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Morning - Pharast 12th, 4708 - The Deciever: Fools that the noble class are, it took some time for Book to figure out Cordoba… well, he hasn’t exactly figured him out, but he has some suspicion that the name is a fake and the man may not be a fool. Well, it doesn’t matter now really with him down in the brig. The idiot brought a small fortune onboard, so what did he expect, that Book would entertain him as they went gallivanting across the seas? And there’s another fortune waiting when he sells the Varisian fop down south as a gladiator.
What bothers Book about Cordoba is his smile. Beat him and he smiles, shackle him and he smiles. And not the polite smile that comes with the tip of a hat, no, it’s one Book knows all the better, it’s the burning grin of a sadist about to slip a knife into a struggling victim.
Afternoon - Pharast 12th, 4708 – Nerius : Nerius was almost there. Stowed away on the Plump Strumpet half a day out of Riddleport. Then the boots and the screams, voices speaking in strange accents, crates opened.
To his credit he did put up a fight, but after being locked in a box for more than a day the sensitive eyes of a Gnome take a few minutes to adjust. Of course he wasn’t surprised to be roughed up after his deception, but as his eyes adjusted he realized that he wasn’t discovered by the crew, not the crew of the Strumpet anyway. The real indignity came with the last words he heard before a boot knocked him unconscious: “Hakim’ll love this one, these fellas are great entertainers, a halfling.”
Morning – Pharast 13th, 4708 – Jon: After walking over the northern polar cap of Golarion with his two friends, Jon was elated to have survived frost giants, ice worms, and polar bears and to have finally reached the outer edges of civilization again – if you could call Riddleport civilization. So, in a small purchased boat they sailed south toward the great nations of Avistan. According to their map they were not far from Sandpoint in the Gulf of Varisia when a squall overturned their boat and scattered the friends. Clinging to the trunk that holds all his worldly goods, well his suit of Tian armour anyway, Jon excitedly greeted the foreign faces on the ship that he thought was his salvation… until a cargo hook cracked him in the skull and dragged him onboard, that is.
Things turned all the worse when he woke up shackled in the brig next to a tiny little man, while one of The Intractable’s crew, the one who had made off with Jon’s traditional Tian robes – expensive silken Tian robes – ground out cigar embers on the soles of Jon’s feet.
Early morning – Pharast 14th, 4708 – Pulsifer: The Intractable put down anchor near Sandpoint after sunset on the 13th to rendezvous with two of its more deadly crew, Righty and Joachim, who had insinuated themselves into the peaceful town after riding from Riddleport on horseback weeks before. While in Sandpoint the villains marked four teenage girls for kidnapping and readied themselves to bring the children out to The Intractable before it weighed anchor on the appointed night.
The plan had a flaw; someone was sure to suspect that something was amiss. To say that Righty stands out in a crowd is somewhat of an understatement: maybe it’s the orange hair, or the hairless crater in the back of his skull just big enough for a mind flayer to feed through, or the wandering left eye with a white film over it, or perhaps it’s just the rusty hook where his left hand should be, or the limp. Who knows…. Pulsifer certainly noticed him for the villain that he is, and being either at the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how you look at it, Pulsifer found himself wishing he could swing a longsword like he did as a young man. At first, engaging two men dragging some young teenage girls to the beach in sacks went well, mortally so for Joachim, but Righty proved to be far more than just an ordinary villain, and perforated Pulsifer with spectacular swordplay while babbling some of the most insane gibberish Pulsifer has ever heard. Reasoning that Pulsifer owed a life for a life, if Righty can be said to reason, the one handed corsair lugged the would be hero into the boat and (somehow) rowed him out to The Intractable in his own sack, right on top of the unfortunate maidens.
Noon – Pharast 14th, 4708 – Narlok : How was Ryor to know that Red Morty Wex, Captain of the Sealust, had gambled away his protection money? Things were going well, Ryor was sure to get lucky even when the winds changed and brought an icy fog down on the vile at the height of the week’s debauchery.
But from the cold silence erupted screams, steel, heavy boots. Morty’s voice ringing out “I was just bringing it to him; I just need a few more days.”
And the terse, enigmatic reply: “Neec vape haofse cone ledmea! Dizo-tu orgoved tergatan.”
And then Morty’s last words: “Please Righty, take me to B...”
Ryor, approaching, thought maybe he had lucked out, red haired Righty was a serious gimp: limping, one handed, twitchy eye. Quite the surprise it was to find out that Righty was magic with a Rapier. Then the crossbow bolt hit…
Morning – Pharast 15th, 4708 - Syd: A chance to be out on the ocean, and what fishing. The nutrients that leach out into the sea south of the Mushfens keep the waters rich with life, big tasty life. Sure it’s dangerous, but there are enough fishermen for them to look out for each other, and look out they do – and the South Mush fishing grounds attract a certain kind of fisherman, the kind of chap who can wield a spear, the kind of chap who can survive in an eat or be eaten battle between land animal and sea creature on the sea creature’s turf, no less. So what’s to be afraid of?
Syd was making a name for himself aboard The Mudfish, and on his first two days out, too. He had, it seemed, found some old salts who respected him regardless of ancestry, and so that made his destiny all the more tragic. The Intractable, not know for bothering Varisian fishermen, came alongside in broad daylight and helped themselves to some of the prizes down in the icy hold. A fight broke out, as fights are wont to do, but this one saw some serious magic let fly, and before he knew it Syd was on a sinking ship. She was pretty well under… and in bloodied, shark-infested waters. The young man would have been chum had he not grabbed the port webbing of The Intractable as the battle subsided and his ship slipped under.
Things went smashingly after that, meaning Syd isn’t dead and they didn’t torture him. Threw him into shackles in a small bow hold with a bunch of other unfortunates they did, mostly teenage girls, and that’s more or less where his story begins.
A week later…
Morning – Pharast 22nd – Bohdan: Righty, Sujahayak, Kamada, and Tork were making their regular pickup in Cheliax on the north shore of the inner sea. Things were going smoothly, so they should have known it was going to go south just like everything else this trip, and so it did.
Taking down the cleric of Iomedae was no picnic, Bohdan mortally wounded Tork, their cherry fresh duelist recruit from Riddleport who apparently was not the swordsman he claimed. But Righty, Suj, and Kamada are a match for almost any man out there and with a little help from their mates back in the cave, they brought the monstrous man down. Now, the corsairs have something of a chip on their shoulders when it comes to clerics of Iomedae, and so they reckoned selling him into the arenas of Nex would compensate them for their trouble quite well. Why kill a good slave?
And so, the last of our heroes is dragged bloody and unconscious, into the dank stockade of The Intractable.