During the short break at Dakagee, Capitan Roddy invited Captain Simpson to join him for dinner. During the dinner the conversation ofcourse turned to their current shipment of gold.
Capitan Roddy had been considering an idea he'd got when he first took this current job. He decided that Simpson was a man he could tell the idea, and with him decide on the course of action. and so:
"Captain Simpson, i have something to tell you. Hear me out till the end before you respond.
Captain Simpson, do you know why so much gold is going from Fleuria to Etain, even though the nations are on the verge of war?
We are delivering the gold to a man who will use it as bribes to key Etain officials in an attempt to stave off the war here in the colonies. Now, i see 3 things about this that i dont like.
1. during war, its Privateering instead of Pirating
2. the national fleets are busy and so we, private captains, are in much more demand for transportation.
3. All this gold we're carrying is going to go into the hands of some crooked beurocrats, instead of hard working men like ourselves.
Now, just taking the gold for ourselves would be unwise, as both nations would get pissed off at us (one for taking gold they gave us to deliver, the other for taking gold they should have gotten).
Here is my proposal. I cant pull it off without you, so you have the final word in wheather we do it or not.
So, one of us (lets say thats me) goes on to Kalmason and delivers his half the gold, telling them that what he's got is all Mr. Agache sent. Ofcourse Demanding the whole payment before delivery is made. We wouldnt want to be ripped off. If they dont want to pay for half the gold, they can go to hell and we keep that half too. This half the gold should be delivered as the "whole shipment" to the Etains so that they get mad at Agathe for sending less then promised, this will probably speed up the comming of the war on their side, and they will likely cut off contact with Agathe and the Fleurians.
You, go back to Mr Agache and tell him that the Etain navy attacked us on the way demanding that we hand over the gold. We put up a fight but my ship was captured, me and my crew arrested and the gold confiscated. You got away, and delivered the gold you had to the contact. We're not supposed to know what the gold is for, so you just did what you were hired for, but tell him that you only got payed half the payment cause only half the gold arrived, maybe he'll pay you the other half. He'll despise the fact that he got betrayed by the Etain officials, and then basicaly handed them the gold anyway, and probably get the Fleurians to start the war sooner rather then later.
You can pick which task you prefer.
Now, the risks are:
1. that the Fleurians find out that the one of us that supposedly got arrested is free and rich, but there's little chance of them being able to figure out where the wealth came from, especialy if they're at war with the government that would know the truth. If they dont get into the war quickly, they might have time to figure this out. Then we're in trouble.
2. That the Etains know there's two ships supposed to be delivering the gold. This is unlikely as we proposed the idea to Agathe right before leaving, and its unlikely anyone has gone by us and was told this.
So the risks are minimal, but the prize is great. We keep half the gold at least, we also get our payment, and maybe more from Agathe (the half we supposedly didnt get payed by the Etains). If the war starts up quick, then we can probably both get hired by the governemnts to do Privateering on the other side. and with a good friend on the other side, the opportunities there are great too.
We would need to figure out a way to convert the 250 punds of gold we swipe into deblouns without attracting much attention, but that should not be too hard.
So, what do you think?
