“Skipper, the crew on the Hourglass doesn’t have a pilot, and they’ve only got one gun team. If you want to keep your ship, we need to get back to the beach,” Auntie Charlie said.
Twila nodded and started running, head low, back toward the tunnel they’d come from. A dozen or more pirates had already disappeared down the passage when they arrived. Purple mystlight flickered ahead, and a few posts had cut marks from sabers and cutlasses.
Suddenly, Auntie Charlie shoved past Twila. A moment later, the young skipper realized why; a pirate lay on the ground before them, struggling to get up. She opened her mouth to say something, but the woman’s pistol ticked, and a purple beam shot into the man’s back.
“No killing, Auntie!” she shouted. It was far too late for this man, though. She looked away.
A second later, the woman’s pistol lay on the ground, and her hand was over Twila’s mouth. “Quiet! They’re going to kill your ship rats if they can. Your friends. It’s time to push that feeling the rest of the way down and kill them first.”
Charlie started sprinting down the hallway. Twila took off after her, pulling a pistol from her bandolier. A storm raged inside her, and all the blinking and breathing she could do wouldn’t push it down. Could she knowingly kill someone? And what would it do to her?
Charlie ducked down, and the ship rats followed her lead. “We’ll wait here until they’ve climbed up. We’ll have to time this right. We can’t fight them by ourselves, but we can’t let them board the Hourglass either. On my mark, we move.”
Twila glared at Auntie, who stared back, rolled her eyes, and said, “If that’s okay with the skipper?”
Twila nodded. Auntie Charlie’s advice was good, and the fight against the pirates scared her. She breathed and blinked as they waited, staring at [Anton’s Paired Pistols]. She shuddered. The image of the falling guard at the Gibson Foundry played over and over in the dark.
“Go!” Auntie Charlie said, and Rojir clambered up to the top. He lay next to the jewelry-adorned skeleton and reached down a hand, dragging Twila, Rosie, and Auntie Charlie to the ledge. Wordlessly, they drew their weapons and started running toward the cavern’s entrance, feet splashing in the water below.
The last pirate disappeared into the fog as they reached the cavern’s painted maw.
“We’ll have one good chance at this,” Auntie Charlie gasped.
The away party sprinted through the mist. Following the pirates was easy–the beach had been churned beneath their feet. Twila had both guns in her hands as the Hourglass came into view. Pirates scaled the mooring lines. More shot at the ship with muskets and pistols and waited at the sand anchors for their chance to climb.
She pushed her thoughts on killing down. There wasn’t time if she wanted to save Hourglass and her friends. She leveled her pistols and pulled the triggers. Her myst condenser ticked as both mystshots zipped toward the pirates. She didn’t know if she’d hit–as the triggers pulled, a whumping sound drew her attention toward the Hourglass.
A burst of purple filled the air, and thunder cracked. One of the crew had just fired a [Long Five], and Twila’s heart rose. The ship rats were still fighting back!
A pirate fell as Auntie Charlie and Rosie, tears running down her face, fired their pistols into the crowd. Then Charlie was screaming, “Run! Into the fog!” A half-dozen pirates left the mooring line and started toward them.
Mystshots flashed through the fog behind them. Twila jumped left while her friends dodged right, and after just a few steps, the redheaded skipper realized…
She was alone. In the fog.
With two pirates in pursuit, including the big man–Harris.
She ran and reloaded one pistol, the other banging against her chest with each step. Her lungs burned from all the running.
A rock loomed before her, and she ducked behind it and leveled her pistol. She’d seen how Charlie and Rojir had ambushed Coatless. Maybe she’d be able to do that herself.
The first pirate ran around the corner, and Twila screamed and pulled the trigger. She looked away as the mystshot hit him in the temple, but she couldn’t stop her ears from hearing him hit the sand like a dropped sack.
She staggered away as another mystshot zipped over her shoulder. Her heart pounded in her chest in time with her feet on the sand. Kill-er, kill-er, it beat. She tried to reload her pistol, dropped the cartridge, and grabbed another while she looked over her shoulder.
Harris was catching up. He had a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. He leveled it, and Twila saw a purple flash. Then she screamed. A searing pain rose up from her thigh.
She fell into the sand, her mouth filling with it. Even as she spat grit from her teeth, her mind filled with a single thought. The pocket watch could save her from the approaching pirate.
She grabbed it and cranked the gear until the ratchet stopped. Her myst battery ticked repeatedly, and then she looked over her shoulder at a pistol barrel. She threw herself toward a rock, and instead of pain ripping through her thigh, she felt the mystshot’s heat against her boot.
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As the big man rushed toward her, she fired her pistol. It caught him in the chest, but the myst flared across it in a purple-green aurora and a wave of ticks. He threw himself against the other side of the big rock pillar.
“Ship rat, you fight well,” he said. “So what now? I come over there, and you shoot me. You leave that side, and I’ll shoot you.”
Twila blinked as her hands reloaded her pistols. Her breaths came in short, the phantom pain in her leg still flaring even though she’d checked for injuries. “I’ll shoot you either way, Harris,” she yelled. Maybe her friends would hear her.
“You were in the cave? Then you know Vayne needs this ship. The whole crew needs this ship, and we will take it! If you throw down your weapons, we’ll make you a ship rat for us.”
Twila could hear the big pirate shuffling to his left, so she stepped to hers and shoved a cartridge into her second pistol. She returned it to its place in her bandolier and took a deep breath. “No. I’m skipper on Hourglass. I ain’t serving another skipper.”
The big man laughed. “You think you’re in charge of that boat? The woman’s your skipper, whether you know it or not!”
His voice had been to her left. It came from Twila’s right now. She took a step, leveled her pistol, and drew the [Chain Cutlass] from her belt. Her finger tightened on the trigger, just a hair.
Suddenly, the big man was rushing around the pillar. She fired, and the myst flared on the man’s skin with a barrage of ticks. Twila could see myst draining from his battery. He stumbled and ducked back, firing his pistol. The shot went wide as she ducked behind the rock as well.
“You’re a murderous little bitch, aren’t you,” Harris called from the far side. Twila’s fingers shoved another cartridge into the spent pistol–she was sure he was reloading too.
“Just go back to your skipper,” Twila cried back. Her eyes burned from tears. “I didn’t want to kill your friend! He’d have killed me!”
Harris threw himself around the rock suddenly, and Twila panicked and pulled her trigger wildly. His pistol flashed, but Twila was too busy dropping her gun to know where the shot went. A clattering sound filled the air, along with ticking. Then he was moving, his body far, far faster than it had any right to be.
Her cutlass chopped through the air, only to be stopped dead by the big man’s surprisingly graceful parry. He thrust the blade toward her arm, and she felt it cut across her bicep for a second before she got the cutlass up.
“Crying, little ship rat?” Something dripped into Twila’s eye as the man taunted her and slashed low. She got the sword’s tip in front of Harris’s, but the impact wrenched the cutlass from her grip.
Harris grinned, tossing his sword in the air and reversing its grip. A moment later, he punched it right into Twila’s nose!
A crunching sound and a wall of pain filled her face. She fell into the sand and crawled away for a moment. Then his hand closed on her ankle and pulled her back.
As she slid across the sand, Twila twisted and turned. She flipped herself over, pain searing her leg as her skin twisted in his grip, and saw Harris looming over her, sword pointed toward her and evil grin on his face. She pulled her second pistol free as the blade came down and shoved it into the man’s chest. The shot ticked, and the big man flew backward in a heap even as his sword cut into her arm.
Blood from Twila’s nose and brow ran down her cheek and onto the sand. The cut on her arm burned, and her nose bled like a faucet. She lay in the sand, dry-firing her pistol at Harris’s body over and over as she sobbed.
[Twila Tighe, Ship Rat Mystgineer, Equipment Level 1.33 (Myst 1/10, Hit Points 1/1)]
[Head - Empty]
[Eyes - Myst Lens (lvl. 1) Myst Sight (passive) See own status block and others’ classes]
[Chest - Ship Rat’s Harness (lvl. 0)]
[Waist - Apprentice Mystgineer’s Bandolier (lvl. 1) Deep Pockets (passive) - Equip an additional Gizmo]
[Legs - Canvas Overalls (lvl. 0)]
[Gizmo #1 - Multitool (lv. 2) - Tool Transform (active, 1 myst/switch) - Change between many common tools; Skill - Tinkering]
[Gizmo #2 - Anton’s Pocket Watch (lvl. 4)] Redo (active, 5 myst/5 seconds) - redo the last five seconds of time, with knowledge of what’s happening (1 minute to reset); Skill - Piloting]
[Gizmo #3 - [Pocket Condenser (lvl. 1) - Condense Myst (passive) - Condenses 1 myst/5 ticks; Skill - None]
[Gizmo (Belt) - Mystwork Lantern (lvl. 2): Mystlight (active, 25% failure chance, 1 myst/attempt) - start the light; Adjustable Light Aura (sustained, .5-2 myst/tick) - light a variable area; Skill - Perception]
[Myst Battery - Basic Myst Battery (lvl. 1) Small Storage (passive) - 10 myst maximum, requires condenser to refill]
[Weapon/Pair - Anton’s Paired Pistols (lvl. 2) Smoothbore Myst-Shot (active, 1 cartridge/shot) - fire a ray of heated myst; Rapid Shots (active, 2 myst/shot) - fire twice/tick; Skill - Marksman]
[Weapon #2 - Chain-Cutlass (lvl. 2) Rattleblade (active, 1 myst/tick) - spin the serrated blades on the cutlass’s edge; Skill - Intimidation]
[Weapon/Pair - Empty]
[Skill #1 - Tinkering 2]
[Skill #2 - Perception 2]
[Skill #3 - Piloting 4]
[Skill #4 - Marksman 2]
[Skill #5 - Intimidation 2]