2025/08/29: Rescuing Doyle

Buzz, Kelsey, Knight, Malakai, Nimbus, Everett, Othar, Union   The swashbuckling sea captain guy made of billowing black smoke came to the fore, pushing past the cyber-pirates. Kelsey introduced herself as Kelsey of Kaelund and informed the captain that she and her party members were here to try to hire a specific person.   There were several other individuals of note:

A very pale, slightly ill-looking ominous gentleman. He had a sort of strange sheen to him. Sailor's coat, captain's hat. 8 feet tall. Tight shirt over tight muscles. (Captain Iverson Tieges of the Voidshark)

Shorter guy with golden brown hat, fancy clothes. Lots of hangers-on around him. Fair amount of jewelry. (Admiral Vrent Wavecrest of the Dominion)

Malakai noted that the bay had perhaps 7 slots for ships to dock, as well as a well-equipped drydock.   The shadowy guy gave his name as... Yterrence Blackborne Captain of the... (with much disappointment) Hawk. Implication was that this wasn't his normal (or favored) ship.   The fancy captain almost ordered his followers to kill the party, but the smoke genasi stopped him.   "I take it you are lost, and in need of direction." After one repetition, the party got it and agreed to be helped. The smoke genasi escorted the party to a better place to rest and talk. He and the other captains were shooting nasty glances at each other.   The party and the captain entered the inn. It was an enormous inn, enough to serve a thousand people at a time, but it looked to have fallen on hard times. There was a grand total of perhaps 15 people inside, a number of which were working there.   The captain explained the situation.   Ocean Fort 23. A protected military installation. "People wandering in... they tend to get dead." Among other things, though, the base tends to pick up those who are lost and in need of directions, and help them get home. If they thought the party was invading, however, they would probably be killed.   The fort had recently seen battle, and the captain had lost his ship and most of his crew. A rescue dragon was sent out earlier in the day to look for survivors of Yterrence's ship. The captain wished for the party's help in doing search and rescue and finding a new ship. His old one was blasted to cinders by a great monster of the deep.   "Keeping the sea lanes open does not come without a cost in lives. People tend to forget."   These folks seem to be doing privateering, not piracy. Or so they claim.   The battle happened the previous night. The storm cleared today.   Everett offered his services in raising the dead, if they were found.   Buzz claimed the person the party was looking for was his awful cousin. Probably drunk, probably in prison. Said he goes by many names, mostly because he has many baby-mommas, but he often goes by Doyle. Yterrence said he didn't know of any by that name, but there were a variety of individuals in their brig. In prison: "Some strange ones, and some crazy dwarves." He'd been hoping to recruit some of them as crew, but the dwarves seemed problematically clannish.   The captain said he'd go set things up, then left the party with the waitstaff, telling them meals were on him. The young waiter had strangely (magically?) deep pockets, but he didn't explain why or how. The party members (except Knight, who was still standing and pretending to be a mute bodyguard) gave their orders, and the food came back a minute later, piping hot and smelling good. Turned out to be decent and well-cooked. The party got their drinks refilled a few times, but there wasn't much else to see in the room. The main source of entertainment for the people in the inn seemed to be the party.   Yterrence came back and announced good news. The party had permission to dock their ship, and they were being set up with privateer licenses so they could aid the fort.   Yterrence tried to poach party members as crew while they waited for the Ragnarok to arrive. When it did, Yterrence advised that it should come in the main gate; things that try to fly or climb over the sides or through other gaps don't tend to survive. A man ran over to the group to hand over some maps and charts, and then the group and their ship set off.   The map the captain was using turned out to be some Harry Potter-type "shows you what you're looking for" magic map. Buzz played navigator and guided the ship on the two-hour journey to the battle zone. He also used an item he had to locate sunken ships on the way, which found at least 60 ships.   The sea seemed oddly frothy and dark. Yterrence speculated that it was because of the Old One blood that had flooded out into the local sea.   The party members made their contributions to the search. Knight, still in their six-eyed refined form, searched from the ship by detecting spirits and life.   Kelsey summoned Bubbles the Wyrm via her new figurine of wondrous power. 250 feet long, 15 feet tall and wide. Striated pink with white parts. Aside from color and attitude, he's absolutely terrifying by heavily armored giant Eastern dragon standards. He isn't flight-capable; his wings are too small. He does well in the water, though, happily frolicking around. Kelsey also summoned Tyramir (sp?), her blue dragon, from another figurine. Bubbles seems to be a very happy "little" dragon who is happy to frolic around and do whatever he's told. He seems remarkably solid, like being on top of a stone wall. Kelsey got the feeling that she could set camp and start a campfire on top of his head and he would perfectly happy.   Buzz navigated the ship and located sunken ships. Everett summoned water elementals to locate survivors (and possibly edible fish). Nimbus kept an eye out for monsters, while Malakai did a visual search with Eagle Sight and did captaining. Union ascended to try to find everybody in the region. (He discovered that a bunch of Old Ones had died in this area and were not happy, and this was causing scars and damage to reality. Reality itself was not calm in this area.) Othar used his scrying ability to locate four named crew members of the Black Whip. (The first was free, 500 gold for each of the others. Yterrence paid up front.)   Of the four crewmembers searched for, the first mate was dead, the second was captured by a kraken and held undersea (Yterrence teleported to him, killed the kraken, and rescued the second mate, a bunch of crewmembers, and a bunch of slaves), the third individual was dead, and the weaponmaster was retrievable. The latter was some sort of weird halfling-sized crab man named Dej. He was doing surprisingly fine, though completely lost on the bottom of the ocean. He was ecstatic to be rescued. (He doesn't use his claws in combat: He carries like 50 weapons with him.)   The rest of the efforts combined to rescue a total of 71 people over the course of at least four hours. Not all were Yterrence's crew: This was the site of a major battle, and most of these crewmen were from other lost ships. The rescue crew also recovered about 60 raiseable bodies. (The water elemental came out of the water with what initially looked like a giant conglomeration of merged corpses, but it was just the elemental holding them all together to the limit of its capacity.)   Late in the effort, a black dragon about the size of the Ragnarok came by with a boat hanging from its neck like a barrel from the neck of a rescue dog. The boat enlarged after it was set down, giving the rescued sailors more space. The dragon and boat apparently belong to Captain Teagues, one of the scary privateers who wanted to kill the party back at the castle.   Yterrence explained to Othar and Nimbus (with Knight overhearing) how the battle went. The battle was going well, with Yterrence's ship doing major damage, but as he got too bloodthirsty and did too much damage, his ship became target number 1 for the Old Ones. This was a huge battle; there were something like 200 krakens and six major Old Ones. The privateers lost a bunch of ships, but it was mostly the cannon-fodder ships they expected to lose.   As night fell, the rescuers returned to Ocean Fort 23. It had such facilities that the ships and personnel returning were but a drop in a bucket. The inn can serve a thousand; the barracks can hold several thousand.   Everett gestured to the pile of dead and asked who had money. Yterrence picked through the pile, looking for his own crewmembers. Other fort workers were organizing the dead. It seemed only Yterrence and the party were interested in reviving anyone; the rest were just updating records.   The party opted to wait on the resurrections and raising until after they had Doyle. Yterrence, for his part, said the party had gone above and beyond on their side of the deal. He escorted them to the prison area. The prison was handled by a big, bald half-ogre. He kept the place in good military order and cleanliness. Yterrence introduced the party as "prospective members of his crew" who would be helping to weed out unwanted recruits.   The dwarves were in the first cell. They were in a defensive wall when first seen, forming a wall of dwarf as if to disguise their number. They looked... odd. Fake, even. Their beards and mustaches looked mildewed and like they'd been attached. They also appeared drunk. Buzz suspected they were gnomes or halflings pretending to be dwarves. They were looking at the party confrontationally and muttering things in a language none of the adventurers understood. (Think Muppet Swedish Chef, but even faster and angry.)   In the room next to the dwarves was another dwarf. This one looked more terrifying; like Blackbeard but if he were a dwarf. A crazy black beard with what looked like detcord wound into them. He rushed the bars upon seeing the party, appearing to grow to large size as he did so. He was muttering barely intelligible threats.   The last cell had an old-looking dwarf who was missing a leg. He looked more dwarfy than the rest. His voice didn't match the one Doyle had put on, though.   Buzz led the way back to the first cell. The warden mentioned that this bunch varied in voices; sometimes they're remarkably eloquent. Supposedly, this bunch were captured while attacking a ship. Buzz, Nimbus, and Kelsey were allowed into the cell to speak to the dwarves. Even with Comprehend Languages running, Buzz wasn't able to understand them. Kelsey went to pick several of them up; they responded by latching arms so tightly that she had to lift all of them as a single block. Buzz and Nimbus, circling around, were able to spot that the "dwarves" had sleight-of-handed someone into the center of the bunch.   Kelsey tried talking to them, got response that they already had a job/crew and wouldn't betray. (In mostly incomprehensible words.) Union heard tinking from the back corner, as if someone was trying to get their attention. The dwarves tried to intercept and mimic the sound. Knight, seeing that the party had no apparent plan and were potentially about to break Doyle's cover by being blatant about retrieving him in front of the captain and guard, took charge. They broke the mute act and asked the captain to wait outside.   Needs 180 feet of rope. "It's deeper than I thought."   Malakai's "It's Goddamn Rope" spell constructed a set of stairs and an entire elevator all out of rope.   Explained situation to Doyle.   He was investigating piracy near Shisui. Several ships had recently gone missing. The piracy of their ships had been seen as piracy by these people, who had been stealing crew members to serve in their war. This bunch seem to be a potent military force with very advanced weaponry and powerful ships. They have massively powerful cannons, which might be classified as beam weapons. Terrifyingly destructive and well beyond the capacity of the Shisui navy to deal with. Doyle has discovered a vast underground area in the castle. There's a shiny skeleton he hasn't been able to get in contact with, and there are a bunch of rooms, apparently big vaults, that cycle in and out of range. It seems the people currently running the castle don't know what those are. Treasures of an ancient advanced civilization.   Magic dampening down there, though, apparently. Which made Buzz (and several others) immediately lose interest.   Kagglebash Thundersnoot (sp?) is the berserker in the next cell. The dwarves recommend leaving him here.   The dwarves are trying to get back to their homeland.   The warden and captain came back in. Buzz explained that the dwarves were duty-sworn to "his idiot cousin" and had to be taken with him as a unit. And probably needed an exorcism and/or psychic surgery.   Buzz handed out cups of cider. The dwarves accepted, while still protecting whatever was in the middle of their group. Seeing them drinking, it seemed more than ever that their beards were real, even though they looked like they shouldn't be.   The group did want to talk to the old dwarf in the final cell, mostly out of curiosity. The captain wanted to ask some questions too; apparently that dwarf was a new addition. He was in for piracy, not that that meant much with everybody here being a pirate of some sort.   That dwarf was named Taegrin Stumpbasher and he said he has been everywhere from Concordia to the Savage Den. He's a professional pirate, which he described as "murder and looting". He's been a weaponmaster on six different ships. Give him his (prosthetic) leg back, give him his weapons, and he'll work for whoever. It seemed Yterrence had found his new crewmember.   With that, the group was ready to leave. They didn't feel like doing the dungeon today.   The last of a clan of dwarves who have come on very hard times, with the rest of their country wiped out. They went out onto the sea to survive. They like mining and some forest work. They all have different specialties. Union offered them a spot at Malakai's place. They also are guarding their princess. A young female dwarf who the rest of them have been guarding religiously. Arastra Kegsmasher. They are hoping to be able to work their way up and protect the princess until she comes of age, and then perhaps she'll lead them to retake their homeland.   Kelsey also offered Kaelund.   The party explained the mission they wanted Doyle for. He wasn't familiar with the city, but the pirates were, somewhat. It's a coastal trade city that is defended by their privateer organization.   The navy is the CTD: Concordian Trade Defense Navy. Not an official military force of any of the countries, just a private defense force funded by a bunch of nations. One well-funded navy between the lot of them.   Rael-Aestra isn't part of Concordia, but they like to believe they are. They're somewhat wannabes.   Captain Yterrence and the old dwarf were shown a picture of Grey. They didn't recognize him. That didn't mean much, but it did at least mean that he wasn't a major figure with the port authority or the navy. He also didn't appear to be a noble; they would never be seen with so little gold on them. But then, Grey might just be unusually good at laying low.   Everett and Killgleam/Korbane also did their raise dead / resurrection things on the way out, giving Yterrence more of a crew back.   With their business concluded and Doyle retrieved, the party set out for the week-long journey to Rael-Aestra.