"Yes, to a point." James replies.  "They know you're on board, but not who you are."

James glances around quickly and considers his options, limited as they are.

"Can you try to guide this new first mate: Command the crew?  I'll pass the order, then go and help the Captain."

Without waiting for a reply (after all asking Benedict whether he could take command was kind of superfluous) James steps to the hatch, ducks his head down below-decks and yells.

"If you can't contain it, flush it into the open!  More sailors are coming!"

James then turns and runs for the Captain, and the wheel.

As James reaches the helm, three of the crew make for the Captain, who is now, at least, cursing coherently.  She spots James, near the madly spinning wheel, and yells at him, "Don't touch it lad, it'll snap yer arm!"  One of the sailors asks her something, and her irritable reply indicates that she's thinking straight, "Are ye puddled?  My leg's busted, of course I can't stand up!"

The crewmembers assigned to help with the intruder find themselves happily accepting careful and precise orders from the new hand who signed on in Cadiniagart.  Why that should be, they probably couldn't say, but he seems to know what he's talking about, so there's likely no harm in obeying his instructions.

Fennse, the newly promoted First Mate, reappears with his arms full of assorted cutlasses, long knives, and boarding axes.  He starts distributing them among the crew, but Benedict stops him...  "New plan.  Only give them to men who know how to use them."  He takes one of the cutlasses, and his whole stance seems to change, adjusting to the added weight in a heartbeat.

"Stay up here and stand ready.  I'll drive it out."  He starts towards the hatch...


In a hail of splintered wood, the thing erupts from the deck.  A hideous, distorted ape-like thing, with too many limbs.  It's flesh is smouldering and torn, and impaled by shards of wooden debris, but the wounds are closing up even as it lands heavily on the boards, not ten feet from Tahirah.

Benedict mutters, "That was easy." and changes direction, bearing down on the creature.

James is pretty sure that if he's careful he can take the wheel without breaking his arm.  He's not so sure that the wheel would take the strain, or worse, the rudder.  So, instead of simply reaching for the wheel as he had intended, James picks up a short length of rope.  That's a line; ships don't have ropes.

Covering the palm of his hand with his jacket James twists the rope into a loop and lassoes a spoke on the wheel.  He lets the rope pass slowly through his hand and follows the turn of the wheel with his arm.  Using this crude brake he attempts to slow the wheel until he can safely grab it.

Dimly James is aware of the splintering of wood as the deck erupts.  It seems that Benedict has got his wish.  James would dearly love to watch Benedict fight but his attention is required closer at hand for the time being.

It can't be allowed time to heal...  Roman takes advantage of the ability to fly, following the creature as fast as he can to press the attack again

Tahirah holds her knife out before her, but stays where she is, already facing towards the creature.  She looks ready to be in its way, but isn't charging forward.

Banglen-Yp pauses, considering this new development.  She may have other forms more suited to dealing with the enemy in a more open environment.  Roman has no such dilema to distract him, and howls up through the hole torn in the deck, which seems to be closing up slowly, as splinters and shards of wood knit themselves back into the whole.

The creature, mostly humanoid now, at least for most of the time, but with an integument which constantly bubbles and flows as its own injuries begin to heal, turns its gaze on Tahirah, who stands nearby, brandishing a blade which seems ridiculously tiny compared to the hulking monstrosity now regarding her.

It takes a step closer, and a mass of tentacles erupt from its chest, sweeping towards the white-robed woman.  And suddenly Benedict passes in front of her, the cutlass moving as if it were a natural extension of his own arm, and each movement is the very definition of efficiency.  Severed tentacles drop to the deck.

Behind the horror, Roman appears, and his blade, burning with the hellish brilliance of a lightning bolt, slams into the things neck.  Its head lands on the deck, rolling and bouncing, only to liquify, and start to seep back towards the rest of the creature.

Briefly the shifter appears confused, until more eyes sprout from the flesh of its torso.

At the helm, James puts his efforts into stopping the wildly spinning wheel.  His considerable strength, coupled with a certain degree of intelligence, starts to slow the movement, while avoiding the dire consequences of more sudden stop.  Gradually he regains control of the ship, and the unpredictable motions of the deck cease...

Rovane, sitting propped up against the rail, points at the slithering pool of shimmering liquid as it makes its way back to the headless thing, and yells at her crew, "Don't just stend there, yer useless shower of lollygaggers!  Get that mess off my deck!"

 

From out of the hold comes Banglen-Yp, the young blonde, running.  Running faster than any normal human can.

She speeds towards and past the shifter, gently slapping it on the shoulder as she passes.

•• Tag • you are it ••

A teasing laughter and then she stop, looking at the creature with an impish smile.

 
This message was last edited by the player at 16:36, Tue 01 July 2008.

Somewhat tentatively, Tahirah slashes her knife at one of the severed tentacles as it drops past Benedict.

Roman takes advantage of the thing's distraction to viciously cut at its body.  Damaging it quicker than it can repair itself, seems to be the only way.

James keeps a firm grip on the wheel, and the ship steadies, allowing several of the crew to assist their Captain to her feet, though she is forced to lean heavily on the rail, and still requires help standing...  Others rush to do her bidding, using the tools of their trade to clean the deck of the unpleasant animated slime which is attempting to rejoin the main mass.  Buckets of water, and the dutiful application of yarn mops and barnacle scrapers soon sends the foul ooze over the side.

Meanwhile, Tahirah takes a few moments to experiment, slashing at one of the severed tentacles with her curved knife.  The blade cuts well enough, but the two independent sections produced by her attack simply grow a mouth each, full of nasty little teeth, and hiss at her, before rejoining their comrades in making their way back to their parent creature...

Between the two of them, Roman and Benedict seem to be making progress.  An odd combination, a scion of Chaos and one of the princes of Amber working together, but an effective one.  The creature's wounds are still healing, but more slowly.  There is a nasty gaping rip across what, for want of a better idea of the thing's anatomy, Benedict thinks of as its belly.  Roman is responsible for that one, and a horrible greenish fire still licks at the flesh within, producing coils of noxious black smoke.

A heavy fist, reshaping itself into a mace-like weapon, all spikes and flanges, and seething with dark energies, lashes out at the whirling storm which is Roman.  It connects, and sends the whirlwind spinning across the deck. 

Banglen-Yp's sudden reappearance, running fast, and in seemingly human shape, is unremarked, at first.  Until, laughing, she slaps the thing on one of its distorted shoulders.  And nothing happens.

James, preoccupied with the wheel to can do little to aid those fighting on the deck.  He admires the courage of his companions for confronting the monster, but is perplexed by their tactics, particularly Banglen-Yp's.

He tries to look ahead and anticipate the shapeshifter's reactions.  If they push it into the water will it disperse or regroup?  How fast will it be able to swim?

"Captain.  Can we put on more sail?  If we get that thing overboard I'd like to know we can leave it behind."

 

•• Strike it now ••

The cheerful blonde calls out her encouragement and then rushes at the peculiar enemy again.

This time, however, instead of tagging it, she leaps up as if attempting to jump over it while doing a somersault and a spin, placing her upside-down of the shifter and facing the way she is leaping.   The impression is odd, as if she was a cheerleader doing some advanced exercise rather than someone fighting for her life.

In her hands there are now two blades, although from where they came it anyone's guess.  The fact that the long blond hair is a bit shorter is a detail few can pick up on.

 
This message was last edited by the player at 06:08, Sat 05 July 2008.

Spitting lightning, the angry storm cloud rises above the deck.  The thunder quietens, as Roman moves above the fight, only to descend at full speed, directly towards the shapeshifter, the green-tinged ligtning, pointing directly towards the thing.  Just as he reaches the apparent range of the weapon the thing used before, Roman slips to one side, shifting the orientation of Wormwood's lightning so that the full length strikes the creatures upper body.

Her experiment concluded, Tahirah takes a step back to keep out of the way of the rather devastating sailor in front of her.  Then a card appears in her hand again, and she begins weaving odd patterns in the air.

"Aye lad, that we can do!" Rovane spares James a grin, though there is still a lot of pain evident in her eyes.  She throws her head back, and yells, "Step lively yer shower of lubbers!  Give her all the sail she'll take, and then give her more!"

In the ocean, where the strange ooze has been dumped into the water, there is a commotion, as flesh tries to coalesce from the liquid... and a triangular fin breaks the surface, followed by another, and another.  Soon the area is filled with sharks, tearing the flesh apart as quickly as it can form.

"All of Dagon's hounds are snapping at our heels!  Make sail!"

Tahira moves back, giving Benedict more room to move, and she starts to work on... something.  Lines of energy trail the movements of her hands, knotting themselves into skeins of force which shimmer and coil before her.  Benedict, meanwhile, continues to battle the creature, driving it a little further away from the white-robed woman.

The armed sailors take the opportunity to move in and start hacking at the fallen parts of the creature, impaling them and flicking them over the rail.  Rovane may berate them occasionally, but they show remarkable intelligence in not getting too close to the shifter itself.

Something changes.  The surface of the thing's shoulder bubbles, and a hard, stone-like crust starts to develop there, spreading slowly down the arm, and across the body.  The shifter howls, a sound to chill the bone, and another pair of arms sprout from behind the shoulder to start tearing at the stony layer as it spreads.

In another highly unorthodox move, Banglen-Yp launches a seemingly suicidal attack on the foe, leaping straight over it, and slashing down with her new blades.  Two deep wounds open across the things upper chest, only to start closing up again almost immediately, as the blonde lands safely on the deck, with all the grace of a cat.  Engaged in battling the aggressive Benedict, with one of its limbs quickly becoming a useless slab, the monstrosity barely gives her a thought...

... though Roman does notice, as he strikes a fraction of a heartbeat later.  His own blade, burning with the force of a lightning bolt, slams into the shifter's chest, burning a new injury across the two fresh wounds.

The horror shrieks as Wormwood bites deep, reopening the two partly healed injuries, while adding even more damage to the thing's body.

Tendrils of energy reach out from the glowing pattern of force before Tahira, spreading out across the deck, to brush, almost tenderly against the monstrous thing's skin, and as they do, it shudders...

 

Landing with ease that should not be, the girl tosses her hair around and fires of a brilliant smile.

•• Losing control • are you ••

The odd but beautiful blonde taunts the shifter with that peculiar and, most likely, rhetorical question.

With that, and a hauntingly cheerful laughter, she launches herself at the shifter anew, her still long hair flowing behind her.  However, the two blades in her hands now appears to be longer as well as far more vicious looking compared to a few moments ago, whereas the hair indeed is shorter still.

Evidently the little lady is attempting to run the enemy through with her twin serrated, barbed blades, as she sprints straight for it.

 

The thing seems to be succumbing but it isn't down yet.  Allowing the stony substance to spread, Roman directs his attacks against the thing's other flank.  The more reflective part of Roman's mind almost feels sorry for the demon, it's aility to adapt overwhelmed by the sheer variety of threats.

Tahirah stands still and serene, only her arm moving, as it continues to weave her patterns in the air.

James is impressed: with the Captain for overcoming her evident pain; with her crew for standing up to the monster and for fighting with more brains than bravado; and with the ship for not coming apart at the seams (although he wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Tahirah had a hand in that).

Still, there'll be time enough for congratulations when the fight is over.  James concentrates on following any commands from the Captain about the ship's heading.  He also keeps half an eye on the fight and calls a warning if any seems warranted.

The stone surface spreads, and patches start to appear in other sections of the thing's body.  Where the gray sprouts, the shifter loses its ability to shift, and to heal.  Not that it seems to have much of that ability at the moment.  Wounds stay open, and stinking ichor flows from them, some of them turning to stone and spreading the odd immutability across even more of the creature.

Benedict and Banglen-Yp hack at the monster, to good effect, now that the injuries no longer close as quickly as they are opened.

Roman though, is the one doing the real damage now... every wound given by Wormwood smoulders and burns, spewing streamers of putrid smoke.  In retaliation, the shifter can only flail about with one arm, as the majority of its efforts seem to go into tearing away its own rapidly-hardening skin.

Tahirah stands nearby, still moving her hands in an endless sequence of gestures, as if performing some bizarre dance, and seemingly well-pleased with the results.

Rovane turns to James, a grimace of pain flickering across her face as her weight shifts, and becomes a forced smile, "Yer people are used to dealing with these things then?"

A glance at the sky, and she adds, "Two points to larboard."

Overhead, evry man who can be spared from duty on the deck is working to get every square inch of canvas aloft, and Seahorse speeds forward across the waves, until the sharks and their grisly feast start to fall behind.

The battle is now more of a culling, and it can't last forever.  One of the creature's legs starts to solidify, and the lack of mobility makes it an easy target.  It tries to strike at Benedict, and overbalances as Roman sinks his weapon deep into its good leg.  It falls, with a loud crash, and lays still at last.

Even the creeping fossilisation ceases...

"I've fought one of these before.  The others haven't, but they have longer experience with similar creatures." Themselves, for example.

"The way we killed the last one brought the house down around us.  So I figured we could beat this one, but we couldn't risk the ship.  She held up well, though.  Your crew too.  You should be proud."

James dutifully turns the wheel.  He remembers that the points are the spokes of the wheel but there's a twitch in the wrong direction before he works out "larboard".

 

The blonde starts clapping her hands, the blades she recently held now gone.  To those who knows such terminology she is giddy as a schoolgirl, to others merely nearly bursting with merriment.

•• It worked • it worked •• It could not shift ••

She skips about in a odd but silly little dance, causing both hair and other things to bounce about.  Grabbing hold of the nearest person, which happens to be Roman, she attempts to lead him into the dance as well.  A strange song starts up from the now rather harmless looking blonde.


 

Banglen-Yp's hands find nothing solid, only the wind and the rain.  Nevertheless Roman follows the dance, with at least no chance that anyone's feet will get trodden on as his cloud-form floats over the deck.  "Dead"

Benedict studies the solidifying mass on the deck, then points at one of the crew.  "Fetch the carpenter, tell him to bring his tools."  The sailor hurries off without questioning the request, and Benedict turns his attention to those who had fought alongside him.  They had all displayed a certain degree of talent, even if two of them did appear to be from the Courts.  With no more than a curt nod, and the merest hint of a smile to show his gratitude, the prince next looks towards the helm, where James is still holding Seahorse steady...


Captain Rovane's gratitude, though tainted by pain, is much more obvious, as she grins at James, and thanks him for his compliments, "Aye, she's a good ship, right enough.  A good bunch of lads too, but don't ye tell 'em that, else they'll think I'm getting... soft, and start... being lazy."

"Keep 'em working for me, lad."

And with that, what little colour she still possesses drains from her features, her shoulders slump, and she passes out...


She needn't worry.  The crew are are hard at work, scraping whatever remains of the creature off the deck.  The carpenter appears, almost running, despite the heavy tools he carries.  A few words (very few) from Benedict sees him using his heaviest hammer to pound at the dead thing's stony hide.  After a few blows, he drags a chisel from the tool box and starts using that, without much success.

Eventually he stands, shaking his head.  "I reckon as how it's solid, Ben, all the way through.  All I'm doin' is takin' the edge off'f me best chisel."

James, alerted by the Captain's halting speech, is just fast enough to catch her before she hits the deck and cracks her head.  He pauses only long enough to make sure the Captain is safe before moving quickly back to the wheel.

He catches the eye of the nearest sailor "Don't just stand there!  Go fetch the cook!"  James dimly remembers that the ship's cook often doubled as ship's surgeon and, having tasted the chef's restorative, he thought it all the more likely here.

"You two, take the Captain to her cabin.  Carefully mind, if she compains of more bruising later, I'll break your ribs."  James appears to be taking the Captain at her word, not that he thought they needed the extra motivation in this case.

"Fennse!  You've got the helm!"