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Owner	Pose
Marigold	Fibernia, the Western Isles      Just off the coast...      Around the journey's midpoint, the three-masted caravel stops hugging Etruria's coast to cross the strait between the mainland and the Western Isles. There's a tense period of about twelve hours where land isn't visible on either horizon; then the Fibernian coast blossoms into view on the sky's western edge, to minor hooting and celebration.      It couldn't be more different from Etruria's sandy shores. Jagged shale cliffs loom through heavy mist, ranging from "as tall as the crow's nest" to "too high to see the tops". Islets and outcroppings stab out of the still gray waters, home to squawking seagulls and emerald moss. Under the hired Etrurian crew's guidance, the caravel slowly threads its way between them to the north. Every so often the ship passes under a high rope bridge connecting islets, the only sign of civilization.      "I've been here once before," says Merlinus the seneschal on the final day, stroking his moustache with a twinklingly sagacious air. "Precious few ports to land at in a place like this, but we're coming up on one. Look alive! Maybe we'll find one of your Otherworld portals too." The vague shape of a slump in the cliffs does appear ahead, along with a few wooden buildings.      "Mm. I know we're here to deal with pirates and brigands, but perhaps they'll let us borrow Armads again," he muses nostalgically. "It almost undid Hector in the end, but I tell you, he wouldn't have lived that long without--"      The first ballista bolt shatters the mast he was leaning on, inches from taking off his head. Merlinus screams in panic, but it's drowned out by the second splintering crash a heartbeat later, gouging through half of the quarterdeck and spraying wooden shrapnel. A smaller one-masted ship emerges from the fog on the caravel's left as the evident culprit, two ballistae mounted on its deck. Its crew is already reloading.      "What's going--?!" "The pirates--!" "Marcus, what do we--?" "Rutger, save--!" Immediate, milling panic ensues. The collective babble is only cut short by a third and fourth shot slamming into the hull near the waterline, giving two people's cabins a very bad time. The caravel starts taking on water. "ASHORE! Get us ashore right now!" bellows Marcus the veteran knight, and the sailors comply, though that's still a few moments off.      Lucius emerges from belowdecks, one of his wards shepherded under each arm and splinters in his hair, and levels a beam of brilliant light against the nearer pirate ship. Its mast collapses, but the people on board retaliate with arrows, quickly wounding Lilina (whom Marcus curses and shields too late) and Dieck (who takes one while shoving Lance the junior knight aside). The other ship's crew throws grappling hooks to snag the right rail; the presumptive boarders are burly sorts, leather-armored and bearing glittering axes or spears.      "How did they know we'd be here?" gasps Merlinus, hauling himself up against the toppled mid-mast. "Isn't giving a chance to surrender good business...?"
Flamel Parsons	Flamel Parsons is waking up in confusion. An aura of panic seeps through the ship and gets him up the way a fire alarm ought to. He's on his feet and in his suit nearly instantly, but telepathy barely gives him any understanding of what's happening. He runs to a porthole. His eyes widen and he pulls away just as quickly. Just then, a large chunk of wood lodges through the window. "Wow! That's some good equipment you've got out there!" He says, laughing nervously and sweating all over from the near miss. "Okay! Let's all do our best!"     Motherfucker, this isn't Advance Wars.     He's out up on the deck in a fast scramble. "Gonna level with you all, I've never swashbuckled before, and stealth's suddenly become a lot less useful. Lugh, back me up, I'm gonna cast into their minds and hop us around, see if we can figure out what they want before they get aboard... And, cover us while we do, please!" Gotta figure out the tactical situation. Astral influence rushes across the waves, trying to navigate the minds, figure out the nature of the piratical behavior and the structure of command, information he'll relay as quickly as he can to the others. Any amount of psychic violence he can commit against their collective fighting spirit might go a long way too... But he's gonna be ready to fight once they close the gap. As soon as the ships are in range, he's invisible, and ready to try his hand at dealing with a boarding party!
Angela	"Here we go again," Angela sighs from the Eggpack, no doubt asiding to Petra. "I am starting to suspect that every safe harbor, metaphorical or literal, is one we will have to fight for, not that I have objections to aesthetically arranged plates--in truth I would've liked if I could've discussed stars more with Lilina, I am curious as to how one world's cataclysm can result in galactic shifts. She is clearly quite bright--Ah, I suppose I shouldn't prattle on--" Meanwhile... Nonon jumps out from where she was just lying on the deck at full attention having just been falling asleep at Merlinus's exposition until he mentioned pirates and SPEAK OF THE DEVIL-- Nonon claps a hand on Merlinus's shoulder and leans down to grin happily at him, "PIRATES!! HELL YES! PIRATES!! Last time Rita had all the pirate fun...! Now it's my turn!" She spins on a heel, firing a gasharpoon line towards one of the pirate(?) ships, hoping to get a nice firm cable line going because she wholly WHOLLY intends to REVERSE PIRACY the other vessel. "My people!! My adoring people!! You here to pillage and plunder us? I'll show you the meaning of greed, GA HA HA!!" She pushes back up her pirate captain hat and is mentally loading up her repertoire of pirate insults. She was hoping for something like this to happen all week and now that it has she has no intention of letting it pass without some proper avasts and ye mateys. "Maybe we should cut those cables before they board but I imagine if it were that easy it would not be a typical pirate strategy?" Angela theorizes like this is all just academic to her.
Blemishine	One would hope for an uneventful rest-of-the-way, at least. It's nice, in its own way, to take in the differing environments of Elibe; comparing Etruria's coastline to the massive, foggy cliffsides they come up on now, noticing the stray signs that towns must indeed exist on those high-off elevations if bridges exist... and of course, the port ahead.     "These isles feel like a world apart..." Blemishine, as ever, leans against a railing of the ship while appreciating the scenery - along with Merlinus' recollections of the past. Armads... it'd be a huge boon if they could get it. But who would...     Breaking up her musing of who would even wield the cursed axe is the sounds of wood breaking. And then, the chaos of voices. When the boat jolts, she has to grab onto what she can to stay upright. Thankfully, she's quick on the uptake... even before the silhouettes of a boarding party flash into view.     If they're getting assailed coming into port like this, it could only either...     "If they're not flagging us down and hoping we'll give up... perhaps they already know who we are!" Or they could just be the 'take no prisoners' sort. Too early to say. But the fact she /does/ always keep her armor on hand is good for situations exactly like this. Along with her shield and sword; both of which she's already bringing to bear as she rushes the right side of the vessel to prepare for boarders.     It allows her to get a slightly better look, as they close in. "Leather... muscled... and those weapons... are they /pirates/? Or..."     ...Bern's privateers?
Odette Raskins	For once, Odette's at peace. She's had some time to think about what's been happening lately, to really mull over where she's been lacking in the recent past with the City, the DGP, just a day or so ago on the boat itself... Finally, she can start to feel herself. Even lying in bed with uniform and her gear on, she can feel herself inside it all, slowly letting all those worries drift away, silencing the tumult and the nagging fears of death that could be looming just around the corner. She closes her eyes, even pushing away thoughts of how far she's come with Lucius' training, and- A ballista smashes right through the wall right over where she's lying down. Odette's face is frozen is wide-eyed shock as she can't even bring herself to scream at that, although anyone near her cabin can probably hear the teeth chattering noise coming from her. After casually hurling herself out of the bed and onto the ground, she starts crawling along the ground away from any walls to stay firmly out of the path of any other stray ballista. "What the heck's... P-p-pirates?! Real pirates?" There's just a hint of anticipation at seeing real life pirates up close, but most of what comes through Odette's voice is the usual sort of fear she has at being under attack by just about anyone. It takes her a moment to stop crawling around, but she's back on her feet by the time she reaches the deck with everyone else, and she quickly gets to work sussing out the injuries that need treatment. First things first: Lilina and Dieck.  She gets the medicated bandages and sutures ready even as she just starts sprinting around to get to them. She keeps her head mostly down aside from having to vault over the shattered mast, and an expertly timed twirl means she gets cut across the side of her arm instead of the front of the other arm. Hissing through her teeth, Odette slides onto her back nearby Lilina, then wraps up her wound hastily before beckoning Dieck over with a quick wave. "If they're pirates, then... If you're hurt, get down and wait for me to fix you up! M-maybe they don't have... Uh. Wait, no, of course they'd have medical personnel to last this long out here." Grumbling quietly to herself, Odette taps her medical visor on so she can start checking injuries out. She's ready to hastily sew and wrap up those arrow wounds, too, even if she has to stuff their mouths with plain gauze before pulling out any arrows to do it.
Khosa	Khosa had *just about* gotten used to being on a ship when she could see the coast, however distant. She didn't like the movement, but she could handle it, even if it made her uncomfortable. When it went out of sight, though, she made herself scarce belowdecks. Part of it was sleep, which Khosa rarely seems to need but has definitely been catching up with on the journey. Another part of it was meditation. Flamel, and anyone else with psychic sensitivity, could pick up her particular mental state while doing *that*. She had in fact been in the middle of it when she was interrupted by a ballista bolt driving itself through the wall of the cabin. It came in at an angle, and didn't penetrate in such a way as to hit Khosa, but it sure got her attention. Several moments later, Khosa bursts out on deck. She is wild-eyed, slightly wild-haired (she hasn't brushed it yet) and about half dressed, wearing the bandeau out of her vest-and-bandeau combo paired with a wrap around her hips and thighs that covers about as much as a pair of shorts with trailing lengths front and back like a loincloth. She is also carrying an entire fucking anchor, because did you know that most ships carry a spare anchor in case they have to cut theirs loose? Caravels only need a small anchor, which means the weapon that Khosa is carrying in one hand over her shoulder probably only weighs a couple hundred pounds, tops. Khosa bounds up onto deck, spins once, and throws it like a shotput at the closer boarders' ship. It may as well be a ballista bolt itself, or even a cannon shot; it's more then capable of punching through whatever wood it hits with her strength behind it, though Khosa is limited to throwing it at things above the waterline, so it's not likely to sink the ship. It might cause them some concern, though. Especially if it hits someone, though Khosa isn't aiming at anyone in particular. "You picked the WRONG ship," she roars at the incoming boarders. Her previous discomfort with moving quickly on deck is increasingly forgotten as she has a more urgent problem to deal with.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine, back in her work outfit today and having retrieved Drogrung from Angela's care, marvels at the scale of the cliffs. "I'd love to get a closer look at those..." she murmurs to nobody in particular.     When the hostile ships loom out of the fog and begin their assault, Madeleine scowls and leaps into action. Pulling Drogrung from her back, she nocks and looses an arrow, seemingly aimed at center mass of the nearer of the two ships. Her real attack becomes clear a moment later when the arrow bursts into a cloud of oily smoke that rolls over the ballista-armed vessel. Drogrung's poison vapor stings the eyes and lungs, in addition to obscuring the artillerists' view of the Etrurian caravel.     Torrie hustles up from below-decks, axe in hand. There's no time to armor up, so she's just in her tunic and flannel cloak, ready to fight off the boarders as they arrive. The huntress, meanwhile, has disappeared from the deck of the caravel. As the boarders throw their hooks, lower boarding planks, and charge across to the deck of the Lily, Madeleine is leaping across from one aftcastle to the other. She's counting on the dense fog, the myriad distractions of battle, and especially Nonon's boisterous counterattack to mask her movements, and when she arrives she'll sneak around in search of a captain or other commanding officer.
Alucard	Things have been ... tense on the ship. Alucard, who had been helping the crew out at the beginning of the voyage, has become more and more reclusive. The son of Dracula found the darkest, quietest corner belowdecks and stayed in it, letting the drama pass him by. He had planned on staying put until they docked. No one was going to see him again until they struck land. The cracking wood and the shouts about pirates change this plan. The dhampir strides up from below, his expression flat with his sword at his waist. He frowns as Lucius launches magic at one of the ships. This shouldn't be happening. His eyes follow the ropes back to their ship of origin, and he sprints towards the rail. Without a word, his knees bend, and he launches himself up and over the water. His form shimmers as it changes, the magic of it hiding the grotesque nature of shapeshifting, as he becomes a giant bat. With a single wingbeat, he hurtles himself through the sky to the boarding ship. crashing into the deck in a shower of splinters. As the dust settles, he rises, hand upon his sword. He intones gravely, without malice. He speaks only facts. "I am Alucard of Wallachia. Fight me and die like so many others. This is your only warning."
Petra Soroka	One week on a boat is time for a lot of things. Even something as simple as shared meals is something that matters a lot to Petra, and the combined atmosphere of a camping trip and a road trip that the enclosed space emulates puts her gradually more at ease. That doesn't mean she lets up in her assault on Ace's well-being-- her *failed* assault on Ace's well-being, and she can occasionally be seen belowdecks humiliated and grumbling to herself after whatever prank ends up being turned around on her-- and it also doesn't mean she's any more forgiving of people's fuckups or offenses, but aside from that, her generally prickly demeanor softens considerably the more 'communal' time is spent together.     She's more than willing to chatter with the army and the Elites alike, engaging in whatever games people have around, and starting surprisingly few arguments considering how she typically is. Nights are rarely spent on her own, though not just because of Lilian. As stand-in for Lobotomy Corporation's sleep piles, she often keeps the Eggpack powered on throughout the night, or hangs out in Tennant's room watching movies she'd downloaded until falling asleep, and more than once she just falls asleep on a bench or pile of canvas somewhere out in the open.     The morning of the attack, Petra can't be seen anywhere on deck. Normally-- despite this being entirely unnecessary-- she'd be doing some random task or chore to keep the ship running, but not only is she not around when the ballista bolt crashes into the ship, even Angela is deposited on a bench in the dining area. It takes long seconds until Petra stumbles through the door to the room, slapping her hands against the table and coughing. She looks like she's already been through a fight, and lost-- a thrown-on t-shirt sticks to her in multiple places from bloody spots, her hair is disheveled like a rat's nest, and she's blearily bright pink and unsteady on her feet while shrugging the Eggpack on her back.     As explanation, she just snivels incoherently to herself, "This is so fucking bullshit. It's so bullshit. Couldn't they have waited, like, five minutes? I'll fucking kill them." "I am starting to suspect that every safe harbor, metaphorical or literal, is one we will have to fight for,"     "Honestly! Honestly," Petra slowly gets her bearings back while careening up stairs to the deck, talking over her shoulder while fussing with stuffing the gear she has balled up in her hands into her pockets, hastily grabbed while rushing by her room. "This whole *world* is the most-- I don't know, the most *polarizing* place, in terms of people having, like, actual fucking-- personalities, or whatever. I don't think I can phrase it right right now. But like, you know, so many of the people in the army, they're really cool and actually have, fucking, light behind their eyes, and then everywhere *else* we go, it's fucking betrayal this, coup that, hired pirates there, whatever."     "I-- but, I guess, I can't complain? I kind of don't really mind it."
Petra Soroka	She does immediately mind it a bit more when staggering onto the deck to see Lilina and Dieck already wounded. Recovering mentally from the whiplash of the attack, but unsalvageable physically, Petra finally clears out her cluttered guns and mirrors and greebles in her hands until she's left with just the transteam gun and Silver bottle, slamming them together to ready herself both for society and battle as quickly as she can by cloaking herself in black smoke and armor. "Maybe we should cut those cables before they board but I imagine if it were that easy it would not be a typical pirate strategy?"     "I-- I think, normal swords and shit just can't do it easy enough? But I've got..." As Sting Silver, Petra can just reach down and rip out the grappling hooks from their place in the railing one handed, splintering wood without much effort. This gives her the idea, though, to run along the railing to the quarterdeck, stepping off the side of the ship onto a rippling morphmetal platform to tear the embedded harpoon out of the hull. "If they're not flagging us down and hoping we'll give up... perhaps they already know who we are!"     "But, like--! Are we *that* identifiable? How fucking complicated were Bern's instructions to these pirates?! You'd think, like, they're *pirates*-- it's easy to pay them to steal weapons and stuff that they already wanted to, but isn't this just-- normal fucking war?"     As the boarders line up to leap across the gap between the boats, Petra rears back with the harpoon in hand, shimmering fluid metal flowing off of her gauntlet to coat it. With a heavy step forwards and an overhand throw, she more than matches the power of the cannon that launched them in the first place. She doesn't quite have the guts to impale a half dozen people as an opening volley, but when the harpoon smashes through the hull below them, she telekinetically yanks upwards on the morphmetal she attached to it, breaking the deck under their feet and returning the harpoon to her hand.
Lilian Rook	Using the last hours available in the sun to their fullest, Lilian spends those twelve hours out on the open seas for sunbathing, exercise, peoplewatching and drawing, and the sword drills she hadn't skipped for a single day along the entire journey before. Intermittently stopping by the cabin containing the ship's charts, she verifies something or other once or twice, and thinks little else about the voyage, in a reassuring way.     When the sunlit seas are replaced by bleached crags and grey mists, empty cliffs and perilous bridges bordering on ruins, Lilian hangs around with Merlinus (and cohort) for a while, remaks at one point "If it weren't for the seagulls, this would be just like where I trained.", and then retires belowdecks to prepare for landing.     Thirty minutes later, she's storming back up to the deck taking three steps at a time. Catching herself on the doorframe with the telltale signs of disorientation, Lilian's armour just finishes forming around her as she corrects her stride in motion, like she hadn't the opportunity before. She breathes a sigh of relief at seeing Lucius hustle past with the kids, so she was probably nearby at the time; as if the messy hair and the blood on her lip weren't enough of a tip-off.     'Isn't giving a chance to surrender good business...?'     "Is this really the time?! They can beg for it themselves!" Lilian huffs, deliriously off-base. She grabs him by reflex at the whistling sound of falling arrows, drags him down behind cover, rolls over to shield him with her body, and reaches for Winter Crow-- Which she realizes with delayed lucidity that she somehow left in her cabin. Merlinus hears an agitated gasp of "-sách maith agat!" as he's freed up, and as he's firmly pushed towards the stairs, feels the sting of heat as fire flashes behind him.     Lilian breaks out onto the open deck proper, surrounded by a ring of will o'wisps that are rapidly fired towards the enemy ship and reignited in rotating succession. Her magical signature is entirely plain, and her position is obvious from the steady line of flaming streaks cutting through the mist, while the spell itself deals only superificial damage to the vessel despite taking up one of Lilian's hands and half her focus. The way she's raking it back and forth across the deck is at least menacing to anyone who wouldn't want to be hit by flaming arrows.     Her aim changes abruptly once she sees the shots stop impacting solid timber and start vanishing through deck windows and hull punctures. Lilian adjusts her stance to try and compensate for the motion of the deck under her, tracks the motion of both ships, and focuses fire down to a slightly wobbling point. She's aiming for the interior; where the fog hasn't already saturated everything. Even then, it should take several minutes for a ship to actually go up in flames-- Lilian is hardly a naval warfare expert-- but she knows her rate of fire is too high to reasonably risk sending a fire control team to the site, and so she is banking on the pirates preferring to come directly to her, rather than trying to rush the entire ship faster than before theirs can be hopelessly ablaze.
Dysnomia	Against her better judgment, and her repeated, resolved determination, Dysnomia finds herself softening to everyone else. She remains on guard and prickly, but she visibly relaxes around Marcus, Lucius, Melady--Even Blemishine, in a confrontational, squinty-eyed way.     Again, she pulls off the trick of spreading gold dust onto her meals to make them a little more appetizing. At first, she skips the first few--its not like she has to join the others, does she?--but it proves a welcome relief from sitting in her cabin or puttering about in the fog. She even begins to find herself looking forward to it. And it's always relaxing for her to spend time with Triffin--even petting her, if Melady and the wyvern allow it. By the end, she was outright cordial, leaning out over the railing at the ship, watching the craggy shore with a hand on her cheek, humming an old space-shanty--     --And then a crash. A scream, from a voice that Dysnomia had come to look forward to hearing. An explosion of shrapnel across the deck, and splattering of something across the deck around her. By the time she was processing what was happening, she was looking at her own blood spread out across her little corner of the deck, feeling the bite of wood through her skin, laying strewn about the deck of the ship.     She growled, pushing herself up. "Engi--MAST down!" She shouted. "Impaired locomotion!" Her glare turned on the opposing ship. It wouldn't be too hard to set it ablaze--it would demand minimal sacrifices...All the same, an echo of Liliana's voice, days ago, rang through her ears.     "Huh?! Why would you say something like that?"     But Dysnomia didn't want to lose ANY of these soldiers. She knew their faces. She knew their names. She didn't want...     'Isn't giving a chance to surrender good business...?'     "Informants." Dysnomia hissed, without elaborating. "Keep the ship off us. I'll try to pull us to port..." And Dysnomia flew up, through the air, cords of color twining through the surrounding fog, as she rose to get a better view of the ship--Tightening around it, trying to help PULL the ship in at a steady pace, while Mia watched from above for rocks that threated to gouge open the hull.
Marigold	"Informants?! That's not possible. We're-- hnn!" Merlinus makes a Goofy Old Man "uwaaa-!" while Lilian wrestles him around for his own safety, swearing under his breath about his back when she shoves him flat to the deck and then barely coughing out a "Thank youuu-!" before he tumbles down the stairs to relative safety from her shove.      Flamel's psychic scanning finds that these guys are really, really nasty sorts- not 'locals driven to desperation', more like 'a paramilitary force given free rein to despoil'. Just like the Bernish army, they're glutted on easy victories and driven by greed, promised triple pay and all the spoils by their local master 'Scott' if they wipe you out. Up close, Blemishine can't see any open Bernish emblems, but that may not mean much when it comes to paid toughs.      They're already getting more than they bargained for, boarding directly into Rutger's blade. Rutger fights in close with Torrie, Blemishine, and Flamel, needing a little more support than usual with the badly-pressing combination of 'not having good sea legs' and 'fighting people who do, and have longspears'.      That covers Dieck and Lilina who shelter behind a solid portion of the railing, the former (with an arrow in his shoulder) waving off Odette's attention until she's dealt with the latter (with an arrow in her thigh). Lilina gasps for breath and scrunches her eyes against the pain, and Dieck does his best to reassure her. "It'll be alright. Try to let the muscles relax..."      The pirates' supporting archers further try to keep people from just cutting the ropes by putting intermittent fire just over the railings, which lets a good few pirates crowd onto the deck and form up with their backs to the railings. Petra's dislodging a harpoon sends a third of the rope-climbing pirates into the drink: they can swim, but it'll be a while before they can rejoin any kind of fight. For now, though, their greed-fueled morale's too high to mind their losses much.      Madeleine cuts the incoming fire nearly in half with her cloud; the left ship's ballistae get off a couple more shots, but they won't be hitting anything more precise than 'the vague shape of the caravel'. While each ship does have a slightly better-armored guy shouting orders from the back of the deck- "less at the quarterdeck! We can ransom the nobles"- they don't seem important enough to be the head honcho here.      All told, the two ships seem to have about two dozen people on them each, all of whom can at least draw a bow and are in bloodthirsty enough spirits to take a couple hits before thye'll think about fleeing. Their vessels are limping along- one from Madeleine's cloud and Lilian's fire, the other from Petra's and Khosa's hurling and Nonon's harpoon stuck deep in the hull- but if they manage to get onto shore or board, that's still a fairly formidable force for an army as small as Roy's.      Accelerated by Mia's helpful towing, the Dia's Lily slams into the pebbly coast with a lurch, purposefully running aground rather than taking the time to dock. The pirate ships straggle along behind, but their crews aren't an imminent threat for the moment. There's about twenty feet of stony coast between the water and the sheer cliff-faces that rise fifty feet high, but a collapsed portion gives a natural mossy 'ramp' up to the clifftop, steep but wide enough for two wagons.
Marigold	Mia catches a broader view of the battlefield before everyone else. In the distance past that ramp are some wooden shacks and- thank goodness- a warpgate just visible through the treeline and the fog, if you're inclined to request backup. But far more relevantly, archers emerge on the clifftop, clad just like the pirates are. Past them, Mia alone can see a small disused masonry fort that shows signs of being recently lived-in; a few pirates stand about there, with one watching the battle from an elevated perch.      Some of the clifftop archers draw and fire on anyone who disembarks the caravel onto the beach, while others light flaming arrows and try to set fire to your ship's rigging. This feels methodical.      Obstructing the easy way up the ramp to the archers are a dozen more melee-armed toughs... and standing in front of them, a gallant-looking young lady with a gleaming blade. Once the mangled pirate ships catch up and disembark, you'll be hemmed in on all sides.      "There you are," she calls down. "Fiends, how dare you set foot on Fibernian soil! Aren't you ashamed?!"      Rutger's lips are pressed into an unreadable line while sizing up the new adversary from their perch on the Dia's prow. Their only observation is a deeply rueful: ". . . That is an excellent-quality sword."
Angela	''I guess, I can't complain? I kind of don't really mind it.'' "Mm...It is not that I mind it exactly. Rather, the fact that nearly everything in their world seems to be against them and yet they are still managing to claw for every bit of safety and strength... I think I could learn from this." Angela explains. "It ''is'' frustrating, but it is also ...strangely encouraging? ... I suppose an adventure story does benefit from safety always being ephemeral--" She frowns at seeing Lilina's wounds but she seems to be alright in the grand scheme of things--and Dieck is with her. Nonon, having secured a harpoon line, wraps some leather around her non-gauntled hand, grabs the line, and leaps off the boat, sliding down the line and cackling like a pirate (she IS a pirate) as she aims to crash full bodied into the ship, ginormous King of Greed gauntlet first, an explosion of energy detonating upon impact! "That's right! I am Captain Nonon! Feared pirate of the Great Lake! I am claiming yer ships as salvage, seadogs lest you want to end up as barnacles under the bow of our ship! GA HA HA HA!" She doesn't seem to be intent on getting onto deck, perfectly content on just punching her own pathway through. "If you want our plunder, you'll have to go through me! I don't give up my gold or my man!" Angela frowns, screen swiveling to look at the swordlady over there with Rutger. "...Did we accidentally invade someone else's territory?" She wonders aloud. "...Is this actually our fault? ... No, that is impossible. We are surely blameless."
Alucard	@emit Alucard is not a ship expert. He's a swordsman and a sorcerer. Luckily both of these are useful. He begins to chant, his sword sliding out of its scabbard seemingly on its own as he engages in a wanton act of sorcery. The blade orbits Alucard, defending him against the 'pirates' with precision. It moves freely, but with the same skill that would be shown in his hand. Arcane power roils around the dhampir, the tails of his coat fluttering in the wash of it. His eyes burn with terrible might as his boot slides, and he vanishes. He reappears up on the cross of a mast, his coat flaring open wide as a ball of fire spirals together. It keeps growing, boiling and twisting, becoming more solid as it coalesces into an orb of magma. Liquid hot magma. With a final shout, the orb rockets downwards, racing at the deck and, hopefully, all the way through. His sword zips through the air, the hilt slapping into his hand.
Trudy Grimm	Some thirty seconds after Dysnomia calls for help, the fog-obscured warpgate in the distance flares to life-- then fades back to inactivity. It's unclear who came through.     At the very top of the cliff, out of the way and easily missed, an old man in a wide traveler's hat and baggy, ratty old deep blue coat and cloak settles in against the dark stone. With a prodigious beard and only one eye-- the other covered by a strip of black cloth as a makeshift eyepatch-- he puffs on a long pipe thoughtfully as he watches the ships run aground far below.     "Well, that's quite clever, isn't it?" Removing the pipe, he gestures, "At least the floor won't fall out from under them. But they're no less surrounded, are they?"     A white-haired young woman emerges from his shadow, spilling out two arms filled with small bags and boxes and nets filled with herbs and dried animal bits.     "Honestly. If all you're going to do is state the obvious, you can go back to Hamarrheim." Crouching, she sifts through what she brought, eventually pulling out a long narrow box. Opening it, she confirms a number of ivory white stake; each easily as long as her forearm.     The old man shrugs, returning to his observation. The girl beside him seems to do the same, though her attention is more-- focused.     The shadows around the feet of the cliffside archers deepen. So, too, does the shadow at the girl's feet. Reaching out, she tips the box of bone splinters such that they fall point-first. They disappear into the shadow as if there were no obstruction whatsoever.     In the same instant, bone spikes shoot out of the ground around the feet of the archer units harassing the crew and passengers of the stricken Dia Lily.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Things go from bad to worse. The Lily's been bought some time, but it's still a beached wreck and there's still dozens of soldiers on high ground between the beach and safety. Seeing this, Madeleine takes a moment to catch her breath - she'll need it, for her next move.     Instead of the sensible, normal action of hustling back across to the Lily to join up with its passengers, Madeleine hops over the pirate ship's railing, dangling by one hand above the water. She takes another deep breath and exhales slowly, releasing a great billowing cloud of frigid vapor that freezes water on contact. In seconds the ship is attached to a floe nearly a foot thick, and the huntress drops down. The next puff of her icy breath splits into a dozen fingers and speeds forward toward the shore, freezing a path for the huntress to follow - just in time, because Alucard's fireball is tearing a hole in the ship.     Running along behind the cloud, Madeleine slowly curls one hand into a fist, and as she does the puffs of vapor grow, and take vague quadrupedal shapes - and by the time they're running up the beach, they've fully formed into large wolves made of clear-blue ice. Arrows rain from above, pitting the surface of the constructs, but they feel no pain - even those projectiles which do stick into the solid ice don't slow them at all.     Rushing upslope, the wolves form up into a rough semicircle, pacing and snarling before the leader of the shorebound soldiers. The constructs snap at the air, and at anyone who gets too close, their bites threatening to slowly encase careless soldiers in numbing-cold ice. Madeleine takes a position behind the crowd of ice-wolves, bow at the ready.
Blemishine	Fighting on the shifting seas is, indeed, not something Blemishine is particularly skilled at herself. She's at a noted disadvantage when fighting at both a ranged advantage, sword to spear, and when the boat beneath them is rocking under the assault from the other vessels. She makes up for it by supporting Rutger and the others, and thus having support in turn.     When she doesn't have to worry about being pierced through the side, she can charge forth and use her shield as a battering ram, sending one erstwhile pirate straight overboard. Which opens up the opportunity to spin on her heel, and while a lance is jabbing at their resident blademaster, her own sword comes down to slice it at the haft and disarm its wielder that way.     "No Bern emblems..." She murmurs to herself while knocking aside a blow, eyes darting left to right. 'Bloodlusted'. Ready for them. Going to capture the nobles... but neither armored-up fighter on either other ship looks to be the one leading the overall force. So it is someone higher...? Her train of thought is interrupted...     ...by their caravel smashing into land ahead of the rest, thanks to Dysnomia's efforts. That's very good - for now. A temporary reprieve. There's just two problems.     One is that they're being hounded from behind now... with archers firing from overhead. If the ships catch up, they'll be caught dead center, trapped in a melee and rained down on from above. The other...     ...is their one way to higher ground, towards the ranged combatants and any presumable commanders, are guarded. By that girl, whom Rutger praises the weapon of. That's not good. If the only place to move is straight through her...     "It might be safer off-deck than on it for the time being!" The blonde knight makes a general call, in lieu of the flaming arrows descending down, voice rising over the sounds of battle. "And at least some of us will need to fight our way higher!" She'd love to be one of the spearheads to clear a way forward, but for the moment, she's using her eyesight and reflexes to the fullest.     In that she gets a running start, sprints straight /up/ one of their ship's un-shattered masts by roughly five meters, then leaps off and catches onto a rope, swinging in the way of one fiery arrow to catch it with the flat of her blade. Using the momentum to then jump to a slightly higher one, a second is battered away with her shield before it hits wood.     A third she can't reach, requiring her to /throw/ said shield to catch it in mid-air, before the sheet of metal falls away down to deck below. Rather than going for it, Blemishine leaps down to the beachside with a rough, bracing landing.     Which lets her level a stare at the sword-wielding girl barring their way, on the nearby ramp. "If we offended in some way by coming to the Western Isles, then please explain what we did! But from what we can tell-- your group are pirates after some reward placed on us!"
Khosa	Once Khosa flings her anchor (well, not *her* anchor, and she realizes she will probably have to pay for that later) her instinct is to get into melee. She's a battering ram; she's not trying to maim but she *is* trying to get them off the ship. Everybody who gets on board one of these with a plan to attack can swim, right? A few moments later, though, and the ship runs aground. This is a perfectly normal way to park a boat, as far as Khosa knows (who has only seen silt-crawlers and skimmers, most of which have wheels) but the impact rocks her; she spreads her legs slightly to maintain her balance. Vaulting over the railing of the ship, Khosa lands on the shore. She immediately feels a whole lot more stable and a whole lot more effective. A rocky coast, a jagged cliff with a ramp - Khosa grins. She knows what to do here. Khosa runs. Not at the ramp but at the cliffs themselves. An arrow hits her as she runs, drawing a line of blood across her bicep, but she completely ignores it; a second arrow hits a moment later, but this one breaks on a plate forming on her shoulder. With a surge of psionic power directed inward, Khosa's arms, from the shoulders down, begin to shift. Musculature expands as her already thick arms thicken further, skin stiffens; her general arm proportions become more 'gorilla' than 'human' as they lengthen as well as bulk up. Plates of mottled red and black chitin begin to form, pushing through skin, interspersed with matching scales between the larger plates, almost like organic plate mail; her hands crack in a manner that *sounds* painful as they too expand, stretching wider and forming heavy digging claws on each fingertip (of which she appears to be missing one; three fingers and a thumb, now). The bicep wound is no longer visible, healed as chitin spread across it, and she smacks another arrow out of the air without obvious harm by letting it strike the plated back of her hand. Khosa leaps about twenty feet up from a running start, hits the cliff, and begins to climb it. Her claws dig in firmly, and she's less climbing and more making her way up in a series of arm-assisted bounds, throwing herself higher and higher and using her feet only to brace when she catches herself higher up. Once she crests the cliffline, Khosa barrels into the archers. Her enormous hands make for enormous fists, but more importantly she's an immense distraction; clifftop archers who are either trying to dodge her, shoot at her, have been punched, or some combination of all three are not firing on the ship or anyone else. The scales and chitin spread further, across the back of her shoulders and down her spine, increasingly thickening into a shell. Prompted by Flamel, she keeps her mental senses out too, though hers are more attuned to locating threats to her than picking up fine mental detail when she's busy fighting. "Drop your weapons!" she roars, putting volume into her voice. Khosa doesn't think they'll take her up on it but it increases the chaos, and who knows? They just might (and if they do, they won't get hit by her, at least) This includes the woman with the sword - really, anyone who can hear her.
Dysnomia	The moment that the ship had a chance to anchor on solid ground, Dysnomia veers off to the side, wings getting a chance to spread here, masked by the fog. This wasn't a spaceship battle, but the chances were still grim. Their soldiers weren't equipped for aquatic warfare, like the Union Busan had been--who knew how many of them could even swim? Just one man overboard could be someone they lose for good. Mia might not have been at risk, but...     She delays her own worry by indulging in the hunt, hunts the ship that Alucard isn't burning a hole through, pitching low, close to the water, leaving the archers no choice but to lean precariously over the side if they wanted to get a shot at her.     She feels the mist of the surf against her skin, while a light burns bright in her chest, visible even through the fog--then, releases lancing plasma at the ship, at the point where the waterline met the ship's bow. There's a sudden hiss of steam, and crackling light, easily hot enough to burn through most wooden hulls, and then, she pulls back--     --And THROWS herself at the ship, claws manifesting just as she nearly struck it, trying to turn herself into a projectile to rip open a gaping hole in the vessel.
Petra Soroka	<J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons struggles to put find a word. "They're--!" There are extremely suitable ones, but none of those are mentally in-reach right now so what he winds up saying is "They're bloodlusted!" <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, unsteadily confused but matching Flamel's vibes, "And they had prep time, look on the cliffs."     Steadying herself by leaning on her own morphmetal in the air, while the ship rattles and shakes running itself aground, Petra weighs her options. Getting onto shore immediately puts her into a better position against the pirates, and gives her the opportunity to try to deal with the archers firing down on them. It'd be a cool and heroic choice to rush ahead and cut off the most visible threat that's pinning them down, and it's far more her element too.     But on the other hand, in a moment of clarity spurred on by the vague fog in her mind, her primary goal is to stop any of Roy's army from dying, because they're precious people to Lilian, and she promised not to lose a single one. So all Petra has to do is pursue *that* goal, and as long as she does that, she can properly fulfill her function and everything else will fall into place.     Rather than hopping off the ship to break through the extra muscle, Petra hangs back by Dieck, Lilina, and Odette treating them. Her pool of Silver bubbles out and then flattens into a shield in the air, providing cover for the wounded and for anyone else evacuating from belowdecks, and she presses her hand to her unarmored reflection in the makeshift mirror to retrieve a pair of ratbots. Scurrying around looking for the best approximation for 'buckets', which happens to be an actual bucket and someone's helmet, she affixes them to the underside of her floating robotic rats and sets them to dumping water wherever the rigging catches.     "Alright, uh," Petra looks down at Odette, the umbrella of metal overhead gradually getting punctured with arrows that stop halfway through. "Need help getting off?" A beat, and then she clarifies, "Like, the ship. I can carry Lilina if it'll help." "Fiends, how dare you set foot on Fibernian soil! Aren't you ashamed?!"     Even though Petra's fairly far away, she's still annoyed enough by the declaration to snark back, shouting. "What the fuck, dude! We got *attacked*, by *pirates*! *You're* pirates! This isn't a fucking intrusion on your soil or whatever, we're trying to not *die*!"
Flamel Parsons	Alright. Lots of guys. Lots of weapons. Lots of arrows. And lots of people to protect here. Flamel Parsons is one man, admittedly one *incredibly powerful* man, who needs to approach this sensibly, who needs this to end with few deaths and plenty of opportunity to approach this with mercy. Sure, there may be grand mega-slaughterers among them, but Flamel himself is more of a precision instrument.     A lot of these folks are up on the cliffs. And a lot of them are, presumably, the bandits that they were sent here to dispatch. So it stands to reason that while they've spent plenty of time at sea, it hasn't been their whole lives, that they are primarily people of the land. So Flamel can approach this with a very specific angle:     Absolutely massive precision-engineered CONFUSION BOMBS designed to instantly and aggressively overcharge the mental construct known as SEA LEGS. Those who approach to board are pelted with these grenades from Flamel's form, flickering in and out of visibility as he launches them. And it should be impossible to tell what it is... until they hit land. Once the ground stops moving, the bandits ought to.     And they beach. Alright, no more of that. Arrows and weapons are going dense. Flamel has to move, or bleed, or sometimes both. Clenched psychic fists lash out, and beams slice through the melee, and he floats through in highly mobile levitation. There's no fancy telepathic approach to help here now, just raw psychokinetic violence. Is he setting foot on Fibernia? Well, he might as well be. "Sorry -- Etruria needs us to help! The bandits need dealing with, and the people need protecting!" He calls out, always so full of friendly positivity and laser beams to strike at the toughs obstructing the path.
Odette Raskins	". . . betrayal this, coup that, hired pirates there, whatever." "I-- but, I guess, I can't complain? I kind of don't really mind it." "I mind it a lot!" Odette squeaks out as another arrow whizzes by overhead, her hand instinctively reaching up to cover her head. She doesn't lift her head up just yet in case those archers are still shooting at her, instead focusing her efforts on getting those arrows out of the first two wounded so they can get back into the fight and probably get shot at some more. She doesn't let that dampen her mood too much, though, since even that's better than the alternative of letting the wounds fester until they die from it. "Relax, mhm. Let the medicine in so it can... Seal up the wounds enough. It'll have to be replaced later, but you can still fight on this. J-just try not to get shot again." She warns, knowing full well that that's probably not possible with the volume of arrows coming down. "Isn't giving a chance to surrender good business...?" "They can beg for it themselves!" "Informants." "They're nothing like the pirates I heard of! Th-those usually had..." Wait. Odette hasn't actually gotten a clear look at any of these pirates yet, has she? Against her better judgment (and after making sure Lilina and Dieck's wounds are wrapped up well enough), she looks up and over their section of railing to peek at the archers and the boarding pirates to see if any of them have hats. Whether they do or not does end up falling by the wayside, though, as she realizes that they're boarding. Even with Rutger and many others fending them off, though, there's still the matter of all those archers firing at and around the ship once they hit the coast. Having to choose between getting shot at with regular arrows off the ship or flaming arrows on the ship should be an easy choice, too, especially with Madeleine providing a relatively easier way off the ship and minions to take the brunt of the archers' shots. There's some surprised relief on her face, then, when she realizes that there's more cover from above than expected courtesy of Petra's metallic umbrella. "Need help getting off?" "Like, the ship. I can carry Lilina if it'll help." Fortunately or unfortunately, Odette does not notice the beat. "Eh? Y... Yeah! Um. Yes, please! Wait..."  Odette looks over at the flaming arrows coming down briefly, shivering anxiously as she realizes how much worse this could get in short order. "They'll burn us out at this rate... Um. C-can you get these two and everyone else to regroup off the boat? I'll..." She glances back at the way she came up from, then hops back onto her feet somewhat clumsily before shaking her head at Petra. "I'll catch up in a minute!" Without explaining herself further, the EMT rushes right back into the ship, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste to get below deck. Finding the kids is her top priority right now, and she scurries all over the ship just to find them, ballista and any budding fires be damned. Should she find them, she'll try to reassure them as best she can before leading them out of the ship while keeping them away from walls (in case of more ballista) and keeping herself in the front should any more projectiles come screaming down at them.
Lilian Rook	'Informants?! That's not possible. We're-- hnn!'     "Worry about it later!" Lilian calls out over the hiss of fire and the hum of falling arrows; ragged for so little effort. She hasn't caught her breath since the near miss below decks. "Raskins! Scurry your fucking ass over to Lilina! Blemishine you fucking hack I know it was you! She's your responsibility and I'll have your neck if she goes under!" She sounds unusually loud about it.     "Stop fucking around Alucard! Don't give them a chance to do anything! Parsons! I'd better see warding around your cadets!" Much louder than usual, actually. Like she's very angry, but only half-paying attention. "Nonon-- pick a lane! Keep Khosa's head on her shoulders or square up with Rutger! Now!"     'We can ransom the nobles'     Well now Lilian is standing there out on the deck getting really shouty and mean at people while wearing the most expensive jewellery on the boat and looking generally discombobulated, so that theoretically sucks. Hopefully they somehow divine from the shape of her eyes that Clarine is the real target.     Once her chosen vessel is obviously crackling, Lilian lets her hands drop, and no new blots of flame materialize. She turns and rushes to the bow as the pirates lag behind out of bowshot, and then stumbles as the Lily grinds ashore, allowing herself to simply roll forward and sprint back up rather than trying to wobble for balance on the spot when they could come under fire again at any moment. A different swear translates out as something like 'devil make a ladder of your spine' when she realizes why.     For an instant, she feels the tactical gap of not having a disposable body to throw wind walls at arrows around; which makes her even madder. She'd just done it to the enemy, but she has no real capacity to do fire control herself. Not in combat, anyways. By the time she reaches the ramp, she's out of breath from very little, falling in close to Rutger in front of the stranger with uncharacteristically little patience for being challenged by a cool sword-wielding charismatic adversary.     '. . . That is an excellent-quality sword.'     "You didn't say that about mine." Lilian says, drawing it while she bitches. "Is that code for recognizing it? One of your people?" Lilian looks between her, the archers, and the ships closing in from behind, and shivers with overflowing agitation. She looks up to address the woman on the ramp a moment later, notices the blood on her lip, licks it clean without thinking and unhelpfully shouts right back.
Lilian Rook	'Fiends, how dare you set foot on Fibernian soil! Aren't you ashamed?!'     "No! I'm not! I don't even know who you are, and honestly, I don't care! So if it means that much to you then kiss that fucking dirt yourself and I'll soil my shoes walking on you instead!"     Lilian charges the ramp herself, regardless of how everyone else seems to know better. Whatever especial danger there is to doing so is something that she'd listen to Rutger warn her of under other circumstances; being in a three-way pincer already with children on board isn't a situation where she offers the count of three. When she picks up enough speed to tip the needle from bluster to threat and ploughs into the crowd of bodyguards rather than jumping over them, her blade doesn't leave any glowing wounds in its wake; that would require a mental state capable of calm.     Lilian bulldozes directly at the commander, and the flurry of action around her is a chaotic bramble of edge on edge contact, brutal body blows, violent throws, pommel strikes, joint attacks, and close quarters hacking and stabbing with a half-sword grip, as if the violent force were the point. Nothing is aimed at any kill-spot she knows of, but the blood is spilled freely, and Lilian thinks little of muscling in close and taking hits short on purpose, leveraging her armour by giving the formation no room to get a clean hit with windup on her.
Petra Soroka	"C-can you get these two and everyone else to regroup off the boat?"     Petra nods at Odette, then looks over at Dieck. Sure, he's only wounded in his shoulder, and less badly than Lilina, but that doesn't really seem like the real reason why Petra tells him, "You don't need me to help you getting off the boat."     She crouches down and hoists Lilina up in a princess carry, shearing off an airborne streak of her morphmetal to carry a smaller shield from the arrows along with her, leaving the rest in place over the stairs from belowdecks. She looks down at Lilina, shifting her arms to keep weight off of her thigh. "Second time, huh? Do you have your tome on you?"     Rather than taking the ladder down to shore, Petra just nocks her armored heels into the railing on deck, and with a burst of propulsion from the jets on her calves, leaps all the way to the cliff wall, momentum keeping her running along them until she drops down to a safely sheltered area on the rocky shore. Throbs of repulsors slow down the fall, so rocks merely clatter rather than crunch under her armor when she lands, and Lilina isn't unduly jostled around.     Belatedly, like she was thinking about it during the high speed seconds of wall-running under constant arrow fire, Petra continues her previous thought as if there wasn't a gap at all. "I hope that didn't sound, like, passive-aggressive. I mean it, you need me to get your tome?" "So if it means that much to you then kiss that fucking dirt yourself and I'll soil my shoes walking on you instead!"     Dreamily, looking over at the clashing of expert swordmasters while doing the drudgery of 'saving the wounded' or whatever, Petra sighs freely at Lilian. "She's so cool. I need to get rid of these pirates fast."
Marigold	Common timber, especially not-ideally-maintained, is a poor match for Mia's claws, Alucard's lava, or Nonon's hammering fists. Between the three of them- both the actual damage inflicted, and Nonon's terrifying presence especially- the pirates pretty briskly abandon their ships for the cold water. They can swim, but Flamel's anti-land-legs bombs have ensured that the moment they haul themselves up on shore they collapse back into the shallow surf groaning. The caravel's in no more danger of being surrounded from the sea.      It'll have to be replaced later, but you can still fight on this. "Replaced?!" Lilina says, turning pale. "The medicine, Lilina. Not your leg." "Oh..." "Anyway. She can fight and I can walk. Between us we're almost a whole person. Thanks, Odette." Dieck stands and offers Lilina his good arm, who flashes Odette a shyly grateful smile too. "Sorry..." "And keep your head down so it doesn't happen again." "Hey, you got shot too!" "That's different. I'm big."      "Is that code for recognizing it? One of your people?"      "'Wo dao'," Rutger answers Lilian. "Family heirloom, usually." That says nothing, and yet everything, about the blade's quality.      "Come on, Fir. You've got this," the clifftop swordswoman murmurs to herself while staring down the approaching ice-wolves. She crouches low, spends a second angling her sword juuuust so, and...      Tsschh, crack, breathe, tsschh. No-one sees the V-shaped slash in motion. It's a whisper of the wind, a bending of the grass, a flutter in the fog, feather-light. 'Fir' lands twenty feet behind the wolves just ahead of the eruption of ice from their first bisection, re-angles herself from her crouch, once again orients her blade just right, and a hissing breath hews back through their ranks a second time to clean up the rest.      Rutger had been- is- grandiose and fluid, a single penstroke of blood cursively flowing across the battlefield. This is start-and-stop, perfect textbook, utterly clean technique flensed of context. Frost-speckled, she looks back over her shoulder in bewilderment.      "But from what we can tell-- your group are pirates after some reward placed on us!"      "We got *attacked*, by *pirates*! *You're* pirates!"      "You can't expect me to believe that! Scott's an honest man! You're the ones with fancy weapons and a big ship, harassing these poor villagers! Go back to Etruria!" The big axe-toting ruffians she's "protecting" glance between each other.      They are not poor villagers, as Flamel has absolutely confirmed. This girl's just stupid.      Lilian breezes past her- "Hey!"- and Rutger intercedes, blade-locking with Fir before she can fully assume another ready stance. "Ah-! What's a Sacaen sellsword doing with pirates out here?" "You?" "They're not pirates! And I'm visiting my dad!" ". . ." The resulting clash turns the ramp into a sword-blizzard, severely testing the bravery of anyone passing through.
Marigold	It goes without saying that, past that, Lilian can make it through a crowd of generic toughs. Their morale is high but not infinite, and by the time Khosa is bearing in from one side and Trudy's bone-spikes are mangling their fire support on the other, they start deciding it's a good time to make a break for it.      By now Chad's scampering up a cliff-face to lend his shortsword to Khosa's efforts, Shanna's taken to the skies with her mount and started dive-bombing stragglers whenever she can find an arrow-free opening, Marcus has wrested a spear from one of the shipwrecked pirates in the surf and caught up to Blemishine's side, and Roy's using his rapier to menace any of the landsick men who might have bright ideas about getting back up. Somehow Sue has coaxed her war-pony off the ship and onto the shore, where she proves her archery bona fides. Lucius works some gentle sleep magic one-by-one on the remaining fighters he can see from the ship, and Dieck covers Lilina from stray arrows while she lightning-snipes back with her magic tome.      With their help, the pirates' position is in a state of collapse, with only Fir and the small border-fort behind her as obstacles. The nearby port-town's wooden buildings are, of course, all deserted. Whoever lived here before, the pirates must have recently driven them off.      The big bald man atop the little overgrown fort's battlements- 'Scott'?- turns away from the battle and shakes his head. He says something to his handful of remaining subordinates, then descends into the little fort's interior- and, if given a moment, emerges on a horse. Besides Fir, there's only one real obstacle to pursuing him- a horseback archer who likewise emerges from the fort, fighting remarkably like Sue and about as good of a shot. He focuses his efforts on apparent pursuers; few of those who can match the speed of a horse can do so while being shot at.
Alucard	The ship starts to go down, and chaos reigns. Alucard perches on the mast like he was born there and angles his scabbard. The sword, being well behaved, flies right into it. He watches the pirates swim away for a moment before he turns into a bat again and soars off towards the shore. He skims over Fir and Rutger, buzzing close enough that they can feel the breeze of his passing. He continues on, too human eyes in the face of a bat taking in the fleeing bald man. So he makes chase. He can, in fact, keep up with a horse while being shot at, because he's -flying-. Arrows come for him, and he pulls his wings in, rolling around before spreading them again. Arcane power swells around him as he prepares to do something else. It's just going to take a second.
Angela	Nonon vanishes under the water for a moment as the ship is abandoned... And then, not too long after, clambers out of the water, holding a pirate in each arm and dragging them along. "GA HA HA HA!" Nonon, who is having the best time of her life, tosses one pirate onto the sand and then noogies the other with her non-gauntleted fist. "How was that! You had a good time, eh?? Ha ha ha! Guess we're in landlubber mode now, hope you have your ground legs! Ga ha ha HA!" ''You're the ones with fancy weapons and a big ship, harassing these poor villagers?'' Nonon looks down at the pirate she's noogieing. Nonon looks up to Fir. "It's fun." She says. MEANWHILE ''She's so coo. I need to get rid of these pirates fast.'' "Indeed," Angela says solemnly. "She is so ''cool''." Angela can' really do much right now--there's nobody really within eas Eggpack Choke Range for that matter. She is, of course, relieved to know that Fir is actually wrong and they did everything right. Yes, she thinks, they are capable warriors in a medieval army from across dimensional space. "You know, at least this seems to be in part just misunderstanding." She mulls aloud.
Dysnomia	"Well, well...Look at that."     Dysnomia floated above the fight, safely beyond the reach of Fir and Rutger's sword, as a pirate ship slowly sank beneath the waves behind her, her hand held up to shield her eyes from the sun. (they could endure its glare just fine) "Your 'honest' commander seems to be leaving you to die."     "Get over yourself before I get back or die." Dysnomia said, matter of fact. "I don't care which." And she took off, leaving a trail in the air behind her, a last, smoky remnant of Durandel's attempt to cleave her her in twain.     Keeping up with a horse was no issue, not for her--she could chase down Wyverns, if she felt so inclined. And at first, she tried to simply endure one arrow, two arrows, three...     But then, one took her in the...Shoulder? Side? And Mia found herself pitching sideways before she could recover. Scowling down at the archer, she snapped her wrist, as thought flinging a whip forward--and then, abruptly, there was a whip of glowing plasma in her hand.     It cracked with a sound like thunder, and a thick, hissing smell of a thunderstorm after a strike of lightning hummed through the air, as she flew down toward the horseman in a dive, trying to carve across his body with her whip.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine startles a little at the immediate destruction of her bevy of wolves. She circles Fir and Rutger as they duel, waiting for an opening before eventually just giving up on slipping an arrow past the flurries of steel. She turns her attention outward, intending to prevent any of the 'villagers' from rushing Rutger's back, when she spots the commander of the fort fleeing and her instincts kick in. She immediately slings Drogrung over her shoulder in bow form and gives chase like a dog after a car.     A dog that can easily outpace a horse in the immediate term, and run just about anything down in a longer chase. She takes a couple arrows in the back, but this doesn't slow her much; she's not really paying attention to the mounted archer, which somehow helps her regenerate faster from the injuries. When she's a dozen paces from the rider she spots Alucard catching up on him from the air, and the huntress chances a leap to cover the remaining distance. She's not letting anyone else get there first if she can help it! Her landing is a little awkward, but her strength makes up for the unsteady position. Clambering up the horse's back with both hands and, dagger held in her teeth, she says:     "Fmpf thph hrph rm-mph rmt nhm!"     Oh, right. Dagger held in her teeth. Awkwardly shifting it to one hand, she repeats the demand:     "Turn this horse around *right now*!"
Flamel Parsons	"Scott's an honest man!"     "Scott promised *these* jerks huge amounts of money to wipe us out!" Flamel calls out, trying to keep up the push while the amassed allies rouse and work. "You can trust me! I'm an acolyte of a vague yet ominous order! When I say things about people's minds, I'm telling the truth! These guys are all trained in the art of fighting easy battles and collecting loot from them!"     The blizzard of blade-strikes doesn't look good to him. Yet again, we remind the reader: Telepathy is only as good as your reflexes. If you can't figure out where someone is or probably will be, you can't do *anything* astral to them. He can't even technically help out by routing through Rutger -- they're just as fast! He has to stick to pushing things with ranged strikes. He doesn't think they can get that overgrown fortress, but if they can get a the beachhead secured, they can work on the rest soon. Also, being near those super-martials is going to get him cut.
Trudy Grimm	As Trudy drops the now-empty wooden box to the ground at her feet, Grimnir shrugs with his single eye closed, "What is obvious to one may not be obvious to another, yes? So I think I will continue to do as I please, heh heh."     The witch gathers up the Grimoire in both hands, muttering "Weird old man" in his direction as she unbuckles the binding and allows the tome to split open. With the attacking contingent dealt with, she pivots to the escaping riders. Both Dysnomia and Madeleine are in hot pursuit, though-- pulling a faint curse from Trudy's lips. She doesn't feel comfortable using what she has to reach out that far lest she accidentally curse a comrade.     Well. One's with the Watch and the other is Concord, but in this world they've been working together well enough. Acquaintance?     The witch turns her attention instead to Fir, sinking into her own shadow as she does.     Fir's shadow deepens and extends outward. What rises out of it is not Trudy-- it's the tall, battered form of the Black Knight clutching his greatsword in a reverse grip. As he rises up to his full and towering height, he brings the sword forward and slams the tip down into the stone at his feet, looming over the woman warrior.     Behind him, Trudy steps out as casually as one exiting a library, "Pardon my companion, but you might understand if I felt a need to ensure my own safety. Ahh~, but this all seems to be quite a big misunderstanding, no? Why don't we talk a little? This ambush business is no good, you know."
Blemishine	Blemishine you fucking hack I know it was you! She's your responsibility and I'll have your neck if she goes under!     "I have no plans of letting her, Dame Commander!" Blemishine calls back over the din; this isn't the time to argue against something that's true, delivered with raw anger or not. Such is part of why she put in her efforts to prevent their caravel from lighting up - with Dieck and Lilina injured, she had to be sure they had the chance to move and act lest they were /forced/ to.     With the dynamic duo teamed up and active, she's offering them support where she can as well. Her light-based Arts happen to be good for running interference on that front, even! While she may be deprived of her shield at this moment, her sword is still something that can be raised aloft - briefly shining with a radiant, fleeting light akin to a glare directly in their eyes.     In other words, those archers will be suffering some severely decreased accuracy much of the time, ensuring they'll be a lot less harmful on top of being wide open for Lilina's blasts of magic.     What Blemishine also can't miss, however, is the fierce clash between Fir and Rutger. Rough as it was to simply enter Rutger's effective range alone in the past, she doesn't entertain any idea of going right through the storm of steel. Rather...     Scott's an honest man! You're the ones with fancy weapons and a big ship, harassing these poor villagers!     "Huh?"     What's a Sacaen sellsword doing with pirates out here?     "...Huh?"     They're not pirates! And I'm visiting my dad!     "Ah..."     Still in the midst of making the bowmen's lives hell with status effects and occasionally entering her own melee with the stray axeman who still has the moxie to bear his weapon against them, the blonde knight finds time to level words in the direction of the lightning-fast battle. Honestly, she's sort of relieved that it's a huge misunderstanding on her part.     "Miss--!" An axehandle is caught near the base of her blade, which she uses to wrench to the side and abuse its weight, disarming its owner before moving to kick him over and place him at swordpoint. "I'm not sure 'poor villagers' know how to swing an axe like this!"     She raises it to point towards the remnants of their ships. "Or have ships equipped with ballistae..."     ...And then aims the tip further up the ramp. "And they /certainly/ don't put all sorts of ruffians and also young girls to fight for them while they hide in the back! I-I mean really, there's a decent number of signs!"     "In fact, we came this way *because* we wanted to help stop bandits in the area! They knew we were coming, too... so, ah, in other words..."     "...I-I think you might've been duped!"
Odette Raskins	EARLIER "Raskins! Scurry your fucking ass over to Lilina!" "A-already on it, ma'am! Uh. Miss Lilian! Er. D-D-Dame Commander!" Odette shouts on the way towards Lilina and Dieck, some short time ago. She might've been on the way to treat them already, but being on the same wavelength as someone like Lilian does visibly give her a slight morale boost! NOW "If you ever do need a... Er. N-no, never mind. You won't need any replacements while I'm around, but... Try not to need them, anyway!" Odette warns Lilina and Dieck, still sounding and looking panicked as she comes back onto the deck. She knows she last saw Lugh aiding Flamel, but Chad... Where did that boy go? Scanning the battlefield now, she eventually looks towards the clifftop to where that swordswoman surrounded by pirates is, and just in time to see her launch herself right through all those icy wolves. The uncanny display of swordplay has the EMT letting a strained noise out of her throat, and she can't even begin to imagine how to get past that before Rutger advances to stop her from pursuing Lilian. That sword-blizzard, naturally, is enough to dissuade Odette from going anywhere near the two. With only some of the color drained from her face, she resumes searching for Chad's whereabouts, and it doesn't take long for her to see him fighting alongside Khosa. After choking out another strained and freaked out noise, she starts running for that cliff before realizing actually getting up there would take far too long. "You're the ones with fancy weapons and a big ship, harassing these poor villagers!" "And I'm visiting my dad!" That, too, gets Odette to freeze in her tracks, however briefly. That's the kind of thinking that would have worked on herself months ago, wouldn't it? Knowing what she knows now, however, in conjunction everything she's learned prior to coming out to the multiverse proper, means there's something about this lady that just reminds Odette of... Herself! "H... Healers and doctors don't work with pirates!" She calls out to the swordswoman, holding up her bag of medical supplies to emphasize how unarmed she is and how many medical cross logos she has on her person between her cap, her bag, and her jacket. "A-and only criminals attack doctors! Is that how your daddy taught you to behave, miss?!" Odette's teeth are chattering inside her head again as she stares Fir down, knowing full well standing like this might get her shot at any moment if there's any archers still around. It's a gamble she has to make, though, especially if this lady is anything like herself...!
Khosa	Khosa is remarkably not worried about her ability to keep her head on her shoulders. She's confident in her skills against a handful of archers who are depending on distance and height for their morale and skill, and very suddenly have neither of those going their way. Several arrows hit her new carapace - one hits between one plate and the next, and another partially penetrates a plate but sticks rather than get all the way through - but none of them slow Khosa down. When they start to run, Khosa lets them, reaching around and trying to pull out one of the arrows. It drew blood, but not deeply, and the blood stopped almost immediately as she patched the wound with new flesh; it is now literally just stuck there under the edge of the plate, caught on some of the scales she's made to fill in the gaps. With the rigid carapace making it hard to reach behind her, she can't quite reach to knock it out. She gives up and leaves both of them there, resigning herself to looking slightly like a porcupine. Khosa gives Chad a look now that he's up here, then a slight nod. His youth doesn't seem to bother her. When times are bad, you learn how to fight early, and he's cared for more than some of the army draftees she's seen. She gives him a friendly slap on the shoulder, though even with Khosa checking her strength it's probably going to make him stagger. "Good work," is what she says, before she turns toward Fir: "I'm not even FROM Etruria!" Given Khosa looks not at all like an Etrurian - even normally but especially with a cross between reptilian and insectoid armouring over gorilla-scaled arms and across her back, with clawed fingers - she thought this would be obvious. Apparently not. "And if they are not pirates, or sea-bandits, or whatever, they do a damn good impression of them!" Khosa turns to look toward the fort. It's hard to make out much at a distance, even with Khosa consciously controlling her eyes, but she can see horses - "Hang on," she says, and - provided he doesn't dodge it - rather unceremoniously scoops up Chad, plants him on her back, and *runs*. This isn't as bad as it could be. The chitin on Khosa's shoulders and upper back shift and reshape so that Chad has something to 'sit' on (or at least perch on), and Khosa runs on feet and knuckles with her altered arms, bounding yards with every step, so it's more like getting a particularly jarring piggyback ride than anything else. It also means that Chad is incidentally protected from some attacks simply by Khosa being in the way, something Khosa thought of but didn't say.
Khosa	And particularly fast. Khosa can keep up with a horse at her best speed; right now she can't quite make it that fast, but she can move faster than Chad is likely to be able to run. There are others chasing down the runner so she doesn't have to be that fast; Khosa is moving toward the defensive horse archer, because as Dysnomia's shot she figures she has to stop him from getting to her. Dysnomia stays up, though, so it's not quite protecting a downed target. "Anything you think you can do, you do it," Khosa calls back to Chad - he knows the situation better than she does - then skids to a stop, staying low so that Chad can dismount. It doesn't look like she's doing much else, but Flamel can feel her Will build, focused outward this time instead of inward as she directs it at the horse archer - That horse archer's senses scramble a moment later. No, not scramble - jam, as Khosa triggers a whole host of sensory inputs at once. Heat and cold crawl across his body, along with other tactile sensations - pressure, lingering touch, crawling patches of total numbness. Strange colours swirl across his vision while roaring staticky noise echoes in his ears, and he smells and tastes things he has no words for. It's a lot like being flashbanged in every sense at once, and though it only lasts for a few moments and does no lasting damage it's certainly (Khosa hopes) enough to get him to stop shooting and get his attention. Or, if he must shoot, shoot at her. At the same time, Khosa draws on his own sensation of his body. How he breathes, how he moves. He may not even realize she's doing it as she takes a psychic probe, pulling the sensation of the powerful draw of his bow, how his muscles move and flex while doing it, how the bow feels in his hand. Even Khosa cannot explain really how she uses her wild talent, but she uses it, breathing in deeply as she holds that mental image of Bow. Then she breathes out. "Put the bow down!" she bellows. "We're NOT pirates and we want to parley!" Khosa waves her hand at where the rest of the party is, for emphasis.
Lilian Rook	'Family heirloom, usually.'     "And you still didn't say anything about mine." Lilian moans, pissily. "Are you only into the small ones or something?" That was legitimately an accident. She's obviously fuming too hard about the entire situation to be attempting humour. It's underscored by her uncharacteristically headlong charge in the moments after, and the throat-scratching yells of violence and exertion that follow.     Never in her life before had Lilian considered herself 'strong' in terms of archetype; nor 'tough', nor 'brave', or anything else far from the clade of 'swift, cunning, and tactical'; but Elibe seems to bring out the part of her that always liked the idea. In the first place, 'the Lady in Black' represents a great deal of her ideal self, and thus takes the form of armour for a reason. It allows her the luxury of letting her outrage manifest brightly, burning hot and cathartic, instead of necessitating cold, calculating lividness.     A spear point skids off the curve of her midsection, finding no catch to pierce through. A sword shatters to pieces under the unreserved hewing swing she throws in return. A pirate collides with her from the side, and Lilian is just slightly too heavy to fall, swinging her weight back into breaking his ribs wither her shoulder. The pommel of her sword jabs up into a man's jaw, cracking bone, and then the crossguard swings punches through another's leathers to bruise him underneath. An axe strikes her shoulder from behind, but she throws herself backwards into it, and the blade clips sideways, skating down her arm on sparks of its own. The haft is splintered by her elbow, and she whirls around in tight quarters to skewer the wielder in the gut with the length of blade ahead of her leading grip. Her motions are so deeply drilled-- so naturally, effortlessly trained-- that they can express a kind of incendiary wrath without losing their actual efficacy.     She looks even more a mess by the time she clears the last bodyguard, tangled hair plastered partly to her face with blood and salt spray, and yet the way she looks around for the leader again is shockingly lucid. Like the melee cleared more haze than reserves it drained. For a moment, she is freed of the context of 'swordfighter', and allowed to simply be 'on the battlefield'.     'Come on, Fir. You've got this'     Lilian is finally paying enough attention to notice the wolves seemingly fall to pieces and blow away on their own, and her blood is pumping clearly enough to carry the cold shot of adrenaline her instincts necessitate be delivered at the sight. "What do they feed the swordswomen here?" she growl-gasps to herself, temporarily ignorant of the unthinking plural, then jabs her finger imperiously towards Odette, barking "Raskins! Clean up this mess!" and kicking a prone pirate on her wayback. She wipes pink saltwater away from her cheek to get her hair away from her earpiece, and radios "Run him down and bring him back alive. If you fuck it up, I'll do it." to Mia and the Elites in pursuit.
Lilian Rook	She is fixated on Rutger and Fir. The exchange between them is so swift and deadly as to be patently suicidal to venture into by any estimation, but she watches the nearly invisible interplay of motion with the twitching energy of calculating the distance of a pounce; as closely as she can until her eyes hurt from straining, and she stances herself accordingly.     Lilian can move arbitrarily faster than either of them, but only for the space of one 'action' at a time; not continuously. Her reactions are comfortably superhuman, but not so much that she feels confident in perceiving and interpreting everything that could happen while stuttering her 'time stop' at her maximum rate. So she picks her moment carefully, with overwhelming, perhaps genuinely excessive confidence in Rutger's ability to occupy the other swordswoman, and a half second in advance, times herself with "Cleasanna-!"     Lilian skips half the ramp and airlessly cuts Fir in a way she feels as/after/before the cells know to split and gravity knows to reach out for her blood-- and then she stops just behind where a swordswoman at Fir's level should aim to defend against an incomprehensible unknown on instinct, and shielded from Rutger's blade by Fir's body, uses her knightly status to trade a glacing slash from armpit to hip in exchange for an opening for throwing Fir off her feet, binding her blade in Night Mist's crossguard, and thoroughly seizing her arm under her own, not about to make the same mistake she did against Rutger.     'You're the ones with fancy weapons and a big ship, harassing these poor villagers! Go back to Etruria!'     Double teaming Fir from behind with Rutger, Lilian shouts back entirely too close to be necessary "Oh my god, just shut up you imbecile! Who brings fancy weapons to harass a gaggle of helpless villagers?! This is a military vessel you airheaded tramp! 'Scott' is already running! Is your brain so full of techniques for swords that there's no room for a clue?!"
Marigold	"It's fun."      "Y-you monster!" Fir calls down from her spot on the ramp. "Unhand that poor man! You can't hurt people just because it's fun!"      Roy, still holding up a small crowd of nauseated pirates at swordpoint, leans down to study her noogie technique. Maybe she isn't the best role model.      Chad nods back at Khosa, flicking a bit of blood off his shortsword and covering his mouth with the collar of his oversized cloak. There's a green solemnness in his eyes; the deep respect of a teen who's being taken seriously by an adult.      "Your 'honest' commander seems to be leaving you to die."      "No! You're scaring him! Scott's just..." Fir looks back at the horse vanishing into the distance, and bites her lip in transparent distress. "..." Rutger mercifully gives her something to parry for enrichment, but it doesn't feel like a really vicious fight anymore. Clang, "Eek!"      "H... Healers and doctors don't work with pirates!"      "...I-I think you might've been duped!"      "I'm not even FROM Etruria!"      Fir's eyes hover on Odette for a moment, widen as they pass over Khosa, then go where Blemishine points during the almost lazily relaxed detente with Rutger. She clearly follows along with the logic, swallowing hard. "I..." And then, of course, Lilian buffets her with an impossible-to-block strike, she spins to try and counterattack while reeling from the sudden pain- "Huh??"- and while Lilian binds her blade Rutger takes the chance to put their sword against her neck from behind. She drops it, with a polite little squeak of distress as the Black Knight materializes to even further demoralize her, and very belatedly remembers to lift her hands to the sky.      "... I surrender. You're right. I'm sorry. Scott just seemed so earnest and nice..."      "Did he?" "Well, not really. But my mom always said not to judge a book by its cover." ". . ."      "Hanging," Chad says to Khosa, barely squirming when she puts him on her back and quickly adjusting. When she catches up to the fleeing riders, he draws a throwing blade from his cloak while hanging on with one hand, sticks out his tongue, and aims it at Scott. The mounted archer draws a bead on him, but just then Mia crashes into him, knocking him to the ground.      The archer gasps with pain when he lands with a sizzling wound, and his horse gallops off without him, but he draws as tight a shot as he can manage on his back and aims up at Mia. He holds it for a long second... and then sighs, laying the bow down. "I surrender. It's over."      Madeleine appears right behind Scott, who certainly wasn't expecting anyone behind him at all; he flails suddenly- "What's your problem?!"- and just then Chad strikes his horse with the throwing knife. It bucks, Scott tumbles off, and he lands hard on his side before putting one hand up in surrender. "Are you crazy or something? I was running away!" whines a man who would definitely have shot you in the back.      When the clamor on the beach has died down, Sue rides over and looks down at the unhorsed archer dispassionately. "Djute or Kutolah?" she says, the same question she'd asked Rutger in that Lycian castle. "Kutol-- Sue?" he coughs, and winces. "... Sin? What are you doing here?" "Your... your grandfather sent me to look for you, when you didn't come back." "Dayan's the one who needs your help. Why didn't you stay and resist in Sacae?" ". . ." ". . . Oh. Is it truly that bad?" "I'm sorry..."
Marigold	"And you still didn't say anything about mine. Are you only into the small ones or something?"      "I'm sorry, Dame Commander," says Rutger as they flick off and sheathe their sword, returning to an earlier conversational thread. "I didn't realize you weren't confident in it. I thought it went without saying that yours is good."
Alucard	Golden eyes gleam in a bat's face as he releases his magic. He flaps his wings once and rockets forwards, passing the horse and wheeling around. He bleeds momentum in the leathery flapping of wings, angling downwards to skim the ground as he changes back into his (super)natural shape. His blade rings as he draws it, charging towards the racing horse, but he skids to a stop as Madeleine tackles Scott right from his horse. His expression is flatly disappointed. Still, he steps closer, looming over the man on the ground, his strangely long sword glinting in the light. "Yes you were," the dhampir says, leaning over in an attempt to intimidate. This includes a little flash of long, wicked fangs. They're good for scaring people, at least. "Who hired you to attack our ship? Was it just you and your .... mercenaries, or are there others lying in wait?" A passing shadow covers the dhampir's face in darkness. His eyes glow like a wolf's. Apparently he can exude a predatory and frightful nature, and not just be a soft-spoken sad guy. He glances up at Madeleine, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. "Well played. Perhaps the wolf would have worked better for me."
Dysnomia	<J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Chad says, "... Thanks." <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Chad says, "I wasn't aiming for the horse." <J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia says, "Ha. Can't blame you."     "Just look at him," Mia said, flying over to Scott at her leisure. "He has a face you want to sink your knuckles into." She nods to Madeleine, and pulls him unceremoniously from his horse, dragging him backward by his collar whispering promises of death in the language of thoughts were Scott to move.     She found a muddy patch of mud near their grounded ship, only to toss Scott casually onto it, over her shoulder. "We're not done with you yet, Scott."
Odette Raskins	"Raskins! Clean up this mess!" Mess? The battlefield? The wolf remnants? All the ice?  The ship? Whatever it is, Odette certainly doesn't have the wherewithal to ask for clarification, and Lilian gets a hastily-shouted "Y-yes, ma'am!" in response as she scrambles to... She's not sure where to go after that. Even with Fir declaring her surrender, the EMT can only come up with checking on her and Rutger. "Th.. That's a relief. No, your mom taught you right, Miss...?" Odette starts to ask, pausing to try and identify any potential injuries using a combination of her own eyes and a handheld scanner. "I-I'm Odette. Um. N-nice to meet you." With a polite, if visibly anxious smile to finish her self-introduction, she gets right to work treating them both with some combination of medicated gauze, topical sprays, and good old non-addictive pills! She'll leave the harder to questions to her allies, since the adrenaline's starting to wear off, and Odette's looking increasingly frazzled as she realizes just how close she came to dying. Again. At least there's plenty of pirates to treat, too. Even if they did try to kill her and her friends in their greed, she can't NOT do her utmost to make sure they live through this. It'll probably take her about ten minutes of treatment (or someone outright telling her) to realize that's what Lilian meant earlier.
Trudy Grimm	Fir surrenders, soundly outmatched by the combination of Lilian and Rutger's sword mastery and the additional menace provided by the sudden arrival of the Black Knight.     Trudy closes her eyes, letting out a held breath as a little sigh, "Well, that's a relief." The witch lifts her free hand, tucking her grimoire away with the other, "That's enough."     The Black Knight doesn't seem to respond. He doesn't move an inch. That might honestly be the intended result; Trudy certainly isn't the type to think she can order either swordfighter around.     She steps around the Knight, letting her book drop to her hip on its dangly strap. Both hands extend forward, more welcoming and perhaps to help Fir back to her feet; "My comrades were after that fleeing-- commander? So I'm sure there will be some questions for him. But of course, we can have ourselves a conversation too." Lifting a hand, she gestures, "Would that fort be empty now? Maybe we can make camp there and regroup."
Khosa	Khosa was fighting since she was down at Chad's age, and began her training even earlier; they like to start people like her early on their skills. It doesn't occur to her to *not* take him seriously, even if he's also unseasoned; that's a solveable problem. He's got a real weapon and a team that looks out for him, which is better than some drafted fighters get. When the horsemen go down, Khosa snorts out a huge breath through her nose. She's still got the feeling of holding a bow in her hand, even though she isn't actually holding one; the sensation is strong, and she opens and closes her hand a few times, accepting the reflexes and tucking them in a mental compartment for later investigation. "You know him?" Khosa asks of Sue, before letting out a sudden laugh. "Glad he wasn't hurt any worse than that, then!" He's hurt, but not mortally. She looks down at him: "You picked a bad gang to fight with, though," she adds. Khosa reaches behind her but is once again unable to reach any of the arrows sticking in her chitin or scales; the shell-like formation she's made limits the flexibility in her shoulders, she can't roll them backwards far enough. "Can you pull those out?" she asks, more quietly, of Chad. She'd take the plates off, but that's gross, and nobody needs to see her do it. She also replies to Lilian's radio, eventually: "They're both down. Not dead. One's less of an asshole than the other." Khosa just watched Dysnomia turf Scott into mud and she does not object to this treatment.
Blemishine	Scott just seemed so earnest and nice...     ...Well, not really. But my mom always said not to judge a book by its cover.     "Oh, goodness..." Once all is said and done, Blemishine practically slumps against her sword, having wedged it into the ground for support. It's rather exaggerated, half from the exertion of the battle, and half because of the fact that Fir was fighting them... because...     ...oh, goodness.     "...Hah. Well, I'm just glad you came to your senses before it was too late!" She springs right back up to her feet, ensuring none of the laid-out pirates in the immediate vicinity will be doing much more than groaning in pain. "For a lot of reasons, including that swordplay really being something else!" If it wasn't for Rutger...     ...huh. Actually...     There's a brief glance in the direction of Sue and Sin's meeting and a bit of overhearing. Then, she can't help but draw comparisons to Rutger and Fir's swordplay - even her flowing and easy-to-move-in way of dress. Her head tilts.     "From the way you fought, I would have thought you were another Sacaen far from home... but you said you were visiting your father here in the Misty Isles...?"     Well, there'll be plenty of chance for a lot of talking between everyone soon enough. She had better make sure Dieck and Lilina get healed up properly before things progress too much!
Lilian Rook	'... I surrender. You're right. I'm sorry.'     Lilian locks up as her neurotransmitters are visibly rearranged by hearing that sequence of words for the first time. "Finally." is the only word that unsteadily comes out of her mouth. She releases Fir reluctantly, understanding that Rutger.     'Well, not really. But my mom always said not to judge a book by its cover.'     "You're still supposed to judge them you--!" Lilian revs up to something no doubt foul and hurtful, pauses, and then exhales it rather than saying it. Still residually agitated, she pushes the rest of her stray hair out of her blood-and-water washed face, succeeds only at smearing it with her gauntleted palm, and turns around to leave.     'I'm sorry, Dame Commander, I didn't realize you weren't confident in it. I thought it went without saying that yours is good.'     "HUH?!" Lilian's voice climbs to a shrill crescendo in the space of one stretched-out syllable. "Obvious I'm confident in it! You can't just say 'it goes without saying' though! What purpose does not saying it have?! Who does it help?!" Brain racing three steps ahead of her inhibition, Lilian storms off yelling, "I didn't let it 'go without saying' how fucking pretty you are, god fucking damn!"     The interrogation is apparently everyone else's problem. She's already lost interest in Scott from the moment of his reported capture. Lilian, fuming marches right past Petra, grabs a fistful of her hair, and forcibly drags her with her.