Somewhere in the Shackles
A bright full moon shines down on a placid jungle island. A two-masted ship sits anchored in the bay, sails furled, and rowboats dot the shore. Tracks in the white sand lead from the boats into the dense trees, palm fronds swaying in the gentle breeze.
There is a disturbance at the jungle's edge. A man charges through the brush, long dark hair whipping behind him as he makes a break for the rowboats. Captain Tremain, pirate caprain and treasure hunter extraordinaire! The men of his crew follow behind, blackguards and blackhearts the lot of them, and the calm of the night is broken by the sounds of struggle.
Back in the jungle, a squad of men brings up the rear, charging desperately through the underbrush. Terrified, they stumble through the dark tangle of trees and ferns and vines. One falls into a pit trap, impaled on spikes. Another runs neck-first into the coils of a hanging snake. Behind the unfortunate stragglers, a surging horde of viny green humanoids chases them, carrying torches and bone-white spears, eerily quiet as they move through the jungle to overtake the men.
"There's too many!" whimpers one of the men. "We'll never make it! Sovukh, what do we do?" All eyes turn to one among them with skin as green as their pursuers - Sovukh Serpent-Eye!
"We keep our wits, Sanna!" Sovukh snarled as he led the men through the jungle. If they hadn't been full-tilt running for their lives, Sovukh might have slapped the man. Then again, he might not. The Captain's talk about how to lead might be sinking in after all, a corner of his mind thought. "Neither Rull nor Besmara put me on this earth so I could be kicked off it by a mob of pissed-off lianas!" With a nod of his head he motioned the men forward, as he scanned the terrain, looking for a way out of this jam...
Sovukh scans the jungle, spotting a large tree that looks like it must have been partially uprooted in a storm. "To me, men, with the ropes! Pull that tree down into the path!" Straining with all his might, the half-orc pulls.
"Put your backs to it men! Quickly, unless you want to find out what vegetables have for dinner!"
Though paralyzed with fear, Sovukh's barking commands get through to the men. With the vegepygmies bearing down on their position, they fell the tree with a heave and a ho! The tree comes down, blocking the horde.
There's no time to waste feeling victorious. The block will slow them down, but not stop them; after all, this jungle is their home.
Sovukh takes a moment to watch the tree fall with a satisfied grin, before snapping back to the matter at hand. "Good job, men! Now, haul asses for the beach, and watch your step!"
The men make haste to put some distance between themselves and the vegepygmies. The night is dark, the light from the full moon only piercing through the dense jungle canopy in scattered pools of silver.
It takes a thief to catch a thief, the roshka saying goes through Sovukh's mind as he leads the men through the jungle, trying to eye up spots where he'd try and waylay someone.
Sovukh's keen eye spots the signs of buried traps in the earth, the darkness proving no obstacle for his orc eyes. His companions, eager to make it to the safety of the ship, are less careful. The group charges through the undergrowth, Sovukh blazing the trail around the traps. Just as they make the treeline, Sovukh hears a scream from behind him. Kerm's taken a wrong step and now he hangs by the leg, suspended from a tree by a tangle of vines and hollering his head off. "NO! Help! Don't let them get me! Somebody help!" Further back, it sounds as though the vegepygmies have managed to make it past barrier. The beach is visible through the trees, the last rowboat waiting on the sand.
Sovukh scowls in an exasperated manner. "Chert!" Drawing his dagger from his belt, Sovukh runs back, slashing at the vines and doing his best to pull Kerm down, not making any special effort to be careful or gentle about it.
"They say all pirates risk meeting the hangman. This isn't what they mean, Kerm! Now run!"
As Sovukh begins sawing away at the vines with his knife, the vine retracts suddenly as if recoiling, and Kerm thumps to the ground.
"Thanks Sovukh. Let's get out of here!"
The group breaks through the treeline, the vegepygmies chasing after. Bone spears whizz through the air near the men's heads, but once they hit sand they're in the clear. The vegepygmies crowd at the treeline, angrily thumping their chests or pounding rocks on tree trunks, but they don't dare follow beyond the protection of the jungle. The last rowboat awaits the pirates, and the ship in the bay is already beginning to unfurl her sails.
Sovukh responds to the commotion at the treeline with a mixture of shouts and snarls, punctuated by slapping his own chest. Having grown up in a tribe that subsisted almost entirely off of raiding, he meant all of this to be a display of good-natured respect. Good show, no hard feelings, see you next time. Of course it always felt better to be on the winning side of these things, but that was just the way of the world.
Sovukh's mood gets brighter still as they get closer to the ship. When they're close enough to board, he yells out, surprisingly cheerfully, "Ahoy the ship! Eight more comin' aboard!"