Captain Cardinal’s first mate, Burly Jim, returns to camp after a one week expedition to find and retrieve the Three Princesses. He spoke to them yesterday. Unfortunately, he reports that they have a strong and well-defended cave complex in the cliffs a few miles through the woods to the west. Their forces outnumber his by almost 2:1, and he didn’t want to engage in a suicide run. He did manage to convince a few of the mutineers to return with him, which evens up the numbers a little, but reports you’ll have to try something a little less direct.
BUT!
Two days earlier, visitors showed up on the beach! This island is inhabited by a strange bronze skinned folk whose garb looks outlandish to your eyes. The men wear shaded glasses and style their hair in bright yellow mohawks. They dress in grass skirts braided with bronze and tin, and carry long recurved bows and metal-topped spears. They appeared in the treeline to the east of camp, bright orange gleaming against the swaying palms and ferns. A trio walked down to the river opposite camp and waited until the Captain approached.
“You got any wheat style ale over there?” the leader of the group called out.
“No?” Captain Cardinal answers, “Only a whole lot of rum.”
“Then stay on that side of the river,” comes back the retort, and they sneer as they fade back into the jungle.
(This is what a reaction result of “uncertain, but trending towards negative” looks like.)
Two days later Burly Jim’s report of his failed expedition reminds the Captain of the natives. If he can get his hands on some ale, then he might be able to convince those savages to help him get the princesses back. But where to get his hands on ale?
His thoughts are interrupted by a slight cough from Burly Jim who has one more thing to report, and something he saved for after reporting his failed mission. The reason it took so long to return was not that the girls were hard to find – a party of a hundred men is easy enough to track. The real reason it took so long was that some phantom led them on a merry chase through the woods. They thought they had the girls within reach, but they slipped away into the trees over and over until finally the chase ended at a sinkhole in the center of Hex 5. There, trees lay radiating outward from a large and flat-topped circular stone that lay heavy at the center of the pit. A wolfish totem pole drooped from the left of the stone, over something broken in its center. On the far side of the pit a wild coyote yip-laughed and vanished into the trees.
Burly Jim clambered down to the stone where he found an animal skull cracked and broken, which he foolishly brushed with the back of one hand as he shouted up to his men, “Coyote.”
And thus the Deities and Demigods enter the stage.
The skull leapt up, re-assembled itself in mid-air, and laughed. “Find the Cap of Sir Cubbins,” a deep and resonant voice redolent of the ghost riders in a desert sky announced. “Look for a red cap with a white plume, steal it back for me, and return it to this stone. Your reward will be your heart’s desire!” The skull settled back down, and Burly Jim rushed back to inform the Captain only to find trail sign of the girls within minutes. They had also visited the strange pit in the woods, and left a visible trail back to their cliffside caves.
Which leaves the Captain in no worse position than before, but with a little more information about the strange island. Perhaps he can find allies, or find that cap and earn himself his heart’s desire – those three girls back on his ship!
But how?