Terra Povos: The Tainted Rose

We now attempt to catch up with The Tainted Rose and its cargo of murderers and very expensive potential gladiator.

Turns out the Alderman doesn’t have a coastguard, he has a bounty hunter. So that’s who taking us with him in pursuit of the Tainted Rose. The bounty hunter is Ugly Kevin, and his boat is the Kraken Bait. The front of our boat has railings that give partial cover. The ballista can be fired once every three rounds, or once a round if you put three people on it. His crew consists of “the heavies” and a couple of archers. Bromilda is his secret weapon; he has an Elasmosaur that he can hook up to.

The Tainted Rose has about an hour’s head start. The two boats have the same siling speed, but Bromilda can improve that for us. The Rose is a Caravel; our ship is, of course, a pinnace. He has some torture devices and a coffin for keeping captured bounties in (it has air holes). He also has magic stuff that he might be willing to sell.

We agree to split whatever treasure’s on the Rose 50/50. He’s got two Protection from Arrows scrolls, one Wind Wall. But our real plan is to use the ballista to knock out the rudder. As we’re following them, we see a couple of guys come out and dump an object into the water. About an hour after that, two more guys come out and do it again. That puts us about at the spot where they dumped the last one. We don’t see anything in the water, and neither does Bromilda. Three hours in, we’ve closed about a quarter of a mile. We consider sending Bromilda down to see what they’re dropping, but that would cost us a time and as long as the drops aren’t a threat, we don’t care.

We sleep in shifts. Once we get to the twelve hour mark, we get a better look, and it looks like they’re pouring something out of the barrel that flows into the water and sinks. It looks like they’re dumping barrels of rocks overboard. We get to hour 17, and the start lowering down a skiff with something on it covered in a big tarp. They kind of push it off from the ship. It doesn’t look like there are any people; it looks like something with a big tarp over it.

Amergin sends his owl to take a peek at the skiff. It takes about half an hour, and we’re still following the Caravel. Owl: “Looks like some big square thing with a tarp over it.”

Amergin is of the opinion that we should scuttle the skiff. Whisper asks Ugly Kevin about grapnels that could be fired by the ballista. He loves that trick! Yes, he has plenty of such items. We load up, and James does the aiming and firing. It spears the tarp and whatever’s under it and sticks, and we drag it along as we continue following the Caravel. We get to Maximum range for a ballista, and out of range for bows and crossbows. Whisper brings us in a bit closer. At 23 hours, we enter the outer edge of bow and crossbow range; we give Bromilda an hour or so to rest while we hold at this range.

The archers on the other boat are readying up. They aren’t reacting to the skiff at all. We get Ugly Kevin to offer parley.

Rose says we can negotiate if we can beat the opposing offer. How much? 3,000. Ugly Kevin is thrilled by the prospect of maybe claiming that 3,000.

We offer her the final treasure from Durest’s playground, plus half of what we find along the way. She signals back: You don’t know what we’re up against. Check the skiff first. We pull the skiff in a little closer, and Whisper goes down the rope towards the skiff. Nothing moves. There’s a big stone block with a tarp; it has a ballista bolt through it. It’s not Magma Stone; it’s just stone, but it’s been worked over real closely. Lithos detects magic, finds nothing. Whisper removes the tarp. The stone block was smooth, but it’s been hacked open to an empty space in the center; something has been removed from it. Maybe a dragon egg, maybe some other sort of magical beast.

Rose flashes back that her bargaining position is better than we thought; she has something hyper-valuable.

We signal back: we don’t care, she can keep it.

She flashes back: I don’t need to keep it but it limits my options.

Amergin: What’s your counter-offer?

She needs 10,000 GP. If we can’t supply it even after Durest’s Playground, we owe her. In exchange, we get the murderers.

Her: I can’t do that.

Us: One of the prisoners?

She says she can give us information.

Amergin: About a greater evil???

Rose: You saw what was in the skiff? I can help you apprehend them. I have information.

Lithos: Are they on your boat?

There’s a pause. Of course.

Amergin sends the owl over with a little note, but she signals him to keep the owl away.

Amergin: Drop your anchor to indicate agreement.

Rose: Information. And after you apprehend them, you owe me 10,000 GP.

Us: Okay. But it better be worth it.

Rose: How much can you pay me now?

Us: Nothing! That was our point!

We agree to all drop anchor while she thinks about it for an hour. Then she raises anchor and sails off without any further signaling.

So, fine. Aim at the rudder and fire the ballista to damage it. We take cover below the railing. The Archers on the Rose open up on the people loading the ballista. The archers shoot Uncle Baldy and one hits and manages to take him down. We drop back a little further, taking ourselves out of archery range, and get Archibald back on his feet; Amergin buffs James, who fires at the rudder again and hits. The crew of the Rose are very upset; they know what we’re doing.

James keep shooting, and hits with most of his shots. After a while, the Rose is rudderless. We’re currently closing, but we turn aside and circle, coming around the far side of the boat. We send Bromilda up from underneath the Rose, to bump it and hopefully scare the hell out of the crew.

She comes up and bumps the boat and comes back to us unscathed.

Amergin: Last chance.

Rose climbs up onto one of the crates and moons us.

James takes the shot, but misses. She scuttles out of the way.

We consider our options. After a while we circle around to the part where we have a skiff that we can build into a fire and send over there, with Bromilda to tow it from well underwater. We do. Fire comes up and grease and burning timbers coat the bow. Three of the crew fall overboard, burning and dying. Two of the crew on the foredeck escape, and the ship starts turning in a circle as Bromilda drags it around. Rose starts yelling for her people to haul the treasure out. Leaf gets hauled out too.

We begin moving in, and firing the ballista. We have four archers trained on us. Amergin drops an Obscuring Mist spell, and we turn in to engage them. Some of the sailors are trying to shoot at us, while others are trying to deal with the fire. Meanwhile, Ugly Kevin’s crew is als firing, and one of the archers in the crow’s nests of the Rose clutches his gut and falls into the water.

James is aiming the ballista at Rose, and finally hits her. The ballista bolt buries itself  in her gut and spins her around. Three archers shoot at Uncle Baldy, but miss. Lithos drops Protection from Arrow on Archibald. Ambergin casts Jump on himself.

The fire crew on the Rose is starting to get the fire under control. James fires again,  takes out another sailor, who dies. Three arrows would have hit Archibald, but he’s protected.

James fires off the last of the ballista bolts. He targets one of the lieutenants, but misses. Lithos throws Magic Missile at the lieutenant on the bow, and Pythia – who has been reloading the ballista – heals Kevin. Archibald sings to inspire courage… and also ducks behind the ballista. The archers on the Rose shoot again, but mostly miss; his protection wears down a little.

Archibald shoots at the Lieutenant in the bow, and takes him down. The guys in the stern start moving down onto the middecks, and Whisper humps across to the Rose and lands beside a sailor. He attacks and misses.

The remaining archers shoot at Archibald, but don’t damage him. The heavy makes his way across and takes a shot, taking down the Rose’s sailor. Our crossbowmen take down one of the archers. James steps across using one of Kevin’s Floating Disks and throws a spear, connecting with a sailor. He goes down.

Lithos goes across and drops Color Spray, taking out one of the lieutenants and three other sailors; they are stunned, blinded, and unconscious, and will be varying levels of that for a while. They will not live that long. Archibald shoots but misses. A sailor attack Lithose, damaging him but failing to take him down.

James attacks the sailor who attacked Lithos. Lithos moves around behind the guy, but goes fully defensive. Amergin heals Whisper. Baldy shoots the archer in the bow; Pythia heals Lithos. Whisper stabs the lieutenant…

James hits the sailor as the rest of the crew takes out more of their crew. He goes down. Lithos goes to coup-de-gras the nearest of the guys that he stunned.

The lieutenant holds up a hand. “Wait!” He drops his weapon, and motions for the others to do the same. “Rose! It’s over!”

The Duergar slipped off the boat five hours ago. The trader lady was coming to get him. The Duergar took the egg and turned himself invisible, then jumped overboard. He paid her 3,000 GP to waste our time. Brinja left after us, so if we turn back and race for it, we won’t be too far behind her. 

We commandeer the map, the treasure on the deck, and Rose’s Thorn; Archibald’ll give her the masterwork rapier as a parting gift. Baldy now has a +1 rapier. 15,000 silver in a chest; a second chest with 400 GP and a masterwork light crossbow. 2,300 silver, a potion of shield of faith +2 and treasure map and another masterwork light crossbow, 3,000 Gp in a cut purse with B.G. initialled on it – but that’s evidence and it should go back. Also, the escaped Duergar's name is Durnak.