Session Summaries; Vol. 20: The Savage Coast @ 22 Apr 2007 10:18 pm by Kevyspice
Rewards Earned
- Experience Points: A few
- Treasure: Information, information, information
After a couple more passes, the mounted sea devil commanders apparently decided that they had taken enough casualties and disappeared into the depths. The Four Gulls ships sailed on through the night unmolested, while the party, officers, and crew tended to the dead and wounded.
The next couple of days passed mostly quietly, with only long-range visual contact between the ships and the outrigger canoes of the various tribes of the Savage Coast. During the second afternoon watch after the sahuagin attack, the crow’s nest lookouts spotted a half dozen ships, but not before the ships had gotten uncomfortably close to the Sea Wind and the Primrose. Spike and Richard observed that the opposing ships appeared to belong to the Crimson Fleet and ordered the Four Gulls standards hoisted. Two of the Crimson Fleet vessels continued sailing toward the party, while the remaining four formed a defensive picket.
A few tense minutes later, the party recognized the two approaching ships as the ones that had been escorting the Freeport Society of Lobstermen ship back at Dagon’s Maw. After some amicable signals back and forth, Spike, Richard, and Balama launched one of the Primrose‘s boats and accompanied a few crewmen aboard the two Crimson Fleet ships. The five captains swapped regional news and stories over a couple of rounds of grog. The Crimson Fleet captains were reticent to give many details about their current work and employers, perhaps understandably for a mercenary group, but seemed enthusiastic about working with Four Gulls in the future, if the opportunity ever presented itself. When asked about a home port, in order for the party to get in touch with them, the captains said that they didn’t really have a home port in particular, but they had enough of a presence in the Vodacce city of Falisci to receive messages there.
After a few more stories and drinks, the Four Gulls personnel returned to their ships, and both squadrons went their separate ways. The next couple of days’ sail up the Savage Coast passed slowly against the northeasterly trade winds, but without much incident. Aside from the frequent anti-boarding drills Spike ran his crew through, the only real occurrence of note was that Carmina finally remembered why the name “Crimson Fleet” had been nagging at her – one of the old journals from the library in the Poisson lighthouse had mentioned that some “ships bearing a crimson pennant” had raided the fishing village some 60 or 70 years ago, apparently confiscating most of the books in the village.
The party was still mulling over this bit of information when one of the lookouts pointed out a suspicious-looking fog bank shrouding the distant shore for a couple of miles. Virgil the seagull, the former wizard’s familiar, agreed to make a reconnaissance flight to see what lay beyond the fog. Some time later he returned to report that he had seen a sizable town hacked out of the jungle. He had not approached closely enough to get an idea of the population makeup, but he had seen enough movement to mark the city as active and not an ancient ruin. The party grew immediately suspicious of the Crimson Fleet’s professed lack of a home port, but decided not to pursue the matter just yet.
While keeping an eye on the fog, Chow spotted something in the water about 50 yards to port. Looking closer, it appeared to be a small piece of debris, no larger than an orange, floating on the surface but not moving horizontally to any noticeable degree. While the ships continued sailing, Richard summoned a water elemental to investigate the object. When the creature reported that there appeared to be nothing beneath the object to hold it in place, Balama and Spike girded themselves for aerial/aquatic investigation and flew out to the object. Balama verified that the thing bore an enchantment akin to an arcane eye, and figured it had some kind of enchantment to keep it in place and relatively inconspicuous. While observing the object, they spotted a similar buoy about 50 yards away, and another 50 yards beyond it. The two adventurers followed the arc described by the three buoys and discovered several more in each direction, presumably an early-warning network for the city beyond the fog. After a bit of discussion back aboard the ships, the party decided to continue sailing up the coast and update their charts for potential trade (and, if necessary, blackmail) opportunities.