"The tale would be told by them." the giant said, gesturing to the freed slaves still trickling out of the hold into the sun.
Search Posts
The Nightmare Man nodded once when the issue of the captives was brought up. "Agreed." On the subject of the captain and the slaver crew he was not so easy to convince. "Amputate the captain's legs. Maroon them here with nothing. Let suffering teach them of consequence and the value of life, or let them die in the lesson."
The Nightmare Man gave a single, slow nod, striding across the gap between the ships in one massive step. He turned his tree-trunk sized warclub sideways and slowly moved forward, corralling the enemy crew and their captain all the way to the prow. He gestured to the hold knowing what Johara would find there. "Go."
The Nightmare Man stared at the captain for a long moment, then scanned the rest of the crew. "What is your name, Captain?" he commanded.
"They only need their tongues to speak. The rest is optional." the Nightmare Man said in his strange multiple voice. "Practice your torture if you wish. I will not permit them to die until after your lesson."
The nightmare man stood, bloody but mostly uninjured from the many wounds he had received. Baltzar's tending had allowed him to simply absorb every attack the enemy crew had swung his way. As he stood among the carnage his wounds congealed into ropy scars that darkened until they were the black of charred flesh, then seemed to simply vanish becoming ragged windows into the void of night. Moments later the whole ordeal was only a few more otherworldly scars amid the tapestry already marring his massive form.
While Fargrim went about organizing the remaining enemy crew, the Nightmare man strung the corpse of the Manticore upside down from the yardarm. Then he cut it's tail clean off with a massive obsidian knife. He looked over to Fishguts. "Butcher it. Keep the bones."
"Nivian, the beast." The Nightmare Man's otherworldly dual-voice said in a tone far too calmly for the chaos of the fight. He seemed to be completely unfazed by his wounds.
The nightmare man stared at the sailor in front of him, pulling the darkness in his mind up to the surface.
The Nightmare Man raised a hand and sent cloying shadows to bind the Captain of the other ship.
The giant masked man gave Fargrim a nod, recalling the crew with their seized booty and disengaging from the fishing vessel. Without another word, he let them leave.
Sandman stood on the deck towering over everyone, his mask biting into his face and twisting his features into something horrifying. His scars looked like the void, occasional distant stars glinting within him. Dancing motes of light drifted around him like fireflies. "Have your men stand down and prepare to be boarded, Captain. We will not harm you if you comply." his voice was calm and without malice, but carried unnaturally and seemed layered with a second, far more sinister voice.
The masked Nightmare Man moved in near Fargrim and slammed his club into one of the wasps.
Sandman slipped his mask on, shaking his head as it moulded to his face and changed him. The Nightmare Man reached out and caused an eruption of grasping shadows beneath the nearest wasp.
Sandman brought his will against the grindylow queen
Sandman attempts to move, but the entangling kelp keeps him in place.
The Nightmarish Sandman made an angry rending motion toward the Devilfish ripping at it's consciousness.
Sandman gestures toward the Octopus, yanking at it's primitive mind.
"Fargrim, ignore that thing. Kill the Whale. He wakes soon."
The savage club came down again, bashing the sleeping grindylow.
Waiting until the queen was engaged in something else, Sandman set his sights on the creature called Whale. "Fargim, the big one. Now."
Sandman didn't speak the language, but he could tell when he was being strongarmed. He put his mask back on, ready to teach these creatures new lessons.
"So. This Whale is one of them. He serves their Mother. A matriarch and her enforcer." When he wore the mask, his voice was unpleasant, like it was coming from far away, and had another voice overlapping with it. "The rest... That will be our crew. Where are the cages?"
Sandman approached Mr. Plugg. "I wanted you to have this moment, Plugg. You were warned. You were given more chances than you ever gave any of us. Your fate was sealed the moment you chose to drug me in the Formidably Maid. I know you chose the Maid because I was there. The others, just prizes of circumstance. You wanted a reputation. You wanted a story. I had one you thought you could take and make yours." he looked over at the dying Mr. Scourge. "I am not the beginning of your legend, Plugg. You are a footnote in mine." "You were dead whenever I wanted you to be. It is over now. S͇l͇͖̪̗͢e̤͉̼͎̣͖͍e̹̫͞p̰͇̺͎."
As the sailor in front of Fargirm died in a messy splatter, Sandman moved forward, his eerie double-voiced chuckle washing over the ship. "I want you to watch, Mister Plugg. I want you to know what you have brought upon yourself." "It is time to die, Mister Scourge."
"You think I am a demon, Plugg? What hope do you think you have then? I've been killing my way through your pets since the day I arrived. Magpie. Tate. Fipps. Aretta. Now Jape is gone. Scourge is next." "Then you."
Sandman stepped back and put on his mask, It bit into the edges of his face and moved like skin. His scars and the new bleeding gash in his back turned to shadows. He exhaled, breathing out a whispy tendrril of dark smoke that reached out for Plugg.
Sandman takes another swing at the nearest sailor.
Sandman charges up the stairs toward the ship's wheel, following Fargrim, swinging his own heavy totem-club over the dwarf's head and toward the nearest sailor.
Sandman put his mask on. Until now he'd only ever worn it at night, on the prow. Very few had been close enough to see it while it was on his face. Now, in the light of day, it was clear that the mask was something more than just a peice of wood. Perhaps it was a trick of the rolling fog distorting the shadows, but the mask seemed to move. It's jagged edges gripped the sides of Sandman's face like teeth, not quite puncturing the flesh. The mouth widened and the eyes burned faintly. His scars darkened and seemed made of swirling shadows. Behind him, his shadow was no longer the tattered looking thing it normally was. It was a brutish form that didn't quite move in sync with Sandman himself. It's arms were far too long, and it looked, strangely, like it was on fire.
Haven't yet updated Romello, as I am assuming that you do NOT allow for familiars to get their own skill points beyond the normal for a 1 HD creature, but can change him if necessary. They don't get additional skills based on hit dice, but they certainly gain additional skills based on higher than usual intelligence. This generally won't matter until the familiar's intelligence reaches 10 (when it no longer has a skill point penalty), but its something to think about for the future. Also, most familiars have 1 skill point of their own, which, due to having an intelligence of three or higher, they can put into any skill they like. Edit: Looking at the Monkey stats, it looks like the monkey has 1 skill point in Perception, and a +8 racial bonus to Acro and climb (which the climb bonus is left out of the special modifiers section. must be a typo). So if you wanted to Romelo to have a skill point in something, he'd have his Perception drop from +5 to +1.
Rillum's scene, cont.: The wound healed quickly. It was as if all the itching and discomfort of letting it heal naturally over the course of weeks were compressed into five seconds. It was a fast, complex array of painful discomfort that was over in moments and left a pale blue scar as the only sign of it's passing.
Rillum: Sandman was standing at the brow when Rillum came skulking up in the shadows of the port rail. When Rillum quietly got his attention Sandman turned from staring at the stars and focused his attention on the small rat-man.
He was wearing his mask. It seemed to grip his face at the edges, pulling on his skin as if it were lined in small claws. Its eyes glowed faintly with purple light and the scars that mapped his body seemed to have deepened in color from pale blue to black, with flecks of light shining faintly within each puckered line, as if Rillum could see the starry sky through tears in his body. He cast no shadow save for dark slashes beneath him, as if he were completely transparent save for his scars. The mask stared at him, then cast it's eyes downward to his hand. With a sudden motion Sandman knelt and snatched Rillum's tiny hand, staring at the wound. The blood on Rillum's body and clothes began to turn to a blackish mist, raising up off of him and being pulled toward the mouth, like Sandman was inhaling the remnants of the blood. Sandman held tight to the wound, staunching the bleeding as the blood turned to smoke. It hurt. "Pain is the price of your endeavors tonight. You have earned this. Do not shy. Never seek to cheapen the costs of your victory. The more you learn to endure, the more you are able to endure in the future." Sandman's voice sounded like it came from very far, half whisper, half echo. When he let go, the bleeding had stopped.
At some point around half way through the night, Samdman slipped his mask on. Most everyone was asleep, but anyone who happened to be awake could see a radically different person continuing to minister to the injured. The blue scars on his body seemed to darken and glow slightly with faint purple light and he placed his hands on the largest scrapes and bruises, seeming to enjoy contact with the injuries. As he moved about the berth tending the others he cast no shadow.
For a time, he slipped out into the main hold, scanning the for anything suitable as a weapon.
"Disappointing." the hulking masked figure said in a low rumble. Then he looked around balefully for something else to hurt. Finding nothing, he sighed, grabbed his face and peeled it off.
The big club came down again.
Sandman's nightmarish alter ego stepped forward dragging his massive war club behind him. As he reached his target he swung it up over his shoulder and down on the shark-man.
Sandman nodded grimly to beth and set his mask upon his face. It gripped his jawline and pierced into him like an animal biting down. His skin seemed to darken and the runic swirls on the mask and on his skin swelled to pale light. As the door burst open and the man before them twisted and grew, so did nightmare Sandman had become. "What do sharks dream, little fish?" the warped voice of the gentle healer rumbled and rhasped from behind his other face. "Teach me your pain."
"There are worse things than dying, soft-skin." The massive scar-covered man says leaning down to look closer at the smugglers. "Would you like to gamble that Bonegnaw knows more about pain than I do?
The big man dashes down the dock and reaches out to grab the side of the smuggler's barge. Then he simply heaves.
|