Adventures in Oakstead

Game Master Foxy Quickpaw

Tarjun locks eyes with Clara. "I really should have kept my mouth shut, right?" He shakes his head in disbelief. It's unbelievable how much it seems sometimes that there's a god listening to him at all times, and tossing at him whatever they deem funny...

"So what do we do us kids? Go below deck?" he asks the first pirate who goes near the unfortunate deck scrubbers.

"You keep scrubbing the deck. That will take hours or even days until we catch up with that ship." the random pirate replies. "And then you get a blade and cut some merchants to pieces."

Once she is below decks Jewel wanders over to a crate where she had gotten some vegetables before. "Remy? Are you here? I'm starting cooking the tuna and some roasted vegetables for dinner tonight. Could you come and give me some advice? It's a bit different from other stuff that I've cooked and I'd like any advice that you could share. ??"

She feels the ship shudder and shake strangely and wonders what is happening. She waits nervously for a reply from Remy.

"C'est merde!" Rémy calls out and kicks a sack of grain. "They have nothing to add a fine note of this or that taste to it. Only salt, some pepper and cheap oil. This is no fun."

Jewel watches as Remy does his rant. She agrees, but is hoping there is some sort of work around.... "I agree. But there's got to be some flavor that will complement the tuna? I was thinking of trying to cook down some onions and carrots to make a glaze, but I don't think that would taste right against the fish. It really needs something more like a.... maybe a dark, salty sauce? But how would I make it with the stuff here?"

There's only one possible way out of this situation that Tarjun sees- and by the Gods, he was going to try it. "With my bad leg?" he chuckles nervously. "They'll have time to run away before I hit 'em!"

Bluff: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (13) + 7 = 20

"Believe me, they won't. Why would they flee from you? Make yourself a name - as Stiffleg the Gruesome - then you can worry about others to cower and flee. For now you make a better noob, as at least you can't run from the battle." The pirate ridicules Tarjun.

"Jewel will not like that."

"Must have thought really hard to come up with this strategy. Good for you," Tarjun answers the pirate dryly. It's not that he hasn't heard it all when it comes to his bad leg, but he's tired of having to keep silent when teased by adult men who just want to feel big.

"No, she won't like that at all," he answers Clara, shaking his head slightly, once the rude pirate has walked away. He stares at his feet -or, more accurately, the deck. "D'you think this is clean enough? Maybe we can go and meet her in the kitchen now."

Not hearing an answer Jewel continues to ramble on about her idea for a glaze for the tuna. "Now Mom used to boil potatoes, really long so they were practically melting in the water. Then mash them and squeeze the mash through a cloth. She was just wanting the starch from the potato.... to thicken a sauce. Now I think I saw some dried mushrooms. Maybe saute them with the onions, and mash the whole works once it is cooked well. Add some salt and then thicken it with the starch from the potatoes?"

"I can coat the tuna steaks with the glaze and roast them. And I'll just boil up the smallest potatoes that I can find with some carrots cut down to bite size. The tuna can go on the plates beside that. What do you think Remy? I know it's not the best, but we don't have the ingredients for the best. We'll do much better once we get home and have better spices and stuff to work with!"

"The sides sound good. But what's the point in glazing the tuna in starch sauce before roasting?" Rémy inquires.

"The glaze will sear and brown and make a little bit of a crunchy exterior. But I think I got the timing wrong. First the meat should be roasted to sear it, then the glaze added. It will protect the outside of the meat while the inner layer finishes cooking. Also, it holds the saltiness rather than just smothering it with salt and pepper like FishGuts would do!"

"Plus, if it works it'll make it look special. Kind of like a shiny, almost like candy coating...."

"Sounds interesting. I'll take one serving." Rémy replies.

Since everyone seems a bit distracted with the merchant ship and the deck has probably never been this spotless in a long time, Tarjun heads to Fishgut's kitchen. "Pssst!" he beckons his sister over when he catches sight of her.

"Bad news," he blurts out as soon as she moves closer to him. "Pugg's spotted a ship to plunder. If we catch up with them in a couple days, he wants everyone to fight and kill dudes. And -is that the talking rat?" he suddenly exclaims, having spotted Rémy.

Jewel gathers the ingredients for the glaze along with the small potatoes and carrots for the rest of the plate and heads back up to the kitchen. She is comforted to see Ambrose into his wine so she can work without interruption.... She gets a large pot on to start making the glaze, and another large pot for the vegetables for the meal.

Tarjun arrives and gets her attention. She checks on Ambrose and hears a quiet snore. "Keep it down. Don't want to wake him!" She motions to move outside of the smallish room to the rail.

Perception to watch Ambrose in case he's faking?: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (19) + 10 = 29

"This is Remy, but you know all animals talk. Just most people don't know how to listen. Better to say that he is a Rat Chef and is helping me cook!" She switches to her Feral speech hex, "Remy. This is Tarjun. Don't bother trying to talk to him though. He doesn't understand your language."

Jewel hears Tarjun's words about the other ship and dreads the next day or two. "So this definitely is a pirate ship. That's bad. We're kids, not pirates!" She thinks about the sailors that she'd met. Are any of them NOT wanting to fight? She glances over to Clara, "Do you know any of the.... pirates, that might not want to do this fight? Any that might be friendly to us? We may have power but we're still kids, not pirates! I'm not sure how we can handle this. Maybe we should prepare combat spells but cast them to help the other ship? We'd have to be very careful though. Stay out of the fighting and hope somehow we can make the other ship win. Maybe they'd take us to our home?"

"I don't know any," Tarjun lowers his voice. "I'm not going to ask Grok after what happened yesterday!" "

He bites down on his thumb nervously. " I can't scare a whole ship. And either way, either pirates die, or merchants. It's all bad. If we help whoever ends up losing the fight, they'll skin us!"

"What if we start rumors that the merchant ship is really well armed? Or that Pugg doesn't really know what he's doing. To have them refuse the fight! I'm pretty sure there's a word for that. "

Tarjun's gaze goes from Clara to Jewel expectantly. "All right, all right!" he finally huffs. "Maybe it's not better plan!"

"So we just pretend to go along with it then? I'm pretty sure I could just knock people around without killing them if they let me use this," he lifts his staff.

"We need a plan to get home. I get the feeling this pirate ship wasn't the best plan."

Jewel has some difficulties not grinning at Tarjun's 'plan'. "The rumor idea is almost certain to get us keel hauled as mutineers, especially if you trash talk Pugg."

"Clara's right. We need some way to get off of this boat. I don't understand where the spell failed us. Were all of the ships pirate ships and this was the least evil of them? Or was the evil absent or shielded?"

"I think we should wait until they catch up with the merchant ship. If it looks like the merchants have any chance I think we should help them, but with our magic not by fighting the pirates with weapons. If there's no chance of the merchants winning we hide below deck. After the battle we just say that we were scared. After all, we're not pirates. We don't have any weapons and don't know how to fight...."

"I could also ask the rats to help us. They hate the pirates. Whenever the rat population gets too high the pirates clear the hold to kill as many of the rats as they can find. I don't know if they'd agree, but I can ask!"

"If we say we were just scared, they're gonna whip us again," Tarjun makes a face. "But it's not like we have a better option."

" Maybe the ship wasn't made of evil? Or not enough evil. How much evil do you need to detect it?"

"Can you ask... Remy... If he would help us escape? " Tarjun gasps. " Maybe if we could steal one of those lifeboats!... There's room enough for rats on there. Even Paddington would fit. "

Or a tiger, he thinks - although he can't quite tell where the idea comes from.

Knowledge(Arcana): 1d20 + 11 + 1d6 ⇒ (14) + 11 + (3) = 28

"Well - besides priests like you, normal people don't walk around radiating an evil aura. So either they are all noobs, or they are not evil. You can check on Plugg. I'd guess he'd be the most likely candidate for showing this trait."

Jewel thinks about Tarjun's idea. They could probably steal a lifeboat during the battle, and maybe set the ship on fire? If they packed some food on the boat, her magic and Clara's could stretch it for much longer than it usually would last..... But. "But how far are we from any shore? And in what direction? We can create water, but our magic isn't strong enough yet to create food. When we run out there's nothing left. We're safer on a ship, even with pirates. So far they haven't had reason to harm us.... I still think we need to get closer to the merchant and see if there's a chance there."

"Any idea whether any of the pirates might be willing to work with us? Maybe turn against Plugg or the Captain if the battle against the merchant goes bad? Not sure how we could even speak of it though. I bet the punishment for mutiny is even worse than for stealing...."

"I only talked to, like, three people on this ship," Tarjun shrugs. "And one of 'em just got a guy killed for stealing stuff that probably wasn't really worth it!"

"We could try and spy on 'em. I bet rats could hear all kinds of stuff that goes on behind closed doors." He pauses to think. "Not like there's plenty of doors around, but you get the idea."

Jewel considers Tarjun's reply. "Who were the other two? Were either of them willing to chat with you? Most of the pirates don't seem very friendly. Kind of overly competitive like a couple of the lumberjacks."

"Spying is not a good idea. The rats don't understand regular speech so they're out. And if you get caught listening in on a conversation the pirates chatting would probably try to kill you, and probably not get in any trouble for doing it. But if you defend yourself and kill them you'd be in trouble for killing crew when they need them the most."

"Sandara seemed nice." Clara comments. "Couldn't we just play dead? You cook some red sauce in the kitchen that we can pour over us and we dodge the fighting by lying around?"

Tarjun has never been in a situation where he'd have to talk to someone to survive, yet might be killed for doing so. It's a conundrum he's absolutely sure he hates.

"She was okay," he agrees. "But Grok seemed nice too, and I'm pretty sure she'd denounce us if she knew we were planning to leave. " A pause. "Well, maybe not, but there's no way to be, like, really really sure. Anyway, I can keep an eye on Sandara when she's not lookin'.""

"I talked to the gnome guy with dark hair too, but he didn't seem super nice. And we mostly talked about music."

"I think playing dead might be a good plan," Tarjun resigns himself to the idea that pretending to be a silent corpse might just be the easier way out. "Or wear disguises and hop on the other ship. Like fake moustaches or somethin'."

Jewel considers the suggestion. It might work, but.... "I don't know anyone but FishGuts. He'll probably just stay in the 'caboose' and drink, or sleep. Grok is the guy that got robbed, right? Not a good choice. The Captain trusts him enough to put him in charge of the equipment. Who is Sandara? What does she do on the ship? Gnome musician? Maybe ask him how he got on the ship? If they like his music he may feel really safe here. Probably not a good choice. But if they tricked him on board like us. ?? Maybe."

"Hmm... Play dead? I don't think they'd buy all three of us falling over dead. But, what if we play off of what they think of us? Clara. You slipped and fell when you tried to climb, so they might think you are clumsy. Can't climb, and you fell. How about you fall overboard when the ships get close? Then use your hex to breath water, swim under the ship and levitate up on the other side. From there you can cast spells to help the other ship. Tarjun? Once the merchant ship starts firing arrows or whatever, you splash some fish blood that I'll get for you on your good leg. You fall down and scream. They know you don't walk good, and think we're just kids so of course we'd cry and scream if we get hurt. And I've professed being a healer so of course I'd come over to try to help you. You thrash around screaming out nonsense, casting your spells and disrupting my 'healing', which will actually be my casting spells into the combat."

"Pick your spells for the battle, but we can't cast anything flashy that obviously comes from us. And don't over-do it or they might get wise. If Clara is out of sight she can do whatever she wants. But we have to be careful."

"Grok watches other the pirates's stuff. And yeah, she denounces the guy who got killed," Tarjun explains. "Also, she's a woman."

"Sandara is..." he pauses to ponder over this. "Actually, I don't really know what she does! She came to talk to me after..." The memory is painful. Suddenly, Tarjun finds himself tongue-tied. "You know. After I got punished. Said I had to make some friends on the ship, and...Something something about you stealing her job."

"I dunno about the gnome musician. I can ask."

Tarjun listens as Jewel exposes her plan, marvelling at how much of a tactician his sister is with each word. "You're so smart," he compliments her when she's done. "How'd you even get those ideas?"

"Wait -you can choose your spells?" Not even sure how many spells he would know -he never really had the opportunity to learn new ones! Unless he can pick from any lvl 1 spells?

"Flower meadows, flower meadows, flower meadows, flower meadows." Clara mutters, while trying not to throw a fit in face of such ignorance. How can someone not notice, that Jewel prays for her spells every morning. And I have been doing this for years. How often did he have to wait, til we finished our morning routine?

You can do your preparations retroactively. Fast forward.

The pirate ship catches up to the merchant vessel within half a day. Grok brings the chests with the weapons on deck. There are ropes, grappling hooks, swords, cutlasses, pistols, black powder and lead balls.

The Captain orders Fishguts and Jewel to slaughter two pigs, slit their throats, hack them to pieces and throw their flesh and blood into the sea when the entering starts to attract sharks to the scene of the battle.

As the ships close, the expierienced coxwain puts the pirate ship luv of the merchant, leaving them without wind in their sails. This makes it a lot easier to throw the hooks and tie the merchant and pirate ship together.

"The ship’s wheel is on the aft deck, just below the sterncastle. You’re going to grapple over, kill the guards on the sterncastle, take the wheel, and guard the ship’s boats. Kill anyone who tries to get away on one of the boats. Don’t move from the wheel until the fighting’s done, or you’ll have to answer to me. Oh yeah, as we get close, it’s going to get foggy. Just stick to what I told you to do."

The pirate's ship mage casts fog over the whole merchant as soon as it is in reach, to hinder ranged attacks during the entering. Once the ships are secured, planks are laid down and the pirates storm the marchant ship. Some run over the planks, some use rope tied to a beam to swing over.

Acrobatics DC15 for running, or Str DC12 for swinging, followed by a DC15 Acrobatics to land standing. Failure on the first save, ends in teh sea.

With the bloody feast in the sea, the surrounding of the ship is swarming with sharks.

Tarjun reluctantly heads for the ropes. He can't run as fast as the other pirates, and can't completely rule out the possibility that one of them might elbow him off the planks.

And, if he had to be a little bit honest with himself, swinging off a rope seemed just about the only cool thing about boarding a ship filled with innocent people he didn't want to fight.

Still, it looked more than a little dangerous, and he's happy for a while to just wait for his turn- until it's definitely his time to go.

"Here we go," he mutters, gathering up his courage -and his magic- before trying his luck. Casting Guidance on himself

Strength (+1 Guidance): 1d20 + 3 - 4 ⇒ (7) + 3 - 4 = 6
Acrobatics: 1d20 - 4 ⇒ (4) - 4 = 0 Could it have gone worse?!

"WOO-OOH!!! HEY, I'M DOING IT-" Splash.

And that's how Tarjun died; 2018-2023. His tombstone reads "The risk was calculated, but God, was he bad at maths"

Jewel considers Tarjun's explanations about the crew. Sandara was concerned about Jewel taking her job? Sandara must be a healer, possibly another cleric but obviously not of Erastil. She might be worth talking to if things didn't work out.... "Sandara must be a healer for the ship. Well, they may like my cooking, but obviously they prefer her for healing."

When they got closer to the merchant ship and were told to create the chum to attract sharks Jewel just about got sick. Obviously Clara couldn't use that route to board the merchant ship. It would be much harder.... and they still had to keep their help hidden from the Captain and the Mate!

The chest gets broght up with weapons. Jewel doesn't see anything small enough for her. Maybe they don't want her in the way during the fight? "Those weapons are all too big for me, and I'm not a trained fighter anyway. Can I take a rope to throw down if any of our people fall? I might be able to pull them out before the sharks eat them."

Hoping I get a OK to that, or no answer since I don't think they want me in their way....

Everyone gets rope and hooks.

"Less taking, more arming. Next!" Grok shouts.

Clara grabs a longspear of small size from the box.

As she sees Tarjun fall into the water, she thinks clever plan to not fight the merchants and fumbles the walk over the plank on purpose, falling into the sea too.

Jewel sees Clara slip and fall and starts to panic. She had only prepared one Featherfall spell.... But then she remembered that Clara has the Flight hex. Maybe she could "fall" close enough to grab on to the rope that she had thrown down to Tarjun? Jewel braces herself, hoping she was strong enough? What does a feather-falling person weigh?

Dundun dundun
1d3 ⇒ 2

The sharks in the water are still busy with the meat and gore poured into the sea by Fishguts.

Meanwhile the fight wages between the pirates and the merchants. It is an uneven fight. The pirate outnumber the Rahadoumi solders almost two to one.

Jewel, Tarjun, Clara <--
Sharks

Tarjun struggles to keep his head out of the water. At least nothing has chomped on him yet. Clearly his swimming technique could use some work, but his panicked paddling is enough to prevent him from sinking. Swim: 1d20 + 2 - 4 ⇒ (13) + 2 - 4 = 11

He thought he heard the indistinct noise of something falling in the water, not far from him, and he turns around to see Clara. "Clara!" he gasps. "What're you doing here?! Did you try the ropes too?"

"I'm following your plan. No fight down here..." Clara explains.

Seeing the pig/shark massacre she adds "...kind of."

Swim: 1d20 + 4 + 4 ⇒ (18) + 4 + 4 = 26

Clara readies an attack in case a shark approaches.

Spear: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (9) + 1 = 101d6 - 1 ⇒ (5) - 1 = 4

Jewel sees her friends, in the water with the chum and the sharks that it had attracted. "Grab the rope. I'll try to pull you up!"

Holding onto the rope Jewel tossed into the sea, Tarjun does his best to pull himself out of the water. Climb: 1d20 + 7 - 4 ⇒ (11) + 7 - 4 = 14

"Clara! What are you doing? Climb up!"

"They are fighting up there. I don't want to go there."

Tarjun thinks about this for a second. "At least get away from the sharks?" he suggests. "I don't wanna get eaten."

Jewel tries to pull Tarjun up. Strength?: 1d20 ⇒ 11 Does make someone lighter for pulling them up or climbing? Or does it end when they are no longer falling? She makes little progress.

"Come on Tarjun. Climb! Clara can levitate up when she wants to. Maybe she could just float above the water...."

She hears the sounds of the battle, but can't even cast a Bless while she has to hold the rope.

"But if I get back up here, they'll make me fight," Tarjun insists, clinging to the rope. "How's the battle going? I can't see nothing from down here!"

As the battle is onesided already, some of the sailors on the merchant vessle make their way to the aft deck, where the boats are. And as the kids didn't take this position, there is no one to stop them from trying to leave. Others, especially the officers, but also the guards are not willing to give up the ship. It is shouting, blades hitting metal, screams and all that in magical fog. It is a bone chilling experience.

Shark: 1d3 ⇒ 3
The sharks are still busy with the pork and each other.

Tarjun, Jewel, Clara <--
Sharks

"And if those sharks notice you they'll eat you without any fight! What if one comes up from below and bites your good foot off!?!"

Jewel wraps the rope around herself with a quick spin and holds it in place with one hand. Then she calls out a prayer to Erastil, asking for Blessings to her allies in the melee on the merchant ship. Casting Bless. She keeps her wording vague as she considers the pirates to be her enemies, and those fighting them to be her allies. Area is a 50' circle around me. Not sure if that would cover the whole of the ships?

"Alright, alright, point taken!" Tarjun climbs a little higher on the rope until he's at a relatively safe distance from a jumping shark. Taking 10 for a 13 result

He has enough sense not to make his climbing look too easy, just in case one of the pirates has the good idea to look down. The rope is slippery enough that he genuinely has to take his time and be careful not to let it go.

Bluff: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (12) + 7 = 19

While Tarjun hangs mid air and Clara swims with the sharks the battle above is almost over. Most of the merchant's crew have surrendered. The life boat drops into the water and four of the crew jump after it.

Shark: 1d3 ⇒ 1

Clara's luck comes to an end as one of the sharks takes a bite.

@Clara
Bite: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (14) + 5 = 191d8 + 4 ⇒ (1) + 4 = 5

Tarjun, Jewel, Clara <--
Sharks