Something Smells Fishy
Log Info
- Title: Somethin' Smells Fishy
- Emitter: Sevati
- Characters: Dubtle (Wtc4)* Malhari (Swb2)* Krom (Ftr5)
- Place: Alexandria - Docks
- Time: Sept 11, 2017
- Summary: The docks have been a hub of activity moreso lately than usual; trade is booming, and the trade is flourishing because of it, bringing more and more people to the shorelines to make their living, find their future, escape their past, or meet their maker. It's mid-afternoon when the commotion arises, and prying their way through the gathering, frantic crowd are a merry band of heroes -- but, what could the problem be? And what is that smell?
- APL: 3
- Encounter: 4 Sahuagin, 2 Sharks, CR7
ST:
Mayhem.
An arrival to the Alexandrian docks has been met not with fanfare, but horrified screams and overlapping, desperate pleas for help, many drowned out by the sounds of a struggle, and the unconsolable weeping of man, woman and child alike -- fishermen families, wives that had come to assist in gutting the day's catch, sons that had come to learn their father's trade, none of which make any sense when questioned.
They only cry out for nameless aid -- their Gods do not hear them today.
You will have to do.
As the heroes grow nearer the crowd, they meet with gutteral, burbling words that sound much like a man trying to speak from beneath the waves. As though he spoke with great gales and rancid breath, they are bathed in the fetid reek of salty brine and rotted fishgut in their approach, mingling with a stinging wash of water chummed with blood to a point that the coppery pang can be tasted on mist-damp air.
Speaking of mist, there is, as well, a thick fog that's rolling in from the water's dreary front; in the distance the dock's lamplight glows hazy gold in the impending evening, at once promising that there is still a world away from this tragedy in action, and reminding them all they might never see it again.
"PLEASE!" The desperate, sudden outburst from one of the fishermen, "He.. he had nothing to do with it!"
"Gghive...-bghack- wghat you, mmglrp-hssk, have stgolen!" The thing that retorts speaks through a maw of jagged-edged teeth they can't seem to contain fully, salty spittle drooling from betwixt the yellowed dentition. Black-green scales and skyfire orange eyes, a sinew-stretched hulk of over 7 feet in height, hunched forward to dare the simple fisherman to deny his involvement in this apparent accused theft.
"Papa!" A child of approximately 8-10 years lets out a shrill yelp, before the flailing splash demands attention. Where he stood is now little more than ripples and the fleeting image of skin so pale it fair glows in its retreat into the murky waters.
"NO! KEIRAN! -PLEASE-!" The woman nearby shrieks, frantically darting for the shore.
"... I... I don't have an-anything!"
There is a pause from the fishman, bright too-large eyes squinting just so.
"...Vgery hgwell..."
Suddenly, the water erupts as though it were boiling, broken with a thrashing activity from below, the white wash churning crimson as the fishman stares on; cracked, dry, tight lips peeling back in what can only be described as a demented grin that reveals blackened gums and wretched fangs in their true plentitude, his chin lifted in some smug satisfaction that is cut short by the witless charge of the man that had so professed his innocence.
A burbled laugh swells and overflows as the much smaller man is caught in the most epic and foul-smelling man-hug, and the pair begin to back away toward the dock's edge despite the flailing resistance. The woman by now has reached the water, and is sloshing her way into the shallows, heaving with sobs and crying the boy's name.
"Somebody DO something!" A voice cries from amid the stunned crowd.
"ENOUGH! Krom will not stand by! Fish man want to fight, then fight Krom!" The north man hurries towards the comotion, his twin blades flashing. "Krom does not know what fish man want, but to take child is never right."
"What... what's going on here?!'
Dubtle's arrival to the docks leves him startled. Here he was just coming down to buy the catch of the day for his favorite soup to prepare and all /this/. All this weeping anmd emotion and awkwardness! This is what her spends all his time in libraries to AVOID.
"...unahnd that man, creature! Unahdn him immediately." He's already racing towards the pair and their backing awy. Fish-Man-hugs are not to be taken lightly!
"YOU LET HIM GO! RIGHT NOW!"
Life is great. Life is good. Life is-- Mayhem? Oh... n-...no. No.
While many would consider the dockside to be a place of either great trade or great skullduggery, Malhari views it as the perfect blend of both. After all, no good merchant is going to give you an honest price first, and no dishonest thief is going to not give you a good thumping for your purse. So everyone has that bit of honesty and dishonesty that lets you know that you're really in a good spot. But mayhem and screaming and pleas for help don't usually get thrown into the mix on that. Nobody screams for mercy from a merchants prices, and nobody really causes mayhem for a simple mugging.
Malhari slips and shoves his way through the crowd, armour giving an audiable metallic tinkling as he dances his way inbetween two men that have stopped with a crate on their shoulders, giving him the space he needs to sort of get himself in there, so to speak. So presented with the scene - having just made it in time to see the child whipped away underwater to an early meeting with the God of Death, which earns one of the multitude of charms woven into his armor a quick kiss, as if that might hopefully be enough to see the child to its new place safely.
"I second the men! Back to your watery holes, monsters!" declares the man, who quickly thumbs his rapier from its sheath, drawing it with a swift and deft flicking motion that ends with its tip pointed towards the fishmen. The pose is kept just long enough to be noted - and then he's already moving forwards, cause while it's nice to strike a pose - there's already been one death.
ST:
The inconsolable sobbing of the fisherman's wife continues in the background, muted and punctuated both by the sloshing splash of her steps taking her into waters most disturbed. Frantic hands paw about in the murky dark as she creeps deeper, seeking something that she will never find, but is compelled to follow into churning unknown as she wails out her wordless, mindless pleas.
From the fog, nearly too far for the average gaze, a pointed fin is there and gone again in a flash; whatever lurk below, our fine heroes will realize through their grand powers of observation that it heads toward the apron-wearing woman that is by this point neck-deep in the brine.
"KEIRAN!" The boy's name can barely be made out so wretched is her wailing, "KeirAAAAN!" As though she called him for dinner from a simple home's doorway.
"Oh no... no... oh, Gods, no! Mary, don't!" The fisherman is being backed toward the dock's edge, the grinning maw of the creature that holds him drooling that viscous spittle down over his shoulder and chest; a reeking, yellow-tinted slick that is smeared about by the crack-scaled muzzle that presses it against the man's neck as that cruel, choking laughter is growled out once more. The fishman's eyes turn toward Krom at his outburst, and he jerks the fisherman back toward himself all the more, hunkering down in his stance in a way that bows the man backward.
"Thgisss... glrp-hgss, dgoes not... cogncergn you!" It spits.
Gills flare and settle, like nostrils flaring as it turns its attention from one of the heroes to the next with growing apprehension, its outnumbered state raw and obvious. Its lips had begun to relax over its sharklike maw in its impending surrender, until with a stark suddenness it renews into a broader grin than before.
"Please! Don't! Ah--eh--p-please, save my Mary!" The fisherman pleads.
Then, with all the speed of a reptile taking to water, one of the creature's arms secures itself at the man's throat before it leaps backward and away into the blood-tainted shore, the man's alarmed scream swallowed up by disquietingly calm surf.
Krom's blades flashes, slicing across his own scalp. the wound is shallow, but bleeds freely. Though rather than trickle down, the blood flows upward, soaking into the northman's white forelock, staining it a brilliant crimson. "By the Wild King, Krom shall not fail!" The warrior of Mestnorr charges into the water after the fisherman, a crisp autumn wind speeding his steps.
And then Krom is rushing fast. So fast.
Dubtle is feelin' the breeze from the other warrior as he goes by him at a high rate of speed.
"Oh," he says. "Oh no! Okay!
You, ah.. don't go too far yet! Swim!" He pauses, all but tripping over his robe as he begiuns to call upon the magic emeshed into his person through his pact with Navos.
A soft, greenish liht begins tr suffuse his hands. "Cruel creatures! You'll know no victory here!"
It sounds like he's quoting something he read somewhere rather than anything he actually means.
Malhari's footsteps go from 'thump thump thump' to 'splash splash splash' as the man comes charging down into the water after the woman - not the man. The large northman seems to have the fisherman, so he goes after the fishermans wife. After all, that's the swashbuckler thing to do, right?.. Right?
"Come away from there! There's things under the water! We'll try to look for the boy, but there's monsters afoot!" Is what he meant to say, instead, he flubs it by saying..
"Your son is gone, get out of the water so you don't join him!" ... Good job, Malhari. Good job. Way to go from Swashbuckler to Swashfurthertraumatizethewife, gain a +1 to your 'Traumatize for Life' ability. "Please?" is added on for good measure. Painful measure. He even attempts a charming smile.
ST:
When Krom hits the water, he can actually hear the water-muffled screaming of the terrified sailor; someone should tell him that wasting all your breath when you're being held under water is not the wisest choice he's likely to make. The sound is overlapped with that burbling laughter from before, and as the fishman is fleeing into the darker depths, those orange eyes flash as though in warning mockery before being swallowed up by the swirling bubbles provided by motion and screaming both.
Rushing forward beneath the surface are two other fishmen, smaller than the first, but roughly the same colour. Long, gangly limbs brandish coral-formed tridents, as they speed toward the Northman in an attempt to aid their leader in retreating with their catch. Both spear forward, but only one finds purchase, digging a furrow through the man's bicep and further bloodying the waters anew.
Chunks of... something... drift by his sight.
All of this, of course, goes unseen to those that are still shorebound or dock-gawking. What THEY see, however, is a sudden flurry of motion as the water breaks and births one final ugly little fish bastard that comes clamboring onto the dock hissing and spitting, trident raised and pumped three times in the air in wordless threat. It makes only a senseless decree; 'HORK HORK HORK HORK!'
As Malhari reaches the fisherman's wife and rather callously informs her in no uncertain terms that her boy is dead, she winds up those beefy fisherman's wife arms and drills him fully in his cheesey face, one hand gripping at his weighty metal-covered shirt before fair wailing in his face, "KEEEEEIIIRAAAAN!". You lot won't understand, but it sounds an awful lot like the baying banshee howl of Malhari's mother.
It's horrifying.
With that, she pushes him backward and dips below the water's surface."
Krom fehs as he's struck, and returns the favor, his blade drawing a fair slice of fishy scale.
"...the hell are you doing, lady? I get it, you want your son but nothing is going to be better if you drown yourself chasing him!"
Dubtle has a fish man on him. He glares at the fish man and points a finger at him, "Don't you dare. I'll scream in your ear and you won't like it a bit."
He's not really good at this part of adventuring, it seems. Still, a spell is cast upon the woman to give Malhari a chance to control her and get her out of being a danger to hersel.
Also, Krom is now huge.
Well. That wasn't the effect that Malhari was looking for. Nor was it the punch that he was looking for either, he was actually looking for a greatful woman that he could save from the dangers of fishfolk, but instead the punch in the face from a woman who has spent long days working has him reeling for a moment, his head turning back only to see Dubtle's spell take affect. "Hah! Thank y--"
Shark. Of course there's a shark. Nothing ever turns out easy now, does it? Of course not. Frozen fishwives are like fishsticks, irresistable. Of course, Malhari's not going to easily wrestle a fishwife out of a shark's mouth, considering that A) No. and B) It's a shark, so double no. So he goes for the best option he has at hand for the situation, he introduces the shark to his rapier in the most intimate way that is technically legal in the land of Alexandria, by stabbing it.
He scores a hit, goughing through the scales of the shark and bloodying the water some more. "Release the woman, foul beast! I have to save her! Even if its against her will!"
ST:
It seems as though the largest of the fishmen is well and truly away, and with him the hapless sailor that is certain to find his doom in the dusky brine.
The two that battle with Krom continue to do so, and even as he scores a hit on one, the favour is returned with a clawed, webbed hand that manages to find its tricksy way through the man's defenses.
The fishman that had climbed onto the dock to do battle with the witch cants his head to one side at the threat the dwarf makes, lip curling upward as a shuddering, somehow spiney hiss is breathed out in its consideration -- like it just didn't quite understand. "Hgyou wgill ...scgream, yesss..." At least Dubtle's words gave the creature enough pause that he was able to get his spellcasting finished, resultant in the fishmarm going rigidly still, stifled sobbing still making its way from clenched jaw and tight teeth. Tears roll down her cheeks as she bobs there in the waters that have so swiftly taken it all from her, eyes so softly closing that one can nearly taste her surrender, and suffer her poison.
As victory seems in hand, Dubtle is fair skewed through by a trident of coral, so naturally sharp that it rivals the finest blades in the clean cut it provides. By some miracle, perhaps his God's divine grace, it misses all major organs but tears through the thick meat of his squat dwarven form. Just as suddenly, equally as sharply, the shark beneath clamps down on Mary's thigh with such ferocity that it tears it clean free; her eyes go impossibly wide on her features, a pallour stealing the living pink from her cheeks as shock is near immediate in its claim, her wailing scream deadened by the clench of her jaw and spell-insisted still.
When Malhari's rapier digs deep, it does release the woman from its seeking maw, but it's certain it isn't finished with them.
Krom is suddenly huge. Huge-er. The north man is a little distracted by this for a moment, but he's an adventurer. Sometimes you double in size. Roll with it and move on. Glancing after the disappearing fisherman, the warrior focuses upon the local threat, and slices with his blades, the curved metal cutting deep, and felling one of the fanged fishmen.
"No!" This is all Malhari's fault! He was supposed to get the girl out of the water, not let her get grabbed by a shark! The hold spell ends and the woman is free to turn her considerable beating poewrs on the shark.
In the meantime, he is stabbed.
With a trident.
Holy /ow/. That frigging hurts. He staggers back, leaking blood frokm the three-pronged wound he just recieved before he opens his mouth and... nothing happens. There's no screamin! All the same, the fish-man suddenly grags his head as if he's rocked by the sound that doesn't seem to exist.
So, Malhari. This is your chance to redeem yourself. You've managed to get punched in the face on your first day of being a big boy adventurer, but now comes your redempt--And the Shark took a bite out of the woman. The blow to the ego is a critial hit, and the man almost looks like he deflates a bit, but bounces back by the fact that, well, technically the woman's still alive. Even if her husband ain't.
There's a roar of action from the Veyshan man as he lunges forwards in a rather well trained - if somewhat impractical - fencers lunge, working the tip of the rapier into the snout of the shark before flicking it upwards to leave a widened wound. His hits are starting to take their toll, but he still hasn't managed to find the mark just yet.
ST:
Swimming from the direction where the head Fishman and the now-dead sailor have disappeared into is ... ANOTHER PARALYZER!
But, actually, it's another shark. ...attracted to Mary's blood.
One of the fishmen on Krom is unceremoniously eliminated, a blackish inky gore spilling from its guts as he's sliced and diced like so much ill-prepared sushi. Gas station sushi.
The fishman staggers as Dubtle's non-scream takes affect, bright eyes going wide and bulging with the strain of the anguish that wracks him, broad fishy mouth hanging agape, then ... closing slightly, opening again, clo--oh my god, he's turned him into a goldfish.
The second creature on Krom is a disappointment to his fish parents.
The first shark lunges forward to bite at Malhari, apparently having had enough of his shit. He's interrupting a fine meal. As soon as the spell is released, Mary begins screaming in unabashed agony, utterly unfettered -- the crowd that watches on in horror erupts into the hysteria that tragedy of this sort brings.
"She's DEAD!"
"SHE WAS A PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY!"
"I'VE KNOWN HER SINCE I WAS A BOY!"
It's Malhari's expert stabbing, however, that stops the thing from getting its jaws on her again as it fair pins him to the sandy floor before the removal of the blade has him popping up again. Why he oughta...
"... Damn my eyes!" One man in the crowd hollers out, before he snaps a chain about his neck and flings a sparkling something over the heads of all before the treasure meets the shore and is swallowed up by the greedy, languid lapping of the disturbed tide. With that, he's running off back toward the city.
Krom's blades spin and slice. They're not ginsu, but they get the job done with swift effectiveness, dropping another fishman back into the brine, in more pieces than he came out of it.
"Oh no! Oh no!"
Dubtle is... well. That wasn't supposed to go like that! The worry is obvious in his feature at the gruesome wound endured by the woman and he's soon rushing past Malhari, blowing right by him as he moves to the woman and reaches out to grab above the wound she suffered. The wound being HOLY SHIT HER LEGS GONE.
Some of it, anyway. The flow of blood eases from it as a prayer to Navos is uttered, but it's likely also to be a prayer abruptly ended with a gurgle.
HEROICS.
Malhari watches in abject horror as the shark manages to once again get a hold of the fishwife. Sure, she might have just punched him in the face, but nobody really deserves to be eaten by a shark while they're trying to find some remanant of their son that they still think they can save, tha'ts just not cool. So, in response to this, Malhari lunges in with a bit more of the reckless and a little bit less of the precision, and it seems to pay off as the shark goes past him for the fishwife.
The blade sinks in through the snout of the shark, digging in all the way until it stabs into the angrysharkbrain, whereupon it hits the magical 'off' switch - and he yanks his rapier back out. He then turns, sweeping an arm around the fishwife and giving Dubtle a prompt nod of his head - sure, there's other threats, but the fishwife isn't an adventurer! So he heaves and tries his best to get moving, hauling the woman through the water as best he can, but it's not so easy.
ST:
Krom continues slicing, dicing, making julien fries. It works for him.
It doesn't work so well for the fishmen.
"SSssscgream..." The last of the fishmen hisses out, "SSSSsssscgream... SCGGGLLGRREAAAAAM!" It bellows as it shakes off the dizzying result of his screaming, charging toward him with the trident low, until it meets the flesh of his back and hip, twisting and digging as its rage builds to some sort of foul-smelling climax, salty like brine.
In new desperation, the fishwife now clings to Malhari, sobbing out some incoherent babble until words finally begin to form. "Oh, Gods thank you, my... my b-boy, I need to find..." She's going somewhat limp now in the Swashbuckler's arms, her head flopping forward to meet his chest with wet impact.
"SHE'S NOT DEAD!" One in the crowd calls.
The crowd erupts in cheering for the heroes, even though that one fishman still remains.
"HAIL, HEROES! SWEET MARY, OUR MARY!" The celebration continues.
That is, of course, until a second shark pops out of the water just so to ever-so-daintily bite down upon Mary once more, retreating with violent shake back into the water -- drawn, as stated some time before, to the blood that offered promise of feasting.
There's a crowd-wide gasp, followed by dead silence.
"... SHE'S DEAD!"
"SHE WAS A PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY!"
"WHY, MARY, WHY!?"
In the sands, every time the waves retreat, sparkle with that disgarded treasure.
... Mary is ... not likely to recover.
Krom moves though the waves like a titan.... well, maybe. the north man has never actaully seena titan, let alone one moving through waves, but he's pretty big, so there might be some parallel. Anyway, Krom heads towards this new bitey fish.... sharks are fish, right? Whatever, he's moving, but the water slows him down a little.
"No!"
Dubtle's call is grief stricken as Mary is bitten as econd time and this time with no chance of recovery. Tears well up in his eyes and he looks... well... sick to his stomach. Chances are he'll lose hsi lunch when this is over, but he did everything he could to wsave her -- even if that meant paralyzing her so she wouldn't swim into the jaws of the shark she eventually wound up in. He wheels around to turn on the trident-wielding fishman who's wounded him twice previously and he lets out a truly Khazadi bellow of rage that you'd expect from one of his wilder cousins. Or Fazahd.
In either case, a blazing white-hot orb of energy (and injury) sets ablasze the sea-man.
"BURN."
Mary's gone, the first shark's gone, and now there's a second shark. Why did life become incredibly complicated for Malhari. All he really wanted was to swing from ropes and save damels in distress and become fabulously wealthy and worshipped by many for his glorious mustache.
Instead, he's soaking wet, has blood in his jama, and is stabbing angrily at a shark that just ate the fishwife he was trying to save. So, no damels, no wealth, and no worshipping, instead, he let a PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY get eaten. As the shark turns to flee with its catch, he manages another angry stab - but it is not enough to cause the shark to belly up like it's compatriot, instead, he's left glowering angrily in the shark's wake.
ST:
Even titans cannot move the seas at their whim.
Krom is... too late.
As the last remaining fishman is lit on fire, it begins its version of strangled, crackling screams that only fuel the nightmare flames as he hurls his trident out like a devil's pitchfork into Dubtle in retributive strike. "Wge wgrrgill hgave... whgagt iss ourss!" It insists, defiantly.
Whilst the others are busy dealing with ... alla dis... one of the people from the crowd edges their slinking, stinking self free from the masses to grab the glinting treasure the seas threaten to swallow up. As it is lifted from the sandy shore, in the distance a harrowing horn is sounded; sea birds above dive -- or fall -- from the skies and into the drink, offering a cacophony of screeching calls in some dischordant anthem. The dock community all seem to scatter, covering their ears and running for something they probably don't even understand, but they're all getting as far from the waters as possible... along with the crafty little beggar that stole whatever it was that had been discarded.
The fishman, burnt and bloody, begins to laugh, starting low and raising to wheezing cackle, punctuated by the crackling pop of his splitting scaly hide. "Heh, heegghh, hehgn! Hge cgomes!" It staggers back a step, stumbles in his weakness, drops to one knee and falls back into the water. Moments afterward, some 10 feet from the dock, his dead body will float to the surface.
Mary... Mary is gone.
The treasure is gone.
The answers are missing...
And something is coming.
For now, the only hope they have of learning the meaning of this has run off back toward the city, and it won't be found easily. Perhaps others in the city might know more, maybe the Adventurer's Guild should be notified, suffice it to say something must be done, and it's left to this ragtag menagerie to try.
... even if their last attempt ended in catastrophic failure.
~ Fin (Haw)