Night One, 12 AM (36 Hours Remaining)
Olaf cautiously put his hands up, keeping his eyes on the pirate currently poking his forehead with the flintlock. This wasn't the Rift, and he wasn't coming back if he died here, so he didn't feel like doing anything stupid at the moment. "Miss Fortune, ma'am?" he said hoarsely. "We have new guests."
Miss Fortune bit her lower lip. She wasn't surprised Redbrand's crew crashed the party, but she also wasn't exactly prepared for them, and the situation just became that much more delicate. "Let them in." she finally told Olaf.
Olaf looked at the lead pirate, a greasy-haired rapscallion with an elegant-looking velvet eyepatch, and slowly began to back away as the corsair holstered his pistol, and motioned for the crew to enter the building with him.
Back at their seats, Mordekaiser had leaned over to Karthus. "How did they know he was here?" he whispered.
"I'd wager half of the town saw you and Yorick dragging Redbrand in here." Karthus responded quietly as Olaf sat back down. "Do you honestly think these pirates wouldn't have used force to make someone talk?"
The pirate crew began to circle around the Pentakillers' table like wolves, or more appropriately, bloodthirsty sharks, leering viciously at the bandmembers and Miss Fortune, until they settled into a half-circle formation around the band's seats. Captain Redbrand, still seated at the other side of the table, was grinning maniacally, but whether it was the joy of being rescued, or the Freljordian ale in his veins, was anyone's guess. "Will ye lay yer eyes on this?" Redbrand laughed. "Me crew has come to save me! Ain't it a touching thing, Fortune?"
"Just don't do anything stupid." Miss Fortune replied, but she was not looking at Redbrand as she spoke. Instead, she was looking at the Pentakillers out of the corner of her eye.
"Are you talking to us?" Olaf asked.
"Shut up!" Miss Fortune hissed.
Mordekaiser was a little annoyed at the Bounty Hunter barking orders to his bandmembers, but he noticed something interesting. Unlike him and the rest of the band, Miss Fortune had her hands hidden under the table. The Master of Metal hoped that she had an idea.
"See, ye undead freaks?" Redbrand continued babbling. "This here is why I ain't afraid of ye. All my boys have to do is stand here, and you're sitting quietly in your chairs like ladies at a tea party, shaking like the piles of bones ye are! Champions? Ha! Why don't we replace that title with somethin' a wee bit more fittin'? How about cowards?"
The band found themselves surrounded by scathing laughter as the crew guffawed loudly at Redbrand's comment. Mordekaiser, however, could faintly hear the distinctive sound of metal clicking against metal under the table. A wave of relief washed over Pentakill's guitarist; Miss Fortune had her pistol under the table, and she had turned off the safety while the crew was distracted with their captain's comedy act.
A sound of a clearing throat broke through the chortling, however, and a single pirate approached Redbrand, whispering something in the captain's ear as he untied the rope keeping him in his chair. It was the one-eyed pirate who had first drawn his pistol on Olaf, and he seemed to be glaring at Miss Fortune as he mouthed something to Redbrand.
"Oh? Good eye, and I do mean just one." Redbrand, now free of the rope, leaned forward, eyeing everyone seated at the table. "My first mate here has just given me a very good idea. It ain't just enough to have you all sitting here." Redbrand suddenly smiled a gnarled, toothy smile. "Hands up, all of ye."
"And you believe Pentakill will ever grant you the pleasure of a surrender?" Mordekaiser growled.
"It hasn't even been twenty minutes yet!" Olaf groaned.
"Shut up, Olaf." Mordekaiser and Yorick muttered in unison.
"Aww, now, now, that's not what this is about." Redbrand said in mocking reassurance. "This is all about trust, ye see. We don't want any hard feelings between us, do we? So we've gotta know there's no funny business going on. Now, get those hands up before things get messy."
"Just do what he says." Miss Fortune grumbled, but she did not lift a finger.
"Then what are you-" Karthus's question was interrupted by a metallic clang as Mordekaiser cuffed the back of his head, very nearly knocking off his mitre. When the Deathsinger turned his head to scowl at Mordekaiser, he was shocked to see that the wraith had raised his hands up, his armored elbows resting against the table.
"Just do it, Karthus, all of you." Mordekaiser said quietly, making sure to keep his gaze off of Miss Fortune. The less attention on her the better, and she was already in a sticky situation with that.
Karthus sighed, placing his book, closed, on the table and lifting his withered hands into the air. Olaf and Yorick quietly followed suit, dropping their axes and shovel with audible clangs to the floor.
Redbrand nodded as he scanned the opposite end of the table. "Good, very good. Nice to know zombies aren't completely stupid. Maybe there's hope for ye after all. But not everyone's hands are up, are they?" Redbrand looked straight ahead to stare at Miss Fortune. "Yer turn, missy. Everyone's waiting."
Miss Fortune only glared in response. She could feel the whole crew's eyes on her now, and that complicated things. She was good, but she was no Fiora when it came to speed. By the time she drew her pistol, the pirates would all be on her. If she did nothing, same results. Only one question remained: Was she going to surrender to lousy, no-good murderers and tarnish her reputation forever, or was she going to go down like the defiant mistress of the open seas that she was?
The answer was simple.
"Not going to listen, eh?" Redbrand shook his head. "Such a stubborn wench. All right, take the first one to her right."
Before anyone could react, there was a scuffling of chairs, and Karthus had been yanked out of his seat, and put into a headlock by that nasty-looking first mate, who was now gleefully keeping his flintlock against the side of Karthus's head.
Miss Fortune swiftly rose from her seat, pointing her own gun at the first mate, but not without several pistols from the crew clicking to life in response. It had become a classic Bilgewater standoff.
Redbrand only chuckled, applauding slowly, not even bothering to stand up from his seat. "Well, lass, I ain't surprised. Now it's yer move. Go on, try yer luck."
Miss Fortune gave a sideways glance to Mordekaiser. It was his bandmate who had been taken hostage, after all.
"Go ahead, he can take the hit if you miss." Mordekaiser said with a shrug.
"Lord Mordekaiser, I hate you." Karthus muttered, his hands still struggling in vain to loosen the first mate's grip on him. The Institute had no tolerance for champions committing murder most foul once they signed League contracts, but there was nothing in the rules against clear-cut self-defense. Normally, he could just sing and summon his choir to teach the pirate a lesson, but his fatal mistake was closing the songbook as he put it on the table. If that book was shut and not in the Deathsinger's hands, it may as well have been a very strange cookbook, as it had no power, and everyone knew it... everyone in Pentakill, at least.
"Ah, but if she fires one shot, me crew will be puttin' a few new holes in her." Redbrand smiled. "Ye be trapped like a Zaun sewer rat, Fortune!"
Miss Fortune concealed a grimace. Redbrand was right. Whatever direction she took this, all hell was going to break loose...
"Then let's give her somewhere to hide!" Olaf bellowed a war cry as he lifted a leg to kick the table as hard as he could. The wooden table lifted a few inches into the air, and Karthus's songbook flew up towards the ceiling. The crew, momentarily distracted by the book, watched in confusion as gravity took hold, and the book's leathery cover inched open, the pages within fluttering in the air.
It was the moment Karthus had been waiting for. Overjoyed that Olaf had done something brilliant for a change, he screamed in a high falsetto. The tables were about to literally be turned.
The next few seconds were chaos. A swirling vortex of wailing spirits was now spiraling around the pirate crew, shrieking gleefully as they lashed out at any living mortal within their reach. The pirates themselves, meanwhile, were moaning in fear, some of the more panicked individuals even trying in vain to shoot the ghosts, hitting their own crewmates and adding howls of pain to the cacophony. Mordekaiser held back an amused laugh, already feeling strength flowing through him. It was all coming together now.
The first mate cursed in terror, dropping Karthus to the floor. Underneath the crossfire, the Deathsinger crept forward to pick his book up off of the tavern's floor, when he saw razor-sharp metal shards begin to fly around him.
"Karthus, move!" Mordekaiser's voice shouted over the noise. Karthus glanced up to see that Mordekaiser had stepped in front of Miss Fortune, and bullets were now pinging off of his dimly glowing armor. The pirates' anguish was keeping him from suffering any serious damage, and he was playing the role of a shield magnificently. Those same shreds of metal were also circling Mordekaiser's body, and any pirate who attempted to get close found themselves receiving more than a few cuts and scrapes.
Karthus found that his body felt unusually light, and he could move at faster speeds than before. If he had still been human, he would have called it an adrenaline rush, but that wasn't the case. It must have been Mordekaiser's metal shielding that he had been granted. Deciding to give himself an even further advantage, Karthus set up a protective wall directly behind him as he sprinted to get behind his bandleader. If that wall could slow down Corki's flying scrapyard, surely it could slow down bullets. The Deathsinger rushed away from the panicking crew, watching as bullets whizzed slowly past his head and body. He may have been obsessed with death, but this wasn't the sort of death he liked. Transcending from one form of existence to the next was meant to be a blissful, beautiful transition, not a mess such as this. Karthus decided that he was not going to let this sort of disgrace happen to him, not tonight, not ever.
"Don't let these zombies get ya!" Redbrand roared, rising from his seat. "Take them dow- What the?" Redbrand felt himself pulled backwards, and he turned his head to see that Yorick had now taken a tight hold of him.
"You're not going anywhere..." he whispered darkly. "Lord Mordekaiser! The bar!"
"Fortune, get back there with Yorick and provide cover! Olaf, you're with me! Karthus, keep those walls up!" Mordekaiser's orders echoed through the tavern as the Master of Metal picked up his trusty mace, the steel sparking into new life at his touch.
Yorick and Miss Fortune sprinted behind the bar, the Gravedigger still dragging Captain Redbrand behind him. "Why don't we just let him go and they can leave?" Miss Fortune asked Yorick as she poked her head out to fire a shot into the crowd of corsairs.
"They've insulted Pentakill's honor by stealing our wagon!" Yorick replied. "We're not going to take that sitting down!"
"That piece of junk really means that much to you?"
"Don't let Lord Mordekaiser hear you say that."
"Too late!" Mordekaiser snarled as he sent a pair of pirates flying into a nearby wall with a swing of his mace, knocking a few decorations off with the impact. "We'll discuss that at a more appropriate time, Fortune!"
The brawl continued without any signs of stopping, with furniture, mugs, metal, bullets, ghosts, and ghouls crowding the floors and flying through the air. Anyone outside would have only heard what sounded like a muffled thunderstorm through the heavy doors of Fortune's Favor, but the silhouettes in the windows told an entirely different story to the streets of Bilgewater. It was a miracle that the tavern was even still standing, considering the scene inside.
All that suddenly came to a halt, however, with the opening of a door.
The comabt ceased as Sona appeared, staring at the bar-turned-battlefield from the end of the hallway leading to the tavern's rooms. The pirates seemed to be entranced by the Maven's beauty, and the Pentakillers simply didn't want to hurt her.
Sona finally stopped staring, and walked over to the bar, holding an empty cup in her hand. Despite her distaste for alcohol, she was unavoidably thirsty. Unable to tolerate the tonic water a second time, she settled on a nearby bottle of Demacian-made white wine, letting the drink fall gracefully from its bottle into her glass. Before she could lift the glass to her lips, however, Redbrand suddenly stood up from under the bar, grabbing Sona around the waist.
Miss Fortune whirled around to point her gun at Redbrand, but the captain was ready, holding Sona in front of him. "Ye sure about that, wench?"
"Can't you just shoot him?" Yorick asked in a hoarse whisper.
"Unless my name magically changes to Caitlyn, no." Miss Fortune replied. "I'll end up hitting Sona."
"Glad to see ye've got some common sense in ye." Redbrand said with a sadistic smile as he sauntered over to the tavern's door. "Let's see if yer friends are smart enough now."
The Pentakillers didn't move. There was nothing they could do that wouldn't put Sona at risk in the process.
"Good choice, lads." Redbrand nodded. "Seems ye had some beautiful treasure after all. We thank ye fer that. Let's go, boys." And with that, the crew filed out of the tavern, taking Sona with them.
"Damn them..." Karthus rasped. "Now they've got Sona, too..."
"They won't get away with this..." Yorick growled.
"So what do we do now, Mordekaiser?" Olaf asked.
Miss Fortune turned to look at Mordekaiser, with the rest of the Pentakillers. "They said they were taking their ship and sailing out in the morning... We still have a chance."
"Then we need to come up with a plan." Mordekaiser concluded. "Olaf, Fortune, the two of you get some rest, you'll need it. Those of us who don't need sleep will spend the night more productively. Tomorrow morning, we'll take the attack to Redbrand. He'll be sorry he ever trifled with Pentakill!"
Sorry for the unannounced hiatus (real-life always seems to come a-knocking), but I hope this lengthier chapter makes up for it! It seems like the stakes are just growing higher and higher for our metal-loving heroes! All they wanted was their wagon back! xD