Towing Thunderbird¶
2022-Dec-16
- The fight continues…
- The scurrilous brigands take Mezzos hostage and threaten to slit his throat, but since Kleb is separated from the fray he neither sees this nor hears the new developments. He runs the pirate mage through with his sword, twists the blade, and finishes her off with a swing of his mighty warhammer
- Rowan refuses to back down from the pirate’s threats, commanding him to grovel rather than carry out his attack
- Hand-to-hand combat continues, taking out one more of Rulkorf’s mirror images
- Kleb realizes that a pirate has taken another hostage, namely Captain Alabaster, and is bringing him towards their ship. Kleb flies in on his broom, intending to loose a shot from his crossbow, but instead draws Rowan’s shield
- Rowan finishes off one trembling pirate and strides over to deal with the groveling enemy
- Further terrorizing of the remaining pirates finally convince them to surrender, with the exception of Alabaster’s captor, who takes the captain across a zipline to the attacking ship
- Kleb swoops in, in a very timely manner, to intercept the pirate, who manages to hang on and make it to the opposite ship. After landing, however, the pirates head gets pinned to the deck by Kleb’s follow-up attacks
- The three remaining pirates are tied to the mast of the Oremaster while the party deliberates about what to do next. Ideally, they want to tow the pirate ship to port and sell it, but doing so will slow them down and will certainly have its challenges
- Kleb takes it upon himself to ransack the hostile ship, stashing some gems and valuables in the bag of holding. In the captain’s quarters he finds a map with annotations along with a chest and some personal possessions
- Kleb calls Rulkorf in to inspect the map. The dwarf, who knows that there is always a decoy treasure, finds an obsidian dagger hidden in the wall along with a nicely bound book (Accounts of the Earth Genasi Water Kings)
- Having lost around 1/3rd of the Oremaster’s crew, a fair deal of time is spent dealing with the losses, damage, and transferring supplies from the looted ship
- The crew successfully rigs the pirate ship up to be towed behind the Oremaster with its sails furled and shifts taken to man its rudder
- Kleb and Rowan team up to interrogate the prisoners, without much luck initially
- Rowan feels tension between two magical presences, both his usual radiant energy and an unfamiliar chill, but declines to tap into either one
- One prisoner finally breaks his silence and tells the duo about how much they all liked and respected their former captain Onyxbeard. They’ve been hitting cargo ships for a while now, and have always been able to escape if things get too hot or there is too much muscle
- Meanwhile, Rulkorf looks over the map. Its markings catalogue their recent hits, and some sketched islands raise a suspicion of stashed treasure. However, the dwarf cannot determine anything conclusive
- The trio divvy up the valuables Kleb found amongst the crew but secretly keep a majority for the party
- Rulkorf gives Hanano a slightly disproportionate share, to make sure he’s taken care of should he need to move on soon. Kleb does a similar transaction with Tesia, who is more bewildered than anything, but accepts it
- Rough seas the next morning, and a storm has caught up to the party as a result of their new slower pace
- Rulkorf successfully avoids the brunt of the sea’s wrath, at the cost of spending time on a detour
- Rowan spends some time investigating the history of the pirate ship, and learns its name from a message scratched into a bunk: The Thunderbird
- Rulkorf has heard of the Thunderbird as a fairly storied vessel with bounty on it
- Kleb tries to teach the prisoners how to read so that they might eventually grasp his pamphlets and become redpilled
- After a slightly longer journey than planned, the Oremaster approaches the deep-water port of Waterdeep, with the Thunderbird in tow
- A small boat pulls up next to the Oremaster, holding a local magistrate as well as a handful of guards, and declares those on board, including the party, to be under arrest effective immediately
