"They tried to burn my ship! I'll chop them up and feed them to the fishes!" Creesy was in no mood to take prisoners. He rushed forward and jabbed one of the fascinated men with his rapier. The man screamed and jumped overboard. The other man didn't even turn to look, staring intently at the sparkling lights of Kelendra's spell.
"Don't you want to know who paid them to do it?" Anklebiter yells. "Stop killing them! They're just tools!"
"Anklebiter is right, Creesy, we can question these two separately and have a better idea who paid for your ship to burn, and that'll be much more satisfying than killing the man now." Kel keep concentrating .
"Bruendor, hit him over the head and knock him out. Then we can question the two of them."
"Don't have to ask me twice," replies the dwarf, stabbing his sword into the deck. He barrels towards the remaining ruffian, pulling his blackjack as he goes, striking the man on the temple.
Dropping my rapier and charging the last guy, pulling my sap as I go.
As Bruendor approached, the man began to blink and come back to his surroundings. The blow leveled at his head galvanized him, and like the others, he leaped over the rail into the water.
Calla laughs. "That solves that problem."
"You are, it seems, one scary dwarf." Lefrik scratches his head
AC 15, touch 12, flat-footed 13
Fort +7, Ref +4, Will +9
CMD 14
HP 29/29
Divine retribution (DC 13) 0/6; Judgments 1/2
Spells: 0/4 (first-level); 0/2 (second level)
Arrows: 3
Effects: Justice judgment
Calling on her goddes to aid her aim, Calla lets loose an arrow at one of the men in the water, hoping that even if she just knicks him the blood will attract the shark.
Calistria, guide me.
;
The dwarf frowns in confusion as his foe follows suit, leaping overboard. "There's something else going on here," he muttered to himself. He chews his lip for a moment as he walks over to reclaim his rapier. "Captain, is there any other way to disable your ship other than setting the sails aflame?"
Move back to my rapier and pick it up.
Kel starst producing a flood of water to wash away what she can of the oil on the sails and mast.
"I still have this one!" Anklebiter calls. "Bring some rope! Or chains! Or a big birdcage or something! She's stroppy!"
Calla's arrow missed the swimming man, but not by much, and he dove beneath the water to dome up on the landward side of the ship. His dark form stroked under the pier and he was lost to sight. The other also made it to the relative safety beneath the docks, though he didn't swim nearly as well as the first.
Creesy lowered his rapier and sighed. "No, you're right of course. The sensible thing to do would be to find out why[/u] they wanted to damage the [i]Cloud. I can only assume that it is related to our trip tomorrow, but let's find out, shall we? After all, there are dozens of ways to disable a ship like the Cloud. Fire is just the most obvious."
He called for some sailors below to come up and tie up the woman. Nothing beats a sailor for knots that hold. He also detailed a couple of men to prepare the bodies of the sentries, found with their throats cut, laying in a darkened recess of the forward deck. Finally, he put a boy up the mat, and spread a half dozen sentries about the ship, just in case the saboteurs returned that night.
With all that done, he advanced menacingly on the woman, her arms and legs bound by expertly ties lengths of stout rope. "Now, you will tell me why you were trying to burn my ship and whose orders you were following. You will do it quickly, and truthfully." His blade licked out and gashed the woman's cheek.
"Every time you stall, I'll add a cut. Every time I think you are lying, I'll add a cut. When we're through, I'll toss you in the bay. Perhaps if you are honest and quick with your answers, you'll even make shore without attracting any...undue attention."
"Speak, woman! " The last was said with a shout that made the woman wince from the volume.
"Please, it weren't personal. I were Clegg Zincher, it were. He heard you was leaving on the morrow and didn't want you to be making it to the island. He had one of his boys pay me and my crew to do what it took to keep you here. We thought a little fire'd be okay. Maybe burn the sails a bit, make you wait. There wasn't no reason to do anything more. I didn't want no one to get hurt, but Kent there had to kill those sentries. He wouldn't just kosh 'em, no matter what I said. Please, I don't know how to swim. Don't toss me in the bay! I told you everything."
Kelendra held up a couple of vials of alchemists fire that she had pulled from the pouches of the men that jumped overboard.
Lefrik raises a brow at the prisoner, "Stupid woman, you think fire always stops at sails? It would have gone to the mast, then the ship...then everything, and you wonder if this man should show you mercy?" The Ulfen sighs and looks over at the captain, "That said, I would advise granting it, mercy i mean. Send her off safely to warn others that if ANY one else takes a job where they burn your ship, they shall be fed to the sharks...piece by piece if necessary."
"Yes, let her go," Anklebiter says, nodding. He squats by the woman's head and holds it up almost gently so they can look in each other's eyes. "You remind the mercenaries of what happened to the champions Zincher sent against us last time, yes? The Gnome with the blade, the Half-Orc with his fists, the men with the black masks... Those who aren't fled are dead, and he still sicced your crew on us. He's a bad employer. You can't take the money with you if you're dead. And we make enemies dead. Very dead. Yes?"
"That's the second time Zincher's troubled us. Perhaps we should do something about that. I'd rather do it sooner than later, but I suppose we don't have the time with everyone already beating us to the Elbow."
Calla grimaces as she goes to pick up her dropped shield and morningstar.
The shield may be magicked, but it's damn inconvenient. Perhaps I can trade it for a buckler when we get back.
Bruendor grimaces at the interrogation, but he's thankful that Creesy didn't have to make good on his threat. "Zincher. I'm not surprised he sent you at all. The man's memory is piss-poor, so remind him when you see him why he shouldn't tangle with us. If he keeps reminding us of his presence, why, we might just have to start paying attention to him. So, unless he wants to end up like Vancaskerkin, he should be content with his slice of Riddleport, and leave the Goblin and its crew alone. It's best for everyone, don't you think?" Bruendor smiles coldly and pats the woman on her bloodied cheek, bringing forward the mocking tone in his voice.
I like that dwarf.
The woman nodded, and then said "I'll leave a message, but I ain't going back to him personal. Let me go and I'll be out of Riddleport tonight, I swear." Creesy called a couple of the sailors over, and they literally threw the saboteur from the ship. She landed on the planks of the docks with a heavy crunch, and ran off, cradling a broken arm.
Creesy turned to you and said "I doubt we'll have any more trouble from them tonight, but could I ask you to get together all the provisions and equipment you need and be prepared to leave about an hour after first light? I'd like to take the early tide and be gone before anything else happens. I'll post extra watch for the rest of the night."
"Fine with me," Calla growls.
Before leaving, she'll go search the bodies of those they killed for anything of interest or anything that might corroborate the woman's story.
Calla gathers a pair of shortswords, a light crossbow and 20 bolts, two vials of alchemists fire, and a handful of gold coins (6g in total).
Creesy turned to you and said "I doubt we'll have any more trouble from them tonight, but could I ask you to get together all the provisions and equipment you need and be prepared to leave about an hour after first light? I'd like to take the early tide and be gone before anything else happens. I'll post extra watch for the rest of the night."
"Aye, speed is now of the essence. I hope you have extra sails in storage, sounds like someone was counting on you not."
He looks to his compatriots, "I just hope Zincher has the gods given sense to take Bruendor's lesson to heart. It'll be a shame if we have to kill every two bit crime lord with delusions of grandeur in Riddleport; the city will lose all its flavor."
"Hardly a shame if they deserve it..."
The next morning, you return to the ship to find a number of crewmen hauling down a scroched mainsail and rigging. Creesy was standing on the deck barking orders a the sailors, and turned to face you with a terrific scowl on his face.
"Fire arrows, about an hour before dawn. Only the mainsail caught, but it'll be another couple of hours yet before we've hung the new canvas."
"If you wouldn't mind," he said with an acidic tone, "lending yourselves to watch duty, it would free up a couple of my men and we could get underway that much faster."
The repairs go fairly smoothly, and by early afternoon, the Flying Cloud is ready to set sail for Devil’s Elbow. The journey is short, and the ship covers the 18-mile voyage in a mere 5 hours, reaching the island about an hour before sundown.
The forested island is quiet as the ship approaches; no signs of life are immediately apparent. A low ridge forms a spine along the length of the island, its slopes covered with dense forest and its shores affording very few safe places to land. Two stone towers rise above the level of the surrounding trees along the top of the island’s ridge, one to the east and one at the island’s center. A thin plume of smoke rises from a point about midway between those two towers at the height of the island’s ridge.
The most dramatic sight as the ship nears its destination is the immense crater on the island’s northeastern slopes. The crater itself is hundreds of feet wide and surrounded by an even larger swath of burnt trees that have been knocked flat in a burst pattern around the impact site. The region’s frequent rainstorms and damp conditions prevented the fire from consuming the entire island, yet in all nearly a quarter of the island’s forest was destroyed by the impact.
Captain Creesy seems unusually nervous as the ship nears the island; despite his bravado, the tales of Virashi’s Curse and the island’s history get to him, and the sight of the immense crater does little to calm his nerves.
"I said before I wasn't stepping foot on that island, and I'll say it again. I'll drop you off at the old piers, and then come back in , what? a week? Is that how much time you want? I can't really set you down anywhere else, because the reefs here are so bad."
Kel creates a moonlight bridge from the edge of the dock to the ship, then stands at the end of it upon the ship. "Creesy, pull up all other ladders and planks to the dock and let's chum the waters around the ship this evening to keep perpetrators at bay." Kel stays watch the whole night, ready to step off the bridge and end it's existence in a moment, and doesn't rest until they can leave with first tide.
Tired and fatigued, Kel gladly rests while the ship travels to Devil's Elbow. Her efforts at the dock last night kept the ship from being boarded, but still the mainsail caught fire in the attack before dawn.
"Is a week enough time? Too much?" Kel looks to her companions for an estimate of their impending adventure.
"We won't know until we do," Anklebiter says, shrugging. "We'll need some time to find the Drow, but once we do, I'm sure we can settle things quickly."
"A week should be more than enough," says Calla, disembarking at the piers and looking around.
"We definitely need to talk to Zincher about his playing too much with fire," Lefrik comments when the captain first told him of his problems.
He considers the idea of a week "That should do it, let's hope the Golden Goblin is alright without us for that long what with arsonists run amok. Anklebitter, can you send some sort of magic light in the air as a signal to him when we're ready for him to come in?" Lefrik still doesn't completely TRUST magic, but he does trust his friend, and he's not as scared of it as he used to be.
Whatever the answer, when they disembark, he takes a good look around for dangers, and tracks
"A week will be fine, Captain. If we aren't able to signal you, I'd ask you let the folks at the Golden Goblin know we didn't make the rendezvous. If we find we need more time, we can negotiate that then. Wind and Wave watch you, Captain.[/b]"
Bruendor squinted at the thin trail of smoke that curled up to the sky. "I wonder which group you are," he said aloud. "Probably not Zincher, he wouldn't want to make his presence known. Either the dwarves or the mages, and the dwarves don't need fire to see at night."
"I can," Anklebiter says, nodding. "Easy as pie! Not as easy as Pi, though, which -- okay, let me just say that yes, I can do it."
The Goblin bids a brief farewell to the captain and crew and then disembarks along with the rest.
"Maybe it's not fire for seeing," he suggests to Bruendor, "but fire for cooking. Dwarves don't like raw food any better than humans, right?"
As you grabbed your gear and are unloading it onto the docks, a voice rings out from the seemingly abandoned buildings.
“Ahoy, the ship! Ahoy! Goldhammer’s Expedition requesting permission
to approach!”
The speaker is a dwarf of elder middle eyars, with graying beard and hair, and an impressive, but rather tattered red coat bearing the symbol of the dwarven Gas Forges. The bedraggled band of dwarves and humans that stumbled out behind him are obviously part of the Goldhammer expedition, and unless you miss your guess, the speaker is Gravin Goldhammer himself.
"We be looking for passage back t' Riddleport, and damn this accursed island. I'll pay any fee ye ask, Captain, just get us off this benighted place."
"Sir Goldhammer, please, tell us what befell your expedition?" Kel withholds any stories of the attack on their ship the night before, though she suspects Zincher's men had something to do with Goldhammer's misfortune as well.
Calla eyes the approaching dwarves carefully, watching for signs of treachery.
Anklebiter takes a look at the Dwarves and humans - and hurries to hide himself behind Bruendor and Lefrik.
"If you see any hammers, tell me so I can run back to the ship," he whispers, gazing suspiciously at Gravin Goldhammer.
“Them stories about Virashi’s Curse are right—mostly. Only it ain’t ghosts what haunt this place, no. It’s monsters. Low-to-the-ground things, fast and lean. Never did get me a good look at one of them, even with them snatching a few of my men and dragging them off into the woods. A few others got bit or slashed, and their wounds turned bad. Some sort of sick got in them, and then, when they died, it came back out their faces. Torag’s scars, but that were a sight I’d like to unsee. Came right out of their faces like they were tongues, and then my own men attacked us. We put them down and burned the bodies just this morning. Whatever’s out there, it’s not fit for this world. You shouldn’t stay here. If you had any sense, you’d get back on that boat and head right back to Riddleport!”
"Useful, if grim information, thank you Master Goldhammer," Lefrik states respectfully but positions himself slightly so if any dwarf DOES go after Anklebiter, they'd have to go through him. "Did you find any sign of dark elves?"
In the midst of negotiating terms with Captain Creesy, who is all too happy to be paid to leave the island, Goldhammer grimaces at Lefrik's question.
“Nope. No leprechauns or two-headed donkey rats either. We haven’t even seen the Sandpoint Devil. You’re welcome to look for all three, and dark elves as well, but I ain’t staying here longer to see what other fanciful beasts this place has to offer.”
The broken remains of his expedition move past you as they head up the gangway, throwing fearful glances over their shoulders at the dead village, and the jungle beyond.
Lefrik snorts and shrugs "Safe return to you then."
"Sir Goldhammer, one last question please, do you know the source of the plume of smoke on the center of the island?"
As the ship departs Kel turns to her companions, "Well, with an introduction to the island like that we should be sure to find secure shelter for this evening. Those tongue creatures sound horrific, the other expeditions or the drow could have suffered the same fate as the dwarf's team."
"Well, this sounds like a lovely little island. Reminds me of home."
She waits impatiently, eager to be on her way, to see if an answer to Kelendra's question is forthcoming.
“My guess? One of them cyphermages. They settled in up there in the ruins of Witchlight and didn’t want company. They’ve been doing that smoke and light stuff since last night—I sent four men up the hill to investigate, but I haven’t seen any sign of them since. Whatever it is that’s been picking us off must’a got them, and sure as my beard it’s after the cyphermages too. Those flashes of light, and the smoke too, I reckon, are calls for help. I’ve wasted enough of my men trying to answer that call, though. But hey, if you’re heading up there, do me a favor. You find any of my men, try to see that they make it back to Riddleport, will ya? I’ll put in a good word with the boss for a reward of a couple hundred gold if you do.”
"If we see any your men, you can rest assured we will remember your words and aid them if we can." Lefrik nods
The dwarf nodded, then followed the rest of his crew up the gangplank and onto the Flying Cloud. Within moments, the crew was casting off mooring lines, and Captain Creesy was shouting from the railing," See you in a week. Good luck!"
The ship hastened from the island, the wind filling the sails and lending the Cloud an air of terrorized flight as it quickly returned to Riddleport.
You look around and the island looks more ominous than it did just a few moments ago. Around the docks stand the remains of warehouses and buildings that once served as the primary residence and storage houses of the island, but these have fallen into disrepair and ruin, with many walls crumpled heaps of stone.
Looking up the steepest slope towards the interior of the island, you can make out the towers on the peak of the island's slope. Against the failing light, you can see a sudden flash of light that bursts into showering sparks. Anklebiter immediately recognizes one of the more common uses of the pyrotechnics spell.
"If we can see those towers, then certainly anyone in them saw us arrive on the ship. Let's find a secure shelter that can be defended, unless we're to push on through the night?"
"Perhaps we could set up one of these ruins as a shelter and a possible ambush site if anything comes for us tonight. Turn the tables on them as it were; if we travel well need light for a couple of you, which will give away our position."