Bukis make a grab for the keyring but Kendrick dances backwards. "Too slow you great oaf!" He laughs. "Sorry sweetling, looks like you'll be drowning with the others!"
"Just like you, you limp d***ed piece of pox!" Cordelia snarls from the other cages.
Kendrick glances over his shoulder. "Don't you wish you had a chance to..." Whatever he was planning to say is lost as the ship gives a violent lurch and everyone is thrown from their feet. Kendrick loses his grip on his keys and they going flying into Bukis's cage. Kendrick gets up, looks at Bukis a moment and then apparently decides to cut his losses.
"Enjoy your freedom!" He yells and flees up the companionway to the main deck.
Bukis starts feverishly sorting through the keys to try and find the one for the cages. Luckily he has sharp eyes and it is the work of only a few moments to locate the right one. Bukis opens Maia's cage and then tosses the keys over to Lilli as he grabs the shortsword that Kendrick left behind.
Just as Lilli releases Cordelia a sailor, you all recognise as Trinan - the man who has been delivering your food for the last few weeks, comes hurrying down into the slave deck yelling “I can’t just leave them!” over his shoulder. It is Trinan, the sailor who has been delivering your food for the past few weeks. He nearly topples down the companionway and onto the deck before pulling up sharply at the sight of the slaves busy freeing themselves!
The surprise doesn’t last long as it morphs into a look of relief and he rushes forwards to embrace Maia. “Thank Besmara!” He cries, “We hit something, I don’t know what. The rudders loose and Chips said we’re taking water in the hold. Captain’s ordered everyone to abandon ship and they’ve taken the boats! We’ve got to do something or everyone is going to drown!”
Since the PC’s have Kendrick’s keys no check is required to release the prisoners, merely time, although succeeding at a DC14 Perception check followed by a DC 12 Sleight of Hand or Dexterity check allows the PC opening the cages to do so quickly enough that they can take an additional action during this round (to attempt another secondary task or move to another area).
Once released the prisoners spread out across the ship although their effectiveness varies wildly. The Devils’ Due gains d3 points of seaworthiness.
The slave deck is currently one of the safest areas on the ship, although this is unlikely to last. The other prisoners are well aware of this and a number of them are desperate to get out their cages while a few are determined not to do so. Taking the time to reassure and organise the other prisoners on this level can give the PC’s valuable manpower to help save the ship.
It takes a DC 18 Diplomacy, or DC13 Intimidate check to restore enough order to make the prisoners useful. Succeeding ensures that the prisoners act in a more organised fashion and earns an extra two points of seaworthiness.
Maia briefly returns Trinan's hug, then gives him an appreciative nod as she pulls away. While Bukis and the others work to open the remaining slave cages, the beautiful performer centers herself in the hold and calls out, "Fellow captives, did you hear that? The ship is taking on water and we are without boats. There's no more time to hide, there's not even any time to think about ourselves; we have to work together or we all die together. Now please, as you get out of your cages gather around so we can figure out where everyone is headed..."
While making sure the rest of the prisoners are freed Bukis hears what Trinan says and decides that halting the flow of water seems most important right now. Looking around for any freed prisoners who look as if they are currently unfocused on what to do next Bukis spins a couple in the direction of the fore-hold and tries to get them to move. "You two, with me!" He knows he sounds gruff but he is trying to cut through any fear that they might be experiencing.
"Good job!" Lilly congradulates Bukis and Maia for getting the keys. Which she grabs quickly to try and help free them.
The young woman's desire to be quick ends up dropping the keys, getting it stuck, and swearing in gnomish repeatedly until Bukis helps out and does what he was planning to do in the first place.
Suddenly the darkness of the night is broken by a shattering roar. A cry comes from on deck “Mainmast’s gone! To the boats!” The cry prompts a rush of feet and the Slavemaster, ‘Smiler’ Kendrick pauses to sneer at the slaves huddled in his cages on his way to the ladder.
“Hope you can all swim!” He grins, revealing those remarkably perfect teeth. “Cause I got the keys and I ain’t gonna let you go.”
If a PC is successful, they can make a DC17 Sleight of Hand check to swipe the keys or a DC17 grapple check to wrench them from Kendrick’s belt.
A young Andoran man who has been comatose pretty much from the moment he was thrown into his cell now finally stirs. A thick mop of hair slides down his forehead and a hand has to come up and rescue his eyes from the curtain of hair now hanging in front of them. A groggy voice ponders Kendrick's words. "If you ain't gonna let us go, wouldn't that mean you'll be taking us with you?"
A young Andoran man who has been comatose pretty much from the moment he was thrown into his cell now finally stirs. A thick mop of hair slides down his forehead and a hand has to come up and rescue his eyes from the curtain of hair now hanging in front of them. A groggy voice ponders Kendrick's words. "If you ain't gonna let us go, wouldn't that mean you'll be taking us with you?"
Clearly dazed by his ordeal Estian is a little slow off the mark and mistakes Bukis for Kendrick. Without going up to the deck there is no way to tell what has happened to the mast.
The prisoners are freed and Maia is able to organise them effectively. They split off, headed in various directions.
Bukis reaches in and grabs the human by his arm and hauls him to his feet. "Wake up!" He says none to gently, "Need help." Once he sees that the man is on his feet and steady enough not to fall over Bukis heads to the fore-hold with those he pressed into service, attempting to get the leak temporarily patched.
"Hello" a pleasant voice pops around the bulky shoulder of the half-orc. An equally pleasant round face surrounded by light ginger hair seems to be the source of the voice. "We need as much help as possible, so Get Up and Help or we might all Die."
Then she hurries to the fore-hold with Bukis.
Help or we might all die. These words pull Estian from his slumber, and Lillebth can see how a light starts burning inside that head of his. "Help, yes, I can, sailor I am." The light might need a little longer before it burns brightly.
Estian falls in behind the two, muttering this and that about his sore muscles and aching joints.
"Ah, another conversationalist." she throws a bit of banter to cover the fear of drowning that predominates her stomach. Maia, Cordelia, are we sticking together?"[b]
”We probably should,” Maia answers, ”we have no idea who or what might still be on the ship... “ With that, the comely aasimar falls in-line with her old friends and new acquaintances and heads for the fore-hold.
The desire to escape the darkness is so strong that Estian fails to register the fact the newcomer's particulars. "Give me a sword, Nine Hells, give me a broom, and I'll sweep the deck clean of the slaver scum." There is a conviction to his words, but the young man's one-sentence-speech is anything but inspiring. Perhaps because he ends it with a yawn - even heroes can be sleepy!
Cordelia nods and follows along with the rest of the group as you descend the fore-hatchway into the hold. This dark and cramped area of the ship holds huge casks of water, as well as barrels of hard biscuit and other ships provisions. A tide of boxes, cables and frantic rats rises as water gushes through a large puncture in the ship’s hull. Three panicked looking sailors are trying desperately to block the puncture with a folded sail but the lack of light and their lack of co-ordination is making their efforts ineffectual.
One man turns as you enter the hold. “For the love of the gods, help us!” He screams.
"That's a big hole" Lilly says in stunned fear. After the briefest of pauses, she pulls herself out of staring and rushes to help.
The cold water, the days of poor food, and the fear all combine resulting in a very poor showing of sailor skills.
"Lilly and I will fix the hole! The rest of you, get everything that you can carry and bring it up to the deck!" Cordelia rushes to plug the hole.
"It's going to be hard to move with the debris splashing around," Maia points out, "quick, everyone who's not working on the hole, form a line, arm's length apart, and we can pass everything out like a bucket brigade!"
Estian listens to the woman's commands and hops into place, picking up a barrel filled with foodstuffs. Now it's for the others to take their place so he can pass it on and see it make its way to the slave deck. "Do as she says and we'll all be eating at the end of this day!"
Seeing two of his companions moving to fix the hole, and seemingly quite competent about it, Bukis joins the chain of people and helps move the foodstuffs out of the fore-hold and to a dryer area of the ship.
In a flurry of co-ordinated and efficient work sails are fothered, the hole plugged and supplies whisked away from the rising tide of water. It takes nearly ten minutes of frantic work but the ship is considerable more seaworthy now than it was!
"Thank ye." Another of the sailors says. "We couldn't have done this without you. We'll head up and help on deck."
”We only really have two choices from here,” Maia points out as everyone climbs back up into the slave hold, ”up to the main deck, or into the crew quarters... I think we should check the crew quarters first... there could be people trapped in there, and we check what’s going on below there.”
Bukis nods at Maia. "Agree, might find more weapons." He starts out the room and heads upstairs to the crew quarters, hoping to find more weapons to give to his companions that might want one.
Unlike his unlikely companions, Estian isn't blessed with eyes that can pierce the darkness. Hopefully, the upper decks aren't as light-starved as the one they just escaped. "Sure, fine, but don't expect me to take any risks when it comes to the slavers."
Lilly is bumbling around in the dark just as much as Estian. "Crew quarters, good idea. Once the ship is back to floating, those crew members might decide to put us back in those cages."
Making your way out of the hold and through the slave deck you arrive in the crew quarters. As you pass the main companionway to the main deck the sound of the storm rises, thunder crashing and the wind shrieking like a choir of banshees.
Very little light makes it down the main grating to enter the cramped crew quarters section of the main deck where a number of hammocks swing violently as the ship rocks back and forth. Pained groans issue from a small cluster of the hammocks furthest from the gangway and a slurred voice demands that “You all piss off, if we’re gonna die let us die in peace!”
Behind the drunks a series of smaller cabins take up the rear of the deck and a narrow stairway at the very back descends into the hold below.
One sailor stands and squints before apparently recognising Bukis. "Hey, the big one! The big one's loose!" He reaches for a cutlass and attempts to point it at Bukis. "Get back in yer cage! Or else!"
”Nobody’s going to die today,” Maia calls out sternly, ”unless you’re too dumb to drop that sword. Now, get your drunk ass down to the aft deck and help us make sure we’re not taking on water.”
Estian adds further weight to Maia's chastising words by throwing his physique into the mix and putting on an impressive display of posturing. Words fail the young knight, so just posturing it is.
"oh for the love of-" Lilly starts but stops once Maia throws sternness their way. She balls her fists up ready to brawl if needed but otherwise waits.
Being called out by those that had recently held him captive has a bad affect on Bukis' mood and his immediate reaction is to let them know just what he thinks of them. "Two choices." He says as he brandishes the short sword he had picked up earlier. "Fight and die, help and live. You choose" The look he gives them indicates that he hopes they will choose the second. Curse me for a fool! He thinks to himself. We're sinking and I'm picking fights. But it is to late for him to back down as he commits to whatever action they follow through on.
Between the combined fury of Maia, Estian and Bukis the sailors look at each other and then slowly put their weapons down, "Ok, ok. We'll just stay here nice and quiet like." The sober(-ish) one says. "No trouble..."
Lilly gives the men a stiff nod of You'd Better, as if she had anything to do with their agreement. Then quickly goes over the room to try and see if there is anything they can use.
Cordelia searches for loot!
Estian follows the first person to stumble into the room and assists her while keeping an eye out on the sailors. Perhaps one of them is thinking of making a move.
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"Sackless wonders." Bukis mutters under his breath although he is secretly pleased tghat they gave up so easily as he wasn't sure if he could protect Lily and the others by himself. Deciding that the more people searching the faster the job can get done, more people can be armed, and they can hopefully fix the rudder and whatever else is going wrong, Bukis also starts to search the area where the others are not.
While everyone else sets to searching the area, Maia walks over to where the slavers set their swords and picks them up remarking, ”we’re just going to borrow these while you’re staying here, in case anything comes out of the storm.”
The group's combined efforts turn up a finely crafted whip and a collection of coin comprising 17 gold and 36 silver. There is a locked box in the bosuns cabin but when opened it proves to only contain some dull looking rocks and a couple of unpleasant smelling bottles.
Suddenly a mighty peal of thunder booms out from the clouds above, the sheer violence of the sound shaking the ship’s timbers and even stunning the howl of the wind for a moment.
From the deck above you can hear someone shrieking and thrashing on the deck, “Dragon! Dragon! A dragon in the storm!”
Cordelia shudders as the sound drives to her knees. She can hear nothing but the ringing in her ears. "Argh!"
"What in the name of Talmandor ... ?!" The young Andoran is screaming and going by the pained look on his face, whatever is producing the cacophony on the deck is the cause for it.
Bukis flinches as the storm releases its full fury upon the ship. He grabs the ones who seem to have a hard time hearing, makes sure that everyone has grabbed whatever loot they want to carry and heads out of the room. Not quite sure where to head next and not to concerned with the other men in the room. He won't wait to see if they follow but he won't try and stop them either.
”?!?” Maia shouts, suddenly unable to hear Bukis. She frowns at the realization that she can’t hear herself either. Taking the shortsword from him, she hands him one of the cutlasses then points down and loudly says, ”we should go down, make sure this side isn’t leaking before we go up!” As Estian passes, she hands him the other cutlass. When Cordelia moves by she shrugs and hands her the shortsword. When Lilly steps up she shows her empty hands apologetically and then follows everyone down to the aft hold.
Estian takes the weapon and tests its center of balance. He has seen these weapons before, but the lads wielding them were rather uncouth friends of altogether reprehensible Chelish scum. It sure ain't a weapon any proud Andoran would prefer.
He gives Maia a friendly nod and points at Bukis. "THANK YOU! LET'S FOLLOW THE BIG MAN. HE SEEMS TO HAVE A PLAN!"
Making sure his companions are all following, especially those that have a hard time seeing in the dark, Bukis takes the group into the aft hold. With sword in hand he opens the door and looks around.
Lillebeth manages to clap her hands over her ears, blunting the worst of the thunder "Goodness, the thunder alone might kill us." as the weapon chain dwindles to nothing, she shrugs in return to her friend, with a smile "Not so great with them anyway." but Maia's blank face lets her know she can't hear crap and lets it drop.
Following the big guy into the hold.
Bukis and Lilli, as the only ones who still hear properly, lead the way down the narrow stairs at the rear of the cabins and into the aft hold. Lit by a wildly swinging storm lantern, this area of the hold is mostly dry and holds bales of cloth, a number of sails and the cable tier, a long, stinking rope wound around a vast drum which is used to store the anchor ropes when on long sea voyages. Embedded deep in the stern are the huge bolts which hold the rudder pintles in place. The bolts are the size of a man’s forearm but three are missing, preventing the rudder from biting and turning the ship!
"Oh heck" the ginger woman yells, as she runs about trying to find the bolts. Failing miserably she points to the rudder, the holes in it, and mimics about the size they should be.
Seeing that the rudder is missing bolts Bukis starts to look for either the missing ones or replacement parts, whichever he finds first. As he does this he watches Lily as she mimes to those who were deafened. He chuckles silently at how it looks but is impressed by her ingenuity. "Girl's got smarts. Good in emergencies." He thinks to himself.