50 Fathoms - Session 39

23rd August 2020

It's Sunday lunch time and we're in Vicky's garden, at least we were until the weather threatened to change for the worse and we relocated indoors.

Only half the players were here today and that's okay, because we only planned half a session to finish previous sessions fight in Matt's 50 Fathoms campaign.

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Location: The Perdition.

Win was surrounded by Torquemada's mercenaries.
"Bring her to me," boomed a loud voice. It appeared to be coming from a frail old man in a chair? It must have been Torquemada.
It was then that Win felt something strange come over her? She couldn't understand it, but she felt the strength drain out of her limbs.

Rufus had just challenged everyone to a duel.
"Bring him to me too," said the booming voice.
Rufus felt the voice cut deep into his head, he staggered and was sent reeling with the wind knocked out of him.

Meanwhile, Baxter, Terrence and I were rowing away and back to our ships when Rackham burst out of the sea. We asked him if he knew where Win and Rufus were? Rackham replied that they were probably still on the boat. Certainly, we had not seen Win gliding off the barge?

We had no choice but to turn around and row hard for the barge. Shia was pressing the attack, barraging The Perdition with cannon fire and it continued to take on water, it was now low in the sea and listing.
The remaining mercenaries were starting to look worried.

On the barge, Win and Rufus had been powerless to resist their capture. The mercenaries lifted them and bound their arms and necks to the rigging. They were then dropped and allowed to hang, not a quick hanging where they necks would be broken, but a hanging that would slowly choke them to death!

As we drew closer, The Perdition was so low that we could beach the jolly boat on the deck. Looking across the deck. we could see Win and Rufus struggling vainly against their bonds.

I leapt from thee jolly board to the deck. with Baxter and Terrence following a few yards behind. Just behind them was Rackham, also boarding the ship.

I let off a shot and hit one of the ropes bind Rufus, freeing one of his arms.
I fired off a second shot and managed to free one of Win's arms too!
Rackham assaulted Torquemada's inquisitors with his spells.
 
By now I had closed to melee range, Rufus had freed himself and dropped down to attack Torquemada. He was staggered by strange explosive attacks from Torquemada's chair.
Baxter and Terrence clashed against the mercenaries and Rackham continued his attack on the inquisitors.
Deflecting blows from the mercenaries I pressed my attacks against Torquemada ineffectively, somehow my strokes had left him barely injured.

Terrence forced his way past the mercenaries and laying into Torquemada with his fists. He landed the most fearsome blow imaginable on Torquemada's head.
The old man slumped in his chair and stopped moving. His head lolled and blood bubbled on his pale lips. He managed to say one last thing.
With his final choking breathe he said, "Evil will prevail!"​.

Torquemada was dead, his inquisitors defeated or hurled overboard. Realizing their paymaster was dead caused the fight to drain out the mercenaries and they ceased fighting.

We signalled Shia and she stopped her bombardment. 

We parleyed with the mercenaries; they were stuck here with no way to leave and we needed all the help we could get.
In the end we reached an agreement, if we took them somewhere civilised, they would agree to work for us for several months.

Our strength had been increased by thirty mercenaries.

So it was that we now had the heart of an archmage, we were close to defeating the Sea Hags