The boat departs the harbour of Findersmead in the icy kingom of Icewind. It was a chilly early spring morning, with a biting wind, that served but one purpose – to fuel the departure of the Shanty Panty for a swift and eventless journey to the vast city of Amn...
Alas... that was not to be.
Our tale starts mid afternoon of the day of departure.
Liana awakens in her hammock in the empty sleeping chamber, populated at this point in time solely by her and her companion... Squishy. Her Badger animal companion. She hears muffled voices floating through the door... She heads out the room and up to the deck to listen in to the Captains welcoming speech. Propped up against the door, she feels fairly queezy. Perhaps sea sickness, perhaps a hangover, or even poison from the night before – but likely just Badger bribery, telling by the scratch marks on her arms.
Joe, Karn, Tsavong and Ceinwen are already above deck.
As Captain Karrodar does his introductory speech, Joe is appraising Karn to see if he has anything of value, Karn is harranging the captain for info on the Ales on board, Tsavong is standing guard over Ceinwen, who is in turn, assessing the rest of the crew.
The captain informs Karn that the galley is always open for drinks, and that the cost is already covered by travelling fee for boarding the ship, and without a pause for further information Karn heads below deck to get stuck in. (Dwarves!)
Joe having finished his appraisal of Karn and deciding he isn’t a worthwhile mark decides to proceed to do a bit of juggling, but unfortunately, due to the pitch and bow of the ship, manages to lose his balance and drop his balls overboard, exclaiming “My balls just dropped!”.
While he is doing this Ceinwen and Tsavong decide that the Barbarian may be a useful ally in their plans to get their hands on a precious cargo that they have been informed about... They head down to the galley via the other entrance and join him at the bar, where he has already tapped a keg and filled a tankard in good old Dwarven fashion.
Joe decides to follow Karn down after a few moments trying to decide how to retrieve his balls.
Liana decides to sit through the remainder of the captains speech before following him into his cabin.
In the galley, Tsavong, Karn and Ceinwen are conversing in secret – as Joe walks in, and completely bypasses them after spotting a padlocked hatch to the cargo hold beside the table... His attempts to get out of sight appear to go un-noticed, although unbeknownst to him, Ceinwen has noticed, but keeps quiet.
Joe expertly fails to pick a lock a blade of grass could probably open, but nobody hears. On his second attempt, he opens the doors, and slides inside – finding a beam of wood to wedge the doors shut with.
Liana enters the captains cabin and takes it upon herself to request a refund as she has no idea how she got on the ship... and for that matter, if she even paid in the first place. The Captain is unmoved by her attempts at persuasion and simply asks her to take it up with the administrative clerk once the boat docks in Amn.
Meanwhile, in the Galley Tsavong Ceinwen and Karn come to an agreement that Karn would see many fights and tankards of Ale whilst working with them, and he agrees to join them, shortly before Tsavong and Karn hear something come from behind the table. They inform Ceinwen who lets them know someone ducked behind the table... They go over to investigate, and notice a hatch with an abandoned padlock at the side of it... Karn gives the doors a gentle shake, and finds there is resistance... Joe hearing the commotion ducks down behind some crates, but feeling that this is a rather insufficient hiding place for anyone that can see in the low light of the cargo hold, starts trying to pry open a crate... presumably to climb inside, but if caught, planning on claiming to be searching for more juggling balls...
Karn grins manically at the other two, pulls out his axe and an a show of ineptitude, swings at the metaphorical barn, and misses... Splinters of wood fly everywhere... The sounds spur Joe into a more frenzied attempt at opening the crate, but is still fumbling trying to get a good grip with his tool.
Liana decides to sleep off whatever is wrong with her, and heads back to her bed, stopping briefly to acknowledge Ceinwen, Tsavong and Karn (still wielding axe...) as she slides past and into her bunk.
Karn tries again to smash the hatch with his Axe, this time connecting solidly, but only damaging the door. The door is damaged enough that the three of them can see it is barred on the other side by a plank of wood... Karn reaches down and instead of trying to smash the door apart, attempts to pull the doors open... and with almost zero resistance, rips both doors off the hinges... They might make good makeshift shields, but its a wonder no-one fell through the doors into the cargo hold...
Joe exclaims “Im trying to find new balls!” up through the hatch at the party that just forced their way through.
Karn leads the charge... plodding down the stairs ahead to check out the cargo hold.
The party see Joe in plain sight, stuffing some rather tatty looking china into his backpack.
Ceinwen and Tsavong discuss their plans with Joe - to seize control of the ship and hijack it, and he seems keen on the idea of producing a good bit of chaos and the chance to do some pilfering.
After a brief tet e tet about it, they hear the sounds of chains chinking away deeper into the cargo hold, Ceinwen, Tsavong and Joe decide it might be a good idea to vacate the cargo hold, what with the smashed in door, and the sounds being heard... Karn decides to wander off on his own to investigate the sounds.
Ceinwen, Tsavong and Joe head back over to the kegs, just in time for two crewmen to come down – although they simply walk over to the barrels, greeting them and pouring out a drink. Karn proceeds to follow the sounds around the room at the back of the hold, but cant pin point the sounds, or see anything that could even be making the noise. He decides to head back. Joe exclaims to the two crewmen that “a Dwarf just broke into the cargo hold and is down there now” – they disappear upstairs, and come back down with two more-armoured crewmen who arrive just as Karn pops his head up out of the cargo hold.
“Theres some weird noises coming from down here” Karn says, Joe yells “He’s drunk!” and the two guards shrug in confusion, and follow Karn down...
Karn follows the two crewmen down to the back of the cargo hold, but the three of them don’t find anything interesting, and come back up.
Joe fails to pick a pocket where Ceinwen succeeds and everyone else heads back up top to kill some time until dinner doing their own thing. Ceinwen and Tsavong check about inspecting everyone, and Joe attempts to busk rather poorly, in an attempt to gather information from the other crew and passengers.
Karn spends the rest of the time until tea up chatting with two crewmen at the barrels. One called Eldrick, who seems to be able to take his drink better than this Dwarf, and another who ends up unconscious over one of the barrels pretty quickly. Probably thrown over by Karn.
8Pm arrives, and a gong is sounded above-deck. Dinner is served, and everyone except for Liana takes a seat. Joe managed to slip something out the belt of one of the passengers heading down to take a seat. Some idle banter ensues. Ceinwen attempts to poison Eldrick for fun... with ink, which Eldrick sees her put in, but is convinced shes just “adding some spice”. He spends the rest of the time with blackened teeth.
Karn gets bored, and smacks Eldrick in the face with a tankard. Everyone at the table laughs, except one or two people who slink off rather disturbed.
After dinner, Karn carries on drinking with Eldrick, Ceinwen goes to speak to the captain and Joe heads up to the front of the deck to scope out if theres any way to climb down to get into the captains room...
A candle-lit glow emerges from the captains room in the low light of the setting sun, and the sounds of violin playing float through the cabin door, as Ceinwen stands outside in the chill, knocking and waiting for an answer.
Joe decides against the climb to the two portholes that could be used to enter the captains room due to the lack of hand-holds, and the risk of plummeting into the icy sea. Tsavong follows relatively closely. Joe decides it might be fun to try to get a nearby crewman who is gazing off the port side into the sunset to attack Tsavong and get himself killed. Joe very nearly succeeds in this endeavour, but the man slinks off, rather disturbed by the intimidating appearance of Tsavong.
In the captains quarters, Ceinwen finally gets a response, as a flustered young musician slips out the room past her, violin in hands. She walks in to find the captain throwing something fluffy behind a changing screen, and wiping his sleeve on his mouth, she gives the room a brief once-over. It is rather... tastefully decorated, good woods, heads mounted on the walls, and a rather well stocked liquor cabinet. She convinces the captain to spare some time to sit and chat, and he pours them out some Absynth, which quite quickly goes to his head, but to which Ceinwen doesn’t seem phased by, as shes sipping and he is downing it.
It is at this point Joe decides to go join them... He opens the door to the captains room, and is spotted by the guard in the crows nest, Tsavong follows at distance, but doesn’t join him immediately.
Joe sneaks up behind the captain, receiving a magical message from Ceinwen as he enters the room stating to “make it quick”. The captain doesn’t notice in his distracted state, and is met with a dagger to the throat, missing anything vital, but doing a hefty amount of damage. He rolls backwards off his seat onto his feet, pulling out his short sword. His screams for help and Tsavong, Karn, Eldrick and a number of crew members move to investigate.
Tsavong lets three crewmembers passed him into the captains room.
The captain and Joe are duking it out as 3 guards enter the room. Andy starts taking some damage, and Ceinwen releases a surprise blast of colour spray at the guards, knocking one of them unconscious. The captain knows now that her and Joe are on the same side now.
Karn notices the guards go into the captains room and the blast of colour spray, and as Tsavong goes to follow the guards into the room, he pulls out his Axe and beheads his latest drinking buddy, Eldrick.
The captain knocks Joe into unconsciousness. Tsavong downs the guards, and moves onto the captain. Ceinwen tries to daze the captain but is taken out with an attack of opportunity from him.
Karn berserks on the stairs after being struck by one of the other crew members, and cleaves him in half at the waist, gurgling in blood lust at the rest of the Galley “Come get some!” or something silly, which successfully intimidates anyone else off joining in.
Tsavong skilfully boxes the captains head off with a critical critical hit, and revives Ceinwen and Joe with some quick heals. The unconscious guard wakes up but is blinded, and as he slowly comes to realises the aftermath of the battle, and seeing the captains headless body, decides it might be best to just stay down.
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