"On the Account": Gunpowder and Rouge (Session 1.5)

The Leeward Isles, January 1651: The Aquila and the Fortune's Folly have been at sea for three hard weeks, but their destination is on the horizon. The Folly raises a signal flag, the two ships draw alongside one another, and the officers convene...

Brimstone Jack, who is finally able to stand after almost a month of convalescence, cuts directly to the chase: to keep their arrival in the seas around St. Martin as quiet as possible, the company must temporarily split up. He will take the ships, the cacao, and the bulk of the officers and crews to Saint-Barthélemy, where the Folly and the Aquila can be careened and otherwise made ready for battle. Meanwhile, three volunteers must proceed either to the nearby Dutch settlement at Philipsburg, or to the French colonial capital at Basse-Terre on St. Kitts, to trade the Turkish treasure for more cannons and if at all possible, the services of a master gunner for the battle to come.

Joe, Guillaume and Red Knife volunteer, select St. Philipsburg as their destination, and are put to sea in the Folly's launch. A day's sailing across the open sea brings them to the town's bustling harbor just as the fishing fleet is returning, and they slip into the bay without drawing any attention.

St. Philipsburg is a grimy, hard-working town filled with salt dredgers and merchants from across the Low Countries, and guarded by three stone forts looking down from above. Over glasses of jenever in a wharfside tavern, the three pirates hatch their plan: before investigating the town's cannon foundry, they will try to convert the Turkish treasure into coin at an advantageous rate by selling the items to a collector. A coin tossed to Hendrik, the potboy, results in a lead: a visiting French Jesuit, Frère Robert, is a well-traveled expert on antiquities. Perhaps he would be interested in taking a look?

The pirates track down the priest, who is found engaged in congenial dinnertime debate as a guest at the house of St. Philipsburg's town minister. Although he is not interested in purchasing the treasure himself, he is able to increase its value by assaying certain significant items, which will help them get a better trade for it should they try to turn it into cannons in the future.

The evening is passed in tale-telling and genever-drinking under Dominee Barendse's roof, and Frère Robert sends his new friends on their way the next morning with an open invitation to join him at the island monastery he is journeying towards: Santa Marta de las Islas, just north of San Juan.

At the cannon-foundry, Guillaume converses with the bewigged and highly efficient proprietor, Mijnheer Jans Oppendijk, who takes their order for ten light cannon and also offers to cast them two heavy demi-cannons to use as chaser guns - if they can get hold of the bronze it would take to do so.

Oppendijk's last shipment of bronze was brought in by a Dutch privateer which is still in the harbor, and following this trail brings the pirates to the great cabin of the heavily customized sea-galleon Vurenschijter, where they meet the scientifically-knowledgeable and red-blooded Kaptein Hillegont van Breda.

Van Breda bats aside offers to buy her remaining bronze with a job offer: she needs someone briefly kidnapped and brought to her ship so that she can interrogate them. Following the interrogation, they are to be returned safely to where they were taken. She cannot use her own crew for this task, as the subject is also Dutch and it would show her in a bad light were anything to go wrong. In exchange for this service, she will hand over the bronze that the three pirates need for their demi-cannons. Joe and Guillaume's enthusiasm for doing van Breda this "favor" wins Red Knife over and they accept, promising to return at sunset for more details.

In the mean time, the matter of a master gunner still needs to be attended to. Dropping some of their treasure into the apron pocket of Paulus, Hendrik the pot-boy's father, gets them a few bottles of his most expensive jenever and his assistance for the day. Paulus introduces them to a stonemason called Hiram, who offers to see if any of the bored cannoneers up in the forts above might prefer a more adventurous life at sea. With the help of one of Oppendijk's apprentices the pirates arrange for a damaged cannon to be hauled over to the inn, and using the cannon as a testing tool they are able to identify the most qualified applicant. This is Jaap de Ruyter, a somewhat lazy but highly competent middle-aged artillerist who gladly accepts their offer to join the company.

With light cannons purchased and a master gunner signed on to direct their use, only one thing remains: the kidnapping job. The target is identified as Paulus Henriksen, the navigator of the a Dutch man-o-war anchored further out in the bay. Van Breda wishes to ask him some technical questions about a timing device she is working on, but he has refused to see her - thus necessitating, in her eyes, the business at hand.

A row-boat with muffled oars has been made available, and with Guillaume providing the seamanship and Joe providing the stealth, the little vessel is soon drawn in under the Vergulde Zon's stern. Although Guillaume is disconcerted by a familiar violin tune that he hears echoing out from the open cabin windows above them, and Joe is concerned by the conscious absence of lanterns at the ship's aft railing, but these misgivings are pushed aside as they clamber silently up the hull and draw themselves up to the cabin's windowsill.

Within, a scene of surprising opulence is visible. Silks, velvets and cloth-o'-gold have been draped around the cabin, an enormous pile of fresh fruit spills from a woven basket on a table on the far side, and a veiled woman seated by the door plays a violin. In the center of the cabin, a masked and wigged figure wearing a Dutch naval officer's uniform stands at ease while a second masked figure with long blonde hair and a silk shift kneels at his feet to employ an ornate boot-polishing kit.

Led by the ever-impulsive Joe, the pirates leap into the room to seize their prey, but things go wrong quickly; Joe fumbles his attempt to knock the standing figure's saber away, while Guillaume is forced to employ his sedative kit to prevent the violin player fleeing out of the cabin. Red Knife and Joe have just managed to wrestle the officer to the deck and unmask him when the boot polisher stands, snatches a double-barreled pistol from a nearby bench, and fires both barrels at Red Knife's head!

As everyone's hearing returns, Red Knife is bleeding from two hair's-breadth bullet grazes to his scalp and ear, Joe is using his axe to hold the unmasked "naval officer" - in fact, just a slim boy of around 14 - hostage, and the boot polisher has removed their mask and blonde wig to reveal a droopy white mustache and bald scalp: this, not the boy dressed as an officer, is the pirates' real target.

Hendrikssen's gun is empty, but two shots have been already been fired and boots can be heard in the passageway outside. What will the pirates do - stand or run? 

While Guillaume slams the cabin door shut, Joe gives Hendrikssen an ultimatum: call off the approaching marines, or he will use his axe on the hostage. A wrench of the axe handle brings a trickle of blood to the boy's throat and lends weight to the threat, and Hendrikssen shouts through the bulkhead that the shots were an accidental discharge and that everything is fine. The marines are heard dispersing, and after Guillaume's sedatives are once more employed (on Hendrikssen) this time, the pirates are soon rowing away with the boy bound and gagged in the cabin and Hendriksen and the violin-player - a slave called Fabienne - in tow.

Back at the Vurenschijter, Hendrikssen - who has revealed a deep antipathy for both women and pirates as the source of his reluctance to meet with van Breda - is handed over for a brief interrogation. A half hour later, he is paddled back across the dark waters of the bay and returned to his ship. A tense moment passes when the pirates are spotted making their retreat and are forced to abandon the rowboat amidst a hail of musket fire from the Vergulde Zon's sentries, but the absence of a boat is no impediment to these sons of the sea and all are soon reunited on the deck of Kaptein van Breda's ship. The bars of bronze change hands, Mijnheer Oppendilk's apprentices begin work on casting the Folly and Aquila's new 36-pound chaser guns, and the pirates arrange for a hired vessel to take them, their new master gunner, and his new hardware north to Saint-Barthélemy to rendezvous with Brimstone Jack and make ready for the arrival of L'Estrella in the waters of the Caribbean...

On to Session 6!

"On the Account": The Hunter or the Prey? (Session 1.4)

Santo Domingo, January 1651: The crew of the Fortune's Folly return to the Lopez plantation after their midnight struggle against the unquiet dead...

At the plantation, Affonso has in the meantime coordinated a salvage and stripping operation, and three large groups of freed slaves are busily preparing to leave as the pirates guide their wagon up to the great house:

• the hardliners, who have been gathering weapons while waiting to see if the pirates kept their word to investigate their missing family members, are preparing to disperse into the forests in their ones and twos
• the maroons led by Affonso, who have salvaged farming implements and trade goods and who are preparing to relocate to a hidden mountain sanctuary, and 
• the prospective pirates, who wish to join the crew of the Fortune's Folly and seek their fortunes at sea

As the new recruits unload the haul of Turkish treasure and begin to carry it down the forest trails to the beach, Oman and Carmen are taken aside by Affonso, who expresses the hope that they will all see each other once again soon and gives them an important piece of information: the secret route to the Place of the White Tree, where the maroons intend to found their hidden settlement. Meanwhile, Eve takes possession of a particularly fine scimitar from the treasure pile.

Upon reaching the beach just before dawn, the pirates are surprised to see most of their fellow crew hiding in the dunes rather than working on refloating the Folly. Old Jemmy explains that a ship's bell was heard in the early hours of the morning, and a flash of light spotted; they fear that there is a ship out in the darkness waiting for first light to attack them. Only Zandoz and his fellows are still on the ship trying to get it unstuck.

Joe, swathed all around in bloody bandages, is able to rally the beach party back to their tasks using some choice words, and with the added musclepower of the new recruits the Folly is pulling out of the cove just as dawn breaks. The ship is revealed to be the Aquila, a single-masted vessel flying no flag. The Folly hoists Spanish colors, hoping to seem innocuous, and while the mystery ship does the same it does not alter its posture to a more peaceful one. The Folly turns east and attempts to flee; the Aquila follows under full sail. The chase is on!

The two vessels chase each other for most of the day, while the pirates work hard to shake off their pursuers. However, Red Knife - despite his best efforts - is not able to outclass the Aquila's helmsman and sailing master, who are clearly seasoned sailors and who are steadily closing the gap between the vessels. 

Meanwhile, based on meticulous long-range observation from the crow's nest, Guillaume and Carmen are able to deduce that the Aquila  is lightly crewed, counting on its cannons to beat the Folly in a straight fight. This inspires Red Knife and Joe to propose a risky strategem: break line-of-sight with the Aquila, pull into a sheltered cove, and spill the wind from the sails until their pursuer catches up - then surge out of the cove into boarding range before the Aquila can use her guns. The plan works, and the crew of the Folly pour over the Aquila's gunwales before the Spanish gun crews can fire their broadside.

The fight that follows is short and decisive. The crew of the Aquila deploy a swivel gun to deadly effect, but Carmen leaps from concealment to kill its crew before they can fire a second salvo. The more experienced Spanish sailors begin to break the momentum of the pirate assault through superior formation and discipline, but Red Knife keeps up a fusillade of musket fire which helps the Folly's crew bring their greater numbers to bear. Soon, the crew of the Aquila - which is revealed to be a guarda costa ship, or private ship hired to perform coast guard duties - are forced to surrender. The crew of the Folly have taken their first prize, including the Aquila's small cargo of confiscated cacao!

A brief meeting of officers is held in the wake of the battle. The Spaniards are permitted to escape ashore, and Zandoz is given command of the Folly and its crew of fresh recruits, while the characters and all the experienced pirates move to command the Aquila. In doing so, the characters hope to contain Zandoz's obvious ambitions to be captain - they have given him a crew that is primarily loyal to them, and they have split him off from the four or five members of the crew who he might have counted on for support. Thus divided, the company set off towards St. Martin and the adventures that await them there...

On to Session 5!

"On the Account": The Sweet Embrace of Death (Session 1.3)

Santo Domingo, January 1651: The crew of the Fortune's Folly have won the battle for the Lopez plantation. As flames rise all around, they now attempt to win the peace...

With the plantation owners and hired hands disarmed and kept under guard, the pirates return their attention to plundering the great house for weapons. Guillaume is able to convince some of the farmhands to brave the flames to bring out their armory, but they are blocked from entering the house by a fearful group of freed slaves - until Guillaume is able to enlist the help of Affonso, the plantation's blacksmith and the leader of the freed slaves.

With a few armfuls of muskets and gunpowder thus retrieved, Affonso and the pirates discuss what to do next. As things currently stand, the freed slaves have formed into three factions:

• One group, composed mostly of noncombatants and the infirm, wishes to flee the plantation together and found a secret camp in the deserted interior
• One group wishes to arm themselves, seize control of the plantation, and prepare to fight off any Spanish forces who attempt to return them to slavery, and
• One group with no long-term plans as such, but an immediate and intense interest in exacting revenge on the plantation owners and hired hands

Representatives from each faction give a short speech to the crowd of freed slaves, and Affonso invites the pirates to also have their say. Joe speaks for the crew of the Folly, and chooses a cautious and somewhat noncommittal approach: send as many freed slaves as wish to leave the island off to sea on the Folly, and have those who wish to stay keep the Europeans alive as hostages or free them to deflect the wrath of the neighboring planters.

Joe's measured approach calms the passions of many in the crowd, but the fate of the overseers remains a sticking point: will no-one make them pay for the sufferings they have inflicted?

To break the deadlock, Affonso proposes a solution which which he thinks will appease the most hot-headed of the hardliners. Seven days ago, the plantation owner's young son Miguel returned to the plantation after one of his customary sketching trips into the countryside, rounded up ten slaves and one of the overseers, and disappeared off with them into the hills. If the fate of these missing members of Affonso's group can be discerned, he believes that the consensus among the freed slaves will tilt towards Joe's plan. 

After some deliberation the pirates agree. They are introduced to João and Tshilobu, two members of the hardliner group who have family members among the missing people, and who will guide them to Miguel's ostensible destination: the deserted de Flores plantation, eight miles away. Tshilobu is a hunter who knows the region well; João was the plantation's "cutter," standing ready to strike off the hands of slaves who got them caught in the cane crushers, and Affonso believes that retrieving the abductees will help to reintegrate him into the community.

A few last minute preparations and discoveries are then made:

• A horse-drawn wagon is prepared for the trip. The colonial militia will likely arrive just after dawn, so there is no time to walk to the de Flores plantation; at the same time, there are not enough horses for all the pirates. The wagon should get them there and back by dawn.
• Asking after the specific slaves that were taken, Red Knife and Tshilobu discover some patterns: one of the abductees, Maria, was a skilled traditional healer and spirit medium, while the other nine were the most economically unproductive among the slaves - the old, the sick, and victims of industrial accidents mostly involving the plantation's sugar crushing rollers.
• According to his manservant Batubenga, Miguel returned to the plantation from from his last sketching trip with a large sack containing a bulky object. The sack is found, and is the object revealed to be a heavy, discolored silver tureen of Turkish manufacture. 

With a bad feeling about the last two pieces of information, the pirates and their guides set off in the dark for the de Flores plantation, which sits atop a steep hill to the north. Scouting reveals the layout of its buildings as follows:

The would-be rescuers creep up to the ruined plantation under the cover of the low scudding clouds into which the top of the hill protrudes, and begin to explore:

1. The entire plantation bears a cloying, sweet smell - as if sugar sap is currently being processed, even through the de Flores family are said to have fled around twenty years ago
2. A thrown torch reveals nothing at the bottom of the dark, silent quarry just below the plantation
3. The large, three-story stone hacienda is abandoned and shows signs of having been partially and hurriedly packed up. In the main bedroom, Eve finds a pair of ornamental Turkish scimitars suggests a link to Miguel's looted coffee urn
4. As Red Knife leads the group out of the hacienda, he is fired on from a garita by a sniper with a powerful rifle! The group takes cover at the base of the staircase leading  up to the garita, where Tshilobu saves Joe from stepping onto tripwire linked to a musket on the stairs. The two of them attempt without success to talk down their attacker - Victorio, the Spanish overseer who accompanied Miguel, who is raving about "hungry ghosts" somewhere above them. Victorio finally tries to kill them with a grenado that instead fatally collapses the tower around him.
5. Investigating the church, João and Guillaume find two of the missing slaves, including João's mother Pungu. She tells them that Miguel is in the crypt below, that he has been there all week, and that every night he has been taking one of the slaves away from their camp in the nearby warehouse in chains. That person is never seen again.
6. Pungu blames Maria, missing the spirit medium, for providing Miguel with forbidden knowledge regarding the appeasement of evil spirits
7. In the partly-collapsed warehouse, Maria is found frozen within a partially-completed veve, reaching for her fallen cornmeal pouch. Red Knife tosses the pouch closer to her, and she completes the veve before falling into a trance and addressing them in a deep male voice as "Papa Legba".
8. According to Maria/Papa Legba, the boy Miguel has called up the "hungry ghosts" by bringing his greed for wealth onto the deserted plantation. This greed has brought together a blood curse of the slaves who died here, and an incantation of revenge associated with Turkish plunder held as trophies by the de Flores family, to create a legion of vengeful specters. 
9. Legba wishes to prevent harm to his "horse", Maria, and so will tell the pirates what they need to do to break the connection before more blood is spilled: they must ceremonially reassemble the shattered bodies of the long-dead slaves and thereby break the conjoined curse. He tells them that what they seek can be found in the giant sugar-sap cauldron in the cookhouse at the plantation's highest point.

As Guillaume and the others approach the giant copper cauldron in the deserted cookhouse, a roiling tide of syrupy-smelling white fog spills from it, mixing with the low cloud to severely limit their vision. At the same time, shadowy figures spring from all around them to attack with rending bony claws.

Red Knife, João, and Joe enter into desperate close-quarters battle with the figures, receiving multiple wounds but also striking down a handful of the figures. Tshilobu readies his ammunition bag as an improvised grenado, but is unable to get the others to gather together so that he can throw it safely. Guillaume springs up to the cauldron and, blind in the heavy fog, reaches down into it instead to find that it is filled with hundreds of finger bones. He scoops these into his medical bag even as Red Knife is struck a terrible blow and Joe, trying to free himself from a claw, wounds himself deeply with his own axe.

Luckily for the pirates, it is at this moment that João determines the attackers' weakness: although their bodies seem insubstantial, or at least hard to hit in the blinding fog, their ever-grasping hands are solid and vulnerable. The pirates use this information to protect themselves as they carry their stricken friends with them to the gravesites of the plantation's slave village. There, Maria/Legba awaits near a freshly dug grave; when Guillaume pours the fingerbones into it, the fog momentarily thickens to complete opacity and then lifts. The grave is filled with earth, the shadowy figures are nowhere to be seen, and Maria lies nearby in a deep sleep.

A few hours later, the pirates' wagon returns to the Lopez plantation. On it are the rescued (and now freed) slaves; young Miguel, bruised and bound in chains; Red Knife and Joe, deeply wounded and leaking blood into their bandages; and, under a rough tarpaulin looted from the de Flores warehouse, a substantial haul of Turkish silver. What next for the crew of the Fortune's Folly? Only time will tell...

On to Session 4!

"On the Account": Bring me that Horizon (Session 1.2)

Tortuga, January 1651:The Fortune's Folly has taken on new hands, and the sails are set to depart on the first tide. The day begins...

Twenty pirates have crowded into the aft hold of the Folly. There, in his tiny captain's cabin, Brimstone Jack is gasping out a secret. Among the pirates, six stand out:

• Eve, the Quartermistress of the Folly (played by Melanie)
• "Red Knife" Abrameu, a youthful Spanish noble laboring under a mysterious curse (Gerald)
• Guillaume, ship's doctor and political idealist (Elin)
• Joe Malone, a mutineer and would-be boatswain (Padraic)
• Oman, a young runaway dressed in boy's clothes (Amanda), and
• Carmen, a disguised spy fleeing enemy agents (Jacquie)

Other crew members of note include:

• Jerome, sailor, lately of the French navy
• Jean, the gigantic cook
• Old Jemmy, English master carpenter, recently hired
• Zandoz de la Rosa, leader of a Spanish faction among the crew, recently crew of the Dagger

His speech made less painful by some of Guillaume's anesthetic preparations, Brimstone Jack reveals what he knows: the island of St Martin will soon be sold by the French Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique. It's new owner is Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta:

Brimstone Jack has found out - he does not say how - that a substantial amount of ceremonial silver is being sent from the knights' stronghold across the Atlantic to St Martin. The silver is being carried by a fast but lightly-armed Genoese ship, L'Estrella, which will be arriving in the Caribbean at the end of the month. If L'Estrella can be taken before she reaches St Martin, it will be enough to change the lives of the entire crew of the Folly, perhaps up to the point of buying and fitting a much bigger ship for more ambitious adventures.

The crew retire to discuss Brimstone Jack's revelations, pausing momentarily to elect Joe as the new boatswain. Zandoz de la Rosa runs against him, but Joe's cool intimidation and his past as a mutineer carry the vote.

As the rest of the hands return to their tasks aboard the ship, Joe and the others continue to discuss the hunt for L'Estrella. Of primary concern is the Folly's shortage of firepower, even relative to a smaller ship. After considering raiding fortresses in Puerto Rico and San Domingo for weapons, the crew instead decide to beach the ship along the northern coast of the Spanish section of Hispaniola, and raid a sugar plantation instead.

The plan hits an initial hump when Oman and Red Knife find themselves unable to bring the Folly in close to the shore, and instead get stuck on a sandbar. Most of the crew stay behind to work on getting the ship loose, while Red Knife, Joe, Guillaume, Carmen, Eve and Oman travel inland towards a nearby plantation.

At the plantation, some reconnaissance reveals several points of interest:

1. A fortified great house, presumably the location of any lootable goods
2. A dormitory building, occupied by the farmhands and free laborers
3. Two slave lodges, each guarded by a pair of armed sentries
4. A large warehouse partially filled with cane bundles and processed sugar

The pirates' initial, stealthy approach is ruined by a surprised rat. Joe fires a pistol and mortally wounds a sentry; a brief firefight follows. Oman shoots a second sentry, Joe kills a third and is wounded in the ribs for his trouble, and Eve leaps from the darkness to skewer the fourth and last sentry.

In the lodges, Oman and Carmen try with little success to free the slaves. In the mens' lodge, a heavy chain running through hoops set in the stone floor serves as the anchoring point for each group of four men, and is held in place by a monstrous padlock; in the womens' lodge, the occupants are unchained but the door itself is sturdy and hard to unlock.

As the pirates continue to struggle with these locks, the gunfire outside has raised the alarm, and return fire is beginning to rattle out from the dormitory as the farmhands respond to the raid. It is only a matter if time until the outnumbered raiders are surrounded or driven back with nothing. Three acts of reckless daring, and one of cynical self-preservation, resolve the situation:

1. Red Knife scoops up several muskets and keeps up a one-man assault on the farmhands, using stealth and speed to make himself seem like several attackers
2. Carmen, improvising the dress of a plantation laborer running for safety, and utilizing a cloud of smoke created by Guillaume with a stinkpot, infiltrates the dormitory and returns with a heavy blacksmith's hammer capable of smashing the slaves' chains
3. Oman rallies the slaves with the aid of their leader, sending a party of ten men to brave the gunfire and assist Joe in tearing the great house's armored shutters open enough to permit him to throw in a firebomb
4. Eve, faced with a choice between drawing gunfire away from the freed slaves, or keeping herself safe, selects the latter

As the great house begins to burn freely, a flag of surrender is extended by its occupants and the shooting dies down, but dozens of freed slaves lie dead as collateral damage and the disarmed plantation staff are soon the focus of a general desire for revenge. Their fate is now in the hands of the crew of the Fortune's Folly...

On to Session 3!