Riptide Episode 32: Breaking the Ice

> "The crew meets with the Grandberry Pirates after their victory. Chip slowly learns what it really means to be a pirate. Jay discovers the terrifying truth of the Navy. Gillion gets even moister and learns a new spell." -*Episode 32 Official Description*
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## Summary

The party meets the Grandberry Pirates at Rudith's Respit. Lizzie explains that the Navy has been making aggressive moves against pirates and asks them if they would be willing to join her war against them. Chip angrily refuses, while Gillion is interested. Afterward, the party gets drunk and cries about not wanting to leave each other for war at their inn.

## Episode Events

We pick back up as the party is in the tournament waiting room after just winning the first round of the Paramount Tournament. Chip tells them that Lizzie was his friend from the Black Rose. Someone bumps into Chip and whispers in thieves cant to meet at the local apothecary's place. Chip picks up his love potion from the potion seller. He tries to buy his cat.

They go to the apothecary's, Rudith’s Respit. Chip tells him the thieves cant, and he leads them to the basement. Lizzie, John, and Caspian are there talking. Jay recognizes Lizzie as the woman who held a gun to her head. John says that he’s finally found the place he wants to belong, and that’s on Lizzie’s crew. Lizzie still doesn’t believe Jay isn’t Navy, and asks Chip how he can trust her. How can she even trust Chip if he’s with her? Chip says that she won’t hurt anyone. Lizzie asks Jay why she can’t defend herself. Jay retorts that she isn’t Navy because she doesn’t want to live by the Navy’s strict rules, that she wants to be free and see the world. Lizzie says she’ll choose to believe that much for now.

Lizzie asks Chip if his crew is under oath, but they don’t know what that means. Lizzie tells them that recently the Navy attacked outlaw soil, killing one of the four Pirate Lords. The Navy has been expanding and making more aggressive moves. Lizzie came to this island to find strong fighters to wage war against them. Chip asks why that matters, and Lizzie aggressivley him that if the Navy has all the control over the world, there’d be no more life of a pirate, no more pirate code, no more treasure or freedom.

She won’t force them to join, because she respects that they have their own crew. Caspian says that if the Navy is going after the pirate world, they’ll go after the undersea too. Gil enthusiastically wants to help and Jay is open to it, but Chip doesn’t want to. He angrily states that he pulled Jay out of her home to keep her from going to war, and he took Gillion on his ship to keep him safe. He’s not going to put the two of of them into the middle of a war. He storms out and Jay goes after him.

Gillion stays and tells the Grandberry pirates that he’ll try to convince Chip. Caspian asks Gillion why he’s not in the undersea, and he says he’s trying to find a way back. Caspian makes Gillion a squirty.

Chip tells Jay that they’re definitely not participating in the war. Jay says that they don’t have to, but points out that this lifestyle is all he’s ever know. Chip shoots back that they win the tournament, get enough money, and find a space away from it all. Jay says she can’t participate because she can’t hurt her family, but asks if he’s sure. He is. They talk about how Gil definitely wants to go, and they can’t stop him even if they want to. They suggest that maybe this is what he’s chosen for.

Caspian tells Gillion that a pirate oath is an oath of allegiance and/or aligned goals that a crew takes with their captain. It’s different for every pirate crew. Caspian and Gil teach each other spells and get drunk.

Jay and Chip get incredibly drunk and ugly cry about how they don’t want to lose Gillion to the war. Gillion walks in and cries with them. Gillion says he has to go because it’s his destiny, but he’s not leaving them. Chip says a bunch of confusing, drunk reasons why he should stay, such as that Gillion has known the party longer than the Grandberry Pirates, and that the Grandberry Pirates might be lying to him. Chip goes to check on Ollie, but sees a tabaxi beating up people in an alley.

## Transcription

A Google Doc of this episode's transcription is available here.

This was created by pistolwaltz and their transcription team on Discord.