Malta Session 62: The Blockade Continued, Help from Naxxar, and Ambushing the Blockade

We begin this week on board the Blood Prince moments after the last bugbear jump overboard; our other ships however were also under attack. Jabari and Lete dimension door to the next ship behind- the Bonded Mind. There we find a Xill, a genie-born noble as well as gorgon chimeras flying about killing sailors and deck-hands. 

Eventually the rest of the group joins the combat on the Bonded Mind and after our characters ran off the last of the attackers we find much of the crew dead, some turned to stone; we also assess damage to the Bonded Mind. Our characters quickly move on to the next ship- the Tender. Lex was unfortunately turned to stone in the fray.

Once there the remaining crew indicated their sails were destroyed by fire as they were surprised by a couple of giants during the attack. Crew members of the Tender drove them back into the ocean but not before our enemies were successful in slowing down the Tender.

As we take an hour to make repairs, Naxxar sends Jabari a message that indicates help is with us- keep our enemies focused on us and hopefully our enemies will reveal their Dreadnought. Lete in a flash of inspiration thinks to use the blood of the gorgon chimera to restore Lex to flesh- it was successful. 

We group our ships together to appear we are going to sail undaunted through the blockade. Eventually three ships are seen approaching our convoy, flying no colors, from the blockade. They alter their course to intercept our ships as we attempt to evade them. Our characters eventually realize these three break-away ships are populated by undead.

We begin to formulate a plan: Lete and Carlo remain on the Bonded Mind for defense, Marco and Evagara, while Lex and Jabari head out and through a chain reaction destroy the three fire ships.

Jabari then circles back to our previous heading and attempts another run at the blockade as the sun begins to set. Our characters tighten up our ship distances.

When the sun sets an enlarged seagull lands on the Bonded MInd, Stacer says they have received a message from the enemy that they will allow us to pass on the condition we never return to Maltese waters. Overhead the sky is dark and filling with clouds promising inclement weather to come. We ignore the offer and continue under the cover of a cloudy night.

It is not long before our characters realize our swift passage is being aided by water elementals (from Naxxar) and soon we get close enough to see the Egyptians retrofitting various foreign ships for their blockade efforts; this helps gets our characters within 100 yards.

They hail us with questions, Lex responds with ‘we are bringing in more captured ships’ in Egyptian. They hesitate and follow up with more questions. Lex carries on his bluff buying our characters three rounds of prep before we ambush them. 

Malta 61

When we pick up the next morning, the weather has turned most foul. All ships are driven to dock, including two that looked to have suffered battle. The storm is almost certainly unnatural and as violent as any have seen. Many readily believe that the storm is an Egyptian tactic to keep folks from sailing out to sea.

Most of our heroes catch up to the lucky survivors of those ships, spaniards for the most, who seem anxious to drink ale, gamble coin, and spin yarn as they relay their harrowing misfortune upon the sea. They were sailing in grid G-3, an envoy of three ships; the Warrior Witch, the Taloned Witch, and the Tireless. The crows nest gave sudden warning as a massive ship suddenly appeared out of nowhere and opened fire with cannons and powerful magic. The Tireless was sunk.  One sailor whispered that it was a Dreadnought. Another claimed dragon fire, but he was hushed and dismissed as a drunkard. Details were few, and gaps in their collective timelines indicate they are misleading in their telling, and it becomes apparent they are relaying what the Egyptian forces want them to say. We leave them to their lives as men of fortune, and undaunted make sail for open water under blue skies and calm waters the next morning. 

Into a cleverly played gambit of a trap. As we hit open seas aboard the Blood Princed with Capt. Marco at the helm, we see clusters of ships on the horizon.  Two break off and approach us, but don't get very close before they change course and hastily put distance between us again. Shortly after that our three ships are bombarded with very powerful magic using creatures that seemed like spider humanoids with six arms. Five arms brandished a shorts word each, with the sixth using a wand.

Each caster was accompanied by a dozen bugbears, all arriving on deck at the same time. Concurrent were screams and alarms shouted from below deck. The casters unleashed a powerful lightning attacked that decimated most on deck crewmen, the bugbear mercenaries pressed sword attacks against us, and Edna was sent to help below decks where they had been overrun with vicious poisonous spider swarms. It took several rounds of combat to repel the enemy and secure the deck of the Blood Prince, but we left off with the swarms still swarming, and no knowledge of how the Bonded Mind nor the Tender had fared yet.