From the Diary of Rudolpho Milano

Dear Diary,

I hate losers. We just happened to find a whole town full of them on the island of Axuxal. I forget the real name of the place but that’s OK, I call it Loserville. We stopped at Loserville to replenish supplies and do some shopping only to find out that the broke losers had nothing worthwhile to sell and no money to buy any of our excess loot.

Daria, Avner, and a few other members of the crew decided to stay in town to hang out and relax but I decided I didn’t want anything to do with the losers there so I stayed on board the ship to have a couple mugs of my magic butt beer and update my diary. I ‘m glad that Avner and Daria have finally learned to get along. I really want that guy to amount to something when we get him back to his family in Sasserine. We can always use all the allies we can get.

Damn! I hear some clamor coming from town now. Gotta go see what it’s about.

-R

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Dear Diary,

Rest in peace, Avner.

Wouldn’t you know it, late in the afternoon I ran up on the prow to see what’s going on in Loserville, and I see a huge band of losers, led by the loser chief himself, accosting poor Daria and Avner. Without even aiming, I quickly fired a warning ballista shot into the mob and jumped off the ship.

By the time I swam to shore and ran up the beach to the town center, some loser had killed poor Avner and set his body on fire. That made me REALLY MAD. What’s more, when I began to get close, a woman summoned up one of those damn pickled gremlins. I recognized her as Rowyn of the Lotus Dragons. I thought we were working for her and here she is attacking Daria!

I moved in to help Daria with the gremlin and she stepped back to catch her breath. I split that pickled snotball in two about the same time that Kongu got to the scene. With Nesta picking off losers right and left, they decided to retreat with their dead chief.

Rowyn cast a spell and turned invisible! Everyone called to the ship for Nesta, the newly minted manhunter, to come track her.

I was still plenty pissed and in my berserker rage so I charged the town hall and burst apart the door. From outside I heard Kongu yell “A funeral fit for a king!” Of course at that time, I had no idea what he was talking about. There were three more losers inside the town hall so I killed them before I sat down to catch my breath. Getting that pissed off always gets me a little winded.

As I stepped outside to sit down and rest, I noticed for the first time that several buildings, including the tavern, were on fire. Avner’s body was inside the tavern burning amidst all the alcohol. I heard screams of terror and pain coming from some of the houses. That cheered me up a little bit I guess.

I didn’t see Daria or Nesta anywhere but Kongu was making his way to the town hall. He didn’t waste any time; he walked in grabbed two crates, threw them up on his shoulders, and began walking back to the Cresting Wave. That kid learns fast. I was still taking my well-deserved break when I heard the war drums and the shouting of what must have been hundreds of losers.

Now, most folks would have taken that as an invitation to leave while they were ahead - but not this pirate. Nope, I was still in a piss-ass mood and I figured that I needed to kill a lot more losers before my mood would improve any. No one kills my buddy Avner and gets away with it.

No one else was around to help me but I figured that I could probably fight as I retreated back to the ships and come out OK. As the war party finally closed the distance to hand to hand combat, I came up with a plan: I would keep my cool and fight in a doorway so that I would only have to fight two or three losers at a time. When the time came to retreat, I would exit through the back wall.

When I began to battle the losers, I noticed that they had the toughest losers up front. I started combat with them and got a couple of nicks from their spears. I even got hit with a couple of thrown rocks. That really pissed me off but I still kept my cool.

Then, out of nowhere, Rowyn appeared and tried to backstab me like those punk kids in the back alleys of Sasserine do. She didn’t know who she was dealing with! I pivoted out of the way in time but still got nicked me with her blade. The wound really burned - I figure she put some poison on her dagger. THAT made me finally lose my cool.

Then, the strangest thing happened. I had a moment where everything was suddenly clear to me. You know, when all the ropes and pulleys in your brain finally catch. Rowyn was the one that unleashed the first pickled gremlin on the Sea Wyvern. Rowyn was the one that cut the rope connecting our two ships. Rowyn was the one that killed Kongu’s fish. Rowyn was the one that poisoned my food! Now I had a new plan: kill Rowyn at all costs.

I flew into a berserker rage and swung at Rowyn but she avoided most of the blow and I only wounded her. As I parried her clumsy attack and got ready to cleave her in two, it started raining flecks of gold! I couldn’t see shit! I took my best swing at where Rowyn was last standing and was rewarded with a warm spray of blood that I could feel on my face. I pried my falchion from her corpse and stepped back into the doorway to defend myself until I could see again.

I could hear the voices of Kongu & Z then so I figured that everything would be OK. Before too long, I heard the voices of Daria and Vin also. Finally, everyone was joining in on the fun! I fought even while I was blinded but I did a lot better when my vision cleared. I also saw Nesta picking off losers from the deck of the Cresting Wave.

Kongu, for some reason, was offering them mercy. Mercy? After what they did to Avner? I don’t think so! That Knogu is a killing machine. For a little while I actually worried that he might get to kill more losers than I did. I really need to work on my fighting technique. A few of the losers retreated but the rest of them fought to the death. Suckers.

Like I said, my first plan was to kill every last one of the losers but killing Rowyn had really improved my mood so it didn’t seem so important after all. Besides I didn’t want to spend all that time tracking the losers down. I grabbed some loot out of the town hall and began walking back to the dinghies. Someone set the town hall on fire, and just for kicks, before we left, I changed their little sign to read ‘Loserville’.

I didn’t get any info on Maria or my pa from these losers! Maybe on the way back through, we can stop for a couple of days so I can kill everyone. Or, maybe, Avner’s family will pay me to do it when they hear what these primitives did to him.

I gotta hand it to Lavina. When she’s right, she’s right. That was a very relaxing shore leave. I feel much better.

Bye, Avner. I miss you, buddy.

-R

From the Diary of Rudolpho Milano

Dear Diary,

Boy have I had a bad couple of days. The one good part is that Z and Cheri were able to cure my sandy condition with some kind of magic scroll and a bead. After that, things went to shit as usual.

Our crap-delivery mission continues to piss me off with every minute that I spend on this damn ship. I want to get back to Sasserine so I can get my damn adamantine falchion.

The other day we had to make a run through the pirate-infested waters of the Scarlet Brotherhood. Lavinia's brilliant suggestion was to slip through one at a time. That sounded just fine and dandy to me. I figured we could wait for the Sea Nymph to go on ahead and then turn our ship around to head home. But nooo! Gallant Sir Vin convince everyone to keep the two ships together in order to fight off any attacking pirates. I’m all for pirate-killing I guess but now we’re still stuck with Lavinia on this mission.

Since we were going to try to slip through at night, I decided to try to take advantage of the fact that most pirates are a superstitious lot. We painted the name of the ghost ship, the Cresting Wave on the Sea Wyvern to spook the Scarlet Brotherhood. I figured the Cresting Wave would have a fair amount of legend behind it and no-one would dare attack us. As usual, I was completely wrong.

As we made our way through the straight, we were attacked by two pirate ships, the Purity’s Prow and the Whaler. That was the strangest ship battle that I have ever been involved in. I didn’t get to do much. I think I fired the bow ballista a couple of times.

We started off with Z launching a huge-ass exploding ball of flames at the Whaler. As the crew ran around like trying like hell to put out the fire, our captain ordered our ship to turn about and make ready to ram. Nesta picked individual sailors off of the deck of the Purity’s Prow with her longbow. She made a game out of alternately offing whoever was brave enough to man the wheel and plunking arrows into the captain with lethal accuracy.

As we made our turn, that silly wizard that we picked up cast some sort of spell that filled our sails with the fastest wind I’ve ever sailed in. I’ve never traveled that fast in a ship, ever! There wasn’t much left of the Whaler after we rammed her. We turned about again to go after the Purity’s Prow and starting to think that finally I’ll get to do some hand to hand killing when the boat just up and surrenders to us.

I boarded first to make sure that I didn’t recognize any of the crew as the pirates that tossed me overboard a couple of years ago. Luckily for them, I didn’t recognize them. None of them had any news of me pa, Antonio or that bitch Maria. Spanky took command of the ship and promptly rechristened it the Vicious Spanking. That guy has issues.

Shortly thereafter, we were replenishing our water at a waterfall when we were attacked by a seven-headed sea-dragon. My dull falchion didn’t even penetrate its tough hide. Luckily we killed the beast and spent the rest of the day diving for treasure. There was a handful of sunken ships lying on the ocean floor there. All of ‘em were all busted up and it was pretty obvious what done it. I couldn’t make out any of the ship names. Ah, well. The losers shoulda’ fought harder.

Sometimes I wonder if something like that has happened to my own sweet pa, Antonio Milano. Then again I also sometimes like to fart underwater just to watch the bubbles. I gotta remember to ask around for Antonio or Maria at the next spot of civilization we come to.

That brings me to my last incident to report. A couple of days before the fight with the dragon, we got to Fort Greenlock, where I was hoping to do some asking around - or maybe even get Vin ‘everyone-loves-me’ Icemark to do it for me while the captains took on more provisions. Unfortunately for everyone, Fort Greenlock has been abaondoned.

There appears to have been an attack, although there were no bodies. Yep, a genuine mystery. As mysteries really bore me, I was quite relieved that Vin didn’t open his big blue mouth and get everyone stomping through the forest an a big loser-hunt.

Lavinia says that we will soon enough come to the peaceful village of Renkrue on the island of Axuxal. She suggests that we can make a short stay there to relax. That sounds good to me. I can’t wait to do some shopping, drinking, asking around, and just plain relaxing someplace other than this damn boat. Yep, I’m sure looking forward this stop.

-R

From the Diary of Rudolpho Milano

Dear Diary,

I’m turning to sand. It’s a long story.

After we fought the eight-legged freak; Vin, Nesta, and Kongu left the exploratory party to carry it back to the Sea Wyvern. The rest of us, with the addition of Cheri (who seemed to appear out of nowhere), entered the ruins of Tomoachan.

The first room we came to was painted up in scenes of some long-abandoned primitive loser city like nothing I’ve ever seen. This stuff was totally outside my experience. Some weird alien feeling of wonder came over me as I realized that the losers that built this ruin lived and died ages ago. Then the feeling passed and was getting pissed just being there and having to listen to Urol.

Things soon got interesting. After we walked down a few steps and began to examine the room a blazing wall of fire appeared out of nowhere and spooked the party. They started running around like a bunch of kenku with their heads cut off.

While most everyone else hid in a little alcove along the south wall, I just kept searching the room for any treasure. I’ve walked through fire before and it didn’t hurt - I figured I could handle being singed a little. This fire was different though. It hurt like hell!

The wall moved from the East side of the room to the west and disappeared. We figured that was that, but noooo! Another fire wall appeared in the same place and it all happened over again - only this time I hid in the alcove with everyone else.

Anyway, this crap went on about a hundred more times and in the end we discovered a fat lot of nothing. After we got through that mess, we came into a room that was a miniature model of a city. I was like “Look at me! I’m a titan and I’m stomping this stupid primitive city and all the losers in it flat! Mu-hu-ha-ha-ha!” Then Ural started his whining and bitching and Vin wouldn’t let me play titan so I had to entertain my self by looking for more treasure.

Sure enough, there was some treasure. The central pyramid in the miniature city was actually some kinda coffin for some long-dead loser. I was first on the scene and when I pried up the lid, I got a face full of some rotten, stank nasty dust that made me cough and wheeze.

But that’s not even the best part! The freaken’ punchline came about a minute later when I started coughing up sand! No kidding - sand! I shit you not! And I started to feel real freakin’ bad. As if that weren’t bad enough, the treasure got divvied up while I was busy coughing sand!

Then, we had to cut through an iron wall to continue on. I think I seriously dulled the blade on my falchion but I’ll get into that later.

The next room we came to was occupied by some bat-loser that spit fire at us, so we killed him. There was also some ball of light there that seemed to be on our side. I’ve heard pirate stories about such critters. The stories always made out like the lights were evil. Oh well. Thanks, little evil ball of light.

We got some silly little gold bat statue for treasure. One of the big brains in the party said that the statue was magic so we loaded it up to take with us. Urol claims that the room was some kind of ancient calendar. I gotta admit, about this time I was fed up with coughing sand and getting real tired of hearing that gnome’s voice.

The last room in this bizarre dungeon was inhabited by a big pile of eyes and mouths. If you can believe it, this thing talked even more than Urol! It jabbered so much in fact that I got kinda ‘confused’ about who I was, where I was, and what I was supposed to be doing!

The next thing I remember, I must have killed it because it was cut near in two. The rest of the party must have suffered something similar because I noticed that Urol had some halfling-sized arrows sticking out of his side. We got some more minor treasure and finally went back to the ships.

Today, I got even worse. I started to look like hell with sores where my flesh was turning to sand. I hope Z and Cheri are able to heal me.

One more little item: Nesta claims that she’s not an undead hunter anymore - she’s a manhunter. She’s always up on deck shooting at her special target dummy with the vital points marked.

-R

Bonus for the Bonus XP

Since the response has been all but non-existent for the existing offer:

Characters submitted by Thursday (21-Jun-2007) 11:59 PM will receive special consideration with either additional experience, monetary, or magical item rewards. Characters that were submitted by 11:59 PM Monday (18-Jun-2007), as an award for their player's special diligence, will have a gift of extraordinary magnitude.

Ramming the Red Fleet

Returning to the ship, the adventurers recover from their trials. Rudolpho has the mummy-rot cured with the aid of a couple of scrolls found in the crypt. The fleet embarks again.

The voyage continues around the peninsula, into the pirate infested waters of the Scarlet Brotherhood. Lavinia's suggestion was to slip through one at a time, but dear brave Vin suggested that they keep the fleet together. So, together the ships sail through the pass at night. Of course, to Brotherhood ships attempt to intercept the party, not realizing the danger. In a dramatic sea battle, Vin leads the ships headlong into combat. The final ramming maneuver into the Angry Whaler, breaks the will of the pirates to pursue combat. Nesta's suppressing fire, removing any leadership from the decks of the opposing fleet. The Angry Whaler sinks into the deep, while the Purity's Prow is captured and crewed to join the journey to the Isle of Dread. First mate Spanky is promoted to Captain, and given command of the Purity's Prow.

Continuing down the coast, the stop at Fort Greenrock takes an eerie turn as the town is deserted. Apparently a while ago the Fort was attacked and abandoned. Now it stands as a ghost town on the coast of the Amedio jungle. Several days later, the fleet stops for water and the party is attacked by an aquatic hydra. The party pulls no punches and clobbers the creature back into the briney deep. The voyage resumes, and several days later the party arrives at the isle of Axuxal and the village Renkrue. Lavinia suggests a day's shore leave in this peaceful village.

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Session characters: Rudolpho, Vin, Kongu, Ortho, Nesta, Zaelinniaeus
Session XP: [note 1] Kongu advances to 5th level
Session Loot: 1825 gp in booty, 102 gp, +1 chainmail, cloak of the manta ray, caravel: Purity's Prow

[note 1] I am using the XP calculating spreadsheet, so now I will just post when characters (that I have on file) advance. New secondary characters will have to get their starting XP from me.

Bonus XP offering

I would like current copies of everyone characters, in electronic format and e-mailed to me at the.great.waldo@gmail.com, scanned images into PDF's are acceptable.

The incentive for this activity is 300 XP. To qualify for this award, you must have submitted a character history/background.

Current Levels

Characters at 5th level: Nesta, Rudolpho, Vin, Newt, Daria, Zaelinniaeus
Characters at 4th level: Chiri, Ortho, Kongu, Spanky, Drugen

Please take the time to advance your characters.