SPRING-AUTUMN 264
Mourning for Delphonso, the Lionfish sails along in sight of the gloved dune. Hugging the coastline, we dare not set out too far into open sea, for our journey takes us further and further from home.
Only the boldest of dwarves would attempt to strike out into open ocean! But we are bolder than most, at any rate! Our destination is the Island of calming, a treeless barren isle, but a suitable waypoint for our incursion into the bay of comedy. Crawling along in sight of the shore like a horseshoe crab we can expect the journey to take about a year.
Freed from the dungeons of agewards was a dwarf named Salmeuk. They claimed to be a fighter "of some repute" but one wonders how such a reputable fighter became a prisoner? nonetheless, an eager raider to be sure, he was welcomed into the crew.
He reported to the barracks for training with our seasoned raiders. No doubt he will learn a lot!
A room was also provided, although it's a dingy little one right next to the library, which is a noisy hub of activity.
Our journey proceeds for some months without incident, but the crew remains ever vigilant for any dangers, or potential prey!
Many of our dwarves have become skilled operators of the feared ballista, but one particular dwarf seems to have a strange crew to assist her..
It must be very difficult to load and fire that thing with all those cats running around...
As we travel we continue to smelt down our loot from Agewards and elsewhere, turning it into useful arrows and ballista heads, but as ever our wood stocks (and thus our charcoal) disappear quickly while we're at sea, and before long the forges must fall quiet.
In order to expedite our passage though we will not put ashore, we will make do with what supplies we have.
As we travel farther from home the beasts who reside in the sea become more grotesque and disturbing with each day.
Around early limestone we round the headline of the desert of craters, passing the narrowest point of the entrance to the bay. However that very day, spriggans, up in the crow's nest as ever, spots something!
As it draws nearer, it's apparent this is another ship of human make, although poorly made, not quite as sluggish and slow as the last. They seem to have been waiting for us, blocking our way into the bay. It seems that this is a military vessel, meant to take us head on!
As we draw closer we can see a multitude of human soldiers, well armed and armored (with what pitiable efforts human hands can make anyway), ready for a fight. Our ballistas make some impacts, and as we get in range our marksdwarves take to the mast, extending out quite boldly onto the spars to get better shots!
Our ballista and crossbow attacks force the cowardly humans to withdraw below decks, rendering their ship immobile and helpless, we easily pull alongside. Eager for a fight, our dwarves ready themselves at the boarding ramp.
The bridge lowers and the dwarves surge across! No humans on the exterior of the ship to resist, the entrances to the ship's structure are closed, but smoot sets upon it with an axe without delay.
As we smash the door down, the crew of this ship attempt to make their defense, swarming to repel us from our entrance, assisted by their wardogs. I don't know what they've heard of the Lionfish and her crew until now, but I'm sure that they have no idea what they're really up against.
Such a savage attack sets the tone of this fight. The crew has to force their way in, pushing back the defenders for every inch of the deck. Quickly a fighting line forms and our dwarves go to work.
Salmeuk, our newest raider, makes his way in to his first battle!
Not much of a debut. Undeterred though, he crawls over to some humans on the ground and commences pummelling them to death.
Notable are how many cages are in this ship... we can only assume they meant to take our crew prisoner! Who knows what trial and punishment they intend for our various raids on human lands.
It's quite disturbing to watch smoot fight. It really looks more like butchering a domestic animal than battle.
The humans seem concentrated around defending the central chamber of the ship's structure. Hungry for glory, DikbutDagrate forces himself to the door, and in 3 successive strikes hits 3 DIFFERENT foes with crippling strikes
Not to be outdone, Smoot forces his way to the front and decapitates two enemies back to back!
Even Salmeuk kept up his attacks, hitting one of the most brutal blows i've ever seen, from the ground!
Soon enough the din of battle calms, and we are left masters of a bloodstained ship.
A few rogue horses roam the deck, causing a bit of trouble to hunt them down.
Wait what's this?!
In all the chaos, a horse had made its way back onto the lionfish! It's quickly dealt with by the other crew members (remember although not all of the crew are frontline fighters and go on raids, EVERYONE knows how to fight)
It does spread a LOT of blood all over the main deck though. Bombyx Mori IMMEDIATELY starts cleaning it up.
Meanwhile on the human ship, some pathetic wretches cower below decks. Their cleaning up is pretty straightforward, except for one stray arrow...
An unfortunate hit, that will bring him down for a while.
The medical dwarves make a quick assessment on Salmeuk too. While he took some nasty hits, he is expected to fully recover! Something about extreme pain though, sounds bad.
All said and done, the ship is cleared, and not a SINGLE ONE of our crew was killed! Only one other dwarf took a minor injury, a stupendous victory!
Dikbutdagrate must be commended for his aggressive attack into the heart of the enemy ship, I'm not sure when the last report on his kills was made, but I think he deserves an update
We will proceed to the Isle of calming, with the conquered ship in tow. It has a good deal of wood we can strip apart and use to melt down our new spoils, since all these humans were well armored we have a lot of work to do! That aside the ship had some small supply of charcoal, some cloth and other such simple goods required for a ship to run. Curiously little food though, it seems these humans haven't mastered life at sea as we have!
We took about a dozen prisoners, forcing them into the cages they intended for us.
What on earth shall we do with them? We could always just throw them overboard...
But we're still kicking. I didn't know there was an inbuilt necroposting warning on this forum, but I got it for this thread which isnt a good sign lol. I'm not making any promises about future pace, but what I said about finishing this EVENTUALLY no matter what, still applies.
