A moment later, the deck shakes as the ballista fires once again. Captain Naresh tracks the bolt and smiles. "Hit to the right claw-ram, Mister Tarkaz! Not much damage to it yet, but if you can knock those out of commission we might make it through this yet!"
Once more, Tarkaz cranks back the gigantic crossbow that is the ballista and takes aim under Captain Naresh's directions. At three-hundred-and-fifty feet and closing, you can track the bolt without a spyglass now. It leaves the machine with a deck-shaking 'ka-chunk,' and flies true, directly at the scorpion-ships' 'head'! Alas, sound cannot travel through the void, so you cannot hear the sound of breaking glass that accompanied that hit! Giving a low whistle, the Captain drops the spyglass from her eye and casts Tarkaz an approving smile. "Now that was a good hit! Pity it lost most of its power smashing through the windows! Someone in their helm room had to dodge that strike! I could see them moving around out there!" Looking at the rest of you, she frowns and shakes her head. "I am not going to lie, we are in for a bad fight. There are fourteen of us, and probably thirty or more of them. I would ready any ranged weapons you have, and be prepared to duck. They are loading their own ballista as I speak." Bringing the spyglass back up, she suddenly swears. "Duck and cover!" she shouts. In the helm room, Drakk notices a strange thing coming into his vision. It looks kind of like a big spear. Like the ones used on the ballista, but bigger? It certainly looks more wicked, with four sharpened vanes on the head and black fletching on the shaft, and it looks like it is going to hit... uh oh... It takes a supreme effort of will to not dive for cover when the ballista bolt smashes through the windows off to your left. Rasmus has one hand over his chest, a look of horror in his eyes. He'd managed to flatten himself against the wall, and the bolt missed him by less than a foot. He doesn't look so good. His lips are a tad on the gray side, and his pallor is paler than normal, but he perseveres, dusts himself off, and takes up a position just inside the shattered window, pulling a long, spindly looking wand from a holster somewhere within his robes.
Garutis pulls out some animal tendon in his bag and fastens it to two thick supports on the ship, he then lifts another rock and loads it into the device! “Deez ding dongs gunna get sum rok from Garutis!”
Garutis hefts his rock, goes to throw it, and feels it squish in his hand. Nope, that was squirrel meat...
Tarkaz loads his crossbow with a bolt of the many he had one him and rests it in a specialized belt loop to hold it, and begins to load another large bolt and ready the ballista again. Looking down at his battleaxe he grins, his towering mace on his side also waiting for blood to run over its surface, he could feel his nerves spike in anticipation
One final shot from the ballista launches out. It strikes the scorpion-ship near the base of the arcing tail, but doesn't seem to do much damage. Unfortunately, the replying shot is much worse. Everyone ducks as a ballista bolt larger than your own whistles by overhead and strikes the mast on the aftcastle, cracking it!
Garutis, grumbling about the unfairness of people who are out of the range of a rock, throws a rock. It whistles through the void, and strikes one of the opposing crewmembers on the forehead. His target doesn't die, but certainly doesn't look happy, either.
His hand twitching and eyes bloodshot the changeling squints to make out the incoming raider vessel… Whatever they wanted from this crew, from us. They would not get. that is unless they were looking for a taste of STEEL and BLOOD. Rapid breaths and a numb pulsing in the head Ohmen could feel his heart pounding, the anticipation, the blood soon to be spilt, the ANGER. Acting with sudden motion Ohmen shoves his back against the cover, crossing his inhuman clawed fingers before peering out and letting loose a crossbow shot with gritted teeth. Its bolt hissing through the air as the mechanisms released with a satisfying click. (Roll - 11)
With a splintering crash and several cracking booms, the aftmast crashes to the deck! Izema, Tarkaz, Drew, and Garutis manage to dodge out of the way, as does the Captain. One crewmember is not so lucky though, and is silent under the fallen mast. Further cracking sounds herald the falling of the spanker-sail and its spars. Those dropped directly onto the ballista! Getting to his feet, Tarkaz gave an angry roar, throwing the shattered spar aside. Beneath it, the ballista was unharmed and still ready to fire. Scrambling to her feet, Captain Naresh shouts for other crew to shift the mast off of the fallen crewmember. Seek begins to untangle the mess of fallen rope and sail, trying to free enough of the mess to let him shift the fallen mast. Inside the helm room, Ohmen takes aim through the shattered window and pulls the trigger of his crossbow. The bolt whistles through the void, glancing off of a railing on the opposing ship.
By this point, the opposing ship is close enough that everyone can make out the crew of the opposing ship. They appear to be a mix of hobgoblins, goblins, orcs, and some unusual goblinoid that is taller than an orc with reddish skin. It is the latter ones that appear to be giving the orders, with the others scrambling to follow them. You can see the crew on the scorpion-ship's forecastle cranking back the string for their own ballista.
Scrambling over the fallen, mast, Izema heads towards where he thinks the scorpion-ship will strike the Moonsister. As he drops down to the central deck, Ohmen pops out of the door leading to the helm room and casts a spell. Izema shudders as it washes over him and begins to grow larger. Another ballista bolt fires from the enemy ship. Drakk struggles to control the helm and shift the ship away from the incoming bolt, but without the aft-mast, the ship struggles to turn. The bolt strikes amid-ship. You can hear crashing sounds from deep in the hold, and suspect something down inside got broken. A moment later, Sandy surges up from below decks. She's got a glowing short-sword in one hand, and that dragonscale shield strapped to her arm. "Who did that?!?" she screams in Draconic. "I'm going to kill whoever did that! My mess is a damned shambles right now!"
While the others glance in the direction of the angry, Draconic-screaming kobold, Garutis pulls out another rock at throws it at one of the unusually large, red-skinned orcs. The rock obviously hurts his target, who turns away from the ballista crew and looks to see who threw that.
With tremors still rippling through the boat Ohmen clambers onto the deck, the light haze of dust kicked up from the mast’s impact swirling around him. Eyes burning with intent Ohmen shoves his crossbow onto his side before holding his staff with both hands, and his unmoving gaze fixed on Izema and him alone. Tensing the muscles in his face and brow behind the deer skull mask the changeling begins to speak. And amidst the words of casting his tongue flicks with sharp, pronounced words, those of another language best left unknown for those with lack of will… Ohmen cared not who heard in these moments, only that it was said. So strange and foreign was each syllable it sounds as if it were hissing with a certain suggestion whilst simultaneously sounding like the clashing of metal echoing down an infinite corridor. “Pasyr Ao Suxy Vorv Wzrylqzm. Ky Clas!” (Drew can hear this in infernal - "Power of Size and Strength. BE KNOWN!") fingers tingling with the arcane, almost to a point of low end pain Ohmen points his staff towards Izema. The huge raven skull's empty eye sockets staring into him as the spell's effects take place.
Izema almost stumbles when the magic hits him and his leg is now 3" longer then it was and still growing. dang it's been awhile oh ouch it's always uncomfortable when hit with size magic but now he has an idea. the cadence of his movements change as if the music went staccato.
Sweeping the fallen spar away from the ballista, Tarkaz is pleased to see that is has sustained no damage. Not bothering to wait for Captain Naresh, who is shouting orders to the rest of the crew, he sights in the ballista and fires! This close, it is much easier to aim the cumbersome machine, and the minotaur cannot suppress a grin as the bolt smashes into the opposing ship's ballista! Something important obviously got damaged, for while you're pretty sure the bolt you fired didn't hit very hard, you watch the arm on the opposing war machine spring forward before something falls off of the engine, rendering it useless for the remainder of the battle! Goblins on the opposing ship are readying short bows and taking aim at the deck of your ship, while larger humanoids - orcs, hobgoblins, and those odd red-skinned orc-like things - are prepping to board your vessel! As you watch, their ship pivots slightly to face the side of Moonsister head-on and suddenly increases speed into what is obviously an attempt to ram!
Drakk sees the imminent impact and calls out to Rasmus "If they board us what should I do? Do you have any suggestions? Should I leave the helm and try to fight? Or stay here to maneuver us when needed? While I may not have spells, my staff can deal some damage!".
"We are going to see if we can slow them down a little, but if they ram us, stay on the helm. We may need to get out of here in a hurry! Keep your staff to hand though, in case they come into the helm room!" Leaning out through the broken window, he aims his wand and focuses. A purple, glowing, fist-like field of energy comes into being at the end of the wand, growing larger and larger before it flies out to strike the scorpion-ship! With a cruching sound you can almost hear, it shatters the other window in the ship's bridge, but doesn't quite do enough force to change its course...
Drakk concentrates on trying to turn the ship to suffer the least amount of impact from the enemy ship, he also tries to block some of the arrows but he doesn't get much success. This is not how Drakk saw this voyage going down....