Steel flashed and clanged against one another, and Markus' hilt struck the back of Jim's head, sending the lad to the deck roughly. The triplettes cheered and laughed, and Halvar gave a booming laugh of his own as he watched. Jax the tattooed Half Elf made one of his rare visits out of the crow's nest and taunted the lad in good fun. Corsica and Sron watched silently, though it seemed the Gnoll was a bit too preoccupied with eating his ham leg just as Sketti had been improbably consuming copious amounts of rum with Calliope in the aft room. 

"You ran at me like the devil was chasing you." Markus chuckled, and motioned with his sword for Jim to get back on his feet. The younger man did so, grunting away his pain and embarrassment. He grabbed the sidesword he'd dropped, doing his best to remember the stance Markus had shown him. The Captain smacked the lad's hip with the flat of his backsword. "Legs back, bend your knees." he lectured. "Never let your body get between the blade and the enemy, unless you're mad with the fear and have nothing to lose." 

"Careful lad, else ye'll end up like ol' Sketti One arm!" Jax called behind them, between swigs. 

Jim nodded, and without warning attacked with a thrust. Markus continued to speak as he parried and moved his blade almost imperceptibly, angling the blade so that Jim nearly ran himself through the Captain's sword. "We don't have armor here like they do on the continent. We'd drown before we could use it against a blade, and it does little against sea beasts that would swallow you whole. You need to always be careful when fighting blade to blade."

The sun was now well and truly down, and the crew were getting a tad tired, though the merriment was still in the air. Aeltheron the Elven scholar strode out of the lower decks, his attention on a book of some arcane persuasion. Markus caught his attention by speaking in his native tongue. Aeltheron raised an eyebrow, and shrugged in acceptance of the secret proposal. "Good. Jim, you're the High One's errand boy until you learn the sword properly." 

"I'm just switching masters." Jim said to himself softly, gathering himself up. Before he made his way to the scholar, he stopped by Markus and gave a nod. "Thank you for the lesson, Captain." 

Markus slapped the flat of his blade on Jim's head and told him to hurry up. The others laughed once more.  
[hr] 

The crew had stayed up a bit, gossiping and telling old tales of the sea. Halvar and Sron had taken up watch. The Gnoll's night vision keen, and he was less apt to listen to the words of the hairless apes. Halvar was a hard fighting, hard drinking Norgardian, but he knew his duty and could hold his liquor nearly as well as a Dwarf. Calliope had made her way back to her room, and the dining crew went silent as she passed by, their suspicious gazes looking out of the door as she passed. Once she made it to her room, there would be a marking on the door. 

A dagger mark, it looked like. A simple cut. 

Markus had gone to bed early, and had drank little. He had a goal of being up before the crew proper, and as dawn approached he was already placing on his frock coat and weapons, his bandana and even his tricone hat. The rings that he had stolen from his father those years ago twinkled in the ascending sunlight, and a slight fuzziness to his lower face keyed him in that he needed to shave within the next few days, likely forming the barest hint of a goatee by now. 

He opened the door, and stepped out onto the main deck. Halvar had since gone below, and the only one on top was Sron, the beastman curled up and slumbering like a prized, albeit feral and mangy Markus thought, hound. He snickered and stepped over to the Gnoll loudly, kicking him. The monster twitched and then lashed out with a snarl, Markus only being just nimble enough to avoid an instinctual bite. 

"Oh...sorry, Captain." the Gnoll said. 

The ship was nestled in an inlet on the opposite side of the island, surrounded by trees and sand banks to remain hidden on the offchance of approaching ships. Even now, the ruined fort still wafted smoke into the blue horizon, as if an upside down parody of a waterfall. 

"Take a meal, Sron. Once you are done, wake the crew." 

The Gnoll showed his teeth, and its breath had become even fouler. Markus had to guess it was a pleased smile. The Gnoll ate thrice the amount of most men, and given it would take awhile to devour its ration, it would give Markus some time to think on how to speak to the men in the brig. He thought it best that he personally would go below decks and see their current status, and down he went, past the crew quarters and into the lower depths of the ship, however Calliope's room was a bit too far back for him to notice anything amiss. 

Even though the daylight streamed down the stairs, the brig was still dark. He entered with a lamp hanging, creaking at the end of its grip. The brig was a fair size for a sloop, with four cages in all, giving the floor a cross shape. Each cage could house 6 men, and Markus saw fit to place all eight prisoners in one last night. Only as he passed each cage, he saw nothing behind the bars. And at the last one, his light revealed, to his growing fear, an opened door, along with Jim and Grimey, tied up. 

"Sink me." Markus cursed, putting the lamp down and cutting their binds, ungagging them. No sooner had he done so that Grimey began to sputter and squeak. "Slow down and answer me, damn you." he told her, grabbing her chin roughly and pressing a dagger to her cheek. He was not angry at her, but her babbling wouldn't help him. It was then Jim had ungagged himself. "Captain! Bill let them out! The blighters aint left yet, what's more!" 

The Captain whipped his gaze to the lad. "Where did they go?" Wherever it was, they wouldn't make it off the ship.

[hr] 

Her bed was soft and warm, and she had even had a curtain draped over the only window in her room, giving her an appearance of safety and seclusion. Dark were her dreams however, of a nameless fear and a maw that threatened to swallow her up. At the edges of her perception, Calliope could feel something hard contrast the softness of her bed, and an uncomfortable feeling that pulled her out of one nightmare into another as she was being gagged and bound, Dre Costan soldier's standing over her, chuckling evilly and holding makeshift weapons and crudgels. 

The cloth now in her throat tightly, one of them muttered in broken northland speech. "Now she cannot wield her spells. Her blood spills as easily as any man's." 
[@Penny]