After waking up the crew and sending them to rouse the captain Markus returned to the sleeping area for passengers. Quickly picking his way through the crowded floor he reached his bag and began retrieving the items he’d probably need beginning with his armor. After tightening the straps and making sure it was all in place he grabbed his bandolier and slung it over his left shoulder, double-checking all the pocket’s contents before returning to the deck. Several crew members were on their way down to wake up all the passengers in case of emergency as he ascended the stairs back to the deck, loading his revolver as he went. Markus returned to the prow where Ellianora was still staring at the fog cloud which was now clearly tall enough to engulf the ship.
He asked her “Any change?”
“We changed course to go around it.” she replied, “it changed to intercept.”
“How confident are you in a fight?’ he turned his head to look at her.
“Depends on what we’re fighting.”
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The people aboard the deck, comprised of Markus, Ellianora, the crew, and a rag-tag few other passengers that had experience fighting, stood aboard the Mist Hauler’s deck as the wall of fog enveloped the ship. As the fog passed by, each person was awestruck as the massive dome of fog was revealed to be just that, a dome, hollow and empty aside from a single ship that floated at its center, flying a black flag. The fog began to broil, and bolts of lighting jumped along the cloudy exterior.
“That ship has a mage on it” Ellianora claimed, pointing to the ship at the center of the dome. “He’s maintaining the fog barrier, and keeping a throttle on the lightning. We can’t get away until he’s stopped.”
“Just one mage?” Markus thought to himself a moment, but before he could ask her a question she headed him off.
“Yep, just the one, I can see the magic funneling out of him and weaving into the ocean to kick up the fog, and in case you’re going to ask, no I cannot win one on one with a mage of that caliber. He’s built up way more resistance to energy flow than I have so he can put out a lot more oomph.”
“Can you sink the ship?” Markus, watched the vessel draw closer, they had maybe six or seven minutes to come up with a plan.
“In one go… maybe,” she thought for a moment looking concerned “I’d need time to build up that kind of power though and, I’ve never even attempted something like that.”
“How much time?”
“Fifteen, sixteen minutes” she turned an unsure look at him, “you’ve got a bad idea?”
“Yep, a really bad idea” he confirmed, “I can’t do anything about those cannons though.”
“I can handle that, consider it to be the start of your timer”
Markus nodded, then turned and headed for the mast, as a loud BOOM sounded and a cannonball flew wide, far above the mast. A warning shot.
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As the ships pulled next to each other a massive man swung onto the Mist Haulers deck. Flanked by four other scabrous and ill-maintained brigands, but taller than them by half his ribcage, he clearly had at least a quarter giant in him if not half. Wearing a large trench coat over an old navy uniform, and wielding a sawn-off shotgun like it was a conductor's baton, swinging it around as he raised his voice to carry over the crashing sounds of the waves.
“Alright, we all know the drill. Your money or your life.” He panned his gaze over the assembled crewmen, all shaky and holding assorted weapons. Captain Currain had been preying on ships nearly twenty years to date, and he’d learned to appraise a ship and her crew at a glance. His current prey were clearly an experienced lot. They’d fought off pirates before, but the way they look at each other, he knew it’d been a rough scrap. Well, he thought, they're gonna fight, so guess I might as well take the initiative. As he raised his weapon, (which he’d affectionately named Iron Fist), he didn’t get the chance to fire before everything went the way of Mystra. Which is to say, everything devolved into chaos.
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Ellianora hid, couched behind the crew who’d agreed to keep her safe while she did her part. Taking a deep breath, she raised her hand, (Water > Air)> Ice > Wall > Beam. She pushed her hand through the circle to activate the spell. The thick Beam of light teal energy blasted from her palm with a high-pitched scream as it punched through the air to her target. Dragging the beam across the hull of the enemy ship, wherever the beam made contact with a surface ice began to creep upward. She aimed below the cannon ports, letting the wall of ice root itself on the side before creeping up to seal away the guns. Once she was finished, the whole side of the pirate ship looked like it had a thick painted stripe across its middle decks leaving no openings. As soon as she finished, she began casting her next spell, she’d need every second she could get to make it work.
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When Ellianora loosed her magic on the enemy ship Markus wasted no time, he sprinted the full length of sail yard and jumped as far as he could, catching the rigging and swinging down onto the deck. Markus took quick stock of where he’d landed, next to the pirate ship's second of three masts, there were about a dozen pirates on the deck. The pirates ranged in race, from common sights like Humans, Goblins, and Orcs, to rare oddities like a small collection of the hyena-like Gnolls, a Minotaur, and an Avirril, a species that were in essence, intelligent human-sized birds of prey with a pair of long thin arms coming from underneath their wings. As Markus got his bearings he narrowly dodged a flying spear-shaped rock that shot past his head. He rolled to get out of the way when it struck the deck and exploded in shrapnel. Markus shielded his face and turned his eyes in the direction that it had come from, setting his attention on the avirril that had flown away when he boarded, and perched up on the ship's castle, in front of the wheel and the helmsmen. This particular avirril looked like a peregrine falcon, and standing up straight was probably about six feet tall, it extended its hand, and rune circles appeared, but Markus was faster. Rolling sideways, he knocked the legs out from under two pirates. They crashed down in a pile as Markus crouched behind them for cover, the avirril pulled its hands away from the spell it had been drawing, causing the spell to discorporate so it could start a new one. Before it could layout a new spell Markus stood up from behind the fallen pirates and drew his revolver, the CRACK of the trigger pull seemed to break everyone’s surprise as gunshots, shouting, and sword clashes began to chorus up all around. Markus’ shot had been well placed and the bullet would have slammed square in the mage's face, but instead, a skin-tight purple barrier flared up to intercept the bullet. Tch, spell shield, Markus realized, that’s annoying, I’ll have to punch through it. He didn’t get the chance to fire a second shot tough as the stunned pirates had suddenly remembered that they could also fight and closed in.