Mayday Plays - Ashoka: Precious Cargo Ep. 11, "The Saffron Serpent"

Episode Date: June 19, 2021

Summer is coming to a close and the party is desperately sailing across the Southern sea known as The Expanse to Al-Jannah. But with a new sea comes new dangers at every corner This episode contains profanity, violence, and references to drug/alcohol use. CAST OF CHARACTERS • Aaron - Trig • Allegra - Xauti • Amanda - Snuvall • Caleb - Anchor • Eli - Dungeon Master • Zakiya - Kenny • Sergio - Rad MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS • Post Sound Supervision: Sergio Crego, Eli Hauschel • Mixed: Eli Hauschel • Original Music: Aaron A. Pabst • Soundstripe (soundstripe.com) MAYDAY ROLEPLAY LINKS • Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/) • Twitter (https://twitter.com/maydayroleplay7) • Mayday website (https://www.maydayroleplay.com/) • Patreon (patreon.com/maydayrp/) • Twitch (twitch.tv/maydayroleplay)

Oshoka Precious Cargo is a D&D actual play campaign with violent themes and adult language. Viewer discretion is advised. Aloha, Kakko friends. Happy Aloha Friday. My name is Eli and I am your Dungeon Master. I'm Erin A. Papst and I'm Trig. I'm Allegra and I'm Shodi. I'm Amanda and I'm Snavol.

I'm Caleb and I'm Anchor. I'm Sergio and I'm playing Rad the Sea Turtle. I'm Zakiya and I'm playing Kenny. Be sure to keep tabs with us on Twitch as we're bringing you amazing content every single week. We got Erin at the sheep farm. We got Erin swore an eye of the storm. We got heroes you should know about.

Be sure to come and join us at 4pm Pacific Standard Time every Friday as we're live streaming Oshoka. We'll be up into the group chat hanging out and listening alongside you. If you want to support us further, please be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon where you'll gain access to our Discord channel and amazing perks like art and music. And all of your contributions continue to help Mayday make content for you to enjoy. Be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to tell a friend.

Oh man, did you see that Jeremy? We got through this magic forest with an elephant man and a peep and tome sort of a rabbit bird person after Baron touched a rock and got sick. You know, normal kid stuff. Then I made the boat into a porcupine while Anker talked to a scary lady and I really wanted to shoot the scary lady but I had to wait. I was told to wait. But then I started blasting the lady and I definitely hitherto on the first time but

a bunch more scary guys showed up and I killed scary guys so I hatched a foolproof plan. Everyone was in a lot of trouble so I deployed a genius fix in the form of a smoke bomb delivered right into the action and I said a bunch of ball bearings greening into the smoke cloud and it worked perfectly. Everything went according to plan. Shadi came running out of the cloud with Baron and hopped onto the ship. Then Snowball came running out with Anker but she tripped and fell on something that I definitely did not put there.

Kenny messed up though. For some reason she could have got herself up and out of the cloud. Maybe she was in love with one of the bad guys or something I don't really know. So logically I had to go running in to save the day and what I can only describe as an expert tactical maneuver. I flopped onto my belly and I started crawling my way through the smoke until I found Kenny. Then I started dragging Kenny out but then I got outside and I was like you're not Kenny. So I went back in and I found her but she had started fighting me for some reason and

I said Kenny this is no time for a wrestling match. So I pulled out some rope and tied her up like a good old country hog and yanked her the safety screen and her lungs out. Then when I got out with her she was like okay Trig I've seen the air of my ways so I let her loose. I was like no ball started bleeding her guts out somewhere in there it was gross and I wanted nothing to do with it. Then there were two anchors and I was like sweet bonus but then someone killed one of

the anchors but that was okay because we still had the one. Also maybe there were some people following anchor I'm still pretty confused about that part honestly but we all flopped onto the boat and that's where we are now and that there's a totally completely accurate depiction of what happened Jeremy. So thank you for watching. I'll see you in the next video. Bye. Bye.

You guys said goodbye to Vassoul and it was about early morning when you guys depart on your ship. You chart the course that you had planned to kind of wean between some of the remaining islands that remain of the outskirts of Wall Raven before you head out to the open sea of the Gellis Sea. You're hurt. Been beaten. A little terrified some of you.

But as you guys pulled away from shore all was quiet. Anchor like the retcon to something. When you were looking at Jin's body there's two other things you noticed outside of the two rings and the spell components. One was a brand on her neck of an embellished pea and the other was a token of some kind and you can roll me a history check with that advantage to learn more about that. Well, one of them was a net one. Thank God for advantage.

An 18 total. You know the brand to be something that occurs out in Sasan. The pea represents the island of Parlis. You know the island of Parlis to be home to the arcane schools. Magic is highly sought out in the lands of Sasan and magic users are conscripted into into the ranks of the military forces no matter what. It doesn't matter if you're a citizen it doesn't matter if you're somebody that is just traveling through the land.

If you're found out to have magic you are tend to be found and sent to these places and they're always branded as such. The token looks like an eye and it looks to have insect type legs kind of wrapping around the folds of the eye. You don't know what the actual symbol represents but you do remember during your travels and serving in the Sasanian Navy that there have been rumors that other members of the military have broker deals with other gods and deities within the pantheon of Sasan and sometimes offer people to serve as patrons for those gods in a type of deal that they struck for

power or for any other means. And this token would be a symbol of that patronage. Yes. Okay I'm going to hold on to the token for sure. That would have gone in with the same pouch as the rings. Sure. It all is quiet and you guys are continuing to make your way down the beach. Is there anything you guys want to do this evening?

We're on the ocean right? Yeah you guys have left shore and you guys are traveling out. I'm kind of still riggedy-riggedy wrecked so Snowball's going to like go to that little cabin area and like just probably pass out. I got good news it's all the little cabin area now. Thanks Trig. Yeah. Erin what exactly does the tent look like?

What do we have? What do we have? What do we have? It's just like so they're just like little slant walls over the boat that form into like a little like you know geometric shape the name of which I'm struggling to remember but it has two walls angled up at 45 degrees. Rhombus? Yeah that one and that's what it looks like yeah.

I'm a theater kid and I told the engineer a smart math thing haha. There we go. Rhombus was a pretty deep pool. Oh but of course on the outside it does have a bunch of spacks attached to the walls to dissuade boarding actions. Eli how much heavier and harder to sail does this get my boat? The boat seems to be just a little bit more sluggish because there's a little bit more weight on it given that there's another structure on it but it's not that bad.

Has it hindered you that much? Okay good. I'm going to take Baran in and put her down next to Snooval and try to get her to go to sleep. Okay. Thank you. Snooval? Yes.

I'm really sorry I keep hurting you and I'll try to remember better about the sound. It's okay shorty I understand that things get very crazy during battles so I'm not upset I would like a nap though. I'm going to take out my piece of taffy that I have that comes back every time and I'm going to rip it in half and I'm going to give her half. It doesn't have any magical properties or anything but I thought you might like it. It's good. I'll give Baran the other half.

I've never had this before so. Take a bite. How chewy is this stuff? You said it's taffy? It's taffy. Yeah. So imagine like her big jaws are like just going, it's so cute. And then you're going to go like, I'm picking it out of my teeth and I'm like remember I'm

still busted up and bleeding but I don't care because I'm very happy with some candy. Thank you shorty. Good night. I'm going to call Kenny very quickly to the front of the ship if Kenny will come by. You wanted to speak to me? Yes. When I was younger my father never really knew how to tell us we did a good job or that we exceeded expectations or that we helped him in some way and so he'd ply us with gifts

and so well. And then I'll reach into the pouch and I'll take out the ring I got from Jen's body and I'll hand it out to Kenny. I want you to have this. I found it on her body. I know you like gold and things. I thought it would be appropriate. I don't understand.

I didn't do a good job. I broke even at best. I don't think I can take that. Half the reason I was able to speak to her the way I could that I could manage words is because of the conversation we had in that jungle. You did more than you can understand so I want you to have the ring. I don't know what it does but it's very pretty and I thought you would like it. Kenny's just going to look at it and then eventually after about a minute or so take

it and immediately pocket it. Thank you. I guess I'm sorry. I did try to end your life back there and you don't seem to phase by it but I need to apologize. That was not the plan. There was a moment where I thought everyone in that smoke cloud was a friend even though I knew they were coming for my life a second later.

I know these things happen and as far as I know you, I know you'd never do that to me. I trust you. Thank you. She's going to cast prayer of healing on the whole ship which means everyone gets 11 points of healing. Nice. That's helpful. I'm back to full.

I'm no longer in the single digits y'all. Welcome back. Hey, Trig, Rad, anything you guys want to do this evening? Well now that we're going I would like to finally sleep because I haven't yet. Rad feels pretty confident because they're on the other side now. They're kind of in the home stretch the way he sees it so he's feeling good but I don't know there's just still something in the pit of his stomach like it's not over yet so he's around and he's certainly interacting but he's kind of also keeping to himself.

He's trying to make sure Paunch doesn't fall over the side of the ship because she doesn't really have sea legs anymore. She's a scary wolf creature shadow mastiff so he's kind of around but he's also being like he's being quiet in an unusual way but he's still his usual pleasant self. Oh, can I actually go up to Rad? Sure. Oh, hey. Sorry.

Um, do you have any magic left? Uh, I'm going to need to take a rest but once I have a rest I'll be good. No, no, it's fine. I've mucked things up a lot today and I didn't want to use magic like you said in case I mucked things up again but I'd feel more comfortable if all of us could breathe in the water so... Well, I could do that. I didn't use that ability and I can't do that once a day so yeah, if you don't want to I'd be happy to.

Either way, I just, what do you think? I'll do it. Yeah, don't sweat it kid. Okay. You don't need to beat yourself up over it either, I mean it was a pretty crazy situation. I would have forgotten that I could cause a lot of trouble too if I were you, I just wanted help, I get it. Thank you.

Yeah, no problem. If you're too tired, I can do it for sure but... Let me do it and then I'll probably go to sleep, yeah. Okay, I'll watch first. I wanted to pull out what my spells, I have all my components, I always forget what component is required. A short reader piece of straw. Okay, yeah, so I pull out a piece of straw and cast Water Breathing on the whole group.

Ezena? I think with that, I assume Anchor's on the helm, right? Yeah. Okay. Everybody else goes to sleep and eventually we move on into the next day and you guys sleep a little bit longer but it's pushing towards noon by the time everybody fully stirs awake. Anchor, roll me a survival check.

Okay. It's at 12? Even like spending a bit of the morning looking over the maps and the charts and pacing out like the last leg of this mission and counting down the days to end the summer and you're looking at it and it's getting really tight. You have about a two day window if you'll even make it by the first day at this rate. That's great. So we're cutting it close, is that what we're hearing?

A little bit. I think we need to double time as much as we can. We're closing in on our window, folks. And I'll do anything I can in this next day to make us go faster, I guess. Yeah, if it feels like there isn't anything immediately obvious in terms of danger, like as we pass these islands, if there's nothing that appears immediately dangerous, I'll blow my spells to do water, control water so that I can bias 10 minutes at a time of some extra speed.

Okay. I mean, with that and the gust stone and stuff like that, you guys are making some pretty good time, maybe shaving down a day or so. Is there anything you guys want to do as you guys are traveling through the parts of Wall Raven before we get out to open sea? Anchor, are we good on supplies? Are we going to make it out in the open ocean? Eli, I have enough supplies to make it there at least without stopping once, right?

Yeah, I believe you guys did some little bit of resupplying on Wall Raven. Just some basic food and stuff that you could have mustered up on your travels. So I would say you have some form of food. I think we can make it as long as we stay moving through the seas. I don't think we have to stop, but we're cutting it close. If we make it by the first day, we maybe have two days. Well, I do forget that I could always catch us a big fish if we needed to. That was fun.

So I just keep barreling through. I don't see why we'd stop. I don't have any intention to. Let's try and catch some wind. Yeah. Roll me another survival check anchor if you're at the helm. Okay. Oh, that's much better, nat 20.

It seems like the winds on your guys's side as well as using both water control and the gustome, you guys are barreling through Wall Raven. You guys are kind of in like this channel so you guys can see like other residual islands that make up like the tail of the south side of this barbarian land. It's all just kind of foliage. You don't even really see anything of people or just usually empty shorelines that you guys continue to pass through. This is a pretty uninhabited part of the world.

Yeah, in terms of like buildings of civilization and stuff like that, it's more taken back to like its natural roots and more the wilds have regrown here than anywhere else. Eli, would I know when we might start seeing ships coming from Sarin at all? In terms of time period from when we are now, are we like a days out from routes or do I have any sort of knowledge as to when they've been crossing? Roll me a history check. It's been a while since you've run the route. Yeah, I have a 15.

You do know that probably once you get half a day out of Wall Raven, you'll start to hit the Galacy, which is also known by everybody who sails in the south sides of Ashoka as the expanse as there are very little islands throughout this part of it. It's usually just horizon to horizon open sea and home to both pirates and the Oda Naowen Navy run under the protection of the brawler lord of Osaway. But you're about a day, a day and a half to reaching that point from what you can tell. Gotcha. Anything anybody wants to do?

Say as we continue to travel, about two days have traveled through this channel. Now, Tricul just spent his days sitting up on the top of the new hut, the death hut, as he's taken to Kauanit. And he's just going to keep an eye on the horizon with his bows and stuff, just in case something happens. Tric, I think it's about time we got some cannons on the ship if we're truly going this route. I don't know that this thing is going to stay afloat for too long with cannons, but we can certainly try.

If any engineer can make that a possibility, I imagine it's you. What's an engineer? If any trig can make that a possibility. I don't know if there's any more of those. Certainly hope not. I can only take one, really. You know what, a lot of people say that. Well, that's good.

We need just one of you. You're ours. All right. Um, snowball. So about a couple of weeks ago, we, and she, she walks up to you with like her scrolls and she doesn't wear glasses, but her, she adjusts her mask like glasses. A couple of weeks ago, we had an agreement where at any given point, all responsibilities of the pirate healer position could be revoked by verbal consent.

And two days ago you, you died and I brought you back and you couldn't really provide verbal consent. And I just want to make sure that we are all still good. Because I did bring you back from death. And I just wanted to double check, circle back that we're all good. We're good, right? Snowballs are actually going to take a second. Really, like really think about it.

And you know, I've been reached out about being more flexible. So how about this? With your permission, would you like to get rid of the amendment? So therefore, no harm, no foul. Like forever? Yes. When it is my time, I will go. But I feel like I'm not supposed to be leaving any time soon.

But that's all right with you. That's great. Yes, that makes this. I don't want to put you in any. I didn't know. No, that means essentially that if it's void, then there's no record of me having ever messed up. So that's great.

Let's do that. Oh, that's fantastic. And she just like rips that last bit of your contract. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. I'm so sorry to bother. Um, you did a fantastic job prior and unfortunately with let's be honest, face down in the dirt and water.

Do you mind just kind of doing my braid again? Yes. You can do the same design or if you want, I can give you full creative autistic. How do you feel about buns? I mean, I never had one before, but sure, I'm open to it. I think I can work something out. And she goes around and starts to braid her hair. Small, small bun on the top.

We still have a braid at this point. We're running out of hair because the bun exists. So it's probably from like four, three, two, one instead of seven. But there you go. And you don't have to give me the gold again. That's that's. Are you sure? Yes.

No, I don't actually like use the money I make. I mostly just give it to my goddess. Like I can understand you wanting to pay homage to your patron and your deity. So yes, I respect that. No, but thank you again. I appreciate that. Of course. Thank you.

And she goes off somewhere anywhere on the ship. And she's going to very tentatively kind of touch it. But like she she's rocking something. You keep sailing. I just want to investigate that ring anchor gave me. Roll in our Kana check. Eight. Oh.

You do you do can gauge a sense that it has some type of magical property. But you don't quite know what exactly it would do. Can I put it on? Yeah, you can. When you put one of the rings on, you get this kind of light warm sensation. That's the one with the red band on it. And the white one with the pearl center, you don't feel quite anything. It feels just cool and just regular metallic.

OK, cool. Rad is futzing around with the the bottle and the decanter that he was given by Vassoul, right? By rain. Rain gave it to us. Yeah. And then all of a sudden he realizes and he runs over to Trigg and he's like, dude, I think I just came up with a great idea. And that would be.

But I'm going to need your help to engineer it or to do whatever it is you do. So I've got this bottle, right? And there's a there's an a command you can give it where it shoots a gale force wind that is like super strong. If you like figure out how to strap that to like the the the pole in the center of the ship, Rad knows this name. So there's this option that says causes a powerful combination of air and sound to escape from the opening and shake all that can hear it to the core.

All creatures within 10 feet of the bottle must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution savings row. I'm going to put it on the mast and with I don't know. Oh my god. I don't know. But you know what? So so he Rad would understand the difference. There's a second option that says draft causes a burst of air to flood the area around you. All gases vapor that doesn't do anything anyway.

God damn it. No, no, that's arcaded. OK, no, wait a minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure. If you want to do that. But I got another thing because I'm trying to think about how to make the ship go faster. I got a decanter of endless water. And one of the options is Geyser.

You produce a 30 get you produce 30 gallons of water that gushes forth into a Geyser 30 feet long and a foot wide as a bonus action. It causes damage. But that's not important because I think we just strap it to the back of the boat. It's important that it causes damage. Things can be propulsion and weaponry. All right, cool. Well, strap it to the back of the boat and that'll maybe buy us a little bit of speed.

I'll start with the air cannon and go to the water one. And I'm going to try. I don't know. I might not be able to do this. But if I have the I don't know if I necessarily have the material, I'd like to make it pivot around the mast if I could. But probably I figure I could probably just direct it out the back to start with. Before Trig runs off, Rad's going to stop and go, Trig, are you excited?

Yeah, I'm going to turn to to to the others and be like. He likes me now. The snowball is going to give a thumbs up. Rad, I think that means you've collected collected us all on us all back. Well, I mean, it's not like it wasn't deserving of a trial. We're proud of you, though. Well, you guys are important to me. I figured it's important you respect me.

You like me. Definitely one. Oh, Trig, roll me intelligence check to see if you can figure out how to do this. It doesn't feel fair. I'm giving my brain for this. I'm going to say, do we hear them talking because I can get enhanced. Yeah, oh, they've been screaming. They're like screaming back and forward at each other.

I'm going to cast Enhance Ability, the one with intelligence. It's Owls something early. Yeah, Owls. Oh, that's great. Fox is coming. Fox, though. Really? Which does what you have advantage on intelligence checks.

Oh, OK. Can I can I use my tankers tools bonus? Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's who meant. 16. Which one are you doing first?

The the air one or the water one? I'll do the air one first. OK. Yeah. I mean, it takes a good part of the day, but eventually you sort out a type of cannon that you attached with some of the leftover wood. What he does is he takes some of the leftover wood

and he takes like a knife and he carves out a little channel in it that he can put like another piece of wood into. So they'll pivot. OK. So he can direct it places. Nice. Spend all most of the day, but you're able to finally make your little air cannon.

So you have one thing you can roll again if you want to try to do the second one. If I have time. Yeah. For the rest. I mean, this is over the course of a couple of days of travel that we're going to we're we're discussing right now. So you can do it throughout this time.

So same roll. Yeah, same roll. Natural one. Oh, do I still have that? I'm going to cast it again because we need. Please do. So I do have advantage. Yes.

OK. I rolled a two. I mean, you cannot get more fitting than this. But with the bonus, that comes out to be a four. You don't know what it is. But you had an idea of like the water propulsion and putting it and attaching it to the back of the boat. But like as you try to assemble it and like test it,

it doesn't like fire like streamline enough where it would actually do any good to the boat. You keep trial and error, but you haven't found anything that works. This is going to require increased levels of development. I believe in you, dude. Trig, would you like some assistance? How could you help? Well, I feel like I can help a little bit more than you can already.

All right, let's let's see what you got. How about you tell me what your game plan is? And I will adjust accordingly. So I'm going to put it on. Well, I only have only really got wood to deal with. I don't got any metal. So I'm going to make a big lawn like rod right out of the wood I have and like mounted on the back of the boat just off of the surface

so that they can rotate like like this so it can go up and down. But then there's got to be something to make it go back and forth like this. And I can't figure out the way to make it. Do they? What you got? Keep it in mind that you only got wood. Thank you. You're quite intelligent.

Do you know how to make this thing go left to right? Kenny. Rad. Anybody. Get somebody in there to move it real quick. But then that takes the point out of it because someone's got to like hold it and hold on to the ship at the same time. Tie it like in a rudder and put the rudder and then you just can turn the rudder

and have it tied to the rudder, right? Yeah, we can have it. Latch it to the rudder. Yes. We could take an extra ore and set it back there. Because I don't think we have rudders. Do we have rudders? The ore it serves like a rudder.

So if we took an extra ore and we like rope it to the back of the ship and then have the water potion at the bottom, I guess, glued? I don't fucking know. Fused? But and then we have to have how do we cast it, by the way? Do we have to touch it? It's a command word, right? You have to use an action.

So it should probably be within reach. Okay. But you don't have to use the sharp side of the udder. You can use the dull side of the udder and then you can just tie around it. The udder or the rudder? What was I saying? I have rope. I looked through my things.

I do have rope if that helps. Yeah, I think so. A lot of it. I think that's our best idea. Do we think that it being in the water would give us more of a geyser? Or if it shots into the water? Because I was thinking underwater. And if it's subterranean, we can use a lot of things common from underwater.

Okay. And we have water breathing, so one of us can go down and make sure it's secure. We need a good command word. Cabbage. Dockard word. I don't think many of us are going to say cabbage in regular conversation. We've just said it twice, so I worry. Well, that's because we're talking.

That's because we're deciding what it is. Yes, but now that we've said that the word is cabbage, it's all I can think of. Well, don't think. Think of something else, not fruit. Well, now I'm just thinking of the boat's name, which I'm also not supposed to say. Okay. Clowns. Stick.

We can't say. Okay. Who is going down there to do the tying? I'll go. I'm going to make sure that, like, tether myself to the boat first, but I'll just dive down there while we're still going and try to tie this thing up. And I'm going to help them up top and try and get that ore tied in fast into the back of the ship. Okay.

I'm going to bring Baran over so she can watch her moms make things. That's very important to your higher creativity. Yeah, I guess pull me another intelligence check. Situate the ship. You guys are going to be hearing things. Hey, you're going to be doing that. Uh, it's, uh, so I get a, an 18. I'll get an 18.

Oh, wow. What is proficiency with Carpenter's tool do for me here? It doesn't do anything. I mean, you made the ore, so it's a pretty sweet, sturdy-ass ore. Okay. All right. That's all for me. That's, you know, a nine.

I think you got it pretty secure. You, you double knot it. I'll double check his work. Inspection. Roll an investigation. Hello, Triggs, sir. This is a knot I tied myself. The ore I made myself.

Actually, no, these are. It's an 18 or is it all 19 minus one. You do notice when he like, you'd like pull on the knot that the knot starts to kind of loosen instead of tighten on itself. I forget what the knot is called. And it's not the right knot. You use this kind of knot. You want to use this kind of knot.

Oh, well, I was thinking of using that kind of knot, but I use this kind of knot. What about this kind of knot? Let's try that kind of knot. Okay, perfect. Well, this was Rad's idea. I think Rad should be the first to test it. Rad, whenever you're ready, say, don't, oh, I almost said it just now.

You know what to say. All right. Do I get to say it or do I get to do it? I think you should say it to do it, right? Oh, okay. But someone's got a steer and someone has someone has to steer at the bottom and at the top. That's how we find it. Wait, I thought we had a bit of at the top.

One person has to pop the cork and say the command word. I have to go down there and say Geyser. Rad, I'm going to tell you to the boat or to me and to the boat. You don't need to. I got to swim speed. Oh, but what if we're faster than you? I think we're probably going to be. Yeah, okay.

All right. That's a good idea. I'm going to loop it over part of the boat and then tie it to my waist. You should take your surfboard, too, just in case we're too fast. And then you can surf back to us with the rope. Do you know what it's like to try to swim underwater with a surfboard? I have no idea. I've never done it before.

All right. Here I go. I'm going to jump in the water. I just swim up to the thing. I'm going to like hold onto the paddle and like put my feet on the bottom side of the boat because I know as soon as I pull the thing, it's going to go fast. Yeah. Okay.

So I'll pull it and underwater go. Say that. And all of a sudden that jet stream of water and it pushes you and it eats him. All right. Nobody's steering. I'll run up and grab the top wheel. Now it pivots back and forth at the top. Whoever's going to attempt to grab the oar to control it because you start to see it move.

I'll get the five and I'm going up top. I just rolled though. I was going to say I didn't realize. I got a 24. Hey, shit. Okay. Yeah. Trick, you try to run after it and in the process you trip and then you have like right in front of it.

But like as you look up, you see Snavol has nibbly grabbed onto it and secured it before it folded underneath the ship with with rad and attached. I'll just grab the bar of like the steering wheel or whatever. However I set it up and I'm just going to hold on for dear laugh while I'm whipping around with the wheel. Rad for like a second you feel the oar like move really quickly like towards underneath the boat. But then it like stops. And then you pause for a second. It seems that somebody's holding onto it.

But yeah, you guys are moving forward. What is the speed again on that 30 feet? Nothing. It's 30 gallons of water that gushes forward. 30 feet, it literally only lasts around so after six seconds it just ends. How many times can we cast it? Can you just ump it like once a day? Water stops pouring at the start of your next turn.

It doesn't really say when you can do it. Oh we just fucking spam it then. Yeah, I would spam it if I could. But I don't know. That we have to have one person steering on the top deck and on the bottom deck and then we have to have another guy just going gazzer, gazzer, gazzer, gazzer. It takes three people to make this boat go. I mean the spell, the item itself doesn't say anything about

like when it runs out so I could effectively keep doing it. We won D&D. D&D is over. One thing this campaign, Genetsy Coming, was massive infinite geyser. So for like an hour a day I'll go under water and just do it every six seconds. Geyser two. Beautiful. How long are you guys going to do this?

I think we'd eventually within a day realize it's a terrible idea to do it. I do think we should get like a little bump. It's how we're like flying overhead of the island. We're just going to drop one up the sky and keep going. At a certain point, Rad is going to realize this is a terrible idea and under water he's just going to cast control water and pretend. But really he's just propelling the boat under the water. It did.

Yeah. It was sputtering for a while but eventually it seemed to smooth out for some reason and everybody's like oh okay we got it. We got the like a rhythm. Oh maybe it was just delayed. I think it was a delay. I think he's got it under control now. I think it takes a bit to get a hang of it.

Yeah. Trig, that was a, you did a great job. Oh Trig's gone. I'm not surprised we lost Trig somewhere. He flew off. At least he can breathe under water. I will say with your collective efforts. Between the gust stone and the control water and the geyser paddle.

You guys are eventually, you make up like I would say two days of travel through a race. As you guys eventually reach out to the expanse. She's a benevolent god. If I know. She's under water. I will say with your collective efforts. Between the gust stone and the control water and the geyser paddle.

You guys are eventually, you make up like I would say two days of travel through a race. As you guys eventually reach out to the expanse. She's a benevolent god. If I know we're heading into the galaxy in the expanse. I'm definitely going to bring Rad up and make sure everyone's on their toes. Because fuck this place. No place, no good place was ever named the expanse.

So forget this shit. But as you guys leave the last remaining island of the last tip of Wallraven. Look out to just see endless sea. It's about the new niche. So it's like hard sunshine beating down on a horizon of open ocean. Pull me a survival check anchor. Sure. Not bad 17.

It's pretty smooth sailing as you guys enter into into the open waters. It's fairly hot. It's starting to feel like the muggier part of the summer. As that sun is just kind of beating down on you. And you go about that for the next several hours. For the most part you guys just keep looking out. It's just just nothing. Just no no islands.

Just open sky. Open sea. I don't think I've ever seen an open sea like this. Like you always see at least one island. It's kind of freaky. It's been an urban. I mean no islands means not big waves you know. Well where I grew up there were a lot of ghost stories about this area.

About the things that happen out here so. Like what? Oh just ships going missing pirates. Tales of adventure. Lost treasure underneath the seas. The same things every sailor will tell you about the lost parts of the map. But usually every fake ghost story is predicated on a true robbing or killing or maiming or kidnapping.

So we should be wary. Rad is immediately going to go and gossip with the other crew and be like dude I think tonight there's going to be a ghost ship that comes by. Why would you put that out there? Because anchor said there was. I'm not superstitious. Are you a little stacious? Just a little yeah a little bit.

I think we just take extra precaution tonight you know everyone take a watch. And if you see it let me know because I want to go swim up to it. Darling I will embrace a lot. But even I'm like do we really want to approach any ghost ships? There aren't any ghost ships. I've been a ghost ship out here before. It's just clever pirates most of the time. You've been a ghost ship.

Or the people did. I've been on a pirate ship that has taken another pirate ship quickly and efficiently in the expanse. I've not actually been a ghost ship. Okay so like what do we need to look out for? Are they like glowing? Do they are they like hidden in a fog? Like I mean it depends on the people on the ship I guess. We were glowing because I'm very talented.

If you if you're worried about ghost ships you have to be worried about their favorite kind of tea Rad. What's that? Boo tea. Hi. You got Amanda. He asked Water Walk and I'm walking home. It's so fucking storm cloud show up in the sky.

Rest it's all. This all makes psychic damage. Just tell me if you see it Rad. It's very important. I like yeah. Did you did you understand it when I said it? Yeah I mean at first I thought you meant like their butts but now I get what you mean. Good.

Like they're gold. Yes yes it could have a double meaning. That's why I want to go up to a ship because if they got like gold on it it's like cursed gold that'd be cool to have. What if they just have butts? Well I mean I do like big butts I can't lie about that. Hey. I'm so confused right now.

It's best you don't get that on your photo Trig. Trig this probably scares you more than anything if there really are ghosts out here it's the one thing you can't shoot. No I can shoot them. You can shoot ghosts. Yeah well that'd be the first time. Wouldn't it be the first time? All right if everyone's got ghost stories and I want to hear some ghost stories.

We're going to spend the rest of the trip. We're going to get the stories. You spend the rest of the day telling each other, swapping ghost stories. I've made a lot of ghosts. I think that Anchor tells some maybe stories that are not ghost related but very violent and he desperately desperately tries to shield the violence from Iran. Oh yeah Shodi's got Vermont's ears covered. And they cut off all of their hair the haircuts they gave them haircuts.

Terrible haircuts. Punch but Baram can't understand what you're saying. Oh very true in that case they were all decapitated. She couldn't get the subtext the subconscious by it. Very grim very disturbing. I'm not one for subtext to be honest with you I always thought efficient writing is best. We must admit I've never really encountered ghosts but I have been a part of a lot of violence and massacres and I will say it's been very interesting observing how death collects

a whole bunch of people. It's not as scary when you actually study it. Snooval you're you're a servant of death as you said before. Why take so many lives in one fell swoop. Think of it this way I don't do different words for it but I think the most common like like a reaper it's from the other side and the best way to describe it is they just go on a big mass of collecting binge and then they just they're gone. I don't decide that I occasionally I will get heavy instructions to either help

or stand back and let it happen naturally. Do you ever wonder about the people you have to take or anyone that gets called up has there ever been someone you didn't want to see go? There have been many that I didn't want to see go but the best way I can think about it is when it is their time it is not my decision does that make sense. So the best way I could say it is sometimes I try to do be comforting if I can but sometimes it's so quick I have no choice in the matter but it's not my decision I'm just a conduit on this plane.

That's the best way I can think about it. Anyone else have any ghost stories? I mean this one time I was kind of going under water where there's a bunch of crash ships and I'm pretty sure I found a um a sea witches cave. Yeah I didn't go in I didn't mess around with that but it's pretty sure I got the vibe. If you didn't go into sea witches cave why would you want to go to a ghost ship? Well I feel like ghosts are not that big of a deal. Well compared to a witch.

That's fair I suppose. I've heard stories of well people who claim they've seen spirits losing years off their life. I'm not dying completely but we had a sailor come back when I was young claiming that he was well a young private that had gone out with a regiment only he couldn't have been as it had only been a year since he'd been stationed but the man came back maybe 30 years older. Oh that's hard. Wow well that's just time dilation. What the hell is time dilation?

Sorry. What? Why are you saying what? We're saying what? No I'm just as confused as you are what? Oh anyway we thought it was identity theft at the time. I was there I thought it was actually him. I don't know how do you verify anyone is who they tell you they are.

I don't know that all of you are who you are I just trust you. People forget to disguise the backs of their teeth if you can open their jaw enough and see. It's usually remember that. Oh what? That's like the weirdest thing I've ever heard you say Jenny. That was chilling. It's just disguise spells are often really inconvenient when you're trying to bring someone back to life because you can't see what's really there but if you just open their mouth

there's no reason to disguise the back of your teeth they pretty much stay the same. Kenny can I ask did they teach you this so that you could find people who disguised or so that you could disguise yourself? Neither. Well I have no interest in disguising myself but I guess it's easier to find people and but they usually would come to me for that. The next time we think someone's disguised we got to tackle them and we got to check the back of their mouth or making a note of this.

But if we don't know what their teeth looked like before what difference does it make? I mean if it looks different like if their teeth are all crooked and then the the illusion they're all nice and straight you know what I mean? I mean if we open Rad's mouth and my teeth were there I think he would all be like I mean we should have done it on Jin but you know the trouble was the lack of a face. She was faceless wasn't she? Yeah that was terrible. Talk about freaky things yeah.

She was our ghost story I think. We have a ghost story. True. Is that what they do to all the like magic users on the sissy and magic users? To be honest I don't have as much knowledge with them as I like to but I've never seen it before. I think she was special. So do you? I don't think they do.

From my experience at least I haven't seen it. She was from the Arcane Island though so it could make sense that's where she came from. She was branded as such. You know what? She was branded also with what looks like a I don't know like a symbol of like a patron right? Like maybe that's what she gave away her face. Yeah and I think Anker will take out that coin again.

I just I can't discern what sort of a patron this is and I enclosed by what looks like spider's legs. Rad is going to try to take that coin and see if he can fit it in his empty eye socket. Double warlock. He's going to go double fucking warlock right now. Oh my god that actually made my spine tingle. Did he get it like Mr Monopoly style? Like just like a little fleshy bit that's like extending over the edges. Stop no.

Yeah I think Anker sort of like rushes until he realizes it's already done with Rad fucking Mr Monopoly at him. I turned them all around so she's looking somewhere else. Even I'm disturbed by that one. You're going to keep it like that? No I mean put it like that and like make everyone laugh or be grossed out by it and then eventually it's uncomfortable enough that I'll just pop it out and give it back to them. I'm still looking for something to you know replace my missing eye.

Yeah. Oh I have an eye. Oh that was a weird eye hurt at that time. In conjunction with the teeth thing this is upsetting. What do you mean you have an eye? I have an eye and I'll take out the the cat's eye that like looks around. It's I don't have any use for it. I just thought it was cool.

I picked it up off of someone that didn't respect it. It's literally just like a like a round eyeball that's a cat's eye. But it's it's moving though so it's like oh yeah he's gonna definitely try to pop that in. Do you want to clean before you put that in? Just I don't know dip it in the water. Yeah I'll dip it in the salt water real quick. Don't do that that takes all the luck away. I will give you the details of that eye.

It does more than just V and I? It looks at specific shit. That's kind of cool. It looks at powerful things so essentially I don't know if it's the most powerful thing but it's attracted to that so if my if it's in your eye it might sort of let you pilot it but if it sees powerful shit it's like. So what you're telling me Kenny is that it creates a form of augmented reality. Well it looks at things but I wouldn't be able to see through it.

Yeah we'd be able to tell what it's looking at. Yeah like as Rad pops it in eventually the eye kind of like whirls around for a second and then it kind of like darts kind of around for a second at different people and then eventually locks down at Barron. Is it working? We have a Barron tracker. Can you feel it moving around in your eye hole? Oh we have a Barron tracker.

Not really it's kind of like it's in its own thing you know just kind of fits in there but it looks good. Can you like can you can you make yourself feel it there? No. There goes the Barronus. Yeah I'll flip it your way. I guess it doesn't have to be a god just. 18.

Oh yeah that's exactly what I want. Nice all right. So do any of you have an idea of what that god might be and he's sort of playing with the token in his hand? Oh can I check the what's going on with that? You can roll a religion check. Yeah I'll flip it your way. I guess it doesn't have to be a god just.

18. You take the the coin and you kind of like thumb over it you've seen it before you've you've met many people of all kinds of like worship all types of gods all types of people come your way you've seen people carry this you don't know the name of the god the god 's name is a mystery to you but you've heard rumors of a god that steals faces or is attracted to stealing faces of of other creatures you know live somewhere deep within some part of Cissan somewhere north. All right well that belongs to the face stealer so it explains a lot honestly.

Yes I mean I feel like say be careful it's just sort of redundant at this point but I mean be careful. Yes. Starting to trail into the evening it's still kind of dusky it's orange and purples and pinks kind of scatter the sky um two people roll me perception checks. Yeah I'll roll. I'll roll too. I got a 13.

12. As you guys just kind of look out keep assessing danger it doesn't seem anything troubling but rather both of you kind of see in the horizons just like fog starting to billow into the distance towards where you're heading. Does it seem like there's realistically a way around it or to avoid it? Um not really it seems to kind of starting to pull and stretch across across the way. I'll probably like once my shift is over let everybody know that there seems like there's a storm coming.

How concerned do you think we should be? I don't know I mean I can't sense uh Hamukepa anymore so I don't know if it's him or not. Let's hope not. We've made it through we'll keep making it through. Exactly. Keep going then. Yeah keep going. So just to get into the evening and as you guys have continued to sail on eventually you've

kind of met the the trail end of this fog and you're starting to pass through it and it's difficult. Yeah sure uh you can go down there roll a perception check see what you see. Nine. As you dive into the water once you like look down you realize that there isn't much of flora or fauna like you're accustomed to like sailing through the rokewood. It's just a vast open ocean and eventually like it's dark blue that's of just eventually trails into pitch darkness and especially since now that night is settling in it's just starting

to get darker and darker and you don't see much of anything. Yeah it's probably deeper than Rad has ever seen so he gets kind of freaked out and gets back to the top of the ship. It's quiet. Somebody else for only perception checks as the night goes on. You guys are all staying up together. I'll do one. It's a dirty 15.

15 dirty 20. Yeah as you guys are sailing across quietly Trig you're just kind of looking out and you just see mist and fog and nothing much but eventually you kind of hear this boom and then like further than the distance you just see like a small crackle of fire and eventually as you kind of like turn your head you realize that you hear something kind of screeching forward. Fuck. Over the ship and then onto the other side is just a giant splash that kind of walks the ship back and forward.

Kenny when you hear that that like that ring and the sound of the cannon fire and stuff like that sounds oddly familiar like you've heard this type of cannon fire before. Everybody up. Eventually there's another crack of fire and you hear another screeching. Do we try to outrun them? What do we do? Guys are guys are guys are guys are guys are. Eli does it feel like this bombardment is for us?

Is it that close or does it seem like they're shooting over us? As the second one crashes closer to you guys this time wrapping you from the other side it looks like it's attended the target you as you look further as you start to see something fairly large pushing through the fog and making it. Guys are guys are guys are guys are. Eli does it feel like this bombardment is for us? Is it that close or does it seem like they're shooting over us? As the second one crashes closer to you guys this time rocking you from the other side

it looks like it's attended the target you as you look further as you start to see something fairly large pushing through the fog and making its way towards you. Can I make an assessment of whether I think I can outrun whatever ship this is whether I think it's faster than us now that it's already in bombardment range? Could any of you make me invisible? 21 21. As you kind of like see both of those hard splashes in the water you look out and you start to make out the ship you notice that it is a fairly large galley in size ship

and it's definitely much larger and has a much faster speed than yours. Can anyone make me fly? I mean it depends on how specifically you mean. Can we air cannon you? What? Can we air cannon you? Stand in front of the air cannon. No I shoot you.

Guy? I think I'm too heavy for that. Yeah I don't know about the weight. Guys I want you to understand this I don't think we can outrun them. What about if Rob does his water thing and push us could that help? It would help but I don't think enough. I mean I could cast major image and make us look like something or maybe as they get closer I make it look like a Hamukepa's showing up or something.

Can anyone get another perception? That was for who? Kenny. Jeez. Either way we're about to kill us a pirate ship. I'm loading you all in the backpack. That's a fire. Sure too would you like me to hold the run just in case?

Yes please. Here I'll give you the mine too. I will put the backpack on. Motor in. You don't see much Kenny but the thought is still kind of in the back of your head. It's like I've heard these cannons before. Kenny I don't remember the flags we call for parlay. Is there something we can do here?

You can always do that. I mean you should always be able to do that but we should try. Kenny's going to try to do that. Are these pirates or is it the navy? This is pretty sure it's pirates. Okay. Pirates fans come on look at that. I'm going to pirates.

I'm pulling my hood up and putting the mask across my face. So you guys are staying put? No we've got to get we've got to maneuver in closer. We should keep going. We should keep going okay. We're not going to let them let's just go in and take them out. I think I have a way to stop them if if but the problem is a racks. In addition it's a lot closer.

Roll me an athletics track to see if you can dodge her. Rad if I can get us on there if we can surrender maybe they'll take us up there and and you can get them before they take the ship. Oh fuck yeah 26. Yeah easy enough you you do a hard turn and another What are you guys doing? It's getting closer. Okay so so doing something like a crazy storm or something where they just can't see us.

Yeah with the shot. Do it okay. All right I'm casting hallucinatory terrain. It's going to last 24 hours but the problem is is that it's only so big so in 150 foot cube which is still really big I'm going to create like a just what looks like a horrible storm okay that is really dark foggy rainy just it would be in any normal circumstance very difficult to see through if they do go into it they can make investigation checks to figure out whether it's real or not DC's my DC which is 13 no 15.

About 30 feet out from our boat can I make the image of a person that looks like they're conjuring this hallucinatory terrain that looks like super powerful and like the center of where they're like where the where it's coming from to like try and help make it look like we're more powerful than we are. Don't you dare tell me it's wrong. No it was a three it was a three we're fine. We might have a one might have helped honestly honestly okay we need to make a decision. Are we piloting away or are we piloting towards them?

We're not going to outrun them go around then. So so listen here's my plan I got to get to the very top of their mass I got to get as high as possible and then I rain hell on them okay. Okay we'll try and distract everyone on top. Maybe I jump off the ship and climb up like the opposite side that you're being. I think that's good maybe you should dive into the water will the terrain follow you or can it pay with us? The terrain is basically following us.

I like that then because then if you come from the other side we can distract them on the other I'm thinking maybe we act like we're putting Baran as you know no. All I'm going to do is I'm going to slow down their ship so the moment that I act it's time to get back on our ship and just get out of here okay. So we pretend to surrender then. Yes right no don't actually put Baran on the roof put Baran deep inside the death cabin. No she's in my backpack I'm not going to let her out anymore. Do we have anything else to bargain with?

They have no reason to keep us alive. It doesn't have to actually be Baran up. I have three pieces of gold do you think they'll like that? I think that's enough I mean give them the decanter and the orb of air. If they're the navy I might have something for them. Can I make another perception check? Yeah 18. As everybody's kind of discussing like the plots and stuff like that and you're moving

towards and you just kind of keep staring out at that ship that even though this storm and this image of the conjurer someone conjuring up this storm is kind of attracting them and the boats kind of turning about you hear like there's a familiar bell that's ringing on the on the helm of the ship and you recognize the sound of that bell before it's a bell of a ship you've been on before it reminds you of somebody you know. Are you all right Kenny? A dude in a not a friend though right? Yeah a friend someone you've you've worked under before.

Oh yes no all of this should well not all of it should stop but we should definitely get as close as we can. Rad I'm gonna go with you. You're gonna swim with me underwater? I will try I you're going on board right? I'm gonna I'm gonna try to sneak on board yeah. Then yes yes I'm going. Okay okay all right cool okay the rest of us should find white sails anything I have in here that's white we should start flashing colors as soon as they can see us.

So Rad and Kenny are gonna jump in the water and head towards the ship? Once we're like within swimming distance yes. Okay yeah you guys continue forward in the storm the ship's kind of turning about because they're they're trying to figure out whether or not to go through this storm and they they haven't made quite a decision so you're able to kind of gain speed but eventually when you kind of get into swimming distance um I'm gonna I'm gonna take Kenny by the hand like hold her hand and just we're gonna jump in together and using my swimming speed kind of like helping guide us towards the boat.

You definitely help Kenny along to to swim a bit faster as you guys kind of dive underneath the ship and kind of get towards the the opposite side of it and you guys kind of pop your head up and you're just looking uh roll me perception checks to see if you can find a ladder or some way to get up on top of the ship. Now I can climb so I mean like I have claws and I feel like I have this pretty decent athletics okay uh but my athletics is uh a dirty 20. Okay yeah it's easy enough for you you you find some holdings in the grooves of the the sides of the ship and you start scrambling it.

I'll help Kenny the best I can. Athletics is a 15. With uh Rad helping you um you both are are slowly climbing up the side of the ship. And and we'll kind of wait until we have the sense that the boat is distracted by our teammates like if we hear them calling out and attempting to board the ship you know what I mean yeah before we get to the top I'm going to say uh I'm going to cover you so just keep going. Okay okay great um is there any way you can make me sneaky or quiet or invisible uh sneaky. Yeah yeah it just just helped me be as sneaky as possible.

Okay quick uh quick enhanceability um what's the next cat's grace yeah so what do I get advantage on dex checks uh and it you don't take damage from falling 20 feet or less. Oh that's good because I'm going to be falling. Yeah yeah it just just helped me be as sneaky as possible. Okay quick uh quick enhanceability um what's the next cat's grace I think cat's grace yeah so what do I get advantage on dex checks uh and it you don't take damage from falling 20 feet or less. Oh that's good because I'm going to be falling.

Okay cool as soon as we get to the top uh Kenny's casting light uh on her hands in her face to look like she's flaming on but she's not. But those are like our actions that we're holding right before we jump over because our priority is waiting until as much of the ship as possible is distracted. Yeah so yeah you guys are peeking over the edge just trying to wait until there's a signal of time to do it. What is everybody else doing as you guys are continuing to move forward towards the ship. I'm not going to go up top because I'm going to start shooting people so I'm just going to hang out here and inside the death cabin and wait for somebody to say shoot.

I'm going to take some white fabric I hopefully have on board at hand or something you know rip up an extra fabric anything here take my shirt oh all right well are you sure I think I have so I take a trick shirt and I tie it I rip it up first and then as many arrows as I can fit with the white fabric I'll start shooting them with my longbow into the air uh just you know vertically enough not that they're going to shoot at the what's what's up um I was gonna say I'll I was gonna say I'll do the same thing with my with my bow too and like I'll end up little surrender arrows and you kind of hear that bell going off again as members of the crew rad and Kenny you see your store kind of going to the opposite side of the ship to kind of take

in what this this boat is. The moment it seems like everyone's distracted as many people as possible rad is going to jump over the side he's going to look to see whatever the tallest mast is and he's going to attempt to climb that mast cool roll me a stealth check okay and I have advantage right because of this uh enhanceability yes great so in with advantage it's a 17 17 yeah you you kind of slink over um pulling your even your your heavy shell over and you manage to just land quietly it seems everybody's kind of preoccupied as you kind of just crouch a little bit and you just slowly casually walk to what looks to be like the tallest mast in the center of the ship. I'll just for no reason dramatically do a barrel roll

and then I'm just going to start scurrying up it as fast as I can okay um can I see the a familiar face on the ship or the most familiar face on the ship? Roll a perception check okay 22 yeah cool the first thing you do is as you kind of look up um you notice the the flag that's being flown over the ship has a orangey like saffron color serpent as its flag and as you look over peeking up higher bringing your whole head over the first person you notice immediately standing at the helm is a half elf man and you recognize him as a man named Bede Reed he's the captain of the saffron serpent uh he's a pirate captain that has commissioned you on

several different missions um in the past and has come to you often for aid for medical treatment when they're in port at sarin. Seeing that Rad is on his way up uh she's going to go over and call out to him um you're being very disrespectful uh carlay hello hi he like he turns around and like he just like catches his big smile and and he turns to you and he's just like well looky here boys and like parts of the crew starts turning around if it isn't the golden angel of the south seas and everybody kind of turns around and he kind of walks up to you and he kind of like claps your shoulder spent a been a long time seeing you kenny it's been too long do you want

to get your cannons back sure i mean we're not firing anymore they've been firing white flags left and right we were just gonna board them i didn't know you were traveling yes i need the money so what exactly are you doing here um other than ghost riding well we saw a ship in the distance uh you know easy pickings we're just seeing what we got i can respect that uh but what are you doing what are you doing so far south where are you heading we've just been given some very specific cargo that needs to get uh a little bit further south than where we are now it's a small job but they need some time just sort of not be on a pirate ship for a while well good luck with that how long have you been away from the south have you heard

about what's been going on i mean did something specific happen i don't think i don't think so um maybe there's a couple things we should discuss uh before you move on red you're climbing up the mast um and you notice there's a there's a crow's nest at the top of that mass um roll me a perception check anything uh a nine okay yeah so you're you're you're you're climbing up and uh you get to the bottom of the of the crow's nest and you stick your head through the the the crow's nest to try to like see what's up um at first you just see nothing but as you kind of like spin around eventually you make eye contact with like this large black beak and these like yellowish eyes

and all of a sudden this like little kanku just like starts like squawking this like alarm in your face i'm gonna try to like cover his mouth i'd say this is going real well oh god uh six oh six oh no okay you you you first like grab his beak bite with both hands to try to shred him up but he he starts like flapping furiously around and like shaking your hands back and forth you're trying to balance on the mass and and like feel but eventually he lets go and he starts squawking again and you manage to like close it close it again but it's making this kind of a sound i i can do it once a day for free i'm gonna cast slow on him okay i got one minute to think i'm gonna look over the side and does it seem like

like like rat is realizing what he's about to try to pull off might destroy a totally innocent man's livelihood so he's just trying to gauge like how violent they're being um i mean you you look down and you see that like what you can um actually roll me a percent to check as you get your bearings up there as you um as you're talking to bet a eventually like underneath like he he kind of his eyes kind of like flick up to the direction of that that alarm that just kind of stifles and then like under the back of the collar of his coat something like slithers out around you know bet a has a companion um which is a uh a flying banana eel wait what you're gonna have to start being way more specific right now you don't know what a

banana eel is i don't know what a banana eel is they're as cute as they fucking get like but uh like you see you see it is kind of like it was like kind of half coiled around his neck kind of like a like a loose scarf but eventually kind of slithers around it it's got a yellowish body with like these brown speckles around it that kind of resembles the the the backside of the banana peel but it's a small looking serpent and it's got these little tiny wings attached to its back um and eventually it kind of uncoils itself around bet a like up to its to the top of his hat um and bet a kind of like looks up towards the direction of the of the mast and eventually the the banana eel starts taking flight and it starts slithering its way up towards the the

mass where that noise was coming from yeah rad you're looking down and you just see a lot of people looks like almost like they're surrounding kenny and one person kind of in front of them talking to kenny it seems aggressive from what you're looking being so far away but that's as much as you can tell erin what did you want to do oh back on the ship i hear the squawk and i'm like that's gonna be a signal guys it's time to go uh trig trig trig no you're gonna have to grab me i'm gonna grab him and i'm gonna hold him like i did like a log so i'm gonna give him a pressure so he can calm down like a heavy blanket well i didn't take long uh are you not gonna fight a you're not gonna fight her on it no i'm a puppy she picks me up and i just go limp okay yeah he

trig is burning out and you just grab him and he stops she's got both children some of the crew members are starting to kind of send these like grapples out towards the ship to kind of try to tow it closer while the rest of them are looking at kenny and and bed a talk you're gonna have to call this off i mean if we're if we're talking we can just we'll just come willingly we don't have to do this oh i mean sure i mean i'm i didn't know i was attacking a friend so i've signed the contracts kenny i know what you're all about would you like us to help your crew up or how would you like to do this you know i'm gonna i'm gonna check in with them really quick and we're gonna figure that out and she's gonna turn around and um and yell audibly it's my friend you guys can it's my friend

yeah you see kenny over like waving trying to tell you i'll let you as you guys are being slowly towed into the closer to the ship you want to let's make them think that boron and snowball aren't with us and they're just and we're the rest of us are you on a board she's holding my name is anchor of the order of ballast and i demand parley as the ladders slowly rolls down this is the ghost the ghost ship that i was telling you about this is the ghost ship oh it just it just worked out real well didn't it this is the ghost that i was talking to you about i want to kill pirates okay well that's that's what i'm gonna leave on this this ship and we're gonna just take some chilled time beat my friend eat some food keep going but is he a pirate he's a pirate that means

he's a bad person i'm technically a pirate i don't know how the process is you guys are being helps up are you uh are you keeping boron in the backpack i'm keeping boron in the backpack and trig in my arm so i don't know if i have one and i do have a pretty good jump you're giving to me i can carry you can carry him i can't carry him i'll throw him over my shoulder this is galen increasingly strange for me oh i was yeah i'm gonna keep their keep their hood up over their hair and their mask over their face but they'll like firemen's carry uh trigger fill out oh god whatever okay all right so before the before the minutes up i've i've heard um kenny say something so rad is going to give his position away and he's going to say to kenny i'm staying up here until

you get okay like everything's totally okay as you as you say that like into your peripherals is this banana banana the kind of like starts to like spin around you like rapidly i have a net on my shell though i'm gonna try to throw a net over it and catch it um let it be known that he started it not me uh that the 16 okay so it's just it's restrained until it can break free yeah in the air in midair you're like holding on to it it's moving it's like kind of yeah like i'll grab it and swoop it into the crow's nest if i can okay yeah you do can bet he see this everybody chill yeah i bet he sees that he heard that you'll have to excuse my associate uh we didn't we didn't know who you were either it's totally cool like totally cool rad you can come down

i could destroy this ship i'm not coming down until you tell me a hundred percent it's cool yeah what are you saying a hundred percent it's cool rad but they're pirates i it's fine it's fine i don't think we have any moral high ground here just saying well let's know that we're totally giving up the one way we could have absolutely destroyed the ship well you did that by speaking so thank you i'll start climbing down thank you for your sacrifice are you are you letting go the banana yield oh no no i'll let the banana eel up there and i'll and i'll drop the uh the slow but the banana eel's got to make his own way ancient proper i'm rad is actually really pissed that he did not get to chance to destroy the ship

because he knows it would have immortalized him in front of his friends so he's really strong so you have to come down the mass and like there's only one way you can climb down you're like looking up as you're walking down and you you uncast slow and the kanku just like is eyeing you angrily i'll throw my raspberry and just keep going it's making like sword noises and like grunts and like being stabbed and he's just very like furling out it's like neck very angry at you but you climb down eventually i'll come down and just fold my arms wait for the par lady um the rest of you eventually like shoddy throws trig over onto the the boat as the rest of you climb aboard uh the saffron serpent yes so this is our captain

anchor dad captain dad captain this is our other captain sort of still rad um this is trig this is shoddy this is snowball and this is the crew why don't the rest of us get titles do you want titles yeah trig you're our engineer oh i still haven't explained what that does you're uh you're our trig i mean that's as much title as we have i'm the trig trig this is our trig trig yes i think that's we're on our way to like a totally secret island are you gonna let us go are you gonna hold us cat he kind of leans in secret island yeah yeah we have some precious cargo and we can totally kill you if we wanted to but we're kind of like barlain to be nice great tell the pirates about the precious cargo so i guess you don't want the information i know about what's

going on in the sea do you want the information we would love anything that you can give us we just want to make it painfully obvious that we have no intention of backing down on what we have so you can either be a part of us or against us and let me tell you everyone who has been against us is either no longer living or soon to be dead i look at them with crazy eyes i'm gonna keep trig within my arms reach so i can just like cover his face with my gigantic hand i i am a member of the order of the ballast and i know that that means something out here on the seas and you'll know that that makes me a kind and honest negotiator and i have no intention of hurting you if you have no intention of hurting us ditto and like kind of strokes his beard for a moment and he's like

well i am under the the guys of the the golden lady i've signed the contracts so i know what i must do and honor those agreements i've heard when one does not you can ask the rum brothers where their ship lies right kenny yes you can anyways you can come into my quarters and we could perhaps talk a little bit i guess send you on your way since you are urgently trying to get out of well if you want us to come into your quarters you're gonna have to buy us dinner first that would be great we're just in a little bit of a rush so we could take it to go well he like he gestures for you to go down the ship can you go i'll go i'm gonna look to kenny i'd be like is it safe for me to go because i have boron in the backpack oh would you rather have me stay up here

would be weirder if you stayed behind i think hi okay i will try to be as inconspicuous as possible about my backpack and follow the crew i'll flank a snooble on the back and just try and like cover on the other side okay eventually as you guys are entering into it that banana serpent kind of wiggles through and eventually comes back to bed and coils itself back around his neck he eventually leads you down like the first set of stairs and down a hallway and eventually opens into his captain's quarters where there's a an office space that he uh takes a seat at and you all kind of gather around and he kind of puts his feet up um as he's kind of stroking the serpent's like underneath its chin as it's kind of like nestling into it i don't know in the last

month uh there's been a lot of activity down here between the royal navy of sassan and the odonau and naval's fleets they've been kind of going at it it's why we've kind of picked up the ghost rating again it's a little bit more conspicuous we're able to kind of get in get out quicker without notice do you know anything about that why there would be an increased navy presence she's gonna take back to when we just bodied that navy ship not that long ago flashback i can't think of why why they would be on on guard i mean but what's changed nothing really has changed well actually hamukepa ate one of those ships didn't he oh okay i think that what candy was trying to employ rad was something called tact

tact i don't think we need to hide anything from him i i'm really not scared of this guy seems kind of nice actually oh someone's very confident today we had a run in with a galleon earlier and just as rad is explaining a dragon turtle destroyed it um they may also be looking for us oh why do we have to talk so much if there's an increased presence is it does that mean the the sissians assumed it was someone else like the assault way that attacked them you get what i'm getting at you know what i mean yeah it could be i mean i don't know it seems kind of strange when a dragon turtle attacks you it's pretty clear what attacked you yeah maybe they're just using it as an excuse to start something it's

possible that the survivors said that the last thing they saw before the ship was destroyed was our raft and assumed we were yes but it's oda now and make it'd be enough to start a war to break a truce well there's also been all sorts of trouble down the border islands all the way from the north all the way to the tips of the south it's been a lot of unrest a lot of raids increased raids there was one in tango thank you what i heard was rumors had it was that was the first place but can't be certain all the information is accurate is just what we've been getting from port to port i wish and how are you helping the situation are you giving all of these riches you plunder back to the people that need it

what do you what do you mean trying to point out that you're not helping in the situation you're a pirate we all have our own results are you out here actively solving a war we're saving the world i think do you know pirates are basically just sea bandits and do you know what i do the bandits i'm gonna put my hand around his face again my good man i'm not going to ever pretend that i'm not straight in on the straight and narrow but we all have our purposes we all do what we need to do to survive you don't know me and you don't know my life like you don't know us in our lives so

not to be rude you've been actually quite gracious bringing us onto your ship but unfortunately time is very much important for us and we do not have much of it do we know where they're taking the people these are raids that are happening have we heard anything about what happens to the people they take i mean i'm not sure if they're even taking people but you know where they go and they go home the sarin all i know and all i've heard is that some things agitated to son enough for them to be bold enough to be actively raiding throughout the south stopping at any ship in every ship that's why we added anti-borden measures

i assume they've tried to board your ship then we've had a couple runs uh over the last few weeks close calls whilst a few people but we've managed to continue to outrun them you cannot run the ships enough i'm wily enough to navigate my way across the expanse i think that the navy knows about what we have and they're trying to get it and it's of a sensitive enough nature that we can't let them have it so is there any way you partner with us age you where um by taking us where we need to go aljanon you ever heard of it he kind of smiles that is a myth well do you know the the myth do you know how to enter into its gates uh find the island i've heard of an island i've heard rumors uh whispers of it

an island it just appears in the middle of the the south sea and maybe if you heard those rumors you'd know that we have until the end of summer and that is fast approaching and whether you believe that myth or not we need to so you're asking for help and he kind of looks over to kenny i think also you're missing the opportunity to be one of the very few to see an island that most don't believe it so if that's any kind of persuasion i would highly recommend i mean you already have a very but say kenny he has uh his reputation it's quite known correct

that's right imagine if you found this island as well the only pirate you've seen or even better not only did you find this island you stuck it so far into the sissanians that no one will ever forget it someone roll me a persuasion okay can i i have a pretty high persuasion folks darling it's all yours the first is a five but i have advantage how does a 27 treat

kill him yeah yeah he's been he's been like stroking his beard you guys been kind of mad at him at different angles and he kind of keeps every now and again just kind of glancing over at kenny i mean it's it's a step above a lucky angel that keeps you grew alive that's for sure certainly it would be a nice fresh fare to have an actual cleric on on board this does seem quite fascinating i think i just might indulge it on maybe one condition for now what is it what's the cargo the cargo is myself yep it's it's it's snowball here here so hold on time out time out time out can we like pow wow really quick can we like no how would we do that in a room quick cuddle quick cuddle

can we like that myself i'm sorry i'm getting a little seasick i need to speak to my crew really quick take your time i had a momentary lapse and i don't know why i said that but should i continue with it or should we just come clean you kenny at this point i'm coming double down kenny i'm so sorry can you repeat that one more time i feel like coming clean might be the best idea i'm usually all for lying but again you guys have decided to tell the truth so we might as well just tell the truth all the way but there's if we have a bit of her we tell it be persuaded to say where she is we just don't say what she is we just that's all maybe we just bring the cargo out and what's special about baron is not you know the gem in her head but maybe

something she knows we can slap a headband on her we could do something else maybe she just knows something who's got jewelry who's got jewelry so much jewelry she just starts taking off rings like shimmy my backpack and i'm gonna also put my finger out too i'll just be like one moment moment please as i shimmy my backpack to the side okay yeah i'm rolling so fast i think we're doing the betrothal motherfucker trying to come at me 23 they're easy enough you're able to do you're just like slowly one shoulder one shoulder sliding it down now i just want to get this straight are we worried about captain reed or are we worried about him knowing something i'm worried about more people

knowing where she is and that's more people that can be persuaded to say where she is and then sometime in the future they go get her easy we use them to get to the island and then we kill every single one of their Kenny's friends trigg shouty i i'm sorry but we're running out of time i know i know rad you'll we can just you'll you'll plan originally when you were up in the crow's nest if things go south is there a way you can go ahead and go through it yeah we we've always got plan b but i i think we should just let these guys take us as far as they can we we need to make up the time to do i think that is very fair and then we kill them to be fair i don't want them to die i don't if we if we kill them we have to kill them all

name them whole thing has to go down i don't need them to die i would prefer they don't because if some of them just hold off and we'll see how about we just wait till something happens and then we just do what we normally do and just bumble all our way through it we need these people because exactly we just took jen there's no telling when we'll see the rest of them there's two more i need the extra day i need the extra time so that we can stop them there we go right they know where we're going as much as anyone else does they just know that baron they don't know anything about baron this is just we need to get her just there so we she's the daughter of somebody there there we go she's just this is the cargo just kid all right just a child trying to go home that's it

great i'm gonna pick her up now okay now that we can read a scene this whole child we just like i'll turn around and i was like yeah he's kind of like outfold and baron is just standing there so what i meant me i meant i was carrying under a precious cargo i see and he kind of looks down at baron just kind of like just looking up at him with like this little smile and you have to take this child's to a magic island yes by the end of the summer yes yes can i inside check yeah sure okay us or your friends who are your real friends can you mantle 20 plus six 26 nice yeah i mean yeah you you know bet it you've you've served under him

you know that he has a mischievous streak um he's more of a playful person than he is trying to be malicious or cruel um so the i the thought and looking at the child and and trying to under grapple um what you're trying to do he he seems a little bit more confused or dumbfounded that you would even like attempt something like this or why a child would be involved than it is more of like i'm gonna take like a monetary gain interest in what you're doing if that makes sense okay there's a large payment waiting at the end of this for me should we should we succeed in our mission that's the only reason why i'm here naturally we know the rules it's none of my business is that's the cargo you're carrying

it just all seems very odd this has been an odd adventure for sure i mean i honor my agreements in my contracts as i've continued to say so if that is what you're asking of me kenny as a agreement that we have together for all these years then uh i'm willing to help you whatever you need fantastic thank you welcome aboard the saffron serpent thank you captain we are in your sorry for about to destroying your ship and all i understand another first person i've crossed blades whether you won't be the last i say nothing but crazy eyes he eyes you as a warning he kind of eyes you but then like his serpent kind of lifts its head and kind of this is towards you don't worry too much about him just keep him

away from the lumber and your ship should be fine all right that would be wise flight it's evening we'll most likely continue on first break of daylight you're welcome to stay aboard the ship if you would like or you can return to your ship let's return to our ship i think it'd be faster if we stay on the galleon all of you my tour ship yes that slow it down at all um a little bit but um i wouldn't say as as much okay for the size of your boat comparability has baron eaten in a while um i mean you guys have been eating your rations and whatever you had um throughout your travel so far but um roll a perception check you look looking over oh dirty 20 as you guys are kind of standing around you kind of look down at baron and you

just hear this like just this loud little gurgle she kind of like looks down she's like touching her stomach i'm sorry to inconvenience you for that do you mind um if we get something to eat we haven't uh none in terms of child's work it's been a little bit since we've had some nourishment um yeah sure we can arrange that we can get you some grub from the uh from down below it's not a problem meanwhile trig is desperately trying to pass baron a little stick of jerky without shoddy noticing pull aside a hand check oh um two it's so perfect like you're like baron's not paying attention because like her back is to you so you're trying to like get it over like her shoulder to kind of like slide it into her

hands or like try to get her to notice it but like everybody's watching you do it eventually like baron sees it and she just grabs it takes a bite out of it what's that made of there's no way to know for sure oh my god shoddy looks kind of like they're gonna cry it just kind of lets it happen i suppose oh no no no no no captain reed i would love a tour of your ship now that it's not actively trying to kill me i can appreciate its magnificence if you don't mind showing me around yeah he nonsense and um i can certainly do that for you um he gets up and he'll uh start taking a walk with you anchor and if there's anybody else who wants to join him you can um he does tell uh show you

guys to the galley where um it you guys can kind of smell some some type of food being cooked um in the kitchens over over there and there's some tables that you guys can kind of set up if you want to um but there's also the rest of the ship if you guys want to walk about it i'm going to pull trig aside really quick and be like um why don't you you hold sorry do you pull shoddy along with with trig when you're pulling trig aside oh i'll let him go if she's if she's got that child i'll take the little child we're gonna exchange children really quick yeah pass off the baby to me there and i will grab him again and realize he is shirtless and then i'll be like after you get a shirt why don't you take also the tour just in case if we need to know

are you telling me i should look for weak points i'm suggesting just but but you can't do anything until we say sacred no i know i was told to wait okay go there give him a mission also i don't i don't have another shirt so um hold on wait i pull out oh i have i do have this leather vest i actually do have an extra adventures clothing so if you want you can have like a monk style vest to go under or over my vest you can double vest it over vest yeah if it will make you feel better i'll double vest it i mean aren't you cold not really all right all right take it back you're fine then okay so to be clear i'm walking around no shirt vest trench coat yeah you're stirred up a lad in his mouth you're like half a lad so trigger joining the um yeah but specifically

i would like to be investigating for ways that i think i can make this ship go boom okay roll roll an investigation check um as you guys go up the the stairs back onto the deck does a 13 get me anything uh maybe uh you guys um you guys are kind of walking together anchor you're kind of keeping stride with bed and as he's just kind of various amounts of the crew are like scurrying completing their their work and stuff like that finishing up their their days is um you notice he explains that this is uh in an odonao and style vessel um one of their more larger galleons he uh he had stolen it off one of the the royal navy a while ago it's it's like third ship he's gotten over his time in sailing but it's one of the one of the fastest ships in the in the south seas

yeah i i think anchor you know talks with him about the various intricacies of driving something this large because anchors never done it before and they talk about you know the ships that they've been on um individually and and he just you know ship talks with him he eventually asks is like how how long have you served on the seas oh i don't know can you say you've been a sailor all your life it's in my blood my father my brothers my whole family were sailors but i went away to my first term i guess it's a trial uh whatever you like to call it uh at 14 how did you do i was great on the boat um but i was never one for regimentation and we had a captain that was very above the board um it's one thing to be good at being behind the sails it's another to be

a good yes man i think that you can agree i could never i'm like you i've tried once and didn't like it i like to be told what to do i like to tell others what to do i like to get my way sometimes it's more important that the orders you're following are in line with who you are that's when i can listen anytime it goes against who you are as a person i could care less what you have to say forgive me that is the true freedom of being able to sail on your own accord no odor now to tell you what to do no sassan to bear their weight upon you just freedom it's good to know that in another life i would have made a great pirate i appreciate your conversation and your time with me thank you as this conversation is going trig you are like

high and low like behind them just like peeking your head like trying to find stuff i mean it is a wood ship it's fairly old so you know it has its own wares and tears you know um i mean it's fully made of wood let me ask let me ask this though do i i don't you have to tell me if i can discern this information how many cannons are there and where's the powder store areas i mean obviously on the on the deck you do see um several at least six cannons three on either side um you not you're not sure where the powder is being stored there's no barrels or anything indication that there's anything up top on ship um they're just they're just anchored down to the sides um you do know there's also a medium-sized ballista towards the front of the

ship as well i'll keep an eye on see if at any point i can figure out where that um where that store is while we're going all along the door you can roll uh sure yeah you can roll another investigation check four four yeah wait yeah four yeah i mean he takes you guys down to like there's at least three other tiers to the the ship the next down the next level down is more of like quarters and and and stuff like that for people to travel um as it's custom there's always rooms and stuff available for ship travel that's usually the customs and odor now um so the ship would have been manufactured in that way to have kind of like bunks and like rooms and then a like a storage area at the bottom that's just kind of fooled with their supplies and and other crates

and barrels of stuff okay but that's all the information i mean that's all you see you don't see anything that looks like gunpowder you don't see anything that looks like ammunition or anything of that nature you just see a bunch of boxes a bunch of crates so something goes down i'll just start shooting a bunch of stuff until one of them explodes okay there it is good good good good what is every everybody else doing as the betty is taking um anchor and trig on a tour rattle go out and like lean against the railing and look up and see if he can find that kenku roll it for such a check oh say finish maybe start at 18 hi um yeah you go back up on deck it's the sun's already set so it's kind of dark now it's getting a little chilly the wind's kind of

blowing um and you just kind of lean up against the rail and stuff and you're just kind of looking around and you've actually kind of look up at the nest uh the crow's nest above and you hear this like like a tune being played by like a like a small flute instrument just kind of whistling in between the wind you can hear i don't see them though i just kind of hear the music up in the up in the crow's nest i'm gonna cast a major image 120 feet in the air and a rock is going to appear it'll just it'll just fly over and then disappear son of a bitch Brad's gonna come a little shit and i'd love it i mean you're watching the just the nice happy

gentle tune of this this little kenku enjoying his evening um and then you cast that major image in the bird float and all of a sudden you just hear a just a loud squawk and and and and like a thud in a and a skitter up above and stuff like that and it just freezes as you don't hear anything but you hear just like a loud breathing just rattle rattle laugh and then kind of turn around and face out into the ocean and his laughter will just kind of come kind of like peter out and then he just finds himself alone on the top deck of the ship and he's just he's kind of feeling gross and he doesn't know why and so he's just gonna be kind of quiet till till the sun goes down okay uh snowball showday i would like to know if there's because i'm in a mode is there anything sweet

that i pick up like smell wise uh roll a roll a perception check sure aw me uh let's do math it's simple six no no uh i mean you're you're down in like the galley area or sitting at a table you're kind of like sniffing around to kind of get a sense you you smell a lot of savory stuff something that smells very hearty but nothing sweet i i i'll just do a simple like hunt not sad but not happy but kind of like oh okay and then just like i'm probably down there with baron feed getting her fed so i was like what's wrong i just i don't lie i just i'm not really

craving something in the savory side right now oh i've still got that taffy if you want some more oh it appears every day even if you eat it it comes back what yeah um i've had it for a while do you want more here i want to swipe her to answer i'll rip it in half and i'll i'll when baron's fit i'll save half of it for when baron's finished his like dessert but i'll give her half now i would have liked this information earlier but yes please i i mean you can go right in you can you can have it once it reforms tomorrow i'll give it to you what and it's like i'm still full of taffy so i'm a fushy drop like just make sure you share it yeah

or i can keep it and i'll just make sure you share it i i mean yeah of course like with baron absolutely and and our friend the others like yes yes of course yes you should share but ideally if you know every now and then every now and then yeah but more now than that less than but yes if someone's really sad or they're having a bad day or it might be nice to share it or just like oh the sun's up snub all my want some taffy yes oh no i'm i'm saying to share it sometimes if you want to all of it that's fine too um okay okay yes yes of course of course i'm gonna be not like really happy about it but it's like i'm being greedy and i don't care i'm like i'm still gonna eat my taffy push this whatever i had on my plate i'm just like

i'll get to that later i'll give baron the other part whenever she's done dinner kind of glare at baron a little bit i still love the child i still love the job i will give my life by this point it's half a piece of taffy that you can have more of tomorrow i'm okay it's like you gotta think joy trippie on you right now that is never that is never a character i would have thought that you would pull for a fucking snub all just food my favorite that's my favorite thing i think you have someone's gonna bring friends into dnd if that presents me is there anything you wanted to do this evening uh i think kenny's just like walking around the ship i don't think she thought she'd ever be on the ship again so she's just like dealing with that um and keeping an

eye out on her friends but that's it yeah you you you pace around you you were around when rad bothered the k they bothered the kankyu um as you kind of look up and you just see this like little bird peeking over like panically um and you just kind of just keep pacing the deck i mean there's various amounts of crew members they're they're of all different races in kree there's like a dwarven woman um who's been like lifting and hauling um stuff uh down below deck um few odonawans uh you know what i'm gonna get my hands on some cups and i'm going to start gambling because i have coins and we're gonna do the the shell shuffle game okay try to make some money on this ship sure cool um roll me a performance check okay

five that's fair you know you kind of like you you take a seat it like in the middle of the deck and um lay out the cups at first and then you just sit there for a moment and you just start flicking a gold coin just and catching it flicking it and catching it eventually trying to catch the eye of somebody on the ship a couple people kind of glance over and eventually uh and uh one of the odonawans approaches you he's uh tall kind of slenderish he's got a dark heavy dark uh um scaled skin and he's kind of got this like what looks to be like a mantle but it seems to be made of like like flesh of some kind but it's kind of wrapped around his top shoulders and he sits down in front of you and he just kind of extends it he you know understands

the the name of the game you put one of the coins underneath you begin to shuffle it around and you're you're you're good at it you you've done this before all this time this is how you gain a little extra coin this is how you kind of like almost in a way kind of give this to hawakene at the same time challenging people's luck earning some privilege and then you move the coins about and you think as you put everything down you know where the coin is on your right hand on your right side and he sits there for a moment and he sits there for a moment and he raises his hand like he's gonna go for that that right cup where the coin is and you kind of sweat for a moment and then he shifts over to the far left one and he pulls it and as he

does there's a gold coin sitting at the bottom and he just snap and he snatches the coin good luck yes well two out of three of course and she starts shuffling again okay roll a performance check please be better please be better okay 11 that's okay yeah you kind of like a little bit of sweat kind of beads on the top of your forehead as you take another coin and you flick it down put the cups up start shuffling it again you shuffle it extra hard and stuff and you're paying attention and set them down and he's he's been watching and he's eyeing and you just see his eyes kind of just walking back and forward and but he goes and he picks up the middle cup and there's the coin at the bottom he sashes up the coin

all right last time last time okay one more time that's an 18 okay i'm going to shuffle the coin and like fling it into my cardigan if possible uh slide a hand okay okay i'll give you advantage because of the high performance check okay well that's a okay okay yeah that's an 18 yeah easy enough you start shuffling it and shuffling it and shuffling and you kind of see the coin kind of bouncing back and forth between it and eventually you kind of flick it the wrist like you've done many times before and it kind of just lands straight into your pocket as you shuffle around and put it down and you're you're you just got a wide smile on your face as you think you've bested him and he goes and he kind of sits and he

moves back and forward eventually he goes and picks up the far right cup and there's a coin sitting at the bottom of it what as he snatches up the third coin and he takes takes it up it's like perhaps luck will be better tomorrow for you as he pockets three coins i think he was cheated you were cheating does he know what keen he turns around you cheated oh shit how so i did not have three gold coins and now i do yes no but that you shouldn't have i know for a fact that the coin was not there but why would i cheat by giving a coin underneath and just i would just be getting my own money back because you like to win i understand that i also like to win my friend i you came to play the game and chance is chance you're gonna go against that all right you i

understand the weight of the situation so i will not body you on this night it's fine it's fine i have more coins okay good game watch yourself he gives you a smile and he walks away watch yourself all right does he go to sleep um i mean he heads down towards the down down the stairs okay i got time it's fine okay at some point throughout the night trig would like to do a secondary lap of the ship you identify all sources of flame cook fires lanterns heating the lock okay roll a little investigation check two i mean the holes you see fire but like i don't know i don't know where it is i mean you

you do see like lanterns on the top deck but like in terms of other stuff like that you can't find any other flammable things not the very flammable ship that's a disappointing i think once night has fallen rad will actually go and find shawty at some point and sit next to them and just not really say anything for a bit but then eventually you just be like shawty i gotta talk to you for a second sure what's up rad uh i thought i had a really good idea earlier and and and i made it onto the ship and i climbed to the top and but but then i just realized like i had no idea if these people were good or not and

i i was ready to do something that was going to destroy their ship and and honestly i was really po'd when when we didn't go through with it and i kind of i kind of scared the crap out of that kenku after shortly after that i i think i'm i don't think that would i don't think i'd normally do that i i'm worried that that my new patron might be influencing me in ways that i'm that i'm not realizing that i'm not normally so aggro you know me yeah well that might have happened yeah but i think the fact that you realize it and that you know that you don't usually do that and the fact that you are concerned about it is actually a good thing if you are really influenced or under their control or any of that you wouldn't be thinking about it you'd be thinking about the

next way to hurt someone or the next way to scare someone and you did it but thinking back now you know it wasn't the right thing to do so it's i don't know i don't know if that's helpful or not but it helps a little i'm just i'm worried that there's going to come a point where i'm not thinking clearly and and i'm just gonna follow my instincts and i'm worried my instincts are being tainted by limos but i i i guess it's good to have friends like you around to to remind me what's right we'll keep each other in check you all are very patient when i make a mess of things so and you were we're to start it you were acting to protect us and to keep us safe and that's admirable we're

in a weird scary place where we don't know what's happening and there's a navy apparently after us um and you acted very bravely to keep people safe and i am really impressed with how far you came with it i don't know i kind of don't want to like congratulate myself i just i'm just not that kind of dude and it's it's becoming easier and easier to become that kind of dude i i don't know then you do the hard work and you don't become that i'll try you don't have to do it anymore i don't know you're not alone oh i i know that but well i guess i don't know that i've been alone for a long time and i'll remind myself will remind you too okay can i sleep with you and baron tonight sure there's plenty of room on the floor

brazing you're not there shut up i'll uh i'll bet around with baron for a little while just you know doing dumb kitty stuff and then i'll probably fall asleep i'll uh i'll tuck her up closer to him than than i than me and i'll just kind of stay up and watch them and actually i'm gonna wait for anchor to come back whenever he comes back i'm back okay yeah we finished um is it just as like is it like sleeping rad and baron and or is everyone else around um i'm not sure where everybody else is i assume anchors come back trick have you come back to try to find a place to sleep on the ship um i'll go where everybody else is gonna go because if we're going to blow something up i don't want to miss any of it yeah the um the kevin's giving you

guys some quarters for you guys to kind of sleep in i would say like six of you three and three minus the person who has baron would would make for us yeah uh anchor would you mind coming in here of course you you know that captain is a good man he's a lot more like us than i thought he would be but yeah i can come right in he seems perfectly lovely um i've jane said she had two questions for us or she wanted two things from us and one of them or she has two messages i suppose one of them was the return of the precious cargo and we don't know what the other one was yeah do you have any ideas she seemed to know you so maybe you know something about her i wish i did i only know that she was in my head

that's how she found us i was having these dreams some of them were memories or at least they started as memories and then they would walk into them and shift the balance and i wouldn't be able to understand any of it there was one where the cinder queen was there and one building a boat with my father when i was young but i don't have any information on jinn i wish i did i thought taking off that mask would give me some sort of answer but if she's a part of my life if she's a part of my past i don't remember her she could have been anyone yeah exactly but shawty you and i have been honest to a point in our feelings towards the empire and yours comes from a very specific place i could ask you the same thing i mean

that brand on her neck that does that have anything to do with what happened with what happened with um with you shawty's gonna freeze for a second and just like obviously wrestle with themself and then slowly they'll um they'll roll up their right sleeve and show you the matching brand on their arm that's what i was afraid of like you she could have she could have been anyone there are lots of um there were lots of children at the school where i was and they all had strange abilities so like you she could have been anyone i don't know her or at least i don't think i do well i know that we don't have any answers but in a few days you and i will know something more as soon as we

are done with whatever this is as soon as baron is safe and loved and cared for you and i can have a calm and careful discussion as to who these people are where they live and what the next step is i don't know how common that conversation is going to be because i've already i've already conscript conscripted trig a bit into uh helping me destroy them perfect there are bad people out there and yes they may be associated with us but there are worse people i've learned yes if i've learned anything from being with you people it's you and i are not one of them no and if anyone can take them away it's it's the people they made like you and me they don't get to clean that they don't they don't get to clean they made us

you're right i just wanted to check in real quick with you before we wrap up um it's been a very hectic day and i ate a lot of candy probably i i'm just imagining me on the top bunk leg hanging off mouth open a smoke comes out as a snore nice we're gonna leave it at that whether i doubt i heard anything if i was that knocked out i'm minding my business shouty uh before you go to sleep i thought i would lighten the mood a little um don't you dare when i when i was the first um the first on a ship like this the first time

that i served on one like this it was a game that my brother taught me and i was just awful at it but i thought maybe i'd let you beat me at it a few rounds it would feel good the nostalgia of it i don't want your pity win i want to be your friend when i am terrible shouty it's a game called liars dice i'm a terrible liar well then we're in good company i'm just quiet and the the rest of the night just going through liars uh dice if if uh shouty's cool with it cool yeah should he's like shaking and probably not going to go to sleep anytime soon one last check in trig rad anything else you guys want to do for the evening you're asleep with ron nothing serious kenny uh you're still on the top deck kind of you've been kind of pacing about after your

loss of coins um trying to figure out what that means kind of feel a little little sad about it like you're like the luck wasn't on your side like it normally is you've you've played that game 100 times before and you you usually always win um but as you're kind of like looking out at the ocean um eventually bet a um kind of approaches and kind of stands next to you as you guys kind of look out at this this darkened sea and eventually he he says you know i expected the worst when i heard that the back room was was gone um i had come to port um three months ago and had found out that it was no longer there it's just rubble and ash yes um that was one of the earlier raids not quite like the ones that you described but you know they get something suspicious and then they

take it all yeah that they do and given your particular set of skills and stuff like that that's always worse for wares yes uh they took um malik as well they did so it's it's just me now hmm and you haven't seen your your your uncle sense then i assume not in a real way no this is this is a wild forest that's a story for another time but not in the true sense and what is what do you make of your your companions your friends quite an unusual bunch not the usual rabble you you travel with very surprised uh not i didn't start traveling with them by choice um it was pretty random actually i it i wasn't really supposed to be on this job in the first place but

i saw an opportunity and i stole it so um they're actually very capable people and they kind of stick with you even when you don't want them to no it seems like you're in the company of good friends good people say it there was one thing i wanted to kind of mention to you i guess uh something i didn't quite tell everybody initially um i did mention we had encountered a couple of ships but i didn't tell you that we actually sank one we had engaged in a in a battle and found ourselves on the coral barriers towards sarin and managed to wipe them out but when we went to recover the the wreckage

uh we found this and he um he hands you a token of of a of a deity and when you look at it you recognize it if those one of the symbols that was worn on the um the chest plate of the the black armored man you had met a tungu atoll okay i sent a boss battle uh any chance you might know what this means i think i i had my suspicions but this definitely confirms um the person that we are protecting our cargo from is obviously involved with the navy because why not um the ship that you sank you didn't find a body attached to this did you

we found a few bodies but not a body attached to this and then we can't assume that he's gone thank you for this uh if i don't okay it seems like uh troubles on the horizon look at the feeling most certainly i mean with honestly with this crew on board even without someone chasing us absolutely and i would just sort of revisit any sort of insurance that you might have on the ship just it's an overall thing um but absolutely yes something bad is coming for everyone we should be absolutely prepared baby kind of like looks out to the ocean and under the stars kind of takes like a really big sigh and he kind of looks at you and gives you like a

that small wily smile he does when yeah always has a bad idea and he says well we might as well get to it shall we and he starts walking off towards the helm of the ship and you're just kind of left there looking out at the starlight as he starts to make way towards your course and that's where we're gonna end tonight uh i'm so afraid do you