Handsome Hantaro plus five!

[Yellow Mage]

So here I am, in the middle of the ocean, no land in sight. What we're doing could be defined as sailing, in a pinch. We're floating on a ten foot wide raft, made of bits of the wreck that we were sent to salvage. It stinks of unwashed bodies and putrefying seafood. The talking monkey is gabbling weakly about something or other, something about his birthday, and even the elf looks like he might start growing stubble.

How did I end up in such a situation, you ask? Surely, a handsome and clever individual such as myself should be able to circumvent such circumstances. Well, dear reader, in this particular case, you would be wrong.

It all started nine days ago. The room outside Captain Finistair's office was austere, drab and grey like the man himself. Everyone looked up as I made my entrance, and I looked each one in the eye. The huge, dirty looking elf looked back at me with a sneer, a steely glint in his gaze, the white monkey with a pathetic, sycophantic sort of smile, the hobbit in the priest's cassock with a cocked eyebrow, and the fop with a look of surprise at my insolence. The final person, a girl in a blue dress, fixed her stare upon the small book in her hands, and did not meet my gaze. I immediately felt uneasy. Was I to share my voyage with this pack of ruffians? Gentle readers, I believe you already know the answer to that.

Captain Finistair was a coarse and ill-educated man, with no great regard to the breadth of my learning, but to the man's credit he hired me. To his discredit, he also hired everyone else who applied for the job, dirty elf and all, but I suppose that no man can be perfect.

Our task was the retrieval of cargo from a wreck off the coast of Jackal Bay. Of course, I was not required to crew the ship, but I did share a cabin with the other men. The elf was a savage, and ate with his fingers, whilst the talking white monkey was bullied by the other talking monkeys. Whilst this was all very fascinating, the fact that the white monkey was sobbing to himself at night was impinging upon my beauty sleep, and so I made an attempt to intervene. The white monkey was quite rude to me. I shan't attempt to help him again.

A few days into our voyage, we arrived at a small coastal town to resupply. Having known my companions for a while, I decided to tell them a little of my raison d'etre- my search for the man who had killed my father. The elf just frowned and ignored my revelation as if I had said nothing, whilst the girl and the hobbit had the temerity to advise me against revenge! The nerve! I am a grown man and I have a right to wreak revenge if I so choose!

But let us not get sidetracked, dearest reader, for handsome Hantaro still has a measure of story left to tell you. No sooner had we arrived and set foot upon the wreck than our ship was chased away by local savages. Had I been aboard, I could have fought them off using my magic, but alas, I was not. We contrived to make the best of our situation, having a mighty battle with the giant crabs living in the hull of the wreck, a battle in which I bravely participated. Once we had defeated and my companions had eaten the crabs (the elf claimed that they were safe to eat), we set about constructing the raft. The wreck itself had no material suitable for use as a sail, but luckily the girl in the blue dress was some kind of seamstress, and so had fabric and wax from which to construct it. We lashed wood from the ship together to make a raft, and set off with no more than the stars as our bearings.

And well, here we are. We have been on half rations for three days now, and the hobbit keeps on praying to the sun, singing little hymns to himself. My hunger pangs ebb and flow like the waves upon which we bob, and I am not sure that we will reach land any time soon. I fear for my life, dear reader, that I would die so ignominiously, on open water, with such a crowd of misfits. Just think, handsome Hantaro, dying unappreciated! Oh, the horror.

 

[Yellow Mage]

We had been at sea on that thing three days, and the first ship we came across was another lifeboat. No sight nor smell of land, though the big elf claimed that we were heading in the right direction. We came closer, and in my heart I hoped that we would not discover another crew of starving sailors. The others would insist that we share our rations, and I might starve! Dear reader, can you imagine?

Fearfully, we edged our craft closer to the lifeboat, and the smell hit us. Worse than the smell of unwashed talking monkey, the smell of decayed flesh. Her crewmen lay in a heap on her deck, crowded around a wooden box.

No sooner had one of us stepped aboard their craft, they sprang to life. Our tiny boat shook as creatures in the water grabbed at the sides and pulled themselves aboard. The hobbit raised his necklace, shouted something unintelligible, and vaporised them. Unfortunately for all of us, the water around us was teeming with the things, and they had soon swarmed over the boat again.

The girl gave a little scream and hurried towards me as my companions levelled their longspears at the encroaching undead menace.
"Why, Arianne," I said. "Fancy seeing you here."
The expression that flickered across her face was undeniably one of repressed desire. But there was no time for that. Instead, I watched, aghast, as the decayed creatures tore through my friends like a very aerodynamic thing through a non viscous liquid. The hobbit was praying very loudly now, whilst the elf and the monkey were laying in a bloody pile on the raft, having felled their share of undead. With one horrible ghoul remaining, the fop gave a final heroic lunge at it with his rapier, felling it before he himself fell upon the pile, unconscious from his injuries. Bravely containing my nausea, I helped the hobbit and the girl lay out the bodies of my companions for healing. Truly, they would all be lost without me!

We loaded the monster's goods upon our humble craft and set sail once more. The talking monkey said something about this being because we didn't have a captain, and suggested the we elect the elf. I was against this, firstly because elves in general are pompous, pointy-eared gits, and secondly because I had a bad feeling about this one. But the monkey was not to be discouraged, and soon he was chattering about captain Finder this and captain Finder that. With no escape from his inane drivel, I took respite in my thoughts. "Oh, Hantaro, you're so handsome, clever and intelligent," the girl would coo, if only she were brave enough to admit her feelings for me. As it was, she was stoic, occasionally joining the elf and the hobbit in prayer. Unfortunately, our tiny craft provided little privacy for such personal things.

And so, dear reader, we continued on our sorry voyage, with little hope of rescue, and less of reaching shore under our own power. But unusually as of late, luck was on handsome Hantaro's side. We spied a caravel in the distance, and its crew took us aboard. You cannot imagine my relief! Handsome Hantaro, sleeping in something other than a huddle on a tiny raft once more. My joy was almost palpable. No longer did I have to put up with the hobbit's singing, or the monkey's incessant talking, at least not at close quarters.

They were a colourful bunch, the crew, one of them more cat than man, but I cannot fault their charity. They offered to take us as far as Sasserine, but they're stopping off for supplies at a little place called Cabbage Cove first. Something about stealing this boat off of a terrible monster.

We came ashore at the little town of Cabbage Cove. It was dingy, and it smelt of fish, which I suppose was logical seeing as it was a fishing village and it was poor, but you would think that someone would do something about it. (None of the townsfolk had six fingers, and so none could be the man that killed my father. Damn.) Seeing as we were all technically marines, the village headman asked us to do a little job for him. They suspected smugglers in a local cave, and we set out to investigate, leaving the girl behind in the village.

The cave was dark, and I could hear the nearby roar of the sea as we walked. The elf, being both the biggest and the stupidest, took point, and while I usually appreciate the freedom to run away, I felt slightly safer having the fop at my back. He said that his birthday was soon, and I should really try to remember the chap's name. I wondered for the umpteenth time why I was following these fools into possible mortal danger. Dearest reader, I could not for the life of me tell you why.

 

[Yellow Mage]

I had a very bad feeling about this. The big elf, fool that he was, had rushed off ahead, leaving us quite literally in the dark. There was a scuffle up ahead, and we all rushed forward into the ambush.

I held the back line as the monkey and the elf held the front, shooting my magic into the fray. Our opponents appeared outwardly to be a band of dark-skinned dwarves, but they were oddly silent, not even meeting each other's eyes. The stocky woman and the magical kobold who had been sent after us joined the fracas as the blank faced little people closed in, swinging filthy looking spiked chains.

Could this be the work of the six fingered man? I wondered as I put my back up against the wall and covered my face with my arms. Did anyone particularly care? Somehow, I had my doubts.

Dear reader, I feared for my very life, and I steeled myself to flee as first blood was shed, an arc of red spurting across the floor of the cavern. The party's torches illuminated the space more fully now, showing wooden crates stacked to the ceiling. The next moments passed in what seemed like hours as I struggled to keep myself away from the action, my curiosity keeping me transfixed. The dwarves seemed also to move in unison, their lack of loquacity apparently having little effect upon their effectiveness in combat.

Even the big elf looked like he was in trouble, his cord armour wet with blood from a wound in his side, surviving purely on the energy produced by my moral support, when the fop suddenly lunged from the shadows. There was something wrong with his hands, dear reader, in a way that I cannot quite describe, and he cut a dwarf open from hip to shoulder. The unfortunate looking woman felled another, and soon we had routed our eerie foes.

After we had picked their bodies clean of anything of worth, we headed back up to Cabbage Cove. The village was in disarray, the alarm bells ringing, and we found the girl walking with the local veteran. Something about a monster on the hillside. Oh, joy of joys.