Harrowed Halls

Excerpt from Nickolas’ Diary… Epilogue….

Excerpt from Nickolas’ Diary…

We descended into the deep today. Climbing!! So much climbing… We must be at least a thousand feet down.

My feet were already sore after trudging through the jungle, but I am soldiering on; but then I am not a complainer. I have sand in every nook and cranny. Wonder if there is any clean
fresh water down here for a bath?

Getting those feelings again when I see Elizabeth, but think it is best to push her away when she inevitably succumbs to hers; Buck is a nasty piece of work. She does look very ravishing with… arrggghh!! I must keep it together.

It is pitch black! Apparently we only brought one lamp with us. Could have sworn we came with more. It’s as though some malevolent being is watching us – no! Guiding us to our doom….. We cannot avoid our fate.

We entered a cave – great, more sand! No suspicious sounds can be heard, but we trudge slowly and carefully. Buck scouted ahead, but despite a stealthy approach, is surprised by
a giant crab that emerges from beneath the sand! It is huge!! It must have some unearthly ability to detect Buck – he is a quiet, cunning bugger, make no mistake.

As the rest of us hurry to his aid, with me protecting our rear, the sandy floor shuddered all around us! Hundreds of little crabs emerge from the sand! They climb all over us, snipping every piece of our body with their claws – it’s as though they can’t miss. I don’t know what came over me – a “bloodlust” perhaps, it’s all new to me – but I was like a wild mad. I Stamped and threw punches at the crabs until they scuttled away. I must of killed 30 or so. They were merciless and killed one of the crew. It appears I am braver than I thought. I am sure I caught Elizabeth watching me, a side of me she hasn’t seen before – she must think I am a madman now.

As the crew and I are being overwhelmed by small crabs, Buck has dispatched the giant crab and climbed up a rock, no doubt anticipating further trouble from below the sand. He must of dozed off though, as he is surprised by a humongous – a King! – crab that also emerges from the sand. It has time to lift its giant bulk – must be at least two tons – from the sand and climb up the rock and attack before Buck realizes what’s going on. Luckily, he avoids being clawed to death. Yet more proof of the unearthly detection abilities of crabs.

Several more of those giant crabs emerge and Duncan (and Desmond? I feel sorry for our friend Duncan. He thinks his brother Desmond is with us. Perhaps he suffered some sort of trauma as a young boy? Perhaps we should get him some help the next time we are in
port…I will talk to the Captain) valiantly holds all but one off of us. Thomas’ dog (never did catch his name) unfortunately tries to stop the other, but those crabs are too big and powerful – we will never see his tail wag again.

A shot rings out and a giant crab goes down! Thomas has brought his musket to bear on the fowl creatures. Another shot rings through the cave as Thomas fires again and the king crab takes a shot in the head (in what I assume counts as his head). Pieces of it fly off as it gingerly climbs up to the ceiling of the cave. I must remember to serpentine if I ever piss him off.

Before Buck can finish off the King crab with a couple of daggers to the eyes, it makes a successful attack on Thomas, almost killing him!! He does, however, manage to avoid its
immense body as it comes crashing down. Now that I think about it… perhaps it was me that killed the crab??? Who knows what I am capable of when the bloodlust takes over….?

As usual, I am relied upon to put us all back together after a fight; certainly no way I could have talked us out of this one. Only Thomas is seriously injured, but I am easily able to get him back to his sharp shooter best. Not even a thank you as usual.

Looks like Buck is ready to move out again……where’s that lamp?

(Written by Ben, who still is not technologically advanced enough to get on the internet at home.)

It was a dark and story night off the south coast of England….meanwhile in the Caribbean it is hot and sunny, as usual. The crew of the Black Prince find them selves up river. Duncan acquired a map, stolen from the Spanish ambassador. Of course the map is for treasure, and X always marks the spot.

A small elite squad headed further up river in three boats. Buck insisted on bringing extra crew and boats to haul off the huuuge amount of treasure they were obviously going to find. Some Griffons attacked them while they were in the boats and after some running and screaming, falling in the river etc the griffons were fought off.

Slogging through the jungle, they came across a 100 ft high tree stripped of all its branches, except two in the form of a cross. From the top of the tree a ziggurat could be seen two miles away, overgrown with vines. In front of the ziggurat the remains of a city could be seen, now overgrown. All is quiet in the clearing. no hostile tribes, no drums in the jungle.

Suddenly there is movement off to one side of the clearing. Footprints in the mud, it seems the group was being watched.

An amazing series of tracking rolls by Duncan, to follow the footprints, led the party to a native village. The chief, “Tofu Seafood” (he must have been a Jedi master in another life) comes out greet them. Well after much excitement in the village the chief calls for a feast. Whilst waiting for the food to cook he offers everyone some recreational smoking; some Peyote. Getting bored waiting for the food the chief jumps up and calls for the group to follow him, to the ziggurat; the great temple of Unka Lunka. He runs all the way through the jungle, across the abandoned city, up the great staircase to the top of the ziggurat. Ignoring the nest of baby Griffons at the top, he pushes a sacrifice alter to one side to reveal a secret stair case. Down he goes, followed by the party. Down a ramp, to a giant stone skull statue. Turns the lever in the left eye socket and pushes the skull out of the way to reveal another secret stair. On he goes. The party first lights some torches and quickly follows the chief, down into the dark of a great chamber. Pools of molten lava are on the floor, in-between rows of very nicely painted columns. Tofu Seafood is standing in the middle of the great hall and call out in a great roar…some ethereal ghostly figures rise from the floor and start to fight Tofu. He strikes one of them down with his great spear, but the ghosts are too much for him, he is hacked to pieces and falls dead into the lava. The part is alone in the dark, looking down on the death of the mighty Tofu (told you he was a Jedi master in a previous life).

As Tofu Seafood died, his very nice, youngest daughter leans forward and offers you a plate of roast wild boar. She gives Nicholas an extra special smile. You are all seated around the camp fire with a wild boar roasting on a spit. It would seem the journey into the ziggurat was all a dream, a waking dream in the spirit world. The chief Tofu is very much alive.

The next morning after you have feasted on wild boar and on the chiefs youngest daughter, The chief wishes you great luck and gives to the mighty warrior Nicholas, his long spear (apparently it is a wedding gift) and some more peyote. Anyway….journey to the temple, fight the griffons, Buck stumbles into a pit trap and fall into a dark snake lair. By some miracle the snake gets past Bucks parry and bites him (there was some confusion about +2 to attack because of the snakes small size. If only Steve was there to clarify the rules). By even more of a miracle Buck doesn’t die. A few more traps and poison darts on the way down into the ziggurat.

Fighting the ghosts proved to be a problem. Buck had the magic spear from the chief, but he broke it. Thomas decided to smoke some more peyote but got a bit confused and everyone looked like a ghost. So what to do when surrounded by ghosts….start shooting…no really!! There was Buck on one side and Nicholas on the other, who to shoot? Nicholas persuaded Thomas not to shoot him and shoot buck instead by the old favorite “look out behind you !”.

Anyway Duncan ran across the burning lava to retrieve the treasure (a golden idol) but his shoes caught on fire. Eventually the golden idol was retrieved and Thomas stopped shooting people.

And the group went back to village for a nice cup of tea.

(I’m too tired to figure out the screwy formatting.)

Another Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main game came
and went last night. I’ve lost track of what episode we’re on. So far, GM Ben
has led us on a twisty trail of madness in the Caribbean.  I missed most of last night. Not because I
wasn’t there, but because I was sick and kept falling asleep. Fortunately the
guys good-naturedly pelted me with dice and bennies when it was my turn to do
something.

So just what did happen last night? I remember we were in a
port. Being superb seamen, we backed our two ships into the docks. Then we went
carousing. Duncan returned to the ship with a hangover. Nicholas returned to
the ship with two serving girls. I’d say Nicholas won. Then it was off to a
noon breakfast onboard the ship of Captain Hawkins. Once we got there, all hell
broke loose. As we met with Capt. Hawkins for a quiet breakfast, he was shot dead
by our sworn nemesis Timmy Tims. Tims jumped ship. Thomas fired shot after shot
at him, but Tims is a slippery rascal.

Nichols quickly went to find the cook. The cook was
important to us as he has one of the three watches that contained the secret to
the treasure we were seeking. We cut the cook in for a 1/3 share.  (We’ve lost track of all the folks we’ve cut
in for a 1/3 share.) Meanwhile the crew had heard the shots, found their captain
dead, and began looking at us funny. Buck, Duncan, and Desmond all climbed into
a long boat to catch Tims, who was swims to shore. Thomas decided this was a
perfect time to name himself captain of the now captain-less ship. Thomas fought
the biggest pirate on board. He must have lost because soon he was climbing
down the nets on the side of the ship. Nicholas and the cook both jumped for
it.

Meanwhile Buck and Duncan had caught up to Tims and were
trying to kill him. After many, many attempts, we finally succeeded. By that
time though the 6 crewman in our longboat had realized that something was
wrong, as their counterparts on the ship were yelling at them to get us. Buck killed
two before the rest were knocked into the water. We picked up the cook, Thomas
and Nicholas and hightailed it back to our ships. We immediately set sail.
Strangely every ship in port set sail after us.

Mike, who was on the larger of our two ships manage to run
it aground at the harbor entrance.

That’s where we ended for the night.  Will we be able to save the grounded ship?
Will the other ships catch us? Will we leave Buck behind to suffer the hangman’s
noose? Will we wave to Buck as we sail off to finds the treasure? When Buck is
out of sight, will we still think of him fondly? All these questions and more
will be answered next time.

Chaos Steve

The Players:

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who run a great game of Pirates.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: a dual knife wielding maniac who lusts after a bigger ship.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter, who lusts after all the beautiful women.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded pirate who sleeps with his musket and steals clothes.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions, but still comes out on top.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode VII

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who appears to know a lot about everything…appears.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: dual knife wielding maniac with dreams of glory as a pirate.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter. Not one to run TO a fight.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded former pirate who sleeps with his musket.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions and great dice rolls.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.
Andy as Pete “Sweep Pete” Jones: A brawny sailor with a lust for fighting.

This week a guest pirate showed up—our friend Andy. Fortunately his character had stowed away on Winnie’s ship and we took a liking to the cut of his jib almost from the beginning.

When we left off last time Winnie’s ship and our ship were being chased by two French ships. These French ships were bigger than either of our ships. Buck began hatching a plan on how to make one of the French ships his. The rest of us just wondered how we were going to get out of this alive. We were currently on Winnie’s ship, so we signaled our ship, the Clementine, to break from us. Hopefully this would draw off one of the French ships. It did. Knowing that our ship could handle shallow water better than the French’s, we began looking for a place where we could hold up where the French could not get at us.

We found just such a place. As night fell, we stealthy moved passed the French ship and into open water. The French ship found us the next day anyway, so we decided to ram her. This worked amazingly well and allowed us to all participate in a boarding action—all except Nicholas. He was busy doing whatever Nicholas does during a fight. Buck and Duncan were the first to board the French ship. They both fought valiantly. Thomas used his musket to good effect on the French musketeers. Andy’s character held back for a while sending shot after shot into the French crew. Then he two boarded their ship.

By the end of the fight, poor Duncan was lying incapacitated on the deck. Buck was sorely wounded too. Fortunately the French surrendered shortly thereafter. Nicholas came out of hiding and healed us both.

Now we have two ships! We’re heading to a friendly port to sell our old ship and repair our new one. After hiring some more crew we’re off to look for the lost son of a noble.

Chaos Steve

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode VI

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who goes on and on about gorse and heather.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: dual knife wielding maniac.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded former pirate who sleeps with his musket.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions and great dice rolls.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.

Bodgit & Scarper

This week’s game included our heroic rescue of Thomas from the gallows. After much planning, calculating, and pounding the cobblestones for information, we came up with a daring plan. With the help of an informant with connections we were able to get Buck on as a guard for the wagon bringing Thomas from the prison to the gallows. Next, Nicholas was stationed near the gallows and would cause a distraction (and hopefully a human stampede) by tossing coins onto the street in front of the prison wagon. In the confusion Duncan and Desmond would help Buck free Thomas. A secondary target would be to recover Thomas’s beloved rifle from the guards. We were hoping to reroute the wagon by burning a house down but that failed miserably. But the smoke did help to conceal us rather well.

Buck started us out by immediately rolling a critical failure. Things went better after that though with Buck killing guards and jumping all around on the prison wagon. Thomas, still caged in the wagon, repeatedly had to be told that there were no windows on the roof. He kept trying to grab a fallen guard’s weapon that lay on the roof. Desmond was no help at all, while Duncan took on the main enemy rival…because he was carrying Thomas’s gun. That went better than expected for Desmond, whose motto is “Poor planning. Great dice rolls”. That is until he followed the escaping rival and got surrounded by guards. Desmond was sorely wounded and it was only with the help of Buck (who took three wounds in the process) and Thomas (who somehow remained unscathed this game) that he survived at all.

Nicholas did toss his coins on schedule and then ran away. He said something about getting help, but we’re not so sure about that.

Oh, and Buck killed a servant in cold blood.

 In the end, we did escape. Nicholas was able to doctor both Buck and Desmond back to health. Thomas was freed and got his rifle back.

Last I remember we were sailing into a sunset or something.

To be continued…

Chaos Steve

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode V

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who goes on and on about gorse and heather.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: dual knife wielding maniac.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded former pirate who sleeps with his musket.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions and great dice rolls.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.

It was a dark and stormy night in England. Fortunately we were in Port Royal. The weather there was sunny and beautiful. We were sipping brandy with Robert Rook at the fencing academy when he asked if we would rescue his son from pirates. It was hard to tell if his son had gone voluntarily with the pirates or if he had been shanghaied. Either way, Robert Rook thought it was scandalous. And for the sum of $8000 we said we’d bring the kid back either way.

We also found out the whereabouts of Sir Jacob Hamilton, who we had been hunting. He was attending the carnival at Port au Prince in two weeks hence. We decided to rescue the Rook boy first, and then head to Port au Prince. That is until we saw just how slow our ship was. We headed to Port au Prince instead, but not before hiring two salty sea dogs and a pilot as crew for our ship.

Once on the water our pilot promptly got us lost. We recovered though and made it in time for carnival. Nicholas and Desmond tried to one up each other as to who had the fancier carnival mask. We wandered the town and found the inn where Sir Hamilton was thought to be. We found him on the second floor balcony—a balcony being guarded by two, large men with even larger swords. As we were figuring out how to get onto the balcony, Capt Winnie made an appearance and tried to hook up again with Nicholas. Nicholas spurned her advances, already having a pretty bar maid on his arm. Thomas tried to shoot her, and Duncan tried to make his own advances towards the beautiful captain. Of the three, Duncan critically failed causing Winnie’s reply to be short and violent. (Apparently his French was not as good as he thought.) Winnie drew her pistol and blew the feathers off of Duncan’s mask. She was aiming for Duncan’s head. Two men then grabbed Duncan. (Desmond was no help.) Buck’s knives immediately leaped fatally into both men. It was then we heard the town guard approaching from downstairs…and everyone moved away from us.

Nicholas, with the pretty bar maid on his arm, quickly bluffed his way onto the balcony containing Sir Hamilton. And just as quickly was attacked by Jimmie Tim. Nicholas, sparing no time at all, leaped off the balcony and climbed down the trusses. Jimmie Tim and Sir Hamilton, seeing the town guard approaching, also made a hasty retreat off the balcony. They used a grappling hook and a rope.

Those big guards weren’t letting anyone else onto the balcony, so while Desmond distracted them, Duncan used his acrobatics to leap between them landing expertly on the balcony. He hastened to follow after Jimmy Tim and Sir Hamilton. Before leaping the balcony wall, Duncan paused just long enough to kiss Nicholas’s pretty bar maid. Then he was over the side and sliding down the rope…colliding with Sir Hamilton and knocking everyone to the ground.

Buck and Thomas were having their own problems getting by the guards. Thomas then had an idea that did not involve shooting his big gun. It did involve the big gun, but not shooting it. Thomas, using his big gun, intimidated the guards. They left with their giant swords between their legs. (At least I think it was their giant swords.) Buck and Thomas fled onto the balcony just as the town guard reached the second floor. Apparently the other patrons where all pointing at the escaping Buck and Thomas. Thomas fell under a heavy volley of gun fire. His near dead body was drug away to the dungeon infirmary where he would be tended to, tried for who-knows-what, and then hung.

Jimmy Tim was knocked unconscious from the fall. (He broke our fall perfectly.) We left him laying there, escorting Sir Hamilton to the docks. During the walk, Sir Hamilton spilled his guts about the treasure ship. Each of the survivors had a watch engraved; each with a part of the secret to where the ship lay. Sir Hamilton gave us his watch…for 5% of the treasure.

The next evening Nicholas and Duncan were invited to have dinner upon Capt. Winnie’s ship. It was then we discovered that she too was looking for the treasure AND had the watch that belonged to Elizabeth’s father. We decided to sell her our watch for $40,000. She would have to travel to England and back to get the money. In the meantime, we’d still look for the treasure, and for some reason, split it with her 70/40. I’m probably wrong about that whole affair. Nicholas did most of the negotiating. I was sampling the wine. As we left the boat, Winnie asked if Nicholas would like to stay on board a little long. He did. During this time Buck was doing something. I have it written in my notes. It says “Buck goes snopping out.” What the heck does that mean?

Chaos Steve