A fleeing Captain

Jay had only noticed it then, but the whole main deck and forecastle were illuminated by what looked like magical lamps. It wasn't completely bright, but the visibility was enough for at least ten to twenty yards.

Turning away from the bloody pile of meat hanging on the mast, Jay read the notification that had appeared in his field of view a second before. It had been exactly at the moment when Captain Knarx Greenskin had taken his last breath.

***

Quest:

'The Bandits 11' cleared!

3150 XP

***

***

Quest:

The Bandits 12

Object:

Find and defeat the Captain's Boss.

***

Jay has had a hunch this quest-line wasn't finished the moment he had started to work on the Hobgoblin. He had no need for further information and didn't even want to hear the creatures screechy voice, just vent his hypocritical rage on him.

But the seconds before Jay had arrived with the Hobgoblin, cut of his clawed right hand and stuffed its ragged teethed mouth with it, he head heard the exclamation that most certainly brought up that next quest step.

"Let me go or the boss will kill you!!!" K.

"Go? With what?..." J.

When he answered while still pressing the cut off hand in place, Jay swung his fire loaded hatchet again and hacked off the captains legs. Thanks to the harpoon and its attached rope, Knarx got still held in place on the mast but Jay's hate for him had gone up a notch.

It wasn't like he had planned out a nice end for the green-skin, but this dependence and hiding behind stronger people made his blood boil even more.

Limb by limb and piece after piece, Jay had sliced away the green-skins life from then on. The moment when the last health point vanished was when Jay got the notifications. Done reading them he went back down the stairs towards the main deck, about to go back to Arya and interrogate her.

He was looking over the deserted area when suddenly the big double door on the other side got thrown open.

The distance to the stern cabins and the upper deck over them was not even twenty yards, so Jay had no trouble to discern the broad shouldered man that came walking out.

He was in his late fifties, with long black hair, matching beard and otherwise looking handsome for his age if not compared to Jay.

The embroidered blue leather pant with a red sash and the frilly white shirt he wore gave Jay the feeling this was the real captain of this ship.

Glad he was withing reach, Jay instantly used analyze on the man.

__________

Edward van Claven (Kingpin LVL20 elite)

Base LVL25

*Arathi*

HP 4168/4168 * Mana 0/0

[Sword LVL 3]

[Sailing LVL 3]

[Engineering LVL 3]

[Commanding LVL 3]

[Carving LVL 3]

__________

Surprised by his opponents health, skills and most of all his Job, Jay knew he was going against the bandits real leader next.

The man's sonorous voice that got audible next underlined that impression even more.

"What the hell is going on out here? ...My...my men… YOUUU!" EvC.

Jay had hurriedly closed the screen displaying analyzes results when the man charged towards him.

While Jay was busy reading, his opponent had found his subordinates dead all over the deck and identified Jay as the cause. On the way over he had unsheathed his swords and the moment van Claven was within reach he engaged combat with a slash.

As he had barely enough time to take out his swords, Jay dodged the opening attach by hairs width and finally made ready to receive the next one.

But that attack never came.

Van Claven had pulled back a little and Jay saw two men wearing sailor clothes come running through the open door further behind. He made ready to receive those two as well the moment they arrived when his intuition told him to duck down.

Used to trust his keen senses by then, Jay rolled sideways exactly when the sudden attack came for him from behind, only to hit nothing but air.

The moment Jay got back to his feet he had to dodge again, this time it was a stabbing down attack from the front. Shifting his weight to the right, Jay had the dagger pass his left side and when his new opponent tried to attack with his off hand, it was time for Jay to counter.

His (Slash) wounded the black clothed man at his right leg, cutting nearly through and rendering him immobile.

It had been one of those black armored bandits again, those that had used (Hide), only this time it was a big muscular man of level 22.

Pushing him a bit, the man fell backwards onto his butt when Jay heard a pistol shot behind him and again jumped to the side. It still grazed him and, other than the last bullet he received, this one dealt some damage and moreover: it hurt a lot.

Rolling forwards and towards the retreated van Claven, Jay passed one of the sailors and without holding back, sliced the man with his lightning coated sword and then hurried to the second one.

He had crossed more than half of the distance to that man even before the first sailor hit the ground, all while steadily getting shot at from the first of the stealthy attackers.

Jay had no chance to arrive with and attack the last of the sailors though, as he not only had to stay out of shooting lines but dodge another attack from his main target, Edward van Claven.

The Kingpin had interfered again with a light slash that Jay had not that much problems parrying.

Instead of countering he ducked down after their swords made contact and slid along the big mans legs, getting up on his feet only when he was out of arms reach behind van Claven.

Latter jumped back again after his attack failed, so Jay could focus again at the one still shooting.

Dodging the last sailors sorry attempt to strike him with his sword, Jay broke the mans weapon arm by hitting it with his left elbow and right fist still holding his sword a bit sat apart. As the man's saber fell down, Jay already held his hatchet at the sailors throat from behind him.

This didn't keep the attacker with the gun from shooting and only seconds later the sailor got sieved by her bullets.

Jay hid behind the dying man and briefly looked at that woman's analysis. He had gotten a good glimpse at the dark clothed, young woman that kept shooting with her two pistols.

Even though she wore a red bandana hiding her lower head, her dark and aggressive looking eyes made him think she was quite the beauty. But that and her bombshell figure, from what Jay had seen, was not all that made her stand out.

__________

Vanessa van Claven (Rogue LVL9)

Base LVL23

*Arathi*

HP 3290/3290 * Mana 96/96

[Shooting LVL 3]

[Dagger LVL 3]

[Hide LVL 3]

[Commanding LVL 3]

[Trickery LVL 2]

[Poison LVL 2]

__________

Done checking the woman that looked definitely too young to be van Claven's wife, Jay noted to not get hit by her daggers as getting poisoned was highly probable im that case.

The skill setup she had seemed pretty dangerous, so Jay decided to speed things up a bit.

Boosting himself with mana and loading his hatchet with fire, Jay hurled it towards the dark clothed man that was trying to get back up again. Thanks to (Throwing) it hit his head square and split it, getting Jay rid of one more opponent.

Then he vanished from behind the corpse he was still using as shield and reappeared behind Vanessa.

She had no real chance to react when Jay hit her on the back of her head with the pommel of his sword. As she was tumbling forwards, Jay circled around her and kicked her out of his turning motion.

The kick was hard and Jay had enhanced it further with (Crushing Blow), though he had done it to hurl her away instead of possibly killing her.

Just like he had planned she flew backwards towards the railing and then over it.

Of course Jay had seen beforehand that there had been a scaffolding behind it and the crashing sounds of Vanessa landing on it rang over.

Van Claven, instead of helping her, turned tail and tried to reach the double door he had come from, but Jay hurried after him. His [Swift Feet] was not something the man could run out, even more so when Jay had boosted himself with mana.

Seeing he had no chance of fleeing, Edward van Claven finally faced Jay for real and took his stance to receive the first attack. And this attack was anything but easy to live through as the Kingpin learned a second later.

Performing a (Slash) with both swords, his own and the saber from his meat shield, Jay managed to hit the left hand of his opponent. While his own left got parried by van Claven, Jay's main hand weapon disarmed his off hand.

Due to its poor quality, the picked up saber gave in to his opponents very good one though and both of them ended up loosing their off hand weapons.

Ignoring the obvious pain in his hand, van Claven attacked Jay with a heavy swing of his sword that Jay dodged.

The next attack he again parried and as a certain button in his field of view lighted up, Jay stepped in before his opponent could attack once more and got a heavy punch from his left in.

This repeated two more times and Jay started to wonder how long his sword would last as he already spotted some dents and cracks on it.

His third hit to the jaw finally brought van Claven to tilt a bit, presenting Jay a very good opportunity. But just at that moment Jay heard a female voice coming from the side a bit back.

"Dad! ...DAAADD!!!" VvC.

It was Vanessa that had regained conciousness and came running.

Both of the men halted for a second to her yell, having the chance pass as van Claven had the wits and reacted a tad bit faster, stepping back once again.

While thinking 'So it was that way...', Jay took out the hammer he once got from Weaver. Again using (Crushing Blow) to not kill her, he threw the heavy weapon onto her chest-plate, resulting in her crashing back once again, though only some yards.

This time it was Jay that reacted faster as her father finally showed some care and looked over to his daughter.

With a fully enhanced kick from the inner side to van Claven's right knee, Jay broke it and the man tilted to the side.

But that didn't mean the fight was over as he still slashed out at Jay once again while falling.

Latter though parried the blade and stomped his left foot against van Claven's left kneecap, shattering it in the process and having him fall to the knees.

As his sword finally had given in and broken, Jay threw it to the side and brought a heavy punch to Edward's face, knocking him out. Until that point the bandits Kingpin still hadn't let go of his sword.

Picking up the dropped weapon, Jay looked at Vanessa that had crawled up and was hurrying towards her father with unsteady steps.

She was completely disregarding her own safety as she rushed over to van Claven, who turned out to be her dad.

Jay felt a little sorry he had to do it, but the moment she had reached her knocked out father, Jay did the same to her.

After searching through his inventory, Jay took out two objects he had found just recently.

It was time to test out the Chains of Binding.

He first searched them both for spare weapons but found at least none on him. Other than a key hanging on a string around his neck, van Claven had nothing with him after Jay had already taken his sword.

Vanessa on the other hand had two quite nice looking daggers on her hips and some simple darts for trowing, as well as some vials with unhealthy looking liquids inside hidden in her belt.

Taking all of it, Jay wrapped the chains around them and closed the lock.

Throwing the slender woman over his shoulder after he was done, Jay grabbed Edward van Claven's right foot and pulled him after, towards the cabins at the bow. Remembering he had blocked off the door to the captains cabin where Arya was still kept hidden, Jay went to the room left of him that was supposedly Vanessa's.

There he dropped her on her own bed and finally pulled off her bandana.

He had already guessed her to be a beauty, but after seeing her face for the first time he was pleasantly surprised.

Affixing the chains wound around her with a rope to the bed so she couldn hop away, Jay gagged her with her own red bandana and let the room.

The next stop were the two small cells where he threw van Claven into one of them. Of course he had gagged the man with his sash so he couldn't call for help.

Jay had seen the key's in the locks when he first checked, so he took both after locking the doors and left.

Back on the main deck, Jay opened the shutters to the captains cabin and went back to Arya.

After closing the shutters again behind him, he carefully walked towards the sofa and found her cowering behind it, cuddled up in a blanket.

"I know it might be rude of me, but please don't hold it against me, but I need to tie you up as well…" J.

"Wha…? Oh, I see...*sob*" A.

She had reacted astonishingly understanding, even tough her tears kept spilling a bit and her nose was running from probably crying the whole time Jay was gone.

Arya really seemed to get his intention, but he would have tied her up either way. There was no way he could trust anybody on this ship, from whatever situation her had found her in.

Done with tying up her hands and knotting the rope at one of the tables legs after she sat on the sofa, Jay walked over to the shelve blocking the door and placed it back. Looking once again through the messed up room, Jay spotted a clock at the far wall that showed it was past four in the morning.

Though it was more than time to get some rest, Jay knew it was still long way...