"At least that implies that they don't call the guard." Inksin comments.
"But before I agree to join, I'd like to know what we have. What do you bring to the table and who else is in on that?"
"I myself only got what I have on me and some magic. I'm not strong, but I can stand my ground against most of those bullies. But if there is a mob, I'm screwed. I don't do melee. What do you have."
"It's only us so far." Persephone tells, pointing to Faerveren. "I got a house as a base of operations."
"I can do some magic too, granted by the great beyond, and can stand up to one of those guys too. No one likes a mob. That's why we look for allies."
"I'm Faerveren by the way."
"I'm just a mischievous brat who is looking for some fun. And fun we had. But now they brought more fun than we can stomach on our own, so we want to share."
"Let's do a raid then. We look out for one of those thugs at the docks tonight and everyone does what they are best at to give the others an idea of the strength of the team."
"On their home turf?" Persephone asks with a raised brow.
"The docks are my home turf to. You just include the ships into it and we are playing on level. We just have to be quick and have a proper disguise."
"If someone comes along we three are just doing business. Like you hiring me out to her."
"How much money do I have to bring to make it look realistic." Faerveren teases the tattooed woman.
"If you start counting out silver, I'll drown you in the harbor."
"So I'll get to add pimp to my résumé." Persephone comments. "It would be nice to wipe the grin off a thug's face. It might be a nice thing to see what you can do. But most of the interesting stuff I can do is no good for such a public ambush."
"How about we do an investigation around town who got that wine? I assume everyone gets the same kind of bottles and no one else sells from that batch. I could be wrong, but it's a start."
"They should have a too large stock of that stuff and easily take the bait if someone asks for a good bottle of wine that may cost a little more."
"But if you want to punch a face first, we can come along and watch that it doesn't go south."
"What is that interesting stuff?
"Well, I do healing, mist to hide in, or cause fear. And I'm not too bad at hitting someone on the head with a mace."
"Okay, if we go into details - I'm good at sneaking and generally getting into places I'm not supposed to be in."
"If you don't want to do it in the open, then why not break into Marinelli's place. I bet he has lists who has to pay him. Strike at the heart. And either we sneak in and out with them none the wiser, or we leave them a trail of bodies to scare the s@!! out of them."
"You and what army? If we can manage three together, we can count ourselves lucky."
"There has to be something else. Like that giant rat problem on the Bear Grove Farm. Where we can test our combined battle prowess without risking an open war against the mob."
"Now that you mention it... I've seen a ship lying very low in the water, despite being unloaded already. I asked a sailor and he told something occupying the bilge. Would be worth a shot. Sailor's are a superstitious pack. Maybe there is a job for us."
"Sounds like a plan. But first let's enjoy this bottle of wine." Persephone refills the glasses. "Cheers."
After the bottle is emptied the group leaves the tavern in direction of the harbor. The ship lying suspiciously low in the water is the "Promises Made". The trained eye might recognize it as a modified rahadoumi merchant vessel.
On deck someone scrubs the planks. No one else is seen on the ship.
"Ahoy. I've heard you got some pest problem in the bilges. We're here to offer our services of clearing them out." Inkskin calls to the deckhand.
"Ahoy. Gonna ask the captain for ya. Gimme a minute."
After a minute the captain of the ship appears. "Who are ya? I know landlubbers if I see some. But anyway, you can have the job for two gold per head if you manage to clear out the bilges. Take it or leave it." With that the captain turns and returns into the cabins of the ship.
"Two gold ain't bad. But he hasn't told what pest there is."
"Let's find out." Inkskin says and climbs the plank.
"Hey lad. What exactly is living in your bilges? I wouldn't expect such a fuss about bilge spiders."
"It's the boatswain who went crazy. He believes to be a mermen and fights everyone who tries to operate the bilge pumps. He is crazy strong and drowned a sailor who didn't take his s@~@."
"As we're short of sailors anyway the captain didn't order to solve the issue yet. Good luck with getting him out."
"Does the captain want the guy dead or alive?" Persephone inquires.
"Yes, and off the ship."
"Then let's do that." Locke tells and leads the way into the belly of the ship.
Persephone dons her shield and fastens the grip on her mace. Then she follows Locke.
Wooden stairs lead below deck next to the cargo bay. After going two decks down the entrance to the bilges is through a trap door and a ladder that leads into the dark. The water in the bilges that moves with the ship can be heard slapping at the hull.
"You go first?" Locke asks Persephone as she is the one with the best armor.
She casts dancing lights and sends them down, some above some under water.
Not wanting to give whoever is down there too much time to prepare Persephone jumps into the water, hoping it will break her fall.
Persephone falls into the water, loses her balance and takes a bath in the stinking sludge. Behind one of the two bilge pumps squats the crazy boatswain with wide open eyes and a wide grin revealing yellow teeth. From the taint of the skin and the shape of the teeth, an half orc.
Faerveren jumps into the water too, just more elegant. Down there she readies an attack in case the guy comes close.
Locke lays down on her belly and looks into the bilges sticking her head in. Seeing the guy, she shoots him with magic missiles.
The magic missiles unerringly hit the man. The crazy guy comes forward with a cutlass in hand and attacks Faerveren, who fails to wound the man, and gets badly wounded herself.
Persephone decides to stay down and touch the guy with her gift of death.
Locke keeps shooting magic missiles, hoping to take down the crazy guy, before he does the half elf and comes after her.
Faerveren gasps as she gets cut. Seeing the crazy guy badly wounded she stabs him again, but to little effect.
The combined attacks wound the boatswain badly, but this enrages him only more. But this time his attack misses.
Persephone tries to touch the guy again, but fails to grab him in the water.
Faerveren stabs him again. But her standing solitary as meat shield is horribly wrong.
Locke shoots again.
Between the magic missiles that come relentlessly and another lucky hit from Faerveren, the boatswain goes down.
As the man keels over and his blood turns the water red, Persephone emerges from the wet bed she was lying in. Seeing Faerveren she calls out "F+@~! Why have all our fights to go that horrible?"
"It wasn't that bad. You botched your entry, but otherwise it ended quickly and everything seems back to good."
"Check what's on his body. That weapon for sure looked valuable."
"How long does it take to pump out all the water?" Persephone asks no one on particular. Then she grabs the body and drags him up the ladder.
Back on dry floor she drops him and pats him down. "Nice, some gold."
"At this point hours." Isabella replies. "Grab his stuff and lets go get our reward"
The group takes the stuff of the dead boatswain and climbs the stairs back to the deck. The deck scrubbing sailor points them to the captain's room.
It is a large room at stern with a large desk that has a sea map of the area and some navigational tools on it. The captain stands behind the desk. "So you managed to get the old nutjob out of the bilges? Congratulations. You're qualified for the job. Welcome on the crew of the 'Promise Made'. The two gold are paid in the next harbor."
"Tell me that is some kind of sailor joke." Persephone says to Locke.