The Looting of the Siren
Chapter 1: The Captain’s Quarters
We had searched the Captain and found the following:
3 silver pearls
Flask of whiskey
Scimatar
Studded leather armor
Atalaya, having disbelieved his protestations that he was just attacking us for loot because “why not, we are pirates”, directs Vasilya and Sorrow to drag him down to the main mast and tie him to it, so that he doesn’t go anywhere. Sorrow stays there to guard him. Cirilli asks to come on board the Siren, but Nevil immediately tells her to stay put. Atalaya softens the demand by telling her to keep watch on the two pirates swimming to the rocks, to be sure that they don’t try to come back to the ship and slip onboard. She is not happy with this, but does as directed.
Atalaya, Nevil, Boz and Inman begin to search the ship. First, they check the door under the nets that is under the poop deck. Nevil is pretty sure that they wouldn’t lock/trap a door to any of the main crew areas and walks up to it, turns the knob and walks into the Captain’s quarters. It takes up the whole back end of the ship. It is NICE. Atalaya, Boz and Inman follow her in. There is a bed with a footlocker at its end, a biggish bookcase, two tables/desks, a chair, and a couple dressers/wardrobes.
Boz notes the door at the back of the room and immediately goes to check that out. It opens onto a balcony encompassing the stern of the ship.
Atalaya is immediately drawn to what looks to be the Captain’s desk/writing table and starts searching through the items she finds there. She finds some pens, inkwells, papers etc scattered on the surface and what looks like a note. She also sees a round metal item. On closer inspection it seems to be a pewter brooch. There is a harp in the middle of it, encased in a crescent moon. Atalaya feels like she should know what that is, but can’t quite place it. She calls to Boz, “Vaz, do you recognize this?”
Boz startles as he makes out what Atalaya is holding. “That’s a Harper pin,” he states. Boz calls Nevil over and she immediately confirms that it is a harper pin. Inman is looking through the bookcase for anything interesting.
Nevil wonders if the brooch was the captain’s or if it was taken from a captive or looted ship. “We need to look for other information ….” Nevil heads back to the other table that is covered in maps.
Atalaya picks up the note and begins reading it. Her body tenses the further along she reads.
The Hond Ebath, small East Indianman, crew of roughly a dozen. Colorful sails, blue mermaid figurehead.
To Be Taken Alive:
Captain Ivar Greenleaf, male elf or half elf, blond, blue eyes
Sorrow Trelanus, a male Wendre Tiefling with silver eyes and black hair
Atalaya Loravoris, female half elf, red hair, violet eyes
Female human armored fighter, unsure of identity. Auburn hair, fights with a mace. Thought to be a priestess, possibly of Eldath.
The armored female and the devil spawn are casters. Make certain they are absolutely incapacitated. You can use the oil on them to keep them under control.
The rest of the crew is expendable unless you deem they might have information. Get info out of them and then kill them. Loot what you want, then scuttle the ship with the bodies in the hold. DO NOT LEAVE A MESS.
If stone found DO NOT REMOVE FROM URN OR REMOVE LID. Immediately drop what you are doing and make contact.
Atalaya’s anger grows as she reads the note and realizes that it is a bounty listing for the Hond Ebrath and crew. She starts reading the note aloud under her breath. Finishing one reading of the note she calls everyone over and then reads it again for the others to hear.
Once the discussion regarding this winds down, Atalaya places the note into her belt pouch. Scoops anymore papers from the desk, and then adds the ink, pens and blank papers to the bag of holding. She then moves to the footlocker. Upset about the note she just found, tired and uncharacteristically reckless she tries to open the trunk without checking for traps or anything else that might be suspicious. As her hand touches the locks her fingers feel an oily slippery substance. Atalaya immediately pulls back and tries to wipe it off her hand, using the bedding to do so. Her fingers start to tingle, but seems to remove the substance before whatever it is takes full effect.
Vasilya hurries over, berating Atalaya for touching things before checking them out. He scrutinizes the chest and its locks. Notes the oily substance and uses one of the pillowcases that he rips off the pillow on the bed to carefully clean all the substance off the trunk locks and handles. He then immediately turns to the doors to the balcony, steps outside and tosses the pillowcase into the ocean. Throughout the process he continues bantering with Nevil and Atalaya.
In the trunk we find:
20 silver pearls
Ragged Patch with the scent of dog. (It is black and red, has a stylized wolfish looking head on it (in black) The patch has a black border, red interior with a red X dividing it into 4 segments. There are 5 black wavy lines under the red X. The animal head is superimposed over this design.)
Two red potions. They look like healing potions but are more sparkly and the bottles are fancier than usually seen.
A small vial with a grey odorless oil with a very faint pink and purple sheen to it when held to the light. (Oil of Taggit)
A fancy silver-inlaid leather belt.
A leather whip with dark stains on it.
50 gp.
Sorrow hollers down to us, wanting to know what we have found. We mention the bounty note and he makes his way into the room to see. We show it to him and the other things that were found in the footlocker.
None of us recognize the patch. Someone wonders if it might be a mercenary’s group patch. Sorrow says, “I don’t think that is a dog. That looks like a gnoll or something.
Nevil asks, “A clan mark?”
Sorrow responds by saying it could be a pack mark maybe. Then he catches sight of the brooch. “Is that a Harper pin?” he asks.
While Sorrow is checking out what we have found, Inman is ritually casting Detect Magic. It takes him about 10 minutes to complete the spell. As he looks over the items only the red bottles glow to his sight. They are very bright. The other items do not seem to be magical. He looks at the vial with the grey substance in it. Holds it to the light observing it and then says, “Looks like Oil of Taggit.”
Nevil is tossing books, looking for stray papers or other items placed between the pages of the books. She doesn’t find anything. Varied genres of books are present. She finds one that is erotica and tosses it to Sorrow. None of the books particularly catch her interest. Types include poetry, fairy tales, etc.
Searching the dressers yields clothing, socks, etc. Nothing of real value. On a sidetable Nevil finds tea and limes. She takes them.
Deciding that there is nothing else of immediate value or interest we head across the deck to check out the doors on the other side. Vasilya, remember the oil on the footlocker, runs back to the Captain’s quarters and grabs the other pillow’s pillowcase. He opens the door and we see a storage room filled with items to repair the ship. While there is sail cloth to repair the sails there are not any spare sails or enough cloth to make sails. Atalaya thinks that it would beneficial to get plain sails made, but we will have to look elsewhere to get the cloth to do so.
Nevil heads to the stairs that head downwards. Atalaya follows, then Inman and finally Boz. (Sorrow has gone back to guarding the tied up Captain as we explore the ship.)
Chapter 2: Fight on the Crew Deck
The stairs are narrow and dark. As Nevil heads down she does not hear anything. Towards the end of the stairs she sees is able to see into a room with a table and chairs. And towards the back is a figure hulking behind the table waring a cloak with ears poking out.
As Nevil enters the room a crossbow bolt whizzes past her. A guy hiding behind the doorway has shot a crossbow and then falls down as the bolt is released. Atalaya steps into the room and hears the swish of a sword swinging at her. It thumps into her armor and Atalaya takes 7 points of damage. The pirate (Nails) swings again and misses as Atalaya jumps back pulling her longsword free of its sheath.
Atalaya attacks Nails with her longsword, swinging and misses him as she is still rattled by his attack. She swings again and does 12 points of damage. She quickly casts Hunter’s Mark on him.
Old Woman moves 30 feet out of range of Atalaya and Nevil and then shoots crossbow at Atalaya. Misses?
Boz: Moves into the entrance of the room and shoots his bow at Old Woman. He misses.
Garbage: Shooter a crossbow bolt at Nevil and misses. He moves forward and jumps onto the table near Nevil. From the table he swings his mace at Nevil and connects with a critical hit, doing 9 points of damage.
Burner: Shoots at Nevil and misses. He thing Jumps into range to flank Nevil, swings his mace again and misses Nevil again.
Nevil: “No, no, no, boys.” she admonishes them as she takes a swing at Garbage. Her morningstar hits for 13 points of damage. She swings again, invoking Divine Smite, and hits causing 9+13 points of damage. Garbage goes sailing off the table, knocking down chairs as he flies past them. Nevil reminds him, “Violence is bad.”
Inman: Casts Fire Bolt at Old Woman, sending the spell over Vasilya's shoulder. It is a critical hit, and causes 21 points of fire damage. Old Woman lights up, howls and tries to put out the fires on his clothing.
Ogrel: (a gnoll) Jumps away from Garbage, leaps over his body and runs down the stairs.
Atalaya: Swings (or rather tries to swing her sword) at Nails. A particularly large wave hits the ship and throws her off balance. She hits herself rather than nails for 10 points of damage. She is stunned and unable to make her second attack.
Old Woman: Jumps on a table next to Atalaya. He hits the stunned half elf with his scimitar, for 7 points of damage. Swinging again, he hits her for another 8 points of damage. Nevil sees what is happening and Rebukes the Violent, causing Old Woman to take onto himself half the damage he meted out on Atalaya as radiant damage (it makes its saving throw so takes only 4 points of damage). Old Woman sees a flash of light as the rebuke hits him.
Boz: Moves to Flanks Old Woman. He swings his shortsword and Old Woman falls to the floor, dead. Boz then starts moving towards Atalaya. (Only about 5 feet of movement left for this.)
Burner: SWings his mace at Nevil. His frist swing misses. A critical fail. The ship’s movement combined with his swing causes him to twist his knee, drop his weapon and stuns him.
(About this time we start thinking that this entire bunch of pirates has been drinking much too much while their comrades were attempting to take our ship.)
Nevil: Moves over to Burner, uses her knee to drop him and then puts him in a headlock. (Grapple)
Nails: Attacking Atalaya, swings with his scimitar and misses. Tries again and misses again. Then shrugs, and with his off hand attacks with his dagger, hitting Atalaya for 7 points of damage.
Inman: Dances his way around Atalaya so that he can attack Nails with his scimitar. His first swing hits causing 5 points of damage and his second swing hits for 7 points of damage.
Atalay: Attempts to Escape the Horde, but is still hit by Nails for 7 points of damage.
Boz: Flanks Nails again and with this is able to perform a sneak attack with his sword causing 18 points of damage.
Burner: Tries to get out of the grapple but is unable to move Nevil. She whispers in his ear, “Oh no. No, no, no.”
Nevil: Continues to grapple Burner while trying to get some rope from her gear to tie him up.
Nails: Attacks Boz. His first swing misses. The second connects, but Boz uses his Uncanny dodge to half the damage to 2 points of damage. He again tries to use his dagger, but misses.
Inman: Continues his sword attack on Nails. Both of his scimitar attacks hit Nails for a total of 11 points of damage. Nails gasps, and falls to the floor.
Inman then goes over to see what Nevil is doing with Burner. Boz also heads over to Nevil and between the three of them, Burner is tied up tightly. As he is helping Boz calls over to Atalaya, asking how she is doing.
Atalaya: “I’m hurt pretty bad. I could use some help.”
Nevil says that she will help as soon as the pirate is tied up. She quickly goes over to Atalaya and casts Cure wounds on her twice for 12+10 points of healing. She then lays hands on her for an additional 15 points of healing. (This brings Atalaya to 56 of 75 points of healing.) When Nevil asks her again how she is feeling, Atalaya says that she is better. She still is hurting, but feels much stronger and is able to continue on.
We quickly discuss what we should do next. Atalaya doesn’t want any surprises coming up behind us. She wants to finish checking out the doors visible from this room before heading down the stairs that the gnoll took. We do so, finding a store room and two crew rooms.
Chapter 3: The Slave Deck and Orgel
Finding nothing of concern we headed down the stairs that the gnoll took. The stairway smelled damp and dank. At the end of the stairs there was a tiny bit of light. As we approached the lower deck the smells of wet dog, sweat and old funk hit us.
We enter a big open deck area with chains and other paraphernalia used by slaves is visible, although no one is currently chained. We head towards a door to the south. Before trying to open the door, we listen and hear very faint breathing. Boz checks the door and finds it locked. He gets it unlocked.
Nevil calls out, “Come on out.” We hear more breathing. Then there is a snarl and Ogrel, a gnoll, throws himself at Nevil, his arms outstretched. As he does so, he turns into a skinny pock marked boy with hollowed out eyes. He gasps, gives a helpless cry and falls down in front of her.
Nevil casts, “Calm Emotions.” Orget fails his save. The spell makes him indifferent. He drops his head onto his arms.
Nevil asks, “Do you speak common?”
Orgel: “I do.”
Nevil: “Are you crew?”
Orgel: Hesitates, but then answers: “I guess crew.” He turns back into a gnoll. “I was starving. I turn into that. I can’t fight or feed myself.”
Nevil: “You can’t?”
Orgel: I was part of the Grimhowl Pack. I was a warrior. We ruled the road. I was cursed. I cannot feed.” He continues talking about being cursed. … “I worked at Mom’s Place. I hide behind. Ate scrapes. They hired me to do work.”
We ask him about the person who cursed him. “He was a weak old man. But not… Red robes? Maybe?”
He says that he doesn’t know how to stop the curse. He says that he is strong in “this” body, meaning his gnoll body. “I don’t know what I must do.”
On Orgel’s belt is a shivered head with a braid of reddish hair.
We throw him some food (away from the door) and he pounces on it, eating ravenously as we quickly exit the room, lock? And block the door. Nevil tells him to, “Stay here.” We will be back later when we are sure the ship is secured, (and we decide what to do with him.)
In the main room there are crates with old sacks and manacles.
Boz: “I think they were ready for casters.
Atalaya and Nevil check out the rest of the room. Listening at the doors we don’t hear anything. Doors seem to be empty closets with hooks in them, but no manacles.
Nevil barricades the gnoll door. As she moves the crates to do so she finds a helm lying next to the crates.
Inman’s Detect Magic spell is still working. The helm glows to his sight and he tells us so.
Nevil: “I’m not touching it! I learned my lesson.”
Boz uses an old pillowcase to pick up the helm, wrap it up and it is placed in the bag of holding.
Atalaya sees something shining on the deck boards. It is another Harper Pin.
Game Ends
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