August 31st Session

Ok so BASICALLY...
 
I started the day minding my own business, had breakfast and spent the morning sharpening my axes and sword. All of a sudden, the magic types all freaked out and ran downstairs. I didn’t think much of it, but they were gone for a while so eventually I followed to see everyone huddled around an old chest. In the chest was a giant war hammer, and it was glowing... not really sure about all that magic stuff so I decided to just let someone else handle it. I went back to sharpening my weapons when Brandr walks up to me a few minutes later, holding the new hammer. He gave me his old hammer, which I thought was very weird. I could tell there was something... off... about this new hammer that Brandr had acquired.
 
A messenger ran up and delivered orders to us, calling us to arms in militia service, as there had been a disturbance reported in the southeast sea. We were to sail immediately. Brandr and I decided this was as good a time as any to split up the crew between the Tentacle Terror and the Orrian’s Revenge. The Tentacle Terror will be sailing with:
 
Gob (me, captain)
Tiberius (first mate)
Dimitri (helmsman)
Persephone
Inzel (one of my lizard brethren)
Rex (not much help, both his legs are broken)
And 5 more modest sailors.
 
The remaining crew would sail with Brandr on the Orrian’s Revenge. Before we went underway, I pulled Garak aside, who will be sailing with Brandr, and gave him the hammer that Brandr had left with me, along with instructions that if Brandr needed it back, to give it to him... or, if the new hammer caused any... issues... Garak would need to take action to save the ship.
 
Soon we were underway, a small militia fleet on our way to the southeast sea. After 14 days of sailing, we found ourselves sailing in very thick fog. So thick, we lost sight of the Revenge and the other 2 ships we sailed with. We had to continue sailing straight ahead and hope we didn’t drift too much that we were lost from the formation.
 
Suddenly, cannon fire started erupting from the fog ahead of us. The Orrian’s Revenge started taking fire first, and all 4 ships of our fleet loaded all guns and prepared to combat these aggressor ships. I steered the Terror wide to starboard in order to break out of the fog and flank our opponents before they would even know what hit them. Soon, we broke from the fog, but I discovered that I had misjudged how far to port I should steer as we were very far right of the main battle which was breaking out, barely in range of our light cannons.
 
We saw that the aggressor ships were two large frigates, each much larger and with more guns than the Terror and the Revenge, but with our two allied ships sailing with us, I was optimistic about our chances. I quickly steered back to port in order to get back into the battle, still attempting the flanking maneuver I originally planned. The Revenge was taking the brunt of the damage from the two frigates, but Brandr and the crew were putting up quite the fight. As we finally got within cannon range, we began firing whenever we got a clear shot at the nearest of the two frigates.
 
Brandr attempted to ram the nearest frigate with Orrian’s Revenge, but wasn’t quite fast enough. When O.R. was close enough though, Brandr grabbed his new hammer and leapt across to the deck of the enemy ship and began engaging them hand to hand. We could see Garak take the helm of O.R. and continue its course following the nearest ship.
 
As we continued our own flanking movement towards the enemy, we could see the frigate Grandr was on taking very heavy damage, and although Grandr fought well, he was being overwhelmed by the crew. The main mast on the frigate collapsed, nearly hitting Grandr, but only trapping him under the sail. This provided him the means to disengage and escape the ship, jumping and barely landing on the nearest friendly ship, one of the allied cutters sailing with us. As Grandr leapt back to the allied ship, the enemy frigate was swallowed by the sea.
 
Shortly after, we engaged and sunk the second enemy frigate, and after all crew members returned to their respective ships, we set sail back to home port.
 
It was smooth sailing most of the way until about our second to last day of the journey. Just as we saw land start to peak over the horizon, I heard cries of man overboard coming from Orrian’s Revenge. Looking over, I saw it was Brandr who had been thrown into the sea. Although because the sea was calm and sailing was smooth, I thought it strange that he had been thrown overboard and thought maybe he had jumped. As we steered closer, I could see that Brandr was struggling with his new hammer. It looked like he was trying to let it go but it was stuck in his hand. I ordered Dimitri to take the helm and I dove into the sea after him.
 
Almost instantaneously, Persephone jumped overboard as well, turning into a massive whale on her way down to the water. She got to Brandr before me, swimming below him and pushing him back to the surface. When I got close enough, I could see that the hammer was attempting to drag him down still. I drew my greatsword and attempted to hack at the hilt of the hammer in order to break it, but my sword simply bounced off as if it was rubber. After this, I gave Brandr a look that said one thing: the next swing is at your arm.
 
That ended up not being necessary though, as it seemed the hammer stopped dragging him down, and Persephone lifted him up enough to get back onto the Revenge.
 
My suspicions about this hammer were more than confirmed, but... Brandr was the commodore. I couldn’t make him leave it even if I wanted to. We sailed back into port the next day with no more problems.
 
When we made port, we went into town to collect our bounty. We were told that the Tentacle Terror would be rewarded with the following:
 
2 heavy cannons
15 chain shot
Forty 32 lbs shot
10 grapeshot
8 barrels of ale
 
After this, we returned to the shop and I decided to turn in for the night. Not long after retiring to my bed, I was awakened by Dimitri, telling me that Brandr was in trouble. When he said this, I knew it had something to do with that hammer. I ran outside, and met some of the others, watching Brandr be carried away by soldiers. They explained to me that he had just murdered a drunkard with the hammer in a busy alley and was being arrested. I ordered the officers to not breathe a word of this event to the rest of the crew, and we headed down into town once again to try to sort this out.
 
We tried to reason with Kramer but he was adamant that Brandr be put on trial for this crime. We had no choice but to accept this outcome, and hope for the best.