Jesus
Fransiscus Dwyer
Abroad at sea


Reports of slaving ships terrorizing the smaller islands off the coast of Tardide have been flooding in recently, with messengers coming in by the droves. The last incident that finally caught Lady Fransiscana Dwyer's eye happened just a day before the expedition. It was when the magistrate of Hainii- a small settlement off the coast of Windrip under Dwyer jurisdiction, washed ashore, threw up nearly a gallon of seawater, and bolted with the last ounce of his life's energy into the embassy and died- but not before begging the Directress of the Dwyer Armada to liberate his island. The jarring feat told her two things: one; the situation in Hainii- was so dire and horrifying that the magistrate himself risked pneumonia and drowning to swim to Windrip, and two; that there were still people holed up in Hainii for him to have found any hope to have attempted his final diplomatic mission fighting the waves.


Lady Fransiscana, having seen the urgency of the situation die on her office floor, sent for her twin, the Lord Admiral Fransiscus Dwyer- whom she lovingly calls Fransi, to take care of the matter and hunt down the slaving ships.

Reconnaissance dinghies screened foreign ships coming in and out of all the ports and those spotted just beyond the shore and concluded that the slaving ships came from Amoroth, specifically junks from the Xandrian region. Fransi, upon receiving the 'all clear' from his sister, hopped into his flagship, 'the Tidesplitter' and set out with a small scouting party compromised if his flagship and a frigattine as a vanguard or escape vessel should things go south, *Or as south as one can go in these Islands...*


They left an hour before the sun donned his night cap, just as the moon began her ascent. The waters were calm and the silhouettes of the  jagged shoreline and rock faces were still clear as day, having no fog in the air that night to obscure their treachery. A few miles into the open sea and there they found a lone slaving ship, of Xandrian design just as the dinghies reported, sitting there on the sea. Its mast rocked back and forth in the wind like a reed, with nothing or no one in or above the vessel to weigh her down. Ghost ship. This crow's nest had no chicks. 


Fransi gave the signal to have the Tidesplitter pass and take the vanguard position. A spotter and driver confirmed that the vessel was indeed empty. Fransi gave the order to board ship, with him at the forefront. Sabers drawn and crossbows loaded, they investigated the empty slaver.
Lesia
Xin Tigerson
Adrift at Sea

Night began falling, and soon it would be cold again. Xin looked out at the sea once more, to try and see anything. Land or otherwise. Over the horizon a small shape was making itself known, barely visible to the slight distortion of distant water's edge and sky's connection. Like an off-white triangle emerging from dark waters cast on a backdrop of the late sunset's purple sky. 

Certainly light headed from only drinking alcohol and sea water, Xin rubbed his eyes and blinked back the tears of early sleep. "Coming?" Opening his eyes he looked back out, and an electric shiver ran up his back. Every hair on his body stood on end as he realized that another ship was coming towards him. It had crept fully into his vision and was making quick work of the distance between them. 

"Danger!" He snarled and gripped the railing so hard it cracked, pulling his head and shoulders low so that he was barely peeking between his hands. "New danger." The only experiences he'd had with ships thus far had been this one, where he'd been tied and bound, taken from his home. 

There was a moment where he forgot the oncoming boat. Forgot everything about this moment. Only the word home remained in his mind. A word that had meaning, it had comfort, it was safe. 

But he had no idea how to get home.

The violent surging adrenaline in his blood cooled, and evaporated off of him like hot steam in cold air. Savage as he was, he was still human with a heart that beat for the comfort of home. A home that was now, to his knowledge, lost forever. 

Backing away from the edge he sat down at the front of the ship and rested up against the forecastle. Repeating quietly to himself the words, "Want home." Over and over again.
Jesus
Fransiscus Dwyer
On a Xandrian Slaver

The air was thick with the perfume of the sea, but the stench of human still lingered, the hot night drawing it out from the floorboards. There had been people on this boat not too long ago. In Fransi's mind, the expedition 'find and destroy, had just turned into a 'find and rescue'.

"Sabers at the knee, men." Fransi ordered his men to lower their weapons. "Let's look for survivors"

"Wit all due respect, Cap'n" A thick, Cockney voice bellowed from the line interfered. "Would you be more comfortable with our swords up this..."

"You heard my orders, Scroggs." Fransi imposed, cutting the sailor short of his suggestion. He straightened his back and gave a glare his crew had not seen in him since battle. "Keep the sabers down, but have the crossbows ready to fire at anything that poses a threat."

Fransi turned towards the open deck and stomped a few times. If anyone was sleeping below deck, that would've awakened them. A few steps foreward, he took his saber and struck a barrel. A few more steps and he stomped on the deck again: anything to illicit any reaction from anyone who could be in that boat.

His crew followed close by, several parties branching off, imitating Admiral Fransiscus' stomping and striking. Any verbal call might cause for the survivors to hide. Random sounds and thuds were more likely to stoke their curiosity without startling them. The survivors, if there were any, wouldn't know if they were being saved or come back for by the their slavers, so tact here was key.
Lesia
Xin Tigerson
On a Xandrian Slaver

They boarded the ship, he hadn't even moved as they climbed aboard. He was so lost in his own mind that until one of them came directly in front of him did he actually notice they'd arrived. Lowered weapons and a nervous searching gait kept him calm. When they passed he knocked back in response to the largest man's stomping. "Below!" He shouted, not moving from the position he was in.

"There below." The tone of his voice was less than the smooth intonation of a normal man, more like a growl than actual speech. As if he'd been growling and snarling his whole life rather than speaking. 

The guttural words touched the ears of the burly man, who marched over to the cargo hold and wrenched the sheet off. An absolutely ghoulish smell erupted from the hold with a swarm of flies, a week's work on sun baked corpses was suddenly unleashed in a miasma of noxious fumes. 

Xin calmly plugged his nose with two fingers. 

The image below of bloated corpses with what looked like claw marks across their chests and throats, caved skulls and necks of both slaves and slavers. Wounds that spelled lethal blows one and all on a crew of armed men and strong bodied slaves. And suddenly the realization struck Scroggs, that whoever had spoken had done this to them. "Cap'n! Look!" He screamed as he wheeled around, crossbow raised, looking for the source of the voice.

To his surprise there was a single passenger at the front of the boat, sitting down with two fingers in his nose. Shabby, with bloodstained rags for clothes and a pair of wild emerald green eyes. Who was neither moving, nor speaking.

Xin waved to the man.
Jesus
Fransiscus Dwyer
On a Xandrian slaver

The scene could cause blood to curddle and the weak to succumb to the clots it would produce within them. The smell was something that not even a thousand pigsties full of dead swine could replicate, and the scene was that of carnage that no prayer or requiem could ever make holy. 

Fransi stood sternly, but his stomach churned at the sight of the slaughter. Scroggs ran up to his captain, who with tactile gestures from his hand to Scroggs, discreetly ordered for him to slide back in to the Tidesplitter and retrieve around ten feet of chain link. The crew understood each and everyone of them: sea barbarians and simple minded levies they might have been, they were still sharp enough to know that the culprit of the massacre stood before them, his figure slouched over and fingers up his nose. 

Fransi returned the man's wave while keeping his saber down, though he held it tight and straight, as if he were ready to cleave through something any moment then. Tall men and quartermasters followed their captain's martial stance as they formed a barricade behind them. The crossbowmen hid behind the gaps between their ranks, their aim at the ravenous man. Fingers on the triggers and hands clasped firmly around saber handles, the men waited...

What they were waiting for, they were unsure of. The silent order flew, and it told to wait. Be it as it may, *Thems be Captain's orders.*
Lesia
Xin Tigerson
On a Xandrian Slaver

Eye to eye with the Captain, he pulled his fingers from his nose and dropped both of his hands to the deck. "Slavers." He gestured to the grate that was the entrance to the hold with his knuckles. "Took me. Killed my mother."

He contemplated, trying to remember the word for it. Thoughtfulness filled his face, giving him an odd look. "Tigress." 

Then he dropped his hand again with a thud and rattle as the remnants of his shackles clattered against the wood. "Broke chains and escaped." 

There was a long pause as he blinked very slowly, never once tearing his eyes from the captain's. "Slaves stopped me. Slavers came to kill me." Then he pulled up the edge of his ragged poncho, showing a laceration across his chest right across his solar plexus. "They took my freedom."

He dug his fingertips into the deck, pulling up curling scraps of wood. "I took it back." It didn't occur to him why he was explaining himself to this man, he did not care for his opinion or pity. Something in him just wanted to talk about it, to get the words in his brain out.
Jesus
Fransiscus Dwyer
On a Xandrain Salver

All together, as if in perfect unison, the front guard dropped their sabers at their captain's command, a quick flourish of a familiar gesture holding them all in obedience to him. Scroggs was the only one moving about, weaving through the wall of men when he was sent back by Fransi to put back the chains and retrieve some rum and bread. Fransi then came forward, lowering his sword inch by inch until it fell by his side, the thud it made caused the crew behind him to take a quick and instinctive forwards stance. 

Scroggs had just returned with a bottle of dark rum, a few days after the date but still good; and half a pound of hardtack. He set them on a portion of the deck that had not been stained in dried blood. He figured that the mad man was more scared than far gone, for had he been completely and utterly *Gone*, he would've sated his hunger long ago with the piles of dead meat around him, and the corpses would have been nothing more than skeletons.

Fransi set the bread and drink on the floor, and as a sign of good faith, backed off, ever so gently. He continued treading backwards until he passed the spot where his sword had laid where he dropped it, showing no intent to attack if could. Over the distance between them, Fransi broke the silence with one word:

"Parley?"