Krastus: Terrors - and 6 more.

Kiera was as it always was - full of inferior beings mulling about. As we debated the future of the ship, I finally managed to convince the others that we would have to trade. I mean, we have a trader on board and no guns. This seems simple. And after all, traders can easily relieve others of a few goods. And profess innocence based on their reputation. Meanwhile I spruced up the ship to make it look good for when we leveraged it for gold

As we went about our business, a young woman approached - she had naturally heard of my great abilities. She wished us to rescue her father. For up to 10,000 pieces of eight. Certainly, I said, for money was good. Even if the loud one and touchy blue one had managed to get us a loan. As me and Sira went to get cannons, we sent touchy and shouty off to find information. As they didn't find much of use - about terrors - we went to go see my fellow scurillion who runs the boatyard - a man of sense. With a little convincing, he told us to look at the Isle of Terrus.

As we returned to the ship it seems shouty and touchy had got us some friends. And my advice to fire at these interlopers was rejected in favour of sailing very quickly to the harbour exit. And north to Terrus.

As no-one had a plan when we docked and got summoned to talk with the captain of the local guard, I quickly suggested that our captain bluff using the pass I had to get us up to the higher levels. This did not go well, naturally the captain is not as cunning as us scurillions. And I quickly had to dispatch 6 of the guard - saving the day. Sira and others also killed some - Sira seems quite useful. The captain was, for once, not beaten into a thin red paste. And he wasn't tossed into a pit of acidic blood. This is a superior trip so far. Now about those Kieran Cutters....

Carlton Grey and the City of Quite Confusing Terrors

After a few days of sailing, we finally reached Kiera. It is a very fine city, with lots of walls and terraces, but apparently their emperor is not very nice and also a whale. This must be the reason for all those streets and houses underwater at the harbor.  The emperor lives on the highest tier tough, so all that effort to build him a nice place to swim about was wasted.  Maybe this is, why everyone thinks he is a bad guy.

When we docked with the ship. I wanted to go out to the city exploring, but everybody else was occupied with future plans and how we could acquire lots of money, which is important for some reason.
I suggested, we just go to a casino or something, you can win money there, but the others were more focused on things like privateering, and trading and piracy. The discussion quickly got really boring, so I decided to do something more important, like naming my gun.
I thought up lots of amazing names, like Turnip, or Algebra, but in the end I decided to name it after my beloved grandfather, Andrew Scott Grey. From now on, my musket shall be known as Grandpa!
That settled, I went back to the others, who reached a conclusion, that we need to borrow a lot of money, to make a lot of money, and then we can pay back the money we borrowed. I thought, that was a weird idea, but I did not want to press the issue, fearing we might be stuck on the boat longer if I did.

Anyway, I volunteered to help find us a moneylender, who Heléne can barter with. I asked some nice folks in the harbor, and soon we were at this kind of run-down little pub. The people were helpful tough,and  they quickly agreed to show us to the back room, if Heléne would sleep with them. She did not want to do that for some reason, so I played dice with the guys instead, and got us in. Heléne  could then convince the moneylender, to look at our boat, before he gave us money. She even remembered to use that complicated catch phrase we were supposed to say and I forgot. I was glad she was with me.
After that we met the girlfriend of Krastus, who was not a crabwoman, but a human like us. Maybe he got tired of not being able to tell which other crabs were ladies and which weren’t.  The poor girl was really upset because her dad disappeared, so we agreed to help her.

That all settled, we finally got our priorities straight, and visited the zoo. I really liked it, there were lots of interesting creatures to look at, although some of them weren’t very happy. The zookeeper also mentioned, that we should keep an eye out for a mermaid, who lives at some crystal place, because there is a reward for her. I don’t know what crimes she could have committed, but they must have been bad, because the price was high.
Sira and Krastus went on to buy some cannons, while me and Heléne went for a nice dinner in a restaurant called Keoughs.  It was really relaxing, and I almost forgot that we were there to ask questions about Krastuses future father-in-law. Heléne remembered tough. She must be able to use some remembering magic now, that she finally became a wizard on that monkey island. We still didn’t learn anything new but at least we tried.

I asked around on the streets, and found a guy, who seemed to know something about some terror making people disappear. It must be a very strange terror, because in my experience terror usually makes people more noticeable, with all the screaming and running about. I also noticed, that some strange people were following me, so I went back to the ship, and told Heléne all about it. She got quite scared, so there might be something to this terror business after all. I kept a close eye on her, so she didn’t disappear.

By the time the others came back, there were a lot of these terror-people at the harbor, so we set sail to avoid them. We also learned, that they are in league with the emperor, who lied about being a whale and is just a bit fat. I was a bit disappointed, that we had to leave Kiera just when things started to get really interesting.
 I thought we were going to sell the iron we bought or something boring like that, but thankfully the others also discovered, that these terrors have some base on an island called Terras which was nearby, so we visited it. It was in the direction of the crystal-mermaid-place the zookeeper mentioned, so maybe she is involved in it too, like a big conspiracy, which is even worse than regular piracy.

Anyway, we got to Terras, where we found a lot of terror-guards and a fort. We wanted to go in, but they wouldn’t let us. Cortes tried to show them some love letter from Krastus and his girlfriend to convince them, and when that did not work he told them about the Very Important People we have on board. I did not know about those, so they might be invisible.
In the end we had to attack the terror people. Krastus blasted away a lot of them, and Heléne stunned some of them, and Sira shot one in the head and I shot the leader in the head and Cortes did not get beaten up by anyone, so it was a good battle.
We now have to run away from the terror-guards of the not-whale emperor, while keeping a lookout for the evil mermaid, and avoid bumping into the invisible important persons on the ship. Trading iron is much more exciting than I thought it would be.

Cortez - The coming crossroads

Keira didn't bring much in the way of resolution of where I'm going, or what I'll be doing. The crew follows me, for the most part. We're a good group, and they trust me, so far that trust hasn't been in vain, though we've had some close calls. I hope that we continue falling on the good side of Lady Luck.

I won't lie and pretend I didn't want to someday captain my own ship. That day has arrived and has brought with it debt, danger, and possibly an angry emperor. I could handle the latter two, but the first is a bother. Debt follows a man more than a death mark. I must pay it off or my name will be mud in every town of note. Which means I need money. Which means we must decide how we're going to make that money. Our newest Crab-mate wants us to talk about rising waters. But with so much water, I doubt there is money in that. We have a cargo load of iron, but also a reward for a rescue mission. Prioritizing the bigger payoff makes sense in the short term... but once we get out of this debt, we'll need bigger ships, faster ships. Life as a trader can be exciting, and you can get rich off it, but it takes a long time... I have this feeling in my bones that planning for the long-term is taking a losing bet.

So now we're going to have to decide between our paths in the future. Privateering is work I know. Piracy is the same thing with less rules. Trading? Well... the more I get to know my crew, the more I think we'd be better suited to taking on a large fighting ship and coming out victorious.

Time will tell whether the crossroads we're at will lead us to more lawful sailing or to the skull and crossbones.

Helène: My first voyage

How I had longed to sail the seas! Eagerly had I embraced the opportunity to sail eastwards, on the frigate Rebecca, and as a full crew member at that. A simple, rather dreary trip, or so it seemed, but even my first voyage was cut short by unforeseen circumstances. It was near the northern coast of the infamous Torath-Ka, as I was minding my duties below deck, when our ship collided with some enormous unseen obstacle, or behemoth, of unknown provenience, and was promptly set ablaze by misfortune.

Our stalwart crew succeeded in dousing the flames and beaching the crippled ship, and from solid ground, our Captain ascertained the damage and planned the repairs. While most of the more seasoned crewmen went about mending her hull, I was assigned to a small group that would explore the surroundings and gather edibles and fresh water. Our quintet was led by First Mate Cortés, and comprised our Ship's Mage Krastus, a Scurillian and a somewhat communicative, if slightly cynical, representative of his kind, a local swashbuckler named Sira Saran, Carlton Grey, a marksman and another visitor from Earth, and finally myself.

Closeby, we discovered the abandoned carcass of a sloop resting on the shore, a curious find, but one that would have to await further inspection, as the priority lay with our assigned task. We pressed on into the jungle, with its disquieting noises, until the rushing sound of a waterfall led us to a pictoresque lake, with all manner of edible fruits growing nearby. We welcomed this opportunity to cool and wash our weary bodies, but the peace was abruptly broken when a fearsome scaled beast broke through the undergrowth, quite certainly intent on devouring the lot of us! I tried to hinder it with the techniques I knew, having its own bodily fluids turn against its onslaught, but I felt powerless against its massive physique. However, my companions - calm and seasoned as they were - engaged the beast, and to the deafening noise of pistol shots, it fell.

Before it fell, though, it severely injured Master Krastus, the Ship's Mage. Driven by the shame of having been rather inconsequential during our defense, I endeavoured to foist my aid on the distrustful crab. The others watched as I performed the Ritual, long minutes of pouring fresh lake water over the wound, but it remained defiantly unaffected, providing a rather awkward scene, with Master Krastus' disapproving eyestalks gazing at me. Master Grey commented on my competence, or my mental state, perhaps rightfully so. Still, we were all alive; We had prevailed and obtained plenty of provisions, so we headed back towards the beach, in order to spread tales of our triumph to the rest of the crew.

Alas, fate would not grant us the opportunity, for when we approached the ship, we saw a column of dark smoke rising skywards, indicating something was terribly amiss. A fire had reduced the Rebecca to a smouldering carcass. The whole area was profusely marked with spilt blood, and the rest of the crew and most of the provisions had been taken. Since on the exposed beach, the perpetrators could descend on us just as well, we decided to follow their tracks inland. After maybe a thousand paces into the jungle, we heard a distant, guttural chanting. Master Cortés, scouting ahead, returned with the alarming report that a group of vile Red Men were sacrificing the lives of our fellow crewmen, one by one, in some sinister ritual, just as in the darkest of legends.

Rushing towards the ritual site, we found we were too late to save our dear Captain. We stood against almost a dozen of the Red Men, their leader presumably a shaman, a frightening perspective by itself. Yet in addition, answering their summons, a monstrous ape-like abomination rose from a pool of caustic blood and charged at us! I do not particularly enjoy recollecting the gruesome scenes that followed. Suffice it to say, we managed to overcome the ritualists. The ape was a terrifying opponent, even more so than the reptile was, but serendipitously, my spell affected it, and it fell quickly to Mistress Sira's deadly aim. Most of the Red Men succumbed to Master Krastus' authority over the Four Winds, while Master Cortés rushed ahead with exemplary bravery. In the end, every single one of the opponents lay dead, and we had been able to rescue four of our crew, shaken but alive.

With the Rebecca burned beyond repair, the decision was made to render the beached sloop seaworthy again, and so the rest of the day was spent with vexing manual labour, under the Mage's supervision. It appears that our new, reborn ship will be seaworthy by nightfall, and we can be on our way back to civilisation soon.

All things considered, it had been quite a ghastly day, with so many senselessly lost lives to be mourned, but also a day of adventure and triumph. I am lucky to have survived the ordeal, and for that I owe my comrades dearly. The least I can do is to consider them my new crew. I will sail with them for as long as they desire. What wondrous places will we journey to? And what stories will we tell of them?

Krastus: Out of Kiera, and into monkey doodoo

So, we finally made it out of Kiera - Captain Jonas clearly recognises my superiority and utility when it comes to boats. Over the common riff raff you get on the lower levels. Back on the sea, back earning the ever important gold.

And then some blasted thing rends a hole in the bottom of the boat. I am a good carpenter, one of the best of course, but even I have my limits when it comes to 'gaping chasm in the bottom of the ship while at sea'. We put up on the beach and, of course, I can still fix the ship - I can always do it. But some foolish pink fleshed squishy person started a fire. So. That was really the end of that.

Rather than let me fix the other boat, we were sent off for supplies - imagine that? Me, the great carpenter Krastus sent like some blasted pack mule into the underbrush. At least Sira was there, she seems quite handy. Unfortunately we also got some loudmouth, the first mate and some girl in blue.

We also ended up getting a large reptile detirmined to eat us.

I think my hammer might be defective, as when I hit it nothing happened. The first mate seems quite ineffective in a fight too. Sira tried her best. The blue girl just waved her hands - I think she might have inhaled some water, or a lot of water. And the loudmouth shot the thing so it rained lizard brains all over me. Not very considerate. And to make it worse the blue girl insisted on touching me claiming to be a healer. Hmph.

But we survived, I was a bit woosy from the biting the lizard had given me. But that is OK - I'm a hardy scurillian. And so we returned to the ship. Only the crew had been foolish enough to get themselves captured. And, as it turned out, made into a kind of soup to summon some kind of giant monkey creature. A very deadly giant monkey creature that did not respond kindly when I used my fearsome magic to hurl coconuts at it. Thankfully Sira dispatched it. And the brains didn't go all over me this time. The first mate ran off somewhere to the east, the loudmouth seemed to barely be scratching the strange red shaman behind all this, so clearly it was down to Krastus to save the day.

With 3 of the strange red fleshy soft fools dispatched by my magic, I thought the others could get the rest, but I was wrong. So while the first mate was...I think he was hugging the red men or something. They seemed to be intimate...and Sira dispatched other red people, I naturally took out a further two of them. Never more to throw people into giant acidic blood - and more importantly, never to bother me.

Having secured our victory, I naturally gathered up the nails I needed to save us all from this island, and led us back to the ship. Where I repaired it. Brilliantly.

Having used my magic to ensure we made good progress away from that hell hole on our new ship, the Wild Monkey, we found a lovely and pleasant female Scurillian. She seems to be helping the first mate, who we made Captain so I didn't have to worry about supervising all these pink fleshy limb-inferior people about. She seems to be some kind of navigator, and so at my brilliant suggestion she is now in charge of our charts. Well. Our eyes are superior, and we can write on the charts while snipping the heads off foolish limb-impaired pink people.

Carlton Grey and the Island of Giant Animal Things

At first,the day it all started seemed to be just another boring day. I was staring at the waves, and thinking about how we should try to drill a hole in the ocean floor to let all this water out, and then reclaim those lost kingdoms everyone is talking about. I wanted to share this with someone, but then a sea monster tried something similar, just with our ship. Maybe it was telepathic.
We were sinking, and the ship also caught fire, which is kind of ironic when you think about it. I wanted to see the sea monster which attacked us, but it remained underwater, so I couldn’t. It really must have been telepathic.

Anyway, we had to moor the ship at the coast of Torath-Ka, and the captain ordered us, to get some supplies from the forest. We wanted to check out another shipwreck first, because it might have been a flying ship, but we got yelled at, so we didn’t. Krastus, the crabman said, that there are lots of giant animal monsters in the island, so at least we didn’t get a boring place to be shipwrecked at.
First we went to a nice little clearing with a waterfall, and some of us took a little bath. We found some fruit, which could be used as provisions, and started to gather it, when I noticed something coming towards us. It was a giant lizard-chicken thing. When they said there would be giant animals I excepted something more impressive, but at least it was something. The others tried to hit it with stuff, but they couldn’t so I shot it.
The crab got wounded, and Helene tried to cast some spells, but nothing happened. I don’t think she is a wizard. Maybe someone just told her that once, and she believed them.

After gathering everything, we went back to our ship, but it was burned to the ground. Or maybe burned to the water. Everyone else was missing too, except some of their blood. The crab just wanted to fix the other ship and leave, but we wanted to find the crew first, because they might be in trouble.
We followed the trail into the jungle, and then Cortez decided to scout ahead. He told me, that when he comes back running I should shoot anything that is chasing him. He came back running soon, but there was nothing chasing him. I thought about shooting nothing, but I didn’t know how you do that so I didn’t.
As it turns out, Cortez came back, because he found the crew. They were being sacrificed by some monkey people for their monkey god. The only good thing about it was, that we got to see the giant monkey-monster they summoned up from their acidic-blood-pool-thing. It was really impressive, but Sira shot it in the face quickly, and then it wasn’t anymore. I was kind of jealous of her, because I only got to shoot the shaman. The crab blasted away the other monkeymen with some wind magic which was good. He must have thought we didn’t see it tough, because he kept repeating it over and over again.
Even Helene cast a spell, so she might be a wizard after all. Maybe she wished for it so long, that it became true, like a Christmas miracle without the Christmas part.
Only Cortez got beaten up by some of the monkey men, but thankfully he was saved by two guys from the crew, who escaped. The others freed the remaining crewmembers, while I did the important stuff, like checking out the monkey statue, and playing with the acidic bloodpool. I also wanted to take back the giant monkeys head as a figurehead, but the others didn’t want to.

There was only nine of us, when we returned to the shore, which was kind of sad. At least the others didn’t die a boring death. Krastus started fixing the other shipwreck we found earlier, and we helped. It turns out, that it isn’t a flying ship after all, which was sort of disappointing.  It didn’t even have a cannon. When it was finished, Sira named the ship the Wild Monkey, so I still think we should have brought the giant monkey head with us.

We set sail, with Cortez as our new captain. He did a good job, because we arrived at Kiera in only a few days. We even picked up another crab Sira spotted on some flotsam. This one was a lady. You couldn’t tell that by looking at her tough, so crabs must have a hard time when it comes to choosing a wife. Maybe that is why they are grumpy all the time.
The she-crab had one less leg, because she got almost eaten by a giant shark that sunk her ship. She said it was even bigger than the monkey we met, so it would have been exciting to see it, but you can’t be in two places at once.
Hopefully, we get to have more fun adventures in Kiera, with something other than giant animal-things. They are interesting now , but I think even they would get boring after a while.

Sira Siran: From the frying pan and into the fire...

So this fight in the alleyway got a bit rough, but we managed to free capt'n Jonas from this scumbags.
He was very grateful and offered us to sign on for a nice cargo run. Just to get out of Kiera and to get some money.

So we did catch a good wind and everything went fine, till we ran into a sandbank and a lot of nasty people with the nasty habit of sacrificing the crew to their so called god.
The "god" was some kind of huge monkey! As me father always said: "If its alive, ye can shoot it!"
I tried and got a lucky shot finishing it off. We got the upper hand and killed all the cultists, but lost a lot of good sailors.
Since our ship was beyond repair, we patched up the sloop that was beached nearby. The crab called Krastus did a fine job there.  Me not very serious proposal to call the sloop "The Wild Monkey" did stick. And we got a new capt'n. His name is Cortez and I think he knows what he is doing, that's a relief.
Back at sea, we made good speed back towards Kiera.
Some days, with the wind, we spotted a wrecked frigate, the "Lala's Pride" and picked up another crab floating in the water.
I wonder why they can't walk the seafloor to the shore... by the seahags, they are crabs! CRABS! They crawl all over the seafloor! Like e-ve-ry-where!
But let me finish this up real quick! Yes, we got back to Kiera, I had my doubts, but we have a fine capt'n now, a good sturdy ship and a good crew!
There ye have it matey. That's the story. Now let me take a look at yer pistol... oh yes I can fix that... there is sand in the...

Cortez: Opening Days

Opening days...
by Cortes

Lady Luck is being a real bitch lately to me. I thought things were going well under Captain Jonas, running merchant work and making decent wages. But things went bad to worse. The ship was beached and burned and we lost all the cargo. At least I wasn't on the hook for it, but almost all the crew was killed as well.

Spent the afternoon in a nice waterfall pond, ran into a reptile chicken that Carlton managed to kill. That's when things went worse. We discovered the remainder of the crew was captured by savage red men looking to summon some dark ape god, who even knows how this stuff works around here. Well, I guess they did because they managed to actually summon their ape. I decided to loop around and free the crew while the others dealt with the ape god. Sounds like I'm throwing them to the fire? Well, it would've been 'cept Sira blew the Ape's brains all over the ground. A right nice shot that lass is. I almost made it to the crew, but two red men got me and nearly took me out. The twins from the crew got loose and helped me out, but Caras was killed saving my life. I avenged him, but some good that will do him.

We fixed up a sloop. The crab is the same no matter what we do, always rattling on about everything. But he does his job, and fights well enough. We christened the ship "Wild Monkey" and set sail, making good time. She may have been wrecked for who knows how long, but she's a good ship. We picked up a shiprecked crab that was similar to our crab... talks the same anyway. But she was mostly quiet. Had a compass, that helped.

We made Kiera today. Finally back to civilization.

Sira Siran: Strange Encounters

Today I was wandering the streets of Kiera on the 7th level, looking for a job.
In an alleyway between some houses I heard noises from a sidealley and in front of that sidealley there was a huge crab getting into a fight with some thugs. After a short look these thugs seem to be brawling with a man in better clothing.
Since I don't like people messing around with others I decided to interfere with these thugs and help the crab.
We got into a pretty rough fight. Later more...