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. 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. 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.
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12th January 2020 Sunday is here and we're NOT at 'The Sovereigns', but we're still in Woking. Vicky has kindly offered to host the game whilst The Sovereigns is being refurbished. Location: Kehana Flumes. Now that we'd acquired our pound of gold, we needed to formulate a plan. We plan use the flow of the Flotsam Sea to 'slingshot' us round to the Kieran Empire. We embarked on our journey. Soon we realised that we're being followed. So we slowed to see who it was. They continued heading directly towards us, they're pirates and we met in combat. The battle does not go well for the pirates. Captain Shia orders them to surrender and they complied! We boarded their ship and confiscated their cannons. Meanwhile Win used her magic to repair the ship which we then added to our fleet! We resumed our journey. As we progressed we sailed into a massive, heavy storm that lasted for hours. Luckily we managed to endure the storm with minimal damage. Soon after this we reached the Grey Isles. As we are approaching the region of Terras we spied a massive rock and on the rock an extremely large ship is being built. There is a significant military presence here and they seemed hostile towards us and warned us off. We decided to leave and continue our search for a settlement. Next we came across Yumas, a walled off port with a stone fort. We docked and spoke with the harbour master and asked him if he had heard of 'The Valiant'? He tells us there is no record of The Valiant in their documentation. The harbour master then recommends that we go to 'The Vine' - the only inn in town. We go to this inn, it looks like a sparse sort of place, our eye is drawn to a flamboyantly dressed man. As we consider our next move, the innkeeper approaches us and asks, "What do you like?". 5th January 2020 Sunday gaming at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues. For the first time in almost exactly 3 months all 6 of us are in the same room at the same time. So on with 50 Fathoms. Location: Baltimus. Our 3rd ship, 'The Herodica' has been repaired and is now seaworthy. Foolishly, the party have decided to make Jacob the captain of The Herodica. Doesn't anyone know that Jacob can't sail or even swim! We discuss our next move and decide to head to the 'Kehuna Flumes' and set off. During our journey, we spot a convoy of ships flying the Baltimus flag. We approach the convoy, they in turn fire their cannons at us and warn us off. We hold back and query them. They provide us with no useful information and threaten us again. We decide it isn't worth the trouble and sail away. As we approach Kehuna Flumes, we start to notice sea creatures that we don't usually see in waters and the air seems warmer than expected? Then we see 'the flumes'. They mostly have the appearance of a vertical stack of rock. Some of the flumes are like chimneys and rise above the sea level, most however are under water. 'The Kehuna' are a tribal people and are very protective of the region as it lush in 'mineral' resources. In fact we see minerals being spat out of a chimney whilst we are there. We then noticed 3 elongated bodies swimming in the water around us. They realised that they are 'long' eels. Giant eels that produce electricity, it is wise not to strike them, so we moved to a newer spot. Since we were at the Flumes to collect Kehuna gold, we looked around for a good spot too collect some 'minerals'.
Rackham and Wind dive down and begin their search. They manage to find 8 ounces of gold before we decided to move on. It was wise to avoid any local Kehuna. We moved to a new spot and Rackham dived down again. Rackham acquires some 'guard sharks' in case he encounters any trouble. After some effort, he manages to 'mine' some more gold. Now that we have enough for our purposes, Rackham resurfaces and we prepare to move on. 6th October 2019
Sunday afternoon and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking for our next session of 50 Fathoms. Location: Baltimus. Night has arrived and during the hours of darkness we dream of Tressa the Red. In our dreams, she tells us we must pour water from another world on to Ograpog. We also need to learn the names of the hags. Tress tells us we need 'The Tears of Lys' and that 'Tomas the Orinjo' has it. - Then the dream ends. The next day we discover that repairing the frigate that we salvaged will take 4 days and cost 200 pieces 'o eight. Shia goes to speak to one of her many contacts to see if they know anything about Tomas. Shia learns that he serves aboard 'The Valiant'. 'Javier Espanoza' is the captain. The last known location of The Valiant was somewhere between 'The Kieran Empire' and 'The Grey Isles'. Whilst we are waiting for the frigate to be repaired, Rackham goes diving for loot amongst the sunken parts of the city. Baxter goes 'thieving'. Win goes exploring, she finds someone looking for herbs and is willing to pay. Meanwhile Shia and I go looking for goods to sell on later. 14th September 2019 Saturday lunchtime at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking means more 50 Fathoms. Location: Brigandy Bay. Now that we have sold our cargo, we are looking for a good price on goods to sell on. Unfortunately, Brigandy Bay is a 'consumer' and not a 'producer' of goods, so we don't find any good prices. We are also looking for 'winter clothing' for the next part of our journey. We find 'blue-bear' suits in a shop, but they are very expensive. Whilst negotiating with the shopkeeper Baxter had entered into an argument with him and was kicked out into the street. As he left he managed to sneakily steal a telescope. Captain Shia haggles the the price down by trading in the treasure map we had just acquired for a big discount. Upon returning to our ship, we spot the shopkeeper looking for something in the docks. It turns out he's looking for a ship. Rackham approaches shopkeeper and convinces him to come aboard our ship. At this time Aquirus disembarks and takes his leave of our company to go his own way. Finally we set sail. A few days out of Brigandy Bay and we spot something. We have encountered a frigate without any mast drifting in the sea.
Approaching closer, we see signs of a battle, cannon ball holes, bloated bodies on deck, etc. Then someone appears on deck, waves at us and collapses. The frigate is named 'Conquistador', when we go aboard we find the collapsed man has been mutilated. Win attempts to heal him. The man is named Jim Black. his ship was attacked by pirates. The captain decided to surrender, but the pirate captain had the crew butchered. Jim Black tells The description of the pirate captain matches that of James Lowe - the man we rescued when we left Coaker Mountain. The pirate ship, a galleon, was named 'Mad Dog'. Jim Black tells us they were attacked some 2 hours ago. We search the Conquistador and find no other survivors, just their personal effects. We also find a large supply of food in the cargo hold. we decide to leave, towing the Conquistador behind us. It's slow going, but after a week of travel we arrive at Baltimus. After docking, it takes a while to find a buyer for the food-salvage. But after some persuading we manage to sell it all. We put the Conquistador in to 'drydock 3' for repairs. 8th September 2019 Sunday lunchtime at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking means 50 Fathoms. Location: On route to Brigandy Bay. After acquiring what is now called 'The Jezebel' we continue on to Brigandy Bay. The remainder of our journey is uneventful and we arrive at our destination. Captain Shia and I set off to sell out cargo. The captain seeks out one of her many contacts. When we find the fellow, he presents us with a 'treasure map'. It is signed by the name L'Omaise - who we believe to be Francis L'Omaise and he wants to sell it to us. Anyway; we find some buyers and sell the cargo for a good price and acquire the treasure map. Meanwhile: Baxter has decided to go gambling and takes Rackham with him. During the game there is a big winner at Baxter's table. Rackham has won big! Rackham know little about gambling and is suspicious of his big win and decides to leave immediately.
However on his way out he is stopped by 'the establishment' and led into 'the back room' From his table, Baxter can hear 'punishment' being administered to Rackham. In order to try and take the heat off of Rackham, Baxter accuses another gambler of cheating. But the accusation is not too convincing doesn't help Rackham. Eventually Rackham is released from the gambling den and goes exploring Brigandy Bay. 1st September 2019
It's Sunday lunchtime and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. This means it's time for 50 Fathoms. Location: The Teeth. Having just listened to Tressa's message and left her tower; we depart for civilisation. We need to sell the precious stones we've acquired to buy winter clothing and more provisions. We decide to sail for Brigandy Bay, the journey is expected to take a week. During the journey we encounter a galleon flying an English flag. As it draws closer to us, it drops its English flag and raises the 'skull and crossbones' - pirates! Battle is met. In the open moments of the battle, Baxter leaps over to the other ship and engages several of them. As the conflict endues, Captain Shia taunts the pirate captain and dares him to come aboard. The pirate captain jumps across, intent on attacking Shia. However Rackham uses his magic to blow the pirate captain into the sea. The haul the pirate captain out and take him prisoner. Then Captain Shia manages to convince the remaining pirates to surrender to us. We have taken their galleon as or prize. Captain Shia renames the galleon from 'The Flying Irishman' to 'Jezebel'. 4th August 2019 Location: At sea, one day's sailing out from Coaker mountain. We take the unconscious man aboard 'The Delilah'. He has very little possessions with him: 2 pistols and a water flask, all of them empty. He has nothing that identifies him. Nor does he have any distinguishing features, but we ascertain that he is a sailor of some sort or other. We continue our journey and the man regains consciousness. He identifies himself as 'John Lowe', an Englishman from Earth. He was a merchantman on 'The Trinidad'. His ship was attacked and captured by pirates. Lowe insulted the pirate captain and was put to sea in the dinghy. He became lost and came to Caribdus, whereupon we eventually found him. Lowe has no desire to join our crew and wants us to drop him off at any civilised port we come to to. There is something strange about him and I cannot put my finger on it. Nontheless we decide is is wise not to trust him and will keep an eye on him at all times. During our journey we encounter a pod of dolphins swimming alongside us. They push up fish and we take the opportunity to catch the fish and restock some of our provisions. We have decided to head for the settlement of 'Braven' and continue our journey. Over the days the coastline begins to change; mountains gives way to forest and then the forest begins to thin. When the forest is sufficiently thin we drop anchor. From here to Braven will be a day and a half in land on foot. We put the freed slaves ahore, from here who will have no trouble reaching Braven. Our next heading is for Torath Ka. During our journey we 'hit' something and we 'hit' something again? We realise that we are being attacked! Looking into the sea we learn that a giant shark is attacking us. Win casts a spell on the shark, hoping to instruct it to leave us alone. Win is successful and swims away. By the time it shakes the spell off, we are far enough away that it no longer considers us a target. The rest of our journey to Victoria is unremarkable. Once we are in Victoria, James Lowe disembarks and takes leave of our company.
Whilst we are in Victoria we buy some cargo to sell on elsewhere and depart. Our journey through Torath Ka will take close to 'The Teeth'. We decide to go and visit Tressa the Red as we pass by. We have taken the opportunity to buy some 'carroway' fruit that Tressa desired. Arriving at Tressa's hovering tower we see that everything is quiet, too quiet... We also notice that Califax the parrot is missing. Without the parrot, there is no way up. But we improvise: Rackham uses his 'zephyr' spell to lift Win up to the tower. Win looks around the castle exterior and it looks like something has happened. There were some 'scorch' marks and signs of a 'cover up'. Win ties up a rope and drops it to the rest of use and we climb up. We are unable to open the doors into the tower, looking around we spot a ledge 30 foot above us. Baxter climbs up an forces his way in. The room looks different to how it was before. There is a door here, Baxter opens it and sees a long straight corridor ahead. Baxter tries to go down the corridor, but it appears to be endless and stretches off into infinity. No matter how fast he moves Baxter cannot reach the door. After some experimentation we discover that it takes all of us going through the corridor to reach the door and go through it. We recognise the room on the other side of the door and it is unoccupied. Howver the room is filled with open books. No matter how much we try, e cannot read the text or look at the pictures. We surmise that Tressa is not here. Shia tries to write in one of the books. As she attempts this; a line of text appears in the book that we can see. It reads 'You must finish what you started.'. We believe that before her disappearance, Tressa anticipated that we would return to her tower and left the message for us. We decide to leave the tower and continue on our quest. 28th July 2019 Sunday lunchtime at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking can only mean 50 Fathoms. Location: Coaker Mountain. As we do not want to be spotted climbing the mountain: We spend the rest of the night and the next day at the cabin along with the Kieran guards. After dark we exit the cabin continue on our way. As we progress through the darkness, we hear what can only be described as a 'giant bird squawk'. Pushing on we spot another light source moving along on the mountain. Ahead we see a kraken of some sort. Thus we encounter Rackham. After some conversation we discover that Rackham is on the same quest as us. Together we continue our ascent. A little later we encounter a strange very brief rainfall lasting only a few moments. Looking up into the darkened sky we spot a massive bird. A rock to be precise; that is carrying a whale! We continue upwards. Soon we are travelling through snowy areas. We are high up now, so high in fact, that breathing has become a noticeable strain on us. Reaching ever higher, we encounter the roc's nest. After some discussion we decide to sneak past the next. Alas it is to no avail and we are spotted by the roc! Baxter - living up to his 'lucky' moniker shoot at the roc and hits it in the eye, killing it instantly! We search the nest and the remains of roc's previous hunts, this includes 3,500 pieces o' eight and some curious slippers? We also find a giant roc egg! Win decides to take it! Moving on we manage to reach the peak of Coaker mountain. By now dawn is approaching and we decide to make camp for the day. During the morning I notice 1 then 2 giant centipedes moving along. One of them homes in on me! But with some sustained gunfire (And magic!) we manage to drive it away. We decide not to tarry on the mountain Peak. When the sun has sunk low again, we begin our descent. During the night we encounter yet more Kieran guards. Because we are still wearing Kieran jackets we decide to convince them that we are another patrol. The ruse works and we are allowed to continue on our way down. On they way we encounter more Kieran guards and a guard tower. We skirt around it and push on. By dawn we have reached the beach and decide to 'hole up' for the day. During the day we notice that there are now some slaves close by. We hear them complaining to their guards about the lack of food. The Kieran empire is well known for the mistreatment of prisoners on Coaker mountain. We hatch a plan to try and convince the Kieran guard to hand the slaves over to us. Whereupon we will free them and arm them. However we realise that even armed, they would probably be recaptured. Captain Shia puts the plan into motion and a number of slaves are freed. We explain to them that we will be leaving after nightfall and they are welcome to accompany us, or they can take their own chances. During the night we make our way to the shoreline and wait for any of the freed slaves. 18 of them arrive and we board 'The Delilah'. We leave Coaker mountain, our ship is now packed with people and Aquirus is charged with caring for the freed slaves. On the first day out sailing away from Coaker mountain we spot a dinghy in the water.
Looking closer we spot something in the dinghy. Win flies on over to the dinghy. In the dinghy is a man, just barely alive. 6th July 2019. It's a Saturday afternoon at 'The Sovereigns' and finally after a short delay: Session 11 of 50 Fathoms commences. Location: Coaker Island. We landed back on Coaker island at night and barely manage to avoid a patrol. We begin our climb stealthily. During our ascent we spot a patrol of 5 Kieran soldiers who do not notice us. Quietly we follow until we have the opportunity to stealthily attack. Win stuns them with a spell and we knock them out and tie them up. Searching through their kit we pilfer 80 pieces 'o eight and some 'thick jackets' that are appropriate for the hostile climate we will soon encounter. Whilst searching through the kit, Win hears a noise behind us. Whilrling round and using on the guards' light sources, Win examines the trussed up guards but sees nothing. However, Win states that. 'she can 'sense' something in the air, in the darkness.'... We press onward and upwards and soon it starts to become dawn.
Ahead we spot a hut. Baxter sneaks up to the hut peers He spies more guards, they seem older and more relaxed than those we encountered earlier. Baxter has spotted 3 guards in total. Because of the thick jackets we acquired, we can pass as guards. So we decide to enter the hut in the guise of other guards. The guards in the hut are not too suspicious. But even so, they summon someone else into the room. Someone called 'Alan'. To be continued... |
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