Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Flashpoint: Fitting The Ship

Our intrepid team of wannabe pirates and privateers realised that they hadn’t looted the woman they had handed over to the religious authorities of the small town.  Proteus became a little, well, obsessed with the idea of looting her and was willing to send his monkey in to loot her unconscious body even if it meant losing the monkey (he kind of figured he would rescue the monkey if need be but I’m still unsure on whether he really meant it). 

One rather interesting play of lines went something like:

“Are you willing to lose your monkey?” asked Lhye.

“They would have defences against familiars,” said Lavender Lil.  “Being that they might need to arrest casters occasionally.”

“My monkey’s willing to risk it.”  Proteus smiles at the monkey.  “Aren’t you?”

Monkey nods.

“Maybe your monkey just trusts you,” said Lavender Lil.

“Pshh!  Monkey knows me.”  Proteus turns to look down at the monkey.  “Do you trust me?”

Monkey nods all the more enthusiastically and then throws out its arms to hug him.  Proteus hugs him back tightly.

In the end, Proteus figured he might as well ask the paladin of Iomedae and cleric of Cayden Cailean whether they could loot the woman for their troubles.  He hops out of the boat as he isn’t a tiefling and determines to go find them.  Lhye, however, thoroughly offended that even after his good deeds he couldn’t enter the town, starts shouting at the populace to eat an abyssal dick.

Lhye is quite mature, as you can see.

Proteus is aghast at the position Lhye has put him into and has to do some quick Diplomatic footwork not to have the townsfolk turn against him.  I made Lhye roll Intimidate – not that he was trying to be Intimidating, but to see just how threatening he manages to accidentally appear.  Proteus then had to roll a Diplomacy using Lhye’s Intimidate as a DC.  Luckily, Proteus makes the DC but only just by telling everyone that he just had to leave the boat because of the demonic dick onboard. 

There are mutters that he is a ‘Rusalka’, or river witch, but no one attacks him.  They’re Taldans from a large town, not Ustalavic, and therefore they’re not nearly as superstitious about strange humanoids.

The Cayden cleric re-approaches.  “Now, now, what seems to be the trouble?”

The crowd, who are now disdainful, disperse.  Proteus and the cleric get into a conversation about travel passes.  The cleric, being from a Chaotic Good god, isn’t fussed about whether Proteus obtains one or not but states that it might be a good idea.  Proteus goes to the watch to obtain one but finds that he’ll need to provide either two character references or 400 gold pieces to waive the requirement for the references.  It is Taldor, after all.  Gold can provide a reference.

Proteus decides to pass and asks for the price of being a merchant here.  There is none.  He can travel freely within the town for about a week before requiring a travel pass – which is mostly for traversing the countryside.  This isn’t Cheliax, after all.  They don’t stymie trade with too much paperwork.

Proteus then decides to take the Cayden cleric aside and outright ask him if he might loot that unconscious girl to help pay his way now that he has separated from his old group.

“Sorry, but her property remains her own until she has been declared guilty,” said the cleric.

“And after that?” asked Proteus.

“All of her property will go to the crown,” said the cleric.

Proteus thanks him and departs to head back to the docks, saying farewells to the disgruntled locals before dropping off into the river and not re-surfacing until he gets back onto the boat.  He then starts putting the moves on Lavender Lil and manages to get a date at Augustana but is then distracted by purchasing duties.

This particular session largely focused on spending gold to outfit their two ships, the Exodus (Sloop of War stolen from the Chelish pirate) and the Egress (dark wood pinnace found on Piccolo Island when they were rescued from the Nidalese by Tritons and merfolk).  They bought short swords and leather armour for all of their sailors (100, all told).  Fancy courtier’s outfits (half price due to the amount of silk they’d stolen) for them all to make them look pirate-like.  Masterwork armour and weapons for their officers.  A gun for Wellard to start her on her way.  Lunjun Siva bought some utility spells using the ship’s wealth – like water breathing.

Finally, Proteus took Lhye and Lunjun Siva aside.  Not sure what they discussed as the three players went elsewhere.

That suited me just fine, however, as I needed Archer alone.  Archer received a summons to the admiralty and was shocked to find ‘Kitzy’, the apparent mass murderer, cheerfully talking to one of the Andoren Admirals. 

Kitzy, now going by Kitrina, thanked him for kindly giving her the chance to clear her name and produced a writ from the Iomedaean paladin stating that she had passed her trial.  She stated that she worked as a milkmaid for two weeks to gather up the funds she needed to help make her way south through Taldor from Galt.  It was a hag who had taken her appearance and butchered those people.  She stated that she recognised Archer’s accent when they spoke on the boat (when he said, “Fire” really) and thought that perhaps someone who was so dutiful about the law, and an Andoren especially, might like what she had to offer.

You see, she is a Calistrian worshipper, quite devout, and she wishes to utterly destroy her ex-boyfriend who used to work a ship for a Chelish ambassador who travelled often to Taldor.  Her ex-boyfriend got into trouble and had to flee to the Shackles to become a pirate – taking with him a wealth of sensitive information.  She wants revenge upon him for unspecified reasons and believed that selling that information to the Andoren Navy would qualify for that.  The Admiral produced a paper declaring that she had passed their battery of tests.

She returned with Archer to the ship, much to everyone’s shock.  Everyone was immediately suspicious.  Kitzy hardly recognised them but showed some level of disturbance at being confronted by Lhye (who’d been disguised last she saw him).  Then she tried to recover and offered her hand to him to shake, which just made him dislike her more.

Proteus made a comment indicating that they’d had sex and Kitzy looked at him blankly for a moment before realising dawned and she clapped a hand to her mouth, giggling.  “You?  With a Hag?”  Still chuckling, she headed into the captain’s office with Wellard.

The others then discussed the situation, still quite suspicious.  Archer provided her proofs which didn’t reduce Proteus’ suspicions at all.  Proteus was tempted to simply toss her overboard once they found out who the man was they were after, even if he had to quit the Navy to do it.

“You’re not in the Navy,” said Archer.

“What?!” said a confused Proteus.

“You never received a commission.  You’re just hired by me.”

That changed everything for Proteus.  He now had to prove that the Andoren Navy should hire him.  Suddenly the writs were all that mattered and if the Navy wanted them to do it this way then they had to do it this way.

I have got to say.  Proteus really reminds me of Porta from Sven Hassel’s novels.  That’s exactly the sort of logic that Porta would use.

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