A Hand from Below
Thirty Sixth Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)
Shock gives way to a sudden flush of anger at the fool for not keeping his hand off his bow "The fleet returns from battle, battered and bruised, but victorious! Is this the welcome..." you make the attempt, alas it is not worth the breath to speak it for the crowd is up for blood and armed enough to get it. A stone flies, then another and from the crowd a chant rises, that rage that is kin to fear and all the more deadly for it.
The sailors about to cast lines from the ship duck as arrows fly close from somewhere behind the press of the crowd as even from among your own men curses rise. Men who had been ready with buckets now raise their shields in defiance. It is all that you can do call on the archers not so shoot.
"Name of a black dog!" Esha calls out before you have the chance her voice raised but without wrath. "Has the wind taken your wits! Fire fills your city and behold you are undone, would your king find fair the bloody mob fit to avenge him on his companions?"
That is when you find that of those throwing stones not all were using their hands. Only a sling could cast a stone that far that fast... yet not quite fast enough not hard enough that it does not glance off what seems to be empty air before the sorceress' face. Unsurprisingly perhaps the show of magic does little to calm the mob and neither does the attempt by the otter-kin to speak from silence, reasoning perhaps that they have no reason not to show more 'uncanny powers'.
The fury only grows until at some sign from Antonio or perhaps by the will of the Marcella herself the ship draws away from the shore.
Admittedly it is hard to argue with the pot of picked fish that shatters on the deck. As you try to look for another place to cast a line you are surprised by the flash of silver scales. Ripper does not like to come out of the water and especially not when there are armed foes about. At first you think he might be after the fish, but then he gives a thoughtful sort of growl and a short hacking noise that you recognize as calling for Inge.
The girl squeezes though the packed deck to lean close and 'speak' to your friend... then she turns to you with news you had not expected. "She's down there, the king's sister her and her mother-spirit. She's asking... Ripper thinks she's asking for one of the otters to talk t 'er." she stumbles over the last words in her haste, but Swift Pebble does not even ask for that.
A moment later Swift Pebble speaks into your mind: "Lina's about to show herself, to try to calm the crowd. She is asking if she can count on us to help?"
Damn and blast the quarrelsome Anwa and their sea-touched princes, you curse and know not if you had just thought it or if it slipped past your lips. When a get of royal blood asks to help settle the common folk they aren't just talking about the peace of the moment... You might well be pledging to support a play for the throne, yet there is a bloody fire now and from the looks of it someone should get the city in order soon or there might not be a city soon.
What do you do?
[] Agree to help Lina, with the king's hall burning someone has to take charge and she has the claim
[] Refuse to help Lina, stay out of this
[] Write in
OOC: Well this was harder to write than I had hoped, mostly because it was so chaotic. Hopefully I managed to get the atmosphere right, since it is not really all out combat, but it is also not the sort of situation where you can get across a very nuanced point across.