The quick communications set up by Gado allow the ship to sail all the more smoothly. No missed messages between the captain and the key crew mean that the crew of The Audacious all but operate with a single mind. Quickly, Gado makes himself a better swimmer and dives into the water after Gavin.
Gratum, while sturdy on his feet, has a little trouble hitting the shark as it writhes around on the deck. As Gratum strikes out at the shark, Wrigley shifts his song to better match the crew's course of action.
From above on his parasail, Elon manages to catch the wind in the right direction - helping the ship to move this way and that with much more speed and accuracy than would be possible otherwise.
Round 3
"MY VALET!" Bazsil yells across the storm, concern on his face. "HE MAKES THE BEST DAIQUIRIS! NO!!!"
Baszil is on the verge of jumping in after Gavin, but sees that Gado likes the man's daiquiris as well. Instead, Bazsil moves to engage the shark, the threat to the Gado and his valet.
Bazsil moves to a place where he might get a swing in and draws Lucy out of his 'sack, ready to strike next round.
"What? Who fell over. Who the fock is Gavin? Damn those specialists all to hell."
Looking at the water ahead of him, an idea enters Mtumbwi's brain.
What if we circles around, on the crest of those waves. Then turn hard to starboard and use the momentum of the swells to push us over. That can work. And we can pick that idiot up in the process. If he does something stupid agian I am going to throw him back in myself.
"Aye Barbarosa. Turn 37 degrees to starboard on the next swell. I got an idea."
Where the hell did that shark come from?
At the cry, Ciaran releases the rope. Far above, the line runs through the pulley until it snags, and, caught by the howling gale, the canvas sheet begins to tear.
He rushes to the rail just in time to see Gado plunge overboard. He immediately sees the problem: although Gado is clearly a strong swimmer, the little scholar will never be strong enough to drag Gavin back to the ship.
Thankful he tied himself to the rail before, Ciaran gives a quick jerk at the knot on his belt, making sure it's secure, rips his shirt off over his head, and dives off the bow into the churning seas after the two already adrift.
"Gavin!!! SHARK!!!" Almost without thinking, she misfortune hexex the shark.
"Bazsil, be careful! Your hair oil may pollute the entire sea!"
While the storm rages, the expert crew no longer need worry about it. They have it more than in hand, and the predictability of the odd weather allows them to find a nice rhythm.
As Bazsil moves into position, Mtumbwi whispers directions up to Barbarosa and shouts them to whoever else is around. In no time, the crew figures out how to keep The Audacious swinging past Gavin without gaining or losing too much ground. If the brave Gado and Ciarán manage to get to him, the remaining crew should be able to perform a rescue.
The shark tries to take a bite out of Toby, but is clearly unused to its surroundings and flops about uselessly instead. The shark's ineptitude is lost on Toby, however, who is currently panicked and squealing like a stuck pig.
Gado swims over to Gavin and manages to keep the man's head afloat. Seconds later, Ciarán joins him and the two look out for the next time the madly weaving ship returns their way.
"Come on men!" cries Barbarosa, "She's trying to suck us in. I'd like to oblige the bïtch... and now I think we've found a way to avoid her teeth! Let's get ready for the ride of our lives! Ha ha!"
The captain appears to be absolutely loving the thrill of the deadly storm, and the minor victories his crew are scoring. Those on board get the distinct feeling that this was not how it went the first time around.
"Smart little man?" Ciaran roars into Gado's ear as he reaches the pair. He locks his arm across Gavin's chest, taking most of his weight from Gado. "Stupid, more like, diving in like that."
Despite his harsh words, there's the faintest twinkle in Ciaran's eye belying his gruff exterior.
"Gado, hold on to the rope," Ciaran says, treading water. He starts pulling the rope in, using his free hand and one foot in a rough scissor kick to loop and draw the rope and pull all three to safety.
Gado looks at Ciaran incredulously, as if insulted that the bodyguard would say such a thing in the middle of the daring rescue.
Then in a flash of panic, he realizes that he is right.
Ahhh! What was I thinking!
The smart little man is grateful when Ciaran takes the bulk of the weight of Gavin and begins pulling them in. Panicked and ready to get back on board, Gado kicks his webbed feet and pulls at the water with one webbed hand while holding the rope with the other, hoping to lighten Ciaran's load as he pulls the mass of bodies through the stormy water.
Aeslin looks at the shark, and gives it an odd look. With her arcane powers, she causes the creature to be even more out of sorts.
And then, throwing her head back to the wind, she cackles!
While Ciarán does manage to stay afloat, he cannot seem to make headway. The ropes from The Audacious pull painfully at his shoulders, ripping free from his grasp as the ship completes its first pass by the three swimmers.
"It'll come around again, yeah?" asks a panicked Gavin, eyes wide with fear.
The shark is completely freaked out by one madly laughing land dweller in particular. No-one has ever seen a look of doubt come over a fish before now.
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Seeing the events around turn in a way he did not expect, Wrigley begins to alter the tone and pace of his performance. As he tries to rally the crew, the morphing song begins to again help with their tasks of steadying their hands and minds by providing a constant rhythm to work against, rather than with helping combat the marooned shark still flopping harmlessly on the planks of the deck.
The creature seemed almost pitiful out of the swelling waves of the sea, and so the halfling looked away and toward the toiling crew.
"For quarters! For quarters!
The saucy pirates cried," Wrigley calls aloud.
"Blow high! Blow low! And so sailed we," the group sings in unison.
The quarters that we showed them
Was to sink them in the tide.
"A sailing down all on
The coasts of High Barbary."
Round 4
Bazsil moves to where the long reach of Lucy might hammer the shark. He swings from the heels, trying to drive the fishbeast away if the boat can get close enough.
to hit; (PA,bard)
damage. (PA,bard)
The shark is completely freaked out by one madly laughing land dweller in particular. No-one has ever seen a look of doubt come over a fish before now.
As the shark is being overwhelmed by the minor curses that Aeslin has been imposing up on it, she is almost going to give it another dirty look, when she notices Baszil pounding on it. To make sure he is able to destroy the vicious fish before it tries to bite her, she sends a blessing of luck his way. "Sebastian? Where have you gone, you pesky weasel? Heee hee hee hee heee!!!!"
Wrigley's sea shanty continues, and fills everyone with confid... erm... competence.
Lucy bashes into the shark, bloodying the thing. Perhaps at the smell of its own blood, the shark thrashes around in a frenzy before setting its gaze upon Bazsil. None doubt where it will strike next.
Aeslin makes ready to provide Bazsil with some extra oomph for his next blow.
Elon looks starboard from his most awesome parasailing experience known to date and sees the rapidly approaching figure of Gavin in the water.
He whips about in the wind and sways to the right, pulling the ship in that direction, at least that is what the dwarf tries at this point.
Oddly, the dwarf seems crazy good at doing this ridiculous stunt. Better than he should be...
"Harlan get your arse over here before I put it so far up it will come out your mouth!"
"What is it? Do you want me to *luchet? I noticed that based upon the winds trajectory, if we tweak it by 7 to 8 degrees, we can tack in a more oblique pattern ..."
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". Get your arse over to that **outhaul. Someone gotta throw a rope to those idiots. And Harlan, I swear by that uncaring b~@%& Gozreh, if another specialists thinks it is a bright idea to jump into the spray, I am going to personally throw you in, jump in after your, and put my foot in your arse, and drag you down to become the greatest feast these sand crabs have ever had in their entire life. NOW Harlan!"
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"What a dick. he mutters as he moves to the gunwale.
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"I heard that!" Turning to Barbarosa. "Um I think that I can tweak the mast to make us tack at a different angle. Upon my signal, turn 3 points to port."
Shuffling over int he wind and rain, Mtumbwi adjusts the mast quickly and efficiently and signals to Barbarosa.
Someone kill that shark.
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"Gado, is your message spell still active? Repeat my words exactly
"Please tell them that the f$**ing shark will die all by itself if they leave it the f~~! alone, because it's a f%$*ing fish.
"If they could instead f*$+ing well pull in the rope that's already tied to us, rather than throwing more f*~*ing ropes at us, that would be greatly appreciated.
"F&@+!"
Gratum hears nothing but the roar of the wind on the sails, it reminds him of the crashing falls deep beneath the surface where he once encountered a troll so fierce it took three quarters of his squad before they could put it down, it too did not like light...
However knowing cause to slow his attack...
Gratum shouts over the shark at Baszil, "Pull the men in! Ciaran's rope is at the bow!"
Then he makes use of the flank while it lasts...
As Mtumbwi whispers through the Message to himself and Harlan, Elon yells back.
While his player was asleep, Ciaran continued to struggle against the raging seas.
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Gado feels the panic from being in the raging sea creep into his mind. he barely hears Ciaran above the roar of the waves, and the rushing sound of the blood coursing through his veins. He is convinced that the entire shackles can hear his heart pounding.
Some how the jist of Ciaran's message gets through to his brain.
"Its a fish!!! Why are you attacking a fish out of water!?! Get me... Get US out of here!!!"
What was I thinking, what was I thinking, what was I thinking... please don't let me die!!!!
Between the expertly guided ship, Ciarán's strong swimming and the quickly pulled in ropes, the two specialists and the part-time cocktail waiter are hauled safely back onto the main deck by a beast of a man. As the Plank pulls the men on board he chuckles, "Yuk yuk. Never done it this way before."
With a well-placed gladius tearing its flank, the shark smashes its powerful tail into the deck and hops off the ship in an ungainly fashion. Luckily, the three swimmers were out of the water before the alpha aquatic predator returned.
--
Thing™: Man Overboard -DEFEATED
--
"We've got it, lads!" shouts Barbarosa over the wind and thunder, "Ha! Ha! Nothing can stop us now!"
On queue, a powerful bolt of lightning strikes the ship, inches away from Elon's face.
"Someone pull that lightning rod of a dwarf back in before he gets himself electrocuted!" Barbarosa orders anyone who'll listen. The Plank obliges and hauls Elon back to the main deck.
On board, the drenched ship carries water to crew members both above and below. Several deckhands and other crew are knocked over with burns all over their bodies. The parts of the ship that were not covered in water combust!
"Fire on board! Get to it!" screams Barbarosa when he sees the smoke pouring out from below.
Location: All decks
Hazard: Smoke fills everywhere below decks, fort save DC 10 +1/round of exposure required when below.
Tasks:
- Tend to an electrocuted sailor - heal, spells
- Fight fires - spells, ranged touch attacks with water
- Hasty repairs - knowledge (engineering), profession (sailor), craft (ships)
Gado spits and sputters as he flops back onto the deck, just as the shark flops off.
He stumbles to his feet when the lightning strikes, the shock of it sending him careening back to the deck, sliding nearly off the quarterdeck he was just pulled onto.
"Water! We need water! What am I saying, we are in a storm! How is this ship on fire?!" Of course fires are not unheard of at sea, particularly during a storm. But Gado just isnt' that experienced. The thought of the ship burning out from underneath him has him nearly as puckered as when he dove into the water.
With webbed hands, he begins to chant and wave his arms, conjuring a circle of summoning through which he can pull his own version of water for the fires.
"Storm and salt Gozreh you heartless a**$&*@$. You think to mar MY ship. She will hold. She will sail straight and true. Nothing you can throw at her will matter.
Harlan. Get some of those layabouts and start a water brigade. I want ropes and buckets in that water hauling it up NOW.
Plank go get my .. erm .. planks. The special one from the **lastage. And I need a pile of *oakum. Now!"
** room for storing goods on a ship
*old ropes untwisted for caulking seams of a ship
Round 5
Bazsil runs around the deck looking for a way to help or a thing to do, but fails to accomplish much. Eventually, he runs himself out of time and spends the round catching his breath. He puts away Lucy as he runs around uselessly like a Gado.
"Lots of smoke coming from below..." Gratum says to Felonious George, who is no where to be seen above decks, "ha no mind, once we patch the boat she'll hold more than enough water to put out the fires!" He then stumbles below decks to find the holes needing of patching.
Coughing at the smoke, and wiping back the 'sweat*' that's pouring from his eyes at the sting. Between wipes he spots a leak he's looking for in the side and sticks a wad of cloth in to stop the leak.
He then looks about the darkened surroundings below decks.
"We've got a couple fires down here!" He shouts up the stairs, "and looks like someone in need of some attention!"
Elon gets reeled in like an errant kite as the dwarf pouts a bit. "But my fun..."
His beard has a distinct scorch mark running the length from his right cheek down to the end of the braid, but the dwarf seems unconcerned with this.
He scans the deck and sees Baszil running around like a hydra with its head cut off and yells to him. "Oi! Baszil! Grab ol' Fisheye at yer feet and drag him to the operating table!"
Elon quickly runs to find Chicken Gizzard and Sea Legs cowering in the corner, hiding behind Barley, but pays them no mind.
Once the well-coiffed man arrives with the near-corpse, he crackles his knuckles and seems to pull energy from the very air as it surrounds his hand in a pale green glow.
"HIYA!" he bellows as he shoves his hand into the man's chest, grabbing his heart and manually pumping it, infusing it with the natural energy that he gathered.
As the dwarf performs an ancient Kalikan ritual, you see a flaming halfling run out on to deck. His cloak on fire and likely part of the underdecks, Platonius runs for the edge of the ship as the flames begin to spread.
As he contemplates jumping overboard, the sea seems to come to his aid as a wave crests over the side dousing the halfling in sea water, quenching the flames, but nearly cascading Platonius off the other side.
Cough, cough...
"WHERE HAVE YOU TAKEN ME?!" he screams out as he sees Elon with his arm staunchly inside another man's chest cavity on the dining room table.
Bazsil does as the sky-dwarf commands, hefting and lifting but barely understanding why.
Rivulets of water drip down his dark curls in the storm.
Aeslin, overwhelmed by the fury of the storm, yeplls, Why do we not submerge?"
She then steps up, pulling out a wand, and heals a soldier.
Bazsil runs around the deck looking for a way to help or a thing to do, but fails to accomplish much. Eventually, he runs himself out of time and spends the round catching his breath. He puts away Lucy as he runs around uselessly like a Gado.
Gado begins a spell that will spell doom for the flames, while Mtumbwi quickly orders every available man around to put even the smallest of broken ships' parts to rights. Gratum finishes what Mtumbwi started, and even makes a few improvements 'on the sly', reinforcing what he sees as two weak spots at the prow of the ship.
Elon gets Fisheye back to his feet in short order. Fisheye is immediately put back to work by Barbarosa. Aeslin follows suit, bringing Sea Legs back to consciousness. "Thank, yo-oh-oooooh-hurrrrrgh" he simultaneously expresses his gratitude and reveals his lunch.
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Bazsil continues to run around, happy for the chance to get some exercise outdoors...with friends...in the middle of a shark attacking, lightning storm. A sharknado.
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The hull beneath his feet belches and chokes on the dark, billowing smoke that rises from its depth as the perils of their situation seem to grow ever more deadly by the second.
"With cutlass and gun,
O we fought for hours three;" Wrigley continues the final verses of the shanty.
"Blow high! Blow low! And so sailed we," the crews in reply.
the halfling shouts at the top of his lungs, though whether it is in gallows humor or shear defiance of the perils at hand is unclear.
"A sailing down all on
The coasts of High Barbery!" the shanty ends at last.
Captain Barbarosa looks around at the flames, and for the first time since the storm began the crew note that he is no longer as happy as a pig in swill.
"Put her out, damn you! Fūck the wounded men, we'll all drown if she goes up in flames!" he barks down at the deck below, "Man the buckets you layabouts! Get those fires under control!"
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Mtumbwi looks around him and sees the ship he loves, the ship he created, the ship that meant more to him than anything in life, slowly burn.
Tears begin to well up in his eyes. There are not the wetting tears from the billowing smoke around him. These are the tears of a man wracked with sadness at the prospect of losing something so precious, so meaningful, so important that the very thought was almost more than he could handle.
The men were working but he knew it wasn't fast enough. He knew he needed to do something and fast.
Yet he vowed never to ask for Gozreh's blessing agin. Gozreh caused this mess flinging his lightning down. He didn't care. He doesn't care. He may have been there when Mtumbwi was building The Audacious but she sure as s~!+ couldn't care after.
The seconds stretched into hours days weeks it felt like. Knowing it was his last chance he turned to Barbarosa. "Captain. I. Can't. Let. Him. Take. Her. I have to fight back. I have to do what I swore off. Keep her steady. I am going to heal her."
Barbarosa instantly knows what his old friend is about to do.
Running to the nearest fire Mtumbwi comes to a screening halt. Pure focus on his face he looks to the sea. The body of Gozreh. He looks to the wind whipping about. The power of Gozreh. Mtumbwi picks us a few stay fish on the deck and tosses them in the water as a peace offering. Vowing to send in a whole crate of birds he begins to chant.
The cadence ebbs and flows like the tides. He begins to scream like the howling of the wind.
The it happens. It had been so long he forgot what it felt like. The power. The untamed temperamental power.
Water races forth and submerges the flame.
"You b#~&# bastard. You better leave my ship alone."
Ciaran (still amidships from being dragged back on board) grinds his teeth in frustration.
Seeing smoke seeping from around the door, he moves over to the bunkroom. When he throws open the door, a wash of heat and flame explodes outwards.
With another curse, he snatches up a sheet of canvas and begins beating at the fire, trying to put it out.
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"Voda živá!" Gado shouts. The rain around him freezes in place, thousands of droplets suspended in mid-air as if time had stopped when he shouted the words to call the elemental forth. The droplets swirl around him, quickly coalescing into a crystalline shape before Gado pushes it away in an exaggerated motion.
The shape arcs over and splashes onto the deck next to the stairway down, leaving a vaguely humanoid shape made of pure water.
"Jediným nepřítelem tady je oheň ! Jděte dolů , vyhledejte ho a zničit ho !" Gado 'shouts' in an odd, gurgling sound with various clicks high pitched whistles.
Sloshing below, the elemental flows to the bottom of the stairs, seeing a fire on either side. It flows away from the engineer to the unattended fire and reaches out with its watery limbs to swallow the flame whole.
Gado follows his summoned creature belowdecks to help guide it to other fires. A little piece of him is glad to get to a place where he can't be washed overboard. Webbed hands or not, one time was enough.
Elon pulls his hand from the chest of Fisheye and it comes back covered in blood, but the sailor is breathing and conscious as the Captain's order yells out for him to assist. Scared of the Captain, Fisheye leaps into action, groaning with each step as Elon had to manually massage his heart back into working properly.
"Go get 'em Fisheye!" he yells with a smile as he looks around and sees that the deck is ok.
"Anyone else hurt!?" he bellows in the wind from his perch in the operating dining room.
Standing beside his most recent handiwork, a large flame, and an injured sailor Gratum says, "No time to appreciate quality repairs, how about we put out this last fire then help that poor sailor out, what you think?" he says to Felonious George, still not at his side, "Have ta make sure we don't all drown first..."
Gratum then lifts the top off of one of the water barrels sitting beside him and dips a bucket in, before launching it at the square of fire.
"You know you're awfully quiet..." He says to George before finally realizing the boy isn't beside him. Then just a split second more before the dawning of understanding as he looks on the shape of the injured sailor in the corner... and out of his horror he sees the boy knocked down by the lightning blast. Suddenly he's back in the battles against the orcs, retaking land from them in the Five Kings mountains, and "sweat" starts washing from his eyes as he shouts,
"Medic! Medic! Down here, one in Collapse! Help Medic!"
He doesn't move from his task, his training is inflexible on that, his task is to put out the fire, but he doesn't take his eyes off the young boy he convinced to board.
Mtumbwi pours Gozreh's conjured water onto the flames, dousing them completely.
Ciarán smothers some nascent flames with a canvas sheet, putting them out entirely before running belowdecks to repeat his success on another. He coughs up smoke as he does so, but manages to avoid any ill effects.
Gratum cannot repeat Ciarán's success on the final flames in the lower deck, but before they can ignite any gunpowder or the supplies, Gado's water elemental sloshes into existence and pours itself onto the flames
The dwarf does call for his kinsman, though, noting the electrocuted sailors below. Elon hears the cries.