This past weekend, as I usually do, I started a brig up, stocking the ship and getting things organized for my ship mates to join me once their schedules freed up. Normally this goes relatively quiet and by the time they become available our ship is mostly stocked, sometimes even having found a rowboat in doing so. However, this past weekend, I had only spawned (galleons outpost) in for about 10 minutes, long enough to partially loot the outpost and get my ship set to full bone crusher. As I was about to jump onto the dock to go grab more supplies, I see out of the corner of my eye a sloop over by sunken grove seemingly heading my way. Normally one of the first things I do when stocking the boat is to lift the anchor, and thankfully I had done this already. So I jump back on my ship, pockets empty, I drop sails and correct them to wind as best I could, figuring that either the sloop is there to spawn kill me, or they needed that particular outpost. Unfortunately, I was heading directly against the wind, so there was no jump out of the gate speed, more like a slow build up this time. I can now see the sloop getting closer, and I see them course correcting to head at me. And now, they are close enough to see the reaper flag.
Thankfully, their angle to my ship is not true as the wind starts to shift into my sails a bit more. I adjust the ships direction to assist getting more wind into the sails and my speed increases just as the sloop is nearly on top of me. The other crew fire some sniper rounds, and fired their cannon. Not sure if they tried to send over a boarder or not, if they did, he/she missed. If not, their cannon fire and sniper rounds all missed.
I quickly gained distance from them, now heading into the DR. I quickly make up my mind that I will let them chase me, entertain myself at their futility to try and catch up. So I gain enough distance so that they can't get any angle to fire boarders or cannons, and I maintain this distance. Often changing my sails to incorrect angles just to slow down. I must have looked like I had no clue what I was doing to them. But I continued this, looping around some islands, and sailing all the way over to lands of plenty. They gave chase. There were a couple of times I saw other ships out there, and I purposely sailed to keep plenty of distance, hoping that my pursuer would not lose interest in me and go take on these other ships out there. I sailed, north and south, east and west. Slowing as needed, but keeping that distance. 20-30 minutes must have went by when I found myself sailing past lost gold fort, which had the Skull Cloud appear above it just as I approached. Knowing by now that the sloops crew must be frustrated I watched them, anticipating they might go after the fort. And sure enough they did.
So now, having decided I did not do enough to frustrate them in their pursuit of PvP, I sailed around plunder valley, out of view for them. I then ran the island, searching for a row boat and gunpowder barrels. Checking all of the normal spawn points on the island. Eventually finding a couple of GPB, but no row boat. So I sailed around to old salt and to sharktooth bay. Neither having a rowboat, but finding some random loot and a couple of mermaids, I decided I would have to find another way to get to them since the rowboat was proving to be hard to come by. So I sailed to Plunder Outpost to sell what little loot I had gained. And just as I arrived there, one of my mates joins the ship. She aids in stocking the boat for battle, and just as we set sail our third mate joins.
Now fully manned, we look over and see that the cloud is gone. They had finished the fort. So we waited for a few minutes, hoping they would go ahead and open the door. Soon setting sail, we catch good wind and get over to the sloop. Bombarding it with a furry of cannon fire. The ship went down very quick. I send my two mates to the island as I circle it with some distance, a little worried about the MegaKeg. suddenly I take cannon fire from two island cannons. They are still there. One of my mates gets behind them with a GPB, and ends up killing himself and the other pirate, also setting off the megakeg in the process, taking out the sloop crew.
I am able to save our brig and sail it in close to the island. The sloops crew had already removed the contents of the vault and set it all on rocks closest to where their ship had been. So we grab the loot, sail over to plunder and sell it all. Turning what started out as a potentially frustrating beginning into a glorious ending.
