We partied on the Three Sisters islands until we actually died, The Beastie Boys would have been proud. Abdul the Butcher would however not have been all that impressed, and so we need to have another go there. Thrown in a cell to be executed again, this time we got Lucky and one of my pirate pals managed to find a loose bar which we managed to work free. Oddly our motley crue had been left armed and so we were able to slay the unsuspecting villagers quite easily in a group battle (7/6). Not satisfied, the village was torched whilst the women and children fled inland. Sadly though, no actual loot was to be found, another situation we’d come through with no reward. Remaining within the Three Sisters region, we set out to explore the volcanic-looking island.
We landed on a sandy shore on the edge of some dense jungle foliage, and a short walk along the beach later and it was all going a bit Island of the Lizard King.
Much like our long-lost Mungo (nvr4get), we lost some crew here without the chance to fight back. Rising up from the sand a big crab-thing grabbed a few men who were whisked up and carried off into the sea, costing me 2 Crew Strength points. And some beloved companions, I suppose. I ushered the landing party inland to ensure their safety.
My captain skills clearly need some work though as I ushered them inland to be greeted by ‘the ugliest looking critter you have ever seen’ with ‘hundreds of tree-trunk like legs supporting a body as twice as long as the Banshee, while its head – which is mostly mouth – is stacked with knives for teeth‘. Sorry lads, my bad. I include a quoted description though as for such an amazing sounding beast, we are left without an illustration. I suppose we might have missed out on that dynamite iceberg picture though if we got this one, so best not complain too much I suppose? Eh?
We’d best fight the bloody thing then. ‘The beast rears its head and opens its mouth in the sharpest grin ever seen by man or god’, and the text enquires if we had found the Crossbow of Axillon on our journey, which as we have barely found anything at all, let alone mystical weaponry, meant we would have to do this the hard way. Our foes name was ‘The Horror’ and was a tough one with stats of 12/12, but thankfully our crew was still very strong despite being nibbled on by crabs and after a big fight where we lost many good men, we finally took down this most legendary beast. And our reward? Nothing.
Wondering if it was really worthwhile being a pirate anymore, the final of the Three Sisters islands, ‘the palm-covered one’, was where I was plotting a course for. Ignoring the white shores, we headed straight inland and came into a cleared area around a lagoon where a smaller pirate ship had anchored and not too far away we could see a group of piratey looking folk burying something in the sand…
No messing around now boys, we’re sucking at pirate so far. We bulldozed these losers and took their stash for ourselves, 112 gold to add to our haul and we were done with the palm-covered island.
Nippur was practically on the horizon now, it was one final slog away and I had to test my Crew Strength against a 3D6 roll. Unfortunately, coming right off the bat of having had a few big fights, my crew was absolutely buggered and I failed. The winds picked up and Nippur wasn’t where we expected it to be… my crew had sailed us off-course somehow and we had missed our deadline. My adventure was over!
So, let’s say we hadn’t just fought the most ferocious god mouth of knife-teeth that ever lived and we managed to pass that Crew Strength test, this time we actually did have Nippur on the horizon and were on the home stretch. Curiously, the text asked if I had the Bag of Four Winds. Why, yes! An item I actually had! Oh and what’s that? Did I give the crew 100g to not mess around with them? Well… no, I shouted at them instead like a proper captain would. Rewarding my strong leadership, my loyal crew snuck into my cabin and took those wind bags, opening them up hoping to find some spoils for themselves. What they actually achieved was to create a storm so ferocious it raged for three whole weeks and carried the ship all the way back to Tak. Nice work, morons – my adventure was again over.
So, let’s say we hadn’t just fought the most ferocious god mouth of knife-teeth that ever lived and we managed to pass that Crew Strength test AND we’d coughed up 100g to my ungrateful, scumbag crew… let’s try and progress shall we?
Sailing into the port of Nippur my scumbag crew were overjoyed to have made it, I was certain there was still time for four or five more insta-fails at least before we finished, but we had cruised in with (I think) 34 days clocked up at sea. A little odd that we didn’t think to make use of the two weeks plus we had left before the wager was over… Regardless, Abdul was supposedly already here and waiting for us on top of the mountain peak of Nippur, but this interior of the island was entirely walled off. Exploration of this wall led us to a break flanked by huge statues from which hung the bodies of dead sailors, inexplicably a wizened old man in a black robe stated that to access the mountain we would have to defeat ‘the keeper’. Couldn’t we have just agreed to meet Abdul in the pub?
Agreeing to the fight I was stripped of my sword and introduced to my opponent who I would have to tackle one-on-one, bare-handed.
I was slightly alarmed by this one. What followed was a form of non-standard combat where I was given three choices (punch it’s nose, slap it’s face, whack it in the crotch…etc) and my choice could result in one or both of us losing Stamina. This would continue until one of us was dead, the Keeper having 16 Stamina, I (if I can decipher my notes correctly) had 14.
Genuinely, I did actually come out of this one victorious and was sent on up to meet Abdul and have our booty totalled up to see who was the Pirate King, or whatever it was we were doing. I had to round the amount of gold I had found down to the nearest hundred, divide by two and turn to that page. Having 258 gold, I did some maths…
There’s one out-and-out winner and rather than waste time with a speech I’ll get on with the job of announcing the winner who, today, has come first in this competition to see who the winner is in the king of the pirates competition that we have all come to today wondering who indeed will it be, who wins the prize of king of the pirates?
It was Abdul.
And it wasn’t even close. I’d needed at least 800 gold to beat his total, I was evidently one of the worst pirates in the cove. I had been hopelessly trounced. Long live King Abdul.
My adventure really was now over.