• Closed • To Kill A Mountain.

[Squirrel]

18th of Vhalar, 718.

The room lurched under their feet, and Captain Varsix struck a defiant pose with both scaled hands clasped at the small of her back, refusing to budge and digging the bared claws of her feet into the hardwood. Onell pushed one hand against the ceiling to steady himself. Of them all, Tydra seemed the most capable; her body rolled with the boat as if one with the currents, graceful even as she paced up and down the statesroom. The air was stale and filled with salt. The silence was practically poisonous. They'd passed the outer gates untold bells ago, but through the salt-sprayed portcullis the western horizon was filled with the gentle orange haze of the last sun in the sky. Ethelanum wouldn't be far now.

Finally, it was Onell who broke the silence with a sigh that sounded more like a growl, coming from his toothy maw. "You know I don't have the nel to pay off a second ship, right?" Somewhere through the journey, he'd strapped a cutlass to his hip. On any normal person, it would have required two hands to wield. The few practice slashes he'd made with the thing before sheathing it had been light and effortless. Even Tydra, all poise and still water, had flinched when he'd tested it against one of the wooden railings to pass the time, and sheared the dense oak with a single strike. "If the same thing happens as last time--"

"It won't," Varsix snapped with an edge to her voice that startled the group to silence once more. Her hardened eyes never budged from the table nailed to the middle of the navigation room, its surface dominated by a full map of the Ivorian Empire. Its surface details were fuzzy and unclear, but the markings of the shores were pristine, all the way down to the individual outcroppings of jagged rock that sprung up all the way around the island, like the teeth of a shark's mouth. "He said the Mountain was moving further out into the deeper waters. Our mistake... our misfortune, was letting him catch us between him and those rocks. We'll stick to the other side and use the shallows to our advantage, forcing him to surface and baiting him to attack us in order to clear room. Once he does, we strike the moment he exposes himself, we don't back down, and we focus everything we've got into him." It sounded like such a simple plan, laid out like that. One could even mistake it for easy. The crew knew what it really was, though. Near suicidal.

They'd already gone over the plan many times. Repeating the same empty words, as if they'd offer reassurance. Of course they didn't. Nobody looked to Silaquil if they could help it. Onell's gaze slipped over her as if she didn't exist; Tydra's steely resolve softened and there was a hint of pity in her eyes for the woman who'd been bribed so easily to her death. Varsix never looked away from the map.

Suddenly, a hard pounding at the door. Onell almost stumbled over himself as he turned and stamped over to it, one hand still braced against the ceiling as a particularly hard roll sent a few surprised yells echoing through the room, followed by a dense thud as the waves crashed over the bow and drenched the deck. A hard jerk on the door and Ruckus stumbled in, grabbing onto the door for support. The young Ithecal looked scrawny in a sea-drenched grey shirt tucked into brown trousers clinched with a heavy-looking belt, but even through his cracked skin, one could see the deep gashes he already bore down both arms, one tearing through the left side of his chest.

Varsix cursed loudly. "How many?"

"Three." Onell grabbed the first mate by the shoulder, pulled him hard into the room and slammed the door shut again. On anyone else it would have looked degrading; Ruckus seemed to take it in his stride as he grabbed the table for support and grunted. "Everyone wants revenge, but nobody wants to die for it. Payn and Ranc were talking about taking Screech's boat when he comes, going back to Yithiral. Thryston's thrashing them now."

Varsix gave a curt nod, but there was a strain in her jaw now. Onell asked the question nobody else could. "An' the third?"

Ruckus sucked in a breath. "Caul. Wanted out, demanded it. Said he wasn't gonna die turtle food on a scum barge. No reasoning, he'd gone mad. Had to do it. Tossed the body overboard." There was a death quiet to the room now. Even the violent waves slamming into the boat's side like the rhythmic pounding of an angry God seemed mute. "Fuck, Varsix. They're not ready. You can still ca--"

His breath hitched audibly and his mouth snapped shut as, for the first and only time, Varsix raised her eyes to him. There was always something dangerous to the eyes of a ship's captain. There had to be. When men braved the greatest unknown and quested beyond all known laws of society, the Captain was the one ruling force that held them. No lord, nor general, nor spiritual messiah had ever faced such a trial as they. There was more ruthlessness in those eyes than that of a King. "Back to your station," she ordered slowly, in a surprisingly quiet voice. Ruckus rose, still bleeding, and hobbled back out, closing the door behind himself. The moment he'd left her sight, the Captain returned to staring at the map.

None of them got very long to savour the fresh wave of silence, before the next bout of yelling started up outside, muffled behind heavy oak and spraying salt. This noise sounded excited, however, almost triumphant. Tydra was the first to the door this time, and as she opened it, a smile broke through her lips as the first audible cries reached the statesroom. "HAMMER'S HERE!" a sailor yelled, repeated again by another, and a third, with one of the men running full-pelt past the open door to grab the railings and stretch out over the sides. Just in the distance, between growing waves of sickly green water, a rowboat crested into view and vanished again, carrying a lone sailor.

"Sila!" Tydra yelled, nodding towards the open door. "Time to meet your fellow hunter!"

[Silaqui Falone]

Between dry heaves and actual heaving Sila was in no shape to argue or care about anything other than the pounding in her head and belly. Every time she thought she had everything under control and was about to remove her head from the empty powder keg she'd swiped from bellow decks the boat or ship or galley or whatever this thing was seemed to drop off a cliff and send her stomach spinning again. She had no sea legs. She had no natural ability to compensate for the rolling and bobbing. She was a land dweller and after this trip, if they lived that was, she doubted she'd ever set foot on another sea vessel again.

Tydra said her name but Silaqui had no energy to care about what she said. Something about meeting another hunter? She weakly waved her one hand at Tydra trying to signal she wasn't going to move from this spot in the near future so they either came to her or they met later. Whichever didn't matter.

Lifting her head up to grab a breath of what was fresher air than the air inside her powder keg come vomit bucket. She had her eyes screwed shut because if she tried to look at anything she was certain she'd vomit. "We've not a clue how you all do this," she said keeping her eyes shut as she tried to find the wall to lean against. Finding it she leaned against it her breathing faster than normal as she tried to recover some of her strength. "Damn this.... whatever this is thats making the sea like this. We're never doing this again if we can help it."

Grabbing hold of something, she wasn't sure what but it was sturdy and he could pull herself up with it, Silaqui made herself get to her feet. Grabbing her powder keg with one hand she carefully staggered between rolls and drops towards where Tydra stood. Making it outside she squinted heavily in the bright light of the sea. She'd been inside the states room since they left port. Most of the time spent curled in a ball in some spot of it throwing up whatever liquids or food she'd managed to consume.

She looked like a corpse she wagered, a pretty corpse, but still a corpse. Her hand nearest to the side of the ship gripped it with white knuckle intensity as she tried to keep her legs under her. Reaching the rail she carefully dumped her keg over the side before she just and gingerly made her way back away from the rail. Suddenly the boat seemed to drop out from beneath her and she found herself plopped firmly on her bottom on the deck. Misery painted across her face as she simply resigned herself to just sitting on the hard wooden surfaces of the boat for the majority of their journey.

[Squirrel]

One look at the mess of Silaqui's face and Tydra's face twisted in disgust. "How long has she been like this?"

"Since we left port," Onell answered casually, the slightest hint of a self-satisfied grin playing along his lips and showing a few too many teeth.

Tydra grunted and looked away for a moment, posed in thought. "She ill or something?"

"She's afraid of the bloody sea, s'what it is! Serpents alone knows how she got to Yithiral in the first place, nor what got her to join this venture, knowin' she'd be on a boat." One could only see the hint of intended anger if they looked into Onell's eyes, because his voice was nothing but shock. How could someone be so utterly incapacitated by a little bit of bad weather? Why the hell had she even agreed to all of this, knowing she'd be all but useless? In a very much life-or-death situation, too! "She won't be anything but getting in the way or worse. We're back to where we started, and that ain't enough." He spoke harsh words, but true. They had a solid crew, but a crew alone wasn't going to be enough to take the Mountain on. They needed hunters. They needed fierce warriors! And there one of them went, clutching a barrel of their own bile to their chin as they hobbled the length of the room, sickly and frail as a newborn.

The only comfort came in the knowledge that soon they wouldn't be entirely reliant on her anymore. The little rowboat in the distance bobbed closer with every dip of the waves, the figure inside heaving with the effort of drawing the paddles in a spray-soaked leather jacket with a hood thrown up to hide their face. Stacked around them was a small mountain of gear. Crossbows and bundles of bolts, ropes, packs of gear all tied down to the front to weigh it down every time the little boat crested another huge foam-laced wave.

As the rowboat pulled up nearby, an Ithecal sailor distinguished from the rest by hands covered in black powder and a fiery intensity to his eyes that burned so hot, in the moments he glanced at Silaqui she might have actually seen orange-hued flames licking somewhere behind his eyeballs, tossed a couple of ropes down for the hunter to tie her boat to, and then a ladder to help her climb up before they brought her gear aboard. The new one had a firm grip on them, never faltering or even hesitating as the waves slammed into them and drenched them in seawater all the way up, and when they reached the top and rolled over the side under the railing, their hood finally fell away to reveal a huge unruly mess of frizzy red hair and a pale face filled with freckles, a cute button nose and a face of a girl that couldn't be over the age of twenty. "HAH! Gods above, Chrien's in for us today, eh?" she said with a heavy Rynmerian drawl, taking one look at Silaqui's hideous face and grimacing.

"HAMMER!" The Ithecal sailor that had helped her up boomed with delight as he reached down and literally swooped her off the deck with both arms, nearly sending them both toppling over the side when he lost his balance a tick later and the boat lurched under their feet, slamming his lower back against the railing.

The girl hunter - Hammer - only laughed with delight and wrapped her arms back around the Ithecal's neck with a lover's embrace. "C'mere Anvil, you bloody sod, y'know I sent you a letter by pigeon and never got one back! Wasted good paper on you, and now a damn good vest too, your fingers are bloody covered, you been down in the lab again, at a time like this?" The Ithecal, another Wyvarnth by the look of it, had the gall to actually look a little ashamed of himself as he dropped Hammer back to the ground and toed the ground with one bare foot. "Honestly, you're utterly hopeless. I'll get to you later, what's this sorry hunk of shit?" She jabbed a finger Silaqui's way without even a backwards glance to the poor girl.

[Silaqui Falone]

She could hear the talking. She knew what they were saying about her being near useless as she was. What they didn't count on was that when it came time for the job to start regardless how she felt she'd do it. She'd taken a moment to watch as the second hunters gear was unloaded onto the ship and she had her impressions. A crossbow was for the unskilled and the commoner. Any simpleton could be trained to shoot one accurately. Her bow was a weapon that required talent, training and continued practice to maintain ones skill. A crossbow could be rested against things to steady it while her bow could not. She had intended to stay quiet during the meeting but seeing as this "hammer" wished to start trouble she'd gladly ruffle to other womans feathers.

"This 'sorry hunk of shit,'" Silaqui began as she used her bucket to help herself to her feet, "Is the other hunter on this hunt. Our name is Silaqui Falone though you may call us whatever is easiest to remember for you. Most of the crew, when they've needed to speak to me and we've not had our head in our bucket, have called me Sila." There was subtext in her words. Subtext that pointed towards what to call her. Now it was simply seeing if this harlot from Rynmere was capable of catching it. "Do excuse our appearance if you please. We're not blessed with strong sea legs nor are we all that familiar with the pitch and roll of the sea. We shall be fine when the time comes to fight this turtle some of the crew seem to be so fearful of."

Extending her right hand, her left held her bucket firmly by its lip, she smiled softly while keeping her eyes locked on Hammers. Onell had said she was afraid of the sea. That was far from the case. She simply had never sailed before. Her life had always been on dry land and the sea was unforgiving. Retracting her right hand Sila shifted the emptied bucket to her right and offered it to the one that was called anvil. "We're sorry but we believe we took this from bellow decks in a moment of desperation. Unfortunately we're unsure of where it is this goes. If you'd be so kind as to take this bellow decks to where it belongs or perhaps show us where it goes we'd be more than happy to return this keg to its proper place."

A wave caused her to stumble to one side as the pitch of the deck changed and with it her stomach rolled. Now however, with her displeasure in the way the crew was looking at her and exhaustion with them making side comments about her appearance and ability to the job, she would refuse to allow herself to be sick. Especially now that some woman who fancied herself a marksman but used a crossbow had called her a hunk of shit. Catching herself and straightening up some she kept her eyes locked on Hammers.

[Squirrel]

Hammer looked the girl up and down fluidly, her expression never changing a hair. If she ever caught the meaning, she was good at hiding it, but it seemed more likely that she just wasn't listening... or rather, not listening very well. One thing was for certain though, there was plenty of subtext in the way that she entirely ignored the offered hand and her eyes slid past Sila's like they skated on a thin layer of ice. "Does she always talk like that, or did she knock her head on the way aboard?" she asked to Tydra, who'd ghosted up behind them all with that familiar self-assured grace. The Sailmistress nodded silently, and Hammer snorted, her grin on the cusp of flashing teeth. "Uh-huh. I'd hold onto that bucket if I were you, since we're less than ten ticks out and we've got a good bit o' company. I spotted youngens on my way through from the caverns, had to swerve hard to avoid notice, and they'll be breaching two ticks out from the north!"

"Two ticks?!" You could practically hear Tydra's entire body snap rigid. "We've barely had time to raise masts, secure cargo!" The concern-- no, more than that, the outright fear that had suddenly pitched in the Sailmistresses voice sounded very unnatural.

"Yep! Might want to keep my boat nearby, in case we have to abandon ship! ANVIL! Powder-tips, steel, on the double!" In moments, the imminent threat turned the deck into a maelstrom of activity. Anvil took one look at the bile-stained barrel she offered, glanced inside to see the residue still sloshing in the lower corner, wrinkled his nose, and roughly hefted the mass of wood and metal in both powder-stained hands, tossing it straight over the side of the ship to crash into the waves below. Then he sighed, shook his head, and darted back to the nearest hatch below-decks to fetch whatever it was Hammer had requested. Well, he couldn't exactly use it now that it'd been contaminated, could he?

Sailors were running everywhere across the main deck, trying to lash down the little rowboat just behind the forecastle deck, where Hammer now stood poised with her crossbow resting on the wooden barrier, arranging what could have been hundreds of neat little bolts around her, all with different colours of fletching and odd-looking bulbous heads. The waves were somehow getting even worse, slamming into the ship and rocking it until the spray rose over the bow and doused the full length of the deck with its white foam. Yelling started somewhere up on the quarterdeck and finished with a heavy crack and pained yelps, as a brief flash of motion caught Onell climbing straight up one of the walls without need of a ladder at all. His dense black claws leaving scraping indents in the wood behind him, and a thick reptilian tail lashing angrily behind him as he slithered up over the sterncastle. And in the middle of it all, Captain Varsix finally emerged from her quarters. "POSITIONS TO ENTER BATTLE!" Tydra was no longer anywhere to be seen; combat wasn't the place of the Sailmistress, after all. This was the time for Varsix. Hell, this was the time they'd all been waiting for.

"SILA!" the Captain suddenly yelled. "This is it, girl! You better get ready, 'cause in less than a tick, you're about to get your first taste! We've got turtles about to come up on starboard, and they hungry." She jabbed a claw in her direction with a sadistic grin growing on her reptilian snout, the first thing close to amusement she'd probably ever seen. "Don't get eaten now, I paid you good money and the big fight is yet t' come!"

Another wave slammed into the boat and sent it rocking, but this one was much, much harder than the last, and was accompanied by a loud, low groaning that vibrated the planks beneath Sila's feet. Instead of rocking back again, the boat kept pushing further... and further... until, with a horrible crunch, something snapped and the boat reeled back, hard enough to nearly knock one of the sailor's straight over the edge of the boat, his claws digging hard into the wooden barrier running the edges of the deck. "SNAPPER!"

"Must've peeled from the deck!" Hammer yelled at the top of her lungs, still readying her crossbow from the forecastle. "Two more coming from starboard, closing!" If Sila ran to the edge, she'd see it. A huge creature, grey and wrinkled, with pock-marked skin and doey eyes. On the surface, it looked rather harmless, in the way that an elderly woman with a walking stick might. However, no little woman ever held a mouth like this. Its beak was jagged with a short but sharp hook, and when it opened, it exposed hundreds of backwards-facing fleshy spikes all leading down a huge gullet, so wide and so deep that you could practically see all the way down into its stomach... and every inch of the way there was laced with vicious spike-like teeth. Its shell was a huge disk of uneven rock - if its head wasn't exposed, it could have been an outcropping of stone for all the authenticity it held. Occasionally, huge leathery limbs surfaced around it briefly before dipping back under the crashing waves. "Take it down, before it overturns the ship!"

[Silaqui Falone]

Silaqui stumbled and staggered as the boat pitched and rocked harder than it had been. This time however, the adrenaline was there to keep her stomach where it needed to be and the taste of sick out of her mouth. Reaching the state room she paused for a moment to survey the room in an attempt to locate her quiver and the small oil cloth pouch her bow was kept in. This was the only draw back she found with a traditional bow like hers when comparing them to a crossbow. Stumbling to her bows case she undid the ties around the flap that kept the weather out.

In a single motion she withdrew that most precious of her possessions. That carefully shaped, lovingly polished and sealed, doted over piece of wood she had taken a shining to so long ago. Looping the limb around and between her legs she twisted to one side and slipped the loop of her string into it's proper place on the end of the limb. A few more moments and her quiver was at her hip and secure with the brass closure she'd salvaged from a dead man some months back. Making her way out to the deck again she stopped at the door and grasped the frame with her right hand. Making her way up to the quarter deck Sila abandoned her usual slow advance into a firing position. The beasts had come for them this time. As the boat pitched again she pulled an arrow from her hip quiver and nicked it. Peering over the side as the boat pitched towards the turtles she drew, took aim and fired in a single fluid movement for one of the beasts eyes before the boat lurched back the way it came. Reaching into her quiver again the Naerrik nocked and readied to fire the minute the boat pitched in a way that qould allow her another clear shot.

[Squirrel]

As Sila moved away to grab her kit and prepare herself, the ship bucked and swayed to the tune of the huge lumbering animal, while its two siblings rushed to close the gap. Its heavy jaws smashed into the side of the ship, struggling to find purchase on the rough thick wood, a hideous scraping sound ripping through the air as its massive forelegs scrambled against the surface for a good bit of purchase to climb over the side - every push threatening to knock half the small twenty-man crew overboard if they weren't grabbing a railing. "HOLD RANKS!" Varsix screamed over the squealing with a voice like angry thunder. "Ready lifelines, steady catchpoles!" She wasn't the only one yelling. Onell could be seen charging back and forth across the deck with powerful strides, carrying barrels that left a horrible stench in their wake, once lumbering with both hands wielding a huge iron cylinder, loose from its wooden bearings and with the hatch at its back swaying in the howling wind. Ruckus, a skinny little creature with wicked scars criss-crossing over his bare back, pointed and yelled as five other sailors all leaned over the starboard main decks, all holding steel-hooked catchpoles and with ropes wrapped around their waists all running back to the base of the main foremast. The steel barbs of their polearms jabbed and scraped along the surface of the monster's face, looking to catch the side of its mouth or perhaps an eye, but it shook most attempts away, and those few that did were soon yanked from the sailor's grip.

With all the attention, its head thrashed back and forth in frustration, knocking aside Sila's arrow as it sailed wide from its intended target and bounced off the creature's thick hide.

Anvil practically rolled back onto the deck from his hatch, arms laden with an assortment of leather bags, each with different coloured string to tie them together. Most of them he tossed up to Hammer, busy firing bolt after bolt into the creature; the last three he held in his hand as he vaulted onto the quarterdeck and tossed to Silaqui. "Hammer said you'll need these!" he yelled, raising a hand to block a heavy splash of seawater cast over the side. The bag jangled with the sound of metal pieces jostling about inside. "Powder-tip arrowheads! Open it up, grab one, stick one on the end of an arrow and fire; it won't break their hide, but it'll--" He didn't get time to really explain what was happening.

"MORE COMIN'!" The other two turtles didn't quite match the first in terms of size, but the one that came for the quarterdeck was certainly more aggressive. It tucked its head back into its shell the moment before ramming hard against the lower portion of the ship's rear starboard hull, for a moment threatening to send the whole ship spinning off-course, lurching the deck beneath Sila's feet. Then its maw rose too, rearing from the sea like a hungry chick, gaping wide to expose a fleshy pink tongue waggling and those disgusting fleshy spines flexing. With its legs, it shoved hard and the boat heaved again, leaning away, and then suddenly towards... and then another push, and another, with an almost rhythmic pattern. It was trying to pull her closer through sheer force of gravity!

However, it was also giving her the perfect shot, as it grappled uneasily with the deck railing and partially dragged its body from the water before her. Its sparkling, eager eyes fixed squarely on her, a delicious morsel sent right its way. Mouth open wide, throat yawning, tongue flexing, nostrils flaring.

Behind her, now quite high above her, Anvil dug his claws hard into the deck and reached out as far as he could with both hands. "Sila, grab on!" On a slippery wet deck, under assault from the huge beasts, even his claws were lucky to find any purchase in the slick wooden deck. "GRAB ON!" She was being confronted with a very dangerous choice indeed, but in the grand scheme, the real question was how much she was willing to put on the line.

[Silaqui Falone]

In the brief moments that she'd had to grab the small satchels and deposit them to a mounting point on her body glove when the boat pitched hard. Slamming to her bottom she closed her eyes as salt spray beat against her face. Opening her eyes as the mouth of a much smaller turtle cleared the rail. As it began to rock the boat in an attempt to shake her into its mouth she was given two choices. She could either make the attempt to kill the beast with the arrow she had nocked which she'd equipped with one of the small satchels, which she was pretty certain at this point were some variety of explosive, or she could take a leap and take Anvil's hand. There was really only a single option. Jump.

As the boat lurched towards the turtle she stood and bent at the knee. As it rose she sprung up and towards Anvil, right arm outstretched hoping she had time it right. She wasn't sure what would happen after this but for one thing she was certain. After this, if they survived this and their fight with the one they were calling "The Black Mountain" or whatever, and when they returned to port or whatever it was called she was never getting on another boat like this or any boat if she could help it. To Viden with the sea and sailing! To Viden with these ship killing man eating turtles! True, there were beasts upon the land in the air that could kill a man but at least on land you didn't stand the chance of drowning first and were unlikely to find yourself emptying your stomach contents for a day on end as you got used to the pitch and roll of the endless sea.

This all raised some serious questions. Why, if these turtles could kill a ship, were they on a ship? Why not fight from land with cannon and shot? Why not get some powerful spell casters to blast the beasts with magic from a safe distance? Why in Viden were they doing it this way? They were both and bait and the trap. The carrot on the string tied to the stick that holds up the box. Something about all of this didn't sit right with her but at the moment she had more important things to think about like, 'What is the safe distance for the use of this small explosive?', 'What sets these things off?', and 'Where am I shooting them to begin with?' For now, seeing as she'd watched her arrow simply bounce off the outer hide of one of the beasts she wagered that it'd be best to try shooting one, such as the one that was attempting to mount the ship and eat her, in the mouth with these small bags of whatever they were. She assumed they were explosives. For all she knew they were acids. What she was certain of was that these turtles wanted to eat them.

[Squirrel]

Anvil's hands closed around her wrist, squeezing tight and briefly wrenching her arm in its socket, before she was yanked to safety and back against the door of the navigation room, out of reach of the huge creature, as it screeched in anger at the loss of its meal. Instead, its eyes fixed squarely on the Ithecal that had selflessly thrown her to safety. The wet boards creaked under his feet, cracking under the pressure of his strong claws and the powerful weights repeatedly smashing against the boats side. Another hard slam and he nearly lost his balance, arms flailing before him as he took an uneasy step towards the beast. Except, he didn't look worried. His jaw was set, and his eyes sparkled in an unnatural fiery orange light. The very air seemed to crackle around the Ithecal, little sparks flaring to life and swelling louder with each pinprick until the swirling, growing maelstrom seemed to buzz. Then, with a flash of light, they struck; Anvil threw his hands forward and unleashed several lightning bolts at once, scattering and burning the wet deckboards, zipping through the air in streaks that hurt the eyes, and earning a pained screech from the beast when they struck its nose, eyes and most importantly its mouth.

When the shocks ceased, the Rock Turtle lolled and recoiled, black smoke creeping from the insides of its mouth, face pock-marked with black burn marks and torn red flesh. Though it was doubtful such a brutal assault had killed the lumbering beast, it wouldn't be returning.

Hammer spared none of them a glance from her perch on the forecastle. Not until, as Anvil sunk to his knees with a weak grunt, another of the creatures pulled up on the other side, mouth gaping and its beady eyes locked on Silaqui. Then, at least, they got a little warning. "HEADS UP!" Before the monster could even raise a foot onto the deck, a crossbow bolt slammed hard into the Rock Turtle's fleshy pink tongue, clicked, and exploded in a short-range high-impact flare of metal and light, scattering shards of metal all along the insides of its mouth, studding the pink flesh all the way down its throat with black singe-marks and jagged strips of iron and burning sulfur. One was enough to earn a screech, yet the first hadn't even finished exploding before the second bolt struck the roof of its mouth, the crack of its ignition sending its eyes rolling in its skull as viscera poured from its flattened nose. The third struck it on the chin in the middle of keeling backwards; the fourth struck its throat, blasting apart thick hide in fleshy strips, leaving a gaping hole for the fifth bolt to strike straight inside, nearly dislodging its head from the thickly-muscled neck as it slammed backwards into the water and disappeared below the waves. All faster than many could ever draw a bow, let alone draw a crossbow.

"You alright down there?" she called down when it was over, hopping over the rails of the forecastle and shouldering her crossbow... which definitely no longer looked like an ordinary crossbow. The box strapped to the top had grooves for each bolt to be fed after the last, with a stubby draw on the side to pull back to reset the drawstring. A modified repeater crossbow.

Anvil remained on one knee, breathing heavily with one hand pressed to his chest. "I'm fine, I'm fine... gimme a second." He'd clearly overworked himself with that little stunt of his, though without it, he'd surely be far worse off than he was. Faint glimmers and flashes of light occasionally broke out around him in the aftermath, but he didn't seem to pay them any attention, nor did they do anything harmful when approached.

Clearly, none of them were going to get any of that. The third, and the largest of the three, chose a very poor time to suddenly slam against the front o the ship with a head-on collision, physically lifting the front half into the air with the force of the impact and throwing everyone on the ship forwards with the sheer momentum it held. Both Anvil and Hammer were slammed straight back into the forecastle's underside, though Hammer recovered much faster, grunting hard through gritted teeth and fixing Sila with an iron stare. "Time to start earning your damn pay!" she growled, already in the process of grabbing another handful of those special tipped bolts to reload her crossbow. "Send that thing back to the bottom of the ocean!" As she spoke, the Rock Turtle screeched and rammed the ship yet again, its legs climbing over the forecastle's railing and threatening to splinter the bowsprit as it tried to clamber aboard. It had to be said that this one certainly seemed much angrier than the others... perhaps because seeing its siblings burned and beaten so badly had sent it into a primal rage... or it was just growing frustrated that it couldn't pull the tasty morsels from the hull of the ill-seasoned ship. Whatever it was, it was certainly angry... and unlike the others, its mouth was firmly pressed shut as it swung its head back and forth like a battering ram, threatening to tear down not only the bowsprit, but the foresail as well if it wasn't dealt with immediately.

[Silaqui Falone]

Sila burst from the navigation rooms doorway like a woman on fire. Wheeling as the beasts head slowed in its thrashing of the ship she drew and let the arrow she'd been holding since prior to being flung by Anvil into the navigation quarters. The arrow struck home under the beast chin and detonated. Pulling another arrow from her quiver and slipping a pouch over its needle like point she nocked, exhaled, inhaled while drawing, aimed for the beasts chin again and fired all within the space of a few seconds. Before storming up the stares of the deck of the forecastle while reloading.

Muttering words in her peoples language she drew and fired again driving the arrow into the beasts nostril. The explosion tore open the beasts nose spraying blood and small piece of flesh about the deck and making the beast open its massive jaws in a shriek of pain and fury. Another quick reload and she sent fourth arrow streaking into the beasts mouth as it screeched in pain. This arrow found its way into the beast throat before bursting within the tight confines on its throat. The beasts head slammed against the deck blood begining to run between the gaps in its jaws and from the wounds its had sustained to its chin and nose. Silaqui held her position as she nocked a fifth arrow and made ready to draw and fire a fifth time if the beast did anything but slide off the deck and into the deep depth of the sea. In the few moments she'd spent in the navigation room Sila had shed the outer tunic she wore to hide her body glove. With her form on display and the full load of weaponry she carried on her on full display she wiped blood and gore from her face only to serve in smearing it about her face. Returning her right hand to her her bows string she watched and waited to see if the beast was truly slain.