We clean up as best as possible for our dinner with Tessa Fairwind.
When the nice coach rolls up to take us to Tessa’s home, we recognize the carriage attendants as having sailor background by their bearing, callouses, scars, etc. The carriage trip takes about 15-20 minutes on a winding road through the more elite areas of the island to reach Tessa’ nice three-story house, befitting her status as a Pirate Council member and one favored to potentially take over if the current King were deposed.
Recognizable by reputation, Tessa meets us at the door to welcome us personally and thanks us for accepting her invitation. She leads us to a game room designed for sitting, drinking, and hanging out. Along with meeting a few of her officers, we are offered a wide range of hors d’oeuvres and alcohol, which is just what we were hoping for.
Once we get situated, Tessa asks us what we know about Harrigan and if we’ve worked with him. We just glance around the circle at each other, then Tyria breaks out in a laugh.
“If you mean bent over a rail and shafted from behind, then yes? But to be fair, I don’t think he’s the sort to ‘work with’ anyone.”
It’s Tessa’s turn to laugh. “That’s his reputation, certainly.” We agree he can be ruthless.
Tessa gets down to business: “In regards to your bid to join the Free Captains, I’ll sponsor you how I can. I will vote in your favor and provide sway with others who are inclined to listen, but when you go to that feat, you will need to heavily promote yourselves and wine and dine as best you can in order to earn your Free Captain marks. But it is the few voting members of the Council who will decide, and the Pirate King himself usually abstains from voting – unless you get under his skin and then he votes you down.”
She says the scene can become predictably chaotic and minor violence is acceptable – but winging spells and hacking people down with impunity is
not acceptable.
“Can we bring along props?” asks Tom-Tom.
“Props, trophies, mementos – anything that proves that what you’re saying is actually true. And the more spectacular, the better. But again, please don’t throw my name around – some will respond well to it, some will rule against you because of it. It’s best to make your own case. Even if you’re all the best suck-ups around.”
She suggests again just to focus on the people who can vote – Mase, Gaddy, Pegsworthy, Janis, Harrigan, a few others. There will be other crews also vying for approval, but it is not a competition with limited rewards; the worthy will receive their marks, whether that means all or none, while the inept will be driven out.
Brandr asks a number of additional questions, as is his wont. We find out that you cannot swipe another crew’s commendation (for example), as it is tied to their skipper and their ship. Also, if Harrigan takes umbrage to our candidacy, how hard will it be to get past his objection? Tessa reminds us that we will have to show our cunning and skill here, to counter any negative narratives that could sink our chances. If we can’t out-maneuver Harrigan in this arena, perhaps we aren’t ready to be Free Captains on the open seas either.
To Brandr’s questions about whether Harrigan truly changes his appearance as we’ve heard, she notes this has happened in the past, but each time he needs to waste time reestablishing he is who he claims. Not that this takes inordinately long – his mannerisms, behaviors, and knowledge remain the same and enough to prove his identity – but it throws a kink into his momentum each time he does it.
“So what do
you want?” Tyria asks pointedly. “What do you hope to gain from inviting us here and prepping us for the ball? It’s not like you’re not also playing the game.”
“Well,” Tessa replies, “I’ve heard of your reputation and your taking of the Rock, among other things. And this
is how the game is played – I would rather have you on my side, or at least neutral if that isn’t possible, to maintain my own tactical advantage. I honestly would be happy to have you fly under my flag, but you are well positioned already and there is no need.”
But now her eyes steel as she looks at each of us, some of us shifting in our seats uncomfortably. “I just want you to understand the
ramifications if you would side with someone like
Harrigan.”
We ask her if there’s anyone else to be wary of, as we ply for inclusion. Tessa seems reluctant to badmouth too many others, but she mentions:
- Gatty is a bit mad and has been under the sun too long. Unpredictable and chaotic, she’s has driven her ships into the Eye multiple times and lost full crews before.
- Bloodmourn can be difficult as well, and she would shy from anyone less than a seasoned veteran from the seas. This captain has letters from every country but is actually aligned with Taldor and has even commissioned pirates to his crew who were wanted by Taldor – then turned them over when entering their ports. “Do not trust him,” she finishes sternly.
- Janis sometimes sides with Harrigan, Mase runs in his own circle, and Wide Olga has a complicated backstory. While each are their own people, they tend to fall into Harrigan’s camp. We are told Olga does have a wide mouth and large teeth, which she can be sensitive about.
She pauses and then mentions that Harrigan has been obsessed with hunting down and destroying an unnamed smuggler – presumably because he has information Harrigan doesn’t want to come to light. We all realize we know who this is, as we read it in one of the ship logs we found that had orders from Harrigan himself: This smuggler is Trista Bonecutter, captain of the Redacted, and Harrigan had requisitioned people to swipe a chest on her ship and return it to him unopened, under pain of death.
While Tessa seems decent enough, we know it’s better to play this close to our chests until we determine who we can trust and how this knowledge could be best leveraged.
The rest of the night passes uneventfully with small talk and more food and drink than we’ve had for weeks on the open sea, and we make the best of it. Eventually Tessa retires, sending us back to our inn for the night.
Eventually that week, the time for the ball arrives, and it’s being held in a fully fledged, functional, armed, defended keep. We are ushered through a large courtyard after 9pm and pass into a large dining hall through large wooden doors carved with large waves, sea monsters, and gallant ships. The ruckus is audible outside the hall but seems to explode into noise once we enter. There’s a U-shaped arrangement of tables and captains sitting around eating and joking and throwing crap at each other, while the rest of the room is full of other pirates and crews and officers mingling in a chaotic party.
We also notice a couple of clusters of officers from other ships – presumably the other candidates -- rehearsing or chatting with each other. We of course have our trusty sack of props to use during our own presentation.
We assess those at the main table, noting Wide Olga, Mase, Bloodmourn, DM Gads / Gaddy (who might have something going with the Pirate King, considering how close they are seated together), and then Tessa, Pegsworthy, Janis, Harrigan, and a pirate captain we haven’t heard of named Nisia.
Tyria’s mind is already racing when she notes Gaddy’s full name (DM Gads) – she immediately recalls the nice silk handkerchief we recovered from that little shit Shortstone’s body a few months back with DMG embroidered on it. Apparently that simple piece of cloth belonged to a pirate lord the entire time – so how would a scrawny nobody like Shortstone come by it? She suspects the gnome either won it playing cards (cheating, probably) or stole it from someone else… but with what intent?
As we start to mingle, we realize quickly that some of the old Wormwood crew – no doubt under instructions from Harrigan – are already actively spreading rumors and bad-mouthing us. It seems that the game has already begun and we need to engage -- quickly.
Tetsuko starts working the crowd to get information about the various pirate lords that could benefit us in terms of knowing how to influence them. With just a little talk, she deduces that Janis is entirely in Harrigan’s pocket and a lost cause, although fortunately he is also not very influential despite Harrigan’s substantial influence.
Nearby, under the guise of an impromptu dance, Tyria sweeps away the man poisoning Gaddy’s ear towards the back corner of the room – and when the blue woman ambles back shortly, she’s alone.
Brandr smirks as he spies the man in question sprawled in an out-of-the-way chair unmoving, with his hat yanked down over his eyes. He also notices Tessa batting her eyes at Bloodmourn across the room, but the crusty pirate doesn’t seem to respond.
The medic turns back to Pegsworthy and follows up on our last meeting, asking him how his raid to the south went once he left Squibs. The older pirate explains that the payoff was great, but some dipshit grabbed a cursed item that wreaked havoc on the crew and they were still determining how to break it. There is appreciation in his voice, however, in that Brandr even remembered enough to ask.
Sizing up the room, Aeon approaches Wide Olga – not bad looking for a woman who has seen her share of bad weather and longer years – who is being chatted up by another pirate. Cutting the woman off, Aeon starts babbling about our crew’s accomplishments and cracking bad jokes – which actually does seem to warm Olga up a bit, even eliciting a laugh or two. But when a pirate nearby loudly complains that our crew’s treasure came from wreckage rather than pirating (which makes us just sound like scavengers), he feels her good-will slipping away.
The crowd keeps changing and flowing. Tyria returns to Gaddy just in time to hear a rough dwarf, big scar running down his face and clothes mundane, bragging to the pirate lord about how they attacked a ship through stiff resistance, backing the captain into a reinforced cabin before winning.
Tyria interjects loudly, slapping him on the back to congratulate him, before immediately launching into our own similar but “even better” fight with Captain Wormwithers, who was taking out a third ship, and how we took out his crew while forcing him into the captain’s quarters before he had to flee the boat, leaving us with two prize ships. She notes them both flinch sourly when she mentions Wormwithers’ name, but Gaddy actually nods appreciatively at word of our deeds.
Brandr meanwhile manages to put anesthetic on the woman previously bothering Olga now badmouthing us to Bloodmourn, under pretense that she might have drunk too much and his consoling physician’s presence might be of some aid.
He needn’t have worried about the effectiveness of his ruse. As he is “helping” the woman, Brandr catches Bloodmourn reaching in to swipe her purse, sneaking it into one of his wide pockets, before pulling back his fist and punching her hard in the face. As she squeals and staggers backwards to collapse half-conscious on the floor, the captain mocks her for not being able to hold her liquor at a pirate’s party.
His mouth agape, Brandr recovers enough to force out a laugh and says, “That’s unfortunate -- let me make sure she’s not underfoot.”
“Yeah, let me help too!” offers Bloodmourn – kicking the woman repeatedly as she weakly tries to crawl away.
Tetsuko is meanwhile countering lies being spread to Olga, noting that everything that crew is saying to Olga, Harrigan has been doing himself – and she’s successful enough to leave that rumormonger scrambling to change the subject. Aeon takes advantage of this lull to start gabbing about his armor and weapons and how we storm-raided the halls of the Emperor and took all of his treasure.
After being overshadowed by Tyria, the dwarf gives up on Gaddy to try and spin his stories to Pegsworthy. Brandr can’t help but see that the other dwarf openly carries a clan dagger and wonders if he could lift it.
“So, I must say, it is finally a pleasure to meet you, dear – as I think we’ve found something of yours that you must be badly missing.” As Tyria launches into the story of how we found a silk handkerchief with her initials on Shortstone’s body, Gaddy turns entirely white and asks for the handkerchief to be returned at our earliest convenience. Tyria promises to return it to her as soon as we have a chance to retrieve it from our ship, deducing from Gaddy’s response that the cloth suggests a potential affair the pirate lord would like to keep quiet.
But it wouldn’t be the gnome, that is for certain…? It only takes the monk a second to determine who Shortstone had stolen it from, Maddy’s mysterious paramour – obviously Captain Harrigan himself -- and it takes everything Tyria has not to laugh out loud and ruin the ploy.
Over with Pegsworthy, the conflict between the two dwarves reaches a new level as the grungy rogue warf offers some kind of sob story about how his clan had to abandon their mines for the open seas, and Brandr interjects with, “You know
those dwarves -- they are no better holding onto their mines than onto their clan daggers!” while holding up the blade he just swiped from the dwarf’s belt.
The dwarf’s face contorts into shock, a moment before rage flashes across his face and he leaps towards Brandr. “YOU SON OF A DYING COW!” Despite the dwarf’s hands being wrapped around Brandr’s neck and squeezing hard, the medic looks entirely unaffected by the assault.
Back with Olga, Tetsuko further humiliates the rumormonger by describing how one of the very goblins she is descrying on our crew trashed her mates at the bar a few nights back, which gets laughs from the older woman. As that pirate woman flees to intercept Bloodmourn, Aeon continues to clumsily ply Olga – but when he accidentally says something about her “purty mouth,” the older woman’s laughter suddenly stops.
With Maddy isolating herself after the handkerchief disclosure, Tyria looks for another target and sees the woman who had been harassing Olga make a beeline right for Bloodmourn. Tyria smirks as she takes in the woman’s highly educated, well-dressed, eloquent demeanor, and remembers how Bloodmourn punched the prior woman in the face. She strides right up to the newcomer: “Hey honey, this is a party for
real pirates like handsome here and me -- why don’t you go find a library or something?”
As the woman’s mouth opens in outrage, Tyria trips her so she spins around, whereupon the monk plants one of her boots on the woman’s ass and sends her sprawling while winking at Bloodmourn.
As expected, the pirate bursts out laughing in scorn at the downed woman. “HAHAHA YOU SUCK!” After wiping wine from his mouth, though, he excuses himself to go watch the dwarf fight, which has become pretty heated.
“Hey, knock yourself out, buddy!” calls Tyria, saluting him as he leaves.
The proceedings continue in like vein, as we tailor our approach to whatever seems more influential for the pirate lord in question. Tyria manages to sway Mase by asking him his opinion of how to best leverage the complex and ever-changing web of truces and conflict among the different nations around The Shackles, to raise the highest profits, which Mase has a lot to say about. Having been told by Tetsuko how Mase managed to night-raid a Taldorian port and make off with their plunder before opposing forces could return, she also praises him and shares how we managed to plunder a Taldor noble’s skiff, realized they were hiding loot from us, and managed to convince them to give it up and load it onto our vessel for us, all without bloodshed.
The dwarf battle continues furiously, at some point a half-orc and another female pirate getting dragged into it, culminating with Brandr dropping all three of them to the floor and planting the dwarf’s dagger into his own torso. “If you want your knife back so badly, take it then!”
Having failed to impress Olga by flattery and cunning, Aeon goes for the true and tried approach of putting on the smolder and just hitting on her. Eyeing him the man’s formidable build, Olga reappraises and decides to enjoy herself, as both of them head off to find a quiet spot together.
Through her quizzing of the attendees, Tetsuko discovers that Harrigan has some kind of damning information about Olga – and also that part of her crew is “retired” and “enjoying a stay on Harrigan’s island” … which is pirate-speak for them being hostages. Olga is paying off a ransom for her nabbed crew, partly in coin but also in favors. It might be difficult to get her support until this leverage is removed.
She approaches the Pirate King to discuss Harrigan, asking him if it is acceptable to influence a voter by holding her crew captive, but the King seems completely disinterested. “Pirates be pirates,” he croaks. He’s obviously five sheets to the wind and it’s a wonder he’s still awake.
While we currently seem to have an advantage in the voting, things can change quickly and Harrigan’s crew continues to poison our reputation to the council. Tetsuko decides to speed things along before our fortunes falter. “Maybe we should get on with the proceedings?”
The Pirate King considers this after throwing back another shot, then tries to prime his pistol to fire his gun for everyone’s attention, but he’s too drunk to work his fingers. After a few failed attempts and slapping away Tetusko’s hand once, he squints and realizes she’s quite pretty as well as sensible, and slowly pushes the gun towards her.
“Two hands free is two more hands for rum,” he justifies.
Right as Brandr gets hit in the nuts and stuck with a dagger, and the half-orc gets kicked in the stomach by another combatant, and in some secret place Olga and Aeon are getting it on, Tetsuko hands the loaded pistol back to the Pirate King, who fires it loudly in the air, with the lead ball ricochetting off multiple surfaces without killing anyone.
“Time to get your shit together!” he bellows, and everyone immediately drops what they are doing and heads for their assigned positions.
As she crosses the room, Tyria pauses at Janis (who she simply doesn’t like) with a big smile on her face, slipping an arm around him and speaking quietly in his one ear:
“Janis, Janis, my dear sweet Janis -- you two faced little
shit. I know that no one thinks much of you here – you don’t amount to much, you never have, and you never will. If you’re not half-blind, you’ll see that we’ve already got everyone who matters on our side, but you know what? We’re going to make this a full sweep tonight and you are going to fucking vote for us along with everyone else -- just because WE are the future and you really want to have one if Harrigan ever falls out of favor… even if you plan to go crawling back to him after you raise that hand for us.”
As he turns white in anxiety, then red in anger, she pats him heartily on his back before heading to join the others.
At this point, the applicant crews are each called forward in turn to present their credentials and win the crowd.
The first group starts rattling off things they’ve done, until one of them brags about taking some boat called the “Rainbow Dawn.” The Pirate King interrupts them all. “What? The Rainbow Dawn? You SHIT-heads! That was MY fucking ship!” Without further ado, he shoots their leader, and his crew immediately flees the room, dragging the leader’s body behind them.
The next group appears a bit anxious, but they warm up as their sing about their exploits and killing sea monsters, while everyone drinks heartily and claps along.
“Are they worthy?” calls the Pirate King when time comes for a vote. A few shout out how they suck, but others call out signs of support. There’s a hasty vote and a majority raise their hands, so we have seen our first approved crew tonight.
The third group comes forward to talk about their plunder, the hidden treasure they’ve found, and the storms they’ve survived storms, but it all rings kind of flat. During this vote, beer bottles are flying around the room as well as more boos and heckles. “It’s all bullshit – there’s no WAY they took that ship,” is one typical complaint. The vote goes against them and the King somewhat unkindly tells them to get lost.
Finally we are invited forward – right as we see Olga hurry back into the room to take her seat, followed very quickly by Aeon sliding his shirt back on.
We do our typical presentation, where Tyria leads the performance but everyone gets involved acting out the parts of our past heroics, adding whatever kind of flair we can.
As Stanza 1 (The Taking of the Death Knell) begins, the unruly dwarf starts heckling us until Brandr shouts him down by telling everyone how he’s a chump who got stabbed by his very own clan dagger at this very own party – not once, not twice, but three whole times. The dwarf does quickly shut up.
As we describe the battle with Pilk, at the climactic moments, Tyria rings the Death Kneel’s bell three times – the third time slamming it down on the Council’s table so they can all see the token clearly. Each time the peal reverberates around the room, there’s the eerie shimmer of a ghostly figure standing in the room’s middle – Pilk himself, failing to fully manifest -- fading only as the sound of the bell fades. This drives the crowd wild, with pirates cheering and saluting and sloshing beer everywhere in the air.
“I sunk a ghost ship too!” cries one as we finish, right before another punches him yelling bullshit.
Stanza 2 describes the Taking of the Tidewater Rock, with the key and the statue we recovered as our props. As we reenact the fateful battle upstairs, including the explosion of the powder magazine, everyone cheers wildly. Tyria makes sure to slip in how “Fullstache” is now just a “Halfstache” after taking half a face full of acid during the fight, which leaves the crowd howling in laughter and people shouting how they took The Rock before too.
The Final Stanza is of course the battle in the Sea Devil’s Lair, where we wiped out the entire clan before bursting into the Emperor’s throne room and beheading him, with Brandr now wearing the monster’s head as a helm. For a final nice flourish, Tyria whips out the Emperor’s crown we recovered and thrusts it down on Brandr’s helmed head. This whole episode especially seems to amuse Bloodmourn.
With this the votes start, and the crowd is throwing both hands in the air. We watch as Wild Olga begins to clap and stand, until a scowl from Harrigan reminds her of her vulnerability and she sits. While Janis is ranting about how evil we are, the rest of the Council seems to be on our side, and even the Pirate King provides a slow clap and says, “Well done.”
We’re in.
To close the proceedings, the King announces that we are all invited to eat and drink as long as we like, and to please be kind by depositing any bodies out back to simplify cleaning.
Before we leave, Aeon hunts out Wide Olga and tells her that maybe we could help her if she is in any trouble. She tells him that she appreciates his concern, but the time is not yet right. Maybe when she is in a better position? She hands him a piece of slate on some twine as a sign of her favor, which will give him a one-time auto-crit on an attack roll.
“Thank you, Lady. If the times ever change – please get us word.”
Discussing this on the way back to the inn, both Tyria and Brandr are amenable to maybe doing a “little rescue mission” if we can locate the island in question -- to make Harrigan look bad and give Wide Olga more freedom to act.
When we awaken the next morning and head downstairs, we find that Tessa Fairwind has a breakfast spread laid out for us. She congratulates us and notes that we made quite an impression.
In light of our success and the fact she believes we are trustworthy, she would like to propose another endeavor. She explains her conviction that Cheliax has informants working in The Shackles and even here on the island in Port. She has a potential lead but cannot act on it openly herself – but
we might be able to. She’s even willing to pay if we need money.
According to Tessa, the spy ring could have been here for years. Ultimately she wants evidence – whatever we can find -- to show the King to convince him to take Cheliax more seriously.
“Well, we have no love for those devil worshippers, that’s the truth,” says Tyria.
Brandr asks if there might be an insider on the council. Tessa suspects so, based on how much influence and information they have, but she doesn’t know for sure.
We look at each other. “I would like to know the location of Harrigan’s private island,” requests Aeon as one bit of payment. We describe how Olga’s crew is currently kept captive, but if we discover where, maybe we can remove some of Harrigan’s influence over her – which could benefit Tessa if Olga is more free to act against Harrigan.
Tessa does not know the location at this time, but she will see if she can acquire it for us.
Meanwhile, she slides an address to us. “Norgorber – the Temple of the Hidden Name. If there are secrets to be had, maybe they have it. This is the start. I cannot offer anything else than the beginning of the lead. Good luck!”
Standing from the table, she bids us adieu and leaves us to our day.
