matt_s

Fred experimentally prodded his finger with the point of his rapier. A thin droplet of blood welled up from the indentation. He supposed that was the expected thing to happen. Boy, you could really hurt someone with these things, he said somewhat stupidly, the first thing to enter his mind promptly exiting his mouth. He balanced the rapier astride a single finger near the hilt as easily as anything he had ever done in his life. Fred then admired the point of the weapon, fine enough to slip through well wrought mail and backed by a blade sturdy enough to drive through the thickest hide. Odd things to come to mind. Fred had done many things in his life but getting into a fight, a real fight, was not one of them. The bow he knew somehow from a glance was also fine work. Easy pull weight, useful for someone of his new stature, and arrows that were fletched with simple feathers but well matched ones. If he missed with this bow he would only have himself to blame. And the backpack. Decidedly more everyday in composition but everyday things you needed every day. He donned the armor, put on the pack, and then set the rapier at the ready. It seemed like the proper thing to do. And Fred watched with curiosity as Riley, Dallas, and Parker went to retrieve their items. What they found would tell him much. Fred's height had left him but his curiosity had not.

Regarding the lad in the boat For context, he's in the only boat at the crossing and by now is considerably downstream and away from the ford. Because as far as you know the guy is borderline unconscious, he won't be going very quick, so given the lay of the land you are pretty sure you will eventually be able to fish him out of the river. But it could take some time to wait for him to get close enough to shore in a place where you can safely haul the rope towards the shore. This is the only easy place to cross the river for miles after all. Think hours for this, not minutes yet not days. Between your own supplies and the river crossing, getting rope and something that will serve well enough as a grapnel is not an issue.

Stavard stared at this last question with the look reserved for those who had asked questions along the lines of "Is it the wind that moves the ship?" "Why do you care about the phases of the moon?" and "How do you know all those knots?" That's just the way it is. I don't have a way to put it.

Stavard spat again. A ship's a ship. All I say is dig the old ship's name out of that log there. Renaming a ship, 'tis bad luck. Every sailor knows it. Now it is tradition time-honored to cut out or board or otherwise procure ships from your enemies and there is no bad mojo about it although with regards to a crew of phantasms I can offer no examples in my recollections.

ok then we get the guns then, i basically have no idea where they are OOC

Although the final fate of men brought before the seat of judgment was unknown to the living Malakai could tell quickly that this man had kept his appointment there for good or ill. Motionless with vacant eyes he lay, pierced by the fusillade of bullets. The other bandit they had shot it out with was still bobbing away in the current down the river, near out of sight but not completely. There are some valuables left behind, jewelry, coinage, finer clothes, and the like. You find a Wanted! poster for Davy and the shot bandit - the Tulsa Kid he was called. The latter only had a bounty for capture but the deed would sit well with the authorities either way. The rest are dead, killed by falling rock or the explosions and the thrown rock themselves. Killed in their sleep, not a honorable method perhaps but men of the previous war had been laden with medals for cutting down other men hundreds of yards away with round shot. They can scavenge plenty of supplies in terms of food and bullets from the encampment. As for water, well, the river is right there, and clean enough. The faint suggestion of dawn begins to poke from the East. The roar of the dynamite and gunfire would have traveled fairly far. The smoke from the wreckage would travel further.

my vote is we return to harbor, resupply and check for any news, and then set forth again.

Fred mused aloud as he circled the room with the pool Seven of us ripped into this place by unseen hand, each bed at the seven points of a star. Seven pillars in this room. And in each pillar - Fred rapped sharply expecting the ring of the hollow - is some chamber hidden by a door. My guess is whatever is in these pillars belongs to us. Or belonged to us. Or will belong to us. Gimme a hand and we'll work 'em open one way or another. They are consigned to us, just as those beds are for us to rest in and this water to wash ourselves with and slake our thirst. Perhaps not in that order. Easily distracted, Fred walked over to the pool, held his palm an inch or so from the surface and then, assuming the heat or cold of it was not unnatural, gave the water a casual poke. Enough of that, let's get those doors open. What he didn't say was that Riley's oversized clothes and Dallas' sweating had to be the key to what made them unique. There was nothing else. Maybe Riley would grow or change in the thick of a fight. Maybe Dallas was an elemental or genie or something that was either fire or cold aspected causing him to be uncomfortable in the heat. To speculate out loud, that would be rude.

Stavard nods in agreement. While pushing on would be tempting, some of us are cut up and some more than a little cut up at that. He spat over the side, the bloodstained spittle vanishing in a moment beneath the swell. Time to bring 'er home, I say. We're what, four days out? We may rue the lost days somewhat, but a rushed journey is one that is never finished. I do wonder what people back at the port will make of the ship though. Yet even as I noted a few days before, the uncanny has become material before all our eyes as of late.

sailors (stavard included) are infamously superstitious each in their own way. see the documentary Master and Commander for more information.

AC would be useful because we can work it out more or less on our own anyways pretty quickly and it's useful for abilities that proc on a hit/miss for example. HP is fine either way, if you log the dmg on the token like in this fight we can check to see if we are 'missing' damage player side. I generally expect hp to be variable on mobs for what it's worth, e.g. from rolled HD.

In response, Stavard says, The soul of a ship is peculiar unto itself. It lives and dies with those timbers that make its bones and the rigging that make its sinews. I will mourn the sunken Philadelphia for she did bear us safely until we faced a foe with guns beyond our measure. But now, let us make headway and each hand to their duty station. Quartermaster, we will need a report on stores and the like, same goes for the timbers, the sails, and so forth. Hop to it, gentlemen. Our original task still lies before us.

Stavard's fighting tempo had been rushed throughout the fight. But near enough is often good enough with such a crude implement as his now very trusty bludgeon. Another hasty strike now, another silent imploring that it would go true and send the specter into the abyss. All hands, all hands, to the ghost ship, lively now. Keep her hove to, and we'll be right over! he shouted to the crew who seemed to be already heeding those instructions although an explicit exhortation seemed worthwhile for morale as much as anything else.

Fred looked around at his classmates - former classmates? - and began to pace about the stone tablet. Probably time to say the overly obvious. If only to get the thinking going. Silence could eat at you, feed anxieties, led you to jump to unpleasant conclusions. We got an "instagram filter" on Riley as Parker put it, I'm a couple feet shorter but barely any lighter, Xander is a goblin or else something goblin adjacent, Madison is an elf, Ariana is not about to die, Parker has that funky hand, and Dallas is still well Dallas. So we've been, uh, juxtaposed to fantasy-esque bodies some of us anyways. And this place has the look of the fantastic about it as well. Aye, Madison, let's check out the sound of that water dripping. If I meet an untimely end in this realm, it won't be by dehydration I swear to that much. Be right with you. Just like pilfering bagels (of all things, yes, bagels) from the teacher's lounge back at school. Decide on a course of action, commit, execute, and then inevitably improvise. And Fred noticed that his footsteps were near silent here. It wasn't the stone either. Somehow the act of easing his feet done gently without a noise came as second nature in this place.

Stavard runs up to the Captain. Dance with me now, dog! Face a true warrior borne upon the tides with hot red blood in his veins! and he snap attacks his foe. The hammer glows with the innate magical energy as the blow goes home. Sailor, sea, and weapon witnessed at the identical moment. Life or death. Victory or defeat. The story had not reached its end yet.

As you search the camp, the boat with the severely wounded bandit begins to slip away until the darkness takes it. Seconds then a few minutes pass as you poke throw the wreckage. The blast had its intended effect. The other bandits are dead and already buried in shrouds of tent canvas and a scattered layer of dirt and rubble.

Stavard snap attacks either the Koji ghost or the captain if the former is defeated.

Fred awoke like one departing a pleasant sleep with the true moment of wakefulness being smeared across a measure of time such that he could not pinpoint it precisely. Not the brusque shattering of sleep through the ringing of the alarm clock or the staccato knock on the bedroom door this time. But it was not a pleasant waking either. What first came to his realization was he did not know where he was. Stone tablets. Didn't like the look of that. Something biblical to it or maybe even more ancient than that. The Great Pyramids were of antiquity equal in measure to Cleopatra as that long dead Pharaoh was to us he recalled his history teacher Ms. Johannson telling him last week. White dress pants and smooth cotton shirt. Both white, like really white. Every stitch he noticed. That and the stone tablet would have put this in the "really weird prank" column. But the simple fact that there was maybe two feet of Fred missing and a bit more of a stomach than he was used to as well meant it was something far more peculiar. He poked his stomach experimentally. It depressed with the prod and then sprung back. As flesh tends to do. Fred's hair was also curly. Not the "Fred forgot to comb his hair as always" sense but in the genuine sense. He stood up from the stone tablet, paused and then looked at his fellows. Riley? Xander? Is that ... you? A stupid question, maybe. Yet his freshman year science teacher had once reminded him that there were no stupid questions. Just stupid people.

actual productive OOC comment edited in: i'll try to post at end of order, but basically i'll most likely snap attack either Koji's ghost (if its still up) or whichever ghost Karadoon is fighting.

Tharnakalian curses as the commotion with Dougal becomes evident. I'll use my crowbar as a door jamb! he exclaims. He try to will jam the thin or flat (ish) end of the crowbar beneath the door at the end opposite of the hinge for optimal leverage. ooc This might take more than one round, to extract the crowbar from the pack and then to actually put it in place.

Tharnakalian looks at the empty room and the hole in its wall. Do you see how that wall was broken? Any tool witness marks or indications of claws or what have yeh? Room seems empty, so was it trying to get out, or get in? Aye, let's clear the rooms by the entrance first, one by one. I'll stand guard at this junction for now. The junction being the left hand forking of the tunnel.

Stavard reels from the blow but then responds in kind. Foul spirit! The abyss calls you and I will not see you disregard those dark susurrations! The sailor turned warrior was of a curious breed, as accustomed to the pitched battle as he was to the pitch and heave of the salt spattered deck. This now let him deal a hearty blow to something which had no heart of flesh and no red blood for it to pump. Seeing it withstand his blow, Stavard desperately lunged again, hoping to beat his foe with a quick strike before the phantasm could once again tear at Stavard's still living flesh. ooc normal attack and snap attack, no main action next round b/c snap

Trying to sketch out some possible connections with the characters. Feel free to offer suggestions or outright refusal if they don't line up with what you are going for - Maybe Xander and Fred collaborated on a story in the school paper where Fred explained and demonstrated how the school's measures for certain locks/computer security/etc. were laughably flimsy and a potentially serious problem for stuff like student privacy/academic integrity? But the story was a bit too good and admin was a tad less than amused by their "discoveries"...? - Ariana: They could have been paired up in chemistry (she's good at cooking right? chemistry is just like cooking? right? well no, but she was good at school anyways, so Fred lucked out on that account) and then they almost burn the classroom down or some similarly comedic/catastropic accident? - Madison: Fred spent far too much time pestering her about trying to train the rat - which was for serious emotional support purposes mind you - to do stuff like nick classroom supplies and food from the cafeteria (in retrospect, a rat even a domesticated one is probably the worst way to steal food but if there is one thing high schoolers are loathsome at it is introspection). One time they did try to steal the answer key for a quiz using the rat and it quickly went wrong...

Tharnakalian for now will douse his torch. I might need that more lantern, I reckon, he mutters to himself. Let's check the hallway at least close to where we are, then the doors. For now, he will keep an eye on the entrance as a rear guard.