The Island Fort

Military: Skirmish

On the beach is a vessel that appears that as if it has been converted to a fort. Those of the Arcani Navy investigate it to try and reclaim their missing fellows.

With members of their crew still missing, Brutus took the onus of attempting to walk up and down the shore to find tracks, finding some scattered wreckage from the unfettered heron where with his keen eyesight and sharp sense for tracks he would spot the dragged trails of victims whom had been brought away. Following them with a bit of internal urgency he would find an unfamiliar vessel beached upon the sand.   Cuatious and suspicious, the wise shark would rustle up some fellows with whom to approach the strange vesssel cum fort.   Whilst it had been the first sign of human life, it was in turn paired with signs of unlife as numerous corpses had been posted ritualistically in the water, whilst a circle of bodies surrounded a symbol of stone in the sand. The bodies - whose salt-caked, and sun-whitened skulls being originally those of victims who had shared in a similar fate as this navy before being caught by the locals.   With such obviously indicative signs of cult-like behavior, those who had come to explore the site were immediately wary. Exercising caution and care when starting to explore the site, only to discover that the vessel had been alarmed against invisibility. With one of the scouts attempting to locate the invisible Tsuki Yoru who had attempted to stealthily reconnoiteur the environment.   Concerned and cautious, Tsuki decided to regroup and join her party, who would arm themselves and prepare to attack their foes. With Brutus readying his culverin, and his fellows their spells. Diachi cracking open the skies and letting the fury of the heavens pour out upon the ground.   Yet, once again Daichi would discover that the weather was not entirely his willing companion once again, as whilst the burning rain scorched the tents and towers, it would not harm the ship which had been abjured against it. The poor conditions however, both drove the cultists to them, and away from them as the unaware simply sought shelter rather than explore the cause.   With their foes divided, it was only a matter of time before their group would fell them. Their fire, shot, shadow, and blood magics dissolving the bonds between friend and foe and driving them into confusion before being slain.   With the outer watch now slain, Tsuki would attempt a new method of approach - teleporting directly onto the ship itself, she would find herself in the captain's quarters -- and face to face with two new foes. Thinking quickly on her feet, she quickly threw herself out from within, once again slipping through the shadows to escape her foes.   Yet, escape would not come so easy, as the two raiders - barbaric though they were, suffered no moment's loss in throwing themselves from the windows of the captain's quarters and engaging in a sortie against the adventurers.   Once sorted however, Brutus would in a mild expression of impatience seek a hurried entrance in the vessel. With a shot of his heavy weapon to blow a hole into the side, he would allow egress into the ship's hold.   Once the outer watch was slain, these adventurers would directly pierce into the hold of the vessel. On it's northern end, there was a strange and bottomless well whose depth extended far beyond the 1200 feet of Yukika's reach. Yet, clearly it wasn't devoid of inhabitant, as through a simple trade yukika would regain her once-missing sailing hat.   On it's southern end were the more foes, protecting a strange cavelike extension of the ship. Quickly slaying them, they would discover a hulking man of 9 feet in height, but reduced in effect with his deeply hunched back. Adorned with solar symbols and bearing a great double-drum on his chest, the man would turn and examine the intruders, exuding a vicious and sadistic air once he realized that he had more future sacrifices come to offer themselves to him.   Of course, sacrifice was often an unwilling act to the one to be sacrificed, thus a combat would resulting ensure between the adventurers and this man, as the adventurers additionally would notice the stilled body of Lieutenant Vyressa behind him, and if - failing in recovering her, punish the creature who had desecrated her corpse.   As the allied adventurers struck forth, their spells and weapons would be joined by the rhythmic beating of the man's drum as he started to strangely sway back and forth, his adornaments striking the drum with the visible enhancement and enraging of his nearby allies.   One opposing ally was a man wearing a hooked blade upon his arm and acting strangely as compared to the rest of his peers. Having been trained in a specific martial path it's demonstration would send Brutus into a burning rage as he recognized the vicious and brutal martial techniques once exercised by his father. the resulting assault expressing a brutal bestiality in which the sharkman would fiercely assault the barbaric creature. With Yukika's support in controlling an undead construct into attacking his creator.   Shared between Tsuki's manipulations, Yukika's firepower, Daichi's burning winds and lightning bolts, Brutus's brutal bashings and Cletus's technical arcane manipulatons, the adventurers would express a feriocity that would quickly exceed and alarm the priestlike man. Who would, in three attempts escape from the scene.   The first attempt would be dispelled by Yukika, the second disrupted by Daichi, and the third only succeeding by grace of the contigency of the blessing placed on his body. Sparing him from a close encounter with death, and allowing him a necessary period of recovery and planning.   This planning however, would be made with a hint of desperation considering that his ace in the hole had already been played, and should a worse fate come knocking - he would not have the tools to avoid a gruesome end unless he could once again earn his blessings of protection.   But such topics were unknown to the adventurers, instead - left in front of them was a blooded alter, and the partially unsewn near-corpse of the lady Vyressa in a state so close to death that her breath as weak as the breeze within a desert.   Fortunately for her, these adventurers were far from hapless in healing and would shortly bring her to consciousness. Though for her, it was far from a pleasant feeling, visions had long since overwhelmed her mind, and the mixture of her previous torment and overwhelmed mind she would all too quickly and voluntarily partake of the alcohol that was offered her. Waiting some time before she would later be escorted back to the gathering point of the adventurers.   Their priest now missing, this sudden loss of divine blessing and dangerous conditions would drive away the presence of the cultists of the ship, allowing the explorers to discover some strange things about the vessel. Carved into the upper deck's mast was a strange ritual, and the source of it's weather based abjuration, yet the complexity of the ritual was indecipherable beyond the runes, making for a desperate need for these adventurers to learn of the same method by which they might abjure their own ships against the deadly storms or be repeatedly cast asunder against the isle.   With the emergency at it's end, Tsuki would - in her curiousity, return to parlay with the creature in the northern well whom would exact a different sort of trade, offering the woman a strange sort of tonic. One whose potency and effect are nothing of what the woman would be quick to ever forget.