The Problem with Paladins

Those had to be the two toughest halflings Ricmo had ever seen, and he'd seen some fucked up, mean ass halflings in his day. They were tatted head to toe, and their scars had scars, Ricmo could hardly see what color their original skin had been. Even their faces were tattooed, each had a teardrop tattoo under their left eye in addition to runes and symbols. He was pretty sure those 16 hash marks on one of their arms was a kill counter. They were lean, solid muscle, dressed in dark leathers and heavily armed with a plethora of small, sharp weapons. 

They lounged against the wall inside Rough's General Store, like quietly coiled murder, while Whisperleaf and Dakhir talked to Samuel Rough, the proprietor. One lazily picked his nails with a long dagger, but other then that they were perfectly still, except for their eyes. Their gaze missed nothing, constantly scanned their surroundings, keeping watch on the cliental of the store. 

The teardrop tattoo gave it away. Kneebiters from Hardbottle, a halfling settlement a thousand leagues to the south. The story was they had to kill a man before they got the teardrop. They had quite a reputation. According to Diamond Joe, who hailed from there and was something of a town celebrity, The Pirate Crusade had never really ended for Hardbottle. The halflings had been at war with the Inner Archipelago on and off for three generations.  While the above-ground portion of the halfling town had been occupied countless times by the much superior Archipelago fleets, the bulk of the settlement, miles of halfling sized tunnels and chambers burrowed into the cliff face, had proven impossible to conquer, a perfect haven for guerrillas. 

Whenever the Archipelago fleets appeared over the horizon, the halfling leadership quickly surrendered the town, while the halfling fighters just retreated into the tunnels and waged bloody guerilla war against their occupiers until the humans got tired, burnt the place to the ground, and left. A few years later when the halflings had somewhat recovered and started pirating again, the whole process repeated itself. Decades of this had bred some of the most brutal and feared fighters the Thousand Isles had ever seen, despite their small size. Joe had said five years ago the Merchant Houses well and truly gave up, and that the town was finally free.

Ricmo smiled at them. They didn't smile back.

They had left Freddy and Tello back at the Inn to prepare the show (Tello had some mad plan to tent in the entire courtyard) so it was just the four of them at the shop. The line of conversation that Whisperleaf and Dakhir were pursuing seemed to be making the shop proprietor, Samuel Rough, uncomfortable.  Rough motioned the parry to follow him into his office near the back of the huge, warehouse like store so they could have some privacy. 

As Ricmo walked through the rows and rows of shelves, all stuffed to the brim with goods of various types, he felt both intrigued and intimidated. This store seemed to have everything under the sun, from mining equipment to alchemy ingredients, to ball gowns. He was used to more intimate shops that catered to a particular type of good and often a particular clientele. Shops were you knew exactly what you were there to steal. He could see the logic of putting everything under one roof, but he wondered how on earth anyone found anything.

He noticed the two halflings were keeping some distance, but clearly following them. He wondered how much it would cost to hire two Kneebiters as bodyguards and whether he could afford it.

Like his store. Samuel Rough's office was expansive and stuffed with everything under the sun. Dakhir moved what appeared to be a stuffed duck off a chair and sat down across from the large desk, while The Sturg took up a guard position at the single door. Rough sat down behind his large cluttered desk and leaned back as Whisperleaf paced nervously, talking, and occasionally inspecting this piece or that of the clutter.

"You gotta understand, I like the Sisters of St. Ursula plenty, do business with them all the time. Good folk, reliable, make good product. But I don't want no beef with the Vetrini. Can't afford it".

"Of course" Dakhir agreed. "But then again, you don't want any beef with us either I'm sure?" He smiled from inside his dark hood, showing his pointed teeth. His eyes glowed red, briefly. "And we aren't asking for much, just some information. No one need know you helped us." 

Rough looked nonplussed. He was a tough customer clearly, not unused to hard cases leaning on him, but there was something about the quiet Tiefling in the black hooded robe that rang all his warning bells. Loudly.

"Now, now we are all friends here." Whisperleaf interjected. "No need to slaughter cattle. I am sure this whole thing with Sister Clara would be a huge surprise to the Vetrini leadership and they would welcome the opportunity to quietly resolve it."

"Maybe" Rough answered dubiously. "Maybe they'd figure the easiest way to quietly resolve it would be to kill everyone involved and sink 'em in the bay. They're like that, and they've been acting pretty unpredictably lately on top of it."

"We've heard that." said Whisperleaf. "Seems like if they were policing this archipelago like they normally do, a lot of these problems would be avoided. Have they suffered some grave naval defeat that prevents them?"

"Not that I've heard. About six months ago they just up and changed their patrol patterns, pulled in to only cover the town itself, pulled their men back from the outlying forts. If it weren't for the Knight's Radiant it'd be total chaos out there. And the Knight's are stretched thin to breaking because of it. No one knows why the Vetrini are acting this way. Scared of the Giants maybe?".

"Knight's Radiant?" mused Dakhir. "I remember them from the voyage over from the Inner Islands. Some Mithran martial order? They guarded the convoy and helped us beat off that Kraken."

"That was the The Mithra's Blessing, Captained by Sir Rodrick Kelly" Ricmo interjected. 

"Aye" answered Rough, "They might be pompous stick-in-the-muds but they do their best to keep the trade lanes free of pirates. That very ship you mentioned is in harbor right now, undergoing repairs from a run-in with a giant ship."

“Kelly’s in town?” Ricmo responded, surprised.

“Aye just arrived an hour or two ago.” Rough replied.

"Kelly didn't strike me as the type to continence nun-theft" Whisperleaf mentioned slowly.

The three heroes exchanged meaningful looks."

"Anchored out in the harbor you say?"

The Mithra's Blessing had clearly seen battle, and recently. The marks of a struggle where evident to Ricmo's increasingly experienced nautical eye. From what he could see, the damage wasn't bad enough to prevent the ship from sailing but she'd been in a hell of a scrap, for sure.

"These wounds were made by surprisingly large shot" Tello murmured to Ricmo, reading the Halfling's mind.

"Giants?" asked Ricmo.

"Likely." the Tortle replied, 

"Ahoy the ship!" Ricmo sang out as their Jollyboat approached. "Captain Ricmo of the Lady Jezebel. Permission to come aboard!"

After some explaining and invoking of Captain Kelly's name (who the party was vaguely acquainted with from the long convoy journey) the party eventually was granted permission to board.

The crew was hard at work making repairs, splicing rigging, repairing damage to the hull, generally getting the ship shipshape. Several longboats were tied alongside, filled with timber, rope and other materials they needed. A young officer in shining half plate oversaw the work. Work which suddenly halted as the heroes stepped aboard. "We are an odd looking bunch for sure:" Ricmo smiled to himself. 

The young officer strode toward them. He gleamed. 

"Paladins" Ricmo thought to himself in disgust.

"Captain Rodrick is not onboard, my name is Sir Reginald Kelly, first officer and currently in command." 

"We have a problem. We need your help." Ricmo said, flashing a winning smile.

The Paladins were surprisingly easy to get onboard. As the story of the kidnapped nun spilled from their lips, Sir Reginald listened quietly, though in growing anger. He asked only an occasional clarifying question. When the story trailed off to its ending, he reached forward and laid a hand on Whisperleaf. The Druid felt an electric shiver pass from that hand into his body.

"Is all of this true?" the paladin asked?

"Yes" Whisperleaf answered

"Very well, I believe you."

The young paladin considered for a few seconds, then sprang into action.

"Bosun, beat to quarters!" he roared. "Run out the cannon and load them. Every man on board arm themselves and prepare for battle and boarding! Raise sail and bring her around to the port quarter! Step lively now!"

The Druid stood with mouth agape.

"What is your intention exactly, Sir Reginald?" asked Dakhir cautiously. 

"We are going to get your nun back." he answered.

"This is the problem with paladins." Whisperleaf murmured to the others as the Mithra's Blessing rapidly closed the distance to the where the Summer Gale was anchored.. "They are relatively easy to wind up, if you know the trick of it, and once set off in a direction, they are absolutely guaranteed to kill their target, and likely pretty much everything that gets in their way. But the gods alone knows where it will all stop. It's like summoning a tornado. A very sure-of-itself, with zero doubt in it's own righteousness, tornado. They just keep on paladining away until something manages to kill them or something new distracts them"

Dakhir nodded. From his experience. more often then not the thing paladin's came looking to kill, generally looked a lot like him. This whole experience of having them on his side for once was certainly a bit surreal.

The Mithra's Blessing was a Sloop of War, a relatively confusing name in Ricmo's opinion since it had almost nothing in common with the ubiquitous sloop. Two masts instead of one, and squared rigged to boot, it was an odd ship to call a sloop of anything. They were pretty common though, the go-to for light, deep water warships in the Thousand Isles, easy to build and maintain, able to mount a decent broadside, and fast, at least when they sailed with the wind. The Lady Jezebel, Ricmo's own ship could both outfight and out sail such a ship if needs be, but The Lady Jezebel was an anomaly, built using technology and magic far beyond anything currently found in the Thousand Isles.  

The Summer Gale where Sister Clara was imprisoned, on the other hand, was a Galleon, the largest ship commonly in use in the Thousand Isles. Galleons were slow, hideously expensive, and not at all maneuverable, but they were tough as nails and could mount a brutal broadside of extremely heavy cannon.  Normally The Mithra's Blessing would have very little chance in a direct battle with such a ship. 

Ricmo wasn't worried though. For one thing, he happened to know the The Summer Gale currently only had a skeleton crew aboard, nowhere near enough to even operate her cannon, even if she hadn't stowed them uselessly in the hold to make room for more cargo.

Secondly the paladins were clearly planning a boarding action, so all that really mattered was superiority in men and hand weapons. And that superiority they clearly had. Anyone not needed to sail the ship had disappeared  below decks and emerged dressed in heavy cuirass and wielding halberds, pikes and swords. A few went up into the fighting tops with muskets but it was clear Sir Reginald planned to close as quickly as possible, board his target and settle things old school.

It was a good plan as far as Ricmo was concerned. It leveraged the element of surprise nicely and it was highly likely the crew, when presented with such a whirlwind of superior weaponry and much shinier armor, would surrender on the spot. It had one fatal flaw though.

"Hey, Sir Reginald, a word please?" 

"Yes Captain Ricmo."

"It occurs to me that as soon as we make it clear that we intend to board, those scurvy dogs are quite likely to slit the nun's throat and toss her overboard with a rock tied to her."

"I agree" the young first officer replied. "But other then executing the operation with all speed I am not sure what else to do about it?"

"If you can get us close without making our intentions clear and inciting the enemy to nunacide prematurely, my friends and I can board the ship from the gallery in the stern and secure Sister Clara. We have....ways of quickly closing the distance."

"Very well. No hails until you give us the word,"

"I can take only one of you with me when I fold space. Any more would hopelessly distort the aether, and cause a complete collapse of the neccessary cosmic resonance." Tello reported gravely.  "It would also, strangely enough, ruin every piece of cheese within half a mile. Except gouda."

As usual no one understood what the hell the Tortle was talking about other then "it won't work to take more then one person with me when I teleport."

"Sturg, go with Tello and Whisperleaf. Keep them safe. Protect them. Protect the nun." Dakhir ordered.

The Sturg nodded.

"Hold still, friend Sturg, let me arm you." Tello requested. He whistled. From inside his large backpack, a long metal cylinder poked it's muzzle out. It sprouted mechanical stick legs and crawled over the Tortle, down his legs to the ground, and moved toward The Sturg. 

Tello had no manner of strange devices on his person, but the tiny cannon with the mechanical legs had to be one of the strangest. At Tello's command the two-foot tube scuttled across the deck, climbed up The Sturg and settled comfortably on his shoulder. 

The first few times that had happened, The Sturg had found it a bit disconcerting but he had become used to it by now. That cannon had proved to be a good comrade in arms. It shot fire, blew people up, generally made itself quite useful. He reached up and patted it in the general location of where it's head would have been if it had one. To himself he had named it "Skippy."

It's possible the cannon purred,

The Mithra's Blessing cut the water of the bay cleanly and fast, headed straight toward it's quarry. At first the sailors on watch aboard The Summer Gale paid little attention to the Blessing. She was well known in these seas and flew the flags of the Knight's Radiant after all, which made her the opposite of a threat to any merchantman. It wasn't until she started to get close, coming straight at them, that the Gale started to take notice. At first they watched, then they waved her off, then they became alarmed as  a collision started to become a possibility.

Whisperleaf-the-sparrow took wing and flew toward the rear of the Galleon, getting in position. Tello and The Sturg positioned themselves in the bow of their own ship, Tello carefully judging the remaining distance to the rear gallery of the Gale as the two ships closed.

"Are you close enough friend Tortle?" asked Sir Reginald calmly.

"Almost. Almost. Now!" the Tortle announced. He placed his hand on The Sturg and they both vanished with a popping sound, only to reappear on the rear gallery of the Galleon a moment later. 

The gallery was unoccupied and the highbacked stern of the ship prevented the deck crew from immediately noticing their new passengers. The Sturg walked over to the gallery door, briefly took note that it was locked and then ripped it off it's hinges, carefully placing it aside.

As the commando team ducked inside, Whisperleaf transformed from his sparrow form to a huge bear, dropping to all fours and still barely fitting in the low quarters of the Captains Cabin.

From the Blessing, Sir Reginald's voice rang out.

"Vetrini ship Summer Gale, stand by to be boarded in the name of the Knight's Radiant! Sailors do not resist and no harm will come to you"

From above, in the fighting tops of the Blessing, Ricmo and Dakhir had a perfect view of the boarding operation going down. The paladins were clearly pros at this and excellent sailors to boot. At the last moment, they altered course slightly, narrowly avoiding a head on collision, sliding their smaller ship directly alongside the larger Galleon, smooth as silk, the crew backing sails to kill their speed. 

Grapples shot out and bit, and the crew heaved, quickly drawing the two ships so close their hulls touched. Immediately, boarding platforms were run out and the heavily armed and armored paladins started swarming over them onto the deck of the Gale, Sir Reginald leading the way.

The crew of the Gale looked for a moment like they might resist, especially the marksmen in the fighting tops, who felt a bit safer from the paladins. With a breezy "See ya in a bit" Ricmo tossed a grapple of his own, wrapping it around the very top of the enemy mainmast. Gracefully he swung out, over between the two ships, landing neatly on the mainmast fighting top of the Gale, where he confronted a sailor that was tracking a paladin with his musket. "I'd drop that if I were you" he smiled, leveling two pistols at the surprised sailor. The musket clattered to the deck below.

One of the sailors on the foremast fighting top also raised his musket. Dakhir saw his action, and responded, quickly weaving fire and darkness with his hands. He then whispered "Be Afraid." The sailor screamed, dropped his firearm and clawed at his eyes.

Those actions plus the horde of paladins surging over onto the weather deck ended all resistance, at least resistance topside. 

Below decks The Sturg, Tello, and Whisperleaf-the-Bear crashed their way through the great cabin, down the stairs and into the lower deck. They were not quiet. They were not stealthy. They were a bear and a huge, heavily armored Sturg. Thus, the four sailors guarding the lower decks were on alert, weapons drawn, ready for them.

"Hold them off!" one of the sailors ordered the other three, then ducked into one of the small cabins.

Whisperleaf, unable to speak in bear form, roared and gestured toward the cabin.

"Sister Clara's cabin no doubt?" Tello hazarded a guess. "Friends, let's clear the way, and rescue fair maiden!"

The Sturg and Whisperleaf advanced toward the three sailors. Whisperleaf growled menacingly. The Sturg lowered his shield and charged, like a bettering ram. As he did so, the cannon on his shoulder spat octarine flame, striking one of the pirates and hurling him back like a rag doll. 

The three sailors didn't have much of a chance against the heroes, but they were clearly just trying to buy time. "They mean to murder the nun and hide the evidence!" Tello cried. "Quickly quickly!"

Even as The Sturg summoned all his strength, and charged through the defending sailors, a shrill scream of surprise, terror and pain came from inside the cabin. A male scream. It was followed by a mighty roar, similar in sound to Whisperleaf-the-Bear, but louder and deeper. Another scream, this time mostly of pain, and cut off abruptly. Tello's cannon felled another sailor and Whisperleaf mauled a second. The Sturg, now unopposed, made it to the door and ripped it off it's hinges.

Inside was a strange sight. 

The sailor that had entered the cabin was dead, virtually bit in half by the biggest bear any of them had ever seen. Half again as big as Whisperleaf, it turned its bloody muzzle toward the party and roared again. But it did not attack.

The Sturg, unsure of how to proceed, turned toward his friends radiating quizzical bewilderment.

Whisperleaf's form shifted as he reverted to human.

"Sister...Clara?" he said in wonderment addressing the bear.

The bear nodded, recognizing the druid, then also shifted, returning to the form of a naked nun, collapsing on the floor.

Tello broke the silence, speaking in amazement.

"How extraordinaire. I did not know nuns could do that"

"I don't think most of them can" Whisperleaf commented.

As Whisperleaf leapt forward to attend the fallen nun, the Tortle stood, thinking for a moment and then quietly smiled.

"A Sister of Saint Ursula indeed."