Solo slooped for a couple of hours this morning. Picked up a delivery and set off to my destination island without any drama. Delivered the first of five crates only to see another sloop coming in to have a sniff and size me up. I mustn't have been of interest to them as they didn't hang about, so I got on with my business and explored the island once I was finished. Two skulls, a chest and an emerald from a statue were packed onto a rowboat which in turn got stowed on the back of my sloop. Back to the outpost to sell my spoils!
On the way back I had a poke around a small island and picked up more supplies and a message in a bottle. Made it back to the outpost without a whiff of danger, sold my loot and felt quite proud of myself. This was all going swimmingly, when usually a solo session is a challenging prospect. Chancing my luck, I set off for the island mentioned in the riddle I found in the bottle.
Half way there and some battle music kicks in without an enemy in sight. I thought I'd been Krakened, but no, up pops a skelly sloop. Emboldened by my earlier success, fully loaded with supplies and with fuck all of value to lose, "Come and get some you boney bastards!" I thought. I traded a few shots as they pulled alongside, patched my ship, traded a couple more and the bastards hit me with a cursed cannonball which hoisted my sails. I was a sitting duck, and worse, I was within range of a skelly blasting a cannon from the island I was trying to escape to! More patching, sails dropped, I tried to seek refuge around the other side of the island. I'd abandoned the idea of taking out the sloop and was in survival mode, patching and bailing while trying to steer the ship. I anchored by the island and lobbed a futile fire bomb onto the skelly ship out of spite as I knew it was a lost cause, the water was coming in faster than I could get it out. She's going down lads.
Lesson learned, these skelly crews are more than a match for my feeble solo efforts, but what a rush, and a wonderful way to waste a couple of hours.
I took down a skelly sloop this time, and it was gracious enough to drop an ashen chest so I could finally make use of the key I'd been holding on to the whole night. The commendation you get for selling the ashen chest mentioned letting someone else work it out, what did I miss there? There was a book inside but I don't know where I was supposed to take it so I sold that too.
Anyway, a great night of fraught ducking and diving solo, I'm getting right back into this. Are the Tall Tales doable solo?