Thom and Petrie, log

[ewancummins]

BOOM! A thunderous shot rips from the stone-paved waterfront, where the locals have wheeled up a dull bronze field gun.

The cannonball flies over Thom and Petrie and strikes the water near the pirate vessel.
The pirates shoot arrows, bolts, and harquebus balls at Thom and Petrie as the two men rush towards the safety of town. Thom is nicked by an arrow.

A dozen or more armed men leap from the burning foredeck of the ship onto the wooden pier. They rush towards the fleeing pair of arsonists, waving boarding pikes and hatchets.

Thom and Petrie reach the landward end of the pier ahead of the pirates.
Petrie wheels round, dropping the oar and yanking his bastard sword free of its scabbard.
‘’MAC LUGASH!”
He swings at the nearest enemy, wounding the man in the breast.
The pirates lunge forward in a mass, howling in their lust to cut down Petrie.
Thom sees his friend outnumbered, badly so…
The Ghastrians are busy reloading their gun.

[RocEter]

Dropping his crossbow Thom joins Petrie in the fray to help get some of these pirates off Petrie's back. Before jumping into the middle of armed combat Thom downs one of his potions.

------

OOC:
Thom will move towards the pirates but before he does he will drink a potion of Mage Armor.

[ewancummins]

Thom wades into the fray. He immediately takes two hits- one a painful scrape to the groin with a spear-- just an inch shy of making him a eunuch.

[ewancummins]

Thom and Petrie battle at the landward end of the pier, keeping the pirates back with sword and fist.
Both men are wounded, but they fight on valiantly, dropping buccaneers left and right with with Petrie's lighting fast sword strikes and Thom’s tricky boxing. Thom is pushed back, but keeps fighting, bobbing and weaving like a bantam prizefighter. Petrie swings his sword in tight, controlled arcs—then chokes up his grip and half-swords it, striking with pommel and point. Men scream, reeling away with broken noses, gashed faces, crushed ribs, and severed fingers. Thom punches a man in the throat and crushes the hapless foe’s windpipe like a rotten apple. The pirate tries to inhale, but only gasps a little before falling stone dead before the ‘mild mannered bookseller.’
The pirates turn to flee.
Someone yells ‘Fire!’
Petrie grabs Thom by the waist and leaps into the water. The weight of Petrie's body pulls them under the surface.
Thom hears a dull roar overhead, and the sound of splintering wood.
When he surfaces for air a moment later, Thom sees that the Ghastrian cannon angled to cover the pier, with smoke pouring from the muzzle. The planks are shredded in a long section, as if torn up by dozens of balls or links.

[RocEter]

Thom gasps for air he surfaces from beneath the water. He coughs a bit and nods satisfied with how things have to turned out. Wading in the water he looks around for Petrie.

[ewancummins]

Thom gasps for air he surfaces from beneath the water. He coughs a bit and nods satisfied with how things have to turned out. Wading in the water he looks around for Petrie.

Petrie bobs up, kicking hard.

''Let's get to shore"

Once both men are ashore, the Ghastrians cluster around them.

The old man that Thom had yelled at earlier is present.

''Um, sorry if that shot was a mite close. We don't get much practice. The pirates haven't attacked in a long time, but the Marquis ordered us to always keep the cannon serviceable, just in case."

[RocEter]

Thom, sopping wet, offers the old man a smile. "Not to worry, what's life with out a little excitement?" He says and then starts searching through his satchel for two potions. Handing a potion to Petrie, "Here drink this. It won't heal all your wounds but at least it will stop the bleeding and help prevent infection." He says and drinks the other potion.

After drinking the other potion, Thom looks at the old man. "I believe before the pirates rudely interupted us, we were about to introduce ourselves." He says. "I am Thom, a mild manner bookseller from Pont. The big fellow is Petrie, a fisherman from.." He starts but trails off looking at Petrie.

[ewancummins]

''The mountains."

[RocEter]

"Uh- Right the mountains." Thom says with a smile and offers the old man his hand to shake.

[ewancummins]

The old man shakes Thom's hand.

''I am Udolpho, the headman and Portmaster"

He waves a hand at the town.

''You two heroes are most welcome! You must tell me of your business on Ghastria. But first, would you like to change into dry clothing, take a bath, a meal? We are simple folk here, but our hospitality is all yours."

[RocEter]

"A pleasure to meet you Udolpho." Thom says. "Well, if our boat wasn't sunk by the pirates. We would like to unload our belongings and then change into dry clothes. After that we can discuss our business here and Ghastria."

[ewancummins]

"A pleasure to meet you Udolpho." Thom says. "Well, if our boat wasn't sunk by the pirates. We would like to unload our belongings and then change into dry clothes. After that we can discuss our business here and Ghastria."

Thom is no doubt happy to discover that his boat survived unscathed, except a tear in the sail.
Petrie helps Thom unload. When the admiring crowd of locals has thinned out, he leans in and asks-

‘’Didn’t Mister Sancerre warn us about something here? I can’t remember what.”

[RocEter]

"The local's might try and steal our foods stuffs. For appearance sake, it would better for us to have a bite to eat and a drink with the townsfolk." Thom says. "Best to make sure our precious cargo is well hidden in our room." He adds, referring more to the food stuffs than the treasure they have.

[ewancummins]

"The local's might try and steal our foods stuffs. For appearance sake, it would better for us to have a bite to eat and a drink with the townsfolk." Thom says. "Best to make sure our precious cargo is well hidden in our room." He adds, referring more to the food stuffs than the treasure they have.

''Aye."

Thom and Petrie move their things into a back room of Udolpho's house- hardly much compared with the fancy quarters at Sancerre's island chateau, but the room is clean and dry. The beds are a bit on the lumpy side, but free of crawling vermin.
A slack jawed lackey summons both men to supper--after they have bathed, changed clothes, and rested for an hour or so.
The table in the dining room is set with wooden bowls of seaweed, some gray stew of indeterminate mixture, and several jars with perforated tops.
The drooling lackey hands both men clay mugs filled with a curdled, spotted milky fluid. It looks gross, but it doesn’t smell bad. It hardly smells at all.
Udolpho, his thin and homely wife, and his two skinny bucktoothed daughters rise to greet their guests.
‘’Please, heroes, be seated. My wife cooked something special today. Kelp!”

[RocEter]

Thom looks at the prepared meal and then offers his hosts a gracious smile. If he can eat the strange foods of the Akiri people, sure he can survive eating Kelp!

"You are kind and gracious host, Uldolpho." Thom says.