Hearing the blast and knowing that it is not good, she immediately grabs her club and heads up to see what is amiss. Obi will move as far as she can in the round.
"Going to see if I can slow down the sea devils until we get more help up here Deader!" Nachni begins casting again and reaching into her skirts, pulls out a small bit of butter squirreled away from Kroop and tosses it in an arc toward the ship's bow.
"Help is closer than you think." Deader says, his grin turning a bit more sinister as he dashes forward to hold the stairs.
Drawing a bone-handled dagger from his belt he makes a slashing motion horizontally in front of him. Behind the Sea Devils the very air parted like it had been cut by the blade. It opened like flesh. It's blood was the night sky, dotted with distant stars.
The same mouth-covered bloody horrors that had answered Deader's call before began crawling out of the emptiness, claws grasping at the ragged edge of reality to pull themselves free into the world.
Mr. Haight barrels into the Sea Devil at the top of the stairs like a rabid animal let off its chain.
Grabbing what weapon lies beside them, Obisyth and Fish make it to the stairs to the top deck and spy the foredeck of the ship beset by greenish scaled sea devils with sharp teeth and pointed tridents.
Cedrick rolls out of his bed, seizing his blade with practised ease and kicks open the door to his chambers.
Nachni casts forth a patch of grease unto the front of the vessel...
Reflex: and
...but neither of the sea devils is sent to the deck.
Deader moves forward and begins to chant divine urgings to the dark things that lurk beyond, while his undead crewman moves up and rakes a claw across the sea-devil's scales without drawing blood.
The sole crewman that is before the devils retreats just before the lacedon's barreling run forward, while the second atop lurks beside Deader brandishing a cutlass.
Two of the green beasts note Deader's gestures and words and surge to the railing of the fore-deck... hurling the tridents in their hands in an attempt to forestall his incantation...
Trident at Deader: for
Trident at Deader: for
...both throws accurate and driving salted tines powerfully into Deader's frame.
The devil attacked by Mr Haight strikes back at the lacedon...
Trident at Mr Haight: for
Bite at Mr Haight: for
...puncturing Mr Haight's form with both point and tooth, tearing chunks of undead flesh away.
The last devil needs to negotiate across the slick deck...
Acrobatics:
...but it's footing is insufficiently firm, and it ends up falling prone with an angry hiss.
Nachni moves forward over the hold, "At least one of them is down, let me see if I can keep it difficult for them until we can fill those gaps." Familiar words echo across the ship again and Nachni tosses a little more butter toward the green-skinned monsters.
Seeing Deader under attack, Obi moves forward just in front of the undead creator where she begins to call upon the powers of the sea to aid her. As she does so, her club once more begins to take on a dull green glow like the water in a grotto as seen from beneath the surface.
Move to G9.
Cast Shillelagh
Reflex: and
Nachni conjures a second slick of grease, and is rewarded with one of the sea-devils falling to the decking.
Obisyth moves to engage, but pauses long enough to conjure enchantment upon her club.
The second trident slams into Deader. He seems more surprised than hurt and looks down at the six new holes in his body as he yanks the weapons free.
Then his eyes narrow.
"Another ruined shirt..."
He walked up to the doorway between the stairs calmly, bleeding all over his fine white shirt. Holding his hands out and clenching them, the pale chains on his palms ratcheted around, contorting and tightening.
A burst of terrible energy washed forth bleaching wood, stiffening lines and contorting flesh.
At the prow of the ship, the rip in space peeled back and things came through.
Mr. Haight continued his onslaught.
The things fell from the rip, answering Deader's call, lunging forth, all claws, dripping blood from every tiny mouth.
Damn technology! No worries, we'll carry on with evicting our rude boarders soon enough!
Will Save: DC 14 for 7 at +5
Fort:
Deader's minions appear from the nether and strike out with scattered effect, though the lacedon sinks it's teeth deep and the sea devil stiffens with paralysis. The larger of his summoned creatures tears one of the sea devils apart - it having been weakened by the necrotic energy burst.
The two sea devils that remain lash out with frenzied claw and tooth, rending and tearing at whatever they are able to reach, which is merely Deader's summoned creatures...
Claw at A7: and
Bite at A7:
Two Claws for:
Claw at C9: and
Bite at C9:
Three hits:
...their blood loss induced rage proving damaging and severe against the throwaway minions.
Cedrick's blade and Tindalos' claw combine to end the standing foe - leaving only the prone sea-devil at the prow any real remaining threat.
Not sure which ones are still up.
Obi moves forward. If she can get to the prone one, she will. If not, she will attack the paralyzed one.
Acrobatics(if necessary):
Attack: <-- + whatever bonus if attacking the prone or paralyzed one
Damage: <-- fighting 2 handed. I will do non-lethal on the paralyzed one if possible so that we have a prisoner to talk to, possibly.
The sea devil's attacks somehow turn out less damaging and severe than the doomed creatures first thought.
The three otherworldly creatures converged on the the prone sea devil, tearing at it and drinking their fill of it's blood, eventually dragging it kicking and screaming into the rip with them.
The big one and one small one can 5' adjust and take full attacks. The other one will have to move in.
Deader moves up the steps to survey the scene and grins.
"Mr. Haight, move them all down to the bilge. Don't kill this one. The others are yours."
Turning back to Cedrick, he shook his head sheepishly.
"Ship secure Captain. Sorry to wake you. I'll clean up the mess."
"Not bad. I'll get rid of my mess." Nachni dispels the grease she summoned.
When the rest of the the crew finally made it up on deck, Deader gave them all a firm dressing down for their lack of speed.
The last two crewmen to make it up on deck got to swab the blood off the deck and inspect for damages instead of going back to sleep.
Anyone who came up on deck without a weapon was given one of the sea devil's tridents and told "If any officer sees this weapon out of your hands at any point for the next month, you'll find yourself on bilge duty for as long as it takes to get to our next berth, at which point you'll be swimming to port and looking for new employment."
Then he stalked downstairs leaving the deck in Nachi's hands while healed himself and Mr. Haight and found himself a new shirt.
Acrobatics:
The last of the sea devils in the bow realises that there is little chance for survival, and instead turns to the water for escape. Scrabbling across the deck, it dives off the Revenge and into the sea with a splash.
Obisyth's club falls heavy against the paralyzed sahaguin and sends it into unconsciousness.
"Just a scouting party or something more sinister?" Nachni looks over the bow to see if any more sea devils are apparent in the waves.
The last surviving sahaguin is rendered unconscious and brought below decks by Deader's lacedon friend as Nachni checks the ocean for any further figures and finds it devoid of hostile life... for now.
The vessel returns to night watch and sailing and dawn is raised without any further reason for alarm.
We'll want to question him, but Deader doesn't really care about the time frame. Either he'll talk now, or he'll talk in a week or so once he joins the Silent Crew as my next ghoul.
The vessel keeps it's westerly heading and sails on through the day...
Deader reports to the captain when the shifts change in the morning.
"Our captive killed itself. I'll have him up and working soon, but it's going to be a while before I can make it answer questions."
"The one that got away is a concern though. Sahuagin are a lot more formidable than most people think."
"It would be foolish to think they aren't." Deader said with a shrug, suddenly very collected and thoughtful. "The sahaguin don't really have 'nations'. They're all one culture. There's a few different factions, but for the most part they work together. They're an extremely aggressive and paranoid race. They've been at war with everyone in, on or near water for so long that they assume that everyone is out for their blood. They work together out of a sense of racial pride, but also out of a fear that everyone that isn't them is going to band together to take them out. They think they're at war with the whole world."
"They'd be completely right too, if it weren't for the fact that no one on land cares about what happens under the ocean. That's the thing they don't get. They don't understand that landfolk are all fighting over tiny patches of dirt instead of preparing for war against them."
"Which goes a long way towards explaining their success. They've conquered the oceans already. One in every couple dozen of them looks like a sea elf, so they took over the sea elf nobility hundreds of years ago and use them to tell the surface folk that everything is just fine, when actually the sea elves are little more than surfs with a scattered resistance movements, a lot of which are actually led by sahaguin mutants."
"Heh. Surfs. In the surf. Heh." Deader giggled to himself, slipping back into his usual self-amused daze for a moment.
His brows furrowed and he concentrated, forcing himself to stay on topic.
"What was I saying? Oh! The sahaguin are so dumb and so aggressive that they haven't figured out that they've already taken over the world. The only thing that saves us is that they feel the same way about the land that we feel about the ocean. If they ever decided to attack the surface, they'd outnumber every single person in the world, ten to one."
"They look at every ship like an enemy scout for an invasion force. They mostly ignore us because they don't want to provoke a larger reaction or give away information about their strength."
"If they had wanted to sink us, they could have. They're in the water with our hull, and they can control sharks. That attack was a squad of suicide troops sent in to test our capabilities. They do that sometimes to test the battle-readiness of the 'army' they think they're going to have to fight."
"What worries me is what the local scout commanders are going to think of the answers we just gave them."
"More of who?" Deader said with a quizzical expression on his face.
"What were we talking about?"
"Oh. Yeah, she's quite the lady." Deader grinned sneaking a glance at his favorite sea witch as he made his way below decks.