"how much you want for this?"
Grok looks at the pike.
"Err, umm, be right back!" she exclaims running off in the direction of LOngfarthing's cabin, no doubt going to fetch him to identify what the thing is.
You notice that in her haste, she forgot to lock the storeroom door behind her.
Slickjaw, who had been rudely ignored after Ace's entrance, swiftly downs a blend extract and a dexterity mutagen, before taking a peak into the storeroom.
Perception (to notice traps or whatever):
Stealth:
Immediately after he checks the door, Slickjaw slips into the store room.
Slickjaw goes to work on the locked chest.
Slickjaw fiddles with the lock for a while, but to no avail. He pulls his picks out of the hole and rolls his shoulders to try again, but something flies out of the keyhole!
Fortitude:
After performing a nearly-instant mental checkup on his body, Slickjaw goes back to the lock and tries again.
Take 2:
Take 3:
Knowing his running out of time, Slickjaw quickly checks the broken-locked chest FOR TRAPS.
He ducks down beneath the edge of the chest and shoves it open from the left corner.
Slickjaw opens the chest, and from behind him he hears a loud *TWANG*, as the opening of a hinge trips a small wire, triggering a result from across the room. A crossbow bolt flies past Slickjaw, grazing his arm before the bolt buries itself in the shadowed wall behind the chest.
Cursing, Slickjaw activates his regeration and checks the chest.
Inside the chest, Slickjaw finds a number of items. He finds the 3 potions Grok mentioned, along with the 4 flasks of Holy Water, 2 tanglefoot bags, a masterwork Climber's Kit , a Disguise Kit, and a set of manacles.
Lightning-fast, Slickjaw snatches up the Haste and Barkskin potions, then the Climber's Kit and a bag of tanglefoot, then the other bag of tanglefoot and the last potion.
He then closes the chest and slips out of the room, closes the door, and scoots his caboose (stealthily) after a brief hissed message to Ace to "Not buy holy water, tanglefoot, or the potions." He heads down to his bunk for some rest, also stealthily.
He then sleeps the sleep of the innocent for 8 hours.
Slickjaw does so with no issues.
Cyrdic parties hard the first day, loving the fact that he actually has some coin for a change. He makes sure to sell his crossbow and the bolts to Grok, too.
Peppery identifies it as a Boarding Pike of Repelling (you already knew that). He tells you it's worth 2154 gold when sold, and then gets back to his work.
"Sold!"
Dawn rolls around, a few hours after the party has ended.
The ship's bell sounds, calling all hands on deck.
After a few minutes and some grumbling, the entire crew gathers together, as the Rahadoumi prisoners are paraded once more.
Captain Harrigan turns to address the captives.
"All right, anyone who wants to join up with our crew speak now or forever hold yer peace. We'll cut yer bonds and give you a place among our happy little family." he gives a toothy grin and guffaws, much of the crew laughing along with him.
A few of the sailors step forward, including James, Colin, and even the Lieutenant you captured.
Harrigan pulls out his dagger and cuts their bonds, and the sailors join the rest of the crew in congregation, Colin looking ashamed with himself and staring sadly at the rest of his former crew.
Harrigan turns his back on the remaining sailors and addresses his crew.
“All right, you scurvy tars! You’ve done a right good job by me—we’ve got a second ship now, and she’s quite a prize from the looks of her. But I still have only one crew. So here’s the plan—the Wormwood will sail on to our planned destination with our new shipmates here, while Mr. Plugg will pick a skeleton crew to sail the Man’s Promise to Port Peril, where she’ll be worth a pretty penny as salvage."
"As for these fine fellows here” Harrigan gestures at the remainder of the captured ship’s crew “some of them will no doubt be worth a hefty ransom from their families back in Azir. And for the rest, if the life of a pirate’s not for them, they can spend the rest of their lives at sea!
Immediately after saying so he whirls around and picks up the nearest sailor, and tosses her with one hand far out over the edge of the ship.
The unfortunate woman splutters and struggles, as the cruel pirates laugh and cheer at her imminent death, before she finally sinks underneath the waves, and doesn't surface again.
The rest of the sailors scramble to swear loyalty to Harrigan, and he laughs as he orders his pirates to cut them loose, save for a very few who refuse and get tossed overboard to join their companion.
That business done, he calls Plugg over and gives him his orders, loud enough for the rest of the crew to hear.
"All right Plugg, pick a skeleton crew and get them on board our new ship. I want you headed back for Port Peril in 10 minutes. HOP TO IT!"
Plugg rubs his hands together and selects a number of crewmen.
Scourge and Owlbear, of course. Along with Fipps, Slippery, Cogward, and 4 other pirates he has at his table on a regular basis.
Surprisingly, he also picks the former Lieutenant Riza, who sidles up to him with a poorly suppressed look of disgust, but also a look that says she's determined to survive, whatever the cost, along with James and Colin, who are looking decidedly less glad to be there, and two others of the Rahadoumi crew.
More surprisingly, he picks out Conchobar, Rosie, and Sandara...along with all four of you.
Finally, he picks Kroop, to round out the crew, and the more perceptive of you notice Captain Harrigan has a look of almost relief as Kroop leaves the ship, as he's glad to be rid of the drunken slob.
Jimmies firmly unrustled, Slickjaw slips away to the storeroom, downing a blend extract and a dexterity mutagen on the way.
It's heist time.
Ace retrieves all his crap from his locker and prepares to board the ship.
Slickjaw goes on a spree, stealing a buncha stuff from the storeroom.
Slickjaw, silent as the darkness within, slips up next to Grok and lifts her keys.
With wraith-like skill, Slickjaw takes the keys from Grok without rousing her.
Silently, he opens the door and slips inside the storeroom, closing the door behind him to a crack.
He then slips the key into the chest and opens it.
Inside, he sees the two +1 shortswords, the pike, a masterwork warhammer, +1 animal bane dagger, some scrolls (Cure Moderate Wounds, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, and Summon Swarm), and a Wand of Bless Weapon.
After chugging a extract of Ant Haul, HE LOOTS THE BOOTY AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA ahem.
He then proceeds to the few containers in the room he hasn't, gets smacked by a trap that he forgot to check for, gets smacked by an arrow (for five damage) which he promptly removes, regenerates, and opens the box.
Slickjaw takes the money, the 3 masterwork daggers, the +1 arrows, the breastplate, the money, the chain shirt, and the masterwork light crossbow and all the masterwork quarrels, and the money.
He then closes and locks all the stuff, chugs the money potion of invisibility, and slips out the door, closing and locking it behind him.
He then, from his invisibility, makes a face at Grok and leaves.
I'm probably the best goblin in the universe. If only Old Man Bones could see me now...
Slickjaw quickly hurries onto the other ship and hides the stuff and most of his money where only a small fellow such as himself could get it. Upon returning to visibility, he starts loitering around (instinctively being difficult-to-notice), as if waiting to get started.
Cyrdic goes up to James and Colin. "Good to see you guys, glad you're gonna be here with us. Listen, it's gonna be alright-there's some good people going with us. A few idiots too...and one really dumb one. He's on our side though, don't worry."
Noticing Riza, he nods to her. "Ma'am. Nice work with that pike on the ship...damn near took my head off with it. I'm Cyrdic. Hope we can maybe leave the past in the past?"
James and Colin nod to Cyrdic, but are still scrambling to get their things together.
Riza, on the other hand responds to Cyrdic, albeit warily.
"Thanks, I suppose. Wasn't enough with that beast on your side though." she says bitterly, gesturing towards Lucy.
"I don't particularly like you, Cyrdic. You contributed to teh fall of my ship. But..." she hesitates "Given the choice between you and that Plugg fellow...I'll take the one with basic human decency any day. I'm Riza Plunkett. Former Lieutenant on this fine vessel, the Man's Promise"
Minutes pass as everyone scrambles to gather up their gear and board the Man's Promise, and finally it's time to get under way.
The ship sets sail, and after a while, off in the distance, Slickjaw imagines he can hear Grok's anguished screams as she discovers the looted storeroom.
Once the ship has well and truly set sail, Plugg gives a short speech, and then jobs are assigned for the day.
"Alright listen up ye lazy curs. Rules are pretty much the same as they were on the good ship Wormwood, but I'm no softy like Cap'n Harrigan. There'll be no whippings on my ship...every punishment comes from my first mate Scourge and his best friend Mr. Cat, savvy? Now get to work."
Scourge goes out of his way to make sure everybody gets the job that fits them best.
Slickjaw and Cyrdic are both assigned to work the bilges.
Ace is assigned to working the mainsail.
Lucy is assigned to turtle hunting. Scourge has made it clear that Plugg will NEVER get tired of his favorite meat, leatherback sea turtle.
You are informed by Scourge, who is in a very good mood, that for the foreseeable future these will be your jobs. No more random assignments, every day you will work these.
Well, this sucks...thinks Cyrdic to himself as he works in the bilges. Glancing over at Slickjaw, he smirks a bit. Could be worse though. Straightening up a bit to catch his breath, he mutters in Goblin-"So...did you end up getting that dagger? I saw your eyes light up when Grok showed it to you. And you disappeared right before we came on here. What'd you end up taking?"
Ace goes to work, meanwhile casting detect magic as he works to see if there is anything magical on the ship.
"I took the dagger, the pike, some cash, two magic shortswords, a couple scrolls, some very nice weaponry, a wand, and who knows what else ."
Also, Slickjaw works hard.
After observing that he's making depressingly little progress, Slickjaw passes Cyrdic his potion of Cure Moderate wounds. "If it seems really bad when I get whipped for screwing this up, and my regeneration - did I tell you about that? - is insufficent, force feed me this."
The work day ends with Cyrdic and Ace bone tired, and Slickjaw feeling just fine (the slacker).
Ace, near the end of the day, finally gets a ping. There is something magical in the Captain's Cabin, but he never stuck around long enough to get a sense of what it really was, because Owlbear kept shooing him off.
The sailors all gather on deck, waiting for the rum ration.
Waiting.
And waiting.
But it never comes.
Grumbling begins, but the crew shrugs and decides to get down to the important stuff: Entertainment.
Most of the people you know are clustered together in groups (Sandra, Conchobar, and Rosie, then Riza, Colin, and James)
Ace explores around the ship, familiarizing himself with the environment.
and he searches for gunpowder and other miscellaneous stuff for future use.
Slickjaw nervously approaches Riza.
"Umm, ma'am? Hello? M'name is Slickjaw - you may, uh, have heard of me before?"
Ace looks around, but doesn't find much of use. The ship HAS been recently looted, after all.
Riza looks at Slickjaw in puzzlement.
"Why would I have heard of you before? What do you want?"
"Uhm, I'm the one who threw the alchemist's fire at you - Cyrdic yelled my name. And uh, well, I just didn't want that hanging over my head, and I'm sorry and all, but you can't really expect someone who isn't up to most people's shoulder ta fight fair. Also, I stole your pike thingy from the storeroom back on the Wormwood, so if you want that..." He trails off, fidgeting awkwardly, ready to bolt over to where Cyrdic is standing if she tries anything.
Her face starts to grow cloudy and a low growl rumbles from he throat as Slickjaw mentions the Alchemist's Fire, and she pays little attention to the rest of his speech as she imagines throttling the little green man. Until...
...Also, I stole your pike thingy from the storeroom back on the Wormwood, so if you want that...
"Wait...you have my Pike? And you'd be willing to return it?" her eyes light up and they flicker back towards Plugg's cabin, a nasty grin spreading over her face.
"If you can get me my Pike back, all is forgiven, and then some, little man. No harm done from the fire anyway, though I think I have a concussion from where that b~+#& hit me with her sword."
"Uh, yeah. Ok, only... Here's the deal. You can't be seen with it. Like, at all. I'm formulating a plan - without a surefire way to put scourge down, he'll have a pretty good shot at killing one or more of us. Also - I might be able to get weapons for, uhm, James and Colin? Yeah."
"If you can smuggle it into my locker where I can get at it, that'd be fine. I assume you know how to pick a simple lock."
"James and Colin are good men. I think they'd follow my lead. I have no love for that bastard Plugg and his toady."
As if on cue, Plugg steps out on deck.
"What the hell are ye still doing above deck ye insolent curs? I never said ye got to have break time on me ship! Get belowdecks and get to sleep unless ye want some more work to do. If ye've got enough energy to arm wrestle and throw the pig ye've got enough energy to start on tomorrow's work, don't ye?" he yells.
Silently, Slickjaw heads below deck to get some sleep.
Cyrdic goes straight to bed, absolutely exhausted. Jeez, today was tough...this can't go on for much longer.
The next day starts amid whispers.
"If we're heading to Port Peril, what's going to become of us that's been pressganged?" or some variation hangs from the lips of most of your friends.
Cyrdic, during the day, realizes that things might be even worse than they appear. The ship has slowly, but surely, changed course. You're no longer headed towards Port Peril...but somewhere else instead.
Cyrdic sits down next to Sandara and lowers his voice a bit. "I noticed that we've changed course-we're not headed towards Port Peril anymore. Any idea where Plugg might be taking us?"
Sandra looks surprised.
"Wait, we're not? That might explain what Kroop wanted to talk about...I was actually just coming to find you. He said it was hush-hush, to spread around that he wanted to meet this evening to people we could trust. Maybe he has some answers."
Cyrdic raises an eyebrow. "Huh. Great minds think alike, I guess. Lead the way, ma'am. Let's go talk to Ambrose, eh?"
He then grabs Slickjaw before he leaves the mess hall and speaks to him in Goblin-"I'm gonna need you and Lucy to maybe keep an eye out-me and Sandara are going to talk to Ambrose about what's been going on-make sure nobody comes by that we don't want to, kay? If you see Ace, send him over too. I'll fill you in when I get back."