Saturday, May 5, 2018

Master of Strings Ch36: Werewolf on Deck

The storm clouds rumble and begin to lightly shower the deck of the ship where Leo, Jin, and Zilo stare down Falx in his new Threatening wolf form. Leo looks to the stairwell below deck, where the more fearful members of the crew are retreating.

Leo shouts to one of the calmer looking ones named Jackson, "Hey, find my scroll, or this is gonna get bad really quick!" The man looks to the viscous wolfman and back to Leo before nodding. Zilo reaches for his silver blade, but rethinks his choice and grabs at his whip.

Leo thinks to bust out his new Versatile Weapon spell, but unlike Zilo who's conscious halted him, Jin had to be the one to stop him with a motion of his hand. With that interference Falx pounces into action. Jin's moment of distraction leads to him being shunted across the deck and cracking against the mast.

Leo swings his blade at the beast, but it counters with a claw stopping the blade, and the other claw aimed at Leo's arm. Zilo jukes around the trickster and flicks out his whip to save Leo from the claw. Falx begins spinning and whirls both his opponents around and hurling them both farther away.

Zilo crashes into the railing and in an instant the wolf is on him. He leaps up and back off the ship, dodging a low sweep. He then snaps his whip out and snags it on the railing. He then swings down off the whip and dives in through the cannon hole. Zilo looks around to see the crew panicking running around like headless chickens.

"Hey! You all need to keep calm!" But none of the crew listen, and Zilo is forced to screech his violin. Everyone grabs their ears but lets up, staring at the bard. Zilo smiles and shouts, "We'll do our job and stop the wolf, but you all need to your jobs and get us through the storm."

They all look nervous and Zilo flick his bo around and assures them, "Don't worry I'll lend you a hand." Zilo begins playing his inspirational music and riles the crew up into a magic fueled frenzy. Zilo and about a dozen of them charge up the stairs. The storm is now in full force, and the waves bash the ship's sides.

Once on deck the crew dashes to their spots as Zilo floats his violin into the air and quickly slashes his whip at the back of the wolf baring down on Jin, who was holding back the giant claws. The wolf turned back and Jin took that chance to pull back his fist and plant a Stunning Fist into Falx.

The wolf stands still, and Jin takes a moment to take a swig as Leo leaps at the Wolf and takes out some manacles. In one swift motion the manacles are planted right on the beast's arms. Zilo shouts down the stairs, "Find the scroll yet!?"

"I ain't know what I'm looking for!" yelled back Jackson

"It's in Infernal!"

"I never seen that before! What it look like!?!"

"It's like-!"

Zilo is immediately pulled back into the fight as he hears the sound of bending and snapping metal. the wolf is holding Leo bet the throat and he smashes him into the ground. Then as Jin tries to help from behind, but the wolf donkey kicks the monk overboard. The wolf looks at the magus and growls out.

"You tied me to the front of the ship."

"Yeah, I also told you to keep quiet." responds Leo with a smarmy smile. The wolf raises the magus off the ground and almost like a series of barks he shouts,

"I'll claw that smile from your face!"

As the wolf rears back the claw Zilo snaps his whip to stop the attack, Falx momentarily glares at Zilo, only to heft Leo slightly into the air with his other claw, then quick snap his claw back across Leo's smiling face, forcing the Magus into the ground, unmoving. The wolf turns to Zilo with a snarl and remarks,

"You are next, peasant."

By this point the storm has almost totally drowned out the sounds of the crew trying to keep the ship stable as best they can. Luckily for Zilo and Jin, their weeks aboard the ship has helped them earn some sea legs, but the wolf is moving as easily as a fish to water as he stands up straight and lets out a smirk.

The wolf raises his hand and casts Summon Monster VI. A projection of shadows extend from his hand and out forms three lions with fur as black as night and eyes that glow a eerie yellow glow like they were touched by the shadows. The wolf looks to his three great cats, and points to Zilo.

The lions begin to circle the bard, who now trades out his whip for his silver longsword. One of the beast pounces at Zilo, and he snaps into a roll and slashes across the creature's side, making it disperse into the air. The rain poking holes in the dark mist as it fades away.

Another brings down it's claw, but the bard manages to hold back the large beast's attack with his buckler. As he did so the last lion reared up behind him and slashed through his studded armor from behind, and the two beasts leap back to Falx's side.

Zilo felt faint as he pointed his sword at the beasts and his tunes from his violin wavered. Just as the creatures had begun to move in, Jin rushed in, a little wobbly and with a rib cracking kick from his Drunken Strength, he sends one of the lions spiraling into the other, destroying the both of them. He took a long hard drink of his flask then belched out,

"Good kitties"

Falx's nostrils flared  as he bared his teeth at the monkey, who looked look at at him side long and responded, "Pupper wanna play too, okeh den."

Zilo watched as the now fully plastered Jin was able to match the wolf in power, like some kind of Drunken Demon. Zilo then looked away from the fight to Leo, who was still having his pool of blood get washed away in the storm.

Zilo runs over and begins to do his best to fix him up, but the three giant slashes across his face didn't look very good. He through out a Cure Moderate Wounds but even so the trickster's face still showed a bit of disfigurement. Zilo was then shocked that Leo wasn't waking up, even thought he was healed and breathing just fine. The bard shrugged and looked back to the monkey and wolf.

While the monk was just as strong as the wolf, and maybe just as fast, none of his rapid strikes seemed to be affecting him. In the moment he remembered his friends initial plan to use more lethal methods, and Jin decided to pull out a new trick.

Jin leaped back at least 20 feet and up 10 feet landing on the boom of the mast with grace, then proceed to focus his Ki into his fists and feet. The wolf climbed the mast and rushed the monk, swiping at his legs trying to knock him overboard.

Jin saw the slash coming and flipped up and as he finished out the flip he planted a powerful axe kick, accented by a visible crescent silver streak into the wolf's back, leaving an impacting at least 2 inches deep into him, leaving a small spray of blood with the strike. The wolf coughed up blood and fell to the ship's floor.

Jin landed at the wolf's body, and began examining him, saying, "I hope I didnit hit him too bad."

The wolf's eyes shoot open and for a moment Falx's meticulous hatred was gone, and only a savage beast remained. He shot up and pinned Jin to the ground, and before the monk could react the wolf's fangs were in the monk's shoulder. Jin shouted a pained death wail as the monk's scream puttered out and the beast looked up as Zilo, ready to continue it's hunt.

Zilo wasn't sure to grab for his sword or his whip. His hesitation was shattered as the thunder of a lightning strike echoed though his being and he looked up to see the wolf charging. Zilo reached raised his buckler, ready for what was to come as the wolf leaped at him from 5 meters away followed by... nothing.

Zilo lowered his defense to look and see that the wolf was crushed under a pile of wood and fire, with bits of copper speckled on the ground around the pile. Leo popped up after opening one of his eyes, Which looked at the pile, then the destroyed crow's nest.

"Hey the plan worked! Awesome!" Smiled the Trickster as Jackson finally popped up from below deck clutching the scroll and shouts, "I got it mista Leo!"

"And the good news keeps rolling!" Shouts Leo, a bit overly happy not to be dead. He pats Jackson on the shoulder as he stands and snatches both the scroll and one of the copper pieces from the crow's nest pile.

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