Dramatis Personæ

Brother Mendel (Herodian)
Dane Sardock (Winston)
Gabriel Auditore (Rigil Kent)
Gestlin the Unpredictable (CommJunkee)
Magnifico the Clown (Feste)
Merasiël Alethmist (Melissa)
Rainald North-Hammer (Gigermann)

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Of Spirits and Slavers

13 May 2014
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The Heroes, glad of their return to the living world, made their way down from the ruined temple to the shore where the Gleaming Endeavor lay at anchor, and found the crew hard about their work at repairs, unaware that anything out of the ordinary had occurred. That evening, the crew were greatly amazed at the story told them of the Heroes’ travel to the Underworld.

But the Heroes had not forgotten their former business, the sense of a hostile presence aboard the ship which they had detected back in Craine. As the crew slept that night aboard the ship, Brother Mendel went to each and cast a Sense Foes spell upon him, but detected no hostility in any of them. Afterward, they supposed that there must be someone or something stowed away aboard that meant them ill, and Magnifico hatched a plan to discover it. On the morrow, the crew all went ashore. Brother Mendel, Magnifico, and Gestlin divided the ship into equal parts and cast Sense Foes, and as the hostile presence was detected in one sector, divided it further, continuing so until they had narrowed its location to the port-forward hold, but as they did, they found that the presence had moved elsewhere—it was avoiding their search. Gestlin commanded his staff, Smil-Blam, to grant him the ability to see invisible things, and as he did, he came face to face with a ghostly visage, as of a man, grim and hollow-eyed, now surprised to find Gestlin gazing back at him, following his movement, pointing, and calling out his location to the others. Gestlin challenged the spirit to know its purpose, but it spoke not a word. The others had no idea what to do in this matter, and could not see what it was Gestlin spoke to. As the spirit avoided the living, it hovered over the water alongside the ship, and Gestlin attempted to throw a Teleport spell, but his throw missed its target, just before the See Invisible spell ended. Later, speaking with the Captain on the matter, none could recall any that might haunt the ship, but supposed the spirit could do no immediate harm—though they declined to tell the rest of the crew what they had discovered.

15 May 2014

The repair of the ship was completed on the third day, and they departed with the first available tide, making their best speed toward Hadaton. All were glad to be under way again. They continued East for three days. Once clear of Keyhole Bay, they observed an increase in sea traffic, ships of all sorts, including regular patrols of Megalan warships of all sizes. Then they entered the Sa’azraq Straits, known for much pirate activity—slavers, mostly—where the Heroes’ information suggested that their quarry, Lord Wallace, in the custody of the Templars, was shipwrecked, and later recovered and taken further on to Hadaton.

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18 May 2014

On the third day, well into the Straits, a pair of vessels were observed to be following the Gleaming Endeavor some distance behind, and gaining on her, and the Captain feared them to be pirates, slavers bent on taking them all captive. It was decided that they should spy out these vessels to see what they were about, and Gestlin volunteered to fly out to them, in the magical guise of a large bird, an albatross, to observe them. Brother Mendel cast the illusion spell upon him, and activating his magical winged harness, Gestlin took flight. But the disguise was too good, for Primus, flying about the ship catching fish, mistook Gestlin for a real bird, and attacked, and Gestlin narrowly escaped back to the ship. They tried again, this time securing the young dragons in their cages before Gestlin took to wing. And Gestlin flew between the pursuing vessels, and counted about thirty warriors aboard them, plus other crew—not looking at all like traders, but up to no good—and he returned, unmolested, to tell the others what he had seen. The Heroes decided they should try to slow down their pursuers, and Gestlin again volunteered to fly out to them: he would use Smil-Blam to make himself invisible, and cast Fireballs at their sails; it was agreed. So Gestlin flew unseen between the enemy ships, and set aflame the sail of the former ship, and then the latter. But the sails were doused, by magical means (as far as Gestlin could tell), and the two ships produced banks of oars and began quickly rowing, to the sound of war-drums. Gestlin returned to the ship, and the crew and passengers of the Gleaming Endeavor readied themselves for action, as the enemy continued to approach without their sails. As the enemy closed, Captain Finn tacked the ship to throw off their pursuers. Gestlin conjured up a mighty Whirlwind to sweep the enemy’s decks, but it was immediately dispelled—the enemy certainly had wizards in their company, possessed of some skill. The Heroes and the crew positioned themselves atop the aft-castle and readied themselves to fight.

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At last, the enemy was upon them. They attacked first with volleys of arrows before closing in, and they pulled along either side of the Gleaming Endeavor, trapping it between the two vessels. Grappling hooks were thrown to catch the ship and pull them in tightly. Then the enemy warriors scrambled over the rails amidships, on both sides, and with a fearsome cry and brandished swords, charged the aft-castle.

Rainald and Merasiël held the port stair to the castle, and Gabriel held the starboard, with the others behind and between. The enemy swarmed up both stairs, and in the middle, climbed up the castle and over the rail. Gabriel, soon surrounded but unafraid, set about his bloody work with Misericordia, running the enemy through, taunting them in Arabic, and the dead piled up before him. Rainald loudly laughed and joked as he thrust his spear into the tide of pirates before him down the stair, while Merasiël slashed many throats of those that tried to get past Rainald or climb over the rail nearby. Brother Mendel reached out with his quarterstaff to disarm the enemy of their swords, again and again, as they clambered over the rail. Magnifico unleashed a nasty barrage of magical taunting in the enemy’s tongue, and cast Madness spells, stunning or incapacitating many, such that the crew could finish them, though he was greatly wounded in the process, before Brother Mendel healed him. Gestlin cast a Fireball or two into the midst of the enemy before flying off to defend against the enemy wizards, still on their ships. Dane swung down from the crow’s nest above and alighted to the rear of the aft-castle, and loosed lethal arrows upon those enemy that foolishly allowed him line-of-sight. A few of the crewmen were injured by the enemy as they held the defense, but Brother Mendel was able to give them aid before they should fall. As the enemy’s numbers were quickly diminished, and their morale near to breaking, Magnifico called in Primus and Secundus to harry the enemy from behind on the main deck. And the fight was over, so quickly that none were able to escape to their ships, as the grappling lines were cut and the enemy ships began to push off. To be continued…

Notes

  • These two sessions marked our return to the campaign after a long end-of-year hiatus (due to the usual holiday scheduling issues), the first after our return from the Land of the Dead. Due to a number of circumstances, and a long fight sequence, I combined the account from the first two sessions here. For the first, Dane’s player was absent, and Dane said to be “grievously ill” below decks; for the second, Gestlin’s player was absent, but Dane’s was present, so they effectively swapped places mid-fight (we joked that Dane was in the crow’s nest projectile-vomiting, when he suddenly recovered and swung down to join, then Gestlin caught the same rope and swung away, to projectile-vomit elsewhere)
  • We had been planning to deal with the “hostile presence” for some time, but the down-time for ship repairs was the prefect time to conduct the investigation
  • The “fighter” PCs were in little danger during the fight, now with enough magical armor that the pirates were generally unable to penetrate. Those without real armor, including the crew, were vulnerable, and some took serious wounds. The pirates, however, despite their greater numbers, had no chance at all
  • As the enemy ships separated, most of us wanted to leap over to them and take out the wizards and whomever remained in opposition; it was decided to end the scene in prose between sessions—to be concluded in the next write-up