Journey to The Kieran Empire

AKA We’re not pirates, okay?

On the second day of sailing aboard The Captain’s Mistress after rescuing the Scurillian scholar Equais, the heroes encountered an open, pleasant ocean around them. They conversed and reflected, sinking quickly back into life on the calm sea. Being in tight quarters aboard this skiff was a rather unfortunate situation for Mongrel and Spool who had still given each other only malice filled glances. Equais also expressed his lack of comfort through many snide remarks under his breath, and more out loud to whoever would listen. But this was nothing out of the ordinary for the crabby man.

The third day of their trip was slightly more interesting, however much more bothersome than the previous 24 hours. As the sun rose from the depths beneath the horizon, Spool, who had just wakened, took a sweeping view around the boat with his spyglass. As he passed over the prow of the boat, he stopped. A tiny black dot hung on the thread separating the flat sea from the boiling sky. Alerting the captain and the rest of the crew, Spool pointed out the disturbance. Deciding to proceed as normal, for they had nothing to hide, they carried on their way, true to their course.

The dot drew closer, and as it did it resolved into a boat, black trimmed with gold, the colors of the Kieran Empire. The ship was on a path to intercept The Captain’s Mistress, and to avoid suspicion or provocation, the crew continued steadily onward. The opposing ship, now clearly visible, could only be a Kieran Cutter, a sleek class of boat designed to hunt pirates in Kieran waters. These “blackships” comprise much of the Kieran Navy, and boast a considerable amount of firepower, as well as manpower.

As the blackship neared, the crew furrowed the sails, and stopped the skiff as a sign of submission. The cutter drew closer, and the crew could see at least a two dozen men, clad in black and gold uniforms standing on the deck and atop the poop deck. A call to prepare to be boarded came across the water, and a ladder was thrown overboard. The cutter pulled up next to the comparably diminutive skiff, and a middle aged man with a large head and appropriately large beard looked down at the crew. He introduced himself as Jeffery Jorgensen, captain of the cutter Our Lady’s Pleasure, and commander of the Kieran Royal Navy, and informed the crew that they were going to be searched for evidence of piracy.

Aurora clamored up the ladder to the higher deck in order to provide more room for Captain Jorgensen and his men aboard The Captain’s Mistress. There was a considerable amount of disagreement between the captain and the crew of the skiff, as they had a small amount of cargo and supplies on board, but no ships manifest to account for the lumber they had taken from the supply the Rebecca was hauling to their current destination. Through much appeasement and negotiation, the crew assuaged Captain Jorgensen’s suspicion of piracy, and he reluctantly allowed the patched up skiff to carry on to the capital from whence they came, but not before warning them to stay far, far away if they meant trouble. Stroking his beard impulsively, he boarded his vessel and with only intimidating looks at his crew and that of The Captain’s Mistress, the two vessels parted ways.

Over the next few days, the travels of those aboard The Captain’s Mistress were mundane and monotonous. The winds came and went with the days and nights, but the dark storm clouds seen on the horizon never approached.

Three days out from Kiera, the crew spied another vessel approaching them. It had changed its course to intercept, but had done so rather awkwardly. As the intervening vessel approached, the heroes scanned its deck for signs of action aboard, but came up short. In fact, they could not perceive any movement whatsoever. Looking around anxiously at each other, the crew realized they were in a dangerous situation. Spool and Miguel recognized this as a classic pirates trick attempted before accosting a vessel at sea. The crew would go below deck, or flat against it, so the approaching ship would appear unmanned. They would then proceed to fire cannons at the target, and using the thunder and smoke of the artillery, jump up, and begin boarding the helpless victim’s ship. The crew of the targeted ship could not prepare to intercept the scallywags as their ability to predict where they would land was diminished, and they were usually preoccupied with the fresh holes in the side of their boat.

But fortunately no attack came from this opposing vessel as it drew up alongside them. The ship was made from a dark, rich looking wood, appeared new, and looked remarkably ostentatious for a pirate vessel. Written in looping golden strokes on the prow of the craft was its title: ­The Dolphin. It was a remarkable sight to see, a pleasure craft as fine as this one, but even more startling than the grandeur of the boat, were the scarlet-haired heads of four figures suddenly sticking up over the bulwark.

Quickly the crew realized these were not the scraggily and unkempt faces of scurvy dogs, but those of children! Immediately the oldest looking one introduced himself as Captain Aaron Arenson, and accused the crew of being pirates. His authority though was quickly undermined by that of a younger looking boy standing close to him, as he too declared himself captain of The Dolphin. The crew of The Captain’s Mistress stood bewildered, stunned by what they were witnessing. Two girls looking about the age of 7 stood next to each other near the prow, laughing at the crab men aboard the opposite vessel, while the two boys argued about authority aboard their ship.

The crew of the skiff took this opportunity to shout back at the kids, asking what business they had with them, and what authority they had to stop and question them. Quickly Aaron turned to berate the heroes with an indignant look on his face. He launched into a sputtering and rather pathetic speech about how his father would hear of their disobedience and insolence, and how dare they talk to him like that.

Dismissing initial intentions and inclinations to steal the ship from the kids, the crew decided to talk further to these spoiled brats, as they were most likely of a great and powerful family if they had access to a ship this grand. So they were insulted, demeaned, and laughed at by a bunch of six kids aged 6-16. When the crew could finally not take it any longer they hit back with words and insults of their own. It was really a sight to see, two ragtag crews shouting insults and empty threats across the water to each other in the middle of an endless clear plane. Obviously the pampered and spoiled brats reacted poorly to this, as they had never been insulted by anyone like this in their entire lives (at least not to their faces). The crew demeaned Aaron particularly, who took especially poorly to this, and broke down crying, admitting pitifully that he had stolen this ship from his father’s private docks in order to get his attention. It was obvious they had no idea how to sail a ship and it was a miracle they had gotten this far. For his cries and whines the crew surmised that their father was a powerful man in Kiera, who was constantly busy and had no time to devote to his children. The crew felt bad, pitied the kids, and decided to do the right thing by taking them back to Kiera, thankfully their already intended destination.

So Spool climbed aboard The Dolphin while Senor Miguel Figuroa stayed aboard The Captain’s Mistress. Over the next few days the crew traveled with each other, the petty flotilla moving surely towards Kiera. The black spires, gilded with golden trim and intricate emblems was the first glimpse they caught of the terraced city. As they sailed closer to the capital, it resolved into the segregated, classist metropolis that rose up in layers from the encroaching sea below. The broken remnants of the drowned eighth and ninth terraces slowed the ships to a crawl as they delicately weaved through the decrepit debris field, careful not to rake their hull and draw the pirates who watched and waited for victims of traps they set in these fields.

Making it through without a scratch, the crews veered their vessels away from the main commercial port and off around the side of the city to a smaller hidden section of docks, used by the nobility and high merchants of this city. As the ships pulled up next to the docks which flew the emblem the crew had seen aboard The Dolphin, guards ran out to meet them. After some confused orders and discussion, a man walked down the pier to meet them, followed by his own retinue of guardsmen. He was a large man, both in figure and demeanor, who walked quite briskly for his size. The guards in fact had to trot behind him to keep up with his determined gait. He introduced himself to the party as Willas Wellington, Commander of the Kieran City Guard, and informed the crew that they had some explaining to do. The children were escorted away by the guards, presumably back to their father, and the heroes launched into their rather unfortunate and unusual tale.

Commander Wellington listened closely, with an unchanging facial expression of unnerving patience. When the heroes had finished iterating their story of woe and unexpected fortune to the Commander, he nodded slowly once, and thanked them for finding and returning the children of Aric Arenson, an influential merchant of Kiera. He told them that while he would be unable to reward them for simply doing the right thing, perhaps Master Arenson would be interested in providing recompense for the return of his children…

Maiden Voyage: Part 2

AKA long live captain Jonas Abraham

As the crew trudged their way back towards the Rebecca along the dunes of the beach, on the northern coast of Torath-Ka, loaded down with the fruits of their encounter, an anxious and foreboding feeling crept up on them. Their intuition proved correct as they rounded a bend and crested a dune to be greeted by the image of their ship in the distance, burned to the waterline. As they approached further, they realized there was no sign of life left, not even bodies. Pools of blood slowly diffused into the sand, and the crates of supplies and provisions unloaded from the Rebecca by the missing crew were nowhere to be found.

It seemed to the group of 4 that something terrible had taken their mates away, along with the provisions. They knew not where to begin the search, as they knew not of the force which had caused the vanishing to occur, until Aurora looked closely at the sand leading away from the burned hulk towards the thick jungle less than 100 feet away. She observed not only drag marks defined in the grain, but also indentations resembling the footprints of some large bipedal creatures. Concluding immediately that their mates and their life support had been captured by the savage Ugaks (Red Men) native to this continent, Aurora, Spool, and Snips set off into the dense foliage, leaving Jean to search through the wreckage of their boat, and salvage useful parts.

The trek through the jungle was tough for everyone. Aurora had an especially difficult time, and slowed the pace of the party for the journey. The path taken by the Ugaks was difficult to follow through the dense foliage and wild growth of this savage landscape, but the heroes stayed true to their course, and avoided fatal deviation. After an hour and a half of trekking through this sticky forest, Spool stopped the party. He had heard a chanting of some sort, a language and tone that was unfamiliar and unsettling. They decided to approach cautiously, to obtain a better view of what they assumed were the captors.

Their suspicions were correct, as they parted the thick green vegetation to look out onto a clearing, housing a large stone edifice. The structure was hollow, containing a large pool of red tar-like liquid which bubbled and oozed in a sinister manner. At the top of the pool, on a raised dais, sat a 20’ tall stone statue of a Giant Monkape, along with 6 of the crew (including Captain Jonas Abraham), and 6 chanting Ugaks. The red man who led the chanting looked to be the shaman of this tribe from his garb and headdress. The party retreated back into cover to formulate a plan, but as they spun ideas and possible methods of saving their comrades, the chanting grew ever louder: more forceful and powerful. They eventually decided on a silent attack plan as their best bet. Aurora flanked the group from the left, sneaking through the jungle to a point where she could have a clear shot at the Ugaks. Spool followed, prepared to run away and cause a distraction for Aurora when they were noticed. Snips went the other way around, circumnavigating the clearing until he was behind the dais. Once everyone was in position, Aurora took the shot, and hit one of the Ugaks, halting the incantation. The shaman, realizing they were under attack, began the process of reanimating the great beast of this ritual site by kicking Captain Abraham into the blood pool. He was dead within moments after submersion.

A battle ensued between the Ugaks and the heroes, in which wounds were both incurred and dealt by each side. The fight grew much more perilous for the party when the shaman had completed his ritual, and the Giant Monkape of this blood pool was animated, turned flesh from stone. While Snips freed the captured crew from their bounds, Aurora and Spool meet the red men head on, fighting tooth and nail. Finally, after each last Ugak was killed, the only target left was the 20’ tall monstrosity who had already killed one crew member, and mortally wounded another. The heroes turned their full attention to it, and gave it all they had. Bullets seemed ineffective, so of course Aurora the tinkerer designed a more powerful weapon on the fly. Loading her gun with 4 shots worth of powder, stuffing it with rags, and anything plug she could find, she made a truly remarkable improvised shrapnel bomb. She then set it so that it would fire, and therefore explode, on impact. With great care, Aurora launched her creation at the Monkape, and waited as it arced towards the beast. Detonating upon contact with its left arm, the gun exploded, sending chunks of metal deep into the ape. Her only weapon previously used as an IED, Aurora scooped up a spear dropped by a fallen red man, and proceed to prod and thrust into the beast for the remainder of the encountered, injuring and annoying it.

Spool took a different approach to this battle with the beast, preferring to stay close as can be, rather than at spears length. Leaping onto the back of the Monkape, Spool held on for dear life, resisting the beasts attempt to buck his undesired rider. He stabbed at whatever he could with his knife, bloodying the ape, and draining it of its fight.

Snips used his snipping pincers to castrate the monster, causing blood loss and anger. Alternating between shots with his blunderbuss and reloading, he snipped at the beasts lower regions, like only a tiny crab man could do. He finally felled the beast by cutting both of his Achilles tendons at once.

Once the beast had been defeated, its body slowly dissolved into black energy that dissipated into the jungle. The pools surface was unperturbed, and the statue did not reappear. One of the rescued crew members: Mongrel, a Kehana, was bleeding out and would die if not treated immediately. Spool, a Doreen, refused to save a Kehana, and it was left to someone else much less experienced in the medical arts to tend to him. Senor Miguel Figuroa, a member of the rescued crew, insisted that someone help his dying crewmate, and Aurora answered his call. Miraculously, she was able to save him, through the application of constant pressure and other treatments she had seen attempted before.

The crew then gathered up the provisions stolen by the now dead Ugaks, and followed the way they came from the remains of the Rebecca. It took 2 hours, but they made it, with sufficient supplies and provisions to last the now reduced crew of 8 for at least 7 days, enough to give them a fighting chance.

Gathering lumber from the wreck of the Rebecca, as well as an old sail to use for the skiff, they prepared to make the trek down the beach. It was about a 3 mile walk, and by the time they arrived at the site of the Yellowback encounter and the beached skiff, the sun was setting. They made camp on the sandy shores, looking back and forth between the open sea before them, and the dense, wild jungle behind. The serene lapping of the sea against the old skiff was all that was heard as they took a moment of silence for their fallen captain and comrades. Figuroa, who had been a friend of Captain Abraham for over 7 years prompted a circle of eulogies for those lost. Their mission had gone sour, but their adventure had just begun.

In the middle of the night Aurora raised herself from her rest, and swam into the ocean, remembering the times she used to watch the captain leap from the deck of the Rebecca to bathe in the salt sea while she watched from the crows nest. She had lost someone dear that day, and would not easily forget him.

The next morning the crew were roused by the sun as it breached the horizon, like a fist punching through the nighttime cool. They set to working immediately, Spool staying as far away as possible from Mongrel, who had by now learned of his refusal to save him from death. Aurora led the repairs, and in a matter of hours, it was complete. The skiff looked seaworthy, and while it was not a permanent fix, it would do. Taking a small vial of golden paint salvaged from the wreckage of the Rebecca the crew give this ship new life as they wrote its name on the hull: The Captain’s Mistress, in honor of Jonas.

Elections took place for the new captain, and while Snips was favored for a while, the title ultimately went to the reluctant Senor Miguel Figuroa, and grizzled veteran of the seas. The ship was loaded, and a course was charted for the Kieran Empire, their original destination, to find fortune, and possibly a new purpose.

After an hour or two of sailing Spool cried out from the prow, he had seen something far ahead of them in the water, what looked like a wreckage of some sort. Fearing whatever force caused this destruction, the crew steered the ship cautiously towards the debris field. What they saw as the got closer was a curious sight indeed. A scurillian, clinging to a broken mast, waving at the boat for help. Rushing to save this floundering crab man, they pulled the skiff up next to him, and hoisted him aboard. He carried measurement supplies, lots of scales and charts, pens and inks. He walked with a stick covered with incremental dashes. As he clambered aboard he introduced himself as Equais, and lauched into a speech of sorts:

“Thanks. I think. Your craft might be less safe than that debris I was floating on. One of those big sharks the ugaks summon hit us. Ripped the hull right out of the Lala’s Pride and sent her to the bottom. The men went down with her. It tried to take a bite out of me too but spit me out. Too tough, I guess.”

He gave a half-hearted smile, but no more, a sign of his inherent grumpiness. Once they had gotten back underway, and Equais had settled in, the crew questioned him about the wreckage. He responded with another speech:

“I used to be a super for the Spanish Guild. I got to travel a lot. We scurillians like to measure things, y’know. Facts and figures. That’s us. So everywhere we went, I began measuring the depth of the water. Over the course of a few months, I noticed the water level had risen nearly six inches! Numbers don’t lie, so I cashed out my retirement plan, hired a boat, and started cruising around the isles measuring the water depth. I’m sorry to report that Caribdus is still drowning. My best guess is that the Free Towns as we know them will disappear in three years. Within a decade, the entire world will be underwater and all surface-life will cease. You can imagine the wars that will be fought over the last few islands in the meantime as well. If you’ve got it in your heart to perform some noble quest to stop it, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I don’t know why this is happening or how to stop it. My best guess is that our assumption that the Sea Hags’ flood was over was wrong. Perhaps it has just slowed to a steady drip. I had thought about asking Tressa the Red about this matter, but I have no means of navigating the Gullet, and am not sure she’ll want to share anything she knows anyway. You know how those damnable mages are with all their secrets and shenanigans.”

Shocked and concerned by this news the crew took it all in. It made sense and it didn’t look like Equais was a jokester of any sort. But specific parts of his speech interested them. Intrigued by Tressa, the last known archmage, and the aforementioned deadly “Gullet”, the characters questioned this scholar further. They were interested in how they could stop this flood, as it seemed like each of them had just received a death sentence to be delivered 10 years down the road. Fortunately Equias was also interested in staying alive, so he offered the heros another morsel of knowledge. He explained to them that the Gullet was a part of The Teeth, the magical fortress where Tressa lives:

“I’ve actually been to the Teeth once. Tressa hired a ship to bring her some carroway fruit from Maroa and I was fortunate enough to be on board. I don’t know how much you know about the Teeth, so before you get the idea to go there you’d best be warned. The Teeth are a circle of rocks—mountains, really—that surround a beautiful sunken lagoon. Don’t ask me how that’s possible— magic, I’m sure. In the center is a massive geyser of water—more magic—and atop that is a floating island where Tressa lives. To get inside the Teeth you have to sail down the Gullet, a deadly rapid that has claimed many vessels. You’ll need a firm crew and perhaps a little enchanted help to survive that ride.”

So with this new information, the heroes decided that visiting this red archmage would be a task in their future, but it would not be done with this ramshackle vessel, or this injured and piecemeal crew. With new purpose and wonder in their hearts, they set their sails toward the east, and resumed their course across the ever-rising sea, to the last remaining state of this drowning world: The Empire of Kiera. 

Maiden Voyage: Part 1

 AKA How many crabs tall is he? 

In the opening scene of this tale, our crew found themselves stranded on a beach on the Savage Continent: Torath-Ka. The ship they had been serving on was an honest trader named the Rebecca, a medium sized freighter captained by Jonas Abraham hauling lumber to the Kieran Empire from the Free Towns. Four hours previously, disaster had struck this mission, when something large hit the Rebecca below the waterline. Captain Abraham managed to get the ship to land before it sank, but it looked like she wouldn't be seaworthy for many days, and even with time, it seemed a miracle might also be necessary to get this lady back on course. 

Immediately taking control of the situation, Captain Abraham ordered the party to set out along coast to find provisions for the crew. A few miles down the coast Spool, Aurora, Jean, and Snips stumbled upon an old skiff, missing a mast and a good portion of its bottom, but before they could get a good look inside, their attention was drawn to a increasingly loud crashing originating from the dense jungle 40 feet from the water. 

Turning to face the source of the clamor, they were greeted by the terrifying sight of a 7 foot tall raptor emerging from the foliage and careening towards them. Drawing their weapons, the eclectic group braced for impact. Upon viewing this creature who stood 7 times higher than himself Snips decided to take a wide approach. Obscuring himself in the sand, the tiny crab man scurried to the side to flank this beast. Aurora, the weapons master herself, aimed her pistol and with her off hand grabbed a clump of sand, waiting to strike. Spool, trying to replicate the stealth of the one foot tall crab, ran towards the side, to approach the beast from the opposite flank. Unfortunately, a beach in broad daylight is not the optimal location for a covert attack, and the blue figure dashing away attracted the Yellowback like sailors to rum. Jean, noticing the peril Spool had put himself in by isolating himself from the herd, threw back his tentacles with a puff of air, so they danced behind him like cobras entranced by a charmer, and pushed a column of wind at the raptor. Unfortunately the air only buffeted the beast, without deterring him from his deadly task. 

In seconds the beast was upon Spool, undeterred by Aurora's "pocket-sand" launched moments before. The Yellowback bit into the Doreen, knocking him to the ground, and wounding him. He was down, but not for the count. Heroically, his comrades came swooping in like a barrage of pain to fend off the beast goring him. The combination of a confusion spell by Jean, hot lead from Aurora, steel from downed dolphin man, and the machine-like pincers of Snips, the Yellowback was quickly eviscerated. 

Licking their wounds, the party realized the value of the meat of the beast they just felled, and set to work filleting it. Aurora, taking another look at the broken skiff, determined that she could repair it with a bit of lumber, and a spare sail. As an added bonus she found 52 pieces of eight tucked away in a sack wedged between some planks, and happily took it, smiling at her good fortune. 

Once the meat was packed and loaded into sacks, they set out back along the beach to the Rebecca, to share their spoils with the captain and the rest of the crew.