faderift | WAR TABLE: Bang and Burn

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WAR TABLE: Bang and Burn

WHO: Flint, Silver, Loxley, Gwenaëlle, Bastien, Lazar, and Yseult.
WHAT: Riftwatch travels to Estwatch to convince some pirates to turn on the Tevinter fleet in the Waking Sea, only to find the pirate haven already in the midst of a revolt against the crews sympathetic to the Venatori.
WHEN: Early Guardian
WHERE: Estwatch, The Waking Sea
NOTES: OOC Info. Please mark your threads with content warnings in the subject lines where applicable.

THE PIRATE STRONGHOLD OF ESTWATCH
Welcome to ESTWATCH, a tiny spit of an island off the south-eastern coast of the Free Marches, has managed to successfully maintain their independence since breaking from Qunari control in 7:78. Though controlled now by pirates and raiders, vestiges of past occupations linger. The island is ringed by crumbling defensive walls and is host to a sprawling old Qunari fortress which looms over all traffic in and out of the island's bay, its beach dotted with the loose-knit assemblies of pirate crews camped on the sand. As far as potential welcoming committees go, Riftwatch has met with worse in its time.

Set further up on the interior of the island is Little Llomerryn, a town fashioned in the likeness of its distant sister city, Llomerryn, and run by an assortment of former pirates, can be found. While anyone who has spent time in the greater of the two pirate strongholds will attest that the pleasures of Little Llomerryn don't hold a candle to those of the larger port, there is a straightforward candor to the roguish qualities of the island which flourishes here. Taverns are cramped and labyrinthine. Company is cheap. Luxury goods don't survive here long (being smuggled briskly away to friendlier fences), and presently the most in demand services would appear to be those of the barber-surgeon and Madame Vasari's house, the latter being some combination of both brothel and convalescent hospital for raiders fleeing less than ideal entanglements with pirate hunters of nearby Hercinia.

Estwatch isn't any romantic adventurer's first choice when it comes to pirate havens. As a result, the politicking here is a shade more bloody and the crews who have made their residence here tend to be radically more prepared to align themselves with whatever is going to afford them the best long term odds. Sworn alliances are for the high tables in Llomerryn proper. Here in Estwatch, fortune favors the bold and the cutthroat.

THE ASSIGNMENT
According to the latest intelligence out of Estwatch, the situation Riftwatch was planning to sail into was one of tenuous suspicion. If anyone was going to be driven to incite widespread violence on the island, then it was probably going to be Riftwatch's efforts to hunt down and oust a short list of known Venatori agents on the island.

Upon arrival however, they'll find the pirates of Estwatch have already split into factions of their own. From the bay, it quickly becomes obvious that the beach has separated into two camps. The remnants of a large ship, seemingly ripped out of the water and dashed up onto the beach where its prow shattered against the base of the great fort and caused the exterior layer of the wall to come crumbling down on top of it, acts as something of a dividing line. Presently, a desiccated corpse hangs from one of the few unshattered yardarms.

Despite this less than encouraging welcome, and after a brief reconnaissance effort to determine which side of the beach warrants the safer landing, Riftwatch (and the Walrus' crew) will stake out a spot on the side of the beach where they're less likely to be stabbed on sight. Once Riftwatch agents begin mingling and asking questions, it will quickly become apparent that most everyone is aware of and capable of pointing to their short hit-list of Venatori agents. The most well known have been able to ingratiate themselves into prominent crews; despite their newcomer status, they can claim familiarity with long-standing members of the community, such as it is. Extricating them will require some delicacy to avoid sparking an outright civil war, or garnering significant animosity to Riftwatch.

Meanwhile, Little Llomerryn is host to those who have yet to align themselves with either of the warring factions on the beach. Whole crews have been driven to camp on the edges of town to doggedly maintain neutrality while they avoid the hostilities waged between the anti-Tevinter and pro-Tevinter crews camped on the beach. While there is no shortage of clashes and scraps down by the surf and at the base of the fortress, all three factions begrudgingly mingle between the taverns, trade posts and brothels found within the town. Brawls between crewmembers are minimal in Little Llomerryn, but never entirely absent.

Those seeking to attempt to sway neutral crews and captains from Tevinter's cause will have to contend with a number of concerns. Prominent arguments include the fact that that Tevinter and its agents presently are more than happy to supply southern pirates with leads on fat prizes, and that turning on Tevinter shipping in the region would gain them little—those ships belong to the Tevene amy and are armed for combat, not fat with trade goods. There are fears about the Tevene Navy, and what shape retribution may take if Estwatch openly declares against Tevinter. There are opposing fears regarding the possibility that a long standing alliance with Tevinter will make Estwatch a too-tempting target to the nearby cities of Hercinia and Ostwick. With their harbors in splinters, the Tevene Navy may be too great a force to muster against, but a pirate outpost? On the other hand, Estwatch is clearly expendable to the Venatori—the recent damage to the fort, the shattered hull on the beach, and evidence of other similar destruction lingering about the bay are all collateral damage suffered by Estwatch during the red lyrium sea monster attacks. Pirates staunchly opposed to Tevinter-allied crews may join in any argument should it occur within their hearing, though that isn't always a boon.

Diplomatic or not, Riftwatch agents will be charged with stoking anti-Tevinter sentiment among neutral parties more so than swaying supporters from their chosen cause. Those who find themselves less suited to the task of persuading crews away from neutrality might take up the task of flushing out Venatori agents from their positions of influence by another route (read: contriving to do a murder).

In the process, Riftwatch will have to navigate the volatile situation between crews liable to break into skirmishes along the sandy shoreline, and those who seek to control the crumbling fort and its walls. Long-time residents of Estwatch will explain that the body of the fort itself has been abandoned thanks to a long-open rift deep in the structure's interior. Rumor has it some kind of fade-touched beast is contained within the fort itself, and has made a meal of anyone who's looking to reclaim it. Those seeking to shortcut diplomacy and simply impress the dithering crews may choose to attack these problems head on, and put Riftwatch into a position to grant control of the newly-cleared fort to a crew and captain of their choosing.

DOWNTIME
The Walrus crew has staked out space on the beach, and tents have been set aside for Riftwatch members. While the crew themselves will be thoroughly occupied, Riftwatch is free to mingle on the beach, or use these evenings to further their assignment. Subject to the elements and to the copious amounts of sand that will inevitably find its way between canvas flaps and seams to ingrain itself among linens and belongings, Riftwatchers can at least count on privacy once they turn in for the evening.

Anyone with coin to spend and a taste for less sand-based lodging can rent a room at the tavern if they're so inclined, but this course comes with its own annoyances and dangers. The street itself is loud, but not nearly as loud as the singing, yelling, arguing and laughing that drifts up from the tavern's main room. As easy as it is to mingle among neutral crewmembers and eavesdrop on gossip, anyone taking this route must be aware that the reverse is true for them. Be mindful; who can say whether or not a conversation is truly private, or subject to an unseen audience? Moreover, there's safety in numbers. Choosing alternative accommodations may provide unique opportunities to gather intelligence and influence the locals, but it opens members of Riftwatch to assassination attempts and counter-spying.

While Silver and Flint will undoubtedly assert that all time on Estwatch is in service of ousting Tevinter from Estwatch, loitering in the right place at the right time can be productive and Riftwatch agents will likely find themselves with some time on their hands. Little Llomerryn's many diversions, from very legitimately acquired goods for purchase to strong liquor available at the tavern to the surrounding forests and rumored tunnels leading into the fort begging to be explored, leaves more than enough to occupy without strictly hunting Venatori throughout the island streets.

MISC HOOKS/PROMPTS/TIDBITS

Don't get murdered. Riftwatch's arrival on the island is likely to inflame tensions, and known Venatori agents will consider their presence a definitive threat. If they're not the type to do the job themselves, it's likely they'll try to outsource the work to more capable hands.
Be wary; pro-Tevinter factions may be willing to slit a Riftwatcher's throat, but anti-Tevinter crews can be just as dangerous—and are highly motivated to take advantage of Riftwatch's assistance.
The shattered ship on the beach, the Wolfe, once belonged to a now shipless captain by the name of Arter. He's staunchly in the anti-Tevinter camp, but has been bleeding crew since they've failed to find a new vessel with which to hunt in the intervening months since the Wolfe was wrecked.
The corpse presently hanging from the Wolfe's yardarm is Reeve Rowland, the island's most well-connected fence. It appears the spark that officially started the conflict on the island was the discovery that Rowland has been communicating the whereabouts of various crews less than supportive of Tevinter's presence in local politics to Hercinian pirate hunters. This betrayal resulted in the capture of at least two pirate vessels in late Haring of last year. Strangely, certain old hands in the neutral territory of Little Llomerryn familiar with the dead fence will be (quietly) adamant that Rowland was innocent. —Well, not in principle, obviously. But he had a longstanding and well-known vendetta against Hercinian pirate hunters.
Captain Braya "Black Finger" Orella remains the unambiguous top dog in Estwatch despite the scrapping occurring on the beach. She's single handedly responsible for keeping the balance of power on the island from substantially swaying in one direction or the other by merit of the fact that she herself has yet to choose one side or the other. The only thing Orella, whose nickname comes from her propensity to nick the small fingers off people who have lost to her in duels, likes more than a fight is watching one.
Rumor has it that the crew of the Shark, a crew on the pro-Tevene side of the beach made particularly unpopular among most for their dispositions and with various polite company for being notoriously replete with venereal disease, is currently in possession of a talented healer captured off a mercantile vessel. That resource could do with reallocating. (Rescue??? Don't be silly.)
Someone deal with that monster in the fort, please.
Madame Vasari's tending house is an excellent source of intelligence. Or a great place to quietly dispose of a body, for the right price.
Don't discount the friends and/or easy targets that can be made by winning (rigged?) games of chance, or drinking the right person under the table.
In general: there are three known agents of Tevinter in Estwatch who need to be sufficiently undermined, assassinated, or otherwise dealt with. They may or may not be Venatori. They may be serving in pirate crews, or they may be sufficiently embedded in the local community to be difficult to oust. Feel free to get creative with who these people are, what they've been doing, and how they're wheeling and dealing to preserve their positions. Similarly, the anti-Tevinter parties noted above are but a sample of the kind of hoodlums your characters may deal with. Feel free to conspire your own conspiracies, make up your own problematic favs and side quests etc as long as they fit into the general framework noted above. If you want a specific pre-built hook, hit us up here and we can cobble some details together for you.
You get the idea; choose your own adventure.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

watch this space.

↠ THE BEACH

Riftwatch has no claim on any part of Estwatch's beach. And were they operating entirely under its name, they might have some difficulty carving out the requisite space from the conglomeration of miscellaneous crews staking out on the northern side of the sand. As it is, the Walrus and the black flag shaken out on her yard as the ship claws its way into the bay is tantamount to the resurrection of a corpse. It has been five years since that ship under that banner has been seen in any capacity beyond rumor and hearsay. Ghost stories have a way of clearing space that legitimate business fails to.

So a tent has been staked on the sand well above the high tide line, inside of which has been propped a series of increasingly unlikely furniture: a legitimate bed, a heavy desk and chairs, a rug and lamps, and a chest whose lid may be shifted upward into a traveling bookcase. In just a few short hours, it is as if these men have always been here, as if the space has always been there, and as if the Captain overseeing them is as permanent a fixture as anything built on sand can be. As far as Estwatch is concerned, the only real oddity is the green pennant flapping below the pirate's flag beneath the tent's center-most post.

(If everyone knows Riftwatch is down on the beach loudly declaring their presence, then its possible they will forget to look too carefully elsewhere for members of that same company.)

Throughout the trip, Flint may occasionally be found presiding over this short measure of beach snapped up in the Walrus mens' and Riftwatch's names both. During the day, he is unlikely to be alone—here a hawk-faced woman with a notch carved out of her long left ear seems to just be leaving, scraping up and out of her chair while saying, 'I can tell you right now it won't come cheap.'

Flint's attention flicks briefly beyond her to whoever may be intruding and then resets. 'I didn't imagine it would. Send word,' he says, and dismisses her with an apparent flick of the forefinger.

The woman wheels, levels a glare at anyone closest, and makes to track up the beach.

Though in the evening, it is not impossible to find some measure of bare measure of privacy with the sides drawn down against the hiss of the land breeze pushing the air across the fortress walls, racing down the beach and gasping out after the surf. A lamp is still burning inside the tent. Light leaks out across the sand from a narrow gap in the canvas, less stark thanks only to the presence of the crew's bonfires which stud the beach immediately surrounding it.

↠ LITTLE LLOMERRYN

The island's foremost public house is a labyrinthine rat maze of small ramshackle rooms, cobbled together with an air of having had once been a series of separate structures first connected by walkways, and then corridors. Some of these hallways sway ominously underfoot on their modest stilt poles. A suspicious amount of nipping winter air whistles through gaps in the walls of the less well maintained rooms. And it is easy to become turned around in the warren of of malcontents, straying accidentally from what amounts to the friendly territory of one room dominated by various individuals aligned with the ostensibly anti-Tevene forces to less sure company elsewhere.

Luckily, this particular room falls on the more sure side the spectrum. Flint, tucked in at a table in one of the niches hacked into the warped wall, fetches up the bottle. With a clinking of glass muted by the fiddle player abusing his instrument a few paces off, he refills his cup and that of his company.

"What have you learned?"

↠ WILDCARD

[Want something bespoke? Hit me up via disco/PM, or just chuck a starter at me. Action brackets also fine if you prefer them; I'll reply in kind.]

There are two men deep in conversation under a tattered awning. One of the men is well-decked in a collection of mismatched jewelry and wearing a jaunty saber at his hip. The other looks suspiciously like a clerk. From across the street, it is impossible to determine that the latter is presently deep in the process of berating the former.

But in the room above the awning, with its open window shielded from view by the very scrap of cloth affording the covert qualities of shade to the two men mid-argument below, that much is perfectly apparent. Evidently, the clerk-looking fellow had once served as the quartermaster for the now disenfranchised crew of the Wolfe, that ship presently in pieces across the beach. The other man, with his ostentatious peacocking (invisible to this window but easily overheard by anyone sitting on the sill above), is the man presently in that less than profitable position.

Suffice to say, a coup is being plotted to oust the ill-performing captain, and one of these men seems to be playing his part less than sufficiently.

"Well, gentlemen? Obviously you're not just here to look." This interjection comes from the woman who owns the room from which Flint and Silver are currently doing their eavesdropping. Presumably, it doesn't carry to the street; if it does, it falls within the realm of ordinary business for both the woman and the room in question.

She's a round featured woman, with a great deal of tattoo ink laced around eyebrows and temples and under her jaw. The work continues down past her collarbones and fans across her shoulders where it disappears under the loose shirt she's donned in apparent deference to the shit weather; the ink reappears past her cuffs, running from wrist to fingertips. One of those fingers is presently tapping impatiently.

Flint pivots from the window. Regards the woman for a brief measure, and then flicks a sidelong look back to Silver where he is set against the sill. Staking out the cobbler next door would have net them a less clear vantage point over the conversation occurring below, but buying new boots demands nominally less blood for their trouble than what the woman with her powders and pins currently proposes in exchange for the use of her window.

Edited 2024-02-20 07:49 (UTC)

Once, a very long time ago, the house that now belongs to a woman called Vasari had likely been the home of a port Marshall. It sits convenient to a long series of now crumbling stairs leading to the top of the bay's fortified wall, and has the trace hallmarks of a well appointed albeit remote Tevene domus. Only its U-shape could be considered original—there is no believable circumstance where it's requisite courtyard gardens and tiled roof had survived abandonment, and the sebsewuent occupations by Qunari and Waking Sea Raiders both—, but it's present arrangement has enough similarities to various neat Northern households that it is easy to imagine what it might have once looked like. The gardens have yet to recover, but it's winter and the soil of Estwatch is unwelcoming to green things. Meanwhile, one must assume that the business presently being conducted in the house is more or less entirely genuine to its original purpose. No matter the Age, there is no such thing as a harbor master who isn't fucking you as a matter of professional pride.

Not that he'll be availing themselves of that particular service today. Instead, the house had been chosen as a meeting place for its relative discretion (paid for or otherwise). Once closed into a room, Flint's alleged company for the afternoon—a pretty Rivaini woman with a pierced nose settles into a chair. She fetches her embroidery project from between its seat cushion and the arm.

"For a silver piece, I could make some noise while you're away." she suggests. "It would be good for your reputation."

Flint, folding back the heavy tapestry covering the narrow door to the room's hidden service entrance, levels her with a frank look.

"Half that for the guarantee you won't spread that I've been cheap."

"Done."

Which accounts for a certain lightness of his pocket when, a few minutes later, he squeezes out of the narrow serving passage to join Yseult in the cozy little back room hidden away from the rest of the house. From the looks of things—the chaise and sofa stuffed into the space, the narrow tea table that requires partially clambering over to reach a seat—and the frank quality of the light from the lantern overhead, this isn't ordinarily a spot used for entertaining. Someone's left a comb on the side table. A pair of slippers waits by the opposite door. It's tantamount to having a clandestine conversation in a broom closet turned dressing room.

Edited 2024-02-20 19:26 (UTC)

Yseult suits the space even less than she usually might, dark leather and silk the deep crimson of an arterial bleed incongruous against the faded, mismatched pastels of the furniture and the shabby cloth flowers decorating the slippers. She's settled in all the same, already ensconced on the chaise on the other side of that tea table, legs curled up and tall boots on the floor beside. There is even a tea tray on the table, and she sets the second of the mismatched cups back down to lift it into her lap so that Flint can climb over.

"Did she quote you half a silver to make appropriate noises?" she asks, setting the tray back down once he's safely past and setting about pouring him a cup, rings clinking against the ceramic. "Rates have gone up since I was last here."

Half— fuck's sake.

"They'll be three times that once we leave this room," he says, folding himself down into the space on the other side of the chaise. Turning back the edge of his coat. Shifting the sword at his hip and finding some angle to arrange his knees in that doesn't jam his shins against the low table. Yseult doesn't need to know what cons he may or may not have been swindled by.

"How well is Nina remembered?"

(It had been odd to hear that name again. For some reason, in spite of having discussed the nature of choosing what kinds of truths and reliable lies were best told when under duress, he'd accepted it an entirely original construction for Hasmal.)

Three silver? What is this, surge pricing? "Now that would be piracy," Yseult remarks as she nudges a cup towards Flint's knee and refills her own. She shakes her head once in partial answer as she lifts it, then drinks.

"Not very well," she says, lowering the cup to be circled by her palms atop crossed legs. "In either sense. It was only for a few years, but Gallo made enough of a name for himself in that time for her to be recognized. Known to the fences and suppliers, as his quartermaster. But he was jealous and liked her cold, so not many connections outside his inner circle." And they're all dead, as far as she knows.

"Not at all like this Captain Flint I'm hearing so much of."

He takes the cup, the corner of his mouth twisting briefly in the direction of a grimace somewhere behind the auburn of his whiskers and the shadow they cast. Less for the tea. More for what he himself has heard about Captain Flint. And then this is smoothed roughly away in favor of stealing a nip of tea over the edge of the too delicate porcelain. He drinks with the distinct air of a man who would generally prefer to be dosing himself with something stronger.

"I've heard he's dead," he says, twisting the degree necessary to settle fully back. Give himself the space to cheat out the stiffer of his knees. "Or too old."

Two hours on the island is sufficient to reach a few obvious conclusions. Namely, that something requires doing about the undecided faction presently keeping the conflict in check. Two days on Estwatch is plenty to arrive at the logical conclusion.

Braya Orella, captain of the Seer, needs convincing.

She's a big woman in her forties, sporting a black cross tattoo above one eye and—from what observation can be made of her either at a distance or by the proxy of the local rumor mill—a penchant for seeing anyone determined to make trouble for her gutted like a fish. She is not evidently a woman particular conducive to being fucked with.

And yet, James Flint is presently sharpening his belt knife.

Here on the beach in the early evening, with the light only just beginning to turn purple and the orange fires studding the beach beginning to glow brighter, one side of the captain's tent above the Walrus crew remains rolled up as if to indicate the day's work being performed there under the gently swapping hanging lamp has yet to be fully accomplished. But all papers have been put away, their various drawers and chests locked, and all that remains are a succinct array of sword and dirk, boot knife and marlinspike. The sword has been sharpened. The spike's point has been honed. Presently, he is in the process of working the dirk's blade across the whetstone, the slow rasp of its hiss quickly snatched away by the breeze swirling lazily off the water, through the tent, and off again.

Some shit is apparently in the works.

Edited 2024-02-20 22:13 (UTC)

But like, what if it wasn't.

When Gwenaëlle drops down opposite Flint, just outside the tent, it's a safe bet from her demeanour that she has some notion of what's in the offing. She takes in the freshly serviced weapons and the set of his jaw, and she had sort of hoped she'd misunderstood — it does not, she thinks, look as if she's misunderstood. What it looks like is nothing promising, and she doesn't want to have to say so, except.

Except it does sort of feel like she may have to. She doesn't interrupt him, immediately, just watches the movement of the blade, her head tilted, her mouth pursed in at a corner. If anything, a shocking lack of enthusiasm for an activity she would ordinarily find somewhat meditative at best, would greet with equanimity at otherwise worst. Finally,

“I don't want to be disrespectful,” sounds like it might end: but if I simply have to be, Captain—

He'd sent the sword away to be sharpened. Probably that's where the rumor had started—some Walrus man speculating over the blade's need to be tended, and the rumor sprinting back along to the sand to reach any number of ears. Including, evidently, Gwenaëlle's. Or maybe she's just done the same logical calculation Flint has. Regardless—

He draws the knife back from the whetstone, setting his thumb carefully at the edge to verify the work. Some unwanted burr must catch at the calloused skin; a moment later, he resumes the steady skrrrape of running the dirk over the block.

"You may as well say it."

She won't, actually, be the first one. Other gossip on the island has included notions very like I'd assumed the northern sea Flint was dead, and that cunt in Kirkwall a fake. Disrespect would seem not to be a particularly rare commodity on Estwatch.

The problem is, of course, that she won't be the first one. And patently, no one has been terribly convincing as yet, and if there is a particular skill that she is pretty sure she doesn't have, it's talking people into or out of things. She can't not try, but it isn't a confident beginning, the churning uncertainty that she's going to do anything here but irritate him.

Maybe he'll appreciate that she makes the effort. Take it in the spirit it's meant, or something.

(Hm. That doesn't even sound all that convincing in her head.)

Finally, she says, “I'm not so skilled a teacher as you were,” because it's true, even teaching his own lessons back to him, “and it's been at least fifteen years since you bounced back the way I do.” Fifteen might be generous. “You won't make our case if she dog walks you.”

The short knife is drawn fully back across the stone with a curt hiss. There's a rhythm to this which remains unbroken by the this salient point; if she's offended him, it doesn't show in the patient flex of Flint's forearm as he works the blade.

"She hasn't taken any fingers since this started."

She'd nipped a whole hand from a man sent from one of the weaker captains on the island requesting that she oversee a parlay between the two parties on the beach so everyone could return to the business of making money instead of holding each other at knife point, but that's different.

"Orella is holding back for some reason. Either she doesn't give a damn and is confident of her own survival regardless, or her interests are broader than what is happening on this beach. We only need to determine which is true to make her see reason."

Skkksst, hums the blade.

"I don't intend to address her with a sword's point first."

Gwenaëlle nearly says, why did you have your sword sharpened, then; her ever-expressive face does say it for her, even as she presses her lips into a thin line, studying him closely. He doesn't look angry with her, and he is entertaining the conversation, so that seems like a good enough sign—

“How do you intend to address her?” is the natural next question, then, if she's skipping the even more obvious one.

(There's something soothing and meditative about the sound of the blade being sharpened, and she tries not to focus on it to the exclusion of actually understanding what's happening around her. It feels very important that she, herself, is very sharp in this moment.)

Here, the knife comes away. A kind of imperfect quiet—notable only for the lack of the whetstone's scuffing—falls about them as his thumb gently tests at it edge for any burrs.

"I thought I might start with a conversation."

(He thinks he's funny.)

To clarify— "If she's comfortable in her current position, there is reason to believe she shouldn't be. The longer pirates make themselves allies of the Imperium, the more likely the marches are to make their displeasure known. If they can't attack Tevene navy, Hercinia and the like will clearly settle for the next best thing. Llomerryn isn't so close that someone couldn't reach this place before the Armada could be raised out of Rivain. Assuming there's even enough coherence among the captains in power there to manage a response to begin with."

He sounds doubtful of that fact.

"If she's not comfortable, then confirming her suspicions only validates the value of our alliance. You only join hands with people who already know which direction the wind is blowing from."

Obviously, there are other options. Hence the sharpened sword and honed dagger. But these sound convincing to the ear. At the very least, they are not unbelievable. It could happen like he says.

Maybe.

It could happen like he says,

and if he weren't sharpening blades, then she might more readily believe that he expects it to. That that is his plan and that he intends to follow it through, conversationally. Navigating the tricky waters of any diplomatic encounter is not — he well knows, everyone well knows — anything like her strong suit. She has a tendency, when presented with a confident assertion from someone who knows more, to accept their version and fold it into her worldview.

Gwenaëlle's eyes fall to his hands, and her mouth purses, doubtful.

Finally, “That's so,” and as may be, heavy in her tone, “but you don't make a convincing case that you're preparing your back up plan, presently.”

Yes, well. Piracy is generally understood to be something of a dangerous business even when one believes themselves well prepared.

(Does he believe himself that?)

He sets the knife back to the whetstone, evidently not yet entirely satisfied with the clarity of the blade's edge.

"If it were to come to swords, she would likely have me beaten," he agrees. Or half agrees. Likely. But, goes the scuff of the sharpening knife. "That doesn't change the fact that someone is obligated to take her to task if we wish to see one side or the other gain some traction here."

“If she has you beaten, we end in a worse position than we started,” she says, feeling — perhaps visibly — that allowing an if into that sentence is being very generous of her.

Worse than just not making their case. Making the other case, instead. Her mouth sets in a moue of frustration, as much with herself as with Flint — for being ill-suited to talking anyone out of anything, not as persuasive as she wants to be, her arguments more plainly tinged with emotion than his steady refutations.

This is a bad idea, she thinks. It is not much better to feel powerless to actually stop it from happening, uncertain of what to present him with as a better alternative.

"The Gurgut is only on the table if the Traveller's Bend goes first."

There's some uncharacteristic self-conscious stiffness to the way Bastien sits across from Flint. A moment of nervous leg-jiggling beneath the table that stops abruptly when he appears to notice it. His posture and demeanor are a balancing act. Amiable enough to attract conversation, meek enough to be underestimated, polite and finicky enough to seem out of place, not such a square as to drive everyone away. Notes of the mannerisms of whoever he's speaking to—except Flint, now, who is not someone he presently needs to like him for some reason they can't quite put a finger on. (Or, not more than he always does with every person in the entire world.)

He's quiet. Habitually angled to minimize the risk of lip-reading. His jacket, acquired on the island just today while the one he brought along awaits repair, is a little too big in the chest and short in the arms. When he pulls his glass closer, the shirt sleeve spilling out past the cuff is stained the rust brown of old blood.

"And the Traveller's Bend—the Bend—" Uncertainly; can he call it the Bend? Has he earned that? Does he sound ridiculous? "—their quartermaster is more likely to entertain a conversation than their captain."

The bottle is righted. Accordingly, Flint settles back in his chair. That the niche the table is crammed into casts some convenient shadow just deep enough to make over his half of the proceedings difficult to parse from across the room has the look of something like very random happenstance. Maybe it is. Hard to say with Flint, who has been so broadly blasé about the presentation of his person about the island that one might expect at any moment to discover a Venatori knife wagging in this direction.

Bastien, he thinks, has made quick work of the place.

"Did you hear that from the quartermaster, or the Bend's crew under him?" Apparently the truncated moniker ~~flies~~ sails. Across the lip of the cup and strictly for Bastien's benefit, he adds, "The coat is a nice touch."

The smile that flashes in answer is particularly rodentlike–more chipmunk than rat, though—with only the tips of his front two teeth visible.

"Thank you," he says, "and I got it from the boatswain and the carpenter. It was not an invitation. Or if it was they were being impressively subtle about it—they were telling me the crew is split but the margin trusts the captain so there isn't any point trying, and then they turned off and had a whisper between themselves. But I could see," better than he could hear, now.

It's a relatively new thing he's learned, that a captain is more populist persuader than dictator, and his favorite pirate fiction had it all wrong—the last part a little disappointing. But otherwise, interesting.

He's holding the questions at bay.

"Disagreements like the ones occurring on this island are prone to blowing themselves out given a little time."

It's the nature of places like this one—of all places, really; even the ones that look and act nothing like a south sea pirate haven. Wait, and the dust is almost certain to settle about you as everyone grows bored or tired of struggle and reverts to the comfortable routine it knows best. Fighting is hard work. Infighting, the killing kind at least, moreso. No one wants to sleep with an eye held open for all that long.

"At a guess, I would imagine the Bend's captain is currently laboring under the impression that he need only be patient until everyone else puts this behind, and her quartermaster suspects otherwise."

The look Flint flicks across the table is an invitation: unless Bastien's heard otherwise?

Lazar pokes the end of a rag into his cup, dabs it up onto the split of his cheek. Grunts like a dog for the sting.

"Shark needs bodies, more'n they'll say. Pox chewed through one skull - he showed me - and another's getting slow for it. Twitchy. Told me some kind've big bird got their mate."

It might have been a metaphor. He downs the glass.

"Birdwatcher thinks you're a right cunt," That's not news. "Liable to blow your load on any old sap."

It is a proposal. This is a small room, a surer one - but even friends talk. Lazar has, by all appearances, come back with very little to show for a day spent fucking off. He looks at Flint level.

Well, level as he can through a black eye.

Edited (werds) 2024-02-22 01:41 (UTC)

If that's true then he shouldn't really pour Lazar a second glass. He does anyway, mentally weighing whether it's more useful to blacking the man's other eye on the way out or if he should just see about making the first one worse. Leans toward the latter. The man looks like shit either way and it's hard to work a sword with two swollen eyes.

When the bottle is righted, it's placed firmly on Flint' s side of the table. At the very least, there won't be a third glass.

"Weren't they meant to have their hands on a witch?"

"Rivaini," He guesses. "Old, tattoos. Unbroke a leg or two, but can't reckon she's doing much since - they're all worse than I'd figure. Got bad in a hurry."

Look, some people know naval warfare. Some know STDs. Lazar drinks, eyes the bottle at the end of the table. Grab for it, and that's an easy start -

"Dunno how kind she'd take an escort."

Interrupting a mage's potential vengeance seems a good way to piss her off.

When you're a jet, you're a jet all the way. When you're a Shark, you're jostling his elbow midway down a stab. The blade plunges, catches the web of his pinky, and Lazar snarls an oath -

"Rough go, mate!" Freefool laughs. He's been tagging after the guy better part of two days, long enough to know that silk-flowered bandanna covers an open hole in his head. Maker only knows how he's standing, and well enough to cheat. "That's a round on you."

"Aw, gimme another chance," He waggles the blade. "Double or nothing, let her decide if I'm buying."

He nods to the passing face: Nina. A prettier sight than present company - assailed as they've been by years of salt, pox, and poor luck. Word’s gone round that the Shark has a talented healer aboard. Well, they can’t be much putting their back into it.

Lazar offers the knife, Freefool whistles. What's up, boss.

Nina lifts one dark brow at the hilt turned her way, eyeing Lazar and his companion with the limited curiosity of someone who has already categorized and dismissed them both. She's been sniffing around the Tevinter sides of Little Llomerryn long enough to have mostly written off the Shark as players, except for this rumor about a healer. There could be profit in that, and the one thing every old acquaintance and gossipmonger in Estwatch agrees on is that Nina Dumont is as mercenary as they come.

No surprise then when she takes the knife and flips it nimbly between her fingers but instead of sitting asks, "What's in it for me?"

"Go on, show her then," The injury, illness, whatever he’s claimed to bring you over for. "She’ll fix you right up."

He isn't so sure about that. Half the Shark's crew are shambling bags of pus - if she's a talented healer, then there's gotta be damn little to do for advanced disease. And that disease has advanced in a hurry.

Can't say for sure - it'd be a dangerous play. But something about the old woman just strikes off. There's something queasy in the air around her. A little like oil, a little too,

Sick.

The healer squints down tiny, round spectacles, beckoning. Lazar throws his own look, waiting for an answer: Grab her, get rid of her, or walk back off the Shark and wait until she sinks it?

One way or another, it’s time.

Edited (i used a colon twice and surely will die) 2024-02-26 07:22 (UTC)

Lazar holds the torch aloft - this isn’t a secret. Riftwatch comes for rifts, and there's a rift. Be stranger not to show.

That doesn’t mean it’s safe. They were followed the better way through jungle, and only here where trees give way to high stone walls, has their tail vanished into brush. Good odds there are more ahead. Bugs hum, leaves rustle, and Rowland creaks from his long rope. Across the beach, the rabble rouses: Shouting for joy, or rage, or drink; all the hundred spaces between.

Lucky fucks.

"You should lead," Whether there’s a Fade-touched beast, or just a Vint ambush, seems someone else oughta ferret that out. "I’ll watch your back."

Edited 2024-02-26 07:25 (UTC)

"Generous of you to allow me the chance at glory," is delivered to the tune of Fuck off.

Should it be John leading? Yes, yes, this is his turf, so to speak. Yes, it is fair to presume he is familiar with the terrain.

At some point, it had occurred that he might have objected to approaching this task under the cover of night. But it's a bit late for objections at this point.

"Remind me what you're planning to watch my back with?"

A torch flung at the first emerging sign of danger, perhaps?

"And ruin the surprise?"

Someone might be listening. Anyone who is will catch the scrape of steel.

(An ugly fucking thing, this cutlass. Took it off an ugly guy.)

He repeats the plan back:

"I got the light," A big, shiny target. Lazar can move quiet, but he doesn't know this place like John does - forget the crutch, one of them's more like to trip. "You smell anything funny, and I make myself a big fucking target."

Easy. The entrance arches ahead, half-collapsed under pock-marked stone. Old wounds, too small for cannon - magic, maybe. Scars from long before Little Llomeryn.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

WAR TABLE: Bang and Burn

john silver.

flint ↠ ota

↠ silver

↠ yseult

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↠ gwen

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little llomerryn.

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lil' llomeryn

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lazar

YSEULT

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OPEN | Jump the shark (Healer Reallocation)

OPEN | Fort-nite (Rift monster)

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