Hoga will fire again at another bowman.
Round 3
Lunthawg will cast Enlarge Person on Deron.
Round 3
Deron attempts to slam his shield into the face of one of the slavers and follows it up with a slash from his sword.
Patch did his best to aid Deron, flanking one of the pirates and waiting for just the right moment to get a good whack in.
Round 4+
Round 3 Initiative 8
HP = 18
AC = 15
Weapon Equipped = None
Spells Left
1 5(5/day) Protection from Evil, Cure Light Wounds (DC 15), Detect Undead, Obscuring Mist
0 (at will) Purify Food and Drink (DC 14), Create Water, Light, Detect Magic, Guidance
Channel Positive Energy = 5
Status = None
Daniel draws his crossbow while calling upon the power of Gozreh
Round 4 Initiative 8
HP = 18
AC = 15
Weapon Equipped = Heavy Crossbow
Spells Left
1 5(5/day) Protection from Evil, Cure Light Wounds (DC 15), Detect Undead, Obscuring Mist
0 (at will) Purify Food and Drink (DC 14), Create Water, Light, Detect Magic, Guidance
Channel Positive Energy = 5
Status = None
confirm fail
confirm
swing
throw
Amidst the storm and the chaos on the deck, Deron opens a gash on a slavers ribcage, Lunthawg casts yet another spell, this one upon Deron causing him to increase in size.
The slavers get off their own attacks this round, the two remaining crossbowmen both find their marks as Jens drops and Lunthawg takes a bolt in his thigh . One of the three slavers already on deck misses his slash at Deron, but the other two both find their marks, one for Deron and one for Patch . Another slaver takes this round to swing over to your ship, draw his weapon and move over to Hoga and another one tries to throw another grapple line at your ship, but misses.
Patch finishes off the slaver that Deron had just hit, dropping him to the deck and Hoga sinks another bolt deep into yet another crossbowman. Daniel casts upon him self as he draws his crossbow.
Captain Ragnar is steering best he can along the path that Patch had laid out for him and it is quite lucky that Patch knows these reefs as well as he does for your ship is undamaged so far, though the slaver's vessel suddenly slows as you hear the awful sound of wood breaking upon a reef. There is no doubt to anyone that that sound spells out the end for that ship.
At the sudden change in momentum, one of the grappling lines snaps, but the other is still holding as of yet and your ship has begun to slow and turn slightly as a result. Captain Ragnar frantically yells out: Cut the line! Cut the damn line lest we sink with them!
Hoga's feeling competent. Another shot at a bowman.
Round 4
Understanding the peril they were in, Patch ducked away from the fighters and slashed at the rope holding the ships together with all his strength, severing it with his cutlass. They couldn't afford to sink their ship in the middle of a hurricane!
swings/jumps
Attack
Deron misses a shield bash at one of the slavers, but then fells him with a blow from his scimitar. Lunthawg casts a spell upon his remaining opponent who fails to strike Deron.
Like rats fleeing a sinking ship, the remaining slavers all attempt to either jump or swing from their doomed ship to yours. In the rough seas most of them are lost to the waves that lap up high between the ships, but two manage to make it safely aboard your ship and draw their weapons as they look around trying to figure out how many of them are left.
Hoga misses a fleeing slaver with his crossbow shot as Patch quickly dashes to the railing of the ship and severs the remaining grapple line, freeing your ship from the sinking one. Patch then helps Ragnar straighten out the wheel and right your course to avoid the reefs so that your ship doesn't suffer the same fate as the slaver's.
Daniel channels positive energy healing everyone who is injured.
Round 5
Deron takes a step away from the slavers but keeps his shield and sword at the ready.
Drop your weapons!
Hoga aims at one of the slavers, ready to fire if they don't comply.
Realizing that not enough of them made it across to your ship, the remaining pirates drop their weapons and look quite disgusted with their current situation.
"Let the girls decide what to do with them," Patch suggested to the captain, not without an evil grin. Raising his voice, he called to the others, "How is Jens doing?"
Daniel moves to check the injured on our crew.
"I doubt the girls are in any state to come up here right now. I should think whomever goes down there next should let Signe know we won before walking into the room as well. What do you normally do with prisoners?"
Olaf is currently tending to Jens and answers, He's alive, though still bleeding some from his wound.
Patch, if you'll come man the wheel for a moment I will go tell my daughter it is safe up here. If I know her, she has her crossbow trained on the door, ready to fire at anyone she doesn't immediately recognize. If Patch takes the wheel Ragnar heads below deck to inform Signe of the fights outcome.
One of the slavers comments, You lot are nothing but thieving dogs, those girls were our property, bought and paid for. He glares at you all angrily. You may note that he appears to be a bit better dressed the rest of them.
Their families may not agree with you.
Hoga stows his bow and draws his falchion, ready to escort the pirates to wherever the captain says they're supposed to go.
Lunthawg walks over to the slaver that spoke and smiles up at him.
You're right, we're thieves. But I'm also pretty sure that you're thieves. So we're all thieves together. Can you really be mad because we're better thieves? Plus we're getting paid to do this particular bit of thiefing.
He grins widely as he pauses.
Now I'm thinking about burning your boat. Do you think it would burn while sinking if we threw fire at it?
Patch took the wheel as Ragnar said.
"No honor among thieves, eh?" he called cheerfully to the slavers. "What did you pay for them, then?"
"That went better than I expected. You all live very exciting lives."
After seeing to Jens, he loads his crossbow and keeps it trained on the slavers.
"Are any more likely to come after us?"
Deron, still currently a giant, just chuckles when the slavers accuse them. He lets the rain clean the blood off himself and his sword.
Responding to Patch, he sneers and says, So sorry, but I don't seem to have my ledger with me. Looking over to Daniel, Sure, a whole fleet will be coming after you.
Captain Ragnar returns to the deck with Signe following behind him, still holding her crossbow. Ragnar will take the wheel back and steers the ship back towards open waters.
Looking over the slavers, Signe says, The girls have a couple of opinions with what to do with these scum. Simply tossing them overboard is the kindest of their suggestions.
Sounds good to me. Simple and effective.
The slaver reaches for a weapon that is no longer there and then sputters a bit before saying, You can't just toss us over board in this storm so far from land! That's a death sentance. You'd kill us for trying to reclaim our property? He seem quite surprised by this turn of events and his crew look none to happy either. You get the feeling they won't be going overboard volunatarily.
Signe speaks up, addressing the slaver that was speaking, No, we're not killing you for trying to reclaim your property, but for you inhumane treatment of those young girls! Did you think they wouldn't tell us how your men treated them? Or are you going to claim that you didn't know what your own men were doing? Signe looks ready to just shoot the man on the spot.
"I have no wish to kill anyone out of hand. They are evil men but they did surrender to us. Is there no place of justice we could bring them to?"
Daniel keeps his crossbow steady on the men as he says this. His words advocate mercy but his demeanor clearly indicates he'll shoot them if they make a move he doesn't like.
I wonder if they would show the same mercy to me?
The briny deep?
Captain Ragnar speaks up, There is no place here in the Shackles that would take offense to what they have done. I suppose we could take them back to Cheliax with us, though like as not they will hanged for pirates there. So unless you want to free them somewhere, they may as well face death here.
"Give us a reason not to do as the girls say," Patch said, turning from scanning the waters to scowl at the ringleader. "What do you have to offer to save your scurvy hides?"
In truth, he didn't think there was anything the slavers could offer that would offset Signe and her charges' wrath.
Let Besmara be their judge. And if she won't have them, Pharasma will.
Hoga swears a quick prayer to the Lady of Graves.
Lunthawg sighs.
No one ever let's me burn anything. Good for you pirates I guess. Besides you were going to kill us for theft. Are you really shocked that we'll do the same?
He pauses for a moment.
We could let them buy passage back to port from us if you really don't want to kill them. I don't care much, though I guess I like money more than death.
He shrugs.
Tashi comes up from below deck and darts over to where Patch is and tries to hide behind him while watching what is going on with the slavers.
The lead slaver speaks up again as he throws his hands up in the air, Sure, whatever you say. We'll pay you. In fact, take us back to port and I will take you to my office, find my ledger and give you however much I paid for all the girls on your boat. Does that sound reasonable to you? In return you free me and my men.
Maybe if you triple the amount, we could talk. We've got a big crew...
Deron laughs at the offer. Take them back so they can have the whole island hang us instead? I think not.
Patch bent down to murmur in Tashi's ear. "I guess those girls told you what happened to them. What do you think we should do with these bilge rats?"
He wasn't very inclined to let them go. Regardless of what they'd done, they'd seen the crew out of their disguises now, and Patch had no intention of becoming a hunted man in his home town.
Lunthawg coughs.
Maybe you didn't understand that all goblins aren't stupid. That's okay.
He'll walk up and stamp on the guy's foot.
But hey, if you don't have anything of value on you to trade now, overboard is fine. I was thinking if you did we could head back to the area, drop you in a little dingy, and be on our merry way. But I guess not.
He smiles up at the man.
The slaver didn't expect the little goblin to stamp on his foot and he lets out a curse and does a little hop back. He clearly wants to strike out at Lunthawg, but no doubt realizes that that would not be a wise thing to do right now while he is already facing death. He settle for scowling at Lunthawg.
At Patch's question, Tashi turns slightly and pulls her blouse down in the back to expose the ugly brand on the backside of her shoulder. All the girls have these now to mark us if we ever escaped. These are the same people who bought and sold me too.
Upon seeing the brand on Tashi's shoulder, Daniel's eyes go dark. He raises the crossbow.
"Gozreh will be judging you scum for this. Jump now or learn to swim with a bolt in your guts."
Ugly guy is really, really strange.
Lunthawg shrugs. I'm guessing this won't make me any money, might as well leave them to those that like killing for vengeance. With that he'll go look for tar or oil and do his best to throw flaming rags over to the sinking ship.
Patch's reaction was much like Daniel's, though he wasn't terribly surprised. With a wave of his hand he made sure that the slavers' weapons were well out of reach.
"Off you go, slavers, or we'll give the girls your weapons and let them deal with you. If you're fast, you might find a bit of your ship to cling to." Patch didn't leave Tashi behind, though he'd have liked to knife the slavers before sending them over - just to be sure.
Captain Ragnar speaks up, Well, it looks like you lot are about to take a swim back to your ship or you can try to make your way to shore. Your choice either way, but I would suggest that you make yourselves as light as possible for your swim. That means dropping any other weapons you may have and any gold or jewelry upon your persons. If you object, we can just kill you now and strip your corpses.
With a lot of grumbling, the slavers do as they are told and drop everything they have left on them into a pile. You then herd them to the side of the ship, where one by one they dive in and you can see them heading towards their sinking ship which now appears to also have a couple small fires on it. No doubt the handiwork of Lunthawg since he was already over by the railing and grinning widely.
As the slavers swim towards their sinking (and smoldering) ship, Signe keeps her crossbow trained on them just in case one tries to climb back up the Sea Dragon. Jens is heading below deck to get some rest, Olaf is climbing back up to the crows nest to keep an eye out for any signs of other pursuit and Ragnar is still at the wheel steering the ship out of the reefs and back into open water. Seeing the slavers clearly brought up some bad memories for Tashi and she has her arms around his waist, face buried against his chest as she tries not to cry. There is a pile of assorted cutlasses, daggers, knifes and random assortment of earrings, rings and a necklace. You still have several scared girls on board and are a few days from your return port. At least the weather seems to be improving a bit as the rain lets up and you can see the sun attempting to peek through the clouds.
Deron slowly walks the deck, making sure none of the slavers attempt to come back aboard as the ship leaves.
Hello, what's all this? What could we get for this booty?
Patch patted Tashi's shoulder in sympathy, then left her clutching Ragnar and went to examine the loot.
"A pretty penny for a short day's work, eh lads?" he said, plucking up the head slaver's cutlass and admiring its shine in the growing light.
He gave the rest of the slavers' booty a mere disinterested glance, then sighed and peered at it a bit harder.
Satisfied that the slavers aren't climbing back up, Signe takes Tashi below to tell the girls what has transpired up here.
Deron makes no objection to Patch claiming the cutlass, and seems to have very little interest in the loot at all.