By this time the dwarves around me were incredibly nervous and thanked their maker when I chose to turn around rather than attempt to forcibly free my brother. Their stubby little legs strained to keep up with my long strides as I found the man in charge, a human in gaudy pirate regalia.
I stood idly while he concluded his business. When he turned to me, I motioned for pen and paper. Once supplied with a quill and ink as well as paper, I began communicating with my saviours in the only way I knew how; stick figures.
I drew myself, large hammer and all, and pointed to myself. He nodded. I drew another image of myself, but this time with a huge sword in place of my hammer. Then I drew a cage around the second image. I pointed belowdecks. He nodded. I drew another set of images identical to first but this time I left the cage off of Paddy. The captain nodded reservedly. I then drew a third set of figures, but this time I drew a cage between us. I pointed to myself, then belowdecks, then I mimed carrying a cage. He nodded once more and, grabbing some guards in the event things went south, we headed back to Paddy.
Once there, I informed Paddy of what sort of work would be involved in his release. Trusting in his older brother's wisdom, he did not question why we were helping the people who had almost killed him. I showed him to
Before he could rest, however, we were escorted back to the beach to continue working. After a days hard labour, we took a quick dip to wash away the sweat (and the shit, in Paddy's case) before going back to the room. Once we had eaten, we slept and prepared ourselves for another day of work.
Paddy and I, not limited by the slow speed of the dwarves, moved the cages as fast as they came to us. About midway through the day, cages bearing familiar faces came into view. Our village had been capture. They looked to us, hope welling in their eyes that we would somehow free them from their fate. I locked eyes with the village elder.
"Tiny metal men are real funny now, aren't they?"
Once the out of game laughter had ceased, Tokyo Joe said that the villagers wept openly and spat at us as we mocked them while carrying them into the hold. I was especially rough with the elders' cage, jostling it as much as I could, laughing all the while. I had officially taken my first step towards evil and I loved every last second of it.
With all the cages loaded, we eventually set out to sea. It took two weeks for Paddy to learn the Dwarven tongue. I didn't pick it up nearly as quickly but I had a good head for their alphabet that Paddy lacked. Having learned the tongue of the natives, I did what any sane pirate who had turned on their people would do; I asked for a concubine. Paddy had to translate my demands, of course, but still.
We brought our request before the captain who grinned knowingly. He led us back down to the now cramped hold.
"Pick one out," he said to Paddy, who relayed it to me. I pointed to a woman who I envisioned having turned down my character's advances at some point in his fictional past. The captain, seeing her relative beauty, shook his head and pointed to a more comely Goliath girl. I nodded. She would do.
So, after rolling for penis length (we were quite large, apparently; I didn't know that I was capable of jealousy towards one of my characters' fictional junk before that day), we eventually made it to our destination, wherever that was. A huge
Thinking that perhaps some unfortunate mishap had occurred, Paddy tried to communicate with the pirate leader. Sadly, this was not an accident.
We were informed that we would fetch a handsome price at the auction. As Paddy and I pleaded our case with the pirate captain (and Tokyo Joe) that we were relatively cheap labour that was far more efficient than the Dwarves they had on hand, I quickly got the sinking feeling that we were being railroaded. And I was right. Once logic and wisdom failed to sway the rookie's mind, we hopped aboard the Fuck You express and were delivered to the next pre-rendered plot point, the auction.
Once there, we endured the taunts of our former Goliath folk. Paddy and I ignored them and instead focused on trying to prove our worth to anyone who came by. Paddy spoke to them in fairly fluent Dwarven but this disgusted most people (apparently, the 'help' talking to them pre-sale was quite... unseemly). However, we finally found someone who was intrigued by talking brutes.
I did what I could to impress our potential purchaser by flexing my muscles. Paddy wove a tale of woe before pointing out our selling points. Beside our obvious strength, Paddy indicated my armour and my weapon (something that the dwarves had, after a failed sleeping dart that would have knocked out a mammoth, never possessed the courage to attempt to disarm me in the cage). He told them that he had made my armour and I the weapon. We would make good smiths, given the proper tools.
Evidently we drove the price up quite a bit, netting 10,000gp each. Once the transaction was complete, we were loaded onto a wagon and hauled off. Our people, what few remained, mocked us even more furiously. I had the perfect answer to wipe off the smug satisfaction from their faces, though. I had paid attention to the prices that our people had been sold for.
"Even as a slave, we're still worth more than the rest of the tribe combined." Ah, their misery was delicious and we had the last laugh over those useless gits.
We travelled for a few days, never once being let out of the cage. Eventually, we reached our destination; a large plantation. A hooded figure came out to greet us. Before we could do anything, we had to make a will save, a save that my 19 on the die failed. Ugh. DM fiat... go.
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