The Chronicles of Risan: Part the First

So there I was, your everyday, ordinary Human Ranger hero, walking down the street of the port city, chatting with my two new comrades Reed (Halfling Paladin) and Hylan (Gnome Wizard), when this woman grabs my leg and tells me that slavers have half-inched her husband! Well, we can't be having with that, so we wents with her down to the dock where she picked out a ship in the bay waving a quarantine sign yet still managed to have quite a bit of interaction with the dock, people going to and from and the like.

Deciding discretion was the better of charging ahead and hitting people with billy clubs (Reed was fond of that plan), we instead decided to go in under cover of darkness and see what we see. We got our hands on an old boat, which Hylan did up a treat with a bit of magic. With the aid of an understanding ship's captain (who, for some unfathomable reason, spoke with an Irish accent) towing us out in the wee hours of the morning, we got our longboat within striking distance of the ship.

On board we spied six guards and an officer pacing the top deck. Reed and myself slipped up the side of the boat to take on the officer, while Hylan faked up someone falling into the bay on the other side of the ship, which very nearly worked. The officer saw us coming and got in a decent smack to Reed before I pushed him through the rails and onto the deck below. Hylan put most of the guards to sleep, but one got in and had a go at me, although he didn't have the chance for a second. The officer nearly got away (and alerted others), but Reed and myself put paid to him.

However, the ship's medic came looking and saw the bodies on the deck. Whoops. (And speaking of whoops, we should have remembered to tie the longboat to the ship...) Still, a quick slash later and he saw the wisdom of surrendering to us. The Captain proved a greater challenge, and he very nearly got away before collapsing under Reed's influence.

Below deck, we locked the sailors in their bunk room, and managed to subdue the Captain of the Guard, but the ship's mage got away while we were busy. This meant we had to deal with the rest of the guards, but we proved up for the challenge. Collecting up with ship's Wright, we freed the slaves and took the ship into port to hand everything over the authorities.

Good job for us, but since the Emir (in charge of the city) does consider slavery illegal, considering he gets a backhander from them and thus doesn't mind too much, we'll see how he feels about having successful anti-slavers in his midst... is that the open sea I hear calling?

[END]