Standing up on the deck, the continuous trickle of energy from the mage into Delia's innards is a tinglingly pleasant precursor of how her physical form will go soon enough. It's distracting, but not so distracting as to keep her from being able to move and talk and look around her, or to pick up on the hundred or so tiny facial tics and movements that her infernal nature's accustomed tyo using to read emotions, thoughts, desires from a wayward look. It doesn't take much in the way of demonic genius, though, for either her or Xarius to tell that the dwarf's heart isn't really in the glorious last stand idea. It does take Xarius's upward glance to see why, and call out the looming, feathery trap before it closes over the head of an unwary prisoner. Startled, Mona looks up as well, and then grins. "Well! I can set up some fried chicken for dinner-"<br/><br/>"-served in a bed of fried sails and rigging?" Garth snarls. "Spray fire up there, and you get to try to paddle this big ship to shore."<br/><br/>Both Delia and Xarius make their pitches to the sailors, they look at each other nervously. A few of them start whispering urgently to each other, and the dwarf seems a little swayed by the feline's words; still, he has his weapon, and doesn't seem inclined to give it up. "You... when our captain wakes up," he says, "You'll be sorry! He's led this ship for years, and he's hunted down pirates when he was still with the regular navy. He'll be able to, repel, er... boarders?" He scratches at a stubby black bear, considering the inadequacy of that word. There's a polite knocking on the door from the inside, and the dwarf's face is lit with a terrible joy as he stands up a little straighter. "There! Harpies, get ready, even if they know you're comin' I know that you've got a good dive-bombin' to do!"<br/><br/>The door behind him opens. A few of the sailors turn to welcome their captain while the dwarf continues grinning at the prisoners.<br/><br/>Right until he feels the bolt of a crossbow press into the back of his head, followed by a large, warm, fleshy mass into his lower back.<br/><br/>"Oh, finally up here?" Aron says cheerfully, holding one crossbow to the back of the dwarf's head and with a wicked looking short sword in the other- and with a squirming bulge to match Delia's in his midsection. He's taken off his own shirt, showing off his dark-skinned body to effect. Muffled screaming comes from inside him, right behind the dwarf, and Aron burps. "Excuse me. Good thing I didn't take that nap. Thank you, dear Delia- he slept all the way into my stomach. Don't you like this sword? It's magically enhanced, I think, though I don't have quite the nose for that as others do. Now. Under pirate law, I claim this ship on behalf of the escaped prisoners, having disposed of the prior captain. You can all follow that, or follow your captain." Shading his eyes against the sunlight with one forearm, he smirks at the others punctuated by another, smaller thrash from the lamented captain.<br/><br/>The dwarf- crosseyed, by this point, and not moving- seems to think this over for a few minutes, before saying disgustedly, "I yield." With him gone, the others race to drop their weapons where they stand.<br/><br/>((Xarius's diplomacy check is enough to bring them to Unfriendly from Hostile- it was a DC 26 check, so no further than that and needed that high roll! Figured this would be a more fun way of getting them to bow to superior force than just words alone, though~ The ship is yours. I'll do a writeup of the loot, but anything you want to do immediately on deck before I move things forward to the grand aftermath...?))