Saltwater Tears Session 2

The Mediterranean breeze blew the HMS Unicorn toward Malta, as halfling thief Terry Grey, otterman thief Edward/Steven, and porcupineman sailor Zydeco met in the galley. Grey enlisted the porcupineman’s help in his search for the purser’s stolen objects.

Before they set out to question shipmates with missing belongings, Edward spotted two sails far ahead of them. Both ships sailed straight at the Unicorn.  Zydeco climbed to the crow’s nest to keep an eye on the newcomers as the Unicorn tried to signal. The porcupineman noticed boarding parties assembling on both decks. Now alert to the oncoming danger, the crew readied the Unicorn for battle. 

Zydeco remained at his station, as the other two party members stayed on deck to ward off any boarders. But no boarders reached the Unicorn due to a barrage of well aimed broadsides; the HMS Unicorn sunk one ship and crippled the other before a single projectile pierced her hull.  Captain Wolton ordered a watch to scoop up survivors of the sunken ship with lifeboats, and another watch to board the now stationary vessel and take command. 

The three adventures joined the boarding party led by the ambitious halfling, Midshipman Dylan Mellchet,   and rowed to the disabled ship. Unfriendly foreign sailors, dressed in strange Arabian clothes, gathered on deck.  Swords, maces, spears, pistols, and rifles lay at their feet. Mellchet ordered the men to search the ship for any other pirates hiding below. 

After poking into several cabins, Terry discovered a door partially hidden behind drapes and hangings. Terry and Zydeco stepped into an opulent room, covered with thick rugs and fine needlework. A woman in a strange dark cloak, which covered her entire body except her eyes, sat on a pile of fringe lined pillows. She did not speak to the men, and gave them only the shortest of glances, before following them to the upper deck. Midshipman Mellchet immediately took custody of her and sent the party back down.

Terry returned to the lavish room, hoping to loot. Confused by the rich furnishings, he took only several jars of spices and a rusty coffee pot. Deep in the lower decks of the ship, a giraffe man armed with a scimitar ambushed Edward. The otterman dodged up the steps, but his arm was impaled by the beastman’s blade.  Two of Edwards shipmates came to his aid, but one, a Rhinocerosman, was cut down. Terry and Zydeco heard his cries of pain, and ran to Edward’s aid. The porcupine man sent a quill arrow straight into the giraffe man’s throat before Terry smashed the arrow through the other side of the neck with a mop handle.  

 

The otterman and the rhinoman were brought back to the Unicorn for patching up. Finding the  surgeon too busy with the survivors from the sunken ship, Terry performed the surgery on the Rhino man himself. The halfling was unable to save one of his patient’s legs, but the rhino man was so grateful to be alive, he pledged to be Terry’s servant.