Rollohi-ch407-script

Last episode, our eight heroes were spared any further highly risky heroics, as, reaching the Pavise position of the central group of buccaneers, they found those positions abandoned. 

Eryn and Kylie drop their sword points to the ground and rest warily, heedless of what else is going on. But Ingle and Xantu have done nothing but walk forward to a battle that never eventuated, and they stare about keenly. There's a strange quiescence from the south part of the villa. And then an explosion of excited cries something's going on back at the villa. We ought to go back to it. Yes, I suppose we should, Engel says wearily. He's just been telling them to get under cover of the walls, and now they've walked out over to where the enemy was supposedly attacking from, and now he has to walk back to the walls again. He feels it might well be better to just get after. Are there any tracks? he wonders. Can you see any tracks? I'm sorry, old man. The ground's been really messed up, Jack says, pausing in his looting much further to the north. Really can't tell where they all went. I don't think they flew. Then they're not up here. South, he guesses.

Here, Ingle. Something on the walls yelling at us. Getting us to get over there. Yeah, I think they want us to go back over to the walls.

Humbert yells. With a weary sigh. Ingle claps Xantu on the back. And the two, followed by the ladies, followed by Humbert, and finally Jack, with Seed Pod presumably just still hiding, head over toward the walls again. But not directly to where they had come from. This time they head to the gate. But here it's obvious that there has been some hasty barricading.

Go around to the Sallyport!

Someone on the wall cries.

Down the steps.

Oh, I know where that is, Jack says confidently, and he leads the way down to the Sallyport. It's really a private gate coming from the forcing house to the outer lane. Exegenia used it when she wanted a private walk. Excited cries and the occasional arrow shot from the wall indicate to them that the last few buccaneers have left back to the south. Back towards the ferry. Back towards possibly more victims. Now, as it happens, the manor house belonging to Sir Fuera does have a fairly high lookout point. Since this is for his leisure time, it is not used as a watchtower, and it is not currently being used as a watchtower. So unluckily, there is no lookout to call and say that the ferry is in danger. However, even though the retreat from the lines was relatively quick, the Buccaneers cannot teleport the quarter mile or somewhat less to the ferry buildings and surrounding few cottages. And even once they get there, they still have to board their keelboats and swiftly paddle out to capture the ferry boat or raft. So there are a large number of variables which, of course, in our usual fashion, we will use a d6 to decide. I have already made those dice rolls to indicate to myself the relative height of the watch lookout point on Sir Fuera's mana house, and I have already made a couple of rolls to determine that no one was looking, and which of Sephuiera's retinue might come out to assist the adventurers. And because I got uh two positives, I'm ruling that there is no call for the adventurers to come inside the wall and report to Sephuira at this stage. Indeed, what they have to report will have been witnessed by many eyes. So there is no particular call for Sephora to do other than encourage Cerborus, also known as beautiful, and Jensen, a feeble man at arms, but possessed of sharp intelligence, who does in the way of, shall we say, master of intelligence, among other things. Unfortunately, Jensen is one of those intelligence operatives who draws the wrong conclusion from everything, even though he is perfectly keen-minded and logical. There is a creek and the Sallyport door, which indeed Jack is very familiar with, since that is also the lower garden door from where Exegenia last sent him. Opens to disgorge only two individuals, but those two are well armored and well dressed. But the second figure they do not know. Over the next six combat rounds, the two connect up with the party, or those of the party that they can visibly see, introduce themselves by style, though not by sobriquet, and ask what comes next. Or, in the case of Jensen, demand suspiciously to know what hand the adventurers played in the buccaneer's onslaught. It seemed very suspicious that yo turned up at the exact same time as the attackers. Obviously, they had been following you. Oh yes, Boris. You can consider yourself under arrest for the time being. But not out arrest, oh no, not out arrest. No no no no. I'm sure there's a good chance for you all to Here he eyes the party severely. Impress Sir Fuira with your daring too if you go ahead of us put the buccaneers to the sword. Sir Fuera has kindly generously offered a coin. Get to it. Aaron looks coldly at the two, and before Ingel can say don't say anything Erin says it is a good thing we follow the law in these matters. For gentlemen, we have felled over fifty buccaneers by our own hands today, and several by magic. The unspoken threat hangs in the air between them. Then she turns on her heel and strides in the direction of the path downwards south. At about the same time there's a well we won't say an argument, but there's a discourse between Xantu and Jack.

Ah, Jack, can't help noticing that you got yourself a spare crossbow.

Yes, old man, a lovely piece. I'd say worth over a hundred silver.

I left my crossbow back.

Mind if I take it over? But I mean it is treasure, it's about the only treasure I've got, Jack says insincerely since he has actually stuffed his own purse with a number of fines on the battlefield so far.

I don't worry. It'll be going into the treasure pole once I'm done, but uh seeing as how you've got it, uh take it off your hands.

Jack, with the eyes of the others on him, has no particular reason to squabble over it, and he affably hands over the crossbow, and Xantu spends a couple of minutes assembling a good case of crossbow bolts. He's interrupted by Pod, who comes panting up from somewhere lower down towards the main path. Fullers, fullers! They're oft in danger. Wind's got a gear after the embuccaneers, quick smart. It's now fairly obvious to the party that they will have to proceed at Xantu's pace, and it must be confessed that Xantu is not in shape to run in his heavy armor. All he can do is arrange the crossbow, case of bolts, shield, and war hammer, and stolidly walk on down the path, down the winding section that leads to Lakeshore, and then along. On the positive side, this slow pace, and to be fair, Erin and Kylie are also heavily armored and are not moving any faster, does allow the party to discuss possible other alternative strategies. Remember that to them this is a crisis. The vast majority of their adventuring gear and all of their mounts are on that raft. Nothing enrages an adventurer so much as losing gear. Jack licks a finger and holds it up. I thought so. Some stage during the day, wind shifted. It's in our faces, not just because we're hurrying. The wind is coming from the south, folks. That must mean the raft was blown up from the south. That explains it. Here, without going into the minutiae of OSE movement rates, I can tell you that the party will take about ten minutes to cover the distance to the houses around the ferry jetty and on to the jetty itself. Of course, by the time they get there, they expect to be fighting. However, it will also take the earlier group of buccaneers less than seven minutes to get the same distance. And they had a number of minutes start on the party. As we've seen, there has been quite a lot of conversation, and so the party is ten minutes behind, all told, even if the fastest of them ran now, they could do little but watch the buccaneers as they choose which keelboats to take and what to do with other keelboats. Copia tears his beard as he sees the few number of Buccaneers per keelboat, including himself, Caxton, and the remaining level four, whose name incidentally is Casey. He has 21. How could it have come to this? There are 11 keelboats, and so notionally if he assigned two per keelboat, he'd still need to sink one. Kopya is intelligent and he knows they can't delay too long, and so he opts for three per keelboat. That's an absolute minimum he considers. And incidentally coming to the same conclusion that the party did. Two to man the oars, one to either use the sweep or more likely use a bow. However, leadership, including Caxton, must be reserved out of that 21. And so that's six killboats.

He roars. I want holes. Hold in them five kilos and any other jolly block you can see. No one's to be chasing us, understand? Come out of your boxes. Put your box into it.

In this kind of situation, things are very fluid and change moment to moment on the ground. First, I believe there won't be enormous numbers of axes. Second, there will need to be some thought given to getting out in advance on a couple of kill boats. And third, someone has to keep watch. It really cuts the number of buccaneers down to a minimum on either of those three fronts. Is Casey given the job of seizing the ferry? No, and she's rearguarding. She's detailed off to watch the road leading north toward the villa. That means I need to know her attributes. And having rolled those, I see that being a female has held her back from being in charge of this entire army. She has excellent attributes. Right. A wisdom perception check for Casey. She rolls a five. Miles under her wisdom of 15. I wonder what led to her life of crying. She's way too smart and wise to be doing this. Be that as it may. Copia here's a hail from Casey. And Casey ducks as a crossbow bolt. Quing just near here. Is Copia going to make an advance party to the theory? Yes, but he needs a sufficient number of buccaneers with him. At present there are six buccaneers chopping holes in the keelbox. It has taken them already seven minutes. And they're pretty much done.

Get a bar.

Caxton scuffles along the jetty, feeling horribly exposed, and leaps into Kopya's keelboat. He's joined by the bugleman who also makes a good job of it. With a nod from Kopya, the painter is unleashed and that keelboat leads the way towards the ferry. As for the ferry, during that roughly 16 minutes since I last checked its position, it has moved 100 feet, and so the distance from the jetty to the ferry is double what it had been when it was first sighted from the vantage point of the siege. Copia is not at all worried. By his expert eye, his keelboats will move three times the speed of that ferry. He stares back at the anchorage. It's been about three minutes all up, and his axemen are signalling the job is done. Five keelboats are hulled. He waves encouragement and tells his bugler to sound assemble and attack.