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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The_Universe" data-source="post: 1770435" data-attributes="member: 8944">Justice Fairweather Justice muttered curses that would have made the sailor blush, had blood been flowing to his face. Pale and drawn, Justice guessed that he’d been dead for at least a week, and had spent a good deal of that time underwater. He smelled of salt water and decay, a perfect companion to the dark miasma of evil that seemed to surround and penetrate the thing that had once been a man.  They had come up from the water with blinding speed. They must have been waiting for a signal that Justice had neither seen nor heard, because when they pulled themselves up on to the harbor road, they had done so with a simultaneity the books did not regularly associate with the walking dead. This was not coincidence. Was there such thing as coincidence? Justice was no longer sure.  The zombie-sailor emitted an inarticulate gurgle as he swiped his nerveless arms at the young warrior, hands hardened into rotting talons. Justice sidestepped, bringing her body alongside his as she raised her sword over head. Off balance, reaching, it did not cry out as her blade sliced down through its arms. It didn’t stop it, either. Turning to face the paladin once more, it swung with the remnants of its arms, driving Justice back toward her erstwhile companions.  She stepped back, and was rewarded with another swipe from the creature’s shortened limbs; its rotten, dripping eyes filled with a ravenous, supernatural light. Grimly, she put up her sword to parry the blow, feeling the blade cut into muscle and bone as it drove its own arm deeper onto the sword’s razor edge. Spinning, she pulled the blade from the thing’s torn flesh, turning the blade enough to slice through it’s neck.  Decapitated, it slumped to the ground with a wet thwack, even as its hands still grasped at the cobblestones beneath her feat, still animated by whatever foul magic drove the zombies around her.  She continued backward, stopping suddenly as she bumped into another body. Fearing the worst, she whipped around with her blade at the ready, steel hungry for another taste of flesh. Soft green eyes and a fierce grin looked back at her, limp matted hair shining with sweat in the sudden flashes of light from the storm around them. Justice couldn’t help herself. The horse-faced Mid-elf. Shaking her head, she thought, I really need to learn these people’s names. But there was no time. Nodding as she lowered her sword, she followed the other woman to a tight circle where the rest of those who had left the tavern had gathered, defending themselves from the waves of animated flesh that flowed around them.  Arrows flew and blades flashed, separating flesh from flesh and bone from bone as they moved, the eye of a storm of undead flesh. “How many?” Justice shouted, stabbing outward as one of the creatures grabbed at the person beside her. Feeling her blade strike true, she risked a glance to her side. The bard – another Mid-elf.  The shorter woman looked up at Justice, smiling as she brought a crimson, dripping dagger to her face in mock salute, momentarily free of attackers. Thank you, she mouthed, before turning back to the advancing horde.  Not all of the creatures that pulled themselves from the harbor that night were marked with the Eye of the Bluestar. But more than a few were. There was no doubt in Justice’s mind just who the culprit was. The Bluestar has broken free of his prison, and this is merely the first of what will be many assaults. Grand quest, indeed.  Finally, an answer came to her shouted question, “Dozens! At least a score, lass!” She guessed it was the Dwarf, violence having sobered him more quickly than she would have thought possible. Her flawless face dour and blood-splattered, she shouted back, “Hold then, Sir Dwarf! For it appears we have bigger problems than these.” She heard an interrogative grunt from the archer, somewhere behind her. “What in the Amastacia’s name is a bigger problem…than…this…??” the voice continued, interrupted by the flights of three arrows, each knocking one of the animated corpses off of its feet.  Pulling her sword free from the torso of one of the creatures, she pointed out to the horizon, where Aon appeared to be rising back out of the sea. “That,” she said simply, before driving her sword through yet another of the approaching things.  The orange glow quickly proved to be something other than a new sun. In the end, Justice wasn’t sure that she was glad that it wasn’t. If it had been, it might have saved her a lot of later suffering. But at that moment, Justice merely cursed the prophecy that brought her to Thanesport. Flames licked upward into roiling black clouds of smoke, themselves swallowed by the storm clouds that hung low over Thanesport. Sails, somehow not consumed by the fire that covered the vessel’s hull billowed from an unseen wind as the fireship cut through the waters of the harbor towards the forest of mast and sail that surrounded them.  Justice looked up and down the rows of wooden docks, horrified at what the ship represented. They had no time to spare. Someone has to stop that ship!  From behind her, a voice cursed with a finality she could appreciate. She assumed it was the dwarf, but later she would think that it might have been the half-orc – the curse had been almost perfect in its descriptive simplicity.  “Oh sh…”</blockquote>

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