Twenty-fifth Session (13 page pdf) – “A Stacked Deck” – the Teeth of Araska and the Wandering Dagger grapple with the Chelaxian frigate Dominator and its Hellknight contingent for their very lives. And two more suspicious characters escape from the enemy’s brig during the fray, a Mwangi man and a half-elven woman.
The Dominator is a canonical Chelish pirate hunting ship, and the Hellknight they escaped from in Magnimar is on board, Paralictor Devreth Rotani. Captain Clap of the Dagger hates this guy. No discussion, he throws himself into the frigate’s broadside to try to attack them. The Dagger gets blasted, marines board the Araska, Samaritha’s spells get dispelled… Pirates are riddled with wooden shivers, blood runs in the scuppers!
Meanwhile, we have two new PCs joining the game! They’re both in the Dominator’s brig, but use this opportunity to escape. (This is also an important part of balancing this fight, putting some distractions on board, so that the Dagger and Araska don’t both just get sunk out of hand. That kinda works.)
One of the enemy signifers casts Vision of Hell on their ship, our session scribe Chris renders the results in particularly inspired fashion thus:
The Dominator has one more trick. It shimmers as a desert mirage, then solidifies into a different vessel. The ship looks like a hellscape. Hatchways are now pleading mouths, wet with hunger and full of teeth. The ship’s rigging is a combination of wanton tentacles and leaking intestines. Each sail is made up of six hundred and sixty-six skinned faces of the damned that howl in agony. More skinned faces make up the Chelaxian flag, the skin pigmentation matched perfectly to that flag. Those faces moan Queen Abrogail II’s favorite waltz. The hull is formed of writhing torsos that provide a handsome and unexpected buoyancy, but uncertain footing. Everything is heavy with the stink of brimstone. The shrill noises of Fox News waft up from below decks.
Meanwhile, Mitabu and Zoamai make their way out of their cells and out of the ship… But the Wandering Dagger is pounded so badly by cannon fire and fire spells that it begins to sink, and after a hard fight the Paralictor kills Captain Clap – Sindawe and Serpent come to the rescue, but too late. Serpent and Sindawe wreak havoc on the enemy ship while the Araska tries to win free, and meet our two new PCs in a rush of Chelaxian murder. That being sufficient resume to become a pirate, they wordlessly fight free together and make the deck of the Araska… Will they escape? Read on!
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