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 Recent Posts
I need to make an unpleasant announcement. My laptop has been acting a little odd for the last couple weeks, and yesterday it become evident that the issue was less one to be filed under "annoying (mildly)" and more under "catastrophic (impending)." The good news is, I have my stuff backed up and the laptop is under warranty; the bad news is, I'm about to go offline for probably at least a week while I get my computer fixed. I will have my phone to post with, but I don't think I'm going to be able to keep my games going for the moment. Hopefully, this will be a brief hiatus, and we'll be back in just a few days or a week or so. Watch this space for details.
Well, with that thought in mind, I need to make an unpleasant announcement. My laptop has been acting a little odd for the last couple weeks, and yesterday it become evident that the issue was less one to be filed under "annoying (mildly)" and more under "catastrophic (impending)." The good news is, I have my stuff backed up and the laptop is under warranty; the bad news is, I'm about to go offline for probably at least a week while I get my computer fixed. I will have my phone to post with, but I don't think I'm going to be able to keep my games going for the moment. Hopefully, this will be a brief hiatus, and we'll be back in just a few days or a week or so. Watch this space for details.
Grok eyes the paladin for a moment, then grins. "Yeah, sure, no worries. Stick your nose in tomorrow and talk to me and we'll get you sorted out. Hell, you seem all right - if you need to, I'll even haul my ass belowdecks for ya after dinner sometime, so you can do some proper shopping. Not tonight, though! I got drinking still to do. But pass that along to your buddies; I'll take care o' them just the same."
The evening wears on as Grok and Eleuterio swap songs and drinks, Artevious tells tale after tale to a rapt Crimson, and the rest of the crew get increasingly hammered. Sense Motive or Perception, DC 15, Eleuterio and Artevious only:
You notice, as the evening goes by, that Captain Harrigan stayed in his cabin after the dinner he shared with his officers (with the exception of Fishguts and Grok) and most of the rest of the officers went into the officers' cabin below the forecastle, Scourge and Plugg returned to spend time with the crew - or some of them, anyway. Several of those who were involved in helping Scourge beat Eleuterio and Evril this morning are among the group Scourge and Plugg are speaking with, and most of these toss snide or nasty looks your way as the night wears on. At last, Harrigan appears on deck to assign the dog watch to two of his junior officers, the bosun's mate Patch Patchsalt (a green-haired gnome woman with a razor-edged nose) and the gunner's mate Kipper (a human man with only three teeth and more scars on his face than skin), and the rest of the crew is sent to bed.
The next morning, all four of you are awakened by the tolling of the ship's bell, indicating you are to be on deck in five minutes.
Wow we haven't posted in the discussion thread in awhile... Uh, kay. I want to make the Nualia fight slightly cooler than the rest of the fights have been presentation-wise, but I kinda got my butt kicked today at work, and tomorrow's probably not going to be time enough for me to recover. So I will get things moving again Saturday morning. While you're waiting, someone could go back through the thread and dig out all the treasure you've been accumulating since you got to Thistletop and starting figuring out what you want to do with it after this is all over...
Grok shouts with pleasure at Eleuterio's raw but rum-smoothed voice, and she joins in with the chorus at the end of each verse with gusto, if not necessarily a great deal of skill. Sandara and Samms both apparently also know it, and they do their best to provide some harmony while the paladin sings.
"Favors? No," the purser replies, shrugging as she empties her cup. "I just don't care for having goddesses get mad at me, y'know? Too much to risk, out here on the sea. Quinn warned me about Besmara's anger, and then pointed out Iomedae wasn't too keen on pirates anyway... so yeah. Just thought it would be best to get it out of my hands." Eleuterio:
Several small things catch your discerning eye as you speak with the purser. The first is that, though she's drinking the rum quite voraciously, she doesn't seem to care for it all that much - something in her attitude suggests a more refined palate when it comes to alcohol. (Or maybe she's just tired of rum.) The second thing you note is that she's really enjoying her song, and when an occasional pirate hums or sings a bar or two with her, she brightens noticably. (On the other hand, when at one point the halfling woman with the axes says, "I'd f**!ing play for ya if you'd just give me back my triple-damned fiddle, you worthless bilgediving whore," Grok just rolls her eyes - apparently it's just voice she likes. Or maybe she just doesn't much care for the halfling. For the record, Grok's reply is, "Fifty gold," to which the woman throws up her hands and stalks off, while Grok giggles.) Finally, you catch a note of actual fear in her response to you; her worry about being cursed by gods is pretty serious, and you could likely get quite a bit of traction on her if you played on her superstitions.
The man seems initially unwilling to participate in Artevious' conversational sallies, but the son of Poisson quickly shows that his father's legacy of leadership has indeed been passed on to his scion. After some time warming him up, Artevious learns the man's name is "Crimson" Cogward, and that - contrary to Chum's speculation - he was not pressganged, but in fact did volunteer to join the Wormwood's crew (though he only signed on four days previously, which is why he still looks so out-of-place). Artevious notes that Crimson's favored oaths all involve the Lady of Fates, and he spies a Pharasmin holy symbol tucked beneath the swab's collar. It doesn't take long for Artevious to mention the rollicking tales of his father's adventures, and Crimson asks if the books contain any "really good fight scenes.. y'know, with lots of blood and gore, the way they're meant to be."
Eleuterio:
[ooc]Well. Thanks to that blown Fort save, I need to you to click this link. You're at the "minor" level so far; the penalty will kick in when your fatigue and Charisma bonus wear off. You make one save every day to shake the craving, you need two in a row to do so, but you only get them when you don't drink another rum ration...
Gan can't get a read on Orik's conflicted emotions, but Lamsfel's impression is that he is genuine in his willingness to help. At the same time, though, Lyrie is pretty clearly his Achilles heel - even Orik probably couldn't say for sure whether he'd be able to withstand a concerted effort by Lyrie to get him to help her escape.
Grok is singing a sea chanty in an unsteady, rather sloshy-sounding voice as she doles out the rum. Sense Motive, DC 15:
She's pretty seriously inebriated, though she's functioning well enough to make you think she gets like this a lot. If you hit a DC 25...:
It occurs to you to wonder whether a woman that hammered would remember to lock up her door on her way out.
As Chum and Eleuterio untie the unconscious and near-dead Evril from the post, Fishguts approaches and hovers rather awkwardly nearby. "Lou," the cook begins as the two men lift Evril up off the ground, "We've gohta get th'shtew fer th'crew; Groksh comin' withth rum rashun in jushta bit..." He looks on with the same awkwardness as Chum and Eleuterio carry Evril belowdecks to the crew's quarters, which is really just a bunch of hammocks (far more than are needed for the current complement of the Wormwood) strung through the lower hold. Once Evril is settled and resting, Fishguts takes Eleuterio back to the galley, where the two men begin slopping stew into simple wooden bowls for the crew. A few minutes into the process, a young human girl, no more than 15 and perhap as young as 12, appears, and Fishguts introduces her as "the Cap'nsh girl," "Caulky" Tarroon. Caulky gives the paladin a sideways look from under her short curls while Fishguts readies a much more "upscale"-looking meal from among the various pots and pans; these the girl carries back upstairs, to the Captain's quarters for the evening officer's dinner. Not long after they disappear belowdecks, Fishguts and Eleuterio reappear with trays full of stew that they begin passing among the crew. The food is bland, but filling; as most of you have served on ships before, it compares similarly to other fare you've had under similar circumstances. Once the food is gone, a half-orc woman Eleuterio recognizes as Cut-Throat Grok appears on deck with a tun of rum - she sets it atop a barrel and begins pouring drinks for the crew. "Remember, lads, drink up if you want to stay away from Mr. Scourge's loving caresses!" the purser calls out as she pours the liquor. Most of the crew seem not to need the reminder, as they line up eagerly for their share.
The mercenary looks at the floor, frowning. "...Yeah," he finally admits. "Makes me look even more like an idiot, eh? Bloody hells." He shakes his head, looking resigned. "I can't tell you much more than I already have. I think the only thing I haven't mentioned is Nualia's... pet. She says it's an emissary from Lamashtu, and the thing looks evil enough for me to believe it. It's a dog or wolf or something - I really don't know, I'm not much for animals that aren't horses. But it looks like it climbed up out of Hell itself. And it... laughs." He shudders. "Whatever it is, she keeps it with her all the time, so I'd bet it's in there with her."
Talking to Orik:
The merc shrugs. "Can't see that I'd get paid again by her either way," he replies. "But if you could keep Lyrie from the worst of it... and maybe tell her it was me that helped her out... then I'll help you as best I can. Nualia's in the chapel, back down the hall toward the main stairs; I don't know if she'll have heard you down here, since we hadn't yet. I'd assume she knows you're coming, though. Also, you'll have be careful of the chapel doors: Nualia put some kind of spell on them, so if you don't know the password, they explode in fire when you approach them. And no, I don't know the password. Didn't want to know - gave me an excuse not to go in there. I don't know if Lyrie knows it or not." Looking around the room, he asks, "You want to know anything else?"
Evril's private doubts turn out to be all too correct. With a vicious laugh, Scourge lets fly with the whip, slicing open Artevious' back . As soon as the pain burns over his spine, though, the bosun gestures to the two sailors who tied up Evril and they drag Artevious aside as Scourge snarls, "Move, ye foppish whoreson! I'll not be told who ta lash by the likes o' ye!" as the blows begin to fall on Evril's back once more. Perception or Sense Motive, DC 15, Chum and Eleuterio only:
Though a number of the crew seem to enjoy Artevious' humiliation, and most of the rest seem to think he was basically asking for it, you spot a few who seem troubled by Scourge's response. The rigger Artevious was so friendly with from this morning looks downright angry, as might be expected; likewise, Sandara Quinn visibly winces in sympathy, and the still mostly-drunk Fishguts does as well. However, a few others you might not have expected to react that way seem put off: a one-eyed gnome woman, a young human man (really just a boy) and a tough-looking human woman, all swabs, and the two halfling riggers (one of whom is a man with a face rather like a rat's, and the other is the heavily-muscled woman with the axes that Chum noticed earlier). The whip cuts into Evril's back like the lashes of Hell itself: Scourge seems disinclined to measure his blows as carefully as he did in the morning, now that there's no more work to be done for the day. Beaten bloody and to almost literally within an inch of his life, Evril passes out from the pain, but Scourge continues to lash him til all five lashes are finished, and raw muscle has been exposed on the half-elf's back.
That's horrible! You don't do that to your crew! Not to anybody! What kind of captain are you? While several faces turn toward Artevious in the wake of his outburst, the reaction from almost all of them is the came: mocking laughter. Harrigan roars as though Artevious had just delivered the bunniest of jokes, waving his hand as though asking the would-be pirate to have mercy on his poor lungs. Once the spectacle of Magpie's death is done, Scourge orders two sailors - a broken-nosed dwarf and a massive Rahadoumi - to lash Eleuterio to the mainmast again, where he suffers another blow from the bosun's whip That done, the same two men roughly manhandle Evril up to the mast and tie him to it. Evril:
Do you have any interest in using your cure spells to keep yourself conscious?
Orik's questioners:
"Well, I imagine from the way you're going, you'll see for yourself soon enough, but the short version is, somehow Nualia's managed to start a transformation into a demon. After the raid on Sandpoint, Tsuto came back with the body of some priest, and I got the impression it was somebody who used to be important to Nualia. Whoever it was, she burnt the body on the altar to Lamashtu in the chapel, and when she came out she was... different. Her arm had gotten all scaly and red, and it's got some serious claws to boot. Her plan was - maybe still is, though if you're down here, I suppose you've already managed to do a fair amount to mess things up - the plan was to raid Sandpoint again, but much much bigger, burn the whole place to the ground in Lamashtu's name. In theory, I guess, once that happened, she'd finish her transformation, become something else... whatever that might mean. I'm no demonologist, you'd have to ask somebody else.
"I don't think you'll be able to stop her short of, well, killing her. She's b#+!%$& crazy, and driven to boot. If you've wrecked as much of Thistletop as you must have to be here, you've slowed her down - but she'll keep looking for another way. Lyrie, though... she's like me, a merc, though she's not the sword type. Nualia brought her in to study the history of this place, and its past as a Lamashtu temple. The stockade up top used to be some kind of, I dunno, monastery or something, and Nualia thinks it has some special connection to Lamashtu as a result. That's why the Thistletop tribe's always been top dogs around here. Lyrie's been looking for ways to strengthen that link. I don't think she buys into Nualia's plans, but I don't think she really cares if they happen either. She'd probably just take lots of notes. She's cold, and I've got the frostbite to prove it."
Eleuterio:
By the time the day's work is done and the sun making its way toward the western horizon, Scourge and Plugg have looked over most of your work with nothing more than sour grunts, but Scourge looks at the areas of the deck where Evril has been mopping and scraping with his holystone and grins nastily. "Piss-poor work here, ye foul layabout! That's three more lashes fer ye, top the two I owe ye from this mornin'! Best ye learn right quick ta work yer best, laddie, or I might have to get... nasty..." He laughs, in clear anticipation of that moment. At dusk, the crew gathers on deck for what you all quickly learn is a nightly tradition: the "Bloody Hour," where the day's punishments are administered. Though Eleuterio and especially Evril are also due for lashings tonight, the centerpiece of the event occurs first. A relatively skinny man wearing thick manacles on his wrists is brought up by a pair of sailors from the bilges, which double as the Wormwood's brig. The human scowls around at the crew members who have gathered as Captain Harrigan crosses the deck to stand in front of him. "You, Jakes Magpie," shouts the captain, his voice carrying through the sea air, "have been caught stealing from an officer of this ship, and have confessed to your crime. As such, I now pronounce your sentence: you are to be keelhauled slow, and I expect we'll just toss whatever's left to the sharks. Mr. Plugg! Carry out the sentence!" With the help of Mr. Scourge, Plugg ties Magpie, still manacled, to a rope that loops under the ship's keel. Scourge throws Magpie overboard, and Scourge begins slowly pulling on the rope's other end, dragging Magpie's body across the razor-sharp barnacles that encrust the Wormwood's hull. Perception, DC 15:
It is more than a little unsettling to see the barely-contained joy Plugg in particular seems to feel at inflicting this punishment. It takes more than a minute for the body to appear in the water on the far side of the hull, and what is left is only barely recognizable as having once been a human being - it is a bloody mass of flensed flesh, and you can only hope he drowned sometime fairly quickly. True to his word, Harrigan orders the ragged remnants of Jakes Magpie thrown to the sharks. Heal, DC 15:
Magpie likely suffered about 24 hit points' worth of wounds, and he did in fact drown - though probably not before he'd taken that majority of that damage.
Those talking to Orik:
The mercenary looks around at the figures looming over him and lets out a quiet oath. "This is Riddleport all over again..." he says, half to himself. Shaking his head, he looks at Tybus. "You're a sailor," he begins. "Surely you've been in a situation before, with too much money and the wrong kind of pretty face? I signed on because Nualia offered me platinum to be her 'bodyguard,' not that I've seen that she needs one. Woman can take care of herself - now more than ever, I'd say. But then there was Lyrie... and I didn't learn my lesson from the last time something like this happened." He sighs.
"Frankly, this entire thing scares the piss out of me, and I'm not ashamed to say so. I'm a sellsword, not a demon-worshipper, and all the damn goblins just make the situation worse. The sociopathic hobgoblin, that freak Tsuto... and now Nualia's actually started becoming a demon herself. If it weren't for Lyrie, I'd've left days ago, as soon as she got her new arm. And now it's bitten me in the ass. Again. Well, ask your questions; I'll tell you whatever you want."
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