Saltwater Tears Session 5

In the Ionian sea, the convoy of East Indiamen freight ships, accompanied by the HMS Unicorn and the HMS Elminster were being approached by a fleet of Algerian pirates. Explosions shook the Unicorn as her engine room and ruder were destroyed by sabotage.

Surrounded by confusion on the main deck, halfling thief/child impersonator Terry Grey was tasked by the ship’s boatswain to find the traitorous spy Tobbins, the ships surgeon. Initially rattled by this news, Grey proceeded to check on Tobbin and asked his shipmate Horatio Bladderworth to keep an eye on the surgeon for him, before checking on the ships gun powder room for more sabotage.

Finding an explosive device set to go off, Terry grabbed it and returned to Tobbins, threatening him with the bomb. As the unmarked timing crank turned Tobbins grew more nervous but still protested his innocence till he took the device and threw it out of the porthole. The device exploded as it cleared the hole, sending shrapnel into the medical bay. Tobbins had the worst of the blast and died while telling Terry he had been blackmailed into being a double agent by a mysterious Camelman in Egypt.

Terry reported to the captain all that happened as the crew desperately tried to make the Unicorn battle ready before the fleet came within shooting distance. The captain sent for otterman thief Edward/Steven, Horatio Bladderworth,  Ama Bin Azi (the rhino man that Terry had saved earlier), and porcupineman sailor Zydeco to join him on a dangerous mission to board the fleets flag ship and cripple or destroy the vessel.

The flagship of the oncoming force did not have a steam engine, but it moved much faster than it’s spread of sails allowed. The captain deduced it must have an enslaved wind elemental. If a small party could get aboard, they might be able to free it. The elemental’s freed wrath would do the rest, but the group would have to get off the ship quickly or perish with it.

All three agreed to join the boarding party, and the ships magician, gnome mage Eric Smith, was called. He would wait for the ship to close in then levitate the small boarding party, but for now the ships magician cast the spell “Steely Skin” to give the boarding party a better chance of survival. The six sailors waited as the two fleets clashed around them. Cannons fired, bulkheads were breached and men screamed in death, as Eric Smith prepared to send the boarders across the water. The chance came as the flag ship prepared to fire a broadside on the Unicorns starboard side.  The party found themselves uncomfortably floating above the waves and set down on an unfriendly deck, full of more unfriendly pirates.

Mad flashing of steel on steel made a passageway through the swarm of foreign raiders to a hatchway leading to the gun deck. The captain, Bladderworth, and Bin Azi stayed behind to guard their escape, as the otterman, the porcupineman and the halfling disappeared below.  

The three adventures snuck around the belly of the ship, fighting of guards and a wrinkled old shaman. Terry set a hold full of slaves free, and looted a heavy bag from their keeper, which he discovered was full of gold coins when he threw its contents at the pirates chasing him.

Their search for the bound elemental ended at a door guarded by two large gorrilamen armed with spears. A deep grinding groaning swelled from behind the door. Dealing with the guards quickly, they picked the locked door open. A blast of air extinguished every torch and candle in the passageway. Inside the small room, a box of frosted glass glowed on a small ornate table. A deep voice, heard not by the party’s ears but in their heads, called to be released. Terry obliged it by shooting the box with a 6 barreled Pepperbox pistol. The box imploded, and the ship shook as the ceiling of the room crashed through the decks above. 

The bulkheads cracked and shattered, as the three adventures dove out a new gap in the side of the ship into the debris strewn waves. Terry and Zydeco clung to floating bulkheads, but Edward disappeared in the Mediterranean depths. The loss of the pirate fleet’s flagship and the few ships sunk by the Elminster drove the ragged fleet from battle, with the loss of the east indiaman Tycho, Captain Wolton, Horatio Bladderworth, and Ama Bin Azi as payment. 

In the ports of Istanbul, the story of the battle grew and the two Frigates receive a hero’s welcome. Terry Grey, Zydeco, and Eric Smith ended their court afflicted cruise, once J. Wolflington was released from the ships brig.