The Contests of Might and Marksmanship
Ricmo carefully checked his pistols, one by one. You could never be too careful with your powder. He normally carried four in the bandolier across his chest, good quality but nothing special. It was the bandolier that was the true prize.
He had found it, along with some other treasures, when he and his companions had taken possession of the Lady Jezebel, their ship. The bandolier was of Annish make and had to be at least five hundred years old, though you'd never know by looking at it. It was magic, any pistol drawn from the bandolier would inherit the magic, for a short period of time, and would be more accurate and deadly as a result.
The bandolier would give him a small advantage in the contest he was about to take part in, but only a small one.
The Solstice Festival had turned out to offer more then just the extensive marketplace and the upcoming auctions. The pirates of the pirate haven had taken the large gathering as an opportunity to demonstrate their prowess by organizing copious competitions across different lines of expertise. Completions that offered serious rewards to their winners.
Ricmo glanced down the firing line at his competition. It was a tough lot. The rif raff had already been eliminated in earlier rounds, nothing was left but the cream of the crop.
Several of the contestants were known to him, even in his short time at this port. At the end of the line, Sally Brown for instance was known to the whole island. She ran one of the two large Inns/Cat Houses that dominated entertainment at Skull River Bay. He didn't know her as well as Freddy's new girlfriend, Bella Bell, that ran the other, competing establishment. That was mostly because Sally and Bella hated each other. He'd seen her in action in thee qualifying rounds though, and she clearly knew how to handle her firearms. Bella should probably watch out.
Next to her stood a tall, redheaded pirate woman wearing an ornate frock coat who went by the name "Two Gun Sal". She was evidentially part of Rose's crew. That ship had a very bloody reputation.
On Ricmo's other side was a man named "Corfu" who was newly arrived at Skull River Bay, doubtlessly for the Festival. He claimed no ship, crew or homeland, merely calling himself "a wanderer and soldier of fortune" when quizzed. At the end of the line was another halfling, one of Diamond Joe's sailors, a man by the name of "Lean Michael".
Diamond Joe himself was the judge (and probably jury and executioner if required) of the pistol contest.
"Only three rules ladies and gentleman" he stated brightly. "One, best shot wins. Two, stay behind the line, no cheating. Three, no shooting one another." The last rules garnered a laugh.
The first round, at 20 yards, was pretty trivial for Ricmo. The only complexity was they were required to fire two pistols simultaneously, one in each hand. Ricmo wasn't worried about that, he was almost as good with his left hand as his right. He drew both pistols, waiting for the signal
"Ready, Aim, Fire!" The crash of eight pistols echoed over the town square, followed by thick gunsmoke obscuring the firing line.
When the smoke cleared, Ricmo grinned to himself. Two bullseyes. Good thing too, some of friends had a lot of money riding on him, he'd hate to blow it on the easy part.
Not to mention whoever the hell had bet 5000 gold on him. Sweet Mithras but that was a lot of money. The bet had been anonymous and he couldn't help but wonder who had that kind of cash to throw around. He did have a suspicion or two on that.
His smile quickly died though, as he observed the other targets. His competitors performance was also exemplary, only Lean Michael had failed to duplicate Ricmo's feat. This was going to be a tough one all right, that 1000 gold purse had drawn the best Skull River Bay had to offer.
"Nice shooting" Diamond Joe commented. Except you Lean Michael, half rations for you". More laughter, Lean Michael joined in, though he had rueful expression.
"Next round is 50 yards". Diamond Joe motioned and the targets were moved back across the square. Ricmo took the opportunity to reload and reholster his pistols. 50 yards was considerable more of a challenge. At least this round was three shots, sequentially, from one hand.
"3 shots, Fire at will" Diamond Joe stated. Again the guns barked out, Ricmo fired pretty quickly, worried the smoke would obscure his target. Two solid hits, but the third was a bit wide, still in the inner ring but not the bullseye. He cursed, but as the smoke cleared, he saw he was still in the running. Only Sally Brown had managed to pip the target all three times. Lean Michael was pretty much out of the contest with only two of his three shots even in the inner ring. Corfu had done better, with a bullseye and two inner rings. Two Gun Sal had tied Ricmo's performance.
"Three shots, 100 yards" Diamond Joe instructed. The targets were moved clear back to almost touch the Port Authority
100 yards was pretty insane for a pistol. Also, unfortunately a light breeze had spring up further complicating things, At least Ricmo was less worried about the smoke now. He took his time, taking the breeze into account, aiming carefully, blocking the rest of the world out. Crack. Crack. Crack. An inner, an outer and what he was pretty sure was a bullseye. Pretty good at this range, that bullseye was mostly luck.
Ricmo had done the best on this round. Sally Brown had nailed two inner and one outer, which tied her with Ricmo. She turned and blew him a kiss. The rest had faired considerably worse and were now dueling for third place. There was no purse for third place, or second place for that matter. Pirates were all or nothing. Ricmo respected that.
"Last round. 20 yards, single shot, blindfolded. My lovely assistants will spin you three times. We do this one by one"
Ricmo drew the last lot. There was a lot of jocularity during this round as some of Sally's girls and boys came out to do the spinning. Sally commented to one that she was pretty sure she was too drunk to be spun, and that world was spinning quite enough on it's own. Nonetheless she and Corfu were the only two that even hit the target, though they barely clipped it.
Ricmo's turn. Three spins. He stopped for a moment, trying to get his bearings. He was no stranger to fighting in the dark, but he usually had his night vision to help there. Still, the cobbles were laid regularly and he could feel them on his bare halfling feet. He could feel the wind on his face, and sense the heat of the sun, and he could certainly smell the pirates to the left. He oriented himself as best he could, but he had to be honest with himself, this was still a shot in the dark. "C'est la vie'" he thought to himself, and trusting to his luck, he fired. As he reached up to remove the blindfold, he heard a gasp from the crowd.
"Bullseye" announced Diamond Jack. "You ARE one lucky bastard aren't you?" Ricmo turned, and delivered a sweeping bow to the crowd. And then the applause hit.
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"Now I wanna see a fair fight, or so help me I'll smash you flat." Tiny Strongarm announced, mouthing his cigar. He could probably do it too, Ozraeline thought. That was one big boy, seven and a half feet tall easy. Probably giant blood running in his veins.
"That don't mean anything don't go, cause it does, but this is to first blood, not to killing. You kill unnecessarily, I kill YOU, get it? And anyone helps you, and so help me, I'll kill them first and make you watch. Got it? Ok go"
The final round of the melee weapons contest was single elimination, brutal. Once again, the large purse had brought out the best the pirate town had to offer. Other then Ozraeline, there were four other finalists.
Sarky Lil, Bella Bell's right hand woman, had surprisingly enough proven herself quite a hand with blade. Ozraeline had pegged her as a singer, not a fighter, and had mentally put her in the same bin as Fantastic Freddy. That bin was "barely knows which is the pointy end". This was clearly not true.
The large, well dressed human wielding a two handed sword went by the name of "Big Tom Cutter", she had heard of him. He was a captain of the pirate ship "Devil's Reach" and some kind of troublemaker among the pirates. He had clearly been classically trained in swordsmanship, which made some sense, the rumor was he was the bastard son of some minor nobleman. Big, but also wicked fast. He had defeated that poor Clansman from Ende without breaking a sweat.
The man from Bilad Al Sham was interesting. He used a curved scimitar and a spiked buckler, and his fencing style was completely foreign to Ozraeline, she'd never seen anything like it. She'd fought him earlier, and it had ended in a draw, both of them marking eachother so close together that Tiny had grunted in disgust and passed them both to the next round. She had been thinking about the fight though, deconstructing it in her mind, and she thought she had an angle on him.
The real one to look out for was Brigette the Bold though. She was the first mate on the Rose and she was truly terrifying with that longsword. The grey haired swordswoman had this calm to her, she just stood there quietly, waiting for her opponent to attack and then she moved so fast Ozraeline literally couldn't even see a blur. When she fought that Tekken, she hadn't even bothered to unsheathe her sword until he attacked her, and then she'd drawn it, cut him, and sheathed it again so fast that Oz had barely even seen it happen.
Oz thought she had a pretty good shot against the other three. She didn't think she had a chance in hell against Brigette. And of course that was how the final bout ended up.
"You fought most nobly my sister" Radiant Lightbringer comforted her.
"Yeah, you lasted longer then anyone else against her" Whisperleaf pointed out.
Ozraeline snorted. She had lasted three passes, less then ten seconds.
"And at least you told us not to bet on you." Ricmo said brightly.
"Next time" Ozraeline fumed. Freddy nodded. "It's good to have goals". he said.
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Tello motioned to Sturg to be careful guiding the long bronze cannon into it's perch. It had been quite the operation getting it off the Lady Jezebel and into the longboat, and then over to the Redoubt and up the three story tower. If it hadn't been for the great wooden cranes the pier sported, they never would have managed that last leg. They probably wouldn't have managed it without The Sturg's great strength either. It would be shame to lose it to the sea at the last moment.
The Sturg, not surprisingly, didn't respond. The cannon was huge and heavy, ten feet long and weighing thousands of pounds. It was putting even his great strength to the test, but finally he got it settled. Tello looked appreciatively at the mighty beast. Another relic from old Annwyn, the cannon was at least 500 years old and looked as shiny and new as the day it was forged. Magical, no doubt, six of them had been the only functional weapons on the Lady Jezebel when she had been taken, the rest of her armament reduced to little more then piles of rust by the centuries.
As a result of the limited space only four cannonry teams had advanced to the final round. One team of extremely old pirates from a sloop called The Maribelle seemed the most skilled. An all women team from The Wild Rose, captained by someone called "Big Martha" had also represented well in the qualifying rounds. And finally their old ally Barnabas Frost, captain of The Fortune and partner/lieutenant to Diamond Joe rounded out the set of competitors.
Tello wasn't worried about any of them. Superior science would win out. It always did.
The contest was pretty simple. Four barrels of gunpowder were floating out in the bay, marked with different colored torches indicating which team they belonged to. Each team, in turn took a shot at the barrels, at 100, 500, 1000, and 2000 yards. Whichever team destroyed a barrel first earned zero points. Each extra shot a team needed to take afterward was a a point . Low score wins. Hit an enemies barrel, they got credit for it.
"How is it going?" Ricmo asked Merus from the walls of the Redoubt. "I can't even seen those 2000 yard shots land" he complained.
"You will see if they hit. The scores are tied between ourselves and The Maribelle." Merus replied. "The ancients from The Maribelle are skilled. They push the Tortle to his limits. Our friend Tello is most puissant as well though, he may still emerge victorious."
The Maribelle team gave out a huge cheer as their target vanished in a puff of gunsmoke.
Dakhir cursed.
"What are you complaining about?" Whisperleaf laughed. "I am the one that has money on our be-shelled friend."
"So it's over then?" Ricmo asked despondently.
"Not yet" said Merus. "Our friend still has his shot. He can still tie."
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From the height of his tower, Tello saw the enemy team score a direct hit exploding their barrel. They cheered. He good-naturedly cheered back at them. It was an amazing shot.
"Last chance, friend Sturg" he murmured. After gazing carefully through his spyglass and then doing some calculations on a coconut leaf, he commanded "Exactly one fourth of an inch elevation change please and lets wait for the wind to die."
The Sturg obliged. Though you would never know from his demeanor, The Sturg was having a great time. He liked cannons, the bigger the better. And explosions.
Tello carefully squinted down the barrel and then he laid a gentle hand on the end knob, applying just the slightest pressure to raise the gun the merest fraction of an inch. Without looking up from his sightline, he applied the fire to the breech.
"A hit, a hit!" Ricmo exclaimed excitedly. "We tie! I wonder what happens now?"
The judges of the competition also seemed to be wondering, as they conferred with one another. Finally, Governor Samuel Hops himself shouted to the crowd.
"Given these two teams are locked in a dead heat, we are taking the unprecedented action of adding another event to this competition. In 30 minutes we will launch a small fishing boat, with the rudder bound, set to sail across the bay. This boat will be stuffed with barrels of gunpowder. Both teams will fire as quickly as possible, whichever team sinks the boat, will win the contest!"
"Crap, speed matters now." said Ricmo. "We better get up there and crew that gun!"
This final overtime round of the contest also proved to be a nail biter. Half the town had turned out to watch, densely packing the wharves and piers.
The other team clearly had an advantage in loading speed, an advantage that was partially offset by The Sturg's great strength. Both teams scored hits, the boat started to burn, trailing dark smoke but kept sailing
But no matter how quickly they loaded, they had just fired, the other team was still ahead of them. Ricmo groaned again as the other team fired... and missed!
The companions finished loading their cannon and Tello fired again.
An earthshattering boom as the fishing boat blew itself to kingdom come.
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"All in all that was a pretty successful day" Dakhir commented as they companions enjoyed a well earned ale back at Bella Bell's.
"We won three of the major events and made several thousand gold on prize purses and several thousand more on side betting. Even Sturg won his event." agreed Whisperleaf.
Dakhir grinned. "An elephant Sturg. I can't believe you picked up a fucking elephant. Champion of Strength indeed"
The Sturg didn't respond but he may have flexed. his mighty arms. It was hard to tell in the dimming light.
“We made quite a name for ourselves as well” Freddy offered. “Every sailor in town knows the name of Lady Jezebel now.”
"Speaking of side betting I wonder who the hell placed that 5000 gold piece anonymous bet?" Ricmo asked quizzically.
At that moment Bella Bell ran up to the companions table. Freddy half rose to greet her, but was completely ignored as she rushed to Ricmo's side, picked the halfling up and planted a huge kiss on his bewildered face.
"RICMO. I SO SO LOVE YOU!" she squealed.
"I think I know who placed that bet" Whisperleaf grinned.
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