5) Back to the House III: Third time's the charm?

[Urson]

We are rapidly losing time, and we have few options. I know nothing of sailing, but I suspect that they have enough men onboard to successfully defend the ship _and_ mount an attack against us. We have a definite defensible position, let us hold it. I will go barricade the door into the house, so they cannot attack our rear.
Mai sprints to the door that leads up into the house and blocks it. When it seems solid, she'll sprint back to the cave, looking for a covered position at the cave mouth.

[OGRE MAGE]

Jonas swims and swims, as if he was made for the water, until he finally spots the larger ship just ahead. As could be expected, he sees a few figures of men standing at the deck railing. The 1/4 aquatic elf looks up at them as he quietly approaches, keeping himself fully below the waters surface.

Jonas feels a bit embarrassed that he didn't think of this prospect sooner once he sees that every man on the ship is looking directly at the shore. They all appear to be staring out intently towards the house, possibly looking for signs of danger or more code flashing. The elf kicks himself under the waves once he realizes that, if is his party was all looking out to sea hoping to see the flashing, that those on board the bigger ship were likely all doing the same thing.

He swims around to the other side of the ship and does not spot even one of the pirates guarding this side of the boat. He begins crawling up the side of the large vessel via an anchor rope and soon finds himself at a porthole in the upper part of the ships hull. There is light coming from inside the hole so Jonas decides to keep crawling. Once up to the deck, the elf spots the forms of 5 men. Three of them are bunched up in one area on the forecastle, one is holding what looks like a lantern. Another man is standing a few yards away from them, also staring directly at the shore. The last one he sees is up in the crows nest, you guessed it, looking directly towards the shoreline.

Jonas instantly realizes that his group could have all easily rowed out in their dingy, keeping a visual distance from the ship, tracking around them a little to arrive at the back side of their vessel. As he looks around the deck, trying to figure out what to do, he hears one of the men in the group of three speak to the others in a quiet growl.

"Is that them finally? What in the blazes is taking them so long to get out here? Wait till I get my hands on those lazy bastards for rowing so slowly on such an important night."

The others continue to stare towards shore when the lone figure responds.

"Don't think so, Cap'n! The boat that's approaching looks like it is still completely full!"

[OGRE MAGE]

Jonas knows that he cant take on these 5 men all alone, especially since he has no idea who else might be on board. He ducks back out of sight, staying near the railing, as the smaller boat rows right up next to the ship. He hears the Captains voice again.

"That's our men all right! And they are still loaded. Shifty! Lower the rigging hoist! We will pull them back up just as they are, in case they are being followed!" The tall man begins shouting out orders and pointing people around the deck.

"Get those lazy bastards up from below! And call out for those lizardmen too! We will need all the help we can get hoisting the full dingy back up onto the deck. As soon as they are aboard, we are getting the hells outta here!"

Ready to dive back into the sea, Jonas watches a bit longer. He sees a few more men come up from the lower hold of the ship. Just then, 3 rather large and scary looking lizardmen also come up from below decks. All of them begin pulling on the thick hoisting ropes as the smaller boat is lifted right up out of the sea. Once safely back on deck, the 2 men in the boat give the captain their report.

"Cap'n sir, I think the cave has been compromised! There was one man on the shore doing something, but we couldn't make out if it was Sanbalet or just one of his thugs. They never sent anyone out in the boat like they signaled they would, and we spotted another boat in the landing that wasn't there before. I think they have finally been found out, sir!"

The captain shouts out one last order. "Pull up the last anchor, men! We aren't taking any chances with a hold full of stolen loot and these lizards on board. I cant imagine how high we will all hang if the authorities find out that we are smuggling these weapons for them either. Lets get out of these waters for good! I know another port where we can fence this crap! We can drop off our scaly passengers and their new steel along the way! We are done with this little shit puddle town for good!"

With that, the ship pulls anchor and drops its sails, floating off to never be seen again. The last thing that can be heard is the sound of Jonas plopping back into the water after a perfect dive from over the rail. The fishy elf swims back to shore to inform his friends that the proverbial jig is up.

Sorry everyone, but I clearly stated numerous times that one dingy from the ship would row towards shore with a full load while the other boat on shore would row out to the ship to get loaded. I didn't actually count how often I made reference to that fact, but I know it was at least a few times. I understand that it was easier to agree to an ambush in the safety of the caves, and the groups trepidation to figure out a way to get out to the larger (possibly dangerous) ship, but that was indeed the next avenue of the game. Unfortunately, with the ship and all of its wonderful plot hooks now long gone, there will be no way to learn the necessary information that will lead to the rest of this game.

Sometimes these old school adventures just don't translate well into the PbP format. I think that this is one of those modules. I thought I was making it rather obvious what needed to be done to continue, but if the players don't pick up on it, there isn't much the DM can do to help. Railroading players down a certain path is not my idea of a good time as a DM, so I didn't want to do that too much with this group. Such is the way of the PbP format. Some ideas just don't translate well over several days of posting like it does when your group is talking FtF and can work these things out all in one conversation.

Jonas swimming out to the ship was a good idea. As was this:

it may be the only option to sneak out now in the boat in the dark, and when they send a larger party to the cave we sneak around to the back side of the ship and board.

Unfortunately, sometimes in these games, one player will post a suggestion and the others will only act upon that one idea. This part of the adventure took some thinking from the players. I think I mentioned that as well before we started this game. But if a player makes a suggestion that isn't followed, there isn't much I can do about that either. Sorry for the lack of fanfare in the end, but there isn't much I could do about it once you all had your minds made up.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is...... this adventure has just reached its rather anticlimactic ending.

Thanks for playing, everyone!!! Kind of a bummer way to go out, but that's how these games go on here sometimes. I guess its better than a TPK? I don't feel like the adventure was a total waste. At least you thwarted a dangerous smuggling ring and chased even more dangerous pirates out of these local waters. You can take solace in that, at least.
Again, thanks for playing along!

[ravenn4544]

For what it's worth, I think this was one of my more memorable games . Enjoyed it all.

[Urson]

well, crud.

It was very well run, OM. No worries. If you have anything else up your sleeve that Mai could fit into, deal me in- just not Big Shiny Island. I don't like playing two PC's in one game- it's too hard for me to keep two lumps of 'character knowledge' separate.