50 Fathoms - Session 20

25th January 2020

Gaming Saturday begins at lunchtime. We're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking for session 20 of 50 Fathoms.

Location: The Vine Inn, Yumas.

The island of Yumas is a 3-tiered terraced settlement.

On the highest tier of the island is a secured military installation.
The middle tier is grassy.
The lowest tier contains The Vine and the harbour.

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We were pondering our next move whilst relaxing in 'The Vine' when the harbour master entered. We noticed that other people address him as 'Senator'?

The harbour master hands a letter over to the innkeeper who in turn hands the letter over to us.

We examined the letter. It came from 'Senator Racen' and is an invitation to dinner at his residence in the evening. We decided to accept.

In the meantime, Baxter went 'exploring'. Baxter breaks into the harbour masters office and steals the ledger. We searched the document for any reference of 'The Valiant' and made an interesting discovery. It seemed that someone had altered this document and changed the name 'The Valiant' to the name 'The Courageous'?

Armed with this knowledge, we returned to the town centre and followed our new line of investigation on finding the ship.

We were told that 'The Courageous' is 'somewhere' around Yumas and close by. We asked for more detail on 'The Courageous' and it is described as a schooner? This did not match the description; a schooner would be too small to be The Valiant. This requires further investigation.

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In the evening we went to the dinner date with Senator Racen, dressed as respectably as possible.

The senator's residence is bland to the outsider viewer. But within is well adorned and decorated and shows the senator's obvious wealth.

We were led to a large posh dining hall. It has to be said that we mostly felt out of place here.

We were seated and the harbour master made his entrance. He is a man in his 40s with a paunch. We exchanged pleasantries and small talk. For the meal we are served wine & fish.

After the meal was concluded, we then 'got down to business. The senator explained that he asked us here to help him.

Senator Racen wants us to kidnap his daughter!
And he's willing to pay for it too! As a compensation, he is willing to give us a family heirloom; a magic sword called 'The Mageslayer'.

The Mageslayer would prove a useful asset in our battle with 'The Hags', so we agreed to help Senator Racen.

The senator explained his situation to us. His daughter has a big mouth and has upset the wrong people in the Kieran Empire. She was placed under arrest. Now in order to prevent her imprisonment, she must be married. The senator wants us to kidnap her before the marriage happens. Furthermore, she must not realise that we are actually rescuing her and must be convinced it's a genuine kidnapping!

The senator's daughter's name is Rana. She is being kept prisoner either in the fort or a house on the top tier. The man she was due to marry was Captain Livis, who was stationed at the fortress.

Our final action for the evening is to agree to sell all our trade goods to the senator.

---

The next day, we case the house that we suspected held Rana.

We spotted 5 guards, by the front door and on the roof.

We noticed that one of the windows on the upper floor is boarded up. Win sensed some sort of magic emanating from around the window.

We continued to watch the house. At around 2am, screaming or perhaps a cry of frustrating could be heard coming from the house.
Then we saw 10 soldiers begin called from the fortress to the house. These soldiers had a conversation with the house guards and seemed quite annoyed. Once the exchange had finished, the guards returned to their respective locations.

At approximately 4:30am we saw soldiers come to the house again and knock on the front door. There seemed to 10 soldiers and perhaps they're here to provide a shift change?

We would have to wait for the next session to be answered.