I know you all hate it when I do this but images to be added later because the real problem with updating is imageshack and the couple of hours it takes to upload the images. Sorry again.
UnknownBromrek woke first. He had a huge headache and his vision faded in and out of focus , but his hearing was fine and he could hear what was being said some six feet away.
“Seven days they’ve been unconscious. How do we know that they’ll recover? We’re almost there.”
“They’ll be fine. They’ve been showing some signs of life. And if they don’t wake up, we chuck them over the side.”
“They’re worth too much. Do not let your hotheadedness get the better of you. Don’t forget what they did to the mercenary band we hired.”
“Those men were unprepared fools. Well, even if they do die, we have their gear. That crossbow must be worth a fortune!”
“Yes. That was a stroke of luck. But still, keep the prisoners alive. A dead slave goes for far less than a live one.”
“Too bad we had to kill so many of them.”
“Well, we needed the food and water. And besides, fish have to eat.”
The voices chuckled and walked off. Bromrek could hear the sound of a door slamming shut, followed by the click of a lock. Oh man, what happened? His head hurt so much it felt like the room was rocking. Wait, hang on. The room
was rocking. That was… strange. Bromrek rolled over and fell out of his hammock with a
thunk. Okay. Where am I? He took stock of his surroundings as his vision returned to normal and the headache faded slowly. He was in a large square room of wood, dressed in only rags. Around him on the walls, dwarves slept. He staggered over a round window set in the wall looked out and was greeted with a spray of seawater.
(Your character is there. They’re bunk hammocks)Okay. He was on a boat. He turned to scan the bunks and saw Workerdrone snoring away loudly. He ran over and tapped him on the shoulder. When this failed to work he shouted at him to get up. This also failed. He resorted to punching him in the shoulder. Workerdrone fell out of his bed with a yelp. In a few minutes, everyone was up and milling about, some more affected by the headaches than others.
“Okay, where the hell are we?” asked Workerdrone, rubbing his head.
“On a ship, genius,” grumbled Kogan.
“I know
that,” said Workerdrone, annoyed. “I mean, what ship? And why?”
Bromrek cleared his throat.
“We’ve been captured sir. I overheard two humans discussing it. We’re meant to be slaves.”
“
Slaves?” said Workerdrone. “I’ll see everyone else dead before I become a slave.”
The dwarves tried to imagine Workerdrone as a slave, serving someone else. Their headaches redoubled.
“This is bad. Were is everyone else? We had more men than this,” asked Bardbeard
“They dumped some over the side to conserve food and water,” replied Bromrek. “they’re dead.”
The dwarves were silent and solemn for a few minutes. Then they looked up, resolve strengthened.
“Why did they leave us untied?” asked Bardbeard. “Can they be
that naďve about dwarves?”
“Evidently,” replied Barbarossa. “So, here’s what we do…”
Barbarossa knocked loudly on the door.
“Open up, you incest loving sons of dogs! We’re hungry!”
He heard a growl on the other side of the door and the sound of a key turning. He turned and nodded at Labs, the most experienced wrestler in the group. The door opened. Labs quickly assessed the threat, a tall pale human with a bushy mustache. He had a sword in it’s scabbard and a dirk sticking out of the top of his pocket. Most importantly, his groin was in line with Labs’ fist. The obvious occurred.
(I can’t believe I actually managed to fit a testicular punch in)As the human went down silently, Limul drew the dirk from his pocket whilst Tamunshin drew the sword. He quickly killed the guard and they moved into the area ahead. The guard in the next room opened his mouth and struggled to get his sword out. The dirk caught him in the throat and he went down. There were two humans, armed but not guards, fiddling with Oldbeard’s crossbow in the corner. They turned and had their heads loped off in quick succession. A cursory check of the room revealed a enormous chest which, upon further inspection, contained
all of the dwarves armor and weapons.
“That… seems… unlikely.” said Quote.
“Unlikely or not, they’re here, aren’t they?” said Workerdrone, drawing his twin axes from the mess. “Suit up boys! These bastards are going down!”
Everyone got their weapons and armor together.
“Hatch locked!” called Kogan.
“As if that’s a problem,” scoffed Bromrek. He turned to Oldbeard.
“Oldbeard!”
“What?”
“Grab your hotshot and blow open the hatch!”
“All right, all right, I’m coming.”
Oldbeard walked slowly up to the hatch, aimed his bow at it and depressed the trigger.
The hatch exploded outwards.
“Go?” inquired Ryan.
“Go,” confirmed Kogan.
The dwarves charged out onto the deck. Immediately, they came under fire from several bowmen. Dwarves dropped, but the majority made it through and managed to return fire, forcing the bowmen back. Kogan quickly scanned the ship. He was on the front part of the ship, he couldn’t recall the name of it right now, and the humans seemed to have retreated to… was it the poop deck? They were at the back of the ship and had moved back into the cabin, leaving two bowmen, half-heartedly exchanging shots with the dwarves. They were quickly brought down. The dwarves took a minute to get their breath back. Behind them was two sets of stairs, leading up but the area above was obviously empty.
(Yes Oldbeard, I’m sorry)“Okay, now we–” began Kogan.
Zwing!The dwarf next to him caught the arrow in the throat and dropped like a sack of potatoes.
“Damn. Take the cabin lads!” roared Barbarossa. Workerdrone complied immediately, followed by the rest of the lads, now several dwarves short and
extremely pissed off as a result. Workerdrone kicked the door down and they blew through the area like a hurricane, killing everyone inside. Kogan managed to merely wound one of them and dragged him outside.
“How many others are there?” he roared.
“None,” spat the human bitterly. “You have killed everyone, you scum.”
“Where are we headed then?” he asked.
“For my homeland, which we’ve just sighted. I can take you back if you promise to spare my life.”
Workerdrone loomed over the two.
“What’s this? C’mon Kogan, don’t tell me you forgot how to kill someone!” he laughed. He stabbed the human through the head.
(So there would have been more pictures but what with the update droop, I just went ‘sod it, I’m putting it up)“Damn it Olon!” roared Kogan. “We needed him to get back!”
“Well how hard is it to drive a ship?” asked Workerdrone. Kogan stood.
“Raise your hand if you know how to drive a ship?” he called. No hands were raised. He looked at Workerdrone.
“At the very least can we make it to that landmass?” Workerdrone asked, pointing out the window.
“
If we don’t scuttle the ship by accident and
if we don’t just run aground then we seem to be heading in that direction, yes,” replied Kogan.
“And what about that ship?” pointed Bardbeard.
“What?” Kogan spun round. There was a
very large ship coming towards them. Fast. In fact, it was already puling up along side them.
Shit.The boat quickly pulled up along side theirs but the humans on board were flying a white flag of peace, indicating they weren’t carrying any weapons. A man shouted out from the boat.
“May we board?”
The dwarves went into discussion. They decided that since the humans were the only people who could conceivably get them to shore, they could.
“Aye!” called Kogan. The human smiled and dropped a plank between the ships, crossing quickly. He noticed Walter, uttered a soft “ah” and walked up to him. He stuck his hand out.
“Papers please,” he said.
“What?” replied Walter.
“Papers,” the man insisted. “Do you not have your papers?”
“We’re… not from around here,” said Walter. The human looked around and noticed the dead bodies.
“Ah,” uttered the human once more. “You took this ship by force?”
“These were slavers,” said Kogan. The human looked down at him. “They had captured us. We killed them.”
“Ah,” once again. “Will you be keeping this ship?”
“You mean you don’t mind?”
“No, its salvage law. If you’re a slave and you manage to take your captors ship, it’s your ship and you’re officially a free man. Well, dwarf.”
“Oh… Kay. Well, no, we didn’t want this ship. In fact, is it possible you could give us a ride back to our nation?”
“Your… Oh, that place. I’m afraid not. The area is a high risk zone and I’ll not risk my ship or crew. I think this was the last slaver expedition to there. Quite apart from the fact that the place is extremely difficult to land on, the place is totally devoid of slaves and any expedition to the south of the coast is repulsed.
But, I can give your men a lift back to the mainland.”
He pointed at the landmass. The dwarves looked at each other. Barbarossa nodded. Before crossing the plank, Oldbeard engaged in some furious discussion with Barbarossa. Barbarossa nodded, grudgingly, and Oldbeard ran down the stairs into the hold of the ship, followed by Bromrek. They came up with two barrels each and rolled them on board the ship. Oldbeard and Bromrek looked back at the ship, loaded a bolt each, and fired in unison. The shimmering superheated balls of metal hit the ship, which caught fire.
“You really didn’t want this ship, did you?” said the human as their ship pulled away.
“Not really, no,” replied Kogan.
There were quite a long way away from the ship when it exploded.
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Topic: To venture north, into Hell: Othtar Noloc, world at war (Read 106542 times)