Chapter 2 - Visitors
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Ace and Luna headed towards the docks with their goods in tow. The mysterious ship approached the docks and a few mysterious-looking tanned men stood at the helm, smiling. One of them, seemingly leading the bunch donned a black bandana and a curved cutlass at his side. As the boat approached the dock, he greeted the village chief.
Rook was about as old as Joel, and they were great friends. He was known throughout the village as trustworthy, honest, and strong. Everybody has heard the story of the time he single-handedly brawled 3 men who were harassing a woman outside the bar, and he brought them all into the jail himself. He was a big guy. Six feet, six inches tall, about two hundred twenty pounds heavy. Even in his sixties, nobody would want to mess with him. Despite his appearance, he’s known as a kind and honorable man. Everyone trusts him, and so he’s led the village for the past fifteen years.
“Welcome to Roft fellas! Hope you brought some good stuff to trade!” It had been a few months since the last visitors, and the people of Dawn were excited to restock on supplies. “Just letting you know, we’re a peaceful village, we pay our taxes to the Empire, and don’t want any trouble,”
The black bandana man jumped off the boat, gestured peacefully with his arms while smiling, and said, “Oh there's nothing to worry about, we’re just a small merchant company. We’ve come to check out your goods!”
As he finished speaking a dozen men jumped off the ship, most with swords in their belts. The group of villages that gathered to meet the merchants took a step back, feeling uneasy about the weapons on the visitors' sides. Rook frowned and opened his mouth to question the group, but before he could get a word out, the man with the black bandana drew his sword and swung it at his chest. Rook jumped back, nearly dodging the strike, and spit out,
“We’ll give you what you want, just leave, please don’t hurt anyone!”.
He was surprised they were being attacked because the village regularly paid tribute to the local Empirial warlord, Crow. Usually, nobody would mess with anyone under his protection. He controlled a collection of islands encompassing what was once known as south florida, with his base where Miami once stood. Regardless, a few of the men from the ship had surrounded a small family and suddenly grabbed a woman and a young girl with an evil grin. they drew their swords and struck down the father who was trying to free his daughter from their grasp.
The villagers gasped and most of the children ran. The men holding the hostages held their swords to their throats and smirked. A few men from the village were ready to attack with their butchering knives and spears, but stopped when Rook signaled them to wait.
“We’ll be taking all that you’ve brought with ye to trade.” the black bandana villain sneered.
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About ten more men came off the ship with swords drawn. All the able-fighting men in the village numbered about twenty, and not even all were present. Up against the twenty, two well-equipped raiders, the villagers were outnumbered.
“Alright, we’ll comply!” Rook pleaded, “Tell us what you want!”.
There wasn’t much else Rook could do. He kicked himself for his negligence and decided to take the blame for this event all on his shoulders. The raiders started loading up cargo whilst the villagers kept their hands raised in fear. Ace felt that carnal fever he always felt while hunting. He despised anyone who would dare hurt his family. He scowled and wanted to do something, but stopped when he remembered the hostages. Ace looked to Rook to handle the negotiations.
“All of you, help load it up!” the villain commanded. He pointed at a few of the village men, including Joel, Rook, and Ace.
Ace looked at his sister with worried eyes, then stepped forward and lifted a load of lumber meant for three men to carry. As they loaded the boat the robbers curled their lips, as if they were getting off the the terrible deed.
Once all the village’s hard-earned goods were loaded up, and the last bit of material was placed on the ship, Rook cried out,
“You have everything we’ve worked for, it's all we have, now please leave, we don’t want any more problems!”
Suddenly on the dock, a man reached out and seized Luna.
“Hey, what are you doing? We just gave you everything!” yelled Ace furiously.
“Shut yer mouth!” A raider barked. He raised his sword and aimed it at Ace’s throat.
A dark realization suddenly came to Ace; these men were slavers, and his village family was about to suffer the same fate as his parents. Luna struggled against her seizer. She bit down on him and ripped a big chunk out of his arm with her teeth. The man howled in pain; then, immediately, three scoundrels of the gang pinned Luna to the floor.
Ace couldn’t watch this, he wouldn’t let anything of harm come to his sister. She was everything to him. He can’t just sit there and watch them hurt his sister the same way he watched his parents be taken. in a feral state, he lunged forward: slashing through the man with the sword pointed at him. Ace used his razor-sharp claws to tear open his throat and instantly kill him.
Joel and Rook took this opportunity to immediately swung their fists on the villains. Managing to stun a few of them, they worked together to pummel one of the raiders and tried to seize some weapons. However, there were just too many to easily defeat. Before the two could be taken down, Rook picked up a sword and slashed down two men who were approaching Ace’s back. It seemed like they might have a chance to escape, for there were only a couple of slavers blocking the way to the dock.
The slavers were smart to separate the men from the women; they could have hostages out of reach of any potential saviors. Seeing Rook’s attack, the men still on the dock reached out to rescue the hostage women, but it was too late. The slavers slit the throat of the women and children they were holding and cut down the men who had challenged them. Fishing spears and knives couldn’t stand up to the evil men’s skilled blades. They then set off towards the boat to subdue the men fighting onboard.
Joel picked up a knife and slashed towards the men blocking their path to the villagers. Joel and Rook surprised Ace with their skills. They worked together with great teamwork, covering each other’s blind spots and taking down slavers one at a time. Joel used to tell him stories of how he and Rook would run into evil folk when they were on adventures at sea, and how they honed their ability to fight together. Joel cut down another brigand whilst Rook wrestled with a larger man blocking the exit.
Suddenly, what seemed like a good chance at escaping this situation ended in a moment. What sounded like thunder boomed right in front of Ace. A ringing in his sensitive ears deafened him. A small cloud of smoke blocked his vision. Time seemed to slow down and Joel suddenly dropped to the floor. A pool of blood quickly gathered around his head.
Taking advantage of the surprise, the villains tackled the remaining fighting men to the floor. The man with the bandana stood up over Joel’s corpse, smiling, brandishing something Ace had never seen before. A relic.