Chapter Twenty-Six: Desperation and Pirates
Watch out for light gore.
Estormo was not happy with the situation - the deck was in chaos and he was surrounded by fools.
The sailors were struggling in combat against the pirates. But what did he expect, really? They followed the orders of a child in a man's body. An idiot who doomed them to this situation through his unrealistic optimism. Numbers did not immediately equal might, and time was often more valuable than both.
If there had been more time, he could have set up runes along the deck.
A blast and another pirate went down, tunic scorched and burning. He scowled.
If there had been more time, he could have summoned a frost atronach.
But there hadn't been more time.
He dodged. Then ducked beneath a man swinging in from above on a rope. a sailor was downed by a wide sword-swing, but at least the man managed to gut his killer before he went down. Two more bodies lying on the deck. He blinked away images of bloody snow.
Estormo charged up a lightning bolt.
The pirate in front of him had a broken arrow shaft sticking out of his side, visibly pale. Estormo shook off memories of other arrows - wraiths in a blizzard - and focused. There was no time for memories now.
The pirate was injured, but still standing. Estormo watched as one hand went to his side, pulling out a bent piece of metal and holding it out shakily. As if it could block any spells. It was a bastardized creation of the Dwemer, no doubt, but what did it do? It wasn't powering up like any stave would, and there were no strings to pull back. Frowning, he readied a lightning bolt. Let the man try to get any closer with his defective chunk of metal, he was prepared to strike first.
The lightning shot out furiously, but Estormo grimaced as his target twisted around the strike.
He had missed the man.
It was only a small comfort that the deck was packed tight enough that even a miss could take out the men behind the pirate.
But still. A miss was a miss.
Unacceptable.
Sensing movement from his side, Estormo ducked under an incoming sword and shocked the interloper, who collapsed bonelessly. Grimly, he turned to locate his original target. The man was holding the contraption out again.
Estormo was charging up for a finishing lightning bolt when someone gasped behind him.
"Put up a ward! Now!"
Running on instinct, he dropped the lightning bolt and cast a ward - wide and powerful enough to stop whichever fool had decided to sneak around him.
Then came the sound of shattering glass and a gasp as his magicka all but disappeared. But it hadn't come from behind.
Estormo staggered, staring at the little dwemer contraption in the pirate's hands. His vision was blurring, but he noted that the piece of metal was smoking - it had broken after the one use.
Good. The man was defenseless.
Now all he needed was to recharge his magicka enough for a finishing strike. Or enough to see straight.
He narrowed his eyes and the man glared. But Estormo's hands were tied. His magicka was all but completely gone, and a few weak sparks would not take down this pirate.
He shifted on his feet, looking around for any weapons to use. There was the sword of a dead pirate, abandoned near the railing.
The man across from him shifted a foot forward, unknowingly placing himself between Estormo and the sword. They both scowled.
Estormo moved on and angled himself to keep the man in his sight, still searching out of the corner of his eye. A few arrows were lying on the ground next to a cut bow and there was axe across the deck still lodged in its last victim. He scowled. Both were too far to reach.
Then the man raised a hand to a pocket.
Estormo stiffened and brought up a hand full of sparks, focusing solely on channeling magicka into the spell. The man froze. Estormo moved cautiously - he could charge a bolt up now, but it would come at the cost of essentially hamstringing him for the rest of the battle. A mage with no mana is no mage at all. He would not be a walking target if he could prevent it.
The man slowly inched his hand up - likely believing himself stealthy. He was moving slow - slow enough.
Estormo waited. He could feel his magicka and focus trickling back faster than the hand was moving. He waited until the pirate had nearly reached his pocket, and then with a whispered command word his lightning intensified.
The man cursed and dodged toward the barrels. Estormo sneered.
He cast the lightning bolt toward the pirate.
He didn't miss.
xXxXxXxXxXx
Evelyn stared from afar. Blinked.
She could see the gun where it had fallen - lying a few feet away from the dead pirate. Her stick may be pitiful, but a gun... She could repel pirates from far, far away. Another blink. It was also from Earth - it had to have come from Earth. Her home.
She shook herself. She needed the gun.
She scanned the fighting in front of her. There were two men wrestling for a blood-soaked axe. Some people lying on the ground. Not moving. Not dangerous. She shifted on her feet and took a deep breath in. Looked both ways to be sure.
Then she dashed for the dead man. Dodged the two wrestling on the ground. Slipped behind a glaring pirate.
Only a few more steps and-
She skidded into a pirate.
They both fell down. But she had a goal and she was already moving. She scrambled the last few feet and lunged for the pistol.
The next moment she was up and pointing it at the pirate.
He backed away slowly, eyes wary. She could see his sword lying on the ground behind him.
But then there was an arm around her throat and she was twisting her arm up to shoot and pulling the trigger.
Nothing happened.
And she felt cold wash down her spine as her jumbled mind pieced the issue together.
Of course it didn't fire - it was a barrel-fed pistol, after all, and it had already been shot.
The cold feeling intensified and her throat was too tight. She couldn't make any noise above a strangled whisper. How could she have been so stupid?-
And then she was being dragged away from the rest of the fighters. Toward the newly arrived ship.
xXxXxXxXxXx
Sergius felt a strange sense of foreboding when his staff ran out of charges again. He only had one more soul gem to use for a refill, after all, and the fighting was too dense to risk a soul trap spell. He could only hope the staff could last until they finished off the dwindling pirate forces.
He started cursing when he heard fighting starting up behind him.
It seemed the other ship had finally arrived with backup for the first attackers. Sergius gritted his teeth and slammed another pirate into the deck with his staff. A quick jab and the man's skull was caved in. Sergius turned toward the newcomers, shouting at the sailors in warning.
They were not done with the pirates yet.
xXxXxXxXxXx
Evelyn was thrown against the deck by the pirate. Broken arrow shafts dug into her back. It was difficult to breathe outside of gasps.
The gun was ripped from her hand and tossed away as her arms were forced behind her. One of them twisted awkwardly.
The pirate crouched down and held a sword to her neck. He was going to kill her. She was going to die!-
"Do your damned job, woman!"
She blinked.
What job?
"What do you mean, 'what job?!' You know what I'm talking about!"
Oh, she said that out loud.
Quick little breaths. Breathe in and out.
"Don't play innocent with me, witch! Your superior knows!"
Evelyn gulped. What was he talking about?-
She worked up her courage. "What superior?"
The sword cut through skin. Shouts from somewhere behind her head - where she couldn't see. Breathe. Need to feel behind me-
"Witch. If you're here then that means you met him. Made a deal. He said the only reason we were dragged out was to remind you of yours."
"...Who..." Her eyes flickered over the pirate. He looked positively filthy. Unkempt hair and tattered clothes. She shrunk into the deck. "...What said this?"
He glared at her with venom and wild eyes. He pulled back the sword. She took the opportunity to shift her hands a few inches.
"Stop acting like you don't know! I'll kill you if you don't, damn the consequences!"
He was mad. Insane. Unhinged. All of the above.
She fiddled with the deck beneath her back, grasping desperately for one of the arrows. She only needed one. The pirate seemed to take it as desperate struggling and leaned in closer to her face.
"All you need to do, witch, is do. Your God-damned. Job."
She pulled away from the stale breath, but didn't move too far - she could feel an arrow's shaft. It was broken but the arrowhead was still there!-
The pirate continued in a soft, dangerous tone. "Don't make it any harder than it has to be."
She gripped the shaft. Pulled.
The arrow shaft came out, but the arrowhead didn't. It was stuck.
The man leaned in, still talking about deals and promises she had no memory of.
Her breaths grew shorter. She was running out of time. She ran her hand over the deck again and -there- found the arrowhead.
The pirate was pushing the sword closer and she needed to get away.
"I haven't made a deal with anyone here!"
He frowned. "Lying is unladylike."
The sword bit in more. "But I guess you're no lady, acting like you belong in this hell."
She could feel a thin line of blood dribble down her neck. The sword hadn't cut deep. Yet.
She twisted her hands around the arrowhead and began wiggling it out. She needed to buy some time. If only her hands could stop shaking.
She glanced up at him with what she hoped was a curious look. "Where are you from?" America? Europe? Asia?
There was a brief pause.
Then the pirate smiled a grim smile - the smile of the defeated. "Not here."
The sword cut again. He frowned.
"Sweet talk and denying don't change the fact that you're trapped here until you follow the rules! We're trapped here until you learn!"
Controlling her breathing, she blinked. Another tug or two and it would be out. She could feel the arrowhead shifting.
"Yet again - I don't know what you're talking about."
His face reddened, twisting into a sneer as he stepped closer. He moved the sword to point it at her neck directly.
"Don't try to bullshit the questions! You were brought here for a reason, he said, and he wants you to pay up! You need to play the part!"
She took a halting breath. Her voice cracked. "Yet again - I haven't made any deals with anyone."
There! The arrowhead was out. She palmed it and prepared to escape.
"The devil thinks otherwise, and he doesn't like dissent."
She paused as her stomach lurched.
"So you work for the devil?"
He was silent, his face twisting into a grimace. The sword lowered.
She felt her hands grow cold. A Daedra?
"Did the devil have horns?" She readied the arrowhead.
The pirate was shaking now - and not with anger. His eyes grew glazed.
"Please, just keep your promise." A hollow breath. "He said you promised."
She inched her hand a bit closer. "Did he have four arms?" Mehrunes Dagon? "A pet dog?" Clavicus Vile?
Who was it that brought her here to this medieval frozen nightmare?
The pirate blinked down at her, with one arm hidden behind her back, and his eyes narrowed. He made to grab the collar of her robes. She acted. A quick stab at his hand and the sword dropped. He jerked back and she slipped away, kicking his sword nearly over the railing as she went. She stumbled to her feet and backed away on shaky legs as the pirate stood frozen.
She waved the arrowhead around as if it were a spear and not the equivalent of a tiny toothpick of a dagger.
After the moment of disbelief, blood began running out of the pirate's wrist. His face darkened. He opened his mouth once, then twice, then closed it. He lunged for her.
He hadn't even bothered to retrieve the sword.
She was shuffling away when there was a flash of light and ozone. Her hair rose with the leftover static.
The pirate dropped, a sparking scorch mark on the back of his neck, and she looked over to see Sergius leaning on his staff, his face stiff.
"Get over here, novice, Urag will have my head if I forget to bring you back in one piece."
A glance around the deck. The last few pirates were surrounded and she could see someone with a bow preparing to shoot. The pirates had lost. But bodies from both sides still littered the deck.
She shivered and obliged.
Who, exactly, dragged me here?
The clean up was nearly as messy as the fight itself. There was nowhere to put the bodies besides the sea, and the sailors refused to give the pirates an honorable sea burial. So here she was, dragging another mutilated corpse over to the railing, where a sailor - she didn't know any of their names - either hefted the body into the ocean, or set it aside like a friend who was only sleeping.
The pirates were food for the ghosts, they said.
They wanted to honor their dead with a sea-pyre, as was the Nord way, they said.
Evelyn shivered and kept her eyes blank. The wind was blowing strongly again. She couldn't feel her fingers.
She just wanted to stop seeing blood everywhere she turned.
But a devil brought me here, so the blood is fitting.
The next chore was to transfer all the supplies to the pirate's ship. While the Sea Squall was bloody and maimed, the two pirate ships were still intact, and they needed to reach Solitude. Though with the sudden loss of mouths to feed, the pressure to get off was more psychological than a lack of sufficient rations.
As a result, Captain Wayfinder was losing the Sea Squall and gaining an unnamed pirate ship.
Not the "Queen Mary's Revenge," though. None of the sailors knew what to do with the cannons, and there weren't enough people to man the sails on the ship anyway. And despite her knowledge that the ship was likely more seaworthy than anything any group could build in this medieval-fantasy world, she couldn't bring herself to even consider using it.
The ship was strange and unusual to the sailors. The pirates had been strange and unusual, too. She didn't want to be labeled strange and unusual before she could find an excuse for it.
Evelyn only looked down to avoid tripping as she helped carry crates. There were dark stains on the deck that she didn't want to see any more than necessary.
She could continue the quest to fix things and work her way back to Earth, or drop everything to investigate this - whatever this was.
Follow my goals? Or the job that I was never told about?
Evelyn mindlessly fiddled with her robes, ignoring the dark stains. She could wash them out later. Or get new clothes entirely. An exhale and she focused back on the choice at hand.
It would have been easier if the new 'quest' wasn't related to daedra.
She could remember the Daedric quests from Skyrim clear enough. Kill hunters or a cursed werewolf, torture a priest to death, and betray countless friends for power. Eat corpses, deal with a madman before discarding him, and run into a disease-infested ruin. Kill to get a dagger for better killing, delve into the mind of a madman, nearly marry a hagraven while drunk, and kill a previous cultist for running away. Most involved killing, betrayal, or sickness of some kind. Occasionally a combination of the three.
...The only relatively decent Daedric quests she could remember were ousting a cowardly orc chief, defeating the Azura's Star hijacker, and clearing a temple of shades.
She looked up to the sky.
She was brought here by something - likely a daedric prince - and she didn't know which one.
But if she thought about it - the meddling involved in her arrival and the pirates' desperation... her situation reeked of the more... dangerous daedra.
The schemers. Ones she didn't want to get involved with. Ever.
She thought back to her dreams in Dawnstar. Nightmares and insane cultists in a tower frozen in time.
A job for a Daedra rarely ends well for anyone.
But if they brought me here, they could send me back, right?