(O_o)
"Urk!"
(x_X)
"Suny, no!" Nhati cries. She reaches forward and grabs the ankles of the fallen elf, pulling her back out of the battle, hoping that somebody with healing magic will be able to help her.
Reijo's hard jaw drops at the sight of the beautiful elf getting charred to what seems her death. As her blackened body drops to the deck, the now frenzied pirate leaps at the tengu with mad rage in his eyes. Foaming at the mouth, he hollars a most sickening battle cry from the depths of Besmara's frigid ocean as he aims his sword at the birdman's head. He jumps at his enemy, cutlass and axe swinging with intensity and power...
Round 3________
Perceiving Suny take a serious hit, Bellamy drops his bardsong and his crossbow to acrobatically roll next to her, drawing his Wand of Cure Light Wounds along the way.
He uses the wand to heal Suny points of damage.
"Lassie! Stay with us girl!" He muttered worriedly.
Round 3
Ol' Salty has seen many a friend die in battle, some of which he was friends with for decades. When he sees Suny get stabbed and go down, all emotion that he showed was little more than a grunt. Still, his heart wept for her, to see such young and innocent care-free life be taken in such a short instant. But he will deal with grief properly once the job is done. With a furrowed brow, Ol' Salty stands firm against the fierce tengu.
"By Gozreh himself shall he release 'is wrath upon ye. Never shall ye sail the seas without fear, without respect. Cursed are thee whom taketh life of the young, of the innocent. May the Wind and the Waves follow yer cursed trail where ever thee roam!"
Hyrix 36/36 (5 NL) [Shaken 1 round]
Ellara 14/14
Elodin 6/14
Driven into a rage, Reijo takes the first leap over Suny's body and unleashes a flurry of sword and axe at the bird's head. For all the power he musters, though, the bird's quick feet keep him from taking a faceful of steel.
With Reijo's blades to cover her, Nhati ducks into the room and drags Suny out as quickly as she can. The trail of blood left on the floor of the cabin does not bode well... A problem that Bellamy tries to rectify with a lovetap from his gnarled wand of of cure light wounds.
Ol' Salty, though, stands at his full height and bellows with the might of Gozreh himself. Though his voice carries no magic in it, the man's words would strike fear through the hearts of any sailor. The worst fate a man could ask for would be the ill will of the winds and waves.
"Pah!" screeches the bird, his voice wavering. "Your jinx has no power over a jinxeater!" Though he says so, he looks as though he might not believe it himself...
The pair of halflings take a quick glance at one another, then at the frenzy that Hyrix has stirred up by dropping Suny in a single blow. The bloodied of the two whispers frantically to his partner.
"Ella, we ain't getting paid enough to die!"
The female nods in agreement, then whispers back in Halfling.
With a pair of quick slashes at Reijo's heels, the two halflings abandon their flanking position and skirt along the southern wall and take short steps towards the open window...
Viktorra grimaces as the halflings make their way towards the exit, but sets her sights on Hyrix instead. "Gozreh aside, Besmara'll see you sunken to the locker long before that curse has a chance to get you!" She charges across the chamber, taking Suny's place as a flanking partner for Reijo as her rapier flashes with quick and precise strikes. The bird manages to duck away from the attack, though a few feathers glide gently to the floor...
Hyrix turns on Viktorra, obviously unhappy with the close haircut. With a quick slash of his own rapier at Viktorra's feet, he puts her on the defensive as another wave of magic crackles from his fingertips...
The sword blow glances off her chainshirt--and worse, the frantic defensive gestures serve only to burn off his magics without any gains. The necrotic energy that was building in his palm hisses as the spell is lost to the magical void...
Round 4!
(X_x)
Round 4
Ol' Salty moves slightly to the side in order to help flank with Vik. "Listen well, Tengu. I give ye a choice of great importance. Yer crew be leavin ye, yer magic be failin ye, and yer faith be waverin. Shall ye choose exile to the land, or shall ye sink to the locker? Choose now and I shall honor it, but I can't say the same for me mates."
Ol' Salty flanks with Vik.
Ol' Salty will not attack, but instead follow behind until Hyrix is off the ship.
Ol' Salty carefully removes Hyrix's weapons.
Round 4________
Frustrated, Bellamy raps (gently) the recalcitrant wand against the deck.
"Better than that ye bastard!" He snarled.
He uses the wand to heal Suny again for points of damage.
"Come on, stay with us girl!" He muttered worriedly.
"Hah!" spits the bird at Ol' Salty's offer. "Unless you want to end up like the pretty one, I suggest you consider your own offer of exile to shore!"
"So be it." Says Ol' Salty with a serious, but calm demeanor. He is now fully prepared to fight this Tengu to the death.
Reijo remains entirely focused on the birdman, ignoring the pesky halflings for the time being. He continues to give him all hell with blade and axe as his mouth foams with rage and his throat grumbles like a rabid pit bull. As his cutlass is ducked, Reijo follows up with an underhanded axe. It grabs a chunk of bird meat as it continues on through Hyrix's side... blood spatters, and several black feathers fly in the air in his axe's wake...
Hearing that the tengu intends to fight to the death, Nhati fires off her last spell at him. Two bolts of greenish magical force shoot out from her outstretched fingers, unerringly striking the tengu.
Hyrix 7/36 (5 NL)
Ellara 14/14
Elodin 6/14
As Bellamy puts another dose of healing into the nearly-dead elf, Nhati lets loose with another barrage of arcane energy. The missiles fly across the cabin, illuminating all of Captain Lanteri's things with a greenish light before crashing into the tengu with magical might.
With no recourse but to fight the stubborn bird, Ol' Salty brings his own blade to bear against Hyrix, stepping into the frenzy and landing a good slash across the tengu's arm. Reijo follows suit, drawing the tengu's guard away with a quick slash from his cutlass before following with a dire blow from his axe! Viktorra is only a hairsbreadth behind the curmudgeonly pirate, aiming to run Hyrix through...
The bloodied bird staggers, barely managing to hold his sword between the numerous injuries inflicted upon him. Fortunately, this keeps him just busy enough for the pair of halflings to slip past both you and their feathered leader. With only a half-glance back at the tengu, the two halflings dip out the window and out of sight. Below, you hear the sound of a boat bobbing from their landing...
"Bastards," the bird seethes between labored breaths, "Beholden to the murderous Lanteri! Gozreh, Besmara, Pharasma--I'd let any of them take me before I let her treachery rest!" He takes a half step back towards the wall, desperately looking for a way to avoid the group of foes surrounding him, before lashing out at Reijo with his sword.
His words fall flat as both blade and magic fall flat in his hands. He casts his eyes downward, feeling defeat loom treacherously close but too stubborn to admit it to himself.
Round 5
Round 5__________
"C'mon, c'mon..." Bellamy said as he wielded the wand again, ignoring the pyrotechnics as the fight went on around him.
He uses the wand to heal Suny again for points of damage. He swore in frustration as the wands power fritzed out again. Briefly he gripped it as if he was going to snap it in half.
"Me thinks this'll be enough for ye, prepare teh get soaked!"
Ol' Salty summons a swirling torrent in his hands, then shoves it towards Hyrix's chest.
(X_x)
"You are defeated!" Nhati says. "But you don't have to die here!"
She throws Reijo a warning look. Back to the Tengu. "Surrender. You have not won today, but that doesn't mean your story has to end here. You can move on. Surely that is better than a defiant death? And you may still accomplish something, if you tell us why we should not trust our captain."
The tengu lowers his sword slightly, but it's not entirely clear if its because he's just that hurt or he's actually considering surrender. Whatever it is, he holds off from attacking and watches those surrounding him carefully. Finally his cold eyes settle on Nhati. Slowly, softly, he says, "Surrender is no different than death. You'll kill me, or the traitorous b***h you call captain will. What difference does it make now that I've failed?"
As his words trail off, he lets his sword's point drop to the floorboards. Hopeless, he waits for the death he knows will come.
(X_x)
Nhati says, "We'll see... never give up until your heart stops beating. Now, please, tell us why you call our Captain Lanteri traiterous?"
The bird watches Nhati with glacial eyes. His voice is slow, measured. "Ask her yourself. Ha! Or better yet, let me."
The venom in his last word is almost tangible.
Nhati looks back. "We'll ask her what your attack was all about, to be sure... but if you don't give us any other reason besides vague accusations of unspecified betrayal, then all we can do is tie you up and turn you over to her. If that's what you want... then, fine. Or, you could take a chance that things might work out better for you by telling us what you really mean by calling her a traitor."
As Nhati works on reasoning with the tengu, Ol' Salty fetches a long length of rope. Taking Reijo's 'personality' into consideration, the old man offers the fire-temper the rope. "Do ya care to tie him up, Reijo?"
Reijo's axe was about to split the birdman's skull in twine when Nhati gave him that look... though her words at first failed to reach the enraged pirate's brain, something in her expression caused him to halt the momentum of his axe... two inches from the tengu's eyes.
Seething and fuming, the angry man hears some of the words through the loud sound of his own blood pumping in his ears. He calms down to being simply very angry by the time Ol' Salty asks him to tie up the wretched birdman.
"TIE?!" he spits out the word back at the seasoned sailor with utter distaste. "I'd care ta SPLIT 'is li'l skull IN TWINE! THAT be what I'd CARE ta be doin'!"
For a brief moment, it seems as if Reijo is about to attempt exactly that feat. But instead, he buries his axe right into the wood, inches above the tengu's head... whipping off his doo-rag and nailing it into the wall.
With a bullish snort, Reijo grabs Salty's rope. "Keep still, Birdie!" he barks into the tengu's ear. Satisfied with the rope's strength, he indeed ties up the defeated tengu very roughly and tightly.
Ol' Salty gives Reijo the rope, then walks away with a grin.
He may yell and holler, but even Reijo can see reason... from time to time, I expect.
Then he looks over the absolute mess over the deck.
"By the gods, I hope the cpn's got a spare set o sails. We gonna be sewin for months."
Nhati maintains her tough-but-reconciling glare at the tengu as Reiko's axe furiously buries itself in the captain's quarters.
Throughout all of this Hyrix remains stubbornly silent, simply glaring at his captors with a passive defiance. You get the feeling that if he weren't bleeding from nearly every inch of his feathered body, he'd have never surrendered. He doesn't exactly seem the type, even after surrendering.
The real question, though, is what Captain Lanteri would do after seeing what had become of her ship...
Nhati sighs. "If he's not going to talk to us, then all we can do is hold him. Let's clean up what of the mess we can."
GM: can you give us an inventory of the damage and the mess? Nhati can spend another arcane point to swap out Arcane Mark for Prestidigitation to do some cleaning. She can also get to work on repairs with Mending, but I'm guessing that if there are torn sails, the number of hit points necessary to mend them means that she'd be at it for a very long time with that spell. (Even Make Whole might take a while.)
When poked by Suny, Bellamy shook out of his daydream.
"Sorry lass. Here ye go!" He said.
He used the wand of Cure Light Wounds on Suny again, healing her for .
Then again for .
With Hyrix stubbornly silent and his two halfling compatriots rowing frantically away from the captain's window, you finally have a chance to stop and examine the damage you've caused.
You suspect Captain Lanteri is not going to be pleased.
In addition to tearing the sails from the masts and ripping through them in multiple places, you've made a bloody mess of the captain's cabin. Mending the sails would take a bit of doing--probably a night's worth of work, even with magical aid--and cleaning up Captain Lanteri's cabin was a project of its own. Hell, just washing the blood off of everything would be a chore.
It's probably a good thing you're the only ones aboard the Magpie Princess for the night... because you're going to need it.
As she comes to consciousness, Suny mumbles,
"Here, there be no need fer ye ta be gettin' up..."
Before she bolts upright.
(O_O)
"GAH! He done put a in me!" And she frantically begins to pat her still tender self down to verify the extent of the damage.
Though with reassuring from her friends the plucky Elf soon calms and she pitches in beside her mates to get things straightened out.
(^_^)
As Suny bolts upwards, Ol' Salty hears the noise and walks in. Standing in the doorway with an iron lantern, the bloody old man makes a terrifying sight.
"Good ta see yer back in this world, Ms. Suny. Aye wasn't sure if ye'd make it ta be 'onest."
Then he turns his attention to the rest.
"Aye everyone, we got a right mess like to clean up. If'n the cpn sees this, I figure she'll keel haul us 'erself, Tengu included. We need people puttin up a spare set o' sails (Gozreh be with us this ship has one, or we be dead at sea). We need people mendin the torn sails, cleanin and fixing this 'ere quarters, and we need someone to guard the damned Tengu. We should see if'n this ship got a brig of some sort. I'm expectin one hell of a rough time, but we gotta work tgether if'n we want this ship to set sail with us still on it."
Suny gets her bedraggled self in order before nodding at Salty's words.
'I can be helpin' rig tha' new sails up tha' mast. It were I seekin' ta' catch Granny wiff 'em, after all, whut got 'em all over tha' deck." Looking at the Tengu she frowns.
"We could all way jus' hang tha' feathered menace from tha' yard arm? That way, we can all be seein' him." The look she gives the fellow shows she's still more than a little displeased with his actions upon herself.
"Or... we could just dunk his feathered self in't a barrel of tar? That'd keep his @rse from movin'...." And she pauses now... to think of other 'Suitable' ways to restrain said feathered minion..... (¬_¬)
Reijo's raging inner furnace subsides as all of this unfolds. A dark expression of pleasure comes over him at the thought of placing the tengu in a barrel of tar. "Now ye be thinkin' right like me, Saucy."
Without dropping his frightful grin, he approaches the tengu once more. Seemingly reaching for his face, as if to mangle it... he grabs the handle of his wall-embedded axe instead, retrieving it. "Why so down, Polly?" he taunts Hyrix, "Aren'chye lookin' forwerd ta seein' yer b'loved cap'n again? Sure she be pleas'd as pie ta be seein' ye."
Satisfied that the tengu is secured, a bad thought occurs to him. He glances out after the rowing accomplices of Hyrix with disdain.
Bloody halflings...
"We best get aft'r them li'l picaroons real fast. We ain't be wantin' ta find out tomorrah mornin' if they be rowin' away somethin' o'tha cap'n's..."
Halfway through that last sentence, Reijo bolts to ready one of the ship's dinghies in pursuit! He stops mid-way through the door, barking an order and pointing at Hyrix before running off again, "Someone knock 'em out firs!"
Nhati sighs. "Yes, we should get to work fixing the sails and cleaning up the captain's cabin. I'm hoping that her anger will be mitigated by the fact that we stopped the Tengu from doing whatever it was he was doing in her cabin. I hate to lose the night's sleep, though. I'm out of spells, and am going to be near useless until I can get a good night's sleep, and time to study my spellbook once my mind is refreshed."
She will start by working with Bellamy in the captain's quarters, like him using Prestidigitation to clean up the mess. Then she'll move to working with the others on the sails, again providing Mending cantrips alongside Bellamy to help patch up the sails.
Reijo lowers himself in the ship's dinghy into the water below, and immediately rows furiously to catch up with the two "li'l picaroons..."
While she still tenderly pokes experimentally at herself a little to asses how fixed up she is, the whole idea of getting wet completely appeals to Suny's nature.
She finds the things she needs to help catch the pair trying to row away.
While Reijo clambers into a ship's boat, Suny simply steps up to the railing then dives over the side, with the various rope and such cleverly draped and tied about her trim form.
Suny readily catches up to the two halflings, who do a double-take at the previously presumed dead elf swimming up alongside them. Though they try to pick up the pace, Suny dips under the boat and slams a grappling hook halfway into the wood.
The boat jerks, but they continue to pull away slightly, especially when they glance over their shoulders and see Reijo angrily rowing after them, as fuming mad as ever.
"Um, Ella-"
"I see him."
"Still not getting paid enough to die..."
She nods.
With an audible gulp, the less bloody of the two halflings leaps to her feet and waves at Reijo. "Parley! Don't... whatever you're going to do!" She then looks down at Suny, with a grim half-smile. "Sorry about the whole almost dead thing..."