Quint's rapier, the one he named Windsong, because he felt like all great swords must have names, even though his sword hadn't really proven any greatness yet, is, starting to prove its greatness. The gnome darts in quickly jabbing the orange striped sea monster, and dodges away, leaving a hole punched in the creature's side that pours dark blood upon the deck. Hack nods at the little man as he dashes beside him.
On the forecastle deck the yellow-striped Merrow slashes out with claws and chomps down with hideously yellow teeth at the half-elf it all but killed a moment ago.
The monster's sickening fish-frosted teeth pierce right into Jun's other shoulder, causing multiple puncture wounds, and fresh blood flows onto the already slick deck.
"Bloody 'ell!" Nikeisha shouted as Jun was mauled. She turned her focus to the one doing the mauling and hoped Shenkt could take care of himself.
Luna's fearsome eldritch magic explodes from her fingertips and slams into the yellow-striped fish-man's skull blasting scales and flesh from bone, and leaving a gaping bloody wound on the monster's face.
Bazzle says another prayer and reaches out to lay a hand on Luna.
He then rushes forward with his scimitar and strikes at the orange merrow.
"Thanks for the healing ... Bazzle? Psalm?"
Luna goes ahead and focuses her inner energy, and suddenly lashes out with flying hands and kicks at the orange striped creature.
Psalm's scimitar cuts deep into the orange striped fish-beast. Luna seizes the opportunity afforded by his slashing sword to slam a double punch and jumping roundhouse kick into the creature with such blinding speed it barely got a hand up in defense. The beast wobbles slightly, even having to put a hand out to grab the rail to catch itself, but even bloodied and bruised it is still not out of the fight.
... it is still not out of the fight.
"Thanks for the healing ... Bazzle? Psalm?"
"Thanks for the healing ... Bazzle? Psalm?"
Hack brings his axe to bear on the creature.
In a burst of speed , Quint's short gnomish legs carry him across the deck and up the starboard stairs to the raised deck at the front of the ship. Filled with perhaps too much confidence, he steps right up to the Merrow with the yellow stripes and strikes out with Windsong.
The blade sinks deeply, and leaves a perfectly triangular hole that streams dark ichor as he pulls it back out.
Quint then tries to once again dodge out of the creature's reach, but is slowed due to the exertion of his quick dash up the stairs
As he retreats, Quint runs to the crewmember on the forecastle who has yet to move , grabs his sleeve and attempts to get him follow back down the stairs. Come on!
Hack's axe dissevers the orange striped Merrow's head from its shoulders, and the massive body slumps hard to the floor pouring purple blood upon the deck at his feet. Quint seizes the moment afforded by the final monster's surprise and shock at what should have been a quick easy meal turning into the death of his fellow warriors. Jamming his rapier deep, deep into the scaly creatures yellow-striped flesh Quint feels the point of his weapon tag into bone. The spray and rhythmic pulse of blood that follows clearly indicates that one of the smallest among the party of Akassa's volunteers is by no means their weakest. Attempting to dodge away without being struck in this case...
... proves ineffectual and Quint takes a raking claw across his back, a slash that draws bloody wounds in his flesh. A sharp scream of pain escapes his lips, but he still has the strength and resolve to grab the mortified crew member and pull him to safety.
Jun is actually lifted off the ground momentarily by the bite of the creature, such is it's power; Jun, however doesn't fall. Instead, he mocks the beast, attempting to overwhelm it's mind with his taunts.
Jun's magic does not have the intended purpose. Hanging on to life by mere threads, and incensed at the death of his friends the Merrow lashes out with violent action at the half-elf who tried to magically mock him.
Having pulled the staggeringly frightened crew member to safety on the main deck, Quint is among his friends when he sees the last Merrow, with bright yellow stripes reflecting in the rocking lantern light sink its disgusting teeth into Jun's neck, and jam his clawed fingers into the bard's belly. The huge fish-man tosses the bard to the floor and jumps from the forecastle deck to land precariously at the landing of two sets of stairs. It bellows a hideous ululating and shrill cry that sends shivers up everyone's spine.
Quint reaches the bottom of the stairs and turns his head just in time to see the Merrow fell the bard and slither over his body onto the main deck. Horrified, he doesn't wait for an advantageous moment. He releases the crewmember and grabs the railing, using it to launch himself back toward the fish creature, hoping to stop it before it is too late to save his half-elven companion.
Psalm moves out to the mid deck and sends a thorny whip out toward the last remain Merrow.
Quint, the unexpected hero of what will surely be many tales told in the future of the Merrow fight aboard the Sea Slipper, finishes what he started, stabbing his, now aptly, named rapier, Windsong, right into and through the heart of the slimy slithering sea creature. A spray of dark crimson ichor splashes across his face with the death blow, just a Psalm's magical whip of thorns cracks over his head snapping the air with a brilliant Whack! Pushing aside the serpentine scaly tail Quint bellows "Healing! Help!" for someone with healing skill to attend Jun, as his body is pale beyond reckoning, and his blood pours in rivulets down the forecastle staircase.
Hack moves in to avenge his fallen friend, Jun.
Psalm moves to Jun and prays for him.
Nikeisha watched Shenkt hack up the dead attacker with a sense of approval. She turned to the crew, what there was of it. "Everyone OK on your end?" She wiped her forehead with her free hand. Not that she'd worked up much of a sweat, but between the fear of the attack and Jun falling...
Quint hesitates for half a moment, making sure the Merrow is actually dead, before climbing over its slippery, scaly corpse to reach Jun. He shakes the man, and as Psalm says his words over their fallen comrade, Quint slaps him awake.
When Quint removes his armor at the end of his shift, his face falls. Though the armor performed admirably in its duty to save his skin, its pristine newness has been ruined.
He pulls out his tools and begins to work at the leather to ensure that it has not been weakened by the encounter. Once he is satisfied that its protectiveness has not been compromised, he starts trying to buff out the scratches. After ten minutes of this, he's surprised to find that one of the claw marks has vanished entirely, as if it had never been there. He continues, and another disappears. A while longer and the armor once again looks as if it has never seen battle. He checks the sleeve, and even the mark he made when he slipped with one of the tools while altering the armor is gone. It's perfect... better than when he bought it.
Over the remaining days of their journey, he learns to refine the technique. His ability to fix things has become magically enhanced. Is this something he got from his father? Could he have done this all along if he had tried? Maybe there was some magic in his newly-acquired tools? Quint can't be sure. He tries some of the minor arcane tricks that Boddy showed him. "Cantrips", he'd called them, and "Prestidigitations." Up until now, Quint's attempts to replicate these effects have only been met with failure, but now it begins to make sense.
Things start to work, unreliably at first, but at least now he can see what it is like to succeed. Where before he could only learn what didn't work, now he can compare his failed attempts to his successful ones, and the tricks begin to become easier.
As he practices, he finds that the techniques he learns also grant him greater control over his innate ability for illusions. With more practice, he feels like he may be able to conjure larger figments and make them move naturally. He may even be able to drape himself in a cloak of illusions that would make him appear to be someone else entirely!
One day, as Quint is again assisting the boatswain, he climbs out on the yardarm to secure a rope. A sudden gust of wind causes the boat to rock, and he has to release the rope to hang on for dear life when the bucking sail attempts to throw him from his perch. His added weight at the end combined with the jerk of the abrupt rush of air against the sail sends a disturbing creaking sound through the heavy spar, and he fears that without the line he dropped the ship will drop it into the drink–and him along with it. Quint reaches out, stretching to grasp the rope, though he knows intellectually that it has already swung far beyond the length of his gnomish arms.
To Quint's surprise, a hand does grasp the rope, but it isn't his hand. Not exactly. The invisible, disembodied hand floats through the air, snatching the rope and making it swing back up toward him. That's a neat trick, he mutters to himself after he manages to tie off the rope. He then climbs cautiously back down to the deck, having had enough of precarious heights for the rest of the day.
Psalm when not busy with work rises early and watches the water move past the boat and countryside at times in prayer or contemplation. He in the evening sings with those who gather for comradery before turning in.
While working he tries to learn what he can of travel by boat. He sees Quint's new magics and watches amazed, "That is a trick indeed."
Hack heaves sighs of relief, when he sees Jun brought back from the mud.
Good fight, all!
He cleans off the blade and contemplates the battles and his primal urges during those fights.
"Well fought my companions!"
********************************
During the rest of the trip Luna finds herself during her down-times taking more notice of the wind and how it is used to move the ship, and at other times she finds herself staring into the fires of the lamps and losing all sense of time as she watches the flames dancing in those same winds she was noticing earlier.
One evening as a thunderstorm gets started, for what seems like the first time ever, she takes notice of the lightning bolts, and how they crack the skies apart with their power, and then one suddenly strikes the ground near the shore they are passing by, and as amazed as she is by the power of the lightning bolt, she also notices that the ground itself was barely affected. What power must the earth have that lightning can have such little effect on it? Another lightning bolt strikes a nearby tree, and it starts to burn, the flames being encouraged by the winds blowing through them, but then along comes the rain, so simple and in such small drops, yet powerful enough that with the cooperation of all the drops working together, they put out the mighty flame that was created by the lightning. She reflects upon this and realizes she and her new companions need to learn to work together, like the small raindrops and hopefully as a team they would be able to extinguish the flames being started by the mighty Arcane order.
As the group gathers around for dinner afer the storm, "My companions, if I may suggest, we need to work on our tactics, learning to work together as a team and not as several individuals fighting against the same monsters. Otherwise we will become our own worst enemies. We should learn how to position ourselves so that no one is left standing alone if at all possible. Having the healers positioned so as to be able to reach the most of us possible, while those of us better equipped for defense are in the front lines. Individuals, working together as a team, like the individual drops of rain work together, can overcome even the mightiest of fires."
Once Nikeisha had made sure that no one was dying and that the ship wasn't about to sink because she wasn't the world's finest swimmer. Since she wasn't going to head into the drink she moved to the foredeck and found a quiet spot to rest, sitting on the railing with her feet dangling over the water.
It had been a weird mission, all told. The monstrous worms had been something she went warm and tingly about obliterating - they had been an abomination and had needed to be destroyed as utterly and as completely as possible, and she was glad that with the departure of several of the others the book was now scattered around the land. No one should be able to make those things.
She didn't feel as good about what had happened with the Goblin. Leaving a letter with the mayor before they'd left wasn't as much as she could have done, but it was as much as she could have done on her own. That shop's guards had been equipped well enough to convince her that this was not the kind of place to rob alone, and she suspected the shopkeep had some power behind him as well.
It was selfish, but she wanted to head back home. The job was done and she wasn't sure what the future held for her new companions - what had brought them together was done, and several had left after all - but she might stay with them, for a while. They were efficient for the most part, stubborn on occasion, and Shenkt trying to find out what she wore under her skirts was going to result in him discovering her Hellish Rebuke spell. Grabby hands seemed to be it's main use.
As she mused on occasionally burning perverts with a small smirk, Nikeisha's eyes were drawn to an overhanging branch. She tried to look away, but her eyes were dragged back to something hanging from the branch. It was large, dark green and brown. A massive leaf? It was strangely rectangular, though. Take it, a voice in her mind murmured, so subtle as to be closer to a strong memory, and she shivered a little. It was the same voice that had made her that offer, deep beneath the city.
Well, a pact had been made, and so far she'd had no reason to regret that choice. Standing up again, bare feet shuffling along the railing to keep her balance, Nikeisha carefully snagged the thing from the branches and pluck it down like a ripe fruit. Ignoring the curious glances of the crew Nikeisha sat again, and looked it over.
It was a book, bound in what seemed to be green leather but at a closer examination seemed to be a huge, thick leaf with a binding to keep it closed. In brass across the centre, in fluid handwriting, were the words 'A Gift'. A light touch unlocked the book and Nikeisha looked inside at the pages explaining some reasonably simple spells in a way she could understand. Her magic was instinctive, to a point, and it described the gestures and feelings needed to focus those instincts, and the words to release it.
With a small shiver, she realised that it was her own handwriting.
~~~~~
At the dinner table, Nikeisha slowly chewed on a piece of fish. She gestured with the tin fork as she considered. "I dunno how many of us can heal. It's not one of my powers, that much I know. I saw our Psalm use some, Jun I think has some...does anyone else?"
Stabbing a random vegetable as it attempted to escape, she added, "My abilities are a bit more...mundane, mostly. If I get stabbed I can burn 'em. I can put 'em to sleep. I think I understand how to snag something in the air, pull it back down. And you've all seen my Eldritch Blast works. Can't use much magic, though. Need a break when I do."
Jun spent the rest of the journey in his bunk when not performing his duties. He had done his Giri, his duty, after all, by not retreating from the enemy, but he still felt as if he had let down those he travelled with.
His near death would have meant that those under his protection would have likely perished as well.
It was during this contemplative period that an...idea took hold in his mind. He was writing in his journal, trying to get a narrative together of exactly what had transpired, when the words just seemed to flow through his pen.
Losing track of time, when breakfast came the next morning, he realized that he had finished the account.
Pausing to eat, when he returned, he read through his account...
and discovered that it was incredibly precise. He was reminded of things that he had thought or felt at the time, thoughts that had receded into the mists of time.
over the next few days, Jun continued to write.
While he had been well educated, and obviously did a fair amount of writing when running his business, never had he written with such veracity before. His words seemed to leap off the page...and reminded him of things that he had learned long ago, like half-remembered songs or fragments of lore.
So it was that when the ship docked and the group headed out into the capital, he had a half-full journal of stories, and renewed memories of skills long thought lost.
It seemed like everyone else was very deep in thought for the remainder of the boat ride. Hack could only think of the songs sung describing great deeds in battle, to honor Saxwyn.
He sang in a low tone that reminded those who heard of so many Highland drinking songs. The subject matter was how they vanquished the worms and slayed the beasts boarding their boat. His voice was not pleasant to hear but the song told the beginnings of a saga that, for any who could master the words, deserved repeating.
He then practiced in a space large enough for him to swing his axe. He sang of battle as he swung the weapon around the open space on the deck. He could not wait to do battle again and begged Saxwyn for the opportunity.
Though losing one more crew member didn't make Captain Kyngral overjoyed, he could not argue that the party had done more than their due diligence for the entirety of the trip. That and the Sea Slipper's belly full of ironwood from the Elvish lands obligated him to fulfill his promise and give each member of Akassa's volunteers another bag of fifty gold coins upon landing safely at Rydwyrna's Northside Docks, those right by the tent bazaar that many people referred to as "little Tindar," because of the number Tindaran shops and immigrants that lived there. Further, Captain Kyngral gave a bonus of another twenty-five gold coins to each member of the party, a generous parting gift, for saving his vessel, crew, and cargo from the deadly clutches of the Merrow that tried to take her. As the group walked down the gangplank to the stilt supported pier, the captain gave them these parting words: "May you ever find what you're looking for!" A common parting blessing of Iewiuf's river sailors.
Upon reaching the end of the pier and wharf, and entering the neighborhood of little Tindar, the party becomes immediately aware that a strange energy has seized the city. Jun, being the most sociable of the group, and also of partial Tindar descent, grabs one of the first shopkeepers he sees, and asks him in their home language, "what news." The news that Jun receives, and then relates to the group, is unsettling to say the least.
"This man says that Enwelros, the half-elven Senator of Southharbor Province, attempted to murder a group of the Republic's agents known as 'The Hand of the Republic.' They defeated him in his mansion here in town, and turned him over for interrogation. His properties were seized, and he now sits in prison awaiting trial. The impact on the common folk has been considerable, they are beginning to question the very validity of the Republic." Hidden behind Jun's words are the dangerous implication that the Republic's power over the people has become less congenial and more martial, to stave off possible rebellion. That idea is fully corroborated by the four person Order patrols that move about the streets in full war gear. Jun continues, "He said there's even rumblings that a military curfew might be put in place."
How quickly things change, the party left a prosperous capital city at peace, and in less than two weeks have returned to a government in disarray, and a city possibly on the brink of rebellion. Now what? Everyone wonders. Will Senator Akassa even have time to see them, with such strange things happening?
Hmph...Republic runnin' amok. Sounds like olden days. We best get to the Senator with our report sooner rather than later.
The Highlander seems a bit flustered and on edge as he warily watches the Order patrols.
Psalm nods at Hack's sentiment. He waits to when he is sure no one else can hear, "No wonder that the mayor and our not so friendly sender wanted things to die down and blow over. I hope that does not encourage tyranny."
We should hurry back to the Senator. Come on, I know a shortcut. "A shortcut" turns out to be a massive understatement. Quint begins to lead the group on an unorthodox path through the streets and back-alleys. He has to adjust the path a few times as he realizes that his companions won't be up for hopping fences or climbing buildings to jump across rooftops. In the end, it's not the most direct route, but he manages to skirt around areas where the city's growth has outstripped the size of the street, causing enough crowding to slow their progress. In the end, they arrive in half the time that it would have taken without him leading.
Nikeisha said a very unpleasant word in a tone that would etch the stonework given a chance. Stupid rich people were doing something stupid, probably so they could rake in another rich person's pile of coin, and the blood on the streets would be her peoples if they had a choice. "Yes, lets."
Psalm often one to think quietly or even brood is clearly in such a mood as the team walks the streets. A republic on the brink of turning on its citizens is not one that would be concerned for a single goblin. Or even then people of an outlining rural province like Blue Blossom. Why am I even in this. I wanted to help these people. Hopefully that is what I have done.
Jun followed along with the others, not really bothering to take the lead: there would be time enough for that later. Right now, he was relying on the scouts in the group to dictate the path.
As he travelled, however, he was clearly contemplating the events of the day, and the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Empire.
Quint and Nikeisha's strange familiarity with the "less seen" parts of Rydwyrna help the group maneuver through the city streets with relative ease, which gives everyone a great deal of hope. Right up until they arrive at the gates of Castle Redwood and find them shut and under the protection of a full Company of guards, mixed units from all the Orders. A sign of burned wood letters large enough to read from a great distance hangs on the shut gate doors. It reads, "Castle Redwood is closed to the public today." Among the crowd that shuffles past the gate, you can hear mumbles from the people about "aristocrats," and "bureaucrats," and worse things that shouldn't be mentioned in polite company. The intelligent among the group can't help but think about the idiocy of closing the doors to government officials at the exact time those officials are needed to reassure their populace of the security of the Republic. And once again, everyone looks at each other with that "now what?" expression on their face.
"Lets let the guards we have business with Senator Akassa. Perhaps they can direct us how send a message while the castle is closed. Unless those of you who are more familiar with the city know?"
"If we take a few minutes I can send a small animal to find her. I knew where she could be found."
"Real smart, this lot." Nikeisha shook her head at the idiocy and moved towards the gates. "We've just completed a job for Senator Akassa. She wanted us to report back when we were done. We need to see her, or someone from her office." Well, they weren't the public right now, and she wasn't in the mood for any lip from the guards.
An urgent job. Quint adds.
Jun also moves forward with Nikeisha and Quint and says "I believe what my companion meant to say is that Senator Akassa is expecting us. If you can't let us in directly, perhaps you could send a runner to find her and give her a note?"
Hack stands to the back of the group, arms crossed.