Official DM Post
Vemuz: You follow your new found "friend" to the tavern. To your surprise, "The Frigate" looks far better on the inside than on the outside. It is fairly clean, for a tavern, and the attractive serving girls seem to be just a cut above the average slatterns found serving in bars.
Also, there is a small knot of important-looking, welldressed men lounging in the corner - obviously captains, or at least officers, of ships. They are sipping glasses of port and surveying the throng of ordinary seamen gulping their grog throughout the tavern.
Your friend leaves you for a moment, and walks over to the captains, where he begins to talk it up with them. He points to you several times, and then you see one of the captains pass him a small bag full of coins. He then walks back to you, seeming pleased with himself. If, however, you expected him to bring a ship's Articles to sign, you are disappointed.
"Ya wan' a drink, guv?" He asks. Not waiting for your reply, he calls to the bartender: "Cappy! A grog for me friend here. And put a little somethin' special in it." You notice he doesn't order a drink for himself.
Soon, a pretty young maid brings you the tumbler of grog, smiling at you winningly. (OOC: Make a Spot Check).
(OOC: What now?)
Malachi: As the ratty-looking man, rebuffed by you, walks away, muttering about "Damn stupid Porcs...," You hear a gravelly voice behind you.
"You did the right thing, friend. If you had taken him up on his offer, you'd find yourself crewing a slow boat to the middle of nowhere - what's more, for no pay. He was Runner, the type o' scum what preys upon innocent sailors hereabouts," the man says. He is a tall, powerfully built man in a fine broadcloth suit. He has a seamanlike air about him, and he appears rather old. His hair is white, and his face tanned, weatherbeaten, and deeply lined. He has crows-feet in the corners of his eyes from long years peering into the sun on watch, and he has the harsh lines around his mouth that come from being Master of a vessel.
"Who be you?" You ask.
"My name is McCrenshaw. Captain R. McCrenshaw, Master of the Grace O' Calypso, that ship over there. She's a nice-lookin' little packet, ain't she? The reason I was passin' by was that I was headin' to that tavern over there, The Frigate." He points to a floating hulk moored to a dingy-looking dock nearby. "Six o' my crew went in there t' celebrate their shore leave three days ago. I hain't seen hide nor hair o' them since, and I'm much afraid they been Canchinged. This whole town's full o' Runners, and thet there tavern is the worst nest o' them."
Just then, you hear a familiar voice calling your name.
"Malachi! Malachi!" It is your friend, Malthas. With him is a small boy, who is fingering a coin and talking to him rapidly.
"Thet there would be my cabin boy," McCrenshaw says placidly. "An' would that be the friend y'r lookin' for?"
Malthas reaches the other side of the street, and starts to say something to you.
Malthas: The cabin boy has told you a good deal about the "Runners." They lure seamen recently come off their ships to certain taverns, but mainly one known as The Frigate, where they drug the sailor's drinks and smuggle them aboard departing vessels whose captains are unwilling to pay the sailors. "Canchinged" sailors can be troublesome, of course, but some captains are willing to deal with the trouble in return for the money they save from what is effectively slave labor by the unfortunate seamen.
Across the street, you see, to your relief, that Malachi is still standing there, now talking to an old-sea-captain-looking fellow. The Runner, disappointed, has already begun talking it up with another victim, a short little Gnome sporting a pair of large-looking pistols and who has a pyromaniacal look to him.
"Say," the cabin boy says excitedly. "That's me captain, Roger McCrenshaw, an' a better captain you'll not find in all the seven seas. Yer friend is in good hands now. Say, now that I think of it, McCrenshaw'll be wanting some new crew - had ta fire his navigator for incompetence an' his pilot fer drunkeness, and jus' three days ago, six o' me shipmates went out celebratin' their shore leave, and got themselves Canchinged. the Captain'll be wanting some new crew, fer shore."
Bimzoole: As you go to follow the half-orc with the sextant, you feel a tap on your shoulder. A ratty-looking fellow whose teeth and face are in a deplorable state is grinning at you in a sly way.
"'Ey, guv'nor! Just off yer ship, are ya? Seems to me I know you from somewheres..." You do not recogize this man at all. "...say, if yer wantin' ta celebrate yer shore leave, why not go over t' that tavern over yonder. Happens I'm good friends with the bartender, and I'll buy y' a drink or three. How s'about it?"
(OOC: Do you follow him?)
Xanaphia: As you walk along the docks, surveying the various ships, you eventually end up near "the Wall," the remnants of the town's old sea wall, where, you learn, out of work sailors customarily gather. You gather with the other sailors. You also gather a good many stares. As people see your gills, whispers of "mermaid!" go around in the crowd. As a matter of fact, the crowd's attention seems about equally divided between yourself and a strange looking elf with black, black skin and dead-white hair. As the two most eccentric people in the crowd, you begin to gravitate toward one another. The odd-looking elf sees you, and looks like he is about to say something.
Jonah: As you walk along the street, deciphering the map, you begin to wend your way toward the old seawall of the town, known to everyone simply as "the Wall." It is customarily the place where out of work sailors gather. In addition to gather with the other out-of-work sailors, you also gather curious stares from the populace.
"Catch a bit too much sun, there?" asks one young sailor insolently, staring at your black skin and white hair. The other sailors guffaw, except for one. She, like yourself, is a curious specimen, with greenish skin, blue-green hair, and...gills? She turns to you, as though expecting you to say something.
(OOC: What do you say?)
Nicodemus: The town is quite bustling. In the distance, near the remains of a wall, a crowd of sailors gathered, apparently looking for work.
Nearer to you, a brutish yet oddly intelligent looking half-orc with a sextant seems to be chatting with a halfling and an old sea captain.
Nearer still to you, a ratty-looking man is talking it up with a tiny little fellow, a gnome, if his nose is anything to judge by, with a fiery look to him.
As you dismount the gangplank with Artimus in tow, two people come up beside you simultaneously. The one to your left is a fairly respectable looking seaman, and the one to your right is a ratty-looking landsman, very similar, in fact, to the one chatting it up with the fiery-looking gnome on the next dock over.
"Say, guv'nor, yew look glad to be on yer shore leave," says the landsman. "Why not come on an' I'll buy ya a drink ta celebrate? I seem ta remeber you from somewheres...maybe it'll come back t'me over a rum or two, eh?"
"Don't listen to him, friend," the sailor replies. "He's one o' them Runners what kidnapped me shipmate t' sail on some godforsaken garbage scow t' Pondicherry, or some such place. 'E Canchinged me shipmate, I tell ya! Don't trust 'im. If ya wanta follow anyone, foller me. Me captain, McCrenshaw, is lookin' fer fellers ta replace the ones 'e had ta fire and the six what got themselves kidnapped by this feller over here. An' what's more, my captain'll pay good honest wages, unlike this feller over 'ere, who'll sell ya ta some bully skipper like you was an Orcish slave or somethin'"
(OOC: Who do you trust?)
btw, Jonah, the town doesn't have a name yet(haven't thought of one, but am open to suggestions. The name isn't really important to the plot, so I didn't think of if much until now.) It is moderately sized port city somewhere in the region of southern Hull.
Some Tavern maybe, or "The Wall"?
C 14, It's a Cantrip, sorry...
