Boarding Action (1/2)
Threadbare ran.
It had taken time, precious minutes to get through the waymark checkpoint in Castle Cylvania. Even though he was one of the heroes of the kingdom, security was still important. He had been one of the people to put these measures into place, after all. It would have been hypocritical to bypass them.
But oh, it had taken everything he had to sit through the security checks, give the passwords, and submit to a brief search.
All he could do was wait, fidget, and burst through the doors at top speed the second they gave him the go-ahead.
He knew that something was off the second he got into the city. Alarm bells were going off in the distance, and the sound of faint screaming rang out from the direction of the square.
And under it all, a familiar ring of metal on metal, and distant, shouted skills. Fighting. Not show fighting, or any of the sanctioned dueling and show fights that the festival usually ran. This was the real thing. This was death on the line.
For a second he dared to hope that it was going well. That his allies and friends had things under control, and he would arrive to find the pirates captured, his friends alive and well, and his little girl completely safe.
BOOM.
A building fell over in the distance.
Smoke rose to the sky.
“Oh bother,” Threadbare muttered. It had been a nice dream. But there was no escaping violence this time, he reckoned.
So he chanted as he ran, bringing up the buffs he thought that might help the situation.
“Flex. Strong Pose. Deathsight. Guard Stance. Dazzling Entrance. Riposte. Harden. Keen Eye. Camouflage.”
His body moved of its own accord, as his physical buffs took hold. His perception sharpened, even as he faded from sight. And he felt boldness rise within him, as fighting instincts filled his heart, and he tilted his hat to just the right angle to catch the moonlight.
About a minute after that Threadbare passed the first wave of fleeing fairgoers.
Half a minute past that he outran the city guards, who were surging in to try and make some order in the chaos.
And twenty seconds later he found the carnage.
It was remarkably small, given the destruction. About a dozen forms lying in the remnants of the main stage seating.
The stage itself was the Cotton Tale, draped over with cloth and ropes and festival lights. But all that was being swiftly removed by her crew, who though bloodied and battered, had won the fight.
And Garon, poor Garon, shattered Garon lay mostly in pieces near the fallen tower at the edge of the square. The swathe of destruction from there to the ship told the story; multiple cannons full of canister shot, like great blunderbusses firing pellets the size of grapes, cutting down everything and anything in their way.
But as Threadbare padded past him, form faded and practically invisible thanks to his Camouflage, Garon stirred.
Just a bit. Threadbare stopped, then ran over to the bull-shaped helm, now twisted and mangled, with one horn gone. But his eyes still glowed red, deep in their empty metal hollows.
“Threadbare,” Garon whispered, so quietly it could be mistaken for the wind through the holes in his chestplate. “Kayin's waiting and watching. Whisper her when you want her to strike.”
Threadbare started to heal him, but paused with the words on his lips. He looked to the ship, saw the crew manning the guns, pointed straight at Garon. Any healing he did would be visible, and he had the feeling it wouldn't end well from there.
WIS+1
And then a flash of red caught his attention.
He looked up, and there was Celia, hanging upside down from the mast as two crewbunnies tied her into place.
Threadbare crept forward, sneaking for all he was worth...
AGL+1
Your Stealth skill is now level 37!
...creeping up to the edge of the ship.
From there, he could hear Anne barking orders. She was a loud sort on a good day, but now she was being extra-shouty.
“Get out of me hold you goblin-gutted gangly little gremlin!”
“Come down here and make me!”
“Oh you'd like that, would you! If I have to then I'll spread your entrails out while you're alive, so you can read your own future in'em! Spoilers: you'll be dead soon!”
“Maybe so, but you're not getting to your engines without dealing with us first! And by that time, your doom will be here! I've read it in the cards. If you wait, you lose.”
“Oh for the love of fluff! I was going to release you, you halven harlot! We treated you and yours well, even when you caught your lot a-spying! Why are you so dead set in getting your blood all over me clean decks?”
“Did you think it was an accident that you found us on that mountaintop? Did you think it was coincidence that we had all that treasure from our last dungeon run out in plain sight? Did it even cross your mind that maybe, just maybe we needed transportation to get where we needed to be when we needed to be there, carried by the very enemies we were trying to stop?”
Silence, then, and Threadbare finished clambering on board, racking up another Climb skill level on the way. He made his way slowly, carefully around one of the gunners, scurrying from coil of rope to concealing drop cloth, trying to find the best way to get up to Celia. It was crowded on deck, with thirty or forty crew... and one face he recognized. There was Jean Lafeet, at the bottom of the mast, staring up at Celia. Her face was wracked with guilt, and he read shame in her body language. Was she an accomplice? That was a horrible thought.
Anne spoke with chilling coldness.
“So you name me your enemy, then.”
“I...” the voice from the hold sounded uncertain. It was young, a teenager's or a girl's voice, Threadbare thought. “I'm sorry, but we have to stop you. The omen was clear. If the porcelain princess is taken from her kingdom, then all who draw breath within it shall perish.”
“Well. Good for me I don't plan on sticking around, then,” Anne said. She whirled, and pointed to the edge of the deck... and to the cannon lining it. “Janet! Turn the gun! Rotate ninety degrees to the underside and fire!”
Janet looked shocked.
“But captain, that'll—”
“Damnit, Janet! Did I stutter?”
“No captain!”
“You lot! Get down there and show our ungrateful guests the points of yer blades! Both hatches, double time now! Sort'em out me hearties!”
Threadbare moved further into the coil of rope he was hiding in, as the pirates rushed past him, yarring up a storm. Not all of them, but the deck was much clearer after that.
It was strange that Anne hadn't followed them down, so he stepped carefully, making his way toward the mast where Celia was bound. He had four slots left in his party, so once he was close enough he whispered “Distant Animus Rope. Invite Rope.”
Your Distant Animus skill is now level 6!
The rope twitched, and Threadbare checked Anne. She was oblivious, talking to one of her crewbunnies, the one who always wore heavy robes and a veil. What was his name? Stormanorm? That was it.
Celia, however, was less than oblivious. She looked frightened, and Threadbare sent her a quick whisper. “It's me! I'll have you loose soon, never fear.”
But instead of calming down she held onto the rope as best she could, keeping it from untying, and shouted “Anne! Captain Anne!”
“Aye, me captive?”
“So long as I'm surrendered you won't turn your cannons on Garon, right? You won't smash his soulstone?”
“I meant what I said, and said what I meant! He's safe as sofas unless you try to escape on me. I swear it by the code!” Then she pulled her cutlass, and leveled it at Janet. “Light the fuse and run to safety!”
“But captain, we'll blast a hole in our own ship!”
“DAMN IT JANET!”
“I mean aye-aye captain!” Janet lit the fuse.
From the hatches, the sounds of fighting rose, as an unfamiliar man bellowed “OH YEAH, TIME FOR THE SMACKDOWN! SIGNATURE MOVE! YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”
But Threadbare paid it no mind. It would have to sort itself out, because he was already trying to find a solution that didn't end with any of his friends dead.