Early the next morning you awaken to the sound of knocking on your cabin door. "Herro? Ferrow name Henry is rooking for Risa!"
"Nnnnggh..." Alis groans, "it's tooooo eeeaaarlyyy..."
With a yawn, she rolls out of her hammock. "Coming!"
After a quick change behind the dressing screen in the corner, and a peek in the mirror to ensure she's Lisa, she grabs a handful of gold bars of about the same length and width as two fingers and heads out the door leaving Priyya to her morning prayers and the rest of you to your sleep.
After an indeterminate amount of time, Alis raps on the door and enters in a hurry, nodding to Priyya who is already up and dressed. "Alright everyone, up and at 'em if you want any breakfast. It's not going to be long befo–"
All of you sit bolt upright in bed and you can hear Talvyra barking outside until Priyya calms her nerves.
"MRS B! DID YOU HEAR THAT?! WHAT'S GOING ON? ARE WE UNDER ATTACK AGAIN?!"
Wearing nothing but her bed-sheets, her hair still wild from tossing and turning all night, Sasha looks like she just saw a ghost and siddles up next to the elderly noblewoman with a wide-eyed look on her face.
Seeing how calm Lisa appears and the gentle smile she's given she calms down a bit and says, "Wow, you guys really are loaded! Aww, is Andre not sleeping with Ellie just because she's pregnant? Don't worry, El, I still love you! Uh, oh right, so what was that Mrs. B?"
"That, my dear," says Gelik sauntering up in a satin robe with bags under his eyes from a sleepless night, "that would have been the geysers going up and the cliffs slamming open. I might add it was a good bit more quiet than Mr. Devers and Ms. Mavato."
When Sarah casts an unsympathetic glance at him, he huffs and puffs his chest up. "Listen, like I explained before, I was keeping that girl safe! She was liable to get hit by a lightning bolt had I not looked after her with my careful ministrations!"
"Minist–what? But I thought you were plowing–"
"Uuuuuurgggghhh!" Lureene moans groggily, and slips out of her bunk, as the THOOM awakens her from her restful sleep. As she ties a silk robe around her body, she sees her friend Sasha and gives the girl a sleepy wave and responds to her, "I love you too, Sash! As for Andre...yeah he has not wanted to...ummm...touch me due to our baby. I think he is afraid of hurting it."
On hearing Gelik's response, she adds frostily, "SUUURRE you were, Gelik. SURE you were!"
"Ah, AH, " Lisa scolds, shaking a finger at the two girls, "never get involved in a war of cunning linguistics with a gnome and don't mess with a missionary man!"
Sasha's train of thought grinds to a halt as she tries to deduce the older woman's meaning, but she doesn't get much more than a faint smile and a cleared throat from Sarah, or a blank look from her friend.
"HA!" Gelik gives Lisa a wink before slapping Sasha on the tush which is seemingly the only thing that gets her to blink and quit straining her brain over the matter. "I'm going to go get some breakfast now so I have some ammunition in my belly for when we're sailing thru to the other side."
A thought causes him to pause and he comments, "Miss Sarah, should be all get smashed to bits on the rocks, I suppose we won't see each other again, so I just wanted to let you know what an uplifting experience it was to be handled so vigorously by an older woman like that yesterday. Lisa, I'm sure we'll meet up later one way or the other..."
"Master Gelik, if you keep running your mouth about being 'handled' by me... the rocks smashing you to bits will be a more pleasant alternative to what I'll do. I suggest you remember that some of us don't embrace your particular brand of humor." Sarah gives him her best school-marm scowl.
"And some of us were just trying to get some sleep."
Dawn comes shortly after this morning's noisy interruptions. By the time you have made your way up to the deck, you note that every last sailor on board, even those who normally work the night watch, are on hand and ready. All around you, First Mate Devers, Second Mate Ishirou, and Captain Kovack are triple-checking the ship's readiness and drilling the crew on piloting maneuvers. You can hear and see a similar situation occurring on the ships to the north and south of you in the queue while further out, you note that the seas are wroth with turbulent waves. To the south, the black mist from the spent geysers still lingers in the air dimming the sunrise.
Vinzini, the ships cook hurriedly waves you over to the kitchen. "Bestah you eatsa quickly. Sailing between doze cliffs be no time for da breakfast!"
As Lureene starts to eat, she stares nervously around her and notes the tension building. She realizes this is a dangerous time for the ship as they attempt to pass through Light's End. She glances at her 'mother' but does not see any sign of worry on her pretty face, as if she has been through this sort of thing every day. She soon finds her appetite is soon satisfied, and only eats a light breakfast. She looks at the cook, and asks, a clear note of nervousness in her voice, "Is there anything we can do, Vinzini, to help out? I feel so...helpless now."
"Hmm..." the portly cook strokes his goatee, smiles gently to ease the pretty young woman's anxieties, and says, "keepa youself outta da way! Biggest help youse can be!"
Seeing that this doesn't ease her concerns overly much he says, "Looka you here. Captain Kovack, he runna da straight maaany, maaany times. Always he comea back! Datsa because hesa good captain an not takea chances!"
Sasha wanders up a few minutes after the rest of you have already started. Not long after Vinzini has finished trying to allay Ellie's fears, a number of loud bells sound further to the south. Immediately, the four ships in the queue weigh anchor and there is a great clamor as a set of locks are opened. After a minute or two, you begin moving and not long thereafter, the city of Light's End is left behind as the pilot ship and the three vessels following it proceed towards the soot-stained cliffs not far to the south.
"Sooo..." Sasha jerks her thumb towards the galley door, "is it a big deal that there haven't been any ships that have come up from the south all week? That guy with all the tattoos, the one Andre knocked out, didn't seem too happy about it. Say, Mrs. B, how come they have spots for like... 20 ships to line up if it's only just this one and two others following the guide boat thru today? Do you think they really have that many sometimes?"
Lisa looks up, a bit of concern showing on her well-preserved countenance. Before she can say anything, Vinzini says absent-mindedly. "Datsa long time for a big port likea dis... Pretty girl, yousa sure yousa hearin' dem right?"
When Sasha nods emphatically, a low, displeased, "Hrrmmm..." escapes the normally jolly man. With a glance behind him, he grabs a bucket of cooking oil, a ladle and hurries his way to the fore of the ship.
"Peculiar," Gelik comments stroking his own dark goatee, "My dear Lisa, what do you suppose our intrepid chef is up to?"
'Lisa' dabs at the corners of her mouth with a napkin and pushes her bowl away. With some agitation evident in her tone she says, [b"He's going to calm the surface of the water by spreading some oil around the prow of the ship. It's more effective when it's the wind causing problems since it cuts down on spray and improves visibility. Of course, you have to shower the deck with rock salt to maintain your footing if it gets that bad. Oily wood doesn't provide the firmest footing. Still, I guess it's about the most he can do in a situation like this."[/b]
"The rest of us though?" she looks around the table, "Unless you know how to sail a ship, stay out of the way. If it's not a maritime hazard that has kept all but three... foolish captains in port then I would advise you to keep a blade and bow at the ready. It is not normal for there to be so little traffic thru such an important sea lane."
With that, Alis excuses herself and returns to your cabin to prepare herself for whatever awaits you. When the rest of you eventually make your way out of the galley, the White Pearl is just entering a wide cleft between sheer black cliffs to either side. You note with more than a bit of unease that the rocky crags shift and shudder every so often as if some great unseen force is pulling at them.
However it is not at the cliffs but at the seas that the sailors gaze. For therein, drifting upon the surface of the water are the smashed remains of wooden planks, crates, and remnants of sails...
Mal stops shoveling food in his mouth just long enough to point at the debris with his spoon and mutter, "Well, that's encouraging."
Lureene nods at 'Andre' and mutters, "Yeah, no kidding."
She looks up to the foredeck, where the Captain and crew are busy at work. Nodding at Sasha, she comments, "I wonder if that sorceress Ieana would deign to assist the captain with a well-timed wind blast here."
Something Sasha said earlier leaves her troubled, "Sash, if you are right and those foul cultists have been actively choking off the shipping between Light's End and Port Eldarion, we must be extra careful then."
"I wonder if that sorceress Ieana would deign to assist the captain with a well-timed wind blast here."
"You mean so we could plow headlong into the two ships ahead of us?" Gelik says, curling his mustache thoughtfully. "This channel doesn't look to offer a great deal of room for maneuvering."
"You mean so we could plow headlong into the two ships ahead of us?" Gelik says, curling his mustache thoughtfully. "This channel doesn't look to offer a great deal of room for maneuvering."
Lureene glares at the gnome, and starts to utter some choice words, but then his words sink in, and she realizes Gelik was right. It would not be a good idea to do that unless they were in the clear so to speak.
"I apologize for that, Gelik. It was uncalled for. I just am...nervous about this crossing, and not being able to do anything to help is frustrating! Plus, being pregnant has not helped my disposition at all, either."
"No need for apologies, I feel much the same... well, except for the pregnancy part of course I–"
Gelik breaks off what he was saying and points a tiny hand down the channel to the east. "What the devil is that?!"
Looking in the direction he is pointing, you find that you have to duck and move forward to get a clear view without the sails getting in the way. What you at first take for a flock of dark birds slowly begins to resolve itself as something far more horrific. Even as Aerys shouts a warning to the helm, you can see the sailors in the rigging of the bloated galleon ahead of you quailing in fear.
For what you see in the sky is no dark flock of crows, but a tangle of writhing tentacles descending from a knot of snarling wolfs-heads topped by the naked upper body of a dark-haired beauty.
"CAPTAIN!" Aerys' voice rings out loud as a trumpet, and far ahead you can hear a great rushing of water and a terrible roar, "IT'S THE BLOODY SPAWN OF DEIDRA! SCYLLA'S APPEARED AND SHE'S CALLED UP THE DAMNED CHARYBDIS!!!"
Mal calmly finishes his bowl of mush-stuff, setting it aside when he's done. He turns to the others, "What in the moons is a charybdis?"
Gelik laughs nervously. "She didn't actually say Scylla and Charybdis, did she? I mean they're just myth like the tarrasque, right?"
As the group of you make your way onto the main deck to behold whatever has the crew stricken with stunned silence, you hear what can only be a curse in some strange, sibilant tongue from behind you.
"Captain, we must use the larger ship as cover! My spells cannot repel magic of that magnitude!"
Theme: The Great Ones
"CAPTAIN!" Aerys cries out, "CAPTAIN, IT'S FORMIN' A WHIRLPOOL IN THE CENTER OF THE CHANNEL, JUST TO THE NORTH SIDE!"
Looking forward over the port rail of the ship, you see an immense spiny monster, its back plated in chitin and it's belly in thick folds of blubber. It has a gaping circular mouth ringed with teeth the size of a man's arm, and gnashing mandibles wide as barn doors. A dozen cold black eyes regard the convoy.
Beneath its maw, a half a dozen number of spiny legs twitch, but it is two pairs of giant claws that freeze the blood in your veins. The cracking sound you heard earlier was the deck of the pilot ship, pierced thru twice and held immobile by two of the monster's claws. With surprising quickness, the abomination lances it with its other two claws, its hull giving way as easily as one might pierce a tomato with a skewer. With no perceptible effort, it then splits the ship sending debris and screaming sailors into the air.
As you watch, Scylla descends from the sky, her tangled tentacles snapping up sailors from the water before coming to alight on a crag on the south side of the channel. The screams of the doomed men are overshadowed by the raging howls of the wolfsheads at her waist.
Lureene fights back the terror that is Scylla, and focuses her mind, blocking out the external noise, from the screams of the dying sailors, to the yells of the White Pearl crew.
She looks across at the abomination, trying to determine if her planar lore held any clues to driving it off.
We're not even on a shopping trip here...
Priyya pulls her bow for all the good it will do, sighting at the human portion of Scylla. "We can't win this battle. If we can't make good our escape, we're going to die."
"Captain, we must retreat!"
Captain Kovack turns his gaze away from the monsters to gaze slack-jawed at the mage. "Woman, thar's na room nar time ta bring tha Pearl about. E'en if'n we did, got all the weigh o' tha Silver Sea pushin' agin tha hull!"
"CAP'N, orders sir!"
Mal speaks up as he unlimbers his giant bow, "I know you all will think this callous, but can we time it right and try to squeeze by their position as they attack another ship? Maybe in that way we can possibly get past the choke point? Save who we can once we're past?"
"Captain, it's either the Sea, or that...THING! We have no choice, we MUST turn the ship around!"
"We can't turn about or we'll flounder with the current against us and that line of ships behind us. We have to push past. If we've got any wind magic or concealing magic, we'll need it."
Mal walks over to be near the group, saying in a voice that will hopefully not carry far, "I can summon some mist to obscure us, but it's not nearly big enough to cover our ship. And i wasn't prepared to help push the ship with wind today."
"" From below deck, Alis emerges looking like a pirate admiral, her voice supernaturally loud.
She is wearing a long, high-collared, crimson bolero with slashed & puffed sleeves over a matching corset. Belted about the waist, the bottom of the bolero flairs out like a captain's coat over the poofy knee-breeches she wears. Also of the slash & puff style, those breeches are tucked into a pair of black buccaneer-style boots with gold buckles and crimson straps. Lisa's silvery-grey tresses are now bound up in a single thick braid.
As all eyes turn toward her, she sets a black bicorn hat on her head. On the front of it is a crest of a dove carrying an axe instead of an olive branch. Further up in the channel, you can see the cumbersome galleon starting to founder as it gets caught up in Charybdis' whirlpool, its masts and rigging breaking under the great strain as it gets pulled closer and closer to the the monster's waiting claws.
"Andre and Sarah have the right of it. Full sail and stay nearer to Scylla than Charybdis. We can't survive the whirlpool. Better to lose some men to Scylla than the whole ship. Wizardess, if your magic can bolster the wind or hold back the water from any gashes to the hull, then make it so. I'll do my best to calm the seas around the Pearl! The rest of you, lash yourselves to something sturdy if you are able! The sea witch only has so many tentacles and she's not big enough to hold the whole ship!"
With that, she takes up a position at the bowspirit, raises her violin up and begins to play a soothing tune that seems to dull the heightened emotions of the crew even as the seas become calmer around the ship. Even as she does so, the galleon, is turned about, its sterncastle smashing against the cliff face before it is whipped to the other side whereupon Scylla snatches several sailors from the deck with her tentacles.
To stern, you hear a great splash followed by the splintering of wood. Looking over the rails, you see that the smaller galley that was following you attempted to turn about and capsized in the strong current, the rushing waters grinding it up against the rocks.
Initiative Rolls
, Charybdis, Scylla, Priyya, Sasha, Gelik, Alis, Lureene, Mal
MAP: Scylla and Charybdis, (Round 01)
"Umm... hey El?" Sasha fidgets a bit at the whole situation. "I know we already established that your momma is crazy but... is she gonna be ok up there?"
"She'll be fine. Might wanna look after your own skin." Mal says as he brusquely pushes past Sasha, on his way to Darkmane and Lureene. "Mind if I make you two much, much more safe if you fall into the water? It'd make my job of safekeeping you all much, much easier."
He then goes to stand by the strange spell-casting woman, taking this opportunity to draw in her scent. "If you're capable of affecting the wind, then I'll lend you my help. i can do the same. Maybe if we pooled our efforts at the right time, we can push the boat through the pinch quick enough to divert disaster."
Ieana gives the large man with a calculating look frowning as she notes the vessel behind you breaking up from doing just what she and Lureene had suggested. "So, you summon the spirits of nature I see."
She nods slowly, and says to Kovack, "Captain, set your seamen to the tasks that woman suggested. This one and I shall fill the sails..."
As Captain Kovack begins to direct the crew, Gelik begins adding his own inspirational lyrics to Alis' playing hoping to embolden the crew.
Fixing her eyes straight ahead, the odd mage says, "Scyllans display significant spellcasting ability. I suspect she too can control the winds. As we saw, she can also fly. I shall attempt to summon the winds for the longterm, but Scylla may negate them. As one, we will cast a swift burst just as we swing past..."
Lureene nods at Sasha, and responds shakily, trying to keep the terror out of her voice, ”Yeah, she has done this many times before…of course, that was not against sea monsters though…”
At Ms. d'Adora's command, the winds pick and the White Pearl takes on speed even as it draws nearer to the cliffs on the starboard side. Although they are all terrified, most of the crew have to time to panic instead bracing ropes and clinging to fortified positions.
Up on the forecastle, Ishirou knots a thick rope about his waist and stands not far behind the crazy old woman hell-bent upon placating the rough seas to make the crew's job easier. He stands with one hand on the hilt of his exotic blade, ready to draw it and attack at a moment's notice. On the stern castle, Alton stands with hanger in hand shouting out orders to the crew even as Aerys calls down distances from the crow's nest.
Entwining one leg in some rope like her friend, Sasha flashes Ellie a nervous smile and unsheathes her weapons. Between Gelik's accompaniment and Priyya's spell, the crew's morale is holding yet just barely.
"200 YARDS!" Aerys shouts. Even as she yells, the doomed galleon swings away to the north, spiraling clockwise even as you hear the tearing of timbers and Charybdis' roar as it's great claws rise and fall hewing at the vessel.
, Charybdis, Scylla, Priyya, Gelik, Alis
MAP: Scylla and Charybdis, (Round 02)
Theme: Stand a Chance
Alis' Actions:
R1: Move to prow, start bardic performance
R2: Readied action to cast spell.
Gelik's Actions:
R1: Move next to stairs, start bardic performance
R2: Readied action to dive below deck
Everyone else has braced and readied actions also.
, Charybdis, Scylla, Priyya (readied)