Pieces of Eight

D&D Thursday night and Aaron got to flex most of his piratical muscles as we took to the river last night. What we later discovered was has inability to either swim or sail! Apparently its more about skills with a cutlass and the grog bottle.

Having brought home our recently  acquired column of refugees / life-contracted employees / indentured slaves we blagged some expenses form the Laird and then boarded our lift the south, The Salty Seaman.......ahem!

Settling in with the Seaman's three man crew our thoughts turned to.....well not so much mutiny more just outright theft. This was when the sailing credentials of our resident salty seadog came under s withering appraisal. So much so that we barely noticed the gale that suddenly blew up the river or the other sailing barge that suddenly veered across from the other bank and straight into our starboard side.

Picking ourselves up off of the deck we stood by to repel our demonic borders finding ourselves bereft of our regular formations, magical buffs and structure. It was a proper old scrap and as such probably one of most enjoyable and edgy dust-ups that we've had a for a while.

In amongst it all a bit of a kills competition developed  a la Legolas and Gimli. Originally between the unholy sworded Pirate and the holy sworded Paladin as the prime beef of the party. Mr Paladin bereft of his normal pack of buff spells, his 'roid rage, was struggling a bit while Captain Cutlass was having an easier time relying on his abilities as a purer warrior.

What wasn't expected was my Halfling Rogue getting in on the act but swinging amongst the rigging the broken nature of the combat allowed for plentiful backstab opportunities. A few decent dice later it was a run for the line between the Pirate and the Rogue with the Paladin having a bit of a lower lip wobble amongst allegations of kill steals. All good banter.

With the tide turned against the Rutter-Kin it was their winged herald that had been causing us most concern tying up the attentions of the Dwarven Priest and Elven Ranger. Hard pressed the herald dipped into his sack magic and pulled out Mirror Image which caught us flat footed at a critical juncture.

Much like Jon's Jedi Rob then checked his list of miracles and pulled out Dispel Magic which after a quick reference to the rulebook did the job. I couldn't resist highlighting the parallel as the Ranger belt fed arrows into the understandably piqued herald who suddenly found himself reeling and Rob with the chance of a major kill-steal. The roll came up a point short, despite Rob's search for every bonus possible only for the Elf to finish the job he started.

With both sloops rapidly taking on water we quickly boarded our opponent's vessel, looted it's hold and walked the water to the bank courtesy of the Cleric.

Final scores on the doors; Pirate 3, Rogue 3, Paladin 1/2 :)