In the streets of Shriekpot...Niklas, not necessarily aware that the cavalry has arrived, tries to pinch his way out of the old bastard's grasp.
[Niklas vs. Terry: 5 vs. 5]
He pinches and pinches, but the fellow refuses to let go, clenching his teeth and bearing the assault with the utmost courage.
Kevin, noticing the resolve of these individuals, tries to distract them from their task.
[Kevin's jesting roll: 2+1]
He performs an expertly-timed pratfall a cautious distance away from the three vagabonds, but said caution proves to be his undoing - in the tension of the situation, they hardly give him any looks at all! Guess they are somewhat distracted already - this is quite good for
Mark, who approaches with impunity, halberd raised at the fellow grabbing Niklas.
"Unhand Chef Niklas!" Morton suddenly declares, shaking his fist.
"What has he done to you? Leave him be before we call the guards." The three men immediately look in his direction, only one of them noticing death approaching through the corner of his eye. And that one individual is definitely too late to warn the fellow quite busy grappling with a chair.
[Mark vs. Terry: 6+1 vs. 3-
1]
This gives Mark the opportunity to drive his halberd straight into the man's back, the blade splitting his heart in half and coming out the other side. Mark makes sure to miss the spine - those are going at a premium right now! With the man soundly pierced, he lifts the soon-to-be-corpse and hoists him over his shoulder. The other two men are rather disquieted by the display, and begin to retreat, one of them tripping and rolling down the street while the other panics and stands still, torn on whether to run from the crazy tree-head skeleton or to help his mate do the same. Mark, meanwhile, wonders if he could possibly lift two people with the same halberd. They seem rather light, to be honest. Or is that just his excitement over fresh materials to work with?
On the deck of the Second Shank...Scott makes a mental count of who exactly he remembers to be a rightful part of this crew and whether they are present.
"I, apart from Erin, butlerboy and vampirelad I don't know... so anyone who isn't here anyway cannot be that important right?""You see, you'd think so, but I like to believe that all of our crew members could be good for something if given proper motivation and objectives. I don't really know what those might be, but I suppose if I promote synergy and things like that, it'll work out fine. But for that to work, we'll need a whole bunch of crew. Right now, we should have Mark, Art, Erin, Evelyn, Justine... Sigmund, Niklas, Morton, you, Kevin, the Captain and also the tailor fellow, Craig. I think that's the full list, anyway. Did I forget anyone, do you think?"Suddenly, a slight hiss can be heard, as well as a flapping sound. Both the Artiste and Scott turn toward the source of it, and notice that a creature appears to be on deck - some kind of skinless, large duck with wings made of human skin, four tiny spider legs and a beak that opens radially and seems to be made of ribs.
"She's certainly changed a lot since I last saw her," the Artiste notes.
"What in gods' names is that thing?""Evelyn, seems like. At least that's what the soul appears to be marked as, and I don't recall binding any hellish ducks by a similar name lately."Evelyn flaps her wings for a moment, paying no mind to the people chatting about her. She then jumps up and tries the same thing, only faster. It is quite surprising when she seems to ascend a little, then descend slowly.
"Aw, she's learning to fly!"The onlookers are interrupted by
Sigmund, who, not having noticed the blood red pseudoavian creature a small distance away, asks a rather important question.
"Master, how are you planning to deal with the dangers of the Sea of Death?""Poorly, it must be said, given that I have no idea what the dangers even are. I'm hoping we'll obtain more information when we stop at Mothdale - otherwise we may very well be up a highly unpleasant river with no boat, not to mention without any paddles. It wasn't without reason that I asked you people to get some books on the subject, I hope you realize? Perhaps Justine will be of help as well," he says, indicating the ghostly diviner, who doesn't respond, looking quite disgusted about something unrelated.
In the streets of the engineers' quarter of the City of the Dead...Darren is pleased to find individuals who can be of help.
"Please, do."He follows the lady, who floats through the streets in a manner that's a little too jittery to be called graceful, and eventually they reach what appears to be a single-story house that stands on several spiraling columns.
"Come along! Very good treasure here!" the lady explains, disappearing through a wall. Seeing no reason not to, Darren goes through the very same wall. What he sees on the other side is rather interesting - it looks to be a store. However, it is most definitely not the toy store he is looking for. No, this store sells something else entirely - they look like pets, Darren guesses. If pets happened to be made of very expensive-looking weaponry. There's a whole bunch of cats made of varying swords, axes and spears, a bear constructed purely of strange, glowing tubes, a... puppy, maybe, built out of a miniature crossbow, and a spider-like thing composed purely of interlocking chakrams. There's also other things - all kinds of highly dangerous, ornate-looking, obviously enchanted weapons organized and combined into animal shapes.
"Welcome to my store! Buy a pet! Bring home! Best treasure family can ask for! Buy today, yes!" the lady says in a highly manic-sounding fashion. It seems she has been waiting quite a while to say these very words.
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Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 540856 times)