Chapter 1 - Session 8

Trials at the Shore: Mutiny, Missing Papers, and a Race Against the Tide

Events and Actions

The session began with Werner recapping the previous night's successful, albeit risky, smuggling operation for Knick Nab, who was absent. The recap turned up a couple of loose threads worth chewing on: every barrel they'd carried down the tunnel — even the ones packed with ordinary luxuries like preserved quail eggs — had held a slip of paper scrawled in some unreadable script, which the party took for a cipher of some kind, and Burlyman admitted the black powder among the goods wasn't his usual cargo but was fetching an unusually high price with the war on. They also noted that the guard rotation they'd slipped past looked to be new standard practice now that the coast was being watched, meaning the trick that worked once wasn't one they could simply repeat — though the replacement pair, Evans and Fursa, had seemed noticeably less disciplined than the first watch and might be worth cultivating if Burlyman needed the run done again. After the recap, most of the exhausted party went to rest in their room at The Crow's Nest. Mani, however, stayed awake to train with Randolph the Chronicler, who brought out a pair of wooden fighting sticks — a cruder, more brutal Navy training weapon than the rapier Mani was used to — and explained that a blade's elegance sometimes has to give way to practicality in close quarters. Mani insisted on saluting him formally before the bout despite Randolph's warning that such courtesy wasn't customary among fighters of this style, then fought well enough despite his exhaustion to land a solid strike on his tutor's knee. Randolph, impressed but wary of pushing him further while so tired, called an early halt. Mani confided that he and his friends had taken on Burlyman's night work because he couldn't otherwise afford his room and board, but promised he would show up for training every day regardless of how tired or beaten he was.

Around noon, the party awoke. Mani, Cosimo, and Werner headed down to their hidden clubhouse (the "Batcave") to offer prayers of thanks for their recent success, while Knick Nab and Riu stayed behind in the bustling common room to eavesdrop. Sitting with their own thoughts for a moment, the group reflected that as long as they stayed close to The Crow's Nest, they were safe — Knick Nab from the Handler he'd fled, Cosimo from the church, Noddy from tax collectors. In the common room, Knick Nab and Riu overheard sailors discussing the unexpected return of the warship HMS Advance, previously thought lost. Its captain, Maynard, was missing, and the first lieutenant, Barrows, was under suspicion, with a public court-martial scheduled for four bells that afternoon. Satisfied he'd learned what he could for now, Riu headed down to join the prayer, crawling into the clubhouse so quietly that Mani — still jumpy after an earlier scare with a rat — very nearly ran him through with sword and knife before recognizing him. In the clubhouse, Cosimo led the group in a short invocation to the Mother and Father, thanking them for allowing the party "to step without sound, to touch without being felt, and to succeed without loss," and threw a pinch of gunpowder onto the braziers for a dramatic flare that visibly impressed everyone present. As the flare died down, Mani capped the ceremony with a small verse of his own — "success without loss, forge friendship through adversity, sunrise bestowed grace" — half prayer, half boast.

Knick Nab remained upstairs, gathering more details. His first attempt to question a sailor was brushed off, but buying a grizzled old sailor a drink loosened his tongue: the Advance had been part of a major northern offensive meant to crush a gathering of the Southern Navy in its home waters, an operation the North's admirals were confident of winning outright. Instead, the Southern fleet out-sailed and out-maneuvered them at every turn, scattering the northern ships and inflicting a defeat that has badly shaken confidence in the war at sea. It was in the wake of that battle that the Advance vanished, presumed lost, before limping back into port starving and without her captain.

The party regrouped, and Knick Nab shared the news. They decided to attend the court-martial. Werner purchased some commoner clothes and a small backpack, changing out of his finer clothes and stowing them away, since dockside work had already ruined his good outfit. Weighing what to carry, the party judged daggers and throwing knives were unremarkable enough to pass, but a sword or a set of harpoons on a child would draw stares, and a pistol would have to stay hidden entirely to avoid worse trouble. Along the way, Werner walked the others through what he knew of naval discipline: minor offenses earn a flogging — anywhere from a handful of lashes up to being lashed around the fleet — but anything warranting more than twenty-four lashes, including a death sentence, requires a formal court-martial attended by two ranking captains and a pair of priests, whether the accused is a common sailor or a captain. Keelhauling, he noted, was a pirate practice the Northern Navy didn't use; talk of mutiny in particular is treated so severely it almost always ends in death regardless. The group (Mani, Cosimo, Werner, Riu, and Knick Nab) then headed to the shore in Low Town where the tribunal was taking place. Noddy was not mentioned as accompanying them and was presumably resting or elsewhere in the inn.

The scene at the shore was crowded, with gallows erected in the middle of a cleared space between an official stone building — fine steps, pillars, a walled garden — and the dock and rocks marking the waterline. Guarded grandstand-style seating had been set up along the garden's edge, and the crowd was thick enough that sailors and ordinary townsfolk had settled into their own separate clusters, with more people still filing down from the town above. Present were Admiral Denys, Vice Admiral Codemar, Prelate Frederick, Prince Piers, Mistress Mary (seated near the Prince), and Randolph the Chronicler, watching through a looking glass and jotting notes in his book. Knick Nab spotted other young pickpockets working the crowd, including Stick Stab, who recognized him at once, seemed startled he'd gone independent, and — after being handed a couple of bronze coins to keep quiet — promised not to mention having seen him, adding that Knick Nab could always find him if he ever wanted to go independent himself.

Admiral Denys opened the tribunal, announcing it was held under the authority of the Crown as witnessed by Prince Piers, and had the prisoners brought out in irons — six sailors of the Advance, plus Lieutenant Barrows, unshackled and carrying his sword and satchel, walking in of his own accord behind them. Each accused sailor was read the same charge — an article against uttering any words of sedition or mutiny, or making mutinous assemblies, on whatever penalty the court-martial saw fit to inflict — and Barrows testified against them in turn as the tribunal's chief witness. Nearby, two boys in the crowd took up gleeful chants of their own, one crying "Hang him!" and the other "Chop off his head!" — a reminder that not everyone present saw this as anything but a show. The first sailor claimed the lieutenant "had no cause to be in command" and was endangering the ship; found guilty, he was hanged the old-fashioned way, hoisted and left to strangle and kick rather than dropped, a slow death that visibly unsettled the watching party and drew a low groan from the crowd as he finally went still. The second sailor accused Barrows of abandoning Captain Maynard and endangering the ship; he was found guilty and beheaded cleanly in a single stroke by the executioner, who checked the kill with his knife before the body and head were tossed into a waiting cart and sawdust thrown down over the blood. Throughout, Riu kept one eye on Mistress Mary near the Prince, unable to shake the sense that her presence there meant something — he noted that she barely watched the first man's slow strangulation, looking away, and that she averted her eyes again at the second man's beheading, no closer to an explanation either way. Noddy, who had apparently followed the party or attended separately, chose to leave after the second execution and head back to The Crow's Nest, growing steadily more fatigued on the walk. A third and fourth sailor were tried and executed in turn, each giving much the same account — that Barrows had no right to command, or had abandoned the captain — though the details shifted slightly from telling to telling.

When a young cabin boy, about fourteen, was brought forth, Mani and Knick Nab tried to start a "Let Him Live" chant among the crowd, but it failed to catch on. Cosimo tried a different tack, offering a quiet prayer invoking the Mother's mercy on the boy's behalf, but that appeal fared no better. The cabin boy was found guilty. Werner and Mani, unwilling to witness the execution of a peer, left the proceedings. Riu, meanwhile, had grown fixated on an old woman with a horse cart at the edge of the crowd, certain her presence there meant something. As the boy was dragged to the block, Riu strode over and slapped the horse's rump, hoping to spook it into some kind of intervention — the horse barely reacted, and the old woman only looked at him and said, "I can only influence the fates of so many, and the little boy is not one of them," before turning her cart and driving away. The cabin boy was then beheaded.

Before anyone knew a word about missing papers, Knick Nab tried to whip up a "Hang him!" chant of his own against Barrows, purely for sport — it went nowhere, unlike the boys' earlier chants, and he would reverse his position entirely within minutes. Finally, Lieutenant Barrows himself was called forward to answer for deserting his duty and Captain Maynard. His charge was read separately from the others': that he had basely deserted his duty and station and run while the enemy was engaged, or enticed others to do so, an offense punishable by death or whatever lesser sentence the court saw fit. He testified that Maynard, before disappearing ashore with a landing party, had left him written orders — countersigned by the ship's second lieutenant — to sail on without him if he did not return within two days, and that he'd had those papers in his satchel when he arrived that very afternoon. When pressed to produce them, he found his satchel empty. He tore through it in mounting panic, at one point pulling out nothing more useful than a chart covered in navigational figures, before admitting the orders were simply gone; the ship's logs, he said, had likewise gone missing after the captain's disappearance, and he could only presume Maynard had taken them. Riu spotted a street urchin bolt away from the area moments after Barrows had stepped aside earlier to wait his turn, and quietly told Knick Nab what he'd seen. Knick Nab worked his way closer and confirmed Barrows still had his purse and sword — ruling out an ordinary pickpocketing — then stepped forward as a witness, testifying that he'd seen a boy of his own trade lift something other than a purse from the lieutenant's satchel. Barrows seized on this, but without the papers themselves the tribunal found him guilty regardless.

Given the chance to speak with Prelate Frederick before sentencing, Barrows apparently requested his own manner of death — a considerable gamble — and the tribunal granted it: he was to be suspended by the ankles above the water at the bridge, to drown only once the tide rose far enough to reach him. The party's own knowledge of tides and the sea (confirmed by several Survival and Sailor rolls) put that at roughly twelve hours away. The big executioner stripped Barrows of his jacket, sword, and belongings, tied the rope to his ankles, and hauled him up over the water with a guard posted to make sure no one cut him down early. As he was led off, Barrows begged Knick Nab directly to find the papers and clear his name, while Mistress Mary was seen tugging at Prince Piers' sleeve and gesturing toward Knick Nab, clearly troubled by what she'd witnessed.

Werner, upon returning to the inn, also felt unusually fatigued. The remaining party members (Knick Nab, Cosimo, Riu, and Mani) sprinted back to The Crow's Nest to regroup with Werner and Noddy. They agreed the theft had to be deliberate — no street thief goes for papers over a full purse — and debated two threads to pull: track down whoever had actually taken the papers, or figure out who stood to benefit from Barrows hanging, be it a rival noble house or someone within the Admiralty itself. They judged the papers the more perishable lead and resolved to start with Stick Stab and Knick Nab's old safe house, while being wary of storming in outright — since Knick Nab had deserted that crew and risked punishment for returning, they preferred to send a known face in first rather than walk into a den of his former associates uninvited. They also discussed asking Mistress Clara what she might know, though decided that could wait, and agreed the party's common fund — which Riu had taken it upon himself to track, and confirmed at fifty silver — could be used to buy the papers back if it came to that, rather than force.

NPCs & Creatures

Randolph the Chronicler: Trained Mani with wooden fighting sticks, cutting the lesson short out of concern for his tired student; observed the court-martial through a looking glass, taking notes throughout.
Burlyman: Mentioned; proprietor of The Crow's Nest. Confirmed the black powder among the smuggled goods was unusually profitable given wartime scarcity.
A'Wood: Mentioned in the recap of the previous session.
Sergeant Tyler: Mentioned in the recap.
Evans (Guard): Mentioned in the recap; the party judged him and Fursa less disciplined than the guards they replaced.
Fursa (Guard): Mentioned in the recap.
Admiral Denys: Presided over the court-martial.
Vice Admiral Codemar: Part of the court-martial panel.
Prelate Frederick: Religious official at the court-martial.
Prince Piers: Son of the King, present as a witness to the court-martial.
Mistress Mary: Present at the court-martial, seated near Prince Piers; showed concern for Lieutenant Barrows and Knick Nab.
Stick Stab: Pickpocket known to Knick Nab, present working the crowd at the court-martial. Recognized Knick Nab, was surprised to learn he'd gone independent, and agreed to keep quiet about seeing him in exchange for a couple of bronze coins.
Captain Maynard: Missing captain of the HMS Advance (mentioned).
Lieutenant Barrows: First Lieutenant of the HMS Advance; witness against the mutinous sailors, then accused and sentenced himself.
Sailors of the HMS Advance: Accused of mutiny, several executed.
Cabin Boy: A 14-year-old sailor, accused of mutiny and executed.
Executioner: A large man who carried out the hangings and beheadings.
Old woman with a horse cart: Watched the proceedings from the edge of the crowd; unmoved when Riu slapped her horse, and told him cryptically, "I can only influence the fates of so many, and the little boy is not one of them," before driving off.
Mistress Clara: Mentioned as someone the party might consult.

Locations

The Crow's Nest: The party's current residence and base of operations.
The Clubhouse / "Batcave": Hidden room under The Crow's Nest where the party conducted a prayer.
The Shore in Low Town: Site of the public court-martial and executions — a cleared space by the water between an official stone building with a walled garden and grandstand seating, and a gallows and bridge where the sentences were carried out.

Conflicts

Mani engaged in a practice sword fight with Randolph the Chronicler, landing a hit on his tutor's knee despite his exhaustion.
Mani nearly attacked Riu with sword and knife in the dark, mistaking his crawl into the clubhouse for a rat.
The court-martial of the HMS Advance crew, leading to multiple executions.
Mani, Knick Nab, and Cosimo each made a failed attempt — a crowd chant and a quiet prayer — to sway the tribunal into sparing the cabin boy.
Lieutenant Barrows' trial and sentencing, which began with a failed "Hang him!" chant from Knick Nab and ended with Knick Nab testifying in his defense instead.
The party faces a race against time to find Barrows' missing papers.

Learnings and Discussions

The party learned that the HMS Advance had been part of a major northern naval offensive meant to crush a gathering of the Southern Navy in its home waters — an operation the North was confident of winning outright, until the Southern fleet out-maneuvered and scattered them, badly denting northern confidence in the war at sea. It was in that battle's aftermath that the Advance vanished, before returning much later without her captain and starving.
In recapping the previous night's smuggling run, the party recalled that every barrel — even ones holding ordinary luxuries — had contained a slip of paper covered in an unreadable script, seemingly some kind of cipher; Burlyman admitted the black powder among the goods was unusually profitable given the wartime shortage, though he denied any involvement in an insurrection.
The party recognized that the previous night's ruse of drugging the guards likely can't be repeated, since the coast watch appears to be a new standing wartime procedure; they noted the newer pair of guards, Evans and Fursa, seemed less disciplined than the first watch and might be worth cultivating if a further run is ever needed.
Werner explained naval discipline to the others: minor offenses earn a flogging, but anything warranting more than twenty-four lashes — including a death sentence — requires a formal court-martial with two ranking captains and a pair of priests in attendance, regardless of the rank of the accused. Keelhauling was a pirate practice, not something the Northern Navy used; talk of mutiny in particular is treated so severely it almost always ends in death regardless.
They witnessed the brutal process of a naval court-martial, including hangings, beheadings, and the differing (and not entirely consistent) accounts each mutineer gave for turning against Lieutenant Barrows.
Riu slapped the old woman with the horse cart's horse hoping to spook it into intervening for the cabin boy; it didn't work, and she told him only, "I can only influence the fates of so many, and the little boy is not one of them," before driving off.
Riu grew increasingly convinced that Mistress Mary's presence beside Prince Piers meant something more than coincidence, watching her reactions throughout the proceedings without reaching any conclusion.
Lieutenant Barrows claimed his orders from Captain Maynard were written down but stolen by a young thief; he also testified that the ship's logs had gone missing after the captain's disappearance, and he could only presume Maynard had taken them himself.
Knick Nab corroborated seeing a theft from Barrows' satchel, having confirmed first that Barrows' purse and sword were untouched.
Barrows apparently requested his own manner of execution — suspended over the water to drown with the tide — buying himself roughly twelve hours rather than a swift death; the party's own Survival and Sailor knowledge confirmed the tide's timing.
The party discussed the likelihood that the papers were deliberately stolen to ensure Barrows' conviction, weighing whether a rival noble house or the Admiralty itself might be behind it, but judged that lead less time-sensitive than tracking down the papers directly.
The party decided to attempt to find the stolen papers within the 12-hour deadline to save Lieutenant Barrows, planning to approach Knick Nab's old crew cautiously — sending a known face in rather than walking into the safe house uninvited, given the risk of punishment for his having deserted them — and to use their common fund of fifty silver to buy the papers back if necessary rather than resorting to force.
Initial plans involved seeking out Stick Stab, investigating Knick Nab's former safe house, and possibly speaking with Mistress Clara.
Noddy and Werner both experienced unusual fatigue on their way back to the inn from the court-martial.

Items Gained

Werner De Rendal: Purchased commoner clothes and a small backpack with his own funds.
Mani: Used a wooden practice sword provided by Randolph the Chronicler during their training.

Items Lost

Knick Nab: Gave a couple of bronze coins to Stick Stab.