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Pirate-like dot.
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Moo-arrrrr.
Arrrrrrrr [cough,cough] Kill...kill...kill!
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It was a night like any other night in Port Peril. All of you remember drink and carousing, possibly romancing the night away. The sea air combined with the flowing drink made for a fun time for all. But then, unlike most nights, came the odd aftertaste after sipping from your cup or the distinct feeling of a blunt object hitting the back of your head. And then came the darkness....
You wake up the next morning, the taste of cheap wine still fresh in your mouth, you hear a rhythmic creaking noise as the room seems to sway. It is as if you were still drunk. Your barely open eyes spots several others in the room, in similar states. But before any of you can even sit up, you hear the sound of several pairs of heavy footsteps enter. As you clear your eyes, you see a rough looking man brandishing a whip surrounded by 6 others wielding saps. He is obviously a pirate which would mean the swaying is caused by the ship that you are on.
“Still abed with the sun over the yardarm? On your feet, ye filthy swabs! Get up on deck and report for duty before Cap’n Harrigan flays your flesh into sausage skins and has Fishguts fry ye up for breakfast!” He screams at you while cracking the whip. That rude awakening also causes you to notice that all of your armor/weapons/equipment are gone. You have just the clothes on your back.
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Kal opens his eyes and sits up quickly, taking in his surroundings. He seems especially interested by the way the ship yaws softly both beneath and around him. After a moment his eyes grow wide and he exclaims in genuine surprise. "We're on a boat! On the ocean!"
"Owww. Why is there yelling?"
Head still pounding a bit from the night before, Opal shakily gets to her feet and tries to get her eyes to focus on her surroundings.
Oh shit, I've been shanghaied. This isn't exactly how I wanted to start my pirating career, but I suppose working as a tavern wench wasn't going to get me far anyway.
Bjorkus wakened with a groan.
The minotaur pushed himself up off the deck of the ship and surveyed his surroundings. He was on the deck of a ship. There were others nearby, a man and a woman, that looked like he felt. Armed pirates were shouting at him.
A slave again...
"What ship be this?" the bull minotaur rumbled as he climbed to his hooves.
"Ay, you're on a boat. This one is smart, he is." The man's words drip with sarcasm as he turns to Bjorkus. "This be the Wormwood, ya sod. Now follow me before I get a hankerin' for steak and eggs." The man turns around whip in hand and heads for the main deck. The three of you also notice what appears to be a goblin also in the room with you, slowly, I mean very slowly coming to.
As you follow the man to the main deck, Bjorkus, Chub, and Kal suddenly get this aftertaste in their mouths. A little like oily nutmeg, which those three realize is a clear sign of oil of taggit poisoning. In fact you also remember either eating some spicy food or drinking some spicy rum which hides the taste of the oil.
In fact Bjorkus and Chub remember seeing the rough man's face sometime last night.
Bjorkus rolled his thick bovine tongue in his mouth as he tried to recall the exact aftertaste.
He glared at the poisoner but followed along in silence, only looking away to steal a glance at his fellow slaves.
Human. Lean but healthy.
Human girl. Pale and slight.
Goblin?! Who's ever heard of a goblin aboard a ship?
There is a look of ecstasy on the goblin's face as he lays face down drooling on the deck. Chubwart the Conquerer stands over the fallen bodies of many longshanks. With daggers in hand, he surveys the scene. A fair elven maiden chained to the deck crouches and hugs his mighty thigh. A tasty gnome rotates rotisserie style above his fire. All bow before the mighty Chubwart!
Crack!!! A sound interrupts his pleasure. He wakes to the brightness of the day. He is blinded by the sun. Crack!!! “Still abed with the sun over the yardarm? On your feet, ye filthy swabs! Get up on deck and report for duty before Cap’n Harrigan flays your flesh into sausage skins and has Fishguts fry ye up for breakfast!”
Chubwart slowly stands to his feet and looks around. He instictively reaches for a dagger. Ah...They got Chubwart good. He never should have trusted the elven bardmaid! He slowly follows the minotaur as the group of shanghaies is led over to a group of pirates. Nasty long shanks! Chubwart will make you all pay!
As he is lined up infront of the group, Chubwart laughs at the man's comment. HaHa! Chubwart get it! Make steak out of cow man!
"I don't think he'd like t' taste o' me", the bull minotaur added with a snarl and a sideways glance at the loudmouthed gobbo.
Kal's eyes light up as his observation is confirmed by someone else. He follows, glancing around at those with him distractedly as he notices the odd taste in his mouth. I stopped to eat at mid-day, but that was outside the city... His eyebrows rise slightly as if in realization. Aha, the food-seller I saw as I entered the shore area of the city. Yuck... that stuff tastes awful. It's strange though... we're not slaves, or they'd have us bound. What is it, then?
The Wormwood? What kind of a name for a ship is that? My father's was 'The White Death' since he was the Pale Reaver. Why couldn't I have at least been taken by a better class of ship?
Opal glances over at the minotaur and goblin with a bit of surprise at seeing those two races aboard a boat. What a shake of her head, Opal attempts to head towards the main deck without falling as she tries to make the adjustment from walking on land to walking on a moving vessel.
As you reach the main deck, you quickly realize you are on a sizable ship in the middle of the ocean far from any land. Figures cluster around the ship’s mainmast, looking up at the higher deck on the stern, where two figures stand. One of them is a broad, muscular Garundi man with a shaven head, a long beard bound with gold rings, and an eye patch—clearly the captain. The other is a younger, balding man with a long black ponytail, wearing a long coat and carrying a well-used cat-o’-nine-tails. You are also not the only new recruits - four others are standing with you on the deck, set apart by their relative cleanliness and their apparent unease with their newfound situation. A dozen or so other pirates, clearly existing members of the crew, stand about on the deck or in the ship’s rigging.
Once you are on deck, the captain addresses the crew. “Glad you could join us at last! Welcome to the Wormwood! My thanks for ‘volunteering’ to join my crew. I’m Barnabas Harrigan. That’s Captain Barnabas Harrigan to you, not that you’ll ever need to address me. I have only one rule—don’t speak to me. I like talk, but I don’t like your talk. Follow that rule and we’ll all get along fine. Oh, and one more thing. Even with you new recruits, we’re still short-handed, and I aim to keep what crew I have. There’ll be a keelhaulin’ for anyone caught killin’ anyone. Mr. Plugg! If you’d be so kind as to make pirates out of these landlubbers, it’ll save me having to put them in the sweatbox for a year and a day before I make pies out of ’em.”The captain says to you before walking away leaving the man with the cat-o'-nine-tails.
"Ay captain. Alright, ya good for nothing sods! The ship needs someone to work the rigging. I want the four of you to race to the crow's nest." He says pointing to the party and then up. "The first one of you to make it up there is the winner and our new rigger."
A race to the top? Really? My gods, these people should have kidnapped a bard since they are clearly starved for entertainment. Oh geez, I am still wearing my skirt from waitressing last night."
With a small sigh or worry and a alight blush rising on her cheeks, Opal eyes the rigging and makes a good start at climbing up the ropes. She hesitates a bit after that, but recovers and then gains confidence and begins to move even more quickly. She pays for that overconfidence though as she loses her grip near the top and suddenly finds herself falling quickly towards the deck.
However, Opal quickly slows down in midair and floats back down to the deck. With an even larger sigh, she looks back up the rigging to see who has won. She also eyes the man with the whip in case he takes offense to her floating down.
Bjorkus suppressed an aggressive rumble after the captain finished his speech. He's felt the Cat's sting too many times growing on the Osprey's ship. Now was not the time to be defiant.
The hulking bull checked the cord holding his loincloth around his waist and then seized the ropes to pull himself into the air. His hooves gripped the rigging with practiced ease.
Although small by minotaur standards, Bjorkus is as tall as the tallest Shoanti and broader still with limbs and a torso swollen with layers of powerful muscle. His fur and hide are ebon black and a pair of long sharp ivory horns jut dangerously from the top of his bovine head.
He's currently unclothed save a shabby loincloth tied off with a cord around his waist.
Kal is a young man with dark hair and the light tan of an outdoorsman who spends much of his time out of direct sunlight. He is tall and slender, but moves gracefully and confidently, seeming to take in everything with his dark brown eyes. His garb is plain and hand-sewn, but in good condition without holes or patches.
Kal trots over to the rigging and grabs hold of the ropes, trying to outdistance his muscular bovine competition.
Trying to climb the ropes like vines at first, Kal fumbles around for a bit before finally approaching the rigging differently and shimmying right up it. He gets about three-fourths of the way and stops as the minotaur finishes, becoming completely distracted by the magnificent view of the ocean.
Stupid cow man beats Chubwart.
He looks at the Minotaur at the top of the rigging. Others no make climb. We are the champions!
The thrill of victory takes the edge off of his otherwise bad situation and the minotaur chuckles at the goblin's exultation.
"That's right."
Mr. Plugg does a slow clap as you make your way down the mast. "Congratulations Tri-tip! You're our rigger which means you work directly for me! You should be honored. You'll get your first assignment after this next test." He slaps the minotaur on the back.
He lines you all up looking you up and down, lingering a bit upon Opal. "Can any of you cook? Our main "chef", Fishguts got a drinking problem. While this is normal for us, but that also means we end up eating rubbish. I'm tired of it, so I need a real cook to help him out."
Chubwart raises his hand and jumps up and down!
Chubwart master of cooking stupid Gnomses!
Bjorkus hits the deck with a graceless thud but beams with pride at the praise.
Maybe this one won't be so bad...
Wait, Tri-tip?!
Kal shakes himself from his enjoyment of the view and carefully climbs down, shaking his head at the latest question. Why would you want to cook anything? ... unless he's looking to hire another "foodseller" for the city.
He tries to conceal a momentary scowl.
"Alright, ya green piece of snot. You're a cook's mate now. Report to Fishguts in the galley." One of the more experienced pirates leads Chubwart away.
"And for the rest of you useless lots. You'll be swabs, the lowest of the low."
"You're first job is to man the bilges!"
"And for you my new assistant..."
"I'll go easy on you. You can be the lookout."
Down in the Galley, Chubs quickly sees why his help is needed. The cook known as Fishguts is drunk, thought not insensibly so. Not yet anyway. "So you're here to help, eh? Alright."
"I need you to catch tonight's supper using the ship's nets.."
Chubwart points at the human (Kal). Chubwart could start with this ugly one. I has good recipe for ugly long shank soup! Make crew happy, happy, happy!
Kal grimaces at the task, but complies silently. At the goblin's remark, he raises one eyebrow and his lips twist into a slight smile.
Bjorkus's bovine visage twists into a scowl at the taskmaster before he hefts himself up the rigging once again and surveys the horizon.
Kal cleans silently, but tries to catch the pale woman's eye with a comradely smile when their overseer isn't looking.
Before Opal can volunteer to cook, the goblin beats her to it. At being assigned to work in the bilges for the day she sighs and kilts her skirt up to her knees. Ugh, stuck in the bilges for the day. This is going to stink badly.
Opal follows her 'supervisor' and her fellow captive below decks, trying to do her work as best she can given that her head still hurts a bit.
Is he smiling at me?
Opal tentatively smiles back at him.
Chubwart smiles at Fishguts. Chubwart catch fish with net...check! Some tasty rum might help gobgob fish fast. You share with Chubwart?
Talking to himself: Nothing to this. Reminds Chubwart of childhood on river before long shanks grab him and make him slave. Chubwart play nice, nice until longshanks no expect nothing then he kill all of them and make them soup! Chubwart share with cowman. He powerful warrior and will be honorary gobgob!
While in the kitchen, Chubwart looks for a concealable knife. If he finds one, he hides it on his person.
Kal is a champion of cleaning the bilges while Opal works just as hard, but the activity leaves her fatigued and sweating profusely. While she can still walk, it is hard to do anything else strenuous. Bjorkus is ever watchful except for the one time that Mr. Plugg was watching. The minotaur is given a minor rope bash for his lack of focus.
Chubwart is a master fisherman catching enough for two days worth of dinner. He looks around and finds a ton of kitchen knives, but the only knife he could conceal was a butterknife, better at bludgeoning than cutting.
Dinner comes in and it is rum-spiced cat-fish and stale bread after which everyone is given a half-pint of rum as a ration.
Chubwart walks over to large cowman during dinner. He stands next to his chair barely reaching the large creatures hip. He tugs on the minotaurs' fur. Chubwart need to talk to you.
Kal tries to maneuver into a spot near the pale woman, his eyes constantly scanning the room for any threats or anyone listening too closely. After speaking a strange word over his food, he smiles at her and motions to her dish, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows in a silent question.