Duty Session 302: Still Coast Pirates

The Still Coast pirates have long been a thorn in the sides of the various factions that operate shipping lanes off of Yamato. So naturally the Landers wish to have the pirates disposed of.

While it may not be possible to defeat the pirates once and for all, the various Adventurer groups have been able to attack them time and again. Tenko has organized a group in order to launch one of those assaults against the pirates. The Kitsune is currently sitting next to one of the boats, looking out over the water at the anchored ship.

    Merek wears dark attire about the frame in addition to the hood which he keeps up, while they plan to sail to the ship. The man seems to be wearing something new upon the waist, it looks like a low slung black leather strap which is special in design. The man keeps alchemist potions upon it while he draws a hand to it, "Tenko, it's always nice to see you," he will note to the woman. He does seem to consider the ship from afar while he crosses both of his arms while thinking about things.

Thalia is making up for lost time. After recent ... events with the slimes in the sewers, she's had time to clean up. No fancy dress for this one, just her usual outfit and weapons.

She arrives in a mundane manner and meets up with the assembled. "Hi everybody. Who's ready to buckle some swashes?"

Someone is going to swing from the rigging.

Piracy! It's always a pain. Every time you burn one ship to cinders, another pops up to make a nuisance of itself. Prophylaxis has come to help deal with the problem. Again! Because it just keeps popping up. Eventually they'll figure out a way to punch straight through to the head of the snake, but for now they must simply keep putting out fires.

"Shall we, then?" Prophylaxis asks, gesturing toward the great blue sea. "We've adventure to get to!"

SpritesHero hates pirates. They stink, they're coarse, and they get everywhere. He does -not- hate them enough to actively want to be close enough to them to kill them. But a job's a job, and besides, the security of the realm must be maintained. Or something like that.

It is with a critical eye that Robert surveys the waters as he approaches, booted feet crunching heavily over any loose pebbles that may coat the path of approach. "There's more of them, I see," he quips, Eeyore-like. "Again."

Yeowang has assembled to root out the pirate menace once again. She understands it's a continuous problem, though not one the Landers seem to be willing to spend serious resources to counter. There's hundreds of them, and half a dozen of us. All we can really do is sneak around, take out the leaders, and hope the rank and file disperse rather than siimply electing a new leader. It hasn't worked so far, but seventeenth time is the charm, right?

Yeowang has prepared for this mission, having pinned her long hair in a heavy bun atop her head, where it's out of the way and not likely to drag through the yuck. There's always yuck. The game designers must have a fetish. But she nods about being ready, and says, "Let's do this."

"It is always good to see you too Merek." Tenko says, as she rises up from where she was sitting and brushes herself off, "We should prep the boats. For a group called Still Coast, this water looks to be anything but."

She turns and begins to set up the boat she was sitting next to, and once it's in the water, hops in. The waves are indeed quite rough, and the group will have to navigate the swells to make it to the ship undetected.

    Merek will begin to climb into the boat, while he takes the time to look to Tenko and everyone else, "Alright, well it looks like we'll need to guide our boat," he mentions. The man lifts up a hand while he begins to call the water to shift away and let them travel easier to the ship.

This is a mess. The sea is choppy and rough and water's coming in the boat. Thalia is not ''good'' at water. She is unprepared. The spriggan frets about the small boat, trying to decide what is the most helpful.

Mostly, she bails water by hand. This is minimally effective. By the time they make it to the pirate ship, she's ready to jump, and jump she does, catching a rope and beginning the climb into the ship.

Yeowang is dumped into the water unceremoniously, and by the time she gets back to the surface, she seems to have swallowed a lot of it. Coughing and choking, she spits up the grubby saltwater, treading water with difficulty in the stormy sea. She manages to cling to a bit of wooden hull, but will need to be towed to the pirate ship, tantalizingly close.

SpritesHero should have known this was going to end up with him drinking something he really really really would rather not be drinking. "No, no, not that way," he can be heard to mumble to those in his boat, half-heartedly, gaze fixed ahead of him with the gloomy expectation of someone watching two locomotives racing at each other down a single stretch of track. "There's a...yeah, right there. No, don't...mother f..."

Whatever else he was going to say is lost to a grumpy stream of bubbles as he neatly hops off his boat and into the seething seas, just before the thing is reduced to splinters and driftwood. He -could- try to help 'survivors'. Or he could just swim away and assume everyone formerly on his boat can handle themselves. He does the latter, moving forward, sub-surface, a bubbled stream of constant complaints marking his progress until he pops back into view, gripping the ship's anchor-chain.

Sea-sickness is a terrible thing. Somehow the inner ear is modeled well enough in this bizarre cyber(?)-world to induce nausea on the high seas. Prophylaxis grunts as the boat is tossed this way and that, white water capping the roiling waves. Eventually there's little to do but to jump overboard--

Except Prophylaxis has prepared for this. He sweeps his staff wide, conjuring a bubble of air around himself and his fellows. Or rather, around their heads! "That should do us. Let's get to the ship before any of us drown, yeah?"

Despite the group getting wet, and some totally drenched, the team does manage to get their boat all the way to the anchored brig off shore without too much incident. Tenko uses her magic to help smooth out the water below them, and once they are in range of the pirate ship, ties the small skiff down.

She is quick to climb up the side of the ship, and peers over the edge. It seems the rough water isn't bothering the pirates any, as there's a party going on deck. Judging by some snippets of conversation that they're able to pick up the team discovers they've just finished a rather successful raid of a seaside town, and their celebrations are the result of that.

The group will need to find a good way to slip past the pirates and reach the captain's quarters at the aft of the ship.

    Merek takes a few potions from the hip to place into the drinks, though it looks like he mixed up which he is using. That means that it isn't going to work, all the same he will try to keep on the way while he watches the party.

Yeowang ascends the boarding ladder of the pirate ship, having gotten there with help from Sprites, who she thanks softly before climbing the ladder. Spotting the flunky passing out the drinks, she fishes a pair of gold coins from her inventory. He catches the glint from across the deck, and heads over to her, by the gunwhale. The coins change hands, and he points her to an out-of-the-way ladder, which she scoots down without drawing the attention of the partying pirates.

Clinging to the anchor chain with his legs, Robert slicks his hair backwards from his face in an effort to become a villain. Or maybe he's just getting sea-water out of his eyes. He executes a quick scan of the area, noting who is climbing, who has...uhh...passed on, and who might still be stuck. His gaze settles on Yeowang and her driftwood, mentally sticking both in the 'stuck' category. There's a mild splash, as he re-enters, paddles over towards where she is, and gives her a tow. No, he's not particularly gallant about it. He looks and feels like a half-drowned water rat. Which could, perhaps, explain how he "negotiates" with the Kobold. "Live dragon, dead pirate," he remarks as he corners the kobold in an out-of-the-way area. "You may choose."

Thalia spies the party and considers. She is Not Good at any of this, despite her natural charisma. Instead, she tries something else. She ducks down out of sight and starts cramming ingredients together. This and that and the other thing.

All she gets is a puff of smoke and a whole lot of nothing. She sighs and tosses the vial overboard. She just stays hidden for the moment and hopes the others can handle this.

Prophylaxis is less wet than he should be! This is entirely because he's a dirty cheater who, upon getting out of the water, CASTS a water spell to extract a large majority of the moisture from his robes. They're going to be dealing with a bunch of bawdy pirates soon.

The doctor... has come prepared.

In that he brought a few doses of potent SLEEPING POISON, retrieved directly from goblin store-rooms on the fifth floor of Karluin. He covertly dumps the powder into the latest keg of grog and waits until the pirates pass out before turning to the others with a nod. "Come on, we've got to get below decks before they notice anything's wrong."

Tenko slips onto the deck and spots the kobold, and more importantly the way that SpritesHero is negotiation with the poor, haggard creature. Her Shiny Swarm scarf goes to work, swirling as she draws the attention of the kobold, looking straight into its eyes with her emotionless kitsune mask, "We will help you, if you help us." She says, simply.

The kobold is clearly pretty fed up with the pirates, as he helps the group head back, slipping past the pirates that are starting to fall asleep as they down the new grog. But they've been drinking for hours so it's not surprising some of them are starting to go out.

Once the group is finally below decks, the pirate presence seems to be a lot smaller down here. However before the group stands an absolutely massive door with an equally massive lock, which requires things to be performed in just the right order and at just the right moment in order to allow them to pass it and get inside.

"Keyhole's blocked," Sprites announces, after surveying the lock for a few short moments. He's crammed himself into the corner, and more-or-less out of the way of the other Adventurers filing in. Closing his eyes, he presses his fingertips to the metal in front of him, small arcs of electricity flaring into the device. "Think I've got it," he continues, sounding hopeful. "Yep. Nope. Nope..." *Click*. "Yup. Think I've triggered it right. Alternatively, we're all about to die from a trap." With which confidence-inspiring assessment he turns towards Thalia. "All yours. Luck!"

    Merek looks to the door while he tries to break along into it with the alchemist's fire exploding. It doesn't do a lot though managing to scratch that door a little bit.

Thalia scurries with everyone else and is faced with the craziness of the locked door. Everybody helps. Everybody is useful! Sprites finds the way to unblock the lock, and the Spriggan grins. "Alrighty. I've got this."

She eyeballs the lock, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth. She points a finger at the keyhole and *ZAP* The tiny bolt of electricity goes into the keyhole, bounces around and the lock pops open.

"Could be worse," Prophylaxis says, coming up to the lock. "They /could/ be switching these things out for newer models. As is, the rust is more of a problem than the lock itself."

Or so he thinks.

...

In any case, the doctor pulls a vial of grease from his robes and pours it into the lock. Lubrication should make things a little easier!

Yeowang looks over at the door, and while the others do complicated things, she watches. Teamwork, though, is what will get us through this challenge, and so she waits until the lock is correctly ... whatever they do with locks. Lock people know about these things. It looks magical. But when that's done, she shoves hard. She's been training hard, and a shove from her is quite a hard shove.

"With respect, my friend." Tenko says to Merek, as he throws a bottle of literal fire at the door, "We're trying to open the door, not burn down the ship."

When Robert opens the small hatch blocking the keyway and Thalia zaps the inside of it to cause the lock to pop open, Tenko steps forward.

The lubrication allows the door to swing open and herself and Yeowang are able to push the door open with a bit of effort, allowing the group to find their way into the cargo hold proper.

Of course to their surprise there is a man running around in the hold, looking more and more haggard by the second, "Where is it. They're gonna kill me." He spots the group and at first looks like he might raise the alarm, but then he gets an idea, "Hey! You need to help me! I'm looking for the captain's most prized posession, but uh...I don't actually know what it is. He just told me to come down here and find it! Please, I'm desperate!"

Thalia looks to the distressed man and puts on her best smile. The one that gets people to subscribe. "I'll help. Let's look, hm?"

The spriggan begins rifling through things, digging into boxes and crates and pulling things out. She reaches deep into a crate and pulls out...

A BANANA

"Could this be it?"

Who let her loose, here?

This sort of thing is way out of Sprites's realm of expertise. He's rather more used to finding who took the valuables, not in figuring out which valuables to take. Er, help with. Whatever.

But luckily, he has a vial of some sort of acid with him. Who cares if the cargo-hold is an enclosed space. When all you have is acid, everything looks dissolvable. So he does just that, and starts wandering around the cargo hold, pouring acid on things. On everything that looks like it could be valuable, anyhow.

A plate fizzes. A blingy mirror bubbles. A highly inappropriately suggestive statue does...absolutely nothing whatsoever. "I've found gold," he announces. Beat. "Probably. And it's an aesthetic match for this dump."

Yeowang eases through the door, taking a tactical look at the area beyond. No wonder there's such a sturdy lock here, it's some kind of treasure room. She looks around just as the mate accosts the party, looking for something that he doesn't even know what it is. "That'll make things complicated," she tells him, but she's game to help by lifting up crates, stacking and unstacking as things are sorted through, then restacking them when they've been searched. It's hard work, but she's quite strong, it seems.

    Merek nods along to Tenko, "You're probably right. I apologize," he then will look to the man saying that they need to assist him in finding things. The man sighs while he nods, then will begin to use an alchemist potion to begin trying to discover clues.

"Valuables, huh?" Prophylaxis asks, frowning thoughtfully as he looks over the contents of the hold. "Well. If I were a valuable thing, I would assuredly be made of something more durable than most of the rest of the trash. Though I assume 'fireballing the hold' is probably not a wise decision, so."

Instead, the doctor simply applies... A pretty much identical test to what Robert is trying. Acid works to identify precious metals, as it turns out!!

While others are using a little bit of acid in order to ensure the quality of the item, Tenko simply uses her eyes, finding several things in the hold that look like they could easily be the captain's keepsake, but without being certain of which one it is, the group will have to give several that qualify to the pirate and send him on his way.

As the team exits the hold, however, they do find themselves with several pirates standing guard. It seems this group is not as cheerful as the ones on the deck.

They may have to go ahead and fight their way out, as the group looks tense. Maybe some of them can be convinced to look the other way.

"Nice work with that lock. Really elegantly done," Robert notes to Thalia, conversationally, from behind a guard who--whatever on earth it is that he's done to it--is just a giant red damage sheet from head to chest. The guard abruptly bursts into shiny polygons. "Have you considered climbing the tower? There's a ton more locks in there. And not just locks to unlock. Mysteries to unlock too!" Is he recruiting? In the middle of a quest? Yes. He's totally recruiting in the middle of a quest. Rude.

Now it's time to do what she's good at. Fight stuff. Instead of drawing both swords, she only draws one. Which gets the attention of one of the pirate guards. She huffs as darkness begins to gather along the edge of her blade.

"Ah, ah. We're busy. Go away."

The black power eventually covers the whole weapon, and she swings, sending a cutting wave of darkness at the charging pirate. The pirate gets a big red line as the wave passes through before he collapses and shatters.

Yeowang eyes the guards up and down, consideringly, and begins to withdraw some gold from her inventory. Then everyone else is attacking them, and they're not in any position to accept her bribes, even if they were inclined to do so. "Well, so much for that idea," she says aloud, putting the cash back into her inventory, and squaring off, looking for an opening to leap into the fight.

    Merek of course will fight with the guards, because he doesn't really have any mercantile assistance to offer. With that in mind, he will focus on taking them to the ground non-lethaly.

"Oh, well, if we're just outright killing them!" Prophylaxis gestures as a silvery, segmented tendril slips out of a wrist-mounted gauntlet and snakes stealthily toward one of the remaining guards. It plunges into their shoulder and discharges some manner of dark, red fluid. Soon the pirate is... /bleeding from multiple orifices?/ It takes little time for them to collapse and dissolve into red sparkles, because apparently Prophylaxis is also packing some /serious/ poisons. "Let's move on, shall we?"

These pirates don't look like they have any intention of taking any bribes from the adventurers. There's more on the line than money, there's pride! The doctor manages to kill one in a rather horrific way that even honor doesn't apply as others run off. Tenko uses her wakizashi for the close quarters fight, defending blows and knocking them to the ground with takedowns. The others in the group manage to fill the area with blackness, making the fight easier for the adventurers.

They reach the double doors in the back and force their way in, where they find the captain. Looks like the captain is an orc, and he snorts faintly as he gets up from the desk, grabbing a green apple off the desk as he walks around it, "Well, well... I was hoping they would send their best, but clearly all they could find is... you lot."

After taking a bite out of the apple, he tosses it towards Merek and then rushes at the group while drawing his blades!

    Merek looks to that apple which gets tossed to him, then he reaches to take it. He will take a bite, then he draws a sword from the sheath which he wears, then he swings forward along into the Captain while he draws up a whole shild to the party, "I will cover the defense, you all go in to take him!" The man looks to the captain, "I apologize, we need to take care of you."

"The tower, huh? But the tower does bad things when a level is cleared. I'm not sure if it's worth it," Thalia answers Robert. "Though, I'm sure I could get some loot and not wreck this place. ... I'll think about it."

She rushes through with everybody else. As the Captain moves to engage, she draws her other sword and charges to meet him. Unluckily, she steps wrong and just charges headfirst into the front of his desk, slumping to the floor in a daze.

With the guards taken out, it's straight to the captain's cabin. When he charges, she smiles. -This-, of all the things we've faced, is her kind of fight. Stand-up, face-to-face, no distractions, go-in-and-kick-someone fight. So, she rushes in and kicks someone. In fact, what she does is lead off with her best opener, just off cooldown, and absolutely kicks the snot out of the orc. Now that's all relative - your fellows with 20 HP bars won't much notice a hit like hers, but from a player, that's quite a solid hit, so compared to other player attacks, it's pretty hard. And she doesn't stop there, of course, she follows up with more kicks, and a few punches, slamming the orc over and over as we, collectively, beat the crap out of him.

"Sure thing," Robert replies to Thalia. At least he doesn't push his recruiting beyond that. He simply stands in place, though his eye critically monitors the oncoming Captain's ferocious assault, his fingers pointed outwards and downwards at a rather odd angle. The meaning of this posture is almost immediately made apparent, as vines of darkness bust from the ship's wooden deck, sinking their tendrils and sharpened earth spikes into the Captain's ankles. He simply keeps the Captain in place, making sure that he takes the full brunt of Yeowang's kick-combo. Well. It's more effective than any offensive skill he'd throw anyhow. So why not.

And no, he doesn't particularly care that the Captain suggested there's a spy leaking information to him. That is Someone Else's problem. Not his. Though it does kinda explain why the pirates keep coming back.

"It's /actually/ the captain and not his secretary, for once," Prophylaxis sounds surprised, but not displeased. The others are dealing with the melee assault, so Prophylaxis handles...

Everything else!?

There's a window here, as it turns out. A window to a tempestuous sky over a roiling sea. Prophylaxis gestures to the porthole with his staff as a flash of lightning courses across the sky. It arcs downward, taking a strange and tortuous path, shattering the porthole glass and leaping toward Stormsong's headpiece. With a sound of some exertion, he swings his weapon toward the pirate captain and unleashes his stolen lightning in a blast of brilliant, coruscrating energy!

The group dances around the Captain as he unleashes water attacks and sword strikes. Merek does a good job of fending off attacks while Yeowang unleashes a massive kick combo that puts the captain off balance.

The magic attacks from Prophylaxis are rapidly draining the multiple health bars, and Robert is able to hold the boss in place, if only briefly, while bonus damage is done by shattering the thorns.

"Enough of this!" The captain calls out, as he pulls the gem off his sword, "You're pretty good. But now's not the right time."

He throws the gem to the ground and it explodes, filling the whole captain's cabin with smoke. When it clears, he's gone and the back window is open. No killing him today, but there's a chest with plenty of loot in it for the taking.

Yeowang coughs and fans at the smoke, looking around for the captain. "Well, damn," she says as she sees he's gotten away. On the other hand, "Good loot, though." Another question comes to her. "How do we get out of here?" She looks around, then out the porthole the captain escaped through. If there was a way for him to get away, maybe there'll be a way we can use, also? A rowboat, at least, though she'd prefer something else, given our arrival...

    Merek picks up the bags of coin while taking a moment to look about the place. Then he nods, while he sheaths that weapon and takes a look to everyone, "Alright, you all take care," the man notes, while he thinks, "Alright, I have a thing to do, eventually."

"Ran away just like the other one, huh...?" Prophylaxis murmurs, but shakes his head to clear away the wild, gathering thoughts and meandering theories. "Well. I guess it'd be too much to ask to be able to take these pirates out in one fell swoop, but disrupting their operations is probably good enough for now."

And they got real nice loot out of it, too! A few chests of treasure should be enough to finance at least /part/ of something worth building! Maybe they can beef up that outpost, or get a start on rebuilding Karluin...?

SpritesHero has brought his sleeve up to cover his mouth, so he for one isn't coughing. Though he does offer up the occasional wheezing hiss. He too is now by the window, gaze shifting over the water beyond. Pirate Captain? Pirate Captin?

Nope. No pirate captain to be seen. With a sigh he turns around, half-leaning against the wall and folding his arms over his chest. Where he answers Yeowang's prayers. "I think I saw a rowboat up top," he comments, blandly.

Thalia comes out of her daze in time to see the captain vamoose. She groans, rubbing her head before she grabs her swords. A little help from them and she's on her feet, sheathing them.

Of course she takes her share of the loot.

Shaking her head after tucking it away, she looks to everyone else. "Time to go, I think?"

Tenko frowns behind the mask, but as the group collects their loot, she accepts her's, "Lets try to make the trip back to shore a dryer experience." She notes, as she motions to Robert and his bringing up of a rowboat they can use, "It'll be safer than swimming for sure. But lets make haste before someone comes looking for the captain."

"Or we could just burn everything," Robert proposes, thoughtfully. And perhaps a bit too happily.

    "I'd rather no go with killing everyone," Merek then notes to Robert, taking a look to him. The man sighs while he takes a moment to look about the place, "Well, need to unlock this relic, you all take care," he says.

"Yeah. You too," Robert replies to Merek, politely. He grabs his loot and heads for the door, though it might be noted that the look he offers Merek's back is one of complete befuddlement. "Dibs on the second row benches!" And then he's nimbly heading off towards the main deck.

"Dibs on back row," Thalia says, scampering her way to the lifeboat to get off this thing before all the other pirates decide to get violent.