When she eventually reached the sweet hereafter, Emmaline was going to have serious words with Ranald. The Trickster God certainly had alot to answer for. She backpedalled away as quickly as she could trying to escape both screaming pirates and the terrifyingly handsome elves that swarmed onto the deck, swinging cruelly hooked swords in gracefully bloody arcs. A sudden explosion coupled with an inconvenient roll of the deck threw Emmaline off her feet, sending her sprawling over one of the upturned ships boats. An elf, staggered by the blast for all its grace, stumbled out of the reeking cloud of powdersmoke, sword raised. Emmaline shouted in panic but before he could strike the elf sagged sideways, a fist sized concavity dished in his breastplate from a musket ball. From the erzatz Brettonian ship there came the sound of splintering timber and the sharp twangs of cables parting as the mainmast lurched sideways, its step shattered by the blast. It toppled slowly, at first slowed by its lines and stays, but as one rope parted the next had to take double the strain until the whole mass of cables ripped free and the mast began to topple. With an undignified squeak Emmaline threw herself under the upturned boat a moment before a rats nest of cables and torn fabric crashed onto the deck. The jolt and the splintering shock of timber striking timber resounded through her chest.

"Shyalla's bleeding tits," she cursed/prayed. The screams of men and elves, momentarily stunned to a more muted volume by the destruction of the caravel's mainmast, picked up in intensity. Emmaline looked around and found herself face to face with the elf she had seen shot, his, its?, eyes glassy in death. She reached out and plucked a cruel looking dagger with an impractical number of spikes from its belt, trying not to wretch in disgust as her hand brushed the cloak that was made of the hide of some hideous deep sea creature. Arrows thudded into the deck around her as archers in the forecastle peppered the deck with crossbow bolts, either confident enough in their own ability or uncaring of shooting into a melee. A pair of elven boots appeared in the two foot of clearence between teh boats gunnels and the deck, grappling with the bare feet of a pirate. Emmaline slashed out with her stolen knife, driving the point through the tough leather. The elf staggered and then crashed to the deck a moment before the point of a cutlass stabbed down into its throat before the unseen pirate moved on to other opponents.

Whatever her fate would be in the hands of Markus and his pirates it certainly would be preferable to slavery at the hands of the Dark Elves. Unfortunately there wasn't much she could do to effect the outcome of the battle. She glanced down at the knife in her hand. Or could she? Taking a few deep breaths she scrambled out from under the boat before she could change her mind, narrowly missing being decapitated by a cutlass swung in blind panic. She stumbled on the bloody deck and crashed into the back of an elf, knocking him off balance as she caromed past to the companionway all but falling down the stairs onto the Smokey gundeck. The shouts and crashes of the battle were muted in the roiling smoke of the deck, abandoned by the gunners in favor of the melee above. She ran across to where the serving bar guarded the stairs which lead down to the galley. She vaulted over the bar and rushed down the stairs into the kitchen, rifling through the alchemical supplies she had concealed there. Hurriedly she pulled a vial of salt essences she had been working on from the case and poured the viscous mixture into a pot. Glancing around to make sure she was alone, she dropped the elven knife into pot and began to whisper an incantation. Too her magically attuned eyes the Gold Wind swirled around the pot. She continued to chant, building to a cresondo that she ended with a chopping motion of her hand. The knife in the pot rusted and decayed, suddenly appearing as though it had been at the bottom of the sea for a century. On the deck above, every elven weapon made of the same material did the same.