Post 1263 of main thread.

Night 4

Four sailors aboard the Presence woke up. Looking around, they nodded to each other, and slowly made their way above decks. They had had quite enough the conditions on the ship, and they were going to make things right. They walked outside, greeted by a fierce gust of wind and driving rain, the kind of storm that only a long voyage at sea could truly prepare you for. After a momentary adjustment period, the four of them drew their cutlasses in unison. The sound of the swords being unsheathed could barely be heard over the rain and the wind and the thunder. It was better that way. Their target was probably expecting something like this, but even the smallest element of surprise could be enough to enough to turn the tide their way.

And as the Presence rocked and swayed in the ocean, the four vigilantes made their way to the Captain's cabin, where Askthepizzaguy would face pirate justice.


Below decks, another sailor was roused from his sleep. This was done rather forcibly, as at one instant he was dreaming of bliss and peace, and at the next instant was being literally dragged across the room, a foreign hand clamped firmly over his mouth. It went like this until they were up the stairs and above deck, at which point it was useless to scream. The sailor and his kidnapper both realized that the wind would capture any cry for help.

Instead, the kidnapper silently dragged the sailor closer and closer to the ship's edge, the plank looming ever closer. The sailor looked at the kidnapper questioningly, and then fell back in surprise as he took a boot to the chest. Losing his balance on an already unstable boat, the sailor dropped, the only thing keeping him from being lost at sea forever was his arm lock around the thankfully-sturdy plank. The kidnapper only stared at this sight for a while before finally grinning.

Abandoning all thoughts of logic, the sailor started screaming, uncaring for the futility of the act. This only seemed to amuse the kidnapper more. The screaming went on for a while, and little by little the sailor was starting to lose his grip on the slippery plank. Finally, the kidnapper seemed to have enough and finally leaned down, speaking loudly and clearly.

"Would you like to get out of this situation?"

The sailor nodded vigorously.

"Would you do anything to get out of it?"

The sailor nodded again. He didn't care. He had paid his debt, swabbed the decks more times than he cared to count. He was a good man, had done his part in Charleston and numerous missions before that. He didn't deserve to be another one of the countless men who had simply disappeared at night, claimed by the angry sea.

"Would you accept an offer by the Crown in order to reclaim the valuables of Charleston in exchange for your freedom?"

The sailor nodded once again, his horizons quickly adjusted. The kidnapper finally extended a hand and pulled up his new accomplice. The sailor walked with him back below deck, chatting business. He had helped pull off the steal of the decade from Charleston; he would now work to give it all back.


The vigilante crew on Askthepizzaguy had arrived at the doors to the Captain's cabin. Unlike Beefy187 of the night before, the didn't bother wasting time by knocking. Instead, one man kicked the door in, and they rushed into the cabin, not taking any time to admire the luxuries the officers enjoyed. Instead, they searched for their target.

Pizzaguy did not disappoint, walking out of his quarters, fully-dressed and armed for battle with his officer's sword.

"Hello, gentlemen," he said tonelessly. "I've been expecting you."

"You die tonight, Quartermaster," one of them responded. "We be havin' just about enough the way this ship be run, and we'd be likin' to make some changes 'round here. First demand: You, dead."

"Consider the complaint noted," Pizzaguy replied. "I be referrin' it to me staff. Expect an answer from them right about... now," he said, and several more figures rushed out from behind another door, their cutlasses raised. The vigilante group, a bit taken aback, charged forward, and the battle was on.


Back outside the Captain's quarters, in the cold and wet nightmare that was the storm, flashes of lightning illuminated a large problem for scottishranger. No matter where he was on the ship, he could always see four figures with cutlasses, always approaching, always drawing closer. As the endless night wore on and scottish kept trying to outmaneuver his pursuers, he gradually became more and more paranoid, eventually having several brushes with insanity itself.

At first, he wondered why his pursuers were going after him. Then, after accepting that they *were* coming after him and realizing that he probably shouldn't question why and instead focus on survival, he wondered why they never seemed to tire. He wondered why they weren't being affected by this hellish weather. Then, he wondered if they could even feel the rain, the heavy swaying of the ship. He started to wonder if his pursuers were even human at all, or simply beings from another plane come to take him early.

"OH, GOD!" he cried out, his scream lost to the wind. "It's the Four Horsemen! They've come for me! It's just as they prophesied! The Seventh Seal! Revelation! Pestilence! War! Famine! Death! O, Discordia! The end times have come! A crew we were as living, and so a crew we shall be when dead! Ah, rue it, for the End Times are here!" He babbled along like that incoherently for a while, forgetting about all means of escape from the "Horsemen". Eventually, one of them put him out of his misery by beheading the knelt scottishranger as they simply walked by, much as a mounted man with a scythe might do.


In the Captain's Quarters, a fierce battle was taking place, which was quite loud and shredded lots of furniture and putting lots of slash marks in the wooden walls. Askthepizzaguy, despite having a protection group looking out for him and being the sole target of his attackers, was very much in the fray.

Despite Pizzaguy's presence, though, the outcome of the battle was very much in the air. The combatants were so evenly matched that it looked like it was coming down to whoever would tire first. Finally, however, one of the members of Pizzaguy's bodyguards took another one aside and hissed in his ear, "the table, matey! Drop it down and use it as a barricade!" The two men did so, attacking the vigilante group's legs and throwing them off balance.

Little by little, thanks to the table's protection, the vigilante group was being forced back. They all started attacking even fiercer, but it was just not to be. Momentum was not on their side, and eventually they found themselves back in the deluge, helplessly banging on the now-reinforced door. After about five minutes of this, they decided to call it quits and trudged back below deck.

Not one of them saw Andres get grabbed from behind and dragged off to the side.


DisgruntledGoat couldn't sleep. He was always a light sleeper, and in a storm of this magnitude, forget it. He had long learned to make do with it. Most of the time, it involved heavy amounts of rum. Another Presence crewman was keeping him company, the two of them looking out at the storm and whistling in amazement.

"Y'know," the second sailor said to Goat, "they say they had a storm like this at Port Royal the night before the earthquake." Goat only looked at him quizzically.

"Arr, ye don't know about the earthquake?" the second sailor said, with almost an indignant expression on his face. "What's this world comin' to, when somebody in our business doesn't know about the earthquake or the town it hit? I be gettin' too old for this, methinks."

"No no, go on," Goat said. "I be wantin' to hear about this."

"Very well," said the second sailor. "Basically, Port Royal was the Nassau of a generation or two ago, only a lot more so. Founded by the Spanish, taken by the English, it relied on privateers for its defense. Back then, the Crown said Spanish ships were fair game, so business was boomin' and as a result Port Royal thrived. Those lucky scallywags did everything they did and more, and they even had the protection of the bleedin' English! Those were the days," the second sailor sighed, trailing off for a moment before resuming.

"Anyway, Port Royal was the home base of the great pirate Morgan, who led many-a-raid on the Spanish, all from Port Royal. And Port Royal continued to grow, serving our particular clientele. At one point, 'twas the second largest English city in the New World. Eventually, though, times changed. The Crown made nice with Spain and cracked down. Morgan was installed as Lieutenant Governor of Port Royal and later Governor itself, if memory serves. He pretty much tried to put a stop to the piracy, and while he was somewhat successful he could never quite clamp it down entirely. Eventually he died, and still the trade the city did flourished. I be rememberin' one learned man back on the ship a few summers back, readin' somebody describin' Port Royal as 'a modern-day Sodom'. It was just askin' for a smitin', everybody knew it, even us folk.

"Eventually, it came. Giant, nasty earthquake, sank darn near half the city. Legend has it it uncovered Morgan's coffin and the newly-sloped ground took it right into the sea, as if it had decided to initiate this entire devastatin' act just to rightfully reclaim one of its greatest conquerors. But first, there was the storm. Beautiful time o'year, late spring, early summer, just like this. And then the temperature just drops. The rain comes, and so does the wind. God's opening act, some said. An early warning to those still religious enough to heed the signs." He tailed off for another moment before finally snapping back into it.

"The most interesting part though, is just how everything... sank. When the sea is hungry, me lad, it will be fed. And right now... the sea be hungry," he finished, ripping a hole in DisgruntledGoat's chest with his cutlass and tossing him overboard.


Andres, meanwhile, was trying to break away from the grip of the man who had snatched him away from his group. The rain in this case was a double-edged sword; he was able to break free, but always slipped and fell when he tried to run away.

"Curse this weather!" he cried aloud. It seemed like the wind would take this one as well, but his kidnapper seemed to hear it. Andres could see an unearthly glow in this man's eyes, his yellow, remaining teeth grinning eerily.

A flash of lightning illuminated even more features about this man, Andres noticed. Most striking out of all of them was a blunderbuss, pointed directly at him. The sheer absurdity and shock of it all overwhelmed Andres, who began to cackle.

"What? You really expect that thing to work?" Andres burst out between bouts of hysterical laughter.

The figure said nothing, only drawing closer.

"Be... be ye kiddin' me?" he said, the laughter a bit more nervous this time.

The figure said nothing.

"Come on!" he finally shouted, ready to finally crack from all the pressure he had been under the past few days. "The Almighty Himself be takin' a shower right now in this! No way that thing can stand up and still work!"

Finally, the figure spoke. "Bess?" he said gruffly. "Bess don't care 'bout gettin' wet." He then pulled the trigger, and Bess's mouth erupted in a brief flash of fire.

The last thing Andres noticed before he died, his blood being quickly washed away by the rain, was how much Bess's nozzle, smoking afterwards, reminded him of a woman enjoying some tobacco after finishing the physical act of love.


The sun finally rose, and with it the rain tailed off. It didn't leave entirely, as a light and steady drizzle would fall throughout the entire day, but it was enough to make the sailors feel human again. Mother Nature had claimed most of the crew's work over the night, but the remaining days and the roll call told Captain Crazed Rabbit all he needed to know. In addition, his quarters were also trashed. It seemed like the only part of the Presence that was in good condition was, well... the Presence itself.

Halfheartedly, almost zombie-like, Captain Rabbit walked the crew through the process as usual. This would be a quiet day for everyone after the apocalyptic storm of the previous night. As a matter of fact, it was only halfway through the voting that he remembered to tell the crew the results of the crew that had earlier.

"Well lads," he said, we be makin' progress. atheotes and woad&fangs were good honest sailors, but gibsonsg91921 was a dirty rotten traitor who meant to steal all our treasure and make off with it to the Maven. If nothin' else encourages ye, at least hang on to that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is now Day 5. The round will end Saturday, October 10th at 12:01 PM US Eastern.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Attacked: Centurion1 (n1), LittleGrizzly (n1), taka (n2), Andres (n3), Askthepizzaguy (n4)

Murdered: LittleGrizzly (n1), atheotes (n2), gibsonsg91921 (n2), Tratorix (n3), Iskander 3.1 (n3), Beefy187 (n3), scottishranger (n4), DisgruntledGoat (n4), Andres (n4)

Lynched: woad&fangs (d2), Sigurd (d3), Jolt (d4)

Removed from play: Xehh II, johnhughthom, YLC

Souls aboard (36):
a completely inoffensive name
A Very Super Market
A1 Unit
Askthepizzaguy
Beskar
Captain Blackadder
Centurion1
Chaotix
CountArach
Crazed Rabbit
Cultured Drizzt Fan
Death is Yonder
Diana Abnoba
Double A
Joooray
Khazaar
KukriKhan
Lord Winter
Louis VI the Fat
miotas
pevergreen
Psychonaut
Reenk Roink
ricera10
Sasaki Kojiro
Seamus Fermanagh
shlin28
slashandburn
spL1tp3r50naL1ty
SSNeoperestroika
Subotan
taka
TinCow
White_eyes:D
Yaropolk
Yaseikhaan