It was good to see the Athena's voyages working again last night.
My crew set off in a brigantine to continue the uphill grind, happy that the pigs had an appetite once more.
As we headed toward our designated outpost to hand in the livestock we noticed a sloop moored at the outpost bearing the reaper's flag. So we calmly raise the front sail and halved the back sail to slow down enough to give that crew more time without feeling threatened. Still without any sign of movement we circled the outpost before using the bullhorn to convey our intentions.
The solo sloopist replied with relief in his voice and offered us an alliance. He was selling up before logging off for the night so we pulled our vessel in to share the dock with him and went about selling our animals, some chests and skulls.
The nice chap offered us a captain's chest and although we declined his generosity appreciatively, telling him we had no need for money, he didn't come back to pick it up again.
We continued on our voyage as I watched his sloop disappear off the map table. Funny how it reversed for quite some distance before vanishing.
Shortly after the map table showed the ally sloop again at the skull fort. We knocked out the rest of our voyage pretty fast, all the while keeping an eye on our new friend. Sure enough a galleon was heading towards him. So we cashed-in and went over to offer support but by the time we had reached the fort neither the sloop nor galleon was there.
We copped a battering from the fort cannons but managed to park in a good spot so my helmsman went to take them out while I repaired the hull. Our third crew member (playing from work) was afk for quite sometime during this.
Unfortunately the rear sail wasn't completely up so we drifted quite a bit and back into the line of fire from the fort's cannon towers.
Our ally arrived and pulled up in the spot we had earlier. My helmsman returned and pulled the brigantine in again.
We started fighting the skeletons on the fort with our ally and possibly did two or three waves when the galleon reappeared. We never asked our ally if he and the galleon had fought and both sunk but I assumed as much.
Our third crew member had now returned and we absolutely peppered the galleon with holes while our helmsman went over to powder keg them. Unfortunately they had the same plan and sent two powder kegs over, killing us both and sinking our brigantine in the process.
Although we sank, as did the galleon, it was good to see all four of their crew on the ferry while our helmsman and our ally were still alive at the fort.
Luck was on our side, our replacement ship spawned only one island away so we sailed back and continued the skeleton waves keeping a watchful eye on the horizon whenever we could. Except for myself, everyone died during the last wave while I focused solely on defeating the captain.
I wanted to just grab the key and check the horizon while my crew re-spawned but under the direction from my helmsman I opened the vault and proceeded to load the sloop with all of the stronghold loot.
A 29 minute server shutdown notice appeared then later as 19 minute notice. Odd but true.
I sailed back with our ally on his sloop while my crew sailed ahead to ensure the outpost wasn't inhabited by anyone but NPCs before sailing off to a nearby shipwreck.
I unloaded the loot while our ally cashed it in until my helmsman requested that I catch a mermaid back as soon as possible as the kraken had a hold of our vessel.
We taught Karen some manners and went about searching the shipwreck. Such a charming creature, she was still waving at us as we sailed back to the outpost. Awe. :o)
Blinded by the sails we steered slightly into the kraken's ink. The tentacles immediately submerged and the ink stained water quickly moved to encircle our vessel again. We thought it was round two for sure.
Lady luck shined upon us once more and the ink soon dissipated all together.
We docked, sold our loot and called it a night. :o)
A shout out to our ally @Mediocre210 who showed how the right attitude can turn a captain's chest into an entire stronghold worth of loot.
