Drunk-Ole-Jim brought his tankard across Ku-Jon's jaw with a sickening crack. Ku-Jon answered with a solid blow to the rummy's temple. Jeanette Morning brought her hand across the face of a bearded man from Grime row and he responded with a fist to her lacey stomach. Ku-Jon ducked a soaring tankard and bull rushed a particularly large (Half giant? Ogre?) into the bar itself and drove the oaf over it. Tavern brawls were always a study in the simplicity inherent in all living beings. You see a face, you punch it…unless you recognize the face, in which case you pause a second and hope the bloke has the sense to duck. Each fight held its own rhythm, but the barter market of fists, legs, and furniture was always a different flavor than the last.
The captain reeled when Obadon Ramsheddle, the lazy eyes apothecary, brought a chair down over his back, but the satisfying thump of boot against bone was enough to inform Ku-Jon he'd sent the bastard sprawling. Too chaotic to see, he'd have to improvise. Nodding an apology to the grim faced bartender, Ku-Jon hefted a stool from beside him and turned sharply. Wood snapped against skin and bone as a thin fellow with dark eyes dropped his dagger and sagged to the grog stained wood.
"Look lively men!" The captain called out across the struggling mass, "Ten pieces o gleam to the man who brings me the elf!"
Most needed no further prompting then a single gold piece. For silver they'd sell out a comrade and for gold some would sell out themselves. The tone of the brawl did not so much change as it redirected. Taking the moment for a breath and to wipe excess alcohol from his face, Ku-Jon reached down to tear the sparse purse off his last attacker. Waste not…after all.
Prestadeth held out her exposed weapon, an excited smile growing across her impish features. Kargon sneered across from her, his shark tooth blade twitching in red hued hands. A number of the Tourniquet's old and recently hired crew shifted tables and chairs for a better striking position at the elf. The woman against the wall took the opportunity to slip behind the bar and out of sight, her own role in the brawl already completed.
Rodney Nobbers was the first to attack. A boy dressed in the clothes of a man, Rodney had come to the Tourniquet in a barrel of potatoes. Kargon had appreciated the ingenuity the escaped slave had used, and the good sense not to use a water barrel like his unfortunate accomplice. Ku-Jon had scarcely known the whelp for a day or so, but had accepted his presence as part of The Tourniquet and part of the crew. So when Rodney brought up his dagger and charged in at the elf, Ku-Jon immediately regretted the words too late to be unspoken. Prestadeth wasted no time in her counter, spinning along his arm and grabbing it at the base. Sending the boy off balance, Prestadeth swiftly buried her weapon in his back and sent the body barreling into his compatriots. Using the opening, her body became a river of movement. Three steps had her between two dull eyed men and a fourth had her past them, body contorting through the spaces their bodies left between each other. Kargon roared, hurling Bill off his feet as he pushed through the mob. Ku-Jon might have let his first mate have her, but an alarming discovery became apparent as the crowd moved to accommodate Kargon's warpath.
Oralia was gone.
Possibilities only briefly lit his mind and anger rose in a bubbling tide. Without the princess, the Tourniquet would suffer and his crew would remain a hunted dog for as long as she flew. It was a future grim and wholly unacceptable, and seemed to be conveniently focused around the one creature in this room Ku-Jon most despised.
Perfect motivation.
Tearing shirt and coat from his heaving chest, Ku-Jon let the rage inside him bubble over the barriers and pour into his body. Fur swept up his arms and face like wind blowing through a field and muscles bulged with metamorphic energy. At once the room became more detailed, smells hitting him in surges and sounds almost unbearably loud. But beneath it all was the gratifying feeling of release, of freedom, of rush, and power.
It took scarcely a few seconds.
Prestadeth made easy progress toward the door. Her lithe form and training had adapted her to movement on a hazardous battlefield and with such lumbering opponents, she had no need to fear their blades. Unfortunately she hadn't planned for an opponent like Ku-Jon. Her warning was the snapping of wood and the clattering of metal, enough to merit her evasive roll sideways as a white…something, fractured the ground where she'd stood before. Giving no room for breathing, the monster twisted bright green eyes onto her and pounced with narrow claws outstretched. Prestadeth countered with her blade, narrowly dodging and burying it in the outstretched arm. The beast roared pain and frustration, pausing only to hurl the blade from its arm before leaping again. She was surrounded by white fur and dark skin, caught in a vice of supernatural strength as the monster slammed her against the tavern wall. She bit and struggled as though for her life…a wise assumption…but made no progress against the furry grip. Most of the brawlers had fallen back from the display, scurrying like mice discovered by a bright light. Kargon nodded at the familiar figure but did not interrupt it.
"Where is she?" Ku-Jon snarled, saliva dripping from his gruffer words, "What have you done with my QUARRY!" Prestadeth blinked, disbelief scrawled across her face as she came to the realization of who it was that held her.
"You're…a shifter?" She asked incredulously, "But…how?" All she'd been taught on the rare condition was utterly contrary to the situation. The spirits of life blessed certain beings with the power to transform, but never to be perverted so abstractly. A pirate, surrounded by death and decay in the Lower Realms, and filled with rage. What twisted abomination had the spirits mistakenly given this power to…and why?
She didn't get a chance to ask.
"Saw her with the mage I did," Kargon growled at his captain, "Tried to catch em but I only got two arms and a handful o elf." Ando Reyer rubbed pain from his body as he stood from the wreckage of a chair, but said nothing…eyes on the white monster before him.
"Watch her," Ku-Jon ordered, letting the gasping elf hit the ground, "Be ready to depart on my return…take any other volunteers there are."
"Aye," Kargon answered with a smug smile at the elf, "Knew women were bad luck."
Pivoting on a paw the lycanthrope bounded from the inn and into the street. Oralia's perfume all too easy to track. He found them in an alley, shadows caressing the walls where the recovered mage searched. Lyseth was approaching quickly and Ku-Jon hadn't time to waste. He fell from the roof with a thump, leaving little time for reaction. Zagara moved first, his hands pushing outwards as arcane words scrambled from his lips. A pulse of telekinetic energy rammed into Ku-Jon's ribs and for a moment…the constriction around his heart and labored breathing slowed…as though something was momentarily disrupted. Coughing from the release of magic before being fully recovered, Zagara was hard pressed to avoid the massive hand close around his torso. Oralia, to her credit, managed to scream before Ku-Jon had her in his grasp. Lyseth rounded the corner in time to see the hulking creature leap over the roof and back towards the bar with Zagara and Oralia clutched in two of its four hands. Sighing exasperatedly, Lyseth spun and started back towards the Rusty Bucket. Just like Zagara to get himself mixed up in something like this…just like him.
Ku-Jon deposited the two back in the bar, next to Prestadeth. Zagara gasped and Oralia trembled, evidently unused to being carried by some primeval horror. Sighing, Ku-Jon let the anger ebb from his body and slipped away from his 'true' form. It was alarmingly quick, a condensing of body and limbs till only the man stood in tattered leggings and a frown.
"Let me make something abundantly clear to you three which I hadn't the time to communicate before." Pulling up a chair he sat and placed his chin in an open palm. "Good men have died, a good ship has been wrecked, and a…bar has been destroyed…mostly because of your chaotic combination." He let the words sink in, drawing the black dagger he'd made in Nocta Syr and placing it in his other hand. "By all rights I should kill you, hang your bodies from my rails and let the crows and sky crabs make a meal of your corpses…not a man here would call me unjust to do so."
Zagara glared, preparing his tired body to fight if necessary. He might have been exhausted, but he had more than enough raw energy to incinerate a few low lives. Prestadeth looked back at Ku-Jon almost apathetically, challenging his threats with brazen disinterest. Oralia shivered, her head down and shoulders heaving. She might have been sobbing, or perhaps she was cold.
"But…" Ku-Jon added, holding out a hand to Kargon
"I have decided on an alternate punishment I'm sure you might find more preferrable. Kargon, the crew list." Kargon blinked at the captain in astonishment, slowly reaching into his breeches to retrieve the crumpled parchment.
"Cap'n," He murmured, eyes on Prestadeth, "I don't think…"
"Thank you Kargon, now will someone lend me a means to write?"
There was a moment of silence before Cassandra slipped around the debris and bodies, quill and ink in hand. "Here…Cap'n."
Ku-Jon almost laughed, but decided against it. The girl had stopped a dagger from a fleshy home in his back and that was proof enough she could hold her salt. Taking the three items, Ku-Jon laid them by the three just as Lyseth burst through the front door.
"I'm low on crew and you three will do nicely to replace the void you left with your trouble." Outnumbered, Lyseth did not initially attack…deciding instead to press into the crowd and toward Zagara who was looking at the list with an unreadable expression. Ando was still reeling from the aftermath of his missile status, but pushed through the crowd toward the center…where he knew the list would be.
"Death or life," Ku-Jon offered quietly, his eyes glittering "Carrion or service…make your decisions quickly. We have a schedule to keep."
Summary: ((Apologies for moving everyone, I just wanted to get the plot on a jump and admittedly it slacked due to my absence. If anyone has a problem with how I portrayed their character, please contact me and I will change it...again I am sorry and will try not to let this happen again.)) Ku-Jon goes lycan form and captures Presta, Oralia, and zagara...he gives them a chance to join the crew rather then be killed...now is all your chances to get in on some pirate action.))
