Fifth Session: All Roads Seventh Post: Ultimatums and Pirates
The next morning, we packed hurriedly. Between the cracked walls and the stunning lack of hospitality, I was glad to be leaving the Cornelii Nepotes. Gnaeus stumbled timidly out, clearly cowed by the weapons drawn at his appearance. Cornelia, dressed practically but elegantly, turned to him.
“Cousin. Despite the fact that I could have you and your sons imprisoned or possibly executed for instigating such an assault, I will not do so. Such an act would only further dishonor your family. However, in my opinion this is not a fit household for a young woman to be raised in. If you don’t want me contacting the authorities, summon Nepa, now, and inform her what you tried to do to me last night. I am offering her the opportunity to accompany me to Rome and seek a fate apart from your sordid destiny. You will not try to stop me, although she may refuse, if she wishes.”
Gnaeus feebly protested, but was quelled by our glares. Nepa, the mouse-like daughter, was duly summoned, and reacted in shock and horror even to the somewhat bland version Gnaeus gave of the previous night’s activities. She stood in silence for several minutes, as we all watched her.
Finally, quietly, without much show of emotion, she spoke, “Could I go to Rome and become a priestess of the Maiden Goddess? I don’t want to live here anymore; I don’t want to get married. I’d like to study, and pray with other women, and be alone.”
Cornelia, slightly disconcerted but with a generous heart, responded, “Of course you can! There are lots of temples of Diana in Rome, I’m sure, that would be glad to have you.”
“I don’t really have much to pack. I can be ready in just a bit; I know you...we...have a ship to catch.” Nepa turns and goes off to her room.
Her father yells after her, “How dare you? Insolent girl! We’ve fed and clothed you for all these years, and you have a responsibility to profit this family by making a good marriage.”
“No, she doesn’t, not anymore,” Cornelia intones with steel in her voice. “You abandoned any rights to her when you chose to condone the assault of a relative in your own home. Make your farewells; you won’t be seeing either of us again.”
The rest of us pack hurriedly and leave for the docks with Nepa, who keeps her head resolutely downwards, refusing to look at her family. We set off on a small but fast merchant ship, the
Bacchus’ Grapes, heading directly to Ostia, Rome’s port, with a cargo of expensive wine. Initially, the trip is going well. I, of course, am seasick, but only Meloch notices, and most of the other members of our group, despite the bonding over the triumphant defense of Cornelia’s dubious honor, still are ignoring the pygmy and his monkey. Heilyn spends his time trying to talk to dolphins over the side of the ship; he eventually succeeds in befriending one, who follows our ship, leaping and doing flips for everyone’s enjoyment but mine. I can do flips, but no, the perpetually smiling sea animal gets the oohs and the aahs and the thrown food. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.
Wena, who has the sharpest eyes in the party, notices off in the distance a plume of smoke, and asks the captain to sail towards it. Upon doing so, she and Llyr realize that the smoke is coming from a badly damaged ship, heavily listing in the water, with wounded people lying around the deck. Cornelia insists, somewhat against the better judgement of the noninterventionist Metellus, that they sail towards the ship and rescue the wounded. Marcus reminds Metellus that they can claim the ship as rightful rescue bounty, and it’s probably worth a lot of money.
Only a few seconds before the side of their boat scrapes against the side of the damaged ship, the Lugh-blessed eyes of Wena, Llyr, and Heilyn realize that the people on the other ship have no real wounds, but rather blood artistically spilled over them, and that the ship looks less damaged than initially thought. They shout a warning, and we all draw weapons and prepare for a fight directly before the “wounded victims” pick up the swords lying under their bodies and storm the
Bacchus’s Grapes. At the same moment, arrows fly at the crew and all of us, wounding Meloch and Marcus, and a large number of figures who look distinctly less like innocent wounded sailors and a lot more like ruffianly pirates appear on the deck of the other ship.
In the next few rounds, a variety of interesting things happen, as I climb up to the crow’s nest, which seems by far the most suitable place for a monkey during a raging sea battle. I have, after all, read all the Greek novels, which always include pirates, and often heroic monkeys. First of all, Meloch turns invisible, his favorite trick, and, as I know through my mental link, bounds across to the other ship and begins making life difficult for the pirates. A priest of Mars appears on the stern and commands Metellus to surrender; Metellus hesitates but resists the urge. Meanwhile, a female figure in robes appears on one edge of the prow and a fireball erupts in the middle of our ship; luckily, the fragile Meloch and Cornelia are out of range, and everyone else does a remarkable job of falling prone to the deck. On the prow itself, an enormous Nubian man appears, wearing little besides a loincloth and a large leopardskin draped across his torso; the enormous bow he wields sends a bolt hurtling into Heilyn and is then dropped in exchange for an axe.
Both Marcus and Metellus jump across to the other ship, nimbly jumping on the rowing planks that criss-cross the hollow hold and avoiding the arrow shafts coming from the hidden archers within the hold, but Meloch, my ever-impulsive partner, gets to the Nubian first and drops his invisibility to shoot a True Struck Sleep Arrow at him. As usual – you think he would learn – getting into direct combat with our most powerful enemies does not go well for the pygmy, and he is quickly fairly battered, and the Nubian, although injured, does not fall unconscious. However, Meloch evades the Nubian long enough to send most of the archers in the hold and on the deck into a nice peaceful slumber.
Meanwhile, Cornelia and Wena are very effectively preventing the priest of Mars from casting by stunning him whenever he tries to pray. In a nice example of positive teamwork, they also take care of immobilizing the rest of the pirate scum. Marcus shouts, “Remember, we want them alive! We can sell them for lots of money!”
Heilyn charges and, between his spells and his hammer, nicely bludgeons the sorcerer into near-unconsciousness and sends her body toppling over the side of the boat, where it is held under water until drowned by the dolphin. Meanwhile, Marcus and Metellus have flanked the enormous Nubian; while they are taking damage, they are also dishing it out. Cornelia, Wenna, and the highly accurate Verix, with his bow, immobilize the priest of Mars and bind and gag him.
Eventually, the Nubian looks wounded enough that Marcus begins striking to subdue him, on the grounds that he’d make a wonderful captive, but Metellus fails, deliberately or accidentally, to hear Marcus’s advice and decapitates the Nubian with one fell swoop of his sword. The head goes flying off the railing of the ship, and comes right back up a second later, as the dolphin proceeds to play “Bounce the Nubian.” The dolphin asks Heilyn if it can keep the “fun toy,” and Heilyn, finally realizing what sort of bloodthirsty companion he’s adopted, and how much safer and more reliable monkeys are, tells the dolphin that, yes, it can keep the head, but he never wants to see it again. The dolphin goes leaping off into the sunset, bouncing the head of the enormous pirate captain on its nose with savage glee. Too late, Heilyn realizes that being able to Speak with Dead might have been useful.
[Edit: Meloch, in fact, did not have any directly offensive spells at this point, being a master pygmy of misdirection and non-lethal magic. In general, the party has an annoying habit of not actually killing people in preference to capturing them, which has led to me needing to deal with the effects of prisoner interrogations. Bunch of annoying pacifists. ]
