50 Fathoms - Session 35

12th July 2020

Sunday lunchtime and we're sitting on picnic blankets in Vicky's garden. The BBQ was warming up and it was time for Matt's 50 Fathom's campaign to continue.

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Location: At sea.

It was less than a day's travel back to Baltimus. We let the freed prisoners off here.

The question of how to acquire 'The Sword of Amemnus' still hung in the air. Edward Teach - Blackbeard was in possession of it.

Shia went ashore, spoke with her contacts and learnt several 'facts' about Blackbeard.

- Blackbeard had struck a pact with the devil, it was said. His crew could never leave their ship.
- Blackbeard has been seen more than once around the island of 'Perck'.
- Finally, Shia was warned against trying to find Blackbeard, he was considered just too dangerous.

After Shia returned we had an extensive discussion.

As well as the sword, we needed to find 'the heart of the archmage' and 'that which the Kraken had lost'?
In our last visit to 'Bluth's Crown', we had asked the mages there to help us answer these questions if they could. They told us to return at a later date - so we did!

The trip to Bluth's Crown took three days and was uneventful. The pillars that we had helped to save were looking even better now.

The mages welcomed us back and we talked for a while.

They explained that they could not help us with the 'Kraken question'.

They did know something about the other question. The heart of the archmage could only refer to 'Tressa the Red', we agreed. The last time we went to Tressa's home, she had vanished however!
The mages explained that they had learned that Tressa had been captured by 'Torquemada'. Tressa was being held prisoner at the Inquisition base at 'Isla Dios'.

Now we were faced with two choices: Head to Perck to try and track down Blackbeard, wherever he might be. Or travel to Isla Dios, which was on the other side of Caribdus to rescue Tressa. 

Blackbeard's location was closer, but unknown. We had also been told that he was a most dangerous enemy.

Tressa's location was known, but was at The Grey Isles, about as far away from us as could be. Furthermore, Tressa was most likely being held in some sort of prison. We could only speculate how difficult rescuing Tressa from the inquisition could be.

In the end we decided to go and free Tressa first. Our reasoning was that once freed, Tressa might be able to assist us when we went against Blackbeard.

Leaving Bluth's Crown behind, we set off for Isla Dios.

---

Bluth's Crown shrank away as we made off. Later, we were surprised to see an old 'acquaintance' suddenly make his appearance.

Califax the parrot and pet of Tressa the Red; he must have appeared from somewhere below deck on one of our ships. He was flapping above us.

Califax spoke in a strange loud voice; telling us. "You must rescue my 'pet human' Tressa. Go to Isla Dios to do this thing.".
After this, Califax's voice returned to normal, he seems confused as he looked about at his current surroundings and seems surprised to see us. Nevertheless, he joined our expedition once we explained our goal.

We sailed on: Six days had passed since we began our journey, six days that had passed uneventfully.

On the seventh day however, we caught sight of a distant ship, nothing more than a black dot against the hazy horizon. Observing it through spyglasses, we could see it was a large ship and entirely black.

It had to be Blackbeard, no one else was known for a black ship, we altered our heading and made for the ship.

We could not let this opportunity to acquire Amemnus' sword pass us by, who know when we would next encounter Blackbeard?
Besides, It seemed too much of a coincidence seeing Blackbeard here and now. Maybe he was after us?

We discussed our choices as we drew closer. After some deliberation, we decided to attack Blackbeard!

As we closed in, we saw that The Destroyer was entirely black, it seemed to extrude an aura of wrongness and evil. Win and Rackham, our mages both sensed a sort of dark and powerful energy radiating from the ship.

Still we closed in .

'The destroyer' fired at us with its array of cannons. A shot struck Baxter's ship. It was no ordinary shot or cannon. It was thick viscous black liquid that splashed on to three of the crew.
They began screaming, rolling on the floor and convulsing, the black liquid burned away their very flesh until they died. Moments later they rose as the un-dead, making trouble for Baxter and his remaining crew members

Meanwhile, I returned fire with my ship's own cannons, striking tru, but they appeared to have no little or no perceivable effect on The Destroyer.

Still we closed in.

We could see The Destroyer's crew. It appeared to be manned by un-dead skeletons.

Rackham struck the ship with a spell, it conjured up some sort of hurricane that blew about the crew on the deck, a number of them were hurled into the sea.

Still we closed in.

Finally, we had reached The Destroyer and we're preparing to board her hopefully defeat Blackbeard and his weird un-dead crew.