Happy Birthday WisdomLikeSilence! May each new year improve on the last.
Part the One Hundred Ninety-Ninth
In which: Kettenek’s Justice is invoked, a close-encounter with Alirria is avoided, and Eva wishes she had eyes in the back of her head.
(as recorded by Fajitas)
Not bitchy enough, Eva thinks to herself.
Not bitchy enough by half…
The Guardsmen leap across the gap between the skiff and the barge. Fortunately for Eva, they land in various states of disarray. One nearly misses the barge altogether and barely catches the edge of the deck. Only one manages to land on his feet.
Naturally, that one guard immediately swings at Eva, but she dodges nimbly. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Thatch, Anvil, and Reyu emerge from the cargo hold and take up fighting positions.
Okay, she thinks,
time for me to pull back and let the front line take these guys on…
She steps back, away from the guards who are rising to their feet. So she doesn’t notice the belaying pin that the captain of their barge has raised—not until he cracks her over the head with it.
“Ow!” Eva yelps.
“Help us!” the captain shouts to the Guardsmen. “They’ve taken us prisoner! Strike back at them, men!”
“Screw you!” Eva responds, and she strikes at him with her rapier. The weapon plunges deep into the captain’s gut, deeper than either she or the captain expected. The captain’s shout ends in a gasp as he clutches his wound with one hand.
Meanwhile, at least some of his crew seems to have taken his words as orders. One of them looks around, uncertain. Another searches for a weapon. The third, having found one, strikes Anvil with it.
The Justicar turns on the sailor, eyes blazing. “Raise your hand against a servant of Kettenek again, and you will Know. His. Justice,” he snarls.
The sailor’s eyes widen. He drops his weapon.
Anvil nods and then rushes towards the Head Guardsman.
(DM’s Note: Ain’t nearly often enough you see the Initmidate skill in use.)
Meanwhile, Thatch has wasted no time in heading for the front line. With a mighty cry, he swings his greatsword, cutting two of the guards down before they can even rise to their feet.
Heh heh heh, he thinks. Two of the standing guards strike back, scoring hits. Thatch shrugs the minimal damage off and shows them what real damage looks like. They drop.
Reyu, meanwhile, has been firing arrows at the Head Guardsman. Unfortunately, Anvil’s current proximity makes it difficult for her to keep firing. She drops the bow, draws her short spear, and heads into melee.
Eva shakes her head a few times, trying to get her eyes to focus again. That blow to the head was a doozy. She does notice the barge captain, bleeding profusely, trying to stumble away from her. “Oh no, you don’t,” she mutters, and whips a throwing dagger in his direction. Another hit. The captain crumples to the deck.
Two guardsmen step forward to flank Thatch. Since he’s already taken down most of their companions, Thatch isn’t really that concerned. They coordinate their attack, and both strike the young fighter. He takes more damage, not nearly enough to take him down, but enough to start him worrying.
One good strike and I can take ‘em both out, he thinks, but he proves unable to get that good strike.
Fortunately, he doesn’t have to, as Eva quietly steps up behind one of his attackers. The guard is so focused on Thatch, he doesn’t even notice. Nor does he ever get a chance to. A quick, sharp thrust between the fourth and fifth ribs, and he drops.
“Nice,” Thatch says, and turns his full attention to the one remaining guardsman. Said guardman then does two things in rapid succession: 1) Acquires religion, and 2) shuffles off this mortal coil.
Anvil, meanwhile, has been locked in combat with the Head Guardsman. Both have been injured, but the Head Guardsman seems to be panting just a little harder than Anvil. Taking quick stock of the state of his men, the Guardsman calls out to the sailors on his skiff. “Go! Get out of here! Find help!”
The sailors on the skiff don’t need to be told twice. They quickly get to work, and the skiff begins to move off from the barge.
“Eva! Stop them!” Anvil demands, as he swings at the Head Guard again.
Eva glances over towards the skiff. There are two… or possibly four (gods that was a hard hit on the head)… sailors on it, and it’s starting to move away. “Yeah, right!” she calls back, and fires an arrow. It might have hit, if there actually had been four. Alas, there are only two, and the arrow flies past them.
Thatch, having dispatched his last foe, quickly gauges the distance between the two ships. Since the distance is growing every second, he doesn’t have a lot of time to think. “I got ‘em,” he yells, as he runs across the deck of the barge and leaps towards the skiff.
It does not occur to him that he hasn’t always had the best luck with
ship-to-ship acrobatics. It does not occur to him that this is awfully far to jump in all his armor. Nor does it occur to him that if he misses the boat, he will be quite at the mercy of those two sailors.
Fortunately, none of that matters. He clears the distance and lands quite solidly on the skiff. So solidly, in fact, that the entire skiff rocks with the impact. The two sailors topple forward, falling at Thatch’s feet.
Thatch looks down at them, his greatsword raised.
“Stop the boat. Now.”
They swallow.
Then they stop the boat.
DM’s Note: And that, my friends, is what happens with a natural 20 on an Intimidate check.
Anvil and Reyu manage to take down the Head Guard. The barge sailors, having only briefly mutinied, surrender again. All told, four of their attackers, including the Head Guard, still live. They are divested of their weapons and their livery (which the party may find useful), and they are all bound tightly. Reyu treats their wounds, though she does not bother to waste healing magic on them.
Thatch brings the skiff back to the barge. Anvil and Eva are discussing what information the Head Guard might have that they would want to know. “Can I ask the questions?” Thatch asks, a dangerous look in his eye. “I’ve gotten real good at making people on boats talk.”
They query the Head Guard about the search for them. He puts up a show of defiance, but nothing that Thatch and a quick dunk can’t break. The search, they learn, is mostly taking place among the western parts of the islands, where their last known position was. Little effort is being made in this area. Though, the Head Guard thinks that’s likely to change once his team fails to report back.
The group then withdraws to discuss what to do next. They decide they should clearly abandon the barge in favor of the much faster skiff. As an added bonus, the skiff only requires two sailors, thus they can rid themselves of the mutinous barge crew. Then there is the question of what to do with the prisoners.
“Well, we’re pretty close to the Exile Island,” Thatch points out. “We could toss ‘em out and let ‘em swim.”
“Will that not be the same as a death sentence?” Reyu asks.
“So?” Eva counters.
“Are there not other islands nearby? Islands where they might have at least a fighting chance of rescue? It seems more… humane,” Reyu responds, savoring the irony that she, the only non-human, is the one who wishes to be “humane”.
In the end, they decide to go with Reyu’s plan. According to the map, there is a creature-laden island nearby. They’ll deposit the prisoners on the dock, and with luck, they’ll be rescued before they’re eaten. The barge they’ll set adrift.
Thatch nods, and prepares to leave the group conference. “Not yet,” Anvil says.
“Why? Is there anything else to talk about?”
“No,” Anvil says. “But I believe we should continue to sit here and say the words ‘massive attack’ and ‘naval armada’ loudly enough to be heard by the prisoners before we maroon them.”
Thatch stares at the straight-faced Justicar. “Will it help or hurt if I laugh out loud?”
Anvil thinks it over. “I believe it will help, but only if you laugh wickedly.”
Thatch does so.
