Felazo Ambushes an Attempted Ambush

The walk is relatively uneventful as they carry their rowboat back to the ship. Coming along the end of the path, where the cavern lets out onto the island, Den furrows his brow and holds up a hand. Everyone stops. Felazo notices the noble scion has her bow drawn, an arrow waiting on its string.

Slowly the three of them shuffle the boat to the side of the path, setting it down and having the prisoners hide behind it. Felazo nods, smiles a wicked grin, and pulls out his book. Seeing what Felazo is beginning to do, Den rushes quietly to the cave entrance and gets low, to take care of any problem that’s going to come out.

Felazo remembers the map. And right on the other side of that wall is the ambush point. Reaching into his gear, Felazo pulls out some carrion flowers. Putting them in his mouth and chewing the disgusting taste, the Sea elf begins to trace sigils in the air. He spits the mix of flower and saliva onto the ground and presses the traced sigils down muttering the mystic incantation. He can feel it, on the other side of the wall. The creature of hunger and decay is rising.

There is some commotion on the other side of the wall. But that is just there, and they need to wait out here. First a slight sound of surprise and struggle. Then, more concerningly, an incredibly loud buzzing noise, as though thousands of giant angry bugs suddenly appeared in the room. And the bursts of his undead ally’s pustules.

Renalt looks through the slit in the wall, hoping that whatever his captain did meant no one was waiting on the other side with an arrow for him. None came, and so the musician turned to his captain. “The unliving that you bring forth, Fearless Felazo,” the human wondered aloud, “‘tis so that they sleep not?”

Felazo looks at the man and shrugs. “Mostly they shouldn’t be able to,” he replies.

Ren begins strumming a lullaby on his lute, a quiet, relaxing tune with words that aren’t words but a spell. He looks through the hole once more and seems satisfied.

Out into the cave before them bursts Zeltaro, though not fully out of the caves. He’s too smart to get ambushed from his ambush. Felazo smiles at the man. “Zeltaro va Cotropla, what brings you to these parts?” he jokes with his fellow captain.

Zeltaro curses to himself, though he does answer, “The usual. A sea monster broke my ship.” he turns around and begins saying some words and unweaving the spell from earlier. Felazo recognizes the forms of releasing harmful spells. One of the people in there is likely waking up.

Sari tries her best to prevent that from happening. Already ready and in the trees, she fires a shot through the mouth of the cave, hitting the pirate in the shoulder. Zeltaro snarls at them. Sister Hilan, for her noble part, heads over to protect the prisoner-slash-guests, gripping her shield well and raising it over the boat as she stands between the one-armed warrior and the mostly still unconscious assassin.

Den does not wait. In his best estimation, the trap has been sprung. Felazo understands why. Zeltaro seemed legitimately surprised when he popped out. He was expecting a worn group who were not paying attention. And he’s not used to fighting on the land. Den rushes in towards Zeltaro, then, noticing something in the other room, breaks away to the side. There are the telltale noises of the crew’s most violent member doing violence.

“What the hell is that and how did you get them on your side?” Zeltaro asks, clearly unsettled by whatever Denlo is doing on the other side of the wall.

Felazo smiles, maintaining his focus on keeping the creature in the other room around and violent. “That would be Den,” he explains to his fellow captain, “And I legitimately don’t really know. I think boredom?” Felazo turns towards Sister Hilan, “Is everything alright back there?” he asks.

There is noise of some struggle happening inside. The buzzing sound of the creatures is much quieter now, as though most of whatever was called here is dead. Sister Hilan nods. “We’re still okay, right?” She looks at the pair hiding behind the boat. They seem non-committal about their okayness, which Felazo can understand. They also are staying quiet, as they probably don’t want to get on their captain’s bad side. Felazo smiles looking back at the pirate. They don’t think his crew will be able to defeat their captain, at least not in a permanent sense. But hey do think we will win today, otherwise they’d be fighting us. That will have to do for now.

There’s another explosion, this one followed by a yelp of pain. The buzzing dissipates entirely. And an elfish woman comes out of the cavern, a new cut on her back, likely from running by Den. “Captian,” she says, “Get out of here. The numbers aren’t on our side without Raglissim. And the other ships need you.”

Zeltaro looks at the woman, then nods. “See you in the next round, Lyssirzy,” he says with a nod.

“Wind and currents,” she replies, readying her weapons, a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other.

Sari tries to stop the privateer from running, calling on the natural world to entangle him with an arrow, but this Lyssirzy throws a dagger at her. It strikes her arm mid-incantation, and somehow disrupts the flow of the magic. “You’re fighting me.” she insists.

Zeltaro moves back, deeper into the cavern. Denlo comes up behind the woman. “Very well,” the massive Elfika says, bringing his massive blade in a swipe across her back, hitting the very same area that he’d struck earlier. Then, to the others he adds, “Mage is out cold back there.”

Felazo nods, “Sorry, but I’m no medic. Sari and the good sister can handle that,” he says, instead walking up to the woman. Twisting his hand in a semicircle, a sickly glow begins to emanate from the pores. He presses them into her shoulder, and floods her with the energy of the afterlife. The woman collapses on the ground before them. Turning to the others, he adds, “Given her level of fanaticism, this one likely will need chains.”

Ren looks between everyone then rushes past the collapsed woman and his old, terrifying friend. Felazo suspects the man is doing his best to give emergency first aid to the mage. Likely the mage is that Raglissim who was mentioned. Sari does the same with the woman, though she ties her up as she does so. Felazo leaves Sari to take care of the new prisoner. “Den, you and the sister can carry the boat. Our new friend Azugari looks capable enough of walking herself, with minimal help.” he walks over to look in the side room. Ren has managed to staunch the dwarf wizard’s bleeding. On the ground are the disintegrating remains of some demon-bugs. So that is the sort of mage he is. Makes sense why they believed him around changed their numbers game. His own corpse summoned, was falling apart into a pool of poisonous muck. Too bad, he muses to himself, it could have carried one of the two unconscious bodies they now have to deal with. Sari can deal with the prisoner proper, he figures, but that leaves this guy. “Ren, I think we’ll have to carry him back to the Ekzokia.”

Ren sighs. “Can you not merely call on a new unliving soul to do the manual labor we be ill suited for achieving?” he half jokes.

Felazo gives the bard a look of mild exasperation. He still could, but they’d need that if there was another fight. And, in the captain’s opinion, the man who studies stories for a living really should be able to see and understand that without being told. Ren nods at the look. “Very well. I suppose it would delay our rescuing the other shipwrecked sailors if you could not call upon the aid of those long gone.”

Felazo gives the man a nod as they work together to lift the demon-summoner up and head out. Sari has the prisoner over her shoulder, while the monastic sister and the murderer are carrying the ship over their head, with the one-armed fighter and the unsteady assassin between them, leaning on one another. Well, she is mostly leaning on him at the moment.

They make their way down the twists and turns of this cavernous homebase, no sign of Zeltaro. Felazo looks over to Sari and asks, “Can you tell the way he went?”

Sari gestures behind them. “He turned off our path a few doors ago, likely heading to the beachside somewhere.”

So he doesn’t have a ship here, Felazo understands, he just washed up like the others, but with more control. It’s really only a matter of time before he has something workable to catch the winds and currents, then as long as he avoids the archipelago proper, he can escape back to the rest of his fleet. “So we have some time, but he will be back,” Felazo muses. Eventually, they reach the Ekzokia. It’s still docked in that same, massive dock on the underground lake. Den and the sister, along with their new guests, hurry aboard, dropping off the rowboat then his crewmates circle back. The sister goes to help Sari with the prisoner. Den approaches his captain and old friend, and says, “I got this. Captain, you were planning on talking to those two?”

Felazo nods. “I was,” he states, matter of fact.

Renalt gives a nod of his head. “I shall accompany our necromantic negotiator, on the off chance my talents are required to smooth out the issues.”

Felazo can’t tell for sure due to the massive man’s mask, but he can feel Den’s eyes roll. “Keep an eye on this one, in case he isn’t friendly,” Felazo warns Den.

Den nods as Felazo and Ren move across the plank onto their ship. Felazo gives the pair of former pirates va Cotropla a smile. “If I recall, you were planning on aiding us in finding and rescuing your compatriots?”

The one-armed man nods. The woman looks at him. “Are you sure they can?”

“Evidently, he has a book that tells him the secrets, and is from one of your caravans so he understands the sea’s flows as well as you.”

“Is that so?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.

Felazo shrugs. “You know as well as I what the rules are. I cannot judge you, only Lisato or Zeltaro can, and leaving your people here without at least nominal rescue efforts would be a dishonor to the most honorable and eldest of caravan, that v’Icria,” he explains.

The woman chuckles. “Third most honorable, you trade with the newcomers too oft to be the most anymore.”

Felazo grins as he leads the pair, and Ren, to his cabin, adding, “A slayer va Cotropla lecturing me on ethics and honor? My my, standards have risen in the last few years.”

Ren shrugs. “I be unsure whether you know anything at all of standards, most controvertible captain. After all, thou didst gather us fleetingfolk and criminals under thy banner v’Icria.”

“Criminals, you say?” the one armed man asked, a bit of concern on his face. Odd for a pirate, Felazo mused, until he remembered that they had killed the man’s friend and are currently holding several of his people hostage.

“Den hails from the Kinslums of the United Cities, so being alive is practically a crime, and Sari is a huntress who we picked up on the run in Carossa, so you can guess what she did,” he says, avoiding lying by letting the assumptions speak. “But as far as I know, you only cavort with criminals and the Sister does neither, outside of the crew.” Then, shaking his head, he unrolls his map of the archipelago. “So, where and when did the destruction of your ships take place? Your companion was unsure of the details, but I suspect you not to be, given your background.”

The assassin grunts. Looking at the map, she checks to make sure. Placing a finger on one of the isles she asks, “This is where we fought, no?”

Felazo nods as the woman begins to trace her path back to where they had fought the beast of these waters. “Right there, on the edge of this area you have marked,” she says. Which does mean that the creature protecting this place has likely not expanded its territory too greatly. A good first sign, at least.

From there, the sailor begins to sketch on the map with a charcoal. “We can’t be sure of the ebbings, though if one took their wood to this else,” Felazo says, drawing a line, “One can assume the matching ebbings would be such.” and he begins to draw the flows he would guess to be occurring, along with the proper currents of the place. Any of the fleet to make it to land, they can make their way to those areas where the probable ebbings would take the shipscraps left uneaten.