Aghilas Jêle Doeli
- Mina-Sahk
It had begun in one of the local taverns and was first heard from the palace as a distant thing, like a commotion from the market square or perhaps a coming storm. One by one, like a shambling horde of undead, limp figures began disentangling themselves from prostitutes, barmaids, local women - and men - along with one another, moaning and rubbing their red eyes and puffy faces. After collecting themselves they began finding their way back to life, finishing half-finished flagons of ale, dousing their faces with basin water before shambling out into the streets past the upended tables and chairs, over floors covered with broken glass and still sleeping women to squint with pained faces at the first touch of the forgotten light of day.
Curses and strange oaths rang out, like crows calling out to one another, or geese preparing to take flight. A grunt here. A squawk there. A monkey, hearing the call, emerges from between three sleeping figures and scrambles from body to body, leaping to perch in a window before joining the slowly gathering horde in the street. Swaying wildly, hardly capable of uttering worthy of being called words, they gather together in the square as though willed to life and animated by some unseen hivemind. Presiding over it all stands one among them. A massive man of corded muscle standing in the square, calling together his horde like an insane mad-piper by firing his flintlock pistol into the air and waiving his fine nimcha in the air while howling like a madman.
And then, once they assembled, the pirate pointed in the direction of the palace and like a great beast stirring and setting itself to motion, their calls become more insistent, more feverish until as one they surge forth like a flock of baying gulls, or a tidal wave, forcing their way up the main thoroughfare of Mina-Sakh. Their voices rising up in mad, gibbering, feverish intensity gathering life and strength and numbers as they go as others emerge from houses and taverns along the way, summoned by the gibbering madness.
Bleary-eyed they lend themselves to the bacchanalian march, set the cadence of incoherent singing still fueled by a drinking spree that had never truly ended since the crew of the Hamsat al Marid had made port some three weeks earlier. A number of prize ships the company of the al Marid had sailed into port with, each heavily laden with cargo, treasure, slaves and more. A small fortune for the company, yet after a refit and a truly legendary run of drunken revelry as even Mina-Sahk had scarcely known before, many were left with scarcely a pair of coppers to rub together.
Together they surged toward the Amir of Mina-Sahk's palace. Chants could be heard from its colonnaded halls, "Doel! Doel! Doel!" in honour of their Addonian captain, along with "To the Calarian Main!" accompanied by staccato expulsions of jubilant pistols directed to the heavens. Their path and progress was plainly evident from the palace, as dark clouds of black powder rose above the rooftops of Mina-Sahk and the acrid scent of black powder began wafting into the palace gates.
And suddenly the mass of pirates was upon them.
Bewildered palace guards found themselves confronted by heavily armed mob. Not merely the crew of the Hamsat al-Marid, swelled as they were with sailors fallen in with the pirates during their run of epic partying, and forth by the promise of greater prizes and feats of debauchery yet to come for any who joined them. Such that the handful of guards on watch found themselves, quite suddenly, awash in a sudden tempestuous flood of heavily armed and singing madmen. "Let us in, we're expected!"
Some small conflagration flared up, with shouts from alarmed palace guards that were quickly swallowed up by laughing voices as a hundred hands lifted and braced carts against the panicked closing of gates. The soldiers' shouts were lost as they were swept up in the surging river of singing, yelling bodies pouring forth through the gates into the courtyard.
Pirates fanning out, making camp in the palace courtyard. Breaking from the rest a party of a dozen or so marched up the steps towards the Palace Court and its elaborate colonnades. "Captain Aghilas Jêle Doeli has arrived!" A tall, scarred elgafolk sailor yelled over the chanting din of sailors, the elgafolk was clearly not the man himself.
Emerging from the parting clouds of pirates was Aghilas Jêle Doeli. Tall, broad of shoulder with nary an ounce of body fat on the man's body, the smiling ruddy faced pirate paused at the steps rising from the courtyard towards the colonnaded section where the naval officer and the woman and her lieutenants were situated. Sheathing his nimcha, Aghilas handed the now empty pistol in his hand off to a young boy who promptly replaced it with another and seemed to be following him for the explicit purpose.
"Be on your best behaviour, we've business!" The sun-baked Aghilas' smiling face announced. It was the voice of man used to shouting orders at sea and being heard as he began to summit the steps. Reaching the top his eyes scanned the woman and her crew standing to one side, the pirate's gleaming white teeth showing momentarily whiter through the bramble of his great beard, before shifting the the desk and the naval officer there. "I heard tale someone put out call for such salt encrusted corsairs as might strike terror into Calarian hearts. Well here we are!"
Aghilas' voice boomed, and he turned briefly towards the courtyard full of sailors and pirates, the performance clearly meant for their benefit. Indeed, they cheered and fired celebratory gunfire into the air in response.
This was, it seemed, their best behaviour.
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