"Pierce"'s page

Pierce has been listening to the discussion, unwilling to contribute his own thoughts for the time being. He watches Jewel leave and frowns. He doesn't understand why she would be so upset, since atheism was the norm on his ship and where he came from. "Maybe it isn't about what god you follow, it's about what god follows you," he suggests quietly. "Seems to me if some big ol' powerful god told me I'd better do somethin', I wouldn't have much of a choice. Just like the cap'n on the ship. Maybe there's nowhere you can go where someone isn't tellin' you what to do all the time."

"If you're in charge of the ship, you get the treasure. We just hafta start our own crew. Seems to me that goin' after pirates and takin' their stuff wouldn't be that bad." He quietly imagines stabbing the captain of the pirate ship they recently escaped and sighs happily. "But fightin' dragons would be good too," he allows.

"Do your folks only fight with weapons you make yourself?" Pierce complains. "I didn't make my sword, someone bought it. Good bows are probably expensive too, just like crossbows. Anyways, we might as well be throwing rocks at this stump."

Pierce says, "Don't know why we don't have crossbows. I once saw a ship that had a huge crossbow attached to the deck. It fired arrows with shafts that were bigger around than Clara's head! I bet that would make people stay away from your houses." He grumbles. "If we're buildin' stuff anyways, why can't we build somethin' cool like THAT?"

Pierce shakes his head and backs away slowly from the girl children's shows of physical prowess. "That's unnatural," he mutters.

Pierce snickers again.

Pierce moves to look like he is helping but doesn't actually contribute much.

Strength: 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (8) - 2 = 6

Pierce rolls his eyes and snickers again. "If it were that fat guy, I'd just stab him with Blooddrinker instead of rolling it around or shooting at it. Tarjun's the one who likes to wield big pieces of wood, so I'll let him deal with it."

Pierce lets out an involuntary snicker at Tarjun's foibles, but looks a bit guilty afterwards.

Pierce wrinkles his nose while maintaining his stare at Tarjun. "I guess," he says reluctantly. He doesn't put his weapon away, though, remaining on guard in case of treachery.

"It's not cheating, you've got a magic club!" Pierce crows. He presses his attack, maneuvering nimbly around Tarjun's slow and powerful swings. Despite his bravado, he is shaking slightly with either enthusiasm or nervousness.

Attack (rapier), nonlethal: 1d20 + 8 - 4 ⇒ (8) + 8 - 4 = 12
Damage (piercing), nonlethal: 1d4 + 3 ⇒ (2) + 3 = 5

Pierce narrows his eyes, and suddenly lunges at Tarjun, hoping to catch the bigger boy off-guard.

Attack (rapier), nonlethal: 1d20 + 8 - 4 ⇒ (6) + 8 - 4 = 10
Damage (piercing), nonlethal: 1d4 + 3 ⇒ (4) + 3 = 7

I won't even roll the sneak attack damage, since I doubt that hits. Interestingly, from everything I can find, sneak attack damage is only nonlethal if it is struck with a nonlethal weapon like a sap. Even if the weapon is used nonlethally, sneak attack damage is still lethal damage.

Pierce glares at Tarjun. "I'm not scared!" he protests. "What's your magic club called? Magic weapons have to have a special name. And even if it's magical, my sword is still better!"

Pierce blinks. "You have a magic club?" he asks suspiciously. "Blood-drinker isn't magic."

"No way a club is as good as a sword," Pierce sneers flatly. "You wanna bet? You an' a club against me an' my sword?"

Pierce purses his lips. "Maybe," he says, dubiously. He draws his rapier as if to compare it with a club and inspects the point. "I'd rather have this than a club, if I had to fight."

"We'd hafta fight each other, with sticks so we don't stab anybody. That's how I learned it."

Pierce watches Clara and Tarjun squabble and shoot, and fidgets. "Why we've gotta shoot arrows? Can't we learn more about swordfighting? I took down that pirate with a sword."

Pierce scoffs with the other kids. "It can't be that hard." He tries to nock an arrow but he's clearly never done this before.

Attack (longbow): BAB+Dex+size, nonproficiency: 1d20 + 6 - 4 ⇒ (17) + 6 - 4 = 19

Somehow his shot bullseyes the closest target. He looks surprised for a brief second and then narrows his eyes and throws his head back as if to say he meant to do that.

Pierce attempts to rally his spirits with the promise of physical violence. "Let me see one of those," he motions to Clara. "What should we use for targets? Got anything squishy?"

"She said she needed to go look at the trees," Pierce mumbles, proving that at least he's paying attention to what the other kids say.

Pierce stares awkwardly into space, perhaps like he is scanning the horizon on a boat, though there are too many trees in the way to see anything. He is silent for a long while.

Then he shrugs. "Fun? Not really. There was a bard on the ship who told stories sometimes, and I liked those. Ghost stories were my favorite. He died, though." He pauses.

"Some of the men would fight, and they would bet on the winner, but I wasn't allowed. Once I tried to help the man who was teaching me the rapier win, with um, you know, magic, but I got in big trouble for that. Do you know how to read? Lots of the crew didn't, but I was lucky enough to get apprenticed to the captain's clerk, and he sometimes let me read the notes they got from the ship's owners. And there was one book of stories from something called "the Roadfinder's Society" about this magical place called Osiria, I think? I only got to read it once or twice while I was learning, but it was pretty exciting."

He sighs. "I guess I'm lucky to be here, but honestly I don't know what to do. This place is so different from everything I've ever known. It's gonna take me a while to get used to it. But don't worry about me, you just do what you do. I bet it's nice to be home."

Pierce thinks about that. "Sometimes I played tag on the ship, but I wasn't allowed to jump over the rail. That was against the rules. Seems like we could say that jumping weren't allowed. Still think you'd win, Clara?"

Pierce nods, and shrugs. "Okay," he says. "I'm not very good at climbing, though, because the captain wouldn't let me go up the mast after I accidentally spit on him." He puts a strange emphasis on the word 'accidentally' that suggests he didn't accidentally spit, but rather didn't intend to hit the captain.

Pierce watches the other children bicker and thinks about how alien it is for him to live in a community focused on a god. He perks up when Jewel mentions their tree house. "What's a 'tree house'? Is that where tree folk live or something?"

Pierce looks shifty. "Whaddya mean? Din't I just use magic words to do it, like the rest of you?" When he sees that this answer doesn't satisfy Tarjun or Clara, he sighs and glares at the ground. "I don't know," he says lamely. "It's always been like that. Maybe it's 'cause of where I come from. I just think it an' it happens."

Pierce looks surprised. "I never thought of that," he admits. "But I liked the salt fish that the cook made before the pirates came. Maybe she used magic, too."

I'm not sure what sort of roll would be necessary for any of the kids to recognize that Pierce doesn't have to make gestures or use words to cast his spells. Maybe it's a Spellcraft check?

Pierce sighs. He attempts to look impressed at the different light spells, but his heart isn't in it. He shrugs and peremptorily performs the arcane gestures and verbal component for prestidigitation on Clara's clothes.

I can't get past Tarjun's "oracle of wood" in his status line!

Pierce waits for Tarjun to leave before he undresses and bathes, making sure the temperature of the water is comfortable with his prestigitation spell. He is extremely jumpy and nervous and keeps looking around to make sure no one is spying on him or jumping out of the woods to catch him unawares. After he is done, he surreptitiously casts prestidigitation again to clean his clothes before he puts them back on. Then he runs off to discover where Tarjun went, finding Clara and Jewel instead. "Ho there," he says, politely turning his back when he sees what they are doing. "Why do you got your clothes on in the bathtub?" he asks, puzzled.

He nods as if he is still puzzled when Jewel explains, his brow furrowing even more. He seems to mentally wrestle a bit with something, then finally volunteers, "You can't do that with your magic? Um, I... I can. I don't know why they're different, but it's pretty easy. You just say 'Make them clean,' and snap your finger like this, and they clean themselves. I thought everyone could do that!"

Pierce's eyes widen and he begins to look around like a trapped rat. "Do I have to? I'd rather go back with Mrs. Jonson," he whispers. "I don't know anythin' about jacks."

Pierce sticks close to Tarjun without direction to the contrary.

Pierce stares at Clara like she grew another head, but still seems reluctant to say much.

Pierce looks disgusted at Jewel's description of the keelhauling. Obviously, he's never heard this story before. He seems reluctant to talk, cowed by all the adults. He gives Tarjun urgent looks when he brings up that he took something from the ship, not exactly subtle.

"I'm Pierce," he says lamely.

Pierce instinctively tries to make himself small and unnoticeable. He fidgets and looks around nervously, not really sure what happens next.

Pierce watches Clara and Tarjun warily, unsure if he wants to get between them and their squabble. "Isn't it weird how th' ground rolls around? Walking on land is much harder than walking on th' deck."

"What's wrong with boats?" says Pierce, a tad defensively.

Pierce appears confused. "Huh?" he asks. "How is it a trick? I dunno. Do people get presents when they get married? I'd like that. One of the sailors on the ship was married, an' he said it made goin' away much better." He shrugs.

Merry merry!

"Pierce? How long were you on the Man's Promise? You look like you're about the same age as the rest of us."

Pierce shrugs. "Uh, I guess it was four or five years? I don't really remember. Everyone tole me it was my birthday a couple of times, but I don't know how they knew. We din't have a lot of parties on the ship." He looks curiously at Tarjun. "How old are you?"

I'm not sure I get what Clara is checking for. :) He's not undead, and it's been a long while since he's taken a bath. I suppose he could be a little gassy after having land-food? :)

"Pierce? What was your life like before you joined a ship? Sorry I never asked, but I never thought about it before."

"Yeah, you come from Rahadoum, right? What's Rahadoum like? Your parents are still there?"

Pierce has been quiet and introverted ever since he left the ship, and for some reason he doesn't respond to the kids' direct questions. He merely shrugs and looks off in the distance. It might be that he's not handling the change from cabin boy to land-lubber very well.

"I don't really remember anything before The Man's Promise," he mumbles. "Honestly, I'm not sure what I'm 'posed to do now that I don't got all those railin's and boards around the edges of my home."

He wrinkles his nose when the conversation shifts to getting married. "The best thing about gettin' married is that then you've got somethin' to come back for when you die. Like, lots of good ghost stories are about someone's wife hauntin' them after she's dead, 'cause she pined away from bein' lonely or somethin' like that. But I dunno if that's worth it. You can be a ghost for lots of reasons."

Pierce prepares himself for his first night away from the sea, at least as far as he can remember. He appears puzzled by all the attention the food animals are getting, but elects to remain quiet-- figuring that it's a land thing and he doesn't want to make Tarjun mad at him.

Pierce twists his face in conflict, but shakes his head. He doesn't want to be embarrassed by getting tripped by Mrs. Johnson, and certainly doesn't want to risk her ire by trampling more of her vegetables.

Pierce watches carefully, taking mental notes on how Mrs. Jonson and Tarjun fight. He laughs when Tarjun gets tripped, but he is still clearly on Tarjun's side as underdog and rooting for the boy to hit their hostess.

Pierce eats his stew quietly, listening to the others talk about people he doesn't know. He imagines training with Mrs. Johnson and hopes that it isn't too embarrassing or painful. "What kinda teacher are you, ma'am?" he asks. "Sometimes the sailors would slap me on the butt with their cutlasses, when I was first learning to fence. Once, I got a nasty cut on my side from Red that got infected an' all! There was this white stuff comin' out of me. It was gross." He marvels at the memory of that as he finishes his food.

"What's that?" Pierce exclaims when he sees the weapon. He also notices the silver chain but thinks better of asking about it, because he thinks it's probably magic. But his eyes go over to it several times, appraising it, and he thinks he is being subtle.

Appraise: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 5 = 18

Pierce preens slightly when Mrs. Jonson compliments his reasoning. After they sit down to eat he takes his bowl of stew in both hands and begins drinking it, almost burning himself on the hot broth. "Yeaowch!" he cries. He doesn't even think to use utensils until he sees others spooning out bites, and then he handles his a bit awkwardly.

He looks hopefully at Mrs. Jonson when Tarjun presses his request to practice fighting, and looks back at his stew with a satisfied smile when she relents. "Why did you learn to use weapons?" he asks curiously. "Ma'am," he remembers to add when she looks at him.

Pierce, generally hesitant to speak up for himself, listens to the other children explain their thoughts, and then adds "The sailors on The Man's Promise were teachin' me how to fight before the pirates attacked. I wish I could've stopped them before they killed the cap'm. Then maybe we could've been the pirates, and they could have been the ones that got killed!" He shrugs. "That's mostly why I stabbed Plugg. So he couldn't kill me!"

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (2) + 4 = 6

"Wicked!" says Pierce, impressed. "You think she'd want to teach us how to fight better?"

Pierce makes a face at Tarjun when he hears Jewel shout. "Garlic? Bleh! Does she think we're vampires?" He starts to reply, then hears Clara shout from the other side of the house. He hesitates. "You've got a loud voice, don't you?" he asks Tarjun.

Pierce quietly follows Tarjun out to dig the potatoes, with several anxious looks back over his shoulder on the way. He watches the other boy to figure out how to do the task, since he's never dug up a root vegetable before, and looks startled and guilty when he whispers the question about treasure. Looking about to make sure no one is near enough to see, he nods quickly. "Most of the valuables from the ship got took by the other pirates, but I found a bag o' old doubloons and a couple of gems that the captain hid where they couldn't find 'em. The ship's log was there too, but it was too bulky for me to carry, so I added a line that the ship got attacked by pirates and that the captain is dead now. It's probably silly, but I felt like I owed him that."

I hope that's okay, Foxy? Let me know if not and I'll retcon it.