Undead Ambush (OPEN)

[Captain Madonna Lynn]

(open to all)

Madonna sighed deeply as she walked alone from the dock, the heels of her boots clicking strongly against the wood surface. Her red lips pursed as her green gaze fell upon a few sailors from neighboring docks, who gave her the dumbest look ever. Jaws were dropped; heads were tilted as they just stared at the damaged Gregory. All the woman gave in response was a roll of her eyes. Idiots. They acted as if they never seen a ship with cannon wholes.

“Captain Lynn, are ye sure ye want me to wait here with the others,” hollered a man from Gregory’s deck “Perhaps I could be ah assist to ye?”

Madonna stopped in her tracks, glancing over her shoulder toward the fellow with an eye patch and bandana. “I will not be in need of your assistance my dear friend. The time alone is greatly needed and appreciated if you could allow me the time of peace.”

The mate nodded his head with no further question. “Then my place is here on Gregory. I’ll be sure teh keep ye other mates in line, or they’ll feel the wraith of Macky Rubberboots!”

“Give it ah rest Carl…” Bruno, one of the other mates of the crew, muttered as he sat down a heavy crate. Bruno was much broader then the other man, casting a shadow over the man.

“Argh, me told ya not to use me real name!” snarled Macky as she shook his boney fist in fury.

Bruno hunched over his shoulders, guiltily looking to his feet as he said, “Sorry, Macky….”

Macky furiously pointed his finger across the deck. “No get done with ye yappin’ and get the crates stacked down yonder!”

Captain Madonna’s brow rose as she just watched the two for a moment. With a shake of her head she proceeded on, leaving the docks to find some sort of tavern where she could get some information on finding supplies so she could begin to repair straight away. Her strides were long as she looked up, reading each sign she passed. Her attention caught on Torg’s tavern. This would be a likely place to get what she needed.

Within the tavern, many folk talked amongst themselves, laughing, joking, and spilling their rum as they passed out onto the table. Madonna thought to herself of how unsanitary the place was as she stepped over a man sprawled out on the floor, only to meet a smiling bald man. “What can Torg’s do for ya today?”

“Er, yes,” she started slowly “I was wondering where I could find some kind of ship repair company? If you could tell me that would be g-“

“I don’t serve until I’m paid sweet heart. Either pay or ya aint getting’ nothin’ out of me…”

The woman’s eyes quickly slanted to a narrow as she slammed down an shilling. “I’ll have a pint then…”

Torg’s smiled and took the coin, giving a nice missing toothed bite. “Comin’ right up! Torg’s finest mead in Scara Brae! Now if you are looking for ah man to take a look at your ship, you want to go to ah man who calls himself Rummle Thompson. Of all people on these docks, he knows a ship weller then any of em.”

“Thank you.” It wasn’t as much information as she was hoping, though it was a start, so she couldn’t complain. Nor could she for the mead, it was well worth its great taste.

[Mathias]

"We've been coming here for about a week now, Math. We haven't seen shit," Logo said, letting out a heavy sigh as he reclined in his chair. The vandal shrugged, sipping at his ale with disinterest. He swished the alcohol around in his mouth before swallowing it, tilting his head back as he did. It wasn't the best he'd ever had, but he did what he could to savor it. However, it was growing harder with each passing day they spent in Torg's Tavern, scouting the place for foreigners. Their mission was double-fold - to scout for fresh recruits, and to find signs of the Blackhood Syndicate and maybe oust them out of some territory.

Since the Blackhoods had come to Scara Brae from the far off continent of Antioch, they'd built an intense rivalry with the Scara Scourge. They had their hands in everything, and most of it was truly dirty business. Slavery, opium deals, legal fraud over lands, corruption in the nobility. All of it was really tainting the face of crime that had come to an almost chivalrous sort of fashion upon the small isle.

Mathias and his group had done plenty to combat the Syndicate, but their fight had gone cold since they'd relocated from the countryside town of Elvaline. Now, they were attempting to pick up the trails of any Blackhood business that might be occuring, and Mathias had the pleasant duty of sitting with Logo, day in and day out, on dockside scouting. The company was enjoyable at times and he truly did like his comrade. But sometimes he could be such an annoying prick.

Not to mention they'd found no leads so far. The faces at Torg's Taverns were the same as the day before. Or atleast, most of them. The few fresh ones that looked genuinely foreign didn't match the expectations that Math had of a typical Syndicate member. He'd lounged in on some of the conversations with the newcomers and had deduced most of them to be honest-to-goodness sailors and merchants.

"Shit, man. Have you seen her before?" Logo said, snapping Math out of his train of thought. The youth turned to see a woman with deep brown hair, carrying herself about in a confident manner. She had a brief interaction with Torg, who in turn, chatted for a moment as he served her a mug of mead. Math shook his head in an answer to Logo's question.

"She looks pretty outlandish. Where would you say she's from?" he asked his companion.

The other vandal shrugged. "Iunno," he said. "I'm going to reckon she might be out of Lavinya. Maybe Corone, but that she's way too... buccaneer-looking to be from Serenti. I'm going to put my money on Lavinya."

"Me too," said Math. "Which means she'd be close from Antioch. Which means it's a damn good bet."

Logo nodded solemnly, staying behind to allow Math to act on the hunch, as the rogue moved from his seat at their table in the corner of the tavern. The planeswalker moved through the crowd, making his way to the bar to settle down next to the sailor lass. As he took a seat next to her, he smiled, leaning on the counter and looking at her with as much of a charismatic expression as he could muster. Logo had better be right.

Mustering up some confidence and readying himself to play out a fictitious version of himself, Math spoke, "Hello, doll. I haven't seen you around before, and I like to make a habit out of meeting new people. The name's Van. Might I ask yours?"

[Captain Madonna Lynn]

Her tolerance to alcohol was great. This pint of mead likely wouldn’t even give her somewhat of a buzz. After spending so many years on a pirate ship full of rum, you usually grow what you could call immunity or a resistance so to say.

Closing her eyes, she held back her pain. Gregory, why him, why now? She was alone, soon to be tormented by the dark abyss of the room the two shared. The thought of her sleeping on her cot, gazing at the body imprint across the room to the other cot would drive her to the peak of her sanity, or what was left of it. Stoning her emotions, her eyes snapped open due to a voice that had not belonged in her mind. Green orbs looked over at the man with what almost seemed like malice. Never had she tolerated such an ignoramus such as this native, nor was she going to now. Rolling her eyes away she pressed her hands against the counter, pushing herself from her set.

Men, they were ignorant, highly confident of themselves to the point it was disgusting. And to think that this…Neanderthal thought he even stood the slightest chance to make his way up her boot top; he was wrong. Her red lips parted, calling him a title she felt was right for him. “Scoundrel…”

The bottom of her dark blue duster swayed from side to side as she hit the door. Now, with that bastard out of her mind, she had to find this Thompson guy. The sooner she got her business done with this guy the better. She had to be on the sea and pronto. Just as she made her way down the small four steps of the entrance, a man only a foot or so whistled at her? Did these men have no decent woman around here? This was getting ridiculous and old. Without even looking at the skinny man, she shoved him right into the horse trough. With a loud splash, there was a sudden burst of laughter from all his buddies as he quickly popped his head out from the watery surface with a vulgar statement, “Fucking whore!! That- That fucking Whore!!”

Torg chuckled as she watched from the distance, drying a glass with his often used white cloth. His attention grew to Mathias’ partner, leaning in closer to him. “Looks like ya’ got yourself a feisty one my lad…Hard to come by these days..So what ya say another drink to boost your way with the ladies? Haha, cuz’ trust me, you’re gonna’ need it for that one.”

Captain Lynn paced her way back to the docks, seeing that Thompson worked with ships. The man would likely be somewhere around here. At random choice, Madonna strode to the nearest merchant, asking for some answers. “Do you know where I can find a man by the name of Rummle Thompson?”

The fat man bellowed with laughter, a chunk of chewed chicken sticking like glue on her shoulder plate. “You’re looking at em, sweetheart. What can I do for a lovely lady like yourself?”

The woman’s right brow rose just ever so slightly. “You- are Mister Thompson?”

“Of course,” the man grinned as he took another brutish bite into his chicken leg “what the hell did ya expect, prince Charmin’? Look, if your just gonna stand around and look pretty I’m gonna be on my way. Words got it that Trog has me cookin’ up ah nice ol’ ham.”

“Right” she said gloomily, “I need you to look over my ship to see how much the damaging repairs are going to cost me.”

Rummle laughed out loud again. “So, seeking my service eh? It’ll cost ya five hundred gold pieces and we got ourselves ah deal.”

“Five hundred!? Why that’s preposterous!” Madonna gasped, “Outrageous!”

Rummle waved his hand, “Alright alright, I get the picture. By the looks of it your not getting’ my service. But… there is other ways ya can repay me..” His eyebrows twitched a few times to make her get the picture. And by her reaction of disgust, she got the picture.

With narrowed eyes she turned and left. How was she ever going to find out how much the repairs are going to cost? There was no way she was passing away five hundred gold coins to that perverted, grease stained, man. Never would she take things to those standards.

“Eh, where ya goin!? Ah, ya weren’t that great anyways! Blah…”

[Mathias]

Mathias frowned as the outlander blatantly ignored him, then promptly turned and walked away from him. He retreated back to his table and sat down next to Logo, who had a sly, cocky grin painted on his lips. "Fuck you," the vandal said. This prompted his companion to burst out laughing, shaking his head as he guffawed.

"Nice diplomacy, jackass," Logo replied.

The younger thief stopped his laughter abruptly as both he and Math turned to focus on the scene that had erupted as the woman left. The door closed just as the man who'd been pushed into the trough began his yelling, cutting off their view. "I don't like this," Math said, pivoting in his seat to fix his gaze on Logo. "I'm going to follow her. I've got a feeling that, even if she isn't one of 'em, they'll take notice of her. And when they find her, I'll find them. Hold the fort while I'm away. Keep looking - I'll leave if it starts to look boring."

His comrade nodded his silent agreement. As Mathias got up from his seat and turned to leave, Logo called out, "Don't get into too much trouble, mate."

"Please. Like I ever do," he replied, grinning.

The planeswalker weaved through the tables and the clusters of folk and made his way to the door. He swung it open, letting the cityscape of Scara Brae flood his vision. He stepped down the stairs and scanned the ocean of faces for the one that was so fresh in his mind. He merged with the traffic, becoming an indiscernable entity in the mass collective of people. His eyes fell upon the woman once more as she stood, conversing with a rugged, ugly merchant at his stall. From the large distance between them, he could only see her express a form of disgust and then turn to abandon the conversation entirely.

Whatever'd been said had displeased her - that much was evident. Math couldn't help but smirk to himself, however, as he came to the conclusion that she was probably always in a foul mood. "Wonder what's got her panties all in a bunch," he mused to himself. He stepped up his pace as he moved through the crowds, intent on trailing his quarry and maintaining a close proximity to her.

[Captain Madonna Lynn]

(Sorry if my post sucks. I was having a little bit of a writers block. Just not flowing with me today.)

The woman, much like the last, sighed deeply as she let out a harsh exhale of heavy stress that over cumbered her. Her emotions were starting to get very irate and annoyed. Not one thing could just go her way for just one minute. She honestly just wanted to cry, but all the gods in this world knew she would never do such a thing, especially in front of a army of people. Instead, she just walked tall and headed back to her ship with failure hanging by her side.

Macky noticed from afar of the captain's return. Waving his arm, he let out a holler. “Aye Captain, tell me the news about The Gregory!”

Madonna remained silent until she reached the ramp. “Unfortunately there was no one that could help us with the matter... Only fat men and adolescence trying to make their move...”

The pirate grinned and patted his captain on her shielded shoulder. “Don't worry about it, captain, if we juz find us some timber we can build it ourselves. All we need is a little elbow grease.”

“And ah new crew..” Added Bruno as he dragged a body onto the deck, pushing the pale figure overboard.

Like always, Macky turned many shades of red as he immediately began to lecture Bruno about throwing the dead in the waters. “Is your slimy brain as dumb as ah squid boy!? The ocean feeds of the dead in these waters!”

“I know Macky,” Bruno explained innocently, “they were the ones who attacked our boat...”

“SHIP BOY!SHIP!!”

“Enough!” Madonna snapped as her eyes glittered with fury, the heel of her boot hitting the deck with frustration, “the both of you! Quit acting like children with your silly little games! I want you and Bruno to recruit immediately if we wish to have a working crew before the week ends.”

The two men looked down with the jitters. She was very intimidating when she got angry like that. With no hesitation they ran off the deck and began on the pronto. Thank god. With those two out of her hair, she walked across the deck and placed her hands the railing, looking out at the swaying sea. The wind took a light tug at her hair and coat, giving it a dramatic effect. The dead pirate bobbed up and down face first in the water, stiff like stone. With the loss of her brother and crew, she utterly felt useless. What kind of captain was she without her ship? A poor excuse of one if you asked her.

The sun was starting to fall, making the sky pink with its colorful appearance. It was funny how the world seemed so beautiful yet was so cruel and unfair. Just thinking about it caused her grip to tighten. No matter the odds, she was going to get through this. Some way..some how..

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been sitting for a full year. Since no response has been made to create activity I am going to be moving this. If you would like it to be reopened please feel free to PM myself or another staff member and they will be able to move it for you back to Scara Brae.