INTERLUDE ADVENTURE #3 - Pirate Borg, the finale - The Return.... of Esteban!

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The Banshee's Wail sailed for many months and days, adventuring along the Dark Caribbean. The crew was outfitted with the best weapons and armor, as Call Me Judas and Sad conducted a scourge of terror and pillage up and down the various island coasts.

Finally, feeling the need to rest and recoup---and smoke some ASH---the two buccaneers turned their sights back to Tortuga... Which happened to lie on a course that plotted them right next to the old island where they marooned Moka and Bonita.

Well, it was raining and storming when they put a longboat onto a rocky shore where Moka and Bonita sat, together, under a leaky frond-roof hut, watching the last human leg roast on a spit over a small fire. The island was truly uninhabited and cursed, you see---there were no birds, animals, or bugs on its bleached soil, and anytime the crew tried to venture into the waters the furry creature from the depths rose to challenge them. No fishing, or pillaging the wrecked treasure ships for wealth or supplies.

The three groups we'd seen when last we left them, running for the jungle line, had stayed separate for the first month, skirmishing with each other and warring over inconsequential territory. After months and months, starvation had forced Moka and Bonita together, one-by-one killing and eating the crewmembers, until only this one, single leg was left...

They happily accepted the generous offer of rescue by the good old Banshee's Wail, and sailed on to Tortuga, although Moka suffered severe ostracization.

They reached Tortuga during the night. Lights glittered across the shanty-town half-timbered port of sin.

Hoping to sell the small cargo of ASH they'd procured, they made straight for the Red Lantern district, but were waylaid by the sights in the center of town, where they learned that undead 'from the fort' were being 'farmed,' as it were, to produce ASH by the rulership of the settlement. Asking about the rulership---Ann Bonny, whom they were hoping to meet to broker a deal for their goods---they were told that, ever since The Flail had moved into "Fort Roach-er", she'd vacated the manor and was crashing at the town hall.

So, they went there.

The doors were opened to reveal a shimmering, blue-vapored ASH parlor, peopled by a pirate of a clearly higher caste and waited on by semi-nude attendants, all of whom were a bit mealy and toothless (don't look too close!).

An altercation over entry fees almost ensued at the door, until Bonny herself looked over and spotted Sad's newly purchased emerald-and-ruby-and-gold-lace tricorn hat, and told the doorman to let them in.

They joined Bonny at her hookah lounge, and introduced themselves. She remembered Call Me Judas, and was getting around to the other introductions when Calico Jack, her partner, came by and the two began to argue. Ann Bonny wanted the undead Flail and his minions out, and for Tortuga to again become a pirate mecca, rather than a treacherous undead ASH farm... Calico Jack placatingly agreed, before slinking out the door to round up more men for the night's undead hunt!

After a nearly fatal hit on the ASH hookahs, the party dithered over deal from the very squirrely Ann, to slink into the stockaded Fort de Rocher and remove The Flail, for thirty-thousand doubloons (or, as Bonny pronounced it, 'Tirty-Tousant'). They were on the verge of refusing, until she explained just who he was... He'd been a lousy Spaniard that slunk around the taverns in life. Rumor had it he'd been dragged out and killed... had an eye tore out, they say... and returned to Tortuga as a spirit, more powerful and vengeful in death than in life---Sir Esteban Alva!

The group instantly agreed to hunt the treacherous dog down and slay him---They figured they owed him the eternal damnation, on top of the earlier torture and drowning, if for no reason other than the loss of their treasure on the Unmoored Island.

Ann Bonny gave them a map of the fort, and showed them the secret way in.

They decided to go in the next day, when Bonny said the undead would be less active...

Before they returned to The Banshee's Wail for the night, Bonita asked the gods a few questions. "Tell me more about Esteban, and where I can find him." She was shown the future, the next day, at sunrise, and saw Esteban in the mess hall (which she was able to recognize on the map), just ready to take a bite out of a human heart.

The next morning, with ten crewmen, they set out for the secret access tunnel hidden in the well on the west side of town. Moka here 'helped' Bonita down by pushing her... Bonita was heavily injured but not dead. The rest of them climbed down with a rope.

The tunnel led to the courtyard inside the fort. Before they entered, however, Captain Call Me Judas drew forth the Orb of Undead Bonita had stolen from Granzko, and summoned a horde of Zombies and Skeletal scallywags. They crept across the courtyard and down into the lower reached of the fort.

In the darkness, Bonita ate some of her cannibalistic rations to gain darkvision, and peered around the corner into the hallway. There were five ghosts and zombies (for brevity's sake, I'll say that over the course of the adventure a huge number of Devil's Luck was expended simply to pass the ghosts' presence tests, saving the party from fleeing in terror... hehehehehe...).

Captain Judas sent her own zombies into the hall, and in the commotion, slipped around the corner and into the bunk rooms. They were empty. Using the moment, she summoned another horde of undead and the whole party barged into the mess hall, just as Esteban took a bite from the heart Bonita had seen in her godly vision.

He rose to the fray, spouting heavily accented epithets, and attacked... along with the 22 zombies and a ghost monkey in the room!

The party piled in, with strict instructions to the crew and their undead hordes to leave Esteban alone---his ghost-blood was theirs, alone.

A huge skirmish ensued. Skeletons were struck down, zombies ripped to pieces, volleys of pistol and muskets were fired into Esteban, flails were flailed, evil reinforcements of ghosts barged in and slammed into the party from behind, the ghost monkey slung glow-in-the-dark shit, prayers were had, luck was expended, Moka stabbed poisoned syringes into Esteban buffed by Bonita's cannibalistic recipes (the two made quite a natural and lethal team)... Finally, Esteban reached through Moka's armor, and gripped her very heart, but thanks to a panicked prayer from the zealot captain, Call Me Judas, his slimy fingers slipped off from her organ at the last moment, and it wasn't torn from her body. (The made a DR18!).

Again, as the fray slowly began to swing in favor of the PCs, Esteban reached into Bonita, and gripped her heart! But, again, due to Judas's well-timed prayers, he wasn't able to get purchase, and finally was shredded into an ectoplasmic corpse from Moka's flail.

The ghosts still fighting evaporated, and the fort fell silent.

In Esteban's oozy corpse, they found a vial of human blood, a ghostly charter document giving the bearer command of The Graveyard, a ghost frigate, and a large iron key. They quickly found the commandante's room, with a writing desk and a large oil painting of a ship sailing at sea.

They looked behind the painting, and found a passage leading back to a vault... With a LOCKED combination safe.

The first words out of Bonita's mouth was "Oh, gods..."! And she was rewarded, with the combination.

Inside were 28,000 doubloons.

A powwow was held. The party realized that, now they had control of the fort, they actually held Bonny and Jack at a disadvantage. Judas had originally wanted an island... but not this scuzzy island. Moka, however, had her eyes set on the fort and Tortuga.

A compromise was reached. Judas and Sad and Bonita would return to Bonny and Jack, and tell them they'd succeeded in ridding the fort of Esteban's wicked ghost, would collect their reward, and tell Bonny and Jack that there was a party that night at the manor, knowing full well Bonny wanted to return to residence in it.

As this was happening, Moka, with crewmen from the party's ships, and an extra share of the vault treasure (since the agreement was that the rest could split Bonny's reward three ways, cutting Moka out), rigged the Manor with the kegs of powder they'd seen in the courtyard earlier...

They'd then retreat to the Banshee's Wail, and watched. 

As night fell, streams of important Brethren Pirates, including Bonny and Jack, migrated to the manor.

Moments later, the canons on the fort crackled, firing on the manor, which erupted in a sky-blanching spout of flame and smoke, brisance raining down upon Tortuga.

Tortuga was Moka's, the new pirate queen of the buccaneer's den.

She watched The Banshee's Wail sail away into the sunset, followed by a ghostly Graveyard, from the upper rooms of her new Town Hall with satisfaction.

Sad and Bonita and Call Me Judas sailed together for a while, until their paths eventually parted. 

Bonita found herself roasting on the spit of a pirate king's fires, only to be rescued by Sad and Call Me Judas. She took his ship, and named it the Gassy Flatulence.

Sad followed Call Me Judas for a time, sleeping her way from one barkeep to the next, quite content with her lecherous lot in life.

Meanwhile, after a run-in with what she thought was a good priest with amorous intentions (the swimming water did look refreshing), Call Me Judas found herself much wiser, and perhaps even happier without the old leg---the wooden peg protruding from beneath her red-wolf cape just looked... right.

GM's Note---This ends our little triple-session Pirate Borg Campaign for now. If we ever return, Moka has been promoted to NPC status, and is now the Pirate Queen of Tortuga, and it's likely Sad, Call Me Judas, and Bonita as well will be left to sail into the doomed, bloody sunsets, retaining their legendary statuses.