Freeport Campaign

After several hours of negotiations aboard the Primrose, all of the captains and other surviving officers involved in the day’s battle reached an agreement regarding the status of the various crews and ships gathered on the same featureless spot of ocean. The Montaigne ambassador who had been sailing back from Freeport, along with his retinue, would remain Castillan prisoners of war. All captured officers on both sides would likewise remain prisoners, but captured crewmen stranded by the sinking of their vessels would be returned to their respective nations. The Crimson Fleet officers would remain prisoners of Montaigne, given their action against that nation’s ships, but Crimson Fleet sailors and prisoners would be escorted by the Four Gulls crews to the nearest port and given the choice whether to go ashore or remain in the employ of the Four Gulls captains.

With the negotiations concluded, Richard, Spike, Chow, and Balama pulled the Castille and Montaigne captains aside individually and discreetly to warn them about the Crimson Fleet, whose suspected involvement in sinister and dangerous cult-related schemes posed a direct threat to all of the nations in this region of the world. The captains responded with varying degrees of interest, skepticism, and trepidation, but most agreed to pass the information up the chain of command.

While the Montaigne and Castillan officers and prisoners and boarded their respective vessels, the Four Gulls captains and senior officers began interviewing the Crimson Fleet survivors, looking for potential crewmen or potential adversaries. Many of the crew described themselves as “loyal Garwater men” and opted to be put ashore at the next port, while several others seemed interested in joining up with the Four Gulls enterprise.

This series of interviews yielded a fair amount of information about the Armada’s remote operations. The two ships had split off from a larger task force that had been assigned to canvass this region of the world for new vessels, crew, and supplies and return them to the Armada. These two particular ships had successfully raided three Innismore fishing villages, shanghaied several new crewmen, and made off with holds full of timber, dirt to replenish Armada’s limited gardens, peat, food, and every book to be found in the villages.

Among the group of shanghaied sailors, Spike recognized a very familiar face – his brother, James Marlin, Jr. The older Marlin brother expressed a bit of surprise at the younger brother’s apparent good fortune in having become a captain, while Spike registered almost no surprise to see James mixed up with the Crimson Fleet, and missing an eye to boot. The two retired to Spike’s cabin to discuss the Marlin family’s current situation, which had been tense to the point of violence when Spike had left three years previous.

James reported that after the last fistfight between Spike and their drunken dad, and Spike’s subsequent departure, the old man had sunk even further into the bottle, railing against Spike, the town, Lord Cedrik, and any number of other perceived causes for his miserable lot in life and the family’s diminished (and still diminishing) fortunes. James had followed the old man’s example, and the family fishing boat went out less and less often. The family had sold off most of their possessions except the house by the time the elder Marlin completely gave up fishing about three or four months ago.

More flavor text to follow…

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