The Exodus: Session 20

Had a couple of weeks off from this game due to medical issues...
I apologize if it is even less coherent than the usual incoherence...

Cards:  Drowned River Thunderbird
        Chaos
        Plague among the Warblers
       
We surface out of a long-used-up mine shaft into the city
    Followed by hordes of frightened dwarven women and children
    Vadim flashes some House Surrin markers to some merchants
        We head towards the north gate (out and west)
    There is a Riot and a political gang-fight...
        Reds (fight the EC) vs. Blacks (open the gates and surrender)
    Breaks Like Wind scrys the Exarch's discussions...
        They realize they'd been conned hard-core...
            They begin mobilizing the golems to pursue us...
       
    Khadagan charges out of the caves into a pile of Reds...
        Pitches them into a slimy beast-trough with a big timber...
            Then whirlwinds as they close in...
    Khut finds a granary and decides to loot it...
        He swings up to the second floor...
        From his vantage he spots some female Pasht assassins on the roof...
        Ithunn starts giving him advice on how to hit on cats
            "Be confident, chicks love that..."
            But, with his deepest love talking to him he goes catatonic
    Ellen-Dear runs in and starts leading the dwarf refugees into the granary
        Squee organizes them to grab hay-bales...
            Loading them onto wagons...
                and the kids building forts out of the hay-bales...
    Ithunn stealths up and leaps over to chat with Pasht...
    Breaks Like Wind (still stoned) comes running in behind...
        Is stuffed unceremoniously into a wagon...
    THEN Sorqutani sets fire to the granary...
        Ado illusions up a horde of EC troops in the city...
            the riot stands in stunned silence...
    AND we kick open the doors of the granary and roll out of there...
   
THEN...

WE SPLIT THE PARTY
Ithun, Barruk, Ado, Ellen-Dear, and Khadagan lead the dworcs out of town

Khut, Sorq, Breaks, Vadim, Squee, and Iron-Dear head to the mercantile quarter
    Squee chews out the guard lieutenant and demands they open the gates...
        Khut makes the House Surrin markers appear in her back pocket...
            AND she flashes them...
        "What do we care what House Surrin says, the city is about to fall..."
        "We're going to run and save everyone we can...you should come along"
    They double-march lead us to the warehouses...
        We debate what to loot first...
        THEN a big palanquin hauled by flesh golems shows up...
            The Golems put the palanquin down and charge...
                Khut shoots the curtains off the palanquin...
                Sorq blasts flame at the golems...and lights them up...
                    One swings wildly at her, to no avail...
                    One starts sniffing around for Iron-Dear...but sucks...
                    the other two maul Vadim...
                        knock him through a window...into a burning building...
                Iron-Dear lights another one up...
            Khut rails the necromancer...
                the palanquin goes up in a gout of shadow and flame...
            Sorq and Iron-Dear light up the others...
            Breaks spots the invisible necromancer...
                and duels him mano-a-magical-mano...
                    countering his spells and blasting his ass...
            Vadim pulls out his reflective shield and sword...
                and stalks up to the necromancer...and misses...
                    the necromancer blasts him...
                        AND it bounces back and he kills himself...
            Squee drops a cloud of daggers on one...
                Khut blows the rune off and kills it very-very-dead...
            Sorq burns one down to its component atoms...
            Iron-Dear cuts the rune off the third burning golem...
            Vadim thorn-whips the last one into a burning building...
                Which collapses on him...
                    The golem stands up...
                        AND gets shot in the rune by Khut...
        We steal the beasts...
        Khut and Iron-Dear smash and grab the mages' guild...
            each comes out with two big bags of shinies...
                Cloak of Elvenkind
                Wand of the Warmage

We run for the gates...
    with 10 Blood War-beasts, pulling wagons...full of food!
        AND Khut is riding a ???
            AND makes himself scarce...
    We reach the north gate to kind Ithunn playing soccer with a golem's head...
        The rest of the golem hangs from the portculis, upside down, headless...
            AND everyone else playing pinata with it...
                AND Khadagan is now wielding a portculis...
        Apparently they told the Northern Gond that they would hold the gate...
            and sent the Northern Gond to the square to get reinforcements...
                AND the gonds in the square take control of the city...

AND we head out, booking it for the salt flats...
    Malik lead the way in the vanguard...
    Nohai scouts circle us....
    Blood warbeasts and holy mountain beasts in the center...
    The Gray Lady and the maggot-folk follow near the center...
        The core forming a tight academic community...
            Trying to assemble a portable replica of the golemworks...
    The warblers are sick...their eggs shells are brittle...
        Khadagan moves in and starts nursing them back to health...with vigor...
   
AS WE TRAVEL...
    Breaks dedicates himself to the mirrors...
        Watching for threats from the Fade...
            Which are clearly bleeding into reality through a nasty hole...
    Squee runs for Hulagu, finding supplies, apportioning rations...
        Helping the refugees get acclimated to life in the Ordu...
    Ithunn starts a witch-hunt for possible assassins...
        Finds some funny-dressed steppefolk and joins them for dinner...
            Vadim almost hits on them...
                Apparently he bathes in mares-milk...
            Iron-Dear points out their yellow eyes...totally NOT steppefolk...
        AND Ithunn and the Pasht start some kung-fu cat-fighting...
            Khut, lurking, is terribly turned-on...
            The rest of the cats fall asleep by the fire...
                The Catgirl leader introduces herself as Mrin of the Mountain...
        AND Squee appears out of nowhere "It's a kitty!"
    Vadim works with Broketooth and Gormak to mount fireworks on spears...
        Giving some anti-archer capability to our infantry...
    We all go talk to the Gray Lady to tell her about the skystone...
        Vadim tries to hook her up with Ellen-Dear...
        Khut, scorched, offers to smuggle her in to see the skystone...
            Vadim "Why are you on her side, she can't even breed!"
            Ellen-Dear "Oh, she can breed!"
        Khut explains the encounter in the skystone...asks to see her library...
            Also, he looks very very burned...
                And his yurt starts skittering away...
                    He runs back to catch it...or what he his in there...
        Ado asks about invoking Ohrmazd Bay...
            She suggests talking to the Malik Magi...
        Khadagan chats with her about herbalism...
            He offers her some black lotus...she accelerates the potato harvest...
    Ellen-Dear starts discussing golem-craft with the Dworcs...
    Barruk and Gan'baatar starts breaking the Malik up into squads of 25...
        Training them in group-combat (non-Champion) tactics...
            With Gan'baatar training them to incorporate Holy Mountain Beasts...
        Which makes Hoargrim Whiteman really happy...
            He nicknames them "The Iron Gorgons"...
                Because Malik on Blood Warbeasts charging as a unit is awesome...
    Iron-Dear takes some time getting to know the caravan...
        Then goes scouting with the Nohai...
            Whoever is out there is exremely good...but she has their number...
            As the rocks change to salt-flats...
                There is _something_ out there...
                    And its not just heat-shimmer...That ground is moving...
    Ado removes all adornments...cakes himself in mud and dust...
        Sits outside the camp with a broken warbler egg...
            And entreats the Lord of Light and Life (Ohrmazd Bay)...
                Going so far as to mortify himself with a cursed arrow...
                "Against evil from outside and to secure victory in war"
        The desert heat bakes down...
            All he can see is the searing white light...
                As he passes out...
                    He realizes he can see a patch of blackness against the sand...
                    Then realizes that he is looking at something pure white...
                    And the sand is made black...
                He has caught the attention of a spirit of pure white light...
   
Iron-Dear comes back into the camp...
    with a tattered bedraggled warbler...cradling a dead baby...
        and they both say "LOOK UP!"
AND it's the biggest thunderbird we've ever seen...
    Khut quick-shoots it and pushes it away from the herds...
    Sorqutani calls on the fire mother and blasts it with a witch bolt...
        drawing its attention...
            It dives and grabs Khut...
        The thing...was clearly a thunderbird...at one point...
            But has black feathers and stiched-shut eyes like an EC Warbler...
    Khut stabs it in the foot...It drops him...
        And he is snagged out of the air by a Juvenile Thunderbird...
            HIS NEW FRIEND
    Ithunn leaps 60 feet into the air...
        grabs Khut's ankles...gets flipped towards the bird...
            grabs a wing and wrenches, causing it to lose serious altitude...
                and proceeds to beat it out of the sky with her tusks...
        WHERE Vadim ropes it with a steel cable...and lashes him to a wagon...
    Barruk leaps on an exploding outhouse...
        Onto the head of the blackcrow-thunderbird...
            And SMITES it...and SMITES it again...with the sound of rolling thunder...
    Ellen-Dear fires an acid arrow strait in its teeth...
        Melting the bindings holding its mouth and eyes shut...
            And its eyes are completely black lifeless pools...
    Khadagan leaps in with the claws...and tears its lungs off...
        And Squee viciously mocks it...
    Breaks tells everyone not to kill it...
        Then looks more carefully...
            points out that it is not undead...just soul-less...
                Decides that its not a thunderbird...
                    Touches its forehead...and kills it...

Khut flies back to his yurt and tucks in his little friend (Littlewing)...
    Then walks back to the downed Fade-Bird, cuts off a chunk, and chows down...
Ellen-Dear starts researching turning it into a Golem...
Hundreds of Dust marks the bird as unclean to keep the nohai off...
    AND she and Khadagan return to their tent to get it on...
   
We have a long chat about whether or not to head into the salt flats...

We head north into the salt-flats to meet the Fade-turned Old Empirers...
    Everyone vanishes [Nat-20 Stealth plus Pass without Trade]...
        Ripclaws (and Littlewing) circling silently overhead...
    Except Barruk...who walks alone through the desert...
            Bearing the standard of the West†
                † golden pole topped with a double-headed ripclaw...
    We come upon a crater...
        In which there is a black Gith...with shining black teeth...
            Emanating a miasma of darkness...bearing a sword of liquid starlight...
    Barruk plants the standard and faces him...alone?
        The Gith greets him in clipped, cultured, High Malik...
        Barruk makes...confused...complicated introductions...
            He introduces himself as "The Fifth Blade of Shan-yu"
                Well known as the general who won the greatest, most mismatched battles of all of military history. Beating armies of 200K with an army of only 30K. Burried another alive. More than 2000 years ago.
            Apparently he is digging up the burried army...
                The ground around him is swarming with salt-zombies...
                And there are a lot more just on the other side in the fade...
        Vadim stands up out of the sand...covered in fur...and asks...
            "Do you breed?"
                Nope...they are "Faded"...they are gone...
                    But their memory can still impact this world...
        Squee appears and asks "Can I have a tooth?!"
        Khut presents the Sulde of the Altan Ordu...
            Which apparently hurts his brain...an empty place in his mind...
    We negotiate...and offer them the city of Ahura Mazda in exchange for their salt
        The Gray Lady (who came with us)...switches to old imperial...
            And asks for the opportunity to discuss philosophy with them...
                Offering the knowledge of an ancient kingdom
                To trade for knowledge "that your folk alone possessed"
            Vadim - "I'm glad I hit the shit-house and not the library last night"
        Squee, convinced the Gith cannot see or hear her, scrambled up him...
            Trying to steal a tooth...
                Iron-Dear tries to grab her...fails...
                Breaks cuts a mirror off the top of his hat and presents it to her...
                    She refuses...
                Iron-Dear tries to put her to sleep...fails...
            She climbs him, trying as hard as she can to extract his teeth...
                But it just doesn't work...
            She bangs on his head...and he doesn't even notice...
            THEN she steals his sword...or tries...
                She touches it...grips it for a moment...
                    But knows that if she unsheathed it...she would have no future...
                        The sword apparently severs you from the Verge...
            And she goes back to desperately trying to pry a tooth out...

    AND We've offered them a city...

An Alternate History of World Religion

When contemplating the idea of running a Pathfinder game set, loosely, in the real world in an early-modern setting, I quickly came up against the issue of how to handle divine spellcasting. One of the cool things about Clerics in Pathfinder is the wide range of domains available to them and the myriad combinations of abilities those provide. While I could have hand-waived it and allowed "Christian" clerics access to any spells they wished, or made up complex tables of which domains were allowed to which religions, I decided instead to re-think how the existence of clerics and magic might have alternately shaped history...

Because, seriously, there are people casting spells...

Disclaimer, I do speak about real-world religions here, but this is all meant as setting for a Fantasy Earth. You are free to get offended if you wish. You are free to read into this some real insight about those religions if you see such. Just don't think that this in any way reflects my own belief system...

___________________________________________________________
The Church of Cultural Appropriation

One religion has dominated the entire history of the western world (no, not the "Abrahamic faiths")... I'm talking about Cultural Appropriation.

The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans -- all of these shared a tendency, not to enforce their religion on others, but rather to adopt the gods of their neighbors, their trade partners, and even their conquered enemies as their own. Not only did these ancient cultures have vast pantheons of gods, both major and minor, but each god had numerous aspects, numerous names, both local and foreign. Saint Paul is famously quoted in his address to the philosophers of the Areopagus (the Hill of Mars) in Athens: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing, him I proclaim to you..."

With the rise of Christianity, this tendency to adopt and incorporate foreign gods did not go away. The Catholic Church especially (which literally means "All Embracing"), after it became the official state religion of Rome, in its efforts to "convert" various pagan sects did not deny them the right to pray to their gods, but instead rebranded them as Saints and incorporated them into the orthodoxy: Saint Brigid, Saint Ador Ormazd ("Ahura Mazda") in Syriac churches, and many others. Eventually reforms happened and the adopted saints of the Christian church were cast out (or quietly downgraded) to make room for a stricter form of monotheism, but, even then, the Apostoles are spoken of with reverence and the "One God" is referred to as a triune-being.

The same is true in the East as well. Mongolian shamanism manages to simultaneously embrace, not only those spirits unique to the Mongolian culture, but also the worship of the Buddha and Ahura Mazda (the god of Zoroastrianism). Traditional Han Chinese folk religion incorporates the teachings of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, alongside thousands of gods, spirits, national deities, cultural heroes, and ancestor spirits.

Imagine then, a world where the servants of the gods can cast spells. Where clerics are real, and the spheres and domains of the gods are made manifest through mortal servants...

"Your god is a false god!"

"Really? I don't think so. Because Bob over there just prayed to Dionysius and made food out of thin air..."

"Oh...well shit. Well, at least let me introduce you to this new god of mine whom you might not already be praying to..."

Imagine Moshe standing before Pharaoh, performing miracles. Even in the official narrative, Pharaoh's "sorcerers" can match the first few of these, but in this world it does not stop there. Or Elijah's contest against the Baalites to see who could call down fire to light an altar....but they both succeed. If spells are real, and the spokesman for each god can perform wondrous acts, and cultural appropriation is the norm, there is no place for monotheism to take a foothold.

In the world of Beyond the Sea, the gods are many, and the gods have power, just not much of it. Classic D&D lore (s.p. the Forgotten Realms) suggests that a god's power is tied to the number and fervor of their worship. If clerical magic is the norm, and pantheism is the norm, and cultural appropriation is the norm, then no one god will ever gain sufficient focused worship to elevate himself above the others. If a 'One God' is never able to establish a strict monotheocracy, how would he amass the power necessary to be 'One'?

Imagine now, a world where the Israelites were never freed from Egypt, but never really enslaved either...they, and their god, were simply assimilated into the Egyptian culture and religion. A long line of prophets served the God of Israel, but other prophets performed equally flashy miracles in the name of their gods--Thoth, Ahura Mazda, Pan, Baldr, the Jade Emperor, et. al.  Later, a prophet calling himself The Christ rose up in the land of Palestine under Roman occupation, and even his revolutionary teachings were assimilated by the Greek philosophers, becoming just another demi-god in a very long line of such after his death.

To make things harder for would-be monotheists, there is the tendency for so many of everyone's ancestors to come back and stick around for an extra-long time. Stories of eternal rewards or eternal punishments have little meat to them when your great-great-great-grandmother who died at sea is still around two centuries later managing the family and dispensing wisdom.

In the world of Beyond the Sea, civilizations have risen and fallen in pretty much the same way as in our world, but monotheism just never took off. The great empire of Rome fell, but the ideals of the "All Embracing (Catholic) Church" and its worship of the innumerable gods, demi-gods, saints, lares, jumped-up rulers, prophets, demons, ancestral spirits, and celestial bureaucrats lived on, and the altars to "The Unknown Gods" stand in every town.

___________________________________________________________
There Can be Only One:

For each of the many, many, many gods of the world of Beyond the Sea there is but one cleric (each). They may have a great many worshipers, lay and ordained, but at any given time, only one truly devout prophet bears the torch of the god and wields his/her/its divine might in the world. There was, after all, only one living Oracle of Apollo at Delphi at a time and only ever one prophet in Israel at a given time (though in both of these cases, there was usually a student or apprentice ready to take their place).

If the gods draw their power from worship, and all worship is diluted by the pantheist tendencies of the All-Embracing Church and the sheer multitude of gods known to every would-be worshiper, then the power of the gods is scarce. Even with scarce power at their disposal, the gods must show their power in the mortal world, or else risk vanishing entirely. Thus, each god, has but one servant able to cast spells, and even these, most devout of servants, are likely to pray to other gods when the situation would call for it.


Clerics, Druids, Inquisitors, and similar classes always worship their own single, specific god. Indeed, no god grants spells to more than a single faithful servant (none is so powerful as to do more). These priestly characters may be of any alignment, and may choose any domains they wish--even alignment domains opposed to their own (there may be a god of good men who have evil thoughts for example). Those that gain proficiency with a "deity's weapon of choice" may choose any single martial weapon of their choice. Players are encouraged to make up the details of their chosen god.

Beyond the Shore: Session 3

Three times now

when I have sought solace in solitude

over the headland on the rocky shore

I have displaced my insistent inner voice

with a simple quest:

"I will find a starfish".

And each time I have done this,

gingerly rockhopping away from it all

towards the kelp-caressed wavelets

I have found one

under the first stone I turn over.

But no matter how diligently

I continue the search

I have never found a second...

-- Alan McClure

____________________________________________________________

Tired and  quite drunk, the party retired to the lower hold, where hammocks had been set aside for them as the new crew members. A couple of growls and glares from Thaduk Jr. was enough to convince some of the other crew to shift about, allowing all of the conscripts from Moonplum to bunk next to each other. Once the sleeping arrangements were sorted out, the two Thaduk's agreed to take turns standing watch against any possible treachery.

Before turning in, Caddis, still very very buzzed from his heavy round of drinking with Fishguts, decided to head down to the bilges to look around. Sifting through the dark, rank water, Caddis found a very well-made hatchet. He also caught the attention of a very large and curious bilge-rat, which took a bite out of his thigh. Caddis quickly put the rat to sleep with his hypnotic stare, then decapitated it with the axe.

On his way back up to the crew quarters, Caddis ran into 'X', the ship's old, one-eyed, tomcat. The cat was clearly more interested in Caddis than rat-catching, and followed him halfway back to the bunks before turning and scurrying off elsewhere. Ignoring the cat, Caddis made his way up to the galley and stashed the axe amidst the other tools in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, as Caddis was down in the bilges, Thaduk heard an ear-piercing scream coming from the forward end of the main hold, which was cut off as suddenly as it had begun. Poking his head up the stairs, he spotted a body lying on a table near the larboard bulkhead, surrounded by a growing pool of blood. Hearing an odd, rhythmic thumping, Thaduk stayed down and watched as a peg-legged figure walked back from the galley, a blood-soaked saw in one hand.

As the figure got closer to the body, Thaduk recognized Habbly Quarne, the ship's stitchman. Reaching the body on the able, Habbly quickly went to work stitching up the bloody stump of an arm, which Thaduk now recognized as belonging to the old woman he had arm-wrestled half to death only an hour before, and affixing some kind of wooden cup to the end of her wrist.

Finally, well past midnight, the party turned in, only to be woken much too early by the sound of the morning bell and the rest of the hands rushing up on deck. As they made their way, bleary eyed and tired, to the steps out of the middle hold, they found their way blocked by a jaundiced orc and three other crewmen.

"In a hurry?" the orc asked, shoving Caddis backwards. Caddis responded by stepping into the galley, dipping a bowl in a barrel of grog, and handing it to Thaduk Jr.

Thaduk took a swig (great breakfast), glared at the orc and said, "I'm coming up." He then rushed the orc, and, with one punch, sent him flying up the stairs to crash-land on sprawled on the main deck in a tangled heap with his friends.

As he started back up the stairs, Fishguts shoved a platter of biscuits into Caddis's hands and told him to pass out breakfast to the crew. Reaching the top, Caddis stared in the sprawled orc's eyes. Somehow the idea crossed the orc's mind that "anyone who can hang with Thaduk without getting plastered is probably captain material".

With the crack of a whip, the bosun, Mr. Scourge, ordered Caddis to simply put the tray down and let the crew help themselves. He then announced that both parties--Thaduk, Caddis, and Adriana, as well as the four men Thaduk had just trounced--would be spending the day in the bilges as punishment for fighting on deck, saying that young Jack had spotted some over-large rats getting into their grain stores the day before, and telling them not to come out until whatever was down there was dead.

After grabbing their biscuits, the seven of them trekked back down the way they'd come towards the bilges. Caddis stopped off in the galley and grabbed the axe he'd found the night before, as well as a pair of cleavers for his friends. Hearing what was up, Fishguts slapped him on the back and quipped, "if you find a big one, bring it up and we'll have it for supper..."

Up on deck, the sun was alright bright and hot, despite the early hour, turning the bilges into a sauna. While the darkness of the bilges was no problem for most of the group that went down, the heat and the stench quickly got to Caddis, Adriana, and most of the sailors that went with them. The grumbling from the orc, Jaundiced Japes they called him, and the other three was quickly silenced by Thaduk's threats and they all got to looking for the rats.

Soon enough, they found a half-dozen rats, each the size of a small dog, easily 8 pounds of more a piece. The rats lunged at them out of the dark corners of the bilges, scoring bites on several of the party. A quick scan with Caddis' evil-eye knocked four of them unconscious, easy pickings for the other sailors to finish off. The fifth was cut in two by Adriana and the last was crushed to a pulp by Thaduk.

The fight with the rats was over almost before it started, then Caddis felt something go past his leg under the water. Everyone started poking in the water, then, suddenly Caddis was grabbed and pulled under. Luckily this was not really a problem for him, given his ability to breath water.

Thaduk reached into the murky depths, felt Caddis' boot, and yanked. He pulled up Caddis, as well as the massive five-foot diameter starfish that was latched onto him. Thaduk held up the tangled mess and Adriana and the others began trying to cut the thing off of Caddis, but dealt more damage to their friend than the beast. Finally Caddis went limp and the starfish began slapping at Thaduk with a couple of loose appendages. Thaduk responded by squeezing harder, finally getting the beast to relinquish their friend and turn its attention entirely on him.

Once Caddis was free, Thaduk swung the giant starfish around like a rag, slamming it into one of the spars which framed the lower part of the ship. There was a great splintering sound as both the beam, and the hard mesodermal skeleton of the beast cracked. Japes and the other sailors, seeing the damage to the ship, panicked and climbed out of the bilges as fast as they could. Fipps Chumlett, who was among them was nice enough to grab Cad's skinny ass and haul him out (more for fear of Thaduk's ire than any real desire to save Caddis).

Enraged by the beating, the starfish wriggled free of Thaduk's grip and wrapped itself completely around him, biting at his midsection. Adriana hammered on the thing's back with her cleaver, this time being careful not to hit her engulfed comrade. Thaduk struggled, arms pinned, but finally managed to get his knife out of his belt and stab it into the creatures mouth, finally killing it.

Thaduk shouldered the dead creature and hauled it up on deck, tossing it down in front of Mr. Scourge. He then flopped down next to where they had laid Caddis' unconscious body. Adriana stayed behind to continue searching the bilges for anything potentially useful, and any more rats to dispose of. Mr. Scourge, for once, left them to relax and turned to whipping the other crew members into shape.

After a moment. Sandara Quinn, who was scrubbing the decks, worked her way over near Cad and Thad and healed them both with a burst of positive energy. Revived, The two made their way down to the galley, hauling the starfish for Fishguts. The cook and his mate then set to work boiling the monstrous echinoderm. Taking turns trying to season the olive-green mush that passed for starfish meat, with Fishguts narrowly saving Caddis from making it completely inedible.

Thaduk excused himself and headed to the lower hold where Adriana was just beginning to haul up the collection of weapons and gear she'd found discarded in the darkness of the bilges. The two of them stashed what they'd found in the footlockers that had been provided for them, then fetched up some scrab lumber which Thaduk spent the rest of the afternoon whittling into a couple of semi-usable spears.

After serving a dinner of nutmeg-laden giant starfish, Thaduk and Caddis, exhausted after a sleep-deprived night and the exertions of combat in the steamy bilges, retired to their bunks and went to sleep early. Adriana meanwhile, joined the crew on deck and challenged a dozen of them to a game of "Heave" (which involved taking turns drinking half-pints of rum in a single swig). She soon drank the entire ship under the table, thanks to her complete immunity to the effects of alcohol. Finally she retired to her bunk with an large pile of winnings and (assuming any of them remember it in the morning) the ire of the crew.

Next time: The Curse of the Killer Hangovers!