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Mel targets the singing pirate on the stairs and, despite the mast partially in the way and his ally, she strikes him twice, bringing him down! Fyrtor strikes hard several times at the warrior in front of him (59 damage total). The warrior reels but doesn't fall. Despite the net entangling him, Kazador leaps over Fyrtor's cloud and nimbly to the deck. Brolin moves into position and strikes hard at a thick-bodied, retching pirate, who can't seem to cry out while in such gastrointestinal distress. The bishopric marines have their clearest shot at this fellow and fire a volley at him, striking him four times.
Then the pirates strike back. Van Beem screeches at her men Two of the heavy warriors attack Kazador and Brolin twice each but can't seem to land blows through their wily defense. Van Beem herself steps up onto the stairs as pirates move into position to help her. She stabs Fyrtor once, hard in the gut (20 damage) then stabs Kazador in the flank while two of her other dagger strikes miss him (21 damage to Kazador). She inhales deeply while standing still in Fyrtor's cloud. She seems entirely unperturbed by the scent. Suddenly, Mel's view from the Sonder is entirely obscured by an explosion of color! She's blinded, as are the marine near her, Errde Blackskull, and the pilot!
There was a good chance that they were going to die here. These pirates meant business! Kazador knew the plan was to take the pirate captain alive, but he’d rather be alive himself.
Despite the net, Kazador swung back at the captain. His training was kicking in. He had felt the sting of her blade, he now knew her tricks.
”My thane!”
Algric put three arrows towards the nearest pirate.
Kazador strikes Van Beem twice hard but misses once. She screeches in pain and unleashes a string of swearing as if she doesn't need to breathe.
Van Beem swears and curses at Kazador then points to him with both her daggers speaking in a voice made sober by pain. "You're next." She herself doesn't look like she could take another storm of power like the last one Kazador dealt out.
Algric's shot weakens the coughing pirate in front of Brolin.
Seeing the pirate on the far end of the deck making some gestures, Mel raises her bow towards him just as glowing specks of dust explode all about her. "Hitto, silmäni!" she curses, and then lobs the shots anyway.
I usually use 1d2 for 50% miss chances -- a 1 is a miss, a 2 is a hit. Potentially at least.
Her aim is decent -- but too high. The two arrows sail over her target and slice into the sea on the other side. She blinks furiously, but still cannot see clearly.
Amid the blinding cloud of white, you see a snowbell shining. Your will strengthens and pushes back at the spell again. This time, you throw it off.
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The dark-furred catfolk monk will stop inspiring competence as a free action, and instead inspire courage. She'll move to the center of the boat to make sure that everyone can hear her advice.
Her advice is not unlike a commentator at a boxing match, barely stopping for breath she informs archers and melee combatants of the best places to land attacks, the weaknesses inherent in the pirates' fighting styles.
Between striking with his obsidian weapon and blocking attacks with his enchanted shield, Muse sees Frytor go down. In position to make the best use of it now, and knowing that's there's no conscionable reason to delay, Captain Muse enters Spirit Dance.
A vast and ancient being threatens to overwhelm him, to take his body from it and make it it's own. It's all Muse can do to hold on, to maintain his sense of self to at least some degree, to direct what he can't control.
The Champion.
The First King.
Legacy.
Old enough to have watched the evolution from pictograms to written language, ancient before mankind first prayed to the gods, Legacy watched when bronze was first cast into a weapon, was there when stones were made into buildings strong enough to weather the advance of time; there to see it all.
Hey gramps, Muse greets his distant ancestor. Wanna kick some ass?
Ceding control to Legacy, Muse subvocalizes, we're trying to take their captain alive. We need to do this fast, my friend's injured or dead. And he lets Legacy handle the rest.
Legacy attacks with blinding speed, lashing out with his shield to create openings exploited by his terbutje; the razor teeth of the enchanted weapon, undulled by the passage of time, need only be dragged across skin to create debilitating injuries - Legacy strikes at Van Beem's turned back, and when she turns her attention away from Kazador he takes advantage of Brolin's shield and superior reach to strike at her arms whenever she attempts to attack.
"This is what happens," Brolin explains to the pirate captain, "when you attack the Sonder. You get ganked by teleporting dwarves and irrate captains. It's just-" Legacy parries an attack from Pirate 5, momentarily diverting Muse's attention, "not a good policy."
Kazador strikes van Beem hard once with his shield and once more with his weapon. She totters on her feet, nearly finished but her eyes boring into him. Then the captain of the Sonder's shield swings back around and smashes into her temple, dropping the pirate queen to the deck. Two of the bishopric marines fire but Errde barks to the one near her "Don't fire unless you can see!" The two other marines fire, taking advantage of the expert advice they receive to wreak havoc on the enemy ship. One of the stout pirates falls (#4) while another takes a shaft to the shoulder (#3).
The pirate rushing aft disappears into the hold (#3) while the spellcaster begins to sing. His allies work together to try to bring down the heavily-armored dwarf, taking advantage of the net. Kazador is struck hard by the pirates around him, one landing a particularly vicious blow (25 damage total). But the complement of the Sonder retaliates!
A beatific smile spreads across Mel's face as her vision clears. "Kiitos, jumalatar, she whispers.
Looking quickly across to the other ship, she observes that there is no sign of van Beem or Fyrtor. Kazador is clearly in trouble -- but Brolin seems unexpectedly ... larger, somehow, and moving blindingly fast.
"Brolin, get the one off Kazador's back!" she calls. "I'll get that last caster." She sets her sight on the final singer, lofts two arrows in rapid succession ...
... and the Sonder dips unexpectedly beneath her feet as a wave passes, sending both of her arrows thudding into the Serpent's side.
Now that the most immediate threat has been handled, Captain Muse will hurry to Frytor’s side.
Deliberately ignoring the marauder in position to take advantage of the opening, hoping his false life will be enough to protect him, Muse drops his sword and shield and kneels by Frytor’s side.
“No way do you die on me now. We, we just met!”
Seeing Kazador netted and bleeding, Algric hastily put three more arrows into the nearest strait pirate.
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Kazador felt the blood seep through his armor...and he smiled. He had run before, leaving his comrades to die. Now he was holding his ground. Now he was fighting as a Rune Warden was supposed to. Now he was upholding his paths to Torag. He planted his feet.
First there was the little one on the left.
And the one on the right!
He would not back down! He would not surrender!
He owed it to himself. He owed it to the dead. Most importantly he owed it to the living.
First attack is 19+14=33 Hit and 23 damageHaste attack is 20+14=34 Hit and 19 damage
Crit Confirm is 13+14=27 Confirm and 50 damage (69 total)Iterative Attack is 10+9=19 Hit and 20 damage
Sorry!
The elemental continues assalting the pirates closest to it.
Brolin manages to stabilize the druid.
But the clouds then get to him! He can't do anything but move, he feels so ill as he retches and gasps for air.
As Brolin moves, he's struck by one of the pirates (11 damage).
Mel fires and misses while Kazador kills one pirate and combines with the elemental to avenge Brolin's recent wound.
The Bishopric marines fire, aided greatly by the advice they receive from the cat-like woman. They land 4 heavy blows to one of the pirates, who backs up wounded. You then hear a voice call from the hold "Stop! Stop fighting, you boarding bastards! Or I'll light this pile of black powder and blow us all to smithereens!" The bard and the warrior on deck hold their weapons ready but don't attack, nodding in agreement. The bard states firmly "He'll do it. He's not bluffing."
The elemental lacking any direction continues to attack the nearest pirate. Using its telekinetic powers it throws a nearby belaying pin.
You've never heard of guns. But you have heard that some alchemists were working on an "elixir of life" they called black powder.
The man does not seem to be bluffing, based on his tone of voice coming up from the hold. He calls up "Here! We'll show them a sample!" The bard edges carefully into the hold and comes back out carrying a barrel with a fuse. Eyeing you all carefully (and if you let him), he'll place the barrel in a rowboat, light it, and shove it off from the ship. The boat drifts some 20 feet away until the fuse burns into the small keg. At first, nothing happens. Then you're deafened as chunks of rowboat fall all around you. The bard smiles. "We've got thirty more of those in the hold."
Mel is horrified by this fiendish invention.
”Alright, let’s talk. Nay need to kill ye all. Come here lads. Stand with me, let them see your hands.”
Once everyone was next to him, he said:
”In fact, have one thing I’d like to say.”
”Gromthi! Dringorak-ha!”
Standing next to Brolin, Fyrtor, and the captain, Kazador had to make a choice. Who to bring?! Well...instant Fyrtor and the disabled captain were back aboard Brolin’s ship. Kazador did his best to leave the net behind.
”Brolin! Back to the wheel. I’m coming to get ye!”
Kazador disappears with Fyrtor and van Beem, dropping them on the Sonder. The bard swears foully "They took the captain and are trying to come back to kill us!" He and the warrior leap over the side as the other pirate comes running out of the hold to join their desperate attempt. Brolin, surprised, begins moving to leap off the ship but not fast enough. As Kazador comes to retrieve him, a roar fills your world.
Shrapnel flies everywhere as the Serpent erupts in a ball of flame! Kazador and Brolin leap over the side but still catch hard blasts (27 each) before they fall in the water! Chunks of wood and a sheet of flame soar across the deck of the Sonder.
Kazador barely got back to get Brolin when his world turned into naught but sound and flame. He had no idea what foul magics were in the devices used by the pirates, only that it hurt. Hurt very badly. His skin and armor alike were charred and he had a piece of wood impaled in his side. And then he hit the water! The flames died. Looking up he saw wreckage falling from the sky and the ship aflame. It was like a dream.
Reaching out he grabbed Captain Brolin, and once more thanked his ancestors for the runes on his armor. Without them he would have sunk like a stone. Gripping the captain he used the last bit of air in his lungs to shout the words of power. He prayed that it would work.
...the two appeared back on the deck of their ship. Coughing and sputtering, Kazador kneeled on the deck and spit up the water he had swallowed.
One more point for Curative Mastery. As always his feat selection let’s him ignore the conjuration requirement.
“You can cause an item that has a 1st-level or higher conjuration spell listed in its construction requirements to cast cure light wounds as a spell-like ability, using the item’s caster level as the spell’s caster level. You can use this feat once per day, plus one additional time per day when your base Fortitude save bonus reaches +4, +6, +8, +10, and +12.
You can expend two uses of this feat to cast cure moderate wounds, three uses to cast cure serious wounds, four uses to cast cure critical wounds, and five uses to cast breath of life, provided that the item’s construction requirements include a spell whose level is equal to or greater than the level of the spell-like ability to be used (2nd level for cure moderate wounds, 3rd level for cure serious wounds, 4th level for cure critical wounds, and 5th level for breath of life).”
With Fort +15, he has 5 uses.
Will take 5 rounds to cast all of that. Putting it in spoilers should that not be feasible. But if it is it will get us back on our feet
It's almost too fast to take in. While Mel hesitated, Kazador took decisive -- and potentially disastrous! -- action, appearing and dropping an unconscious Fyrtor and a pirate captain at her feet. Then he disappears once again, and things begin going wrong.
As the Serpent blossoms into a raging inferno of fire, Mel lets herself collapse bonelessly to her knees beside Fyrtor. Waves of fire and debris pass over her head. With a strange, hazy clarity she watches as the golden holy symbol from the priest she'd shot passes lazily through the space her head had occupied mere moments before, flipping end over end and gleaming in the lurid light of the flames propelling it through the air.
As the shockwave passes, Mel turns her head to the side. Fyrtor's unconscious form. The cloth of his shirt flutters in the wind of the fires. Mel watches a tiny bubble of blood form on his lips in time to his unsteady breath, and in that moment an eerie calm descends upon her.
"Oi Ostara, tämä mies pyrki suojelemaan kansaansa. Nyt hänet on lyöty taistelussa, joka ei ole omaa. Auta minua ... auttamaan häntä."
As she prays, she pulls some supplies from her healer's satchel and reaches out to him. She lays hands upon him, and they begin to shine with a pale green light. She runs her fingers along his wounds, and they close beneath her touch, leaving behind healthy flesh -- still tender, perhaps, but whole. The glow fades as Fyrtor's eyes open.
"Kiitos, jumalatar," Mel says. "Fyrtor. Fyrtor! Wake up. We need any healing you can give."
Yay! Evasion. One of the few class features I didn't give up.
Yay! I pass. And then a full round action on healing Fyrtor. Full mechanics in Discussion.
The lone surviving pirate begins swimming for shore then cries out in pain. The druid elder appears on the shore along with her companions as dark shapes moving in the water appear around the pirate. He shrieks as red flows into the water. The elder waves to you all from the shore and throws a small bird into the air. It lands on the Sonder and speaks to the newly conscious Fyrtor "We will help your village."
As Frytor regains conciousness the world seems confused. He she's Mel kneeling over him. His head still spinning he asks in a groggy voice, "Wha, What happened? Last I remember I was being stabbed by that pirate woman on her ship." Gazing intently at Mel he speaks again "Thank you"
Then he stands, and as his strength returns he moves into acrion, "Where am I needed?[\b] He then moves to heal the worst injured that can be saved.
When he comes to the pirate captain Frytor hesitates. After a pause he sighs to himself, [b]"Saranrae promises redemption for all who will change, who am I to judge?" He then tends to her wounds as well.
Mel walks among the crew, easing their wounds as quickly as she may.
By the time she's done, she's shaking with exertion, and her last attempt fails.
Mel stops Fyrtor before he heals the pirate captain. "We should secure her first. I don't want any of us to have to fight her again -- best get her in shackles while she's unconscious. Then we can heal her."
Wooden and iron shrapnel hit the water no later than Muse himself does, driving the Sonder's captain beneath the waves. His mithril breastplate saves Muse's life; turning aside splinters that would otherwise pierce Brolin through. His false life exhausted, Muse feels suddenly sluggish and lethargic - not altogether a useful manner of being when fighting to get your head above the water. It's fortunate for the captain that Kazador is in the area.
Warning the crew to dive for cover when she should have been heeding her own advice, Tiyeri would be disabled on the ground shot through with shrapnel. As is, she's conscious with 10 hitpoints exactly.
Torval, on Tiyeri's warning, ducked behind the mast for cover. What little shrapnel bounced his way was for the most part turned aside by Captain Muse's abjuration. A sliver of the exploding ship large and fast enough to left a groove in the mast where it passed clipped the Sonder's second mate, throwing him to the ground.
Devout Nuar Brickenden left to meet Abadar.
Protection from arrows not protection enough, when standing in the open as Mathis was, the noble-in-hiding is lifted off his feet and thrown across the deck of the Sonder by the force of the explosion.
Kromnlite is bisected by the flying shrapnel. Somewhere belowdecks, Corona feels it happening through their link and starts summoning him again.
Errde Blackskull picks herself up and winces at the shrapnel in her side but walks over to Van Beem with only a slight limp. She nods at Mel's suggestion. "Absolutely. This is my prisoner now and she won't be going anywhere. Captain Muse, I formally request a room somewhere in the Sonder to hold this prisoner until we are able to make port at Helm." Blackskull begins removing the prisoner's gear while the other marines hold her limbs, she starts with the weapons. In all, she lays out:
2 potions
A very nice looking chain shirt
2 daggers with jewel-encrusted hilts
2 silver daggers that also appear quite nice
8 normal looking daggers
A nice looking longbow with 20 arrows
A very well-oiled bull whip
A belt with tigers and lions sewn into it in patterns
A nice pair of boots
A very good set of thieves' tools
A spyglass
A magnifying glass
A cloak made out of some odd, leather-like material
A small keg with a fuse that weighs about 1 pound
A sap
A garotte
A rapier
Kazador kneeled, holding his hammer. He chanted, causing a white light to emanate from the runes on it. This went on for nearly two minutes, during which time his wounds healed.
<Two minutes later>
”Well, that went alright. We got their captain, our new friend’s village will receive aid from the druids, and none of us died. And the latter was almost not achieved. A well fought battle. Captain Brolin, Fyrtor, I’d fight side by side with ye any day.”
”Well ye had me worried, thane. Especially when the ship exploded. Thought the two of ye were dead for sure.”
Blackskull looks askance at Kazador's statement that nobody died, glances briefly at the crewmate lying dead on the deck, and gets back to her work of securing the prisoner.
"That's fine, but somebody make sure she's not going to die."
Mel turns to Kazador, hands on her hips. "Went well?" she says incredulously. "That explosion injured almost everyone on the entire ship, including the non-combatants. That poor young man over there died the death! We lost any evidence that might have been on that ship, and although we did get van Beem, we don't have a spare ship to send her back to Helm -- so either we need to spend time heading back to drop her and Captain Blackskull's crew off, or else we need to take them on to ... our final destination!"
Our final destination whose location you want to keep secret, her glance says.
"They wanted to talk, Kazador! They said 'stop fighting'! We could have negotiated -- and healed up our wounded while we talked. One of us could have tried sneaking into the hold and getting the torch away from whichever mad soul was holding it over that pile of ... of whatever that fiendish stuff was! We had options! But you made a snap call, and now we've got a boatload of injured people and some tough choices ahead. And you think it went well? Graaah!"
Her voice rises in volume over the course of this diatribe. By the end she's shouting at full volume and clearly audible all over the ship, and probably on shore.
Having heard the explosion while waiting below decks, Kelian rushes up to see if he can help. The damage to the Sonder is... extensive...
”Ah fook. Didn’t see him. Poor lad.”
And then Mel hit him with her tirade. Kazador listened quietly and waited for her to be done.
”I retreated. I got the wounded off of a ship that looked like it might blow up. I thought that with us gone they wouldn’t blow themselves up. I still don’t know why they did when I was retreating. Did it turn out the way I wanted? No. I did what I thought was best at the moment. And aye, it went well. We lost one unlucky sailor. I mourn his death. Of the boarding party, Fyrt almost died. I almost died. If I did, Captain Brolin would nay have had a good escape. We very nearly lost that battle. But we didn’t, and we took their captain alive, whom I warn ye now is my equal in combat. I’d rather cheer our victory and toast the dead than worry about what might have been.”
Ears still ringing from the explosion, sitting on the deck of the Sonder and staring at the wreckage floating by, Brolin mindlessly echoes Kazador. "Went well . . . "
Standing abruptly, he wheels on the rune warden. "By Cayden's cup and Abadar's vault, what does going poorly look like?!" He sounds uncertain whether he should laugh or cry. Sitting as abruptly as he stood, Muse decides on the later. "Never should have gotten involved . . ."
Climbing unsteadily to his feet, the captain of the Sonder takes charge of the situation - or at least, makes sure someone does. "I'll clear out my office. You can keep van Beem there. I don't . . . I'll talk to her tomorrow. I don't feel up to it. Tiyeri, do me a solid and make sure the ship isn't sinking. Everyone else, Tiyeri's in charge."
Captain Muse leaves to clean his office out.
As Muse turns to leave Frytor calls out "Wait we need that ship right? Can your crew manage to get it ashore? I can go and try to put the fires out. But I'd like an experienced sailor there with me to make sure I don't do anything stupid. Well, anything else stupid. The ship will be a lot easier to fix if it's on the shore rather on the bottom of the cove."