Skip to content

Chapter 4 - Session 10

Hostile Takeover

Events and Actions

With the mysterious prisoner still trapped in the gibbet by the jetty, the party moved to free him under cover of magic and misdirection. Since Cosimo remained a wanted man, he adopted a new alias, Shivbo, for the rest of the operation. Noddy conjured a dense fog around the cage, cutting visibility to barely a foot, while Cosimo raised a sphere of silence over the same spot so Knick Nab could work the padlock unheard. Mani drew Sergeant Perkins aside with an invented tale of Vice Admiral Codemar's impending visit to the outpost and the promise of a promotion, talking him into ordering a soldier to march the rest of the Islander laborers away from the jetty, while Werner kept the second sentry occupied with idle chat about his posting, deflecting questions with talk of "secret orders" he claimed he couldn't discuss. Inside the silenced fog bank, Knick Nab wrestled with a padlock stiffened by salt air and weather, finally forcing it open with a crack loud enough to startle him — though the sphere kept the sound from carrying — before dragging the barely conscious prisoner clear and using a moment's misdirection about a stray barrel to steer that same sentry, now wandering blind through the fog back toward his post, safely past without being noticed. Once the prisoner was aboard the boat, Cosimo raised an immobile illusion of a man still hanging in the cage to delay anyone noticing he was gone.

Freed from the gibbet, the man was too far gone to speak or stand and had to be carried the rest of the way. Up close, the party got their first good look at him: the remains of a once-fine leather doublet, scarred and battered as though from old weapon blows, along with boots and heavy trousers with a large buckle. His head was shaved but for a ridge of longer hair worn like a crest down the centre, and both bare arms were covered in an extensive array of tattoos, though the poor light and fog left the designs themselves unexamined. Raw chafing marked his wrists and ankles where he'd been bound, and patches of blackened skin showed the toll of his time in the cage. Riu began simple first aid, dribbling water onto a cloth to moisten the man's lips, judging that dehydration after days in the cage was the most immediate danger; he was in no state to be moved further than the bottom of the boat. As the boat cast off, Werner laid his own jacket over the man, both to keep him warm and to keep him out of sight.

As the party rowed away with Batu Batu and Salter on the oars, Noddy sent his familiar, the seagull Pocket, ahead to scout the anchored Northern fleet — two frigates, two brigs of differing size, a cutter, and a sloop, with the brigs riding closest to shore and the frigates furthest out. Accepting a heavy penalty for casting through an animal with no hands or voice, Noddy used a presence spell to sense roughly twenty souls aboard the larger of the two brigs, with only one man visibly on watch. While the party weighed their options, Werner discovered a sealed letter hidden among his own effects in the recovered footlockers, written hastily in Captain De Guzman's hand: the South had arrived, and De Guzman would try to meet the party a day or two down the coast to the south, having arranged for the footlockers themselves to be buried at the depot before he fled, exactly as previously discussed. With a destination now in hand, they debated keeping their small boat, boarding the heavily crewed brig, or chancing the faster but more complex cutter or sloop further out; Knick Nab's sailing expertise settled it, judging that with only a handful of capable sailors among them, a brig under their own control would still outsail either smaller vessel fully crewed by the enemy. Pocket then confirmed the second, smaller brig carried only about six souls.

Deciding against a riskier escape in their longboat, the party chose to capture the smaller of the two Northern brigs anchored offshore, agreeing to take it soft — through bluff and charm — with force as their fallback if the bluff failed. As they closed in, Cosimo cast a spell to weaken the iron of the two Islanders' leg shackles, and repeated blows with the back of a hatchet finally snapped one link of the chain joining them together, though the hatchet broke in the process. Mani and Noddy boarded first, alone, under the pretense of delivering secret orders via a forged letter, with Mani adopting the alias "Lieutenant Albert Campion" while Noddy stood ready to work his charms on the captain. The captain, roused from sleep and missing his jacket, grew suspicious of the invented orders, the unfamiliar name, and an offer of gold as compensation for the inconvenience, and moved to signal the other ships in the fleet. This forced the party's hand, and the rest of the crew scrambled aboard as Werner threatened the captain with a javelin while Cosimo cast a spell to muffle the sounds of the ensuing struggle. Noddy's charm on the captain failed to hold, so he cast confusion instead, leaving the man unable to give orders even as he armed himself with a harpoon in a daze.

The combat was swift and decisive. Knick Nab climbed to the fighting top and kicked the lookout there, shattering his ankle and dropping him where he stood, while Noddy's sleep spells took two more sailors out of the fight one by one. Werner threw his javelin, critically wounding the captain and pinning his arm to the mast, then invoked a fresh alias — "Corporal Corbin Dulock of the Royal Marines" — to order the rest of the crew to stand down. Faced with overwhelming force, the remaining two crewmen surrendered.

With the ship secured, Riu performed desperate emergency surgery on the captain, who was bleeding to death from the javelin wound. He tied off a tourniquet on the spot to keep him from dying on the deck, then cast a spell to slow the bleeding further; once the captain was moved into his cabin, Riu packed the wound with gunpowder and touched it off with a boarding axe heated white-hot by Noddy's magic — a dramatic, screaming ordeal that nonetheless left the captain alive, facing an estimated eighty days to recover. The party offered the surviving crew gold and safety in exchange for helping sail the ship, but the shaken sailors refused for now, so they were disarmed, gagged, and confined below decks alongside the two sleeping men, to be asked again once they'd had time to think it over. Werner stripped the captain of his weapons, keys, and signal flags. They debated how best to slip away unnoticed — Cosimo floated a static illusion to disguise the empty anchorage they'd be leaving behind — before settling on a plan to simply brazen it out: sail out openly with their own boat in tow, claim they were bound north on a quarantine run while secretly turning south for the coastal rendezvous with De Guzman, and keep a plague flag ready to raise if any pursuing ship demanded they stop.

NPCs & Creatures

  • Sergeant Perkins: A Northern NCO overseeing the loading of supplies and enslaved Islanders at the depot jetty. Mani talked him into sending the rest of the Islander laborers away from the jetty with an invented story about Vice Admiral Codemar's impending visit.
  • Captain of "The Bull": The commander of the merchant brig, found freshly roused with his jacket off and his powdered wig askew. He was confused by Noddy's magic, critically wounded by Werner, and saved by Riu's surgical intervention.
  • Crew of "The Bull": Six sailors who were quickly overwhelmed. One had his ankle shattered by Knick Nab, two were put to sleep by Noddy, and the remaining two surrendered.
  • The Man from the Gibbet: A badly beaten, unidentified prisoner freed from the gibbet at the depot this session. He is noted for his unusual appearance — a shaved head with a crest of longer hair, a worn and battered leather doublet, and arms completely covered in tattoos — and for the raw marks at his wrists and ankles from his bindings.
  • Freed Islanders: Two male Islanders freed from Northern service, still individually shackled but separated from the chain that had bound them leg-to-leg, and persuaded by Batu Batu to join the party with talk of freedom and good food. One gives his name as Tamiti.
  • Pocket: Noddy's familiar seagull, sent ahead to scout the anchored fleet and used to sense the number of crew aboard each of the two Northern brigs.

Locations

  • River Delta Supply Depot: The gibbet and boarding point from the previous session, where the party freed the man from the gibbet under cover of fog and silence before rowing out to the anchored fleet.
  • The Anchored Northern Fleet: Six vessels riding at anchor in the bay — two frigates, two brigs of differing size, a cutter, and a sloop — with the brigs closest to shore and the frigates furthest out. Noddy scouted the fleet with his familiar before the party settled on which ship to take.
  • The Brig "The Bull": A small, two-masted merchant brig belonging to the Northern fleet, anchored offshore from the depot, riding light with an all-but-empty hold as though its cargo had already been delivered. Most of the session takes place on and around this vessel as the party captures it.

Conflicts

  • A tense covert operation to free the man from the gibbet, relying on fog, a sphere of silence, a fabricated rumor of Vice Admiral Codemar's visit, and an illusory decoy to keep the guards from noticing.
  • A high-stakes social bluff against the brig's captain, which escalated into violence when it failed.
  • A brief but brutal melee in which the party systematically neutralized the ship's small crew to seize control of the vessel.

Learnings and Discussions

  • The party fully committed to an act of piracy, capturing a Northern vessel by force.
  • A letter from Captain De Guzman, found hidden among Werner's recovered belongings, revealed that the South had arrived and that De Guzman intended to rendezvous with the party a day or two down the coast to the south — and explained that he had arranged for their footlockers to be buried at the depot before he fled, exactly as previously discussed.
  • They developed a clever strategy to escape the rest of the Northern fleet: sail out claiming to be bound north on a quarantine run, then quietly turn south for the rendezvous, keeping a plague flag ready as a deterrent to any pursuit.
  • Riu's medical skills were put to an extreme test, proving he could perform life-saving surgery under dire circumstances, though the captain faces an estimated eighty days of recovery.
  • The party learned that their new ship, "The Bull," is a merchant vessel with no cannons and only two swivel guns.
  • The party noted that "The Bull" was missing its own ship's boats, an unusual and potentially concerning situation for a vessel of its size.

Items Gained

  • A two-masted merchant brig, tentatively identified the previous session and confirmed as "The Bull."
  • The weapons, keys, and signal flags taken from the captured captain, along with the personal effects of the rest of the crew.
  • A sealed letter from Captain De Guzman, found hidden among Werner's recovered footlocker belongings.

Items Lost

  • Werner's hatchet was broken while freeing the manacles of the two Islanders in the longboat, its head flying loose and gouging the boat's planking.