The crew was confused, to say the least. They hadn’t been privy to these plans and therefore had no concept of the sheer level of their captain’s insanity. Zib, of course, was the first to speak up.
“Huh?”
“I knew there was no way we could possibly afford a nice, big ship with armaments and enough room to carry real spoils, and I would never advocate theft from a legitimate establishment like a shipyard or a city, but stealing a boat from pirates isn’t theft, it’s liberation. We are serving the greater good of the archipelago by doing so and therefore the greater good of Cooglara’s ocean.”
“Why not just go around doing small jobs for a year?” Zib asked, immediately realizing the issue with what he’d just proposed.
“That sounds really boring and not at all worth it,” Doc said flatly.
“Indeed it does,” Athastar said. “Instead, let’s kill two gulls with one stone, remove the threat of the pirates and then get ourselves a second boat, upgrading me to admiral and allowing us to go on real adventures.”
“Okay…” Zib said pensively, coming to terms with this wild idea, “but what does the box I made have to do with it?”
“It’s not a box,” Athastar explained, picking up the lock Doc had made, “it’s a chest. It’s a treasure chest. One of us will hide inside, we will let the pirates take that chest onto their boat, and then that person will attack the pirates form one side, surprising them while the rest of us storm the front!”
“This sounds like a terrible idea,” Zib retorted. “What if they just open it while it’s still on our ship? What if they tie us up and the person bursts out and is the only one able to fight?”
“Then we change the plan!” Athastar replied as if it was obvious. “Every plan is air tight until you try to actually implement it. That’s where we need to start improvising.”
“I volunteer to be the one in the chest!” Doc proposed, raising her hand high.
“I like your enthusiasm,” Athastar said. “Why should we put a cleric in a box, though?”
“I have been focusing my studies into the powers of the storms that Cooglara sends to churn the waves,” she explains, “and I think I would like to try out a new spell that would allow me to hit a bunch of the pirates at the same time. I think I could hit maybe eight of them… nine if any of them can fly. Can any of them fly?”
“I seriously doubt it, but I like your ingenuity,” Athastar said with an approving smile. “When the time comes, you’ll go in the box and I’ll put your lock on it.”
“I like this plan!” Tom said, excited to see a dwarf lady shoot lighting in every direction or whatever it was she was planning.
“I do not,” Zib cut in. He was more frustrated than afraid, though fear certainly played a major part in his reasoning. He had his arms crossed defiantly as he explained, “There are still so many ways this could go horribly wrong.”
“Thank you for defining the word ‘adventure’ for us, carpenter,” the paladin said sarcastically.
“Honestly, I don’t think winging it would be all that bad of an idea,” Carl suggested. “I mean, there’s a lot to be said for a good plan, but the enemy doesn’t care what our plan is, you know?”
“Exactly! Thank you, Carl,” Athastar said, giving the mage a thumbs up. The crew had settled on the idea just as the sun was setting, so Doc pushed the chest into the store room and retrieved three packages of salted beef, tubers, and string beans for the crew to split.
Several days later, Nessa was the first awake onboard the Wyrm of the Waves. Though her first morning had brought confusion as she was unused to waking up aboard a moving vessel, today it felt completely natural to rise form her bedroll and look out over the sea, and as she scanned the horizon, she saw an odd silhouette slightly to the north of the rising sun. She stomped on the deck thrice, Athastar’s previously determined signal for “I see a thing,” and the paladin bolted upright.
“It’s time everyone!” the captain said excitedly as he adorned his chain clothing. He rushed up to the deck and approached Nessa, placing a large hand on her shoulder. “Well done, navigator! We’re well on our way to taking the first steps on beginning our real adventure.” The high elf was dazed by the sudden burst of activity. Suddenly she was dubbed the navigator of the vessel, despite the word never once being brought up before. She was also struggling slightly to comprehend what he had said after that part.
“Hey, Zib,” Doc said, tapping the Halfling on the shoulder, “lock me in the box.”
Zib raised an eyebrow and smirked slightly, grabbing the lock from his bedside table. “Last time somebody asked me to do that-”
“No time for your dirty jokes, just lock me in and get above deck,” Doc said, vaulting over the side of the chest in full armor and with her hammer at her side. She curled up to fit inside the box as snugly as possible.
Zib gave her a scowl and slammed the chest shut over her, closing the lock in the small loop of rope that acted as a latch. He wiped his hands against his clothes, despite there being no sawdust left on the little wooden crate, and walked up onto the deck to join the rest of the crew in waiting to be boarded. Burk, who was the last to rise, moved his two boxes onto the top of the chest before going out the door as well.
“Stop right there!” a loud and agitated female voice came from the large ship. It had quickly closed the distance between itself and the little fishing boat the adventurers rode and was now mere feet away from the tiny craft.
“Alright!” Athastar said, raising his hands. He’d covered his glittering armor with a torn bit of burlap so as to mislead the seaborne bandits. “We mean you no harm, we’re just passing through.” Zib squinted skeptically at how easily the tall, tan man lied and rested a hand on the woodcutter’s axe he’d hidden among a pile of wood scrap he kept around in case repairs were needed.
“Well you’re passing through the wrong part of the sea,” The woman called as the ship came to a crawl alongside theirs. “Now I’ll give you a few options. You can hand over all your wares, all your valuables, all your food, and your ship and we’ll let you go nice and easy at the next port,” the woman said menacingly as she began to list the options. “You can join our crew, and those we deem less than useful will likewise be dropped off at the next port that takes us.” The crew suddenly became witness to the silhouette of a broad-shouldered woman with a long braid draped over one shoulder and a few loose spikes of hair blowing about above her head. “Or, should you choose to fight, you can be fed to the sharks as chum.”
“I do not think we would be opposed to the first option,” Athastar said. Two gang planks were then shoved from the side of the larger boat and tilted down onto the lip of the little fishing vessel. Four pirates came down onto the Wyrm of the Waves, maneuvering as best they could on the tiny fishing craft.
“You two, search below deck and bring back anything good,” the captain shouted as her silhouette gestured at two women behind her: a lithe woman with pale skin and red hair descended the stairs of the cargo area, followed closely by a shorter, wider woman with dark skin and a bandanna. Both of them had cutlasses at their sides. “You two,” the captain called again, this time gesturing to two dark haired, olive skinned women who appeared to be siblings, “search the crew, see if you can find anything valuable.”
While the sisters searched the pockets and pouches of Zib and Burk, a blood-curdling scream came from below deck. The stockier woman came running back up the stairs, a look of horror on her face. “Captain, Skinny’s dead!”
“What? How?”
“The bees, by the gods, the bees!” The woman said, stumbling from the stairwell with a leg covered in welts. “There’s another box down there on top of a big chest. Don’t make me open it, please.”
“What the hell kind of ship is this?” The captain said, leaning heavily on the railing of her ship and looking down straight at Athastar.
“This is just a fishing vessel, I did not put those bees there.”
“Then who did?”
Zib pointed at Burk. The pirate woman’s silhouette visibly swayed to look at him. “Greenskin, if one of my girls opens that second box, will there be bees in there, too?”
“Um…” Burk stammered. “No?”
She just glared at him. The sun had risen slightly, making her features more visible. Her hair was tawny and her skin was somewhat akin to bronze. She wore an eyepatch and dark red lipstick. Also visible was her look of absolute fury and slight frustration.
“Alright, greenskin, go down there and open the box. Prove that more bees won’t come out of it.”
Burk, being led to the stairs by one of the sisters, the one who had been searching his person, went over to the ship’s hold and descended. Doc wasn’t making a sound. She seemed to be somewhat of an expert at keeping herself quiet. The dead body of the slender pirate woman lay swollen and discolored on the floor in front of it. Burk forced himself not to dwell on it long as he could feel himself about to be sick. He grabbed the box and turned away.
Now he faced a dilemma. If he opened this here and now, he might die, too, which would be far from ideal, but if he could come up with some alternate plan, some other idea, he could get out of this situation alive. As he lifted the container, the perfect idea occurred to him. He loosened the lid slightly and walked back up the stairs. As he reached the top, he lobbed the box as hard as he could in the direction of the pirate captain, much to the horror and dismay of the rest of both crews. The box tumbled and rolled through the air, the summoning circle drawn within activating as the lid separated from the rest. The small prism of cardboard fell to the ground and burst open at the feet of the captain.
Not the captain of the pirate ship, the captain of the fishing boat.
Athastar was swarmed by tiny stinging insects and began frantically swatting at them, trying to stop them from stinging him. He didn’t seem to be swelling up as Nessa and the pirates had, but he was definitely not coming out of that cloud of bugs unscathed. Through all his thrashing about, he tossed aside his cloth covering, revealing his armor.
“Hold on, you’re not a fisherman, you’re a soldier!” The captain explained aloud. “Girls, they’ve set a trap for us, don’t let them get the upper hand!” She drew a small crossbow from her back and fired it at Athastar, who was saved by the folds of his chain mail catching the tip of the bolt. The paladin pulled his sword from its sheath and swung at the dark girl with a wounded leg, who narrowly dodged this strike as she drew and flung a small knife at Tom. Thankfully, Tom had had enough of his wits about him to raise his shield and deflect the projectile. He then frantically ran up onto the gangplank, one of the sisters chasing after him.
At the same time, Nessa stepped from the bow of the vessel in order to swing her gnarled beech wood staff and try to strike the sister who had, in chasing after Tom, turned her back to the druid. Unfortunately, as she lunged after Tom, the pirate widely dodged this strike. Carl, trying very hard not to run right into Nessa in these incredibly close quarters, held out the palm of one hand and murmured a request to The Ancient One, who granted him the power to summon a glowing ball of energy before him and send it flying towards the pirate captain. Unfortunately, his foot slipped off the edge of the boat and he fell into the waves below, causing him to miss his shot horribly. He realized that the druid had basically just shoved him off the front of the boat, causing them both to miss.
The second of the two sisters, who had been on the starboard side of the fishing boat with Athastar blocking her way to the gangplank, instead drew her sabre, intending to run the little Halfling through just to get another body out of the way. Zib dove off to the side in order to escape being skewered and grab his axe but only succeeded in one of these, gaining a large slash across his back but also drawing out his unwieldy hatchet. Zib then madly swung this at the pirate several times, driving her back towards the stairs leading up to the aft deck.
The pirate captain managed to wind up her crossbow once more and fire it again at Athastar, this time punching through his mail and causing him to stagger slightly, giving the larger pirate an opportunity to strike, but Burk didn’t let her take this strike. He wound up and swung hard at the woman’s ribs as she raised her blade execution-style over her head. He felt the bone give way as his fist moved through and felt as though his hook might send her overboard, so he swung his other hand as well, catching her in the back and keeping her on the little craft.
All the while, Doc could hear the commotion above her and wanted in, so she tried to break out of the box. She pushed and shoved on the inside of the structure but it would not give way. She heard a pair of loud thuds overhead as, unbeknownst to her, the stocky, dark woman fell to the deck and Zib lodged his axe in the staircase, narrowly missing the poor woman’s left leg.
The sister that had gone after Tom swung her weapon at him, catching him across the back, which certainly got his attention. He spun about to face her, nimbly turning on the narrow wooden plank that held them both up, and raised his shield. She swung at him several more times, but all he could do was hold up his shield for fear that turning to attack might unbalance him. He then looked down at his shield and came to a realization. He leaned into the back of his shield with all his might and pushed against the woman, swinging his arm outward as he did so, pushing the pirate off the plank. Nessa, seeing this and no longer seeing Carl, realized that a friend and an enemy were now both down in the sea, so she took the very tip of her staff in both hands, walked to the port side of the small boat, and extended the branch down towards the wet mass of robes she assumed was Carl.
Athastar had risen to his feet with the help of Burk and the two crossed the secondary gang plank, putting them on the pirate captain’s right and Tom on her left. From here, Athastar scanned the deck of the ship, there were seven or eight more pirates here, but only three of them aside from the captain looked at all threatening.
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