In Pursuit of the Penitent Pirate (Samheen 27th)

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In Pursuit of the Penitent Pirate (Samheen 27th)

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Nether’s Gate was not by any means the safest of places to be. Between the rowdy sailors and drunken pirates who inhabited its disorderly shores, it was not a locale really suited to the weak-willed, or indeed the easily intimidated. A haven for the radical and the lawless, or for those who were simply running away, the ‘Gate nevertheless possessed a charm all its own, in its own comparatively unique way. When the sailors and pirates here were not engaging in drink-incited squabbles or turbulent disputes for leadership and power, they were really a rather amicable bunch- jolly fellows who, for the most part, held some vague degree of camaraderie for each other in spite of the deeply set veins of competition, jealousy, and outright hatred that may have been dwelling beneath.

This Lyrday was not proving to be a particularly remarkable one thus far, which in all honesty was probably a good thing for the newcomer now walking the ‘Gate’s paths. Of course, this man had a purpose beyond the usual search for a good place to drink and a few whores besides, though how much that would affect his noticing of various other things was anyone’s guess. A few men and women greeted him with a cheerful “Ahoy!” or a simple nod of acknowledgment, whilst others simply noted his strange attire with frowns and gap-toothed grins of amusement. The thieves and cut throats of this place apparently did not consider him worth the effort of trying to rob.

Progress or not in finding who it was that he sought, Liam would have managed to cover a good amount of paces from his starting point at the Mermaid tavern before having his trail intercepted by a particularly crusty-looking pirate. With seemingly less teeth in his mouth than fingers on one hand, the man’s maw contained a glimmering of gold which sparkled in conjunction with the dark depths of his eyes.

“Ahoy there, me hearty.” He intoned in a voice like gravel, and perhaps heavier still. His breath smelled like liquor as he looked up to Morgan, gauging him through squinted, beady eyes as he did so. His mode of dress was an attempt at extravagant, as per the general fashion here in the ’Gate. “I don’t believe we’ve been seeing each other ’fore now, ’ave we, matey? And we know all the ah…<I>good people</I> of the ’Gate, that we do…” Pausing for a moment, the pirate surveyed Morgan’s attire once more, a light frown followed by the austere lifting of one brow providing enough cause for Liam to form estimations on the matter of <I>that.</i> “On the account, are ye? Where’s yer crew?”

He was asking questions, and he was in Morgan’s way. A slight snag in his plan to locate Captain Cyprian, but one which needed to be dealt with nonetheless.
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Nether's Gate was certainly rougher around the edges than Liam was used to. Having spent nearly his whole life on board ships, however, he was no stranger to violence, either casual or planned, or to the rougher sorts of people who manned the ships' crews. Add to that a disproportionate helping of arrogance, and Morgan moved through the gritty streets of Nether's Gates and felt himself, if not quite yet at home, then at least perfectly comfortable.

If he noticed the attention he was getting, he paid it no outward heed; he had learned (the hard way) that often the best way to avoid a conflict was not to give it any ground to start.

That charming little maxim, unfortunately, did not seem to be particularly helpful at the moment. Liam looked the man in his way up and down, his lip curled in disdain. He was filthy, and he reeked of liquor (this observation perhaps a wee mite hypocritical from a man who had had his fair share of the stuff himslef), and his <i>clothes....</i> Having spent years in a uniform, even the pirate's second-rate stab at extravagance struck him as unaccountably vulgar.

And he didn't much like his <i>tone,</i> either. Controlling his temper was a life-long struggle that Liam tended to wage somewhat half-heartedly.

"Well, if you know all the <i>good people,</i>" said Morgan flatly, "Then I must be one of the bad ones." He held the man's gaze for a moment longer in silence, his eyes cold and face set. "Why? You lonely? Looking for a crew to join?"
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Liam did not appreciate the pirate’s tone of voice, and apparently the pirate could not come to enjoy the timbre of Liam’s one, either. Such dislikes were undoubtedly causes of strife and confrontation, and this particular episode sadly did not happen to differ from any conventional other. Taken aback by Morgan’s austere tone of voice as it was apparently unexpected, the scruffy buccaneer’s maw widened into a discontented gape for a flicker or two, prior to morphing into a wry frown as he searched for a way to respond.

Being a pirate, and of the not-completely sober variety if judging from the smell of things, there was really only one way in which the seadog <I>could</I> respond. Quickly, but clumsily, hold wavering all the while, the pirate drew forth a cutlass which was almost as decrepit in appearance as he was. Pointing it vaguely in Morgan’s direction, the man then spoke once again in that self-same tone of gravel, the pitch higher and more agitated now as infuriation started to show through in its shallowest of forms.

“Arr…do ye think to be insulting me, matey? I may be washed up for a pirate, but I still be a pirate, and more than a match for the likes of ye, says I!” Having taking the cool timbre of Liam’s words and the subsequent connotations veiled behind them a little too closely to heart, the man was now even less likely to simply let the other past than he had been before.

From somewhere further down the street- if it could even be <I>called</I> a proper street- came the sound of shouting. Not the usually aggravated and incensed kind of shouting that one might come to expect from the inherent loudness of such a tone, but the kind of everyday cacophony of someone who merely enjoyed hearing the sound of their own voice magnified a thousand-fold. Whilst the speaker itself was currently still indiscernible, a sizeable enough throng of individuals could be seen coming from some distance ahead. From the speed at which they were moving it would about a burn or so before they reached the spot where Liam and his newfound companion were currently stood, and that was only if they continued to move in the same direction as they did now. Unphased by the possibility of having some more company, or else completely unaware, Liam would still have his friend the antagonistic pirate to deal with before being given the freedom to even consider something new.
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It was as though the sound of the steel sliding out of the scabbard was the only sound in the world for Liam. Whatever fog of drink and distraction had settled above him as he walked through the town seemed to dissipate, and Liam found himself, as always when faced with the delightful prospect of a fight, utterly focused on his opponent.

The din from the street ahead of him filtered in, almost abstractly, into his awareness. Now I wonder who that could be, he thought drily, the bulk of his attention still directed on the pirate in front of him as he ranted and raved. Liam merely stood there, balancing his weight lightly on the balls of his feet, the muscles in his sword arm half twitching with eagerness, his eyes steady on the other man.

The washed-up pirate had only just finished saying his piece when Liam, wordlessly, drew his own weapon in one practiced motion and swung straight for his head.

He was aiming for his ear -- aiming to slice it clean off, a nasty wound and a noticeable one (and a real crowd-pleaser at that) but not necessarily a fatal one (depending on the target's hygiene, so it was about a fifty-fifty chance.) Clarity of battle or no, Liam knew himself enough to know that the drink was still in his system, and so he moved with more slow deliberation than he otherwise might have. Were that not to prove enough, he reasoned, he stood at least a chance of, on one end of the spectrum, giving his opponent a nice gash for his trouble, or, on the other end, ending his life. Neither was the goal, but either would do in a pinch.

Whatever way the original strike went, Liam brought his blade instantly back to a guard position. He doubted the other man would be in any state, particularly after an injury, to mount any sort of a real attack; but, then, old habits died hard, and those with good habits died old.
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The pirate had only just about finished speaking when Liam aimed his swipe to the head, and as such was not well prepared for conjuring up an adequate defence. Even the relatively simplistic acts of ducking or dodging out of the way were apparently beyond the seadog’s abilities to do, inebriated and fuelled by illogical rage as he was now. An attempt hastily turned into what could only have been described as a rather fruitless shenanigan- a drunken movement to the side which was both too slow and too ill co-ordinated to be of any use to him in escaping harm.

And so it was, that in a spray of blood and rarely washed hair that a good chunk of the pirate’s ear came clean off, its flight accompanied by a suitably satisfactory scream of pain as attention was shifted from Liam unto a newly created stump of an organ. A string of choice epitaphs were issued forth from the pirate’s grubby mouth as his free hand moved to cover the injury…and that should have been that, really, were it not for the buccaneer’s unruly sense of limitations.

With barely a trace of stability in his motions, the pirate aimed an instinctive reaction strike forwards with his cutlass. A mean feat in itself considered he had just had a part of his ear lopped off, but then apparently the denizens of the ‘Gates were a hardy sort of bunch, on land as well as on water. Staggering in its path towards him, the blade <I>had</I> been aimed in the vague direction of Liam’s chest, but instead had ended up gliding rapidly towards his left thigh…easy enough to parry or dodge, and from there to launch a counter attack if need be. Judging from the looks of things, the unwashed pirate would sooner collapse than offer Morgan much in the way of a stimulating swordfight. Where Liam’s initial attack had not ended up killing him, however, it <I>had</I> succeeded in both wounding him and making him a good deal more aggravated than he had been in the first place, and anger was never a great thing to have about in any kind of circumstance.

Nearing now came the sounds of the crowd, the one voice still booming loudly above all the others, and accompanied now by something which sounding more like pleading; meek and soft-spoken in kind. Background noise to Morgan, no doubt, who already had problems of his own to be dealt with, but now it was clear that the owner of these voices- whoever they were- were definitely approaching Liam and his companion, although for what motives, if any, were still yet to be discerned.
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The spray of profanity and blood could have been accompanied by a traveling circus and a flight of reckless swanmaidens and still Morgan would have paid them no heed (though he might have pencilled in the swanmaidens for later inspection); all he cared about was the other man's blade and the ever-closening sound of the arguing voices.

Would they come to help the pirate from whom he had so recently liberated an ear? Would they come to help them both to an early grave? Would they come and care not at all about anything except whatever argument it was that so occupied them? Morgan had no idea, though he could tell by the sound of the voices that it wouldn't be long before he'd have the answer.

But for now there was still the little matter of the pirate thrashing about before him. Morgan brought his blade from its guard position across his chest to parry the blow that ended up wavering lower. Without pausing his own blade continued to move left, rotating so that the tip of his blade pointed down, leaving several inches of good steel as a defense should the attack move lower still.

He planned to meet the other blade with a parry somewhat harder than usual, to take advantage of the man's unsteadiness and inertia towards the left. Once the blades had made contact he was prepared to swing his sabre around to strike at his opponent's ribs on the left-hand side, which Liam expected his uneven attack would have left unguarded. He rotated his hand slightly as he prepared to strike so that the blow, if it landed, would be with the broad flat of his blade, rather than its sharp cutting edge. With the edge it might have been a killing blow, but with the flat of his blade it would smart mercilessly against the man's ribs and, if the blow landed hard enough, might provide the extra momentum to the side to help the man keel over if he hadn't done so already.

A disinterested observer might note that at this point Morgan was toying with his opponent and stalling for time, and rate this behaviour with scorn or amusement as befit that man's outlook. He would be right. All Morgan cared about at this point was keeping the other man from harming him, waiting until he could see what this new approaching distraction would be, and, incidentally of course, taking his sabre on a get-acquainted tour of its new environs.

After the second blow landed, he was ready to return to guard position and wait for whatever was to come next.
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Sadly there were to be no travelling circuses or reckless swanmaidens for Liam this time around, and he would simply be left with the streams of profanity and cursings that continued to leave the washed up pirate’s mouth in extraordinarily copious amounts. The scallywag was in no condition to put up a decent fight, and such a fact was only confirmed further still by his reaction to the other’s well placed parry. As though the impact of blade clashing with blade were far greater than it truly was, the pirate staggered backward, the added hardness of Liam’s block proving remarkably successful indeed in throwing him entirely off balance.

The follow up to his defence as such also happened to be quite efficient in what it was intended to do. A strike to the pirate’s side with the less deadly flat of his blade sent the uncouth brigand sprawling, hitting the dirt below with a satisfying thud as feet finally fell out from under him. Whilst his legs might have given up on him, however, the fight within him certainly had not, and already the washed-up buccaneer was floundering about trying to maintain some hold on stability once more. One drunken hand reasserted its grasp on the cutlass that had previously clattered free, and the pirate was soon on all fours trying to pull himself upright. It was Morgan’s choice whether to let him, whether to allow him to continue engaging in this farce of a swordfight or not.

Whatever decision he happened to make, however, the men would then find their little dispute interfered with by the arrival of the previously unknown party of pirates. A sizeable collection of various seadogs, they were led by one pair in particular, who were evidently either their superiors, able to beat them up sufficiently, or had enough money to pay to keep them in line. Of all three options, however, the former sounded much more likely.

One of the lead men was a tall one- about as tall as Liam himself, with a heavy build and a thick mousy-brown beard jumbled across his face. Dressed in a tunic which was <I>mostly</I> clean but stained in all number of places with all number of things, he then made to speak in a suitably loud voice, his words abrupt and to the point as he did so. “Now then…this don’t be any way for civilised men to behave, does it, Uberto? Or any man fer that matter.” He gave Liam’s opponent a speculative gaze at that, exchanging looks with the man besides him- Uberto?- for a flicker before moving to focus his attention upon Liam instead.

“You there…perhaps ye can explain the ah…<I>nature</I> of this disturbance upon our fair city’s streets?”
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OOC: ...Sorry about that!

Morgan sighed inwardly as his opponent continued to scrabble for his sword and his footing. He took a step towards the other man and attempted to step squarely with the heel of his boot on the tender spot where the tendons of the hand met the wrist, hard enough to loosen the pirate's grip on the cutlass. If successful, he planned to sweep the weapon out of reach, resting one foot on the flat of the blade to prevent its being reclaimed while he turned to face the new arrivals.

It was a motley crew indeed, with the apparent leader of the gang cutting not much more of an impressive figure than the crew that trailed him. With years of naval discipline on keeping one's uniform immaculate, Morgan tried not to show his disdain at the other man's motley appearance, letting his gaze go to his companion quickly to size him up before returning his attention to the speaker.

"Those who know not how to be civil ought not to be treated with any civility," he replied, then searched his brain for some words from his old shipboard chaplain that would be appropriate for somewhat liberal paraphrase. "...and those that have ears to hear but yet will not listen, are they then worthy of those ears?" The phrase was general enough that if this was not the overly religious captain he sought the words might seem innocuous, but if he had indeed found his quarry the other man ought to instantly recognize the religious phrase.
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Post by saskia »

Liams opponent might, or might not recognize the well spoken words. But right now, he had other things on his mind.
Things involving blood, pain, broken bones and, most important: Liam.

He forgot all care and dove onto Liam, letting go of weapons as well as any chanc for defense.

He hit Liam straight on, and tried to wrap his huge arms around him, wanting to fall to the floor together.
If the barrel-chested pirate would succeed, Liam would stand a small chance of being able to breath, let alone get out this huge, sweathy embrace...
[size=100][color=red] It takes a red-headed woman, to get a dirty job done[/size][/color]

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Shit, thought Liam as the pirate tackled him, exchanging one sort of eloquence for another. How the other man had managed to extricate his hand from beneath Liam's boot, rise to his feet, and charge towards him, hitting him squarely, all without giving Liam the slightest notice of it, escaped him completely -- perhaps he had been more distracted by the presence of the other men than he had realized.

Still, with several stone of drunken unwashed pirate charging him, there was little time to think of the why of things. The pirate must have been charging him from the side, rather than straight on, otherwise he would have had to insert himself between the three men speaking and still have enough momentum for the charge, which seemed unlikely.

He had only a few flickers to act, and he wasn't sure it would be enough -- half out of reflex, as soon as he noticed the charge, he took a step with the leg farthest away from his assailant back and to the side, creating a slight rotation in his body.

He hoped that this backwards motion would absorb some of the shock of the impact by moving with the force, instead of resisting it, and by turning away slightly he hoped to use the pirate's momentum to keep him off balance and turn his forward charge into a sprawling spin.

He was prepared to reach for the nearest arm and, with a little tug and unpleasant twist of the wrist help the man along, but he realized he might not be that lucky.

If everything went swimmingly, the other man would be on the ground and Liam would remain upright -- he had been around the block enough times to know that everything rarely did. The best he could hope for was that if the two fell together, the pirate on top would have been spun enough away to not land squarely on top of Liam.

Liam was a big enough man, but no match for the other pirate in a sheer contest of mass -- he needed to have at least one hand free to grasp for one of the two knives he carried, one stuck at his waist on the opposite side from his sword, the other tucked into his right boot.

If he could reach one of them, and if he had enough freedom of movement to strike, he could begin the not terribly dignified and rather messy business of stabbing and slashing at the other man until he could extricate himself from his grasp.
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Post by saskia »

Shit indeed !
Liam had made a mistake in getting the pirate come too close.
Although, as a sailor, he might be used to some smell, this pirate could really use a bath!
The smell of sweat, dirty socks, filthy hair and many,many drinks almost made him dizzy.

But his reactions were too much instinct to let him be overcome by merely one smelly elderly man. So Liam reacted in an instant.

He managed to twist his body, and grab one of the arms the pirate used to propel himself forward, but the sheer momentum of the huge man was to much for him.
He lost his balance, though he did manage to get himself only partly covered by a huge heap of fishy pirate, leaving his upper body free, but his legs held in a firm, though alcoholic embrace.

And there they were, on the floor, Liam pinned to the ground by a grunting, hairy man. But now, at least the smell was mixed with that of the floor...
[size=100][color=red] It takes a red-headed woman, to get a dirty job done[/size][/color]

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Post by Morg »

Skilled :)
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