Chapter 17: Chapter 16- Strike Force

Rule 1: Any and all cooperative civilians, hunters, or military forces must be treated with respect and dignity. Failing to do so may result in a court marshalling.

Rule 2: Theft of any items belonging to cooperative civilians, hunters, or military forces is illegal. Stealing items or property of any of the previously mentioned groups may result in a court marshalling.

Rule 3: Do not attempt to negotiate with an annoyed lich, cyborg, magus, or other apex of combat. Doing so may result in a court marshalling, provided the offender survives their encounter with any of the previously mentioned individuals.

-Patrol Skiff Rules of Conduct

 

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Fara followed after the speeding skiff Mori boarded, grumbling as the massive paddle attached to the back kicked up sand into a cloud, “Damn pirates… Just had to dent my skiff with their outta date, piece o’ crap guns they couldn’t even be bothered to take care of…”

Unio sat in Mori’s seat, holding multiple lead slugs shot from the guns of the pirates and trying his best to seat attached to the skiff. Before long, the pirate skiff began to slow and slid to a halt a few miles from where the battle began. Sighing in relief, Fara slid to stop beside the large skiff and found a rope ladder reaching down the side, climbing it with Unio on her undead helmet.

The scene on the deck of the skiff could only be called a slaughter. A pile of dead lizardmen lay near the cabin of the top deck, blood slowly pooling around it. On the other side of the deck, her familiar lich friend stood over a lizardman in scrap armor, a dozen burning holes shot through his brain. Around her, six undead guarded a group of five lizardmen kneeling on the floor of the deck, quivering. Without noticing her, Mori turned to one of the kneeing lizardmen, “Why should I let you live?” she asked, tone so icy and distorted by her mood that it took Fara a moment to recognize the voice as her friend’s.

The shaking man’s terror only intensified with Mori’s question, “I-I d-don’t- Please spare me!” he shouted. Mori growled in disgust and kicked the man in the head again and again, knocking him out.

With an annoyed sigh, she turned and noticed Fara, “You alright?” she asked, “Did you get hurt or anything?”

Fara glanced at the kneeling lizardmen and shook her head, “I’m fine, Mori. What about you? You seem… angry…” she guessed.

“You don’t know the half of it…” Mori stated, “That bastard over there,” she said, pointing at the dead man in scrap armor, “tried to rile me up by saying that he would rape you. So yeah, I wasn’t in the best of moods to start with. Though, seeing him die and stopping myself from torturing him helped me feel a little better. That changed when I found what they had hidden in the brig of this ‘fine’ vessel.”

Fara looked into the cabin, finding nothing wrong but getting a terrible feeling from it. “What do they have down there?”

Mori snorted, “See for yourself,” she said. Sighing, she began to knock the rest of the pirates unconscious, caring little for the damage she caused. Fara took a final look at her friend as she passed the dining shall-like cabin, dropping her undead helmet next to Mori's on a table, and descended into the bowels of the skiff. The clocksteel skiff was split into three levels, each spanning the ship's hundred and fifty feet length and thirty feet width. The first floor was obviously the crew quarters, with barracks and a room for the late captain.

The second floor, oddly enough, was the beating heart of the ship: its propulsion and power cell. The ship was obviously propelled by a paddle —like that of a paddle boat. It was a poor choice of propulsion either way, but she had not been prepared for the sheer level of incompetence on display in the ship. None of the gears had any sort of lubrication, neither fluids nor runes, which would not be terribly awful were it not for the fact that the power cell was placed at the front of the bow of the ship, connected to the paddle by gears. The amount of energy lost in hundred feet of gears was staggering to Fara.

She was almost tempted to blame the mechanical atrocity for Mori’s poor mood, but she was under no illusion that Mori knew just how terribly stupid the design was on every level. Only finding the ship’s cannons stored near its bow, she tentatively descended the stairs that led to the bottom level, her boots making dull thumps on the clocksteel. Just as she reached the bottom of the stairs, she had to dodge a knife thrown at her. Whipping around, she aimed her rifle at the source of the attack, but was horrified at the scene before her.

A single undead stood in front of ten people, all dressed in rags. An elf, a few humans, a few orcs, a chimeric, and two insectoids were huddled together in a circle. A woman, body mired in bruises and scars, stood in front of them with a knife in her hand, ready to throw it at Fara. The rest of them were in similar states, wearing rags and bruises, as they stood in the middle of the room. Boxes of goods like spices, wheat, iron, and spare parts littered the room and in the center was a cage, lock smashed off, with stains of blood and other, more telling, things smeared on the floor. “By the gods…” Fara gasped, “Um… I don’t know what…”

“Save it,” the woman replied harshly, “What do you necromancers want with us?” she demanded.

Fara was taken aback for a moment, but shook her head, “No! No, I’m not a necromancer, only Mori is!” she quickly corrected, “Besides, she’s nice…”

“I don’t give a damn how nice your skeleton friend is, I want to know what you want with us.” The woman creeped backwards a step, ready to defend the other captives.

Fara looked between the woman’s rage-filled expression and the others’ fear-filled ones and tried to calm herself, “Look, those guys attacked us while we were traveling to Green Oasis, so we decided to deal with them. We won’t hurt you… here,” she said while raising her hands and slinging her rifle on her back, “I won’t do anything.”

The woman did not lower her knife, eyeing Fara warily, “You said we’re near Green Oasis? But… I got captured near Nolus… Where around Green Oasis?” she demanded.

“Northeast. We’re a few hours from the city, especially after that chase. We should-” Just then, Mori rushed down the stairs, scaring the ragged captives once more, “Mori? What happened?” she asked.

“Skiffs. Ten of them. They’re flying the flag of Green Oasis. They’re coming right at us.”

 

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‘Today’s the day…’ Yutrad thought. He gazed at his fleet from the front of his warskiff and examined the skiffs he had to work with. His strike force was who the Grand Chiefs of Green Oasis sent when they wanted a problem solved. In his task force, there was a single warskiff, three galleons, and six caravels, all made of normal steel. ‘Why are skiffs categorized using the same method as naval ships? Perhaps it’s because they look the same…’ he mused.

In his task force, a grand total of 800 men were ready to bring the fight to the Sand Scales, with over 200 of them being able to fly. He laughed to himself, “One of the most experienced combat forces sent out to take the head of a lowly pirate…”

“Admiral?” his assistant asked.

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“Ah, it’s nothing. We have found them, yes?”

“Yes sir! There’s just one problem…” the orc trailed off. The captain motioned him to continue, “Well, their skiff has stopped. We were not able to get a closer look, but there may be something going on here,” he guessed.

Yutrad rubbed the stubble that evenly covered his chin, thinking, “I see. Is there anything else amiss?”

The assistant nodded, “Yes sir. Multiple flying Sand Scales have been seen, lying in the sand dead. A couple have been killed through magic, but the others have died to precise shots to the head. At least, that is what we have been able to gather from the ones we were able to examine.”

The Admiral nodded and looked over the horizon, finally seeing the skiff as something more than a speck in the distance. Pulling out his runed telescope, he extended it and peered to the upper deck of the skiff. “Something is wrong,” he stated.

“What is it, sir?”

“They’re dead.”

“Dead?” the assistant asked.

“They have been killed, they are with the Creators now, they won't be needing their possessions anymore. Dead,” Yutrad explained sarcastically. Just as he stopped making jabs at his assistant, he saw two figures emerge from the interior of the ship. One was a robed figure, robe black as night, with their hood up. The other was the type of scavenger, mechanic, or gunfighter that could be found anywhere in the Vast Dust. She wore no hat, letting her blonde hair show to the world, and was clothed in a typical duster, shirt, and trousers. Just then, the hooded figure lowered their hood, revealing a skeletal visage that could only mean one thing, “Undead. So that woman is a necromancer then. Well, it seems that our job has been done for us,” he said.

His assistant paled but nodded, “What shall we do, sir?”

“I will speak to our up and coming necromancer. If she is… equitable, then we may not have to do anything at all. Though if she is a rouge, well… the outcome is obvious. I wonder if she will raise the Sand Scales as undead to let our boys have a good fight?” he mused. As the skiff fleet approached the silent pirate craft, Yutrad began noticing odd details. Firstly, the skeleton’s eyes were glowing green, purple, and black flames, indicating that the skeleton was, at least, a skeleton mage. Secondly, other undead mulled about on the deck of the skiff, meaning she likely had other undead ready to fight. Thirdly, there were unconscious men off to one side of the deck, which meant she took captives.

Before the sun reached mid morning, the captain was ready to board the skiff. The woman did nothing to stop his fleet’s encirclement maneuver, which gave him high hopes for the outcome of the encounter. Smoothing out his dress coat, fluffing his hat, combing his unruly grey hair, and ensuring his ornamental axe was in its proper place, he stood ready to board. His warskiff slid up to the pirate galleon and dropped a wooden plank between them, landing on the clocksteel deck with a clang.

He strode onto the deck with the confidence only someone with his storied career brought. Behind him, a group of armed marines followed, ready to protect him at any time. Noticing the sea of corpses that lay on the deck, he once again scrutinized the necromancer woman, staring deep into her silver eyes and noticing every subtlety of her posture. Not an ounce of fear was present in her, only curiosity, though for what eluded him. “Good day, Madame Necromancer,” he offered, “I am Yutrad Iulia. May I ask yours?”

Contrary to any expectations he had, it was not the woman who spoke. It was the skeleton, or rather, lich, “Mori Athanatos. Can we help you with anything?”she asked in a curt, huskily distant voice.

He was taken aback by the presence of a lich, surprised by one that was willing to work with the living, but made a great effort to not let it show. His men, however, were not as trained in the art of subtly as he was. They instantly pointed their guns at the lich, fingers ready to pull the trigger of their rifles. As expected, the lich did little more than shape the flames in her eyes, making it seem as though she were raising an eyebrow. Clearing his throat, he held a hand up ordering his men to stand down, “I apologize, for my men’s… jumpiness. We were expecting to fight a notorious pirate who has made a habit of raiding the area around Green Oasis. May I presume that he has been… dealt with?” he asked, maintaining his mannerism.

The lich, Mori, scoffed at his words, “Yeah, he’s dead,” she said, pointing to the corpse of the pirate captain lying near the mast, “Should have done worse, but I’m not going to stoop down to his level. So, where do we go from here? I would prefer not to fight an entire fleet of skiffs, thank you very much, but we won’t be pushed around here,” she stated.

Yutrad raised an eyebrow, “I do not believe that will be necessary. My job is to kill Tythyrian Hist and confirm his death. In killing him, you have full rights to the ship, everything within, and the bounty on his head, though I will note that we need some sort of proof that he is dead; testimony is not enough in this case.”

Mori nodded. Stepping over a fallen pirate, she moved her cloak aside, revealing the mechanical contraption she wore on her arm that intrigued Yutrad. She walked over to the man’s corpse and placed a hand on his neck, ripping his head off with a single movement. Walking back over to him, she held out the torn off head, “Take it. I’m going to burn the rest of it, anyway, so I have no problem in you taking the bastard’s head,” she said viciously.

A woman came from the ship and took the head from the lich’s hand, placing it in a box and sealing it with a series of runes. Yutrad took idle notice of the other woman’s interest in the box. The marine from the ship nodded to him and hurried up the plank with the box underneath her arms. He looked around and sighed to himself, “Well, that was much easier than I anticipated. Is there anything else you two require?”

They both nodded, silently beckoning him into the hull of the ship. He followed, careful of any ambushes that could occur. After going through the hull and entering the bottom level, he was shocked. A group of captives, likely slaves subjected to the full brunt of humiliation and indignity of such a position, huddled in a circle guarding against the one undead lizardman standing there. The woman warily approached them, holding her hands up, “Calm down, you guys. The military came over here to deal with the pirates, and they can take good care of you, alright?” the woman asked.

Seeing Yutrad, the ragged captives released a bit of tension, but still maintained their vigilance, “What are you going to do with us?” the woman in the front of the group, holding a knife, asked.

Yutrad stood straight and approached with dignity, “We have come here to rescue any captives of the Sand Scales and bring their leader’s head to the Grand Chiefs. Seeing as though the head of the pirate is already in my hands, I only need to bring you all to Green Oasis to give medical and psychological treatment,” he explained, earning hopeful looks from the captives, “Will you allow us to protect you?”

Slowly, they nodded and dropped their guard, over half of them falling asleep as soon as they relaxed. The woman with the knife picked up a young man, barely twenty, and threw him over her shoulder. Without a word, the marines under his command followed suit, taking them all up the stairs.

They followed them up to the top deck and the woman spoke, “Thank you for doing that,” the woman said, offering a hand, “We wouldn’t be able to give them the help they need. I’m Fara Notchings, by the way, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Yutrad shook her hand, smiling, “Likewise. So, while I technically need to ask for a necromancer’s license, I believe being a lich is a major grey zone we have not faced before. For now, I will not ask, but others may ask for one in the future,” he said to Mori, “Either way, thank you for taking care of this. Do you mind if we take those… survivors?”

Mori shook her head, “Take ‘em. I won’t have to take care of them in that case.”

“Excellent,” he said, “I will be taking them with us, then. Come to Green Blood Hall in Green Oasis if you want to collect your reward. Have a good day, ladies,” he said as he boarded his warskiff. His men lifted the plank from the former pirate skiff and entered his cabin as they took off.

“How’d it go?” his assistant asked, lying on his bed and reading a book.

Yutrad chuckled, “Good. Very good. A day where I don’t have to worry about losing you is a good one,” he said, sitting next to him and tracing a finger over his jawline.

The assistant laughed, “Such a charmer…”

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