Duty Session 241: Still Coast Pirates

Cyrus rubs the back of his head as he looks over the water in the distance, a few boats well out of reach. It is dark - with only the red of the red moon looming overhead, but bits of those lights on those boats can still be seen.

He motions up at the air. No doubt, to the Landers, just another thing that makes Adventurers so strange. "Infiltrate and try to get to the depths of the ship as sneakily as we can. See if we can't find anything out about where these pirates are coming from" He makes note of for the test.

The youth looks to the rest. "We don't want to freak them." He states, as he kicks his foot against one of the Hunters Guild provided long boats. "Everyone, pick a travel buddy and let's get going. Try to remain quiet if you can help it."

    Giganpor raises an eyebrow, then looks around as he hefts his hammer-axe spear. The weapon is stowed across his back as he eyes the encampment. Nearby, a water serpent elemenetal dives in and out of the water, enjoying the chance to be in it's natural element.

    "Interesting. I thought a lot of us took care of these pirates before. I would really like to know where they come from in the future." He hops down into a boat, looking over at his elemental, "Rane, come along. I know you enjoy the water, but we need to make it safe for us to do so."

    He looks over at Cyrus, "So what's the call? I can see they were here. Track down and eliminate?"

Yeowang has arrived at the gathering place, and looks at Cyrus as he gestures. "Infiltrate," she repeats. She nods; though that's not in her skilset, she can do her best. "We don't want to freak them?" she wonders. "What is our objective, then? Just to scout them out? Will we be fighting them?" That's closer to her area of expertise. That or corporate shenanigans. We're probably not going to buy them out, though.

She's got her long hair done up in a thick bun, her clothes snug-fitting and dark, for the stealth that it provides at night, and she's as ready as she can be.

"I don't think this is an adventure for you, buddy." Mikage murmurs in a soft voice as she reaches down to rub her lynx companion between the ears. "If something goes wrong, we both know you don't handle water too well." The feline huffs, ears tucking back, but he seems to accept the fact that he's going to be left behind on the shoreline.

Slowly standing up, Miki walks towards Cyrus, giving him a nod of the head. "I'll stick with you. Worst case scenario, my water magic should be able to get us there." Her eyes flick towards the others before she adds, "I can do the quick and quiet thing. Shouldn't be an issue."

    Amalthea is here. Having pulled herself away from the vast sea of handling the SEA's paperwork, now to face down a vast sea of a different kind as she looks out to the boats in the distance.
    "Mm, Cyrus, always good to see you." She greets, lips tugging into a warm smile. "Mikage, I'd ask how Rama is, but you two are inseperable as always." At least until it's decided Rama won't be coming along on this trip anyway.
    And then she spots Giganpor.
    The old Paladin's smile is nearly wiped right off her face instantly.
    "Well. Let's get on with it."

It's always pirates.

Proteus crosses her arms as she looks over the water, her eyes faintly gleaming in the reflection of the moon. Another problem, another bunch of Landers causing trouble. People keep complaining about Adventurers upending the apple cart, but /they/ aren't the ones forming bandit and pirate groups. Last she checked.

"We're going with the stealth option? All right." Proteus nods to Cyrus and looks over the group. "This should be doable, I think." She says, before stepping into one of the boats and gestures, getting into place to get rowing. "I'm sure the main objective at this point is to get information. Once we have that, we can choose best how to dispatch the problem. Pirates and bandits tend to be the symptom of a greater disease. It doesn't pay nearly as well as some make it out to be, especially in a land full of semi-immortal do-gooders."

"Where there is one, there are more. Piracy is a bit of a business. Especially in this kind of era, I think." Cyrus remarks as he starts to push one of the longboats off of the beach and gets it going into the water.

He then grabs a paddle, and begins to push. "Get to their ship, sneak in, figure it out from there I imagine." Cyrus answers Giganpor. To Yeowang he notes; "We'll try to avoid battle where possible. They might go into hiding if they have a group of immortal warriors chasing them." He explains to them - clearly agreeing with Proteus' point on the matter.

He nods to Mikage at her comment on water magic, and raises his hand to Amalthea in greeting. "Nice to see you too, Amalthea."

The crew begins to head forward on their longboats. There's that creaky unwelcoming sound of wood. The longboats are firm though. But as they get halfway to the ship, the winds and waters suddenly begin to pick up. "Not now." Cyrus grunts. "I need some help at the paddles."

It isn't much longer before the water just gets too harsh and heavy. It's hard to avoid their Longboats smashing into the jaws of some nearby rocks, sending the crew into the waters - having to swim forward to the pirate ship.

"The pirate ship must have some escape boats. We'll use those to get away after this." He calls out over the sudden gale of winds. "Stupid weather."

Yeowang climbs into the boat and sets out with the party, watching our progress thoughtfully. She nods to what cyrus says about pirates. "But it only works where it's economically viable. If we can make it not worth the money, they'll be forced out of business even without fighting." Of course killing them all works, too, but we're going to try and avoid battle.

When the wind and waves pick up, she holds onto to the gunwhale, trying to keep from getting pitched overboard. She'll grab an oar and try to assist Cyrus, but her efforts are for naught as we wind up in the water, and now she's just trying to keep afloat. That's easier said than done, though, and her swimming skill does not, it seems, apply to rough weather in open sea.

There is a soft smile offered towards Amalthea in the shy way that the Ranger usually offers. "He's a bit unhappy at having to stay behind, but I think he'll be unhappier if he ends up having to swim." She explains, motioning a hand towards the grumy looking lynx who remains behind on the shoreline.

It seems that leaving the feline behind was a good idea as the weather starts to kick up. As Cyrus starts to have trouble keeping the boat steady, "Right. Let me see what I can do." Except, with the boat rocking as much as it is, she ends up losing her balance. "Uh, Cyrus. Rocks... ROCKS!" She calls out in warning, then grabs the cat and tries to pull him overboard before they get smashed.

Unfortunately, once in the water, things don't go quite as well as planned. So close to the rocks, it's hard to use her water abilities at all, meaning that she's forced to try to swim, which is a skill that the Were Fang is not as good at. Flail.

"We'll figure it out." Proteus says as they set off. "We always do."

They launch, and progress is made, Proteus sets to, remaining mostly silent as they move along, though she does glance up at the weather. The leather of her gloves creaks as her hands tighten on the oars, putting more effort into trying to keep the longboat afloat.

It goes poorly. The impact against the rocks is nerve-wracking, jarring as she it pitched into the ocean. What with the howling winds and water getting everywhere, Proteus silently thanks the fact that she has all of her Abilities macroed to gesture commands. > S

The water surges around them, and Proteus begins skidding along the waves, trying to gain some measure of local control over it to both keep people from drowning as well as to push them in the right direction. "Mental note." She hisses. "When dealing with pirates, prepare for swimming."

    Giganpor looks up at the call of rocks. Then he does the sensible thing since they can't exactly avoid it. Goes overboard!

He ends up under the water, floundering a bit as he reveals that swimming was not one of his good skills. Nor is diving from the looks. He manages to at least cling to a rock before he shakes his now soaking wet hair and looks to Cyrus. "We should have asked about--" He coughs a bit as his head goes under, then comes back up. He starts to tread water as he makes his way towards the pirate ship.

    "I knew I should have used water magic." Then his water elemental comes to the rescue. The dog-sized being swimming over so he can get a hold of it and stop sinking. He looks around for others as he tries to keep hold of what is essentially solid water and not end up breathing more water. He does look miserable being soaking wet and wearing that armor, however. Very miserable.

    Were Fang cats apparently don't like water as much as real ones.

    Into the boats then, and Amalthea settles herself right on in, grabbing an oar to help Cyrus out.
    But no amount of aid can help the weather, and when the water gets choppy- and goes from choppy to violent, Amalthea is grunting at the strain of rowing.
    There's just no helping it when the boat slams into the rocks.
    Wearing heavy armor sure doesn't make swimming very easy as she struggles mightily once she's flung from the crashed boat. Though her armor suddenly coats itself in a layer of frost she's uh.
    Starting to sink anyway.
    Not as planned.
    Not as planned at all as she kicks and pumps her arms as hard as she can to not sink, just barely keeping up with the others.

"I see them, I see them!" Cyrus had called out at Mikage's alerted sounds. But it is impossible to paddle against these rough seas!

The team is having a harsh time! With the waters turning on them, even their attempts at using water magic is being overwhelmed by the sheer power of nature itself. Magic is a powerful force, but it is not all-powerful. Some of those present may even find themselves having a hard time getting their magic to cooperate.

Water rises up and spills over Yeowang's face, pushing them back down, only to get helped up by a pull from Proteus. Cyrus looks ever the irrate wet-cat. That feeling of drowning is incredibly unpleasant, as Mikage gets pulled down by a big wave - the crew being pushed towards the boat by it.

Cyrus goes under soon after, and it isn't long before the entire group ends up slamming into the bottom of the boat, grabbing on for dear life! Still, they make it, worse for wear as they may be. A lucky set of ladders allowing them to climb up onto the side of the ship. It's notably rather large - far larger than they'd thought it was from a distance.

And the lights they'd seen must have been because of what is going on. Festivities. Just having succeeded in a merry pillaging, the pirates are singing, drunk. A kobold rushes around serving the pirates various drinks and food.

Cyrus presses his finger to his lips, telling folk to be quiet, while they continue to drip thick drops of water onto the wooden bow. Ugh, wet clothes. He then points at the kobold, and takes out a flask of something... slightly glowing and green looking. Giving that 'you know what I mean?' look. Then again, points to the kobold.

Yeowang climbs aboard the ship, wet and waterlogged, leaving puddles on deck where she walks. She spies the kobold, who, given that he seems to be serving the crew rather than partying, could be a useful ally. She smiles, puts a hand on the kobold's shoulder, and says, "Let me tell you what I can do for you..." The details of the deal are concluded to the kobold's satisfaction, and after a handshake, she vanishes belowdecks.

Nearly drowning was not on Mikage's list of things to do today. Luckily, she has enough inate magic to avoid hacking up half the sea in the process of trying to clamber aboard the boat. Drenched and cold, she shivers slightly, seeming thankful, once again, that Rama hadn't come along.

Catching her breath, the pale Were Fang does her best to not make too much noise, despite the fact that her teeth are chattering. She looks over to spot Cyrus with his strange potions, then takes out a couple that she had attached to her belt. Unfortunately, they all look alike to her, and with the water having caused the labels to wear off, she is stuck choosing one at random.

Reaching up, Miki sneaks one into a pirate's drink. Only to have that pirate toss the drink back, give a strange look, then run to the side of the ship and begin emptying his stomach of it's contents. The pirate mutters, "Carrots... why is it always carrots? We didn't even /eat/ carrots." He groans.

Apparently, she didn't quite use the sleeping potion she'd intended to. Oops.

    Somehow. Somehow Amalthea makes it to the ship. Grumbling, wet, and now very surly, the old Odysseia Knight pulls herself aboard. ... To find partying pirates. Cyrus gives a signal and indicates the server kobold.
    Easy enough.
    Bending to a knee to get on the critter's level she flashes a grin.
    She just might have sweetened that deal Yeowang made for the little guy considering she's following after Yeowang in short order.

    Giganpor isn't far behind Amalthea and Yeowang. Rane curls around his shoulders as the water elemental looks about.

    Getting a bit of a grin, he follows the ladies' idea, also slipping some coin and a nice knife suitable for doing some extra cutting to the kobold.

    Afterwards, he makes his way below and looks back to see what the others are doing. He reaches for his weapon just in case this goes sour, but otherwise keeps ready. They are basically in a hostile area, after all. He whispers on the party chimlink, "Kobold's been bribed. Move it."

It's a wet, horrible time. Proteus is also soaked with seawater, making the Imp considerably less chipper and more moderately miserable, albeit quiet enough to not complain about it with pirates /right there/. She's not in the mood to get into a brawl quite yet, they have things to do first. The others deal with the Kobold to talk their way through, and Proteus rummages around for something to dose the drinks with, coming up empty. The Imp shakes her head to Cyrus, shrugging. She doesn't normally keep poison or knockout drugs on hand. She moves on along with the others.

The Kobold doesn't speak their language. But luckily, Yeowang has no trouble indicating in simple motions 'getting back at those pirates' - Amalthea helping in the pantimiming.

It's not long before the Kobold is accepting some rather... interesting brews from the Alchemist in the party. Mikage's potion can already be seen having an effect, as the pirate in question goes *GUURK* out on the side of the ship.

A few others are soon falling fast asleep - Cyrus managing to keep his potions apart without labels, thanks to... well... having brewed them himself. Also because he's an alchemist.

"It's alright." Cyrus simply answers Proteus, at a sheer whisper that barely seems to get through the cutting winds.

When things quiet down, the Kobold is seen jumping on one of the pirate bodies, and stealing the buttons off of the shirt of another.

The team heads down through an alcove. It's a big ship, but they still have to make sure they hold formation. Once they get below, Cyrus notices one heck of a lock.

"If there's a secret anywhere... I bet it's in there." He whispers. "But I'm not too great with locks. Anyone see a key around anywhere?" Cyrus asks, while the wind outside continues to howl loudly.

"Well, that wasn't what I intended." Mikage whispers to herself, looking at the remaining potions before giving Cyrus a skeptical look. She doesn't even want to know what was in the one she just gave the 'poor' pirate.

Seeing that the others have matters more well in hand, she sneaks along with the others towards what looks to be the way in to the lower decks. While the Were Fang isn't the best at handling breaking and entering, she does seem to have some skills with finding things meant to be kept unseen. Her hand moves along the surface of the door frame, eventually finding a notch.

When she pushes it in, there is an audible 'click'. "Try it now? That seemed to have done something."

    That sure is a lock. Just at the sight of it Amalthea pauses to rub her chin.
    "Let me see there." She says, kneeling to inspect it.
    "This sure is a complex lock." Mused after a moment of examination. "There should be a switch nearby that'll allow me to get a pick in there, though." She explains while-- Mikage handily finds it.
    "Ah, thank you dear." Said as she plucks a pin from her hair and starts getting to work.
    "Now. When I get this lock open there's only going to be a few seconds window to get to door open so someone is going to have to push real hard. Ready?" She explains as she gets to work rattling her hair pin around inside the lock--
    And it clicks loudly.
    "-Now."

Yeowang looks over as we're faced with this cleverly locked door. She has no idea what to do about it, so she will wait to be told. So it seems the trick is to push ... where? At when? It's all very complicated, and with the threat of pirate guards coming any moment now, it doesn't make it any easier. She keeps trying, but either she's pushing the wrong place, or something needs timing that she doesn't quite catch on to. Needless to say, it's frustrating. "Hopefully one of you understands this better than I do," she says with frustration.

    Giganpor, probably still busy with being a wet cat Were Fang looks to be one of the physical ones. And he tries, at least. But well... wet floors, and he does not have shoes suitable for this sort of footing he needs.

    So much so that he's literally slipping every time he tries to push on the mechanism to give it that force they need.

A rough start, but things seem to be smoothing out. They're all moderately experienced Adventurers again, after all. Proteus squishes along behind the others, considerably less Ominously Mysterious considering the recent waterlogging and mostly resembling the demeanor of a drenched cat.

But they move along, letting the kobold handle things after the partying pirates are dealt with. Below decks, Proteus continues to putter about, looking things over intently as she examines the ship and the contents while they are confronted with a door.

The assembled adventurers put their power to use in working to undo the security, and Proteus's fingers twitch at the sight of the lock. Still, Amalthea and Mikage have those details well in hand and far be it for her to create a Too Many Cooks situation. "Nice work." She says to them as she considers the previous attempts on the door. "Maybe it's a weighted pivot..." She hums, testing the door a couple times... And then she leans in, thunking the door low and grunting as she forces it upwards, trying to reseat it. "Heh. There." She says, as the door begins giving under their combined ministrations. "Clever little trick."

Teamwork makes the... door open.

With Mikage finding a hidden mechanism to get the ancient looking door to open, and Amalthea using expert lockpicking skills, and the rest of the team starting to work together to push the door open with the right timing, Cyrus takes a moment to stand back and just... watch.

"Why such an old door? Is this ship that old? Did everything get replaced around this door?" Ever the lore-nerd, the catte considers this.

As the crew starts heading through the now opened door, Cyrus glances aside to Proteus, noticing her messing with the lock. "Looking to create secret trap doors at the HQ?" He inquires with her.

Only to suddenly be alarmed by the loud shouting from a massive Salamander cook blowing fire beneath a stove, and then glaring at the Adventurers. "You lot! Get in here and improve this food, or the cap'n is going to be out of his gourd mad!" The cook seems halfway drunk, and the food he's prepared so far is...

Subpar is an understatement. There's no doubt a few looks shared amongst the team. But the objective remains. Be inconspicuous. Best do what he asks.

Part of hunting is knowing how to properly cut the meat from a carcass, and that much has not yet been done by the cooks, nor by whoever laid on the meat for this meal. Yeowang does not -really- know how, herself, though her skill sheet lists it. It's a menu-only skill for her, but apparently that means she's not very good at it. So, rather tha cutting steaks, she's cutting chipped beef.

There is a brief moment where Mikage is trying to sneak past, but the Salamander cook notices them. At first, she's ready to shift into fighting mode, but the group seems to be mistaken for kitchen help. Pausing, she looks around, seeming completely out of her element. "Uh..." If only Sassaral were here, she would know how to fix this mess.

"I'll... see if I can clean up some of the meat." However, what she finds might be defined as meat, but it certainly has an offputting color to it. She lifts it to her nose, sniffs, and then holds it away from herself with a disgusted face. "I'm not sure an act of the gods could improve this..." She whispers to herself.

Not wanting to get in trouble for not doing something, she chops it up, quickly, leaving it for the cooks and then doing her best to sneak away before they realize that she may very well be feeding them bad meat.

"I'm wondering the same thing, honestly." She mentions to Cyrus at his verbalized questions. "There has to be something important behind this door..."

There is a little smirk back to Cyrus at the question. "There's always room for a little more security..." But then her smile vanishes, a strange, haunted look in her eyes as she remembers something. "... Though I suppose for the people I really would want to keep out, it wouldn't matter..."

It's when they arrive in the next room that Proteus blinks and whispers, "The /galley/? Who would put the galley under that much security?" She glances over to the others for some kind of answer, and she sniffs distastefully. "Ugh. This stuff is bad even for Lander cooking." She mutters. But be quiet. Be inconspicuous.

First things first, Proteus turns to the stores and rummages through, grabbing a few spices. The Imp is particularly infamous amongst Plant Duck for her constant lack of cooking skill, but at least she can tell what plants are good for eating on a basic level. She passes them over to Cyrus to have him check them over regardless.

He's the alchemist, let the man do what he's good at.

    "Huh. And I heard doors are supposed to be the bane of any adventuring party." Amalthea remarks, amused, as Proteus handles the last part of the puzzle door and it swings open. There's a faintly smug look on the old knight's face, but it doesn't last long. "Good work~."
    Moving on though... Right into the galley. Where the party is told to spruce up the food.
    "Uh."
    Well that smug look sure is gone now.
    Amalthea knows precisely enough about cooking to not starve to death.
    It does not help in this situation as she opens a pot, throws a few ingredients in, closes the pot and--
    IT immediately starts smoking.
    Amalthea edges away from the pot, whistling like she had nothing to do with it.

    Giganpor makes a face, then starts to work on the cooking at least. He's not questioning why the chef isn't saying something about the fact they are all wearing armor and stuff. And well...

    Giganpor shakes his head, starting to work but sighs after a bit. "Dang it, Cyrus. I'm a blacksmith, not a chef." He slams a fist down on the table so hard that he might just mix up ingredients and everything else by accident. Frustration is definitely showing on Giganpor.

"Maybe it's because the other pirates kept coming down here to steal the food. Or maybe the galley used to be elsewhere. Or maybe the cook is not here by choice." Cyrus can think of a few reasons, shrugging his shoulders.

Still, the team gets to work. Yeowang cutting meat, which explodes in their face on the first attempt. Literally... the meat explodes. It turns into charcoal.

Mikage tries to help, but the two of them are having a rough time. "Shh." Cyrus whispers to Giganpor.

Cyrus on the other hand is working quite well with Proteus, adding various plants into the soup in order to make it smell better. But with the rest of the team adding the ingredients to the stew itself afterwards, the lack of a cooking skill quickly becomes apparent.

"Raaa! I will do it myself! I knew I could not count on some top-deck idiots being able to cook! Out! Get out! Go apologize to the captain! Out!" He points to the door.

Through the door, into a hallway leading to a set of stairs. And this time, guards that are in fact... not drunk. Cyrus freezes in place, and looks to the others. "Shhh. Ehmm..." He ponders. "Let's knock them unconscious, and put some beer in their hands?"

Yeowang and the party ruin the pirates' meal. Luckily, the cooks don't realize the party has infiltrated the ship, so their cover is not blown. -And- they're getting sent on to the captain. Perfect! /And/ the pirates will get an awful meal, so she's not disappointed with the result.

But then they move on to one of the hallways past they galley, and encounter two determined guards.

It looks like it's going to be a fight, and she leads off with a spinning back-kick, then a few hard punches. As the fight continues, the guards take a beatdown from the party and look less and less sure of their choice to hold the line right here, right now.

"Pay us," she offers as their health sinks into the red. "Pay us and you can leave here alive." But the guards are not giving into her demands, it seems, and she's taking damage as well. It's a hard fight.

    Giganpor sighs, then shakes his head. He sees something to take frustrations out on and well... he pulls out a smaller hammer since there's not a lot of space for his hammer-axe spear. The sign that he's about to go hammering literally is the green glow on his shield and on the head of the hammer.

    Then he proceeds to do just that. Hammer poor pirates into unconsciousness. Usually with sharp smacks to the head, but just in case he's also making sure the locks are useless as well.

    Seriously, it looks like Giganpor's getting beyond frustrated as he goes about making life more difficult for pirates. He's not even bothering to kill them. Just lock them in their rooms. Literally.

    By the time he's done, he looks over at the others, "So... can we get going yet?"

"Food probably isn't the only thing they keep down here." Mikage comments in a hushed voice as they leave the galley behind. "I don't know if I should warn them not to eat that or..." Well, they are pirates.

She falls quiet as they work their way down the hall and encounter what seems to be the first real physical challenge of the quest. In the close quarters, she doesn't bother trying to fight directly, leaving that to the more capable members of the party for that. Instead, she channels some dark magic between her fingers, creating a strange magical energy which she tosses towards one of the guard's faces.

As it impacts, it splatters, coating his face and eyes and effectively blinding the pirate, leaving him more exposed to whatever punishment the others might dish out.

    Mmmmoving onnnnn.
    Out of the galley and faces with much more serious, alert pirates, Amalthea draws her blade.
    But knocking them out and slipping beers into their hands is... Easier said than done as she jumps into the fray.
    But her DPS is in the lower digits today, alas.

"They really are, sometimes. I've seen groups I've worked with get hung up on doors for /hours/." She jokes with Amalthea, a little toothy smile to go with the tank's smug.

Cyrus gets a nod. "I suppose, but that's a lot more security than you'd think you would need for just a galley, when a simple single key would do..." She sighs. "Well, whatever. We'll figure things out."

Adventurers seem to be notorious for being bad at cooking unless they're specialists in it. This is just proven out once again as they make a mess of things. Lacking actual cooking skill becomes a problem in this world, and critical failures seem to be quite apparent. No matter how much spice is used there just is only so much one can dress up a pig.

Proteus simply scurries out with the others under the berating of the cook. "Not our best display." She murmurs. "We won't be winning cooking competitions anytime soon." Still, the next challenge seems to be something more straightforward. Proteus just stands back as the others begin wading in, her hands flicking as she enters another Ability: ( @ S

The Dark Wave washes out, the cursed energy hindering the enemy attempts to fight back. "Let's handle this and move on." She says. "Cyrus' plan sounds good." She's not picky at this point. The moment the guards are down, she's grabbing stray bottles of grog and pouring some out over them to make them reek of the stuff before planting the bottle in one of their hands.

"It's like we're one of those women in anime who supposedly can't cook and make everything poisonous." Cyrus remarks. "Except, we can't even poison them. We just make really bad food... and charcoal." He grimaces at the smell coming from back at the galley, and then looks at Yeowang and Giganpor deciding to deal with matters their own way.

Unfortunately for Yeowang, the enemies can't really listen when unconscious - something that Mikage's magic makes double sure of.

Cyrus pulls a set of flasks out from his coat, he'd just purchased yesterday, and kneels down to rub a whole bunch of the alcohol onto their faces, pours some onto their clothing, and then puts the bottles into their hands while Proteus adds a set of grog bottles to the mix and adding to the pour - those two think dangerously alike. They manage to really sell the point that the guards are a bunch of drunkards. Nobody will believe a thing they have to say.

"Hah, doors. Yeah, you should see people deal with chairs in the middle of a room." He shakes his head and steps back.

"As for the food... I think the cook is just going to remake that entire batch. I don't think we could do more damage there if we tried."

Through the door they go, up some stairs, and into the pirate quarters. Maps everywhere upon tables. There's also a suspiciously pink tutu in the closet at the back of the room.

A lizard with female features, who doesn't appear to be the captain based on how they carry themselves, and the deference they have for things in the chamber, lets out a surprised squawk.

"Trespassers!" She declares, grabbing a sword from her scabbard and points to the intruders. "I don't know how you got here, but I will make sure you are not getting away."

"Get her." Cyrus quickly declares. "But do it quietly."

Stepping into the Captain's quarters, Mikage can't help but take in the fact that these pirates seem to be doing quite well for themselves. The fact that they can be quite so lazy and afford such festivities as they saw above is proof enough of that, but this place just adds the cherry on top.

Then, her eyes scan to the maps. "Those... look like exactly what we need." She explains, looking over towards the others, trying to get their attention to it as well.

She doesn't seem that concerned about the first mate, drawing out her bow and channeling some eleental magic into it before firing off a shot towards the female. It is... probably a bit louder than Cyrus would have wanted. So...

"Sorry." She whispers, sheepishly, then shrugs.

    Well, this isn't good. Giganpor eyes the lizardess, then looks to the others, "Quietly? Oh, sure..."

    Unfortunately he's distracted, so Rane does the natural protection spell it has. Ice forms over Giganpor that at least will stop him from getting too far down on the HP, but makes his footing incredibly dangerous as he ends up on the floor.

    The water elemental looks at Giganpor with a look that might as well be on a puppy. Looking a bit annoyed, Giganpor sighs, "Yes, you did good, Rane. Dismissed." The elemental disappears into a summoning circle.

"I don't need to do everything myself." Proteus shrugs. "People call me to solve puzzles and delve into the obscure nature of the World, and I call someone else to make me takoyaki and cheeseburgers." A sigh. "Even if Whiskey keeps giving me weird looks when I talk about takoyaki."

Nostalgic snacks aside, Proteus moves right along as they investigate the quarters. The sight of the tutu gets a squint from the Imp, but lizard gets a frown as well. "You know, I seem to be noticing a theme here..." She mutters, as her hands come up. "Regardless, let's put this problem to bed. A riddle for you: What's the point of having a sword if you can't swing it?" She asks. Her hands gesture, sketching out another Ability: ( ! J

Shadowy cryptic rings close around the First Mate, locking away her special attacks for a short time. "Take her down!" She hisses to the others. "She's open!"

Yeowang grumbles at her poor showing on this adventure. Real life was so much ... well, maybe it wasn't easier. She'd been training in martial arts for ten years, she's been in this game less than a year. Maybe by year ten, she'll be better.

Proceeding on with the others, she takes a look at te not-a-captain. "What are you doing here, anyhow?" she wonders, but then it's a fight, and she's at least reached a compromise with the fighting part of the game. She's not as good as she was in RL, but she can usually hold her own, and she does in this case, avoiding the worst of the mate's attacks while getting in what punches and kicks she can.

    Into the captain's chambers. Those maps look awfully important.
    It would be a shame if a group of adventurers made off with them.
    But the First Mate is in the way.
    Too bad Amalthea's DPS is really lacking today.
    She's probably distracted by the thought of takoyaki. That's good stuff.

Proteus leads off by locking away the First Mate's weapon attack, just as she's about to swing it, followed up by Mikage's arrow of elemental magic ripping through her shoulder and eradicating her arm!

"It's all good." Cyrus answers Mikage as she gives him that look of hers. "I imagine most of the people are too drunk to deal with this."

Giganpor is having some trouble on the floor, but Yeowang jumps in to protect. Amalthea pushes to defend the team while they are dealing with the remainder of the First Mate's healthbar.

"Let's finish this." Cyrus calls out, only for the First Mate to suddenly fall back, pushing against a sideboard... and suddenly sliding down into the bowels of the ship - with the parting words; "Fine, you can have the treasure chest!"

"Shit..." They could chase, but that would mean alerting the entirety of the ship. "Looks like we didn't manage to go entirely undetected. But it seems at least she's too dumb to realize we were here for the maps." Cyrus remarks, glancing at the tables.

"Someone make copies of these maps. I've got paper." He pulls some from his inventory.

"And let's take the treasure so they think that's what we were indeed here for. After that, we steal one of the lifeboats... and get the heck out of here." At least the winds outside seemed to sound a little less fierce than before.