Malta Session 29: 03/21/2018 The Mediterranean Rose, Hunting the Bardic Mind, and The Sea Scale

We wake up seventeen days later after a whirlwind of training, making contacts and having new ship placards made for the Bonded Mind; there was however one task left uncompleted... the Gator. A few more pieces of information on the half-orc was that Naxxar felt a certain level of compassion for Gator; that the former Egyptian-employed brute was never given a fair shake; therefore Naxxar relegated Gator to the other side of the island and was left largely alone. A former opponent of Gator told Lete, during the course of the week leading up to the confrontation, that he a lost an irreplaceable pet to the Gator whom ate the animal without thought. Lete's informant unfortunately got terribly injured for the encounter. Nevertheless the half orc is fast and strong; basically a barbarian with an interesting club of stone lined with veins of metal. Gator lives in the remnants of an abandoned project well on the far end of Ghallis Rock. Interest in Lete's battle augers in the days leading up to the Lete’s battle with Gator creating an atmosphere of anticipation and gambling.

The Half-Elf Lermang

The battle was short but intense, the momentum at times swinging from Lete to Gator; but in the end it was Lete that stood with a foot on the chest of the half-orc barbarian who was knocked out cold. 

Retrieved from the defeated Gator was a magical pearl from the half-orc's ear, a small satchel with potions, an amulet and the pearl; potions of bears endurance, bulls strength, CSW, lesser restoration, 3 alchemist fire, tanglefoot bag, amulet of natural armor +1. Lete insisted the gold retrieved will go towards the upkeep of the former gifted children of the Hunter. 

Our characters deliver the coveted pearl (of power?) to Endar who expresses to Lete the island’s gratitude for defeating the island bully. It is as we are leaving, making our way to the docks, many of our characters have a feeling of being watched; in fact Lex sees a heat shimmer in the crowed. It was coming from the croud who were waving us and cheering us on; it was Walker with an uncharacteristic sinister look coming from the sea ranger.

We sail out to the Bonded Mind that is close to the Sea Whiskey and see folks waving including WALKER (presumably the real halfing sea ranger). Our characters immediately rely to Captain Vargin and Walker what we saw (what we assume to be someone in the guise of Walker) to which Loshe immediately blames tengu and agrees to return to Ghallis Rock with the Sea Whiskey to investigate this troubling turn of events...

Our character’s now sail The Mediterranean Rose to Bugibba a journey that takes 18+ hours nonstop to the Malta port but with high spirits shared amongst the crew. Two hours into our journey and a lookout warns the Captains of several small boats ahead. We look and see six yacht sized boats bereft of colors and some distance beyond these were are similar vessels. Our characters see a few ships have spotted us and have diverted their coarse to possibly flank us or go around (depending on one’s opinion). We turn west at full sail; in response three of the unknown ships sail to parallel our ship and about fifteen minutes later they fire flares into the air. A short time later the perusing ships seem to be gaining position. Jabari gives the command to full sail south of Barbganni Rock. It was not much longer when our characters see that our perusing sailors are not gnomes from the nearby rock, our perusing crew look Egyptian.

Not long we see a winged creature take flight to take stock of our ship followed by a flurry of activity on the deck of the ship the creature took off from. Our characters see ships ahead of us, but they are struggling against the waves; we will eventually pass close to one of them. Ahumm believes the flying demon is a chaaor.

Over the course of the combat Carlo is able to lift the ship up out of the sea waters and out of the range of the submerged pirate attackers who were riding orca whales. This turned the tide of battle. In the end Lex scored the killing blow to the chaaor and when he does we all have a sinister feeling of being scried upon. The ships ahead and around showed no further interest in the Mediterranean Rose.

From the pirate bodies we get 12 masterwork daggers (to the crew), 6 potions of CMW, +1 rapier, +1 chain shirt, ring of protection +2 also a paper that has a rough description in common and Egyptian of our ship and each of our characters including ship aliases. We discover our bounty is set to 10k gold alive.

We continue to sail on and in this time Jabari congratulates his sailors on fighting the lower demons. Four hours later we come across a large shipping galleon called the Sea Scale heading to Malta flying a Tiamat flag- we catch up around the 8 hour mark when we are able to hail them and inquire of news. They put together a boarding party to come to us to exchange information. Arriving are all humans with a middle aged singular dwarf named Oendu, the first mate. They came to warn that since they pass Selmunett  island there are inquiries of our ship type and the 'Bardic Mind'. Apparently there is some kind of embargo around Malta and they are sailing to Bugibba since is seems free from Egyptian entanglement. It seems the eastern cost is embargoed with search and seizure. They offer a Tiamat flag in exchange for the flag. Their home port was Smyrna in Turkey.

Oendu

Jabari proposes to Oendu that we travel together to Bugibba. Oendu expresses that there is a lack of common tongue among his crew and if we could help teach the language it would help their trade ventures. Carlo gets the feeling these individuals are fleeing something; likely something lawful.

Oendu asks about the rumors of the absence of dragons in Malta, we say the church of Tiamat is present but we maintain dragons are forbidden on the island and that we should take down Tiamat’s flag once we are within sight of Bugbba’s port. Oendu feels it is fair for us to know they flee the forces of Tiamat before he returns to his ship to report to Captain Sam. They have 120 individuals on board half are passengers and families.

We sail on in the shadow of the Sea Scale adding about 5 hours to our journey. We pick up next game session 23 hours after Ghallis Rock sailing into Bugibba.