Spies and Pirates, Part II

When we got together the next week available week, we decided to continue the story of the Clovinian spies.

A piece of news from the first mate while he was sharing a smoke with the party dwarf was that the flashes of lightning against the grey storm front were birds being struck out of the sky. I'm fairly certain that bit of information was chilling, or at the very least, sobering. It certainly hastened the party's plans.

Our elf is something of a mastermind of mayhem. He decided, almost unilaterally, that what they needed to do was steal whatever talisman allowed the pirates to enter the storm unharmed, sabotage the armory, steal a dinghy, and row to the island while the sabotage set off the powder and turned the ship into so much driftwood.

The rest of the party was definitely okay with this plan, judging by their enthusiasm. Our dwarf continued to get cozy with the first mate, smoking in front of the hatches that led to the passenger and officer's cabins in the aft of the ship. Partially as a distraction, partially as a lookout. The crusader went to the galley in order to question the cook about provisions, and discovered where the barrels of salt pork were kept. Meanwhile, the specialist invaded the captain's cabin in search of the talisman.

It wasn't difficult to enter, and the search was only mildly time consuming. At the bottom of the captain's sea chest was a cannon ball with a deeply incised circle of symbols etched into it. Knowing he could be discovered at any minute, the specialist retreated and tried to re-lock the door from the outside (just to be clear, it's not the sort of modern door locks we're used to. Without the key, it can't easily be locked from the outside). However, he had run out of time as the first mate came down from the poop deck to get some charts. Thankfully, the dwarf kicked the door with his heel to let the specialist know someone was coming, and he beat a quick retreat to the passenger cabins.

Thankfully, the first mate was a busy man, and while he did notice the door to the captain's cabin was unlocked, he reasoned that he himself had been careless and left it unlocked, rather than suspecting that someone had malicious intent. It's possible I was being too easy on the group, but I figured even pirates would be unlikely to be suspicious of paying passengers, and wouldn't be terribly likely to start keelhauling everyone because a door that was supposed to be locked wasn't.

I did however, make a mental note that any other such activities would alert the pirates to foul play.

The specialist, the elf, the dwarf, and the crusader updated each other on what they'd discovered, and they decided they needed to figure out some way to set the armory ablaze, steal some supplies, steal the cannon ball, and then steal a dinghy.

Some ideas were bandied about, such as using oil to light the passenger cabin ablaze (it shared a wall with the magazine), but ultimately, they decided they needed to steal an auger from the ship's carpentry shop. So, the dwarf went looking for the shop while the crusader acquired their provisions. The elf and specialist took another crack at the captain's cabin.

The specialist got in, while the elf stood lookout at the hatch leading into the passageway that led to the cabins. Unfortunately for them, the pirate captain had come down to get some shut eye before entering the storm. Thinking quickly, the elf ran him through and manhandled the captain's dying form into his own cabin, and then he and the specialist retrieved the cannon ball (after a judicious use of read magic to ensure that the markings weren't just gibberish to confound the foolish). The elf made sure to lock the captain's cabin with the man's own key. The specialist looted the place of coin, but also snagged some letters of credit, and the deed to the Listing Lady.

When the crusader and the dwarf returned, they set about boring a hole in the passenger cabin's wall, and managed to be lucky enough to be right next to a barrel of gunpowder. With a length of fuse and some fire, the plan went into high gear. What they did next was cause a distraction by setting fire to the captain's cabin. They then piled out of the aft section of the ship, and told the pirates on deck there was a fire!

This cleared the poop out pretty fast, and the only one left up there was the rather unlucky pilot. The party used their pistols to intimidate him, and set about dropping a dinghy from the rear of the ship. Bound, gagged, and unconscious, the pilot was incapable of warning his comrades. They got about a few hundred feet from the Listing Lady before she was smashed to tinder by the armory going up. With that grisly work done, they rowed to the island during the night, hoping the cannon ball was indeed their savior.

It turned out their gamble had paid off, but during the night and early morning, flashes of lightning behind them were a grim reminder that anyone who had survived the ship's sinking had been consigned to an unpleasant death. On landfall, they set about making camp and interrogating their prisoner for everything he knew about the island. Then the crusader hanged him for his crime of piracy.

And so ends Part II. Continued in Part III.