Errol 'The Shark' Shaker - Turn Two
Menahem taps Errol on the shoulder, the one without white blobby stains on it. “How d'you do that?” he asks. “Throwing your voice so it sounds like this bird here can talk.” Streerkrook the parrot gives Menahem the beady-eyed stare, his head bobbing from side to side.
“Wait a minute! I know, I know, I know!” declares the priest whilst scrabbling for his Lapdog Oracle. Plonking himself, cross-legged on the deck, his fingers flick across the keyboard and he then uses the little bally bit to scroll down the screen.
Stumpy meanwhile is stamping his foot experimentally on the deck.
“The sea, not liked the sea since.. blurrrghhhhh.”
Stumpy is noisily sick all over Dar's boots.
“Urrrrghhhh... sorry Dar, I'm a bit bett... hurrrgghh”
The next batch catches him around the knees. Stumpy hurriedly takes a long pull at his bottle of lichenor liquor to ‘settle his stomach’, before facing Dar again. "Umm. I think I've got a bit of rag here somewhere".
Errol finishes looking his five unexpected passengers up and down.
“I don't know's which gods has sent yer, and can't say's that I care.... I's usually makes fishfood outta unwanted guests…”
He leans in closer, eyeing Dar and Eorconlid in particular.
“But it seems to me as you lucky swabs has a chance ter earn your passage.” He points a scarred finger at Black Gorhook's ship.
“You’re one of those ventricular anur-wottsits aren’t you?” suddenly burbles Menahem. “No, no - that's when your heart packs up....er...ah! Got it! You're one of those vaxatious litigants aren't you?!” He scrabbles at the keyboard and frowns. “Hmm. Perhaps not. I know - you're a venetian blind! Can I just call you someone who can chuck his voice? Er... who are those people preparing to fire lumps of hot, steaming iron at us?”
Eorconlid gives Errol his best pirate wink and indicating down towards Menahem, he then taps the side of his own head to show the priest has not had his screws tightened for some time. “We’ll earn our passage alright,” declares the F’norian chieftain drawing his chain sword.
Errol wheels around and begins barking orders. “Give em a taste of our broadside mister mate!” he yells at Garagus, his first mate. The man-mountain with a shaven-head, one-eye, and an evil toothy grin starts to give orders to the rest of the crew.
“Ah, well,” Stumpy grins as he dabs ineffectually with a snotty black cloth at the splattered Dar, “at least you smell like a dwarf now. What say we see if you can fight like one?”
“What you mean knock yourself out with your first blow!” declares Dar as the sounds of cannons roar from their vessel.
The much-emptied dwarf ignores the comment and strides towards the side of the boat to view the approach of the other pirate vessel which has been struck by at least one cannon ball. As he does so from the other ship comes the retort which lands just short, the bursts of water splashing up over the side of the vessel and giving the dwarf a good soaking.
Joshua meanwhile has staggered from being sick over the other side of the ship to the door that leads below decks.
“Hard to starboard!” yells Errol and his black mordel helmsman, Tobho Mott, with the dreadlocks and colourful hat who spins the wheel.
Dar can see that Errol is turning the ship about, prow on, possibly to try and ram the other vessel.
“Gorhook’s not going to be easy,” mutters Lakin Skite, the snaggle-toothed Bosun.
“With those two handy-looking warriors and those other freaks backing you and the rest of my lusty crew, I know there's a chance we can take Gorhook and his men. Besides, you know me… I like taking risks!”
And talking of risk…
Menahem is shinning somewhat unsteadily up the rigging to get to the crow's nest. The current occupant Wyl, ‘Keen-Eye’ to his friends, is surprised to see the strangely dressed priest.
“There ain’t room for two,” complains the look-out, but Menahem climbs in to make it a tight squeeze with the words, “Nonsense, I’ve fitted in a chest with eight of my comrades before now! Now budge over!”
Wyl is not too sure what the stranger is doing when he pulls out a sheet of scroll paper and starts reading it aloud in a strange tongue.
The cannon balls of Gorhook’s Sea Raven land in the water around Errol’s ‘Barracuda’, the ship having been hit only once to tear through some rigging and put a hole through the deck. Dar and Stumpy are ready with their crackling maces whilst Eorconlid stands near the prow above the demonic hell-fish ram. From the looks of things, it seems the Sea Raven is now being brought about to sail straight at the Barracuda, Gorhook’s men gathering in boarding party fashion.
“Aaargh, me brave lads!” declares Errol to his crew and the members of the party, “Hooks an' axes at the ready! Boardin' all crew, women an' children first, last one over's the lily-livered son of a toothless bar-crone with the clap!”
Suddenly from the Barracuda’s crow’s nest comes a burst of fire which streaks as a flaming ball in the direction of the Sea Raven. It hits the main sail and explodes amongst the rigging, sending two men toppling, one crashing to the deck and the other going overboard. The Raven’s sail is now well alight, burning fragment’s of canvas dropping down to the deck.
Squeezing past Belly-fat Gage, acclaimed by the crew as the world's worst cook, Joshua tried the next door along the passage. Within the guest quarters he discovered a robed individual knelt before a small bowl full of dirt from which jutted a couple of twigs. The figure quickly turned around on hearing the cabin door open and Joshua found himself looking into the piercing blue eyes of an attractive woman in her thirties, her auburn hair mainly covered by the grey robes cowl. A shocked look on her face, the woman quickly turned away from him and then stood up.
When she next turned around, Joshua was surprised to find himself looking at a man in his forties, a man with the same piercing blue eyes.
“Get out!” declared the man, certainly not wishing to converse with the priest, “I told your Captain I was not to be disturbed. Disturb me again and I will tell him to have you keel-hauled!”
Blood is dripping from Errol’s lips having bitten through them in his eagerness to get at the enemy. Stumpy growls and Eorconlid’s chain sword buzzes in anticipation as grappling ropes from both vessels fly through the air to bite into timber. From above comes the sound of another Fire Ball, this one exploding halfway down the Sea Raven’s mast. There is much splintering and with an ominous creak, the top portion of the mast snaps and comes crashing down onto the Raven’s deck.
From up in the crow’s nest a familiar voice calls down, “First to get out an 'Avast Behind' joke wins a prize!"
Errol is about to make his move to be the first to board the Sea Raven when there is an heroic cry and the crew witnesses Dar swinging on a rope he has cut from the rigging. As he gets over the other vessel, one of Gorhook’s crew slashes at his leg with a scimitar only to get a large mace full in the face for his trouble.
Not wishing to be outdone, Stumpy uses his Wand of Repulsion at an angle against the deck to the Barracuda so that he is flung up into the air across the gap between the two vessels.
Not one to be happy at having the glory taken from him, Errol calls for the dandy Quartermaster, Jeustus, to push out the gang plank. With a run and a leap, he bounces on the end of the plank like it is a diving board, and with a somersault he lands over on the Raven. Drawing both his pistols, he fells two of Gorhook’s charging crew nearest to him before then drawing his cutlass ‘Havoc’…
Through the smoke and chaos they come, Stumpy’s mace delivering a rib cracking blow to one pirate whilst Eorconlid cuts straight through the sword arm of another who he then finishes off with a throat slice. Dar is knocking pirates aside with his electro mace and Errol is cutting a bloody path over to where he can see the wild-bearded Captain Gorhook. Behind them, the rest of the Barracuda crew fight hard into the crew of the Raven whilst from the crow’s nest another Fire Ball flies straight into the area of the helm….
His cutlass bursting out of the back of Gorhook’s Bosun, Errol pulls the weapon clear of the corpse and as it drops to the bloody deck, he finds himself facing Black Gorhook himself. To his right Errol is joined by Eorconlid whilst to his left appears Stumpy and Dar.
The other pirate Captain is a fearsome sight with a mass of wild black hair surrounding a cruel, mad face. A tattered back hat sits atop his head whilst the main features of the rest of his body are his sharpened left hook in place of a hand and the black jacket he wears from which hangs fragments of the scalps of over fifty men. In his right hand he wields a cutlass of strange greenish metal.
“So you’re The Shark!” bellows Gorhook. “I’ve been paid to sink ya but I thought I’d find out what you’ve got that someone would pay so handsomely to see sleep with the fishes. So Shark, care to let me in on your little secret before I run you through?”
