that my friend Ana informed me about. The note asked for, “well presented adventurers required… maritime experience preferred.” I do not have the preferred criteria, but I do satisfy the requirement for ‘well presented.’.
My barbarian friend, Ana (not the other one (the strength specialist) but the multi-talented one) had previous experience with our employer. By her account, Lord Algerone Barrington was good for money, but short on character.
With several adventurers, I met Lord Barrington, human, in the Flourished Hook, shadowed by his new butler, Ramsley, half-orc. In this encounter, I learned things about Lord Barrington; he knows not the price of things, and logistics are not important to him. If not for these two character flaws, however, I would not have found myself employed.
The escort mission involved boarding a well armed protection ship and providing extra ‘muscle’ so to speak. We would then sail to intercept and escort a merchant ship to its destination in Port Ffirst. Said merchant ship would have several furniture purchases of Lord Barrington on board.
Ramsley was not expecting his Lord to have hired ship protection himself. Ramsley, having hired the protection ship himself, knew it already came with a crew. Ramsley, understandably tried to gently persuade his lord that we would be superfluous to the escort job. But, Lord Barrington insisted on hiring adventurers. At this point, Lord Barrington did notice a logistics issue, which Ramsley would have to immediately resolve (Lord Barrington did not observe, however, that he had caused the problem (later we would realise this was to his benefit!)
Captain Morbrook of the escort ship was, like Ramsley, a half-orc. I thought nothing much of this at the time, but later, I observed more than a racial similarity between the two. A similarity that, upon reflection, has prompted in my mind the necessity for a standard set of questions for all future employees to include, but not limited to the following:
- How well do you know your employees?
- Have you hired the people you are hiring before?
Aboard Captain Morbrook’s vessel, the crew consisted of mostly fellow humans, with the exception of an ogre, a parrot, and later we discovered a hybrid rat-human. The ship was well armed with ballistas, an armed crew and their very own wizard. My fellow adventurers consisted of Ana and Damian; my half-elf rune-magic enhanced warrior colleague and two new to me adventurers; Albede; a water-genasi druid, and Leonida; a tiefling monk. I announced to my companions that I thought that due to our superfluous addition to the crew, we were about to earn the easiest 100pp ever…
On Being Swindled
At sea, on board Captain Morbruk’s well armed ship, we eventually saw the merchant ship approaching. Worryingly, we could also see a vessel similar to Captain Morbruk’s ship approaching from further away, and that ship was flying a black flag!
Originally, when we left port, there didn’t appear to be anything amiss with the ship we had boarded. But, as we lined up with the merchant ship, with the pirate ship not too far away from us; our ship’s crew drew arms - directed at us adventurers! Captain Morbruk ordered us to surrender and get below deck. When we looked up at his ship’s flag, we had to do a double take, as we now saw a black flag flying high on the very ship we were on.
On Sudden Naval Combat
We were on board a ship suddenly revealed to be hostile to us and the approaching merchant ship we were supposed to be escorting; not ransacking. Furthermore, a companion pirate ship was sailing towards us. As far as adventuring goes, this was a tricky spot.
My fellow adventurers, magical or otherwise fought with great valour, quick-thinking and aplomb. Damian with his rune-based magic enlarged himself to the same height as the ship’s ogre and tussled with him near the side of the ship, while another crew member tried to attack Damian from the rear. Leonida with cat-like grace ran up the side of the deck to reach the Captain by the wheel and strike her with astral martial arts. Albede casted a magical, marking light on the captain and another hostile crew member that acted as a beacon for future attacks, while Ana engaged many of the remaining crew with her blade, in defence of her wizard ally.
On Real Life Spell Duelling
My companion’s initiative gave me the space to run up the deck to get a vantage on the captain’s wizard who was standing by the bow of the ship. However, during my movement, a crossbow bolt struck me in the shoulder from above, from the crow’s nest. A man who had quite a rat-like appearance to his face, transformed into a rat-human hybrid and celebrated his aim. I ignored the pain for now, and carried on up to the deck joining Leonida. When I caught sight of the ship’s wizard, I casted Melf’s Minute Meteors, and six fist-sized flaming meteors encircled me. But, using my talent for spell manipulation, I infused the potential cold damage from my Glyph of Warding spell into my orbiting projectiles and changed the spell into Castor’s Compact Comets. I sent two of my icy comets flying toward the wizard on the other side of the ship and they struck him hard. The wizard casted the Fly spell, and moved to hover by the starboard side of the ship. He may have achieved a better vantage point, but tactically this was an error. Before firing two more of my comets at the open target, I first casted the Mind Sliver cantrip at my fellow duelist, attacking his mind successfully and breaking his concentration on his flying spell. As he took a dip into the ocean, two of my four remaining icy comets bludgeoned the life out of him, and he sank into the depths below.
On Establishing Control of a Hostile Ship
As I was scoring a decisive victory in my wizard duel, my companions established control of the ship via their own impressive duelling triumphs. Damian pierced the life from the ogre and tipped him over the side, while Leonida bludgeoned the captain to her demise with her fists in a Kavel-proud-making-flurry.
Damian made the remaining crew aware of their captain’s demise, which prompted a surrender from the two engaged with Ana. However, the rat-man wasn’t interested and charged at Leonida, biting her in the process. Albede’s druidic star bolt unhinged the rat-man from Leonida, while Ana’s Thorn-Whip spell dragged him back down to the main deck, where Damian, in his huge form was able to stab down with his greatsword ending the last remaining threat on the ship.
We had established control of the vessel, and Errol, one of the remaining two surviving, captive pirates, began lending a hand at the wheel.
On Ship to Ship Combat
During all the fighting, our ship almost crashed into the merchant ship. With the fighting over, we regained control of the wheel, avoided a collision and prepared ourselves for the on-coming pirate ship. Ana took down the black flag of our ship to give comfort to the merchant ship, before her and Albede sought out a ballista each to ready. Our approaching pirate ship, however, had changed their black flag of piracy, to a red flag of piracy with no acceptance of surrender!
Damian took command of the helm, while Leonida joined the ballista crew, and I summoned a skeletal, Undead Spirit, and then subsequently an Unseen Servant to help with the loading portion of ballista firing.
Damian steered to keep us perpendicular to the fast approaching enemy vessel, while our ballista operators tested the range. Ballista bolts bounced off the hull of the enemy ship, as it was confirmed we were currently at the long, unreliable range of the ballistas. This current range was also not conducive to the spell I wished to cast either.
As the opposing ships got closer in range, Ana fired with precision. The bolt she loosed hit the opposing ship and splinters from the heavy bolt pierced the captain’s skin - who herself was a remarkably similar looking half-orc to Captain Morbruk!
Now at engaging range for both ships, Leonida fired a bolt killing one of the opposing ballista operators, and I was able to cast the Wall of Fire spell - no need for scriber based manipulation, because fire was precisely the damage I wished to cause! As I casted the spell, a cylindrical dome of fire with a radius of 20ft encircled the central mast of the opposing ship, setting the mainsail ablaze immediately.
At 120ft away from us, we could see the pirate ship’s crew were alarmed, and this is when Albede struck the splinter covered captain with a Guiding Bolt, which Ana followed up with a ballista bolt straight into centre mass of the captain, exactly where Albede’s Guiding Bolt had landed. Another pirate captain dead.
The remaining crew members of the pirate ship tried to sail away, but the loss of their mainsail hindered them a great deal, and the Wall of Fire was now setting more than the mainsail ablaze.
Damian once again offered the opposing, remaining force a chance to surrender. They voluntarily threw down their weapons, jumped overboard their blazing vessel and swum to ours. More captives acquired, and now a merchant ship under no immediate threat, we were finally able to escort the merchant ship to Port Ffirst.
On Putting Two and Two Together
With only one of the captains’ corpses to inspect, I took a good look at Captain Morbruk’s face. I am not too familiar with Half-Orcs, but I was beginning to suspect that there was more than a racial familiarity between Lord Barrington’s new butler, Ramsley and Captain Morbruk (and the other, sisterly (?) captain).
Back at the Flourished Hook, Ramsley was most surprised at our arrival. Lord Barrington was debriefed about our encounter and conclusions. Ramsley attempted to bolt, but was seized upon by the more handsy of my companions; there would be no evading justice and punishment for him.
Lord Barrington paid us the 10pp as agreed, as well as the agreed upon ‘engagement’ fee of another 10pp. In all, it turns out we were not superfluous at all to the mission. In fact we were a necessity and a blessing, and we truly earned our pay. Lord Barrington even offered us a couple of fascinating magical items as additional recompense. One of these items was a pugilism supporting device that Leonida took.
On Pugilism Support Equipment
My young friend Kavel is very fascinated in the brooch of pugilism Leonida received that I told him about. I did some research and found that these are not too common, but there are some similar devices. Of some renown are the Insignia of Claws, a jewelled item decorated with the five heads of Tiamat. I believe Kavel has now made himself familiar with all the magic vendors in Daring Heights and jewellerists, whilst searching for one. I now worry my goliath friend is primed to be conned by a grifter peddling a fake five headed dragon jewel piece. But, then again, I worry more for the grifter who has the nerve to trick someone as large as Kavel.
