[CLOSED] Hoola wacka! Oola wacka! Something not right

[katabasis]

WHO: Gwen, Carla, Vane, Silver, Flint
WHAT: Abductions, pirates, and intrigue, oh my!
WHEN: Early Cloudreach
WHERE: Some Water
NOTES: For PROFESSIONAL PIRACY. Feel free to kick around your own starters beyond the two group threads I have ready to roll.

Comments

KIDNAPPING FOR THE GREATER GOOD (or whatever)

[katabasis]

[The Tevinter ship leaves Kirkwall harbor with pre-dawn tide in the company of a flock of bobbing fishing boats, it's tanbark sails nearly invisible in the clinging dark. No less than thirty fisherman sees the Reaper turn to beat westward, her stern lamp burning as an eye staring back through the night until the chopping sea's horizon line swallows it.

What the fisherman and indeed all of Kirkwall do not see is the Repear's subsequent series of tacks and the industrious work of a singularly motivated crew. By mid-morning, her course has drawn a broad loop far from the coastline and she is racing downwind now under every imaginable scrap of dark canvas, brought hard to heel so that the the men and women not engrossed by the constant trimming and easing of sail can be fit with life lines and put over the high windward side and set to work with brushes and paint.

By the time they again tear past Kirkwall's longitudes, too distant to be sighted by any watching eye, the Tevinter ship which in the past months had been so vigorously stripped of her Imperial identity has now been nearly returned it. She runs with red rail and a hull painted black to the water line. Her name, so new the shine of the paint hadn't had the chance to wear, has been painted over and replaced by something written in jagged Tevene.

('For fuck's sake, it's misspelled. All you had to do was copy it.')

Which is how an Antivan merchantman finds itself at the mercy of a Tevene ship not two days out of Salle

They're closing distance now. The merchantman is larger and heavy with cargo and even well sailed and with the weather on her side, she'd have trouble outrunning the lighter, fleeter Tevene raider. As it is, she's missed a vital tack and is now wallowing frantically. Through his glass, Flint can see her crew in miniature rushing about the deck in preparation of a second attempt to come around. They won't get it and it's clear from the temper of the men on the Reaper that everyone knows it. With every closed inch, the slavering energy of the vanguard on the blood red railing climbs higher.

At this rate, it'll be a miracle if the merchant ship isn't burned to the waterline in the starved crew's wake.]

Captain Vane. [The spyglass collapses with a SNAP! of brass. Flint turns toward the man in question at his elbow.] Would you kindly remind your men that we'd prefer not to carve our way to the individual in question.

['Your men' is a temporary reality. They are some trusted contingent of the Walrus's crew, Flint's or Silvers before they're anyone's, except for here on the deck of the Reaper as they're closing on their quarry. Which is fine. Vane can do this however the fuck he wants. Maybe that will earn him some leeway for afterward when Flint has every intention of making unexpected demands. If he's very lucky, the controlled chaos of what they're about to do might even be consuming enough to distract Gwen and Carla from their irregular route back to Kirkwall when this is finished.

(Unlikely. But he's already decided that's a problem to be surmounted tomorrow.)]

[wont_be_me]

[ It's been years since she was last on a ship. Years since she was on planetfall long enough to make any particular friendships with seafaring pirates rather than the various thugs and drifters who made up a similar contingent on the spaceports. When her world had been Oscyria, she'd been on the better side of one Zaid Jones who had trafficked in undead bodies and drugs with a regular need for her services when sneaking past inspections. She might still be able to provide such tricks to the pirates of Thedas, but they hadn't asked, had they.

She's too tidy to be one of the crew, but she also doesn't seem as off balance as some rifter from space should've been. And there's a narrow kind of anger on her face. The fresh ocean air raises strange thoughts of a dead world. The ship itself is all wrong, but the wide expanse of water and mission to subvert and defy is familiar enough. She hates that: the pangs of memories over dead things. ]

[katabasis]

[Usually in instances like this one - one ship bristling with bolts and small arms and slings of potted fire closing rapidly on its vulnerable prey -, there are matters that weigh heavily enough to make him a poor conversationalist. But until they subdue the merchant ship and begin to take inventory of her crew, Flint finds himself in the rare role of observer.

It's with surprising ease that his attention ships from the Antivan ship floundering before them to the sharp eyed rifter near to hand.]

Have you done anything like this before?

[Somewhere in there, behind the serious fixture of his expression and the square set of his shoulders, lies a trace of good humor. It's the tempo of someone as secretly pleased with this moment as the armed vanguard clamoring at the Reaper's rail.]

[sclavus]

[ Vane looks like some kind of jungle cat ready to pounce on the ship at Flint's side, head slightly bowed, shoulders hunched, hand on his blade. He's very much the picture of a Nascere pirate, fierce and hungry and wild. he's pretty much their mascot, lets be real. but he isn't without sense, and when flint gives his request, though he snorts, he nods a second later, turning back to hop up on a cargo crate next to a mast to call out over the heads of the men around them. ]

Gentlemen! Remember our target. This isn't some passable prize we're cutting through. Subdue, but we need them alive. [ a l i v e, you fucks. yes, they're restless. yes, they're gunning for blood. thankfully, he'd gotten a time or two out at sea before this to get some of that out. ] If you're feeling a need for more, fucking stow it 'til next run.

Do not fuck this up.

[ very inspirational. but that's how charles vane rolls. most men on the island have been used to his demeanor and stoicism. he's well respected enough that it doesn't take much more than voicing what he wants to have it done. hopping down, he's next to Flint and Carla again soon enough to hear the conversation. ]

The fuck does it matter? Too late for lessons.

[wont_be_me]

Never on a ship this... [ What is the word. How to judge a literal wooden boat against every space age vessel she's scuttled across the universe in. Let alone the sleek engine-powered racing boats that Zaid Jones had favored for out maneuvering patrols along the coastline. She settles on: ] lumbering, or quaint.

[ She spreads her hands. Some people take offense to such denigrations to their vessels and she doesn't... care... ]

I have a long history with smugglers.

[ That seems to suffice it without providing more than was asked. Though it's hardly a secret she cares about keeping. ]

Who are you taking here?

[ Ransom? Bounty? Informant? ]