“They tell stories of this stuff up in Ustalav. Call it ‘fishgold’,” Jirelle said as she turned the heavy statuette over in her hands. The craft of the ugly thing wasn’t impressive, but the value of the red-tinted gold was undeniable. “You should throw it back.”
Captain Trank’s eyes widened comically, and Jirelle was again struck by how unappealing the man’s countenance was—and how appropriate the name of his ship was. “Throw it back?” he gasped. “This thing’s gotta be worth at least a hundred gold. You’re asking me to throw treasure overboard because some backwards lubber thousands of miles away has some sort of superstition? What kind of mercenary are you? You afraid of getting rich or something?”
Jirelle shrugged. “You called me in here to ask my opinion. I gave it. You hired me to help protect the Seatoad from danger. I did it. But I’m not part of your crew, so I don’t have to put up with your ignorance. Your stubbornness. Your lack of empathy. But regardless of what I think about you personally, and regardless of the fact that we’ve arrived at port, I’ve grown fond of your crew. So that makes me concerned for the Seatoad's safety. The ones who craft fishgold don’t give up on their creations easily when they’re snatched from their clutches. If you value your crew and your ship... you should throw it back,” she repeated as she tossed the statuette onto the cluttered desk amid Trank’s tacky collection of figurines. She tried not to look too pleased as the top-heavy thing flopped over and smashed a particularly ostentatious ceramic toad.
As she stood up, she again cast a disparaging eye over the furnishing of Captain Trank’s quarters. A real captain of the Shackles wouldn’t be caught dead among such base frippery. She wiped her palm against the back of the chair, as if to try to scrape the scent of fishgold from her hand. Captain Trank was sputtering. “How dare you? You’re lucky I don’t have you clapped in irons for disrespecting me, elf! You can forget about your bonus!”
Jirelle paused, mid-step toward the door. “Half-elf,” she said under her breath. Her hand dropped to the hilt of her sword as she started to turn. “And for another thing, Trank...” she began, deliberately omitting his title, only to pause as the alarm bell rang out on deck. Both of them listened to the crew’s screams for a heartbeat before Jirelle flashed the captain a dazzling smile. “...it sounds like I’m about to earn that bonus after all
She threw the door open and leapt out on deck, not surprised in the slightest to see a scaly green tide seething up over the Seatoad's bulwarks. While Jirelle recognized the creatures as ulat-kinis (or more commonly “skums” to those surface folk the creatures often preyed upon), she didn’t understand the guttural language the creatures were shrieking. Nonetheless, she knew what they wanted. Blood for fishgold.
There were over a dozen of them already on deck, and she could see half again as many more clambering up onto the pier the Seatoad had docked at. Further out, villagers were yelling and pointing and screaming, but Jirelle knew that there’d be no aid from them in time to save the crew. She barked a laugh, drew her sword, and leapt into the fray.
Jirelle, the iconic swashbuckler, swings into action in this exciting illustration by Stefano Moroni from the Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide, available everywhere July 30!
The crew was already engaging the ulat-kinis, but it was obvious that against a foe driven by vengeance and armed with claws, teeth, and tridents, the Seatoad's sailors were outmatched. Jirelle leapt up onto the bulwarks and raced along the narrow beam to where the nearest skum was preparing to skewer the bosun. She whipped her bright red cloak out, cracking it like a whip in front of the leering monster, and as he foolishly snapped at it, Jirelle was already behind him. The creature snarled, then spun to face her.
“Best of luck in the next life, fishlips,” she said, then held up her sword in a salute. It was already dripping with blood, and the ulat-kini was already collapsing to the deck from the precise, killing blow she’d struck before it realized it’d been stabbed.
Jirelle bounced from the bulwarks onto a rain barrel near the mast. Balancing atop the open barrel with a foot on each edge, she called out to the slavering sea of green on deck before her. “Leave them alone! The one who has your gold’s back in the cabin behind me!” She shook her head as the creatures shrieked and hissed and slobbered, obviously not understanding her words, but she had their attention. That’s what really mattered.
As the ulat-kinis scrambled forward, Jirelle kicked with one foot, tipping the barrel over onto its side. The sudden deluge of water was enough to knock one skum from its feet, and as she ran atop the rolling barrel, the others watched in disbelief—up until the point the heavy barrel smashed into a pair of them, knocking them over as well.
Jirelle had vacated her position atop the barrel an instant before it bowled the two fishy creatures over and now clung to a rope in the rigging along the ship’s port side. Her blade swept to the left, then the right, catching and turning aside trident thrusts and replying with precisely delivered jabs of her own. As the creatures dropped to the increasingly bloody deck below, Jirelle caught sight of what could only be their leader. With a particularly wicked looking trident gripped in his hands, the ulat-kini commander had clambered up onto the nearby pier and was barking out commands to the scaly masses.
With a slash that simultaneously cut the neck of a skum and the rope bound to a cleat at her feet, Jirelle used the momentum to swing out over the churning gap between the Seatoad and the pier. She landed with a pirouette, then came up to face the monster with a wink. The creature’s eyes widened as it took a step back, surprised that the half-elf was suddenly perched on a piling just above him.
“You the one in charge here?” she asked, not caring if the commander understood her or not. Her blade stabbed out, precisely striking the creature between the gills, confidently finishing him off with a twist of the wrist. As the commander toppled into the waters below the pier with a foamy red gurgle, she whipped her blade to the side to clean it of blood. “Oh... guess not anymore!”
The sound of the remaining ulat-kinis crying out in fear and the splashes as they dove from the Seatoad’s deck into the waters below brought a smile to Jirelle’s lips, but as she turned to look back at the ship she’d been hired to protect for the past several weeks, that smile broadened.
It hadn’t been her displays of panache and bravado that had driven the monsters off. It was the sight of the bright red tentacles slithering up from the sea to grip the Seatoad by the stern that had done that. Captain Trank’s squeal of shocked fear was unmistakable as a tentacle slithered in through a cabin porthole. The crew had largely abandoned the ship by now and were fleeing up the pier to the shore, but as unappealing as the captain had been, Jirelle wasn’t about to let him be pulled below by whatever was attached to the unseen end of those tentacles.
She swung back from the pier onto the ship’s deck, already anticipating Trank’s reaction to being saved by the woman he’d just insulted. The ulat-kinis may have fled, but as Jirelle stepped forward to start cutting away at those writhing crimson limbs, she knew that the real fun was only just beginning!
About the Author
James Jacobs is the Creative Director for Pathfinder. He's been helping to shape and create the world of Golarion and the Pathfinder RPG from the very start, with his adventure, "Burnt Offerings," introducing gamers around the world to the joys of goblin songs, the lurking menace of the runelords, and the dangers of drinking hagfish water. James maintains an ongoing AMA thread on the paizo.com forums which currently contains more than 75,000 posts.
About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.
