Part 1
The ship sinks faster than you imagined in even your worst nightmares. You barely manage to get to a rowboat in time. You jump over the railing and into the small boat. An oiled sheet of fabric covers most of it, hiding what is and is not within it. The heavy rain is starting to puddle in the fabric, and the wind is starting to catch at what little is loose.
The Marchioness (a middle-aged woman who may or may not be an actual Marchioness but is called such by the crew of your ship) is desperately tackling the ropes holding the little boat to the side of the ship. The water is coming closer with every moment, even though she hasn’t managed to untie the knots that keep you in place.
Seeing you, and the cutlass you wear on your hip, she points from it to the knots. The wind is too loud for her words to make the distance from her lips to your ears, but you understand her all the same. Nodding at her, you pull the sword from its scabbard and start to hack at the rope. It begins to fray. You raise your sword and smash it down into the line again and again, but it doesn’t seem to be making much difference to the heavily tarred and salt-soaked rope. Whatever it once was it’s now closer to some form of rock.
Lighting splits the sky, and that’s when you see it. The rope you were hacking at was staying as strong as an ox, but there’s a thinner rope behind, and it has not fared so well from your attentions.
Ducking down you do your best to settle into the bottom of the boat, you drop to one knee, landing with a painful thump that you feel rather than hear. Maybe it’s that movement, or perhaps it was just its time, but the rope snaps and you drop.
The impact shakes you off your feet, you stumble forwards, and your head collides with the side of the boat. For now, you know nothing more.
***
When you wake, it is to find that the oiled sheet has been wrapped around you like a blanket and you have been pushed onto your side. You sit up, blearily wiping water and dried salt from your face.
“You’re awake!” It’s the Marchioness, she greets you with a smile. “I’m glad to see you back in the world of the living, I was dreadfully worried that you had jumbled your brain to bits when you knocked yourself out.” Whether or not she is a Marchioness, she certainly sounds more like one than anyone else you’ve ever heard speak. While her tone is warm, the words she uses are made up out of clipped consonants and precise vowels. But then you’ve never heard anyone speak that was higher up the ladder of nobility than the butler to a Sir, so you might not be the best person to ask.
“If you’re feeling up to it, could you help me attempt to get some of this flotsam and jetsam out of the water?” She points to the water surrounding your boat, and you can see what she’s talking about, there is a lot of stuff floating around. It might come in handy.
It takes three points to make a grab. When you make a grab roll a six-sided die and see what number you come up with. The numbers below represent several pieces of flotsam and jetsam that are floating around your boat. If you get a number more than once, just roll again. To decode the text use rot13 decoder, link found here.
- N ohaqyr bs ebcr, cebonoyl sebz n fgberebbz. Gung jvyy qrsvavgryl or hfrshy.
- N cynax, bar raq vf irel funec naq cbvagrq. Vg ybbxf yvxr vg oebxr bss fbzrguvat, creuncf cneg bs gur uhyy?
- Na rzcgl oneery, hasbeghangryl, gurer vf ab sbbq be jngre va guvf oneery, ohg vg zvtug pbzr va unaql.
- N cvrpr bs snoevp nf ybat nf lbh ner gnyy, cbffvoyl gbea sebz n fnvy.
- Na rzoebvqrerq oebpnqr phfuvba jvgu gnffryf.
- N fznyy onfxrg bs pnaqyrf. Gurl ner gbb fbnxrq gb or zhpu tbbq evtug abj, ohg bapr gurl qel bhg, lbh fubhyq svaq gurz hfrshy.
If you make more points than you need for this, then store them up for future use. Perhaps you will find a use for them later on in the adventure?