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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tolen Mar" data-source="post: 2636455" data-attributes="member: 1295">Chapter 3: One Ship, Two ShipChapter 3: One ship, Two ship…Shoreleave was over.  Charity, having slept off her hangover, climbed the gangplank; she noticed, and not for the first time, the carcasses floating in the bay.  She didn’t know what was going on, but she put the bloodied remains out of her head.  Someone really disliked cats, she supposed.  She set about her duties, checking clew lines, making sure the sails and rigging hadn’t gotten fouled while most of the crew were away.  Satisfied, she went below to make sure her trunk hadn’t been disturbed.  As she neared her bunk, near the captain’s quarters, she heard voices.  She recognized Perri and Samson.“They’ll give us 50 gold for his head?” Samson asked, surprised.“That’s what they say.  They are really pissed with him being so bold.”“We’ve never gotten a bounty like that, for anyone.  Are you sure this new crew is up to it?”The captain sighed, he sounded thoughtful.  “Well we don’t have a choice do we?  I wouldn’t sign on any member of the crew if I didn’t think they could handle it…or if I were worried about how trustworthy they might be.”“There’s the rub, cap.  I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ I think the whole lot of’em are too green for this.  Your last crew, now there was a group of cut-throats.”The captain laughed.  “Yes, they were.  Shame I had to let them go.  Still, we’d better be getting ready to make way.  Anything else to report?”“No, sir.  Save that I don’t trust Koraldris, sir.  He seems too…shifty, if you ask me.  Like he’s got plans of his own or something.”“No one does, least of all me.  Don’t worry I’ve got my eye on him.”There was the scrape of chairs moving as the two stood, and Charity ran up the stairs before she could be seen.  She made it upstairs just as the rest of her friends came up the gangplank.  “Something’s going on.” She warned.“What’s that?” Asked Lorenzo.“I don’t know.  I just ‘accidentally’ over heard them talking about a bounty of some sort.”Ren grinned.  “Accidentally?”“You know, I just happened to be within earshot at the time, and well heard some things.”Ren opened his mouth to make another comment when the Captain and Samson came up on deck.  Samson blew the bosun’s whistle summoning the entire crew to order.“All right, everyone.  Looks like we get to fight, and we’ll be paid for it this time.  This isn’t just a raid.  I want everyone in fighting trim in fifteen minutes time.  Word is that our prey is within a few hours of here, and we get to go take care of the problem.  Lets get this tub underway.”“What’s our prey, Cap?” Charity shouted from the back, where she stood on a capstan.“No doubt you’ve heard of the warship in the area, the one that’s been taking down local entrepreneurs?  The governors have decided to show them that we can’t be intimidated that easily.”There was a chorus of shouts from the assembled crew.  “We’ll tear them to ribbons!” “They’ll regret setting sail in the ghostsea!”  The captain waited for the noise to die down before he spoke again.“Now, we have to bring their captain back for identification.  So no one shoves him overboard, got it?”There was another cheer, and the crew set sail.  **********************************“Ship ahoy!” came the shout from the crows nest.  The captain raised his spyglass.“Yep, right where we were told to expect them.  Right, you lot, this is for the gold.  Give me best speed possible, but keep our colors hidden.  We don’t want them running from us.”The crew snapped to work, the sails were trimmed, the steersman angled for an approach.  Everyone began checking their weapons.  Charity drew her rapier, hefted it, gave a few practice flourishes, and re-sheathed it.  As they approached, the other crew and captain could be seen, apparently they had been spotted.  Bright flickers of light came from the aft of the ship, a signal mirror was being used to ask their intentions.  Kor kept theirs covered.  Nothing they said would be believed or even important after just a few minutes.“Divide up into two parties.” Samson shouted.  “One party will go aboard and skirmish, the other will stay here as backup, and use the crossbows.  We’ll try to light their sails aflame, and slow them down.  Let’s move people!”The crew separated as ordered, the unsuspecting ship drew closer.  Eventually, they moved into hailing distance.  The captains only answer to the shouted greeting was the order to fire.A dozen flaming bolts sped across the distance, lit by small fire pits at the bowmen’s feet.  The crew on the other deck panicked, and stumbled around each other as they tried to make ready for a boarding action, and started trying to put out the flames.  The crew sent another round of flaming bolts, and some of the sails began to burn.  A third volley went unanswered before the other ship got its act together.  A feeble return volley spiked the deck near Charity, who only grinned, and took hold of a rope dangling from one of the yardarms.  As soon as they were within range, she took a running jump, and swung across the gap.  She heard the others doing the same.She landed solidly, ducked a fired bolt, and ran a man through.  She flipped her sword around with dexterity, brought it into a guard position, and pointed at the next one in line with a grin.  The man charged her, she ducked, ran him through, spun around and impaled a third in the same motion.  Then she saw the captain of the other vessel.  She was from Mala and recognized him instantly as a war-priest.  He was the one they wanted.She ran toward him, ducking attacks from friend and foe alike, rolled past Dunstan as his axe clove into the mast next to his target, and struck out at the armored warrior.  Her blade deflected aside without finding its mark.  The man smirked, “They send waifs to fight us?”“Yeah, I know.” She responded. “They usually send us after real targets.”He swung his sword, which she easily ducked, then countered, but his armor absorbed it.  Charity was getting annoyed.  Just then, Ren landed on the deck behind him, making a feeble cut with one of his daggers as he did so.  Just the same, it took some of the man’s attention from her.Cut, thrust, parry, dodge.  The two were too fast for the armored man to pin down, and his armor kept the worst of their attacks from having an effect.“Harumph!  Kill their boarders!  They were kind enough to leave us planks to take their ship!”   There was a snapping sound as some of the rigging burned away.  The yardarms weren’t going to hold up much longer.  The three sized each other up again, and sped into a flurry of steel, trying to bring the armored man down.One of the regular crew, not having another target at the moment, rushed at Charity.  The swing was clumsy, however, and she easily batted it aside.  She returned her attention to her target, dropped to the deck as he swung, and stabbed upward.  Ren took the opportunity offered by his momentary lack of attention to drive his daggers deep into the man’s back.  The man grunted in pain, and turned to aim a strike at Ren, drawing a line of blood across his chest.  Ren took one look at his chest, then launched into a furious assault of flashing daggers, ducking and weaving between the man’s defenses.  Overwhelmed, he could only throw his hands up to his face to protect it, and Ren found the one place his daggers could do the most damage.  He shoved the blade up between two of the plates of the mans armor, finally killing him.Behind her, she could hear Dusntan and Orange making short work of the enemy crew, punctuated at times by Aoife and Khadija’s respective battle cries.  Aoife cut the last one down.***************************The celebration was short.  Bodies were counted, fires were put out.  The surviving crew set about repairing the damage so the ship could be sailed back to port.  Ren began first aid for those that needed it.  Charity thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t need his help, and then began exploring the new ship, to see what she could find.Hidden under a board near the front of the ship was a small box, and under it a handful of gems.  Looking over her shoulder, she pockets the gems, and replaces the box.  Whatever share of the gold the crew earned, Charity was happy enough to claim her own reward.  She walked out of the room, to run into Orange, who was also searching the ship.  “Did you find anything?” he asked.“No, there wasn’t anything in there.  What do you say we go ahead and see if they need our help up there?”“Sounds good to me.  We did good today, didn’t we?”Charity smiled.  “Indeed we did, indeed we did.”</blockquote>

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