Friday 23 December 2011

Lankhmar - The Shark Box.

Date: Day of the Crab. The month of the Murderer's Moon in the Summer season of the Year of the Feathered Death in the Era of Heat: 
Evening at Three Bridges.

  • Arrive late at Three Bridges
  • Hailed by Kilpin Plake a known tout calling them the heroes of the Risings Teeth
  • Plake says there is a prospective customer who wants to hire them.  He's at the Death's Way
  • On Route Jaktar notices more than usual numbers of armed men.
  • Gideon, Jaktar, Defoe and Blab go with Plake who introduces them the guarded Pettious Peak.
  • Peak wants them to carry a Shark Shaped box into the city.  He explains that someone has been chasing him to reclaim the box which he was commissioned by his Temple (The House of Mellor) to buy off in the East.  He says that he will continue on to the city with a body guard but would feel safer from ambush if the box travelled a different route.  The deal is to deliver it to him or his Head Scholar (name of Teastin) at the Temple where they can expect a bonus. They except at his price plus 20%.
  • A discussion ensures as they leave over whether Blab can open the box or not bearing in mind that there is no discernible seal so he would most likely have to break it. Defoe  takes both the moral point that they cannot and the finacial point that it would do their reputations as businessmen a lot of harm.  Gideon says its fate.
  • Return to the Sulaco where no one seems much interested in them - more concerned with a lack of eels.
  • Moor in the open river and sleep.
Date: Day of the Hare. The month of the Murderer's Moon in the Summer season of the Year of the Feathered Death in the Era of Heat: 
Morning at Three Bridges - clear summers day with thunder in the distance.
  • Jeremiah predicts flooding in a few days. Leave early for the city.
  • On the second watch along the Eel Run Tobius calls from his look-out post that the Death's Ferry raft is floating free jammed against a tree trunk and that there are three people on it none of whom is Cuthwick the Dragger who normally crews the raft and upkeeps it.
  • It is immediately suspected as a trap. 
  • Blab goes up the mast.  He realises that the truck is not acting right and must be steered.  He had taken his bow and intends to open fire on the raft when Tobius spots and calls warning on two men in the water with great hooks. Blab shoots at them instead and causes them to retreat into the reeds.
  • Gideon orders the sails dropped and the vessel rowed in reverse.
  • Blab continues to keep the enemies heads down.
  • Two small flatboats appear from the reeds back from the Three Bridges direction but only one has a chance of interception. 
  • Jaktar recognises one of the men as one he had seen near the Death's Way the night before in Three Bridges.
  • The lead man on the raft opens fire with a crossbow but fails to hit anyone, Blab shoots back sending him backwards off the raft.
  • Blab then turns his attention the boat on the intercept course which has now cleared the reeds, its foreman wielding a pole-arm with the obvious intent to hole the Sulaco hull.  The man takes a arrow in the belly and the second man using a punting quant (pole). A second arrow cuts the back of his leg and he too cowers in the boat.
  • Gideon orders that a prisoner should be taken. Ignoring Blab (still up the mast) who says leave the one 'bleeding out' Jaktar leaps aboard the punt and drags both raiders on board.  The Sulaco rows on to safety where they relax to interrogate the prisoners.
  • Blab searches and confiscates and weapons (ok sword and two daggers) and any valuables (6 silver and 8 copper pieces) from the captives. Gideon  shows displeasure but does not actively intervene.
  • The punter with the lesser wound is not really interrogated at all but emphasis is given to the belly wounded gent. It seems there were about 10 attackers hired by someone called Brad'in(?) and they where to capture a shark box.  This man never saw the employer who only spoke to the bands leader a man called Tybone who described him as an Easterner.
  • Gideon has tem put over board and shortly after they leave a thrashing and screaming can be heard in the reeds behind them.  Blab wins his bet with Jaktar over their survival time.
  • There is some disagreement between the crew on the morality of that last action and the leaving two survivors in a boat as bait if the Sand Sharks gave chase back at the rescue was also brought up. Blab and  Defoe take the moral high-ground against Gideon.

1 comment:

Ant Master said...

We are on a mission for the fates. It was their fate to die in the water rather than make to land a survive. They were given a better shake of fate than we would have had if we had fallen into the ambush.